Chapter 153 Gatling Manual Machine Gun
Chapter 153 Gatling Manual Machine Gun
"Thank you, my lord, for avenging me!"
Seeing Zhang Lexing lifting his robe and holding his belt as if he was about to kneel down, Shao Quanzhong hurriedly supported him.
"Brother Zhang is a good friend of Brother Tian, which means he is a good friend of Shao. You don't need to call him lord. Brother Zhang, you should go to Meiyi to train and recuperate first, and wait for the right time. In the future, I will need your help."
When Tian Xing was young, he traveled all over the world, and his mission was to overthrow the Tartars and restore our country. He knew many rebels. But he only had two friends who could be called bosom friends, one was Zhang Lexing, and the other was Shi Dakai.
Before he started the rebellion, Zhang Lexing was also a heroic knight, and he had a bad temper with Tian Xing.
Zhang Lexing was not polite to Shao Quanzhong. "If it weren't for you, brother Shao, who is in the Tartar camp but has your heart in the Han, all of us passionate Chinese men would have died under the Tartar's butcher knife. When the time is right in the future, brother Shao, you will start an uprising and restore the Han Dynasty. I, Zhang Lexing, will fully support you in becoming the emperor."
Zhang Lexing was different from the Ying Wang and Fu Wang. Although he was given the title of Wo Wang by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he was only an ally of the Heavenly Kingdom. In fact, he did not agree with the Heavenly Kingdom's belief in foreign religions, but they agreed to kill the Tartars.
In essence, he is the same as Tian Xing. His ideal is for a Han Chinese to be the emperor. It doesn't matter who else is the emperor. It would be best if China could restore the Han and Tang dynasties and Confucius' teachings could spread to all corners of the world.
Hai Qing came over, holding the Qing government's wanted warrant for Zhang Lexing with a picture in his hand, and looked at Zhang Lexing's appearance carefully.
He was about to return to Fengyang, shouldering the important task of selecting heads to be sent to the court from the remaining 44,000 points of military merit.
Shao Quanzhong rushed 800 miles to report the victory to the court, not because he was in a hurry to gain military merit.
The head, military flag, and dragon robe were not taken with them. There is no rush to get these things. It is the proper channel to send them to Hailing later and let Lord Qiao make a formal report.
The main purpose of Shao Quanzhong's sending the victory report was to let the court know in time that "the Huai Army suffered minor losses and can still fight."
This time traveler successfully predicted the Hunan Army's disastrous defeat at Yuhuatai, and has been trying hard to stay in Tongbai until now, and has never entered Shaanxi, just waiting for this opportunity.
Zhang Lexing's head was not as valuable as those of King Ying and King Fu, and the heads of the Nian Army were not valuable either, so he just took two thousand of their stock as a token of his appreciation.
The higher the rank, the harder it is to get promoted. The merits of this interception battle are relatively small. I am already a prefect, and I don’t think I can get promoted even if I add this little merit.
He was ready to give the first credit to Song Lao San. Among Shao Quanzhong's confidants, Song Lao San was the only one who had never been promoted.
Song Laosan is actually his most reliable confidant. He is confident and not in a hurry, and always takes the initiative to give up promotion opportunities to others.
For someone who does not hold an official position, this is a great achievement.
As for Qu Laosan and Yan Laoliu, they are only from Jiangyan, not from Luzhuang, so they are a bit far away.
Ma Han, Nie Shicheng, Song Qing and Ma Yukun all need to be won over, but the newcomers have to be put at the back.
Zhang Lexing took the initiative to take off King Wo's dragon robe and put on the clothes of the canal transport master.
"I'll leave this dragon robe to Brother Hai. We'll go together all the way to Fengyang."
The Wen family's transport fleet made tens of thousands of extra sets of teacher's clothing and stored them in the Huai Army camp. From an outsider's point of view, the purpose is unknown. Now the Huai Army has used 13,500 sets...
Zhang Lexing's 4,500 elite Nian troops did not need to be escorted by the Huai Army. They could just go to the port and board the American ships on their own. After all, Zhang Lexing was one of them.
In fact, even if he changed his mind halfway and wanted to go ashore to rebel, it would be useless.
The whole route was the territory of the Huai Army, and there were weirs everywhere. The 4,500 unarmed Nian troops could not defeat any of them, and there was no way they could expand their forces...
When the grain transport ships arrived at Tongbai Wharf, the elite troops of the Nian Army boarded the ships one after another. Shao Quanzhong had already telegraphed Xi Huade to go to the port to pick up the people.
He had a good reputation in the American Consulate, and the first month's hiring fee of 45,000 taels for the third batch of mercenaries going to the United States had already been received in advance.
Shao Quanzhong and Tian Xing escorted him to the dock and bowed to Zhang Lexing to say goodbye. Zhang Lexing patted his forehead and said, "Sorry to mention it, I almost forgot something. I have to hide my real name to avoid causing trouble for you."
Zhang Lexing is a rough man. His name was given by a fortune teller when he was born. It is a bit unreasonable to ask him to change his name. For such a big person, it is a bit perfunctory to change his name to Zhang Laosan. He is not at the literary level to have a nice name.
Zhang Lexing thought hard for a long time, "Zhang is determined not to obey the Tartars and to be a minister of the Han Dynasty, so I decided to change my name-"
Shao Quanzhong suddenly had a bad feeling, but then he felt relieved.
"I've decided to call myself Zhang Hanchen from now on."
Fortunately, Brother Zhang Lexing is not well educated, otherwise if the name was more elegant, Shao Quanzhong would find it hard to accept it.
Tian Xing held Zhang Lexing's hand and said, "Brother, now that you are in the American territory, don't be so honest. Preserve your strength, train your troops, and make some achievements to fool the foreigners."
Shao Quanzhong added, "You two divisions, Zhang and Yang, must obey the command of the mercenary commander Chen Cheng. The British king is wise and courageous, and he knows what's going on. I am relieved. Don't rush forward foolishly and take the bullets for the Americans."
Zhang Lexing was an honest man. Tian Xing and Shao Quanzhong were afraid that he would suffer losses, so after repeatedly giving him instructions, the canal boat started moving.
After seeing Zhang Lexing off, Shao Quanzhong turned around and wanted to go back to the barracks. Le Sen came running over and said, "Sir, good news, good news. This time, the grain ship brought the Green Rapid Cannon that Zhang Siwen purchased from the Americans."
"Green" is "Gatling", which is a translation method that conforms to the habits of this era. Green Cannon is the Gatling manual machine gun.
After Zhang Siwen purchased it, he found that it was quite heavy and required four people to operate. The bullets were also different from the paper-wrapped bullets of the quick-firing gun. They were copper bullets designed by Dr. Gatling specifically for rapid firing of machine guns, and were much larger than the quick-firing bullets.
This is not a gun, it is obviously a cannon. When Zhang Siwen reported to Shao Quanzhong by phone, he renamed this thing the Green Quick Cannon.
Shao Quanzhong grabbed a handful of yellow machine gun bullets and felt deeply moved. He finally saw this familiar thing again.
Turning back to ask Grant who was also looking at the new weapons, "Old Grant, Sven said in the telegram that Gatling Company had no orders and only sold a few samples to the Union Army. Their production capacity was much more than sufficient, so they were able to produce our 50 guns in such a short time and deliver them so early. Are you all stupid, American soldiers? Why don't you equip us with such a good thing in large quantities?"
Grant sighed, "The military already has a fixed arms dealer. It would be extremely difficult for a new manufacturer like Dr. Gatling to join in and make a fortune. As a newcomer in the arms industry, he can only demonstrate the performance of machine guns to the military combat units, but he can't find a key person in military procurement to share the profits..."
Shao Quanzhong nodded secretly. Grant's words proved that he was not just a soldier, but also had the qualities of a politician.
The Huai Army has been stationed in Tongbai for several months, so these two days won't make a difference. Shao Quanzhong is waiting here for the imperial court to transfer him to help Zeng Guofan attack Nanjing.
On the third day, Zhang Zhidong came to him and said, "My Lord, I can't wait any longer. I have to leave. My cousin Zhang Zhiwan will not be the chief examiner in March. I want to take leave to participate in the examination."
"Go ahead, go ahead. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be back."
"Report! The imperial court sent an urgent letter eight hundred miles away!"
The imperial edict was also an imperial edict, but it was sent through the Grand Council in the form of an urgent official document. It was different from the imperial edict of reward and honor, and might also include transfer orders and the like.
Shao Quanzhong was overjoyed. After paying his respects and receiving the imperial edict, his expression suddenly changed. "Damn it, Zeng Guofan has a lot of lackeys in the court."
Zhang Zhidong was calm and asked, "What's wrong?"
"See for yourself!"
Zhang Zhidong took the imperial letter, skipped the reward section, and went straight to the part about the transfer order that angered Shao Quanzhong.
"Dispatch the Huai Army to Sichuan to replace Luo Bingzhang in the campaign against Shi Dakai, and dispatch Luo's troops to participate in the siege of Nanjing."
Shao Quanzhong slammed the table and said, "Zeng the Barber won't let me compete with him for the credit of capturing Hong Xiuquan alive. He transferred Luo Bingzhang, a member of the Hunan Army, to help, and I went to Sichuan alone. What can I do? What can I do?"
(End of this chapter)