Chapter 58: Negotiate strategy

Two days after receiving the distress letter, Cecil, the intelligence chief, put the information about the situation in Bairding and his own analysis on the earl's desk.

After reading it, Paul frowned. It seemed that his friend was really in danger, and he was under house arrest. He just waited for the traitors to divide up the spoils and pick a suitable day to make another one. By accident, just like his hapless father.

Cecil asked: "If my lord wishes to rescue Earl Garnard, I will send all the personnel I can mobilize to Bairding to find out the details of those traitors as much as possible."

Paul rubbed his chin: "Whether to rescue me or not has to be discussed with everyone, but it is always right to inquire about information early, you should send someone there first."

Half a day later, Paul convened high-level personnel from both the military and the government to gather in the lord's mansion and showed them the distress letter from Mellon Ganard. Although there are not many cases of vassals conspiring to get rid of the lord's position, it is not necessarily so unusual. It is said that another neighbor, the Kent family of Emden, has a bit of an incorrect position as the earl of this family, so everyone here No one showed much surprise.

Seeing the letters being circulated by everyone, the Earl who was sitting at the top was worried: "If my future reforms conflict with the interests of these people here, will they conspire to kill me?"

While he was thinking wildly, Director Ford asked aloud, "What are you going to do with this letter?"

Paul replied: "Cecil has already sent people to Bairding to find out the details of those traitors. But I haven't decided whether to rescue Macron immediately, and if so, what should be done, so I want to find Let's discuss it."

After hearing this, Bryce hammered the table: "Earl Garnard is your friend from childhood to adulthood, and your blood-sworn brother. If you ignore him, you will be reviled."

Hey Bryce, although I know you are straight, can't you just tell me in private? It's hard for me to say it in public. Paul was a little embarrassed: "I didn't say I won't save him, but we also have to weigh our own strengths. Don't we invite everyone to discuss this?"

The so-called blood-sworn brothers are somewhat similar to sworn brothers in China. When they were young, Mellon and Paul got along very well. Under the decision of their respective mothers, the two little kids became blood-sworn brothers. Speaking of which, both of their mothers passed away very early. Paul was a little bit emotional. He couldn't remember what his mother looked like in this life, and he didn't leave a portrait or anything.

Butler Ford was very pleased that the young lord was not proud of defeating the pirates, nor rashly provoked a war that might not be winnable because of a moment of courage. Instead, he weighed the pros and cons and called for extensive consultation. Already qualified.

He stroked his long gray beard and said: "It's really wrong to abandon the blood oath brothers. If there are rumors, it will be bad for your reputation. But you can't act rashly. Don't forget that Lord Ganard is still in the hands of the other party. Moreover, judging from the meaning of this letter, the traitors have not yet discovered that the matter has been lost. If we directly send troops under the banner of saving people, let alone the outcome, what if the opponent is pushed to the detriment of Earl Garnard? ?”

Paul found the steps and said worriedly, "That's what I'm worried about." It made Bryce blush.

Manager Ford continued: "I have an idea. The earl's birthday is coming soon. You can spread invitations and invite nobles from the northwest region to come to the party."

"Oh?" Paul actually forgot his birthday, these days are suppressing pirates and building the navy, he is very busy.

"I personally brought the invitation to Butuya to invite Earl Garnard, first to confirm whether he is safe and reasonable, as a blood-sworn brother of an adult, he has to come to congratulate him even if there is a big event, if he does not come The words are too unusual, so those traitors should have no reason to stop, of course, the premise is that they still have not noticed that Earl Garnard has known the conspiracy by that time."

"Hmm..." Paul almost understood what it meant.

Steward Ford stroked his beard and said: "It will be easy to say when Earl Garnard arrives in our territory. Directly issue a notice in his name, calling on the surrounding lords to crusade against these rebels."

Paul hammered his palm: "Just do it like this, or I'll go there myself."

Everyone in the hall objected in unison, "My lord, you can't take the risk yourself!" "What if the gang of rebels notice something?"

Paul had to dismiss the idea.

…

Steward Ford was soon leaving for Butuya with invitations, while Paul was preparing for a possible future war.

With the continuous recruitment of craftsmen and training of apprentices, the gun manufacturing team has reached 30 people. After the hard work of the craftsmen during this period, the number of muskets owned by the Arda army has reached 60, which can arm one platoon with one shift. This number allows the earl to play tactics such as "three-stage strike" and "six-stage strike" to keep the vitality continuous and uninterrupted.

But to Paul's regret, the various technical problems of the flintlock have not been overcome. First of all, spring reeds are more difficult to manufacture. It does not mean that qualified ones cannot be manufactured, but the qualified rate is too low, and the spring will not be able to spark if the strength of the spring is slightly weak. Even if the fire is fired, there is still the problem of gunpowder. The experimental flintlock gun produced now takes more than 3 seconds from pulling the trigger to firing, because the flintlock gun can only shoot a little spark into the medicine pool. If the burning speed of the gunpowder is If the gunpowder is relatively low, it will take a lot of time to ignite the entire drug pool, and the gunpowder with low sensitivity will not be ignited at all just by the spark. Although they all rely on the ignition hole to ignite the gunpowder in the barrel, the requirements for the propellant of the matchlock gun are obviously lower than those of the flintlock gun. After all, the end of the thick matchlock is burning and stretched in, and a large amount of gunpowder can be ignited at once. Burn into the pilot hole. To solve this problem, high-quality, extremely finely ground gunpowder is needed, but the grinding efficiency is too low under pure manual conditions. UU reading www.uukanshu.com

Every time Paul saw the long matchlock on the soldiers when they were practicing shooting, he was quite upset. Matchlock guns are too affected by the weather, and when shooting, the matchlock is bounced off by the explosion of the powder, which is easy to ignite the gunpowder on the musketeer himself and his comrades, so the musketeers have to keep a certain distance between them, and the shooting array needs to be arranged A little sparser, resulting in the inability to form a denser firepower.

However, there are still two improvements that make the earl feel gratified. One is that the sleeve-type bayonet has been manufactured, so that the musketeers can not rely on the protection of the spearmen to a certain extent. It is as bulky as the early matchlock guns on the earth, otherwise it would be really unrealistic to install a bayonet on it. The second is that with the invention of a new type of paper, "fixed bullets" made of paper shells were mass-produced. The paper shells were wrapped with lead bullets and gunpowder, and coated with butter to prevent moisture. Since then, musketeers no longer need to hang bottles and cans full of gunpowder on their bodies, which improves the loading speed and precisely controls the amount of charge.

As for heavy firepower, the 6-pound bronze gun was successfully tested and joined the equipment sequence of the Arda army. So far, two have been built, and four 4-pound guns have also been cast.

In addition to these large cannons, Paul also created the "tiger crouching cannon" of the Ming Dynasty. This kind of light artillery has a thin barrel and is not powerful, with a range of up to 500 meters. But it is flexible, two fighters can carry it away, it can be launched at a high elevation angle, and the ballistic trajectory is curved. Use big iron nails and front iron claws to fix the gun body on the ground, and fire shotguns or crushed stones to kill the enemy. Moreover, it is made of pig iron, and the cost is extremely cheap. As a weapon to support infantry combat at close range, it is somewhat similar to the later mortar, so in this world, Paul directly named it a mortar.