Of course, Zhao Shizhen had to admit that the Daqin army was unparalleled in training, but he still had some doubts.
"We can imitate the firearms of the Europeans and improve on it. What if the foreign vassals can do the same?"
He raised these doubts to Xiao Ruxun.
Xiao Ruxun patted him on the shoulder.
"Changji, you have to have confidence in our own people."
If imitating was so easy, the so-called technological gap would have lost its meaning. Moreover, there were too many differences between the successful imitation, the successful assembly, and the combat effectiveness on the battlefield.
First of all, it was not difficult to imitate and assemble. In this era, some technologies could be obtained as long as one studied hard and summarized a lot. The development of science and technology had not reached the point where imitation could not catch up. Otherwise, the Daqin would not have been able to successfully imitate and assemble the Hongyi cannon and flintlock.
However, if the imitation was successful, it meant that the assembly was successful. In the original history, Zhao Shizhen had successfully imitated the Lumi Gun and summarized the experience. However, until the fall of the Ming Dynasty decades later, the Ming Army was not equipped with the Lumi Gun.
What was the reason?
It was quite easy to make a gun, but it would require thousands of flintlock muskets. Even with the current Great Qin, it would take at least two years to make thousands of flintlock muskets, and they could not guarantee that every single one of them would be of good quality.
Between the successful imitation and the successful assembly, the central government, which had strong executive power, needed to invest a lot of money and researchers to ensure that every step of the individual imitation could be simplified to the extent that it could be mass-produced. Mass production was a completely different concept from individual craftsmanship.
The more they wanted to mass-produce, the more idiotic the operations had to be. The simpler the better. Even in military products, they had to be as simple as possible. This involved the problem of talent, summary, and a series of expenditure problems.
People and money were needed.
Since the time in Myanmar, Xiao Ruxun had invested a lot of money in the development of military innovation and production. During the three years in Myanmar, he had invested more than 400,000 taels of silver every year. A considerable part of the money he earned from doing business with the Europeans and Southeast Asian merchants was invested into this.
After Great Qin was established, its revenue became even more abundant. Even though its expenses were also greater, Xiao Ruxun still guaranteed that there would be at least 600,000 taels of silver per year that could be invested into military innovation. As for other expenses, there was no need to even mention them. All in all, one million taels of silver per year was not much.
With such a high standard of investment, the military industry of the Daqin flourished, especially the smelting technology and forging technology. The steel produced had become more and more beautiful. It was not the first time that Zhao Shizhen had praised Xiao Ruxun for the hard work of the smelting technology.
Xiao Ruxun had never been stingy with the rewards and benefits of these people. With so much money invested every year, the main technical personnel were also rewarded a lot.
In the Daqin Dynasty, Xiao Ruxun abolished the system of untouchables, craftsmen, soldiers, doctors, and so on, allowing them to circulate freely. At the same time, some technical personnel who had mastered important technology were registered through the national rules and regulations, and officials were given benefits.
According to the level of technology and contribution, officials of the third to the ninth rank were given the relevant treatment. There were hundreds of craftsmen who had the treatment of officials in the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Daqin, and all of them were first-class experts with great skills in all aspects.
It was these people who had passed the process of a technology from the concept to the successful application of the mass production.
They firmly remembered the goals and directions proposed by Xiao Ruxun and Xiao Ruxun. They worked hard in this direction and achieved considerable results.
Even when Xiao Ruxun casually mentioned the concept of the steam engine and briefly described the principles of the steam engine, there were actually a few craftsmen who took it to heart.
When Xiao Ruxun went to inspect, he was surprised to find that several craftsmen were tinkering with the steam engine. They made it look good, and they casually mentioned some important parts that Xiao Ruxun could not understand.
The ancestors were not as stupid as the modern people. They just lacked the time and conditions.
Xiao Ruxun did not allow strangers to contact these people because they had mastered the technology that was very important to the Daqin Dynasty. In particular, they were restricted from communicating with the outside world. They also signed a confidentiality agreement and were willing to keep the secret and not contact strangers.
To be honest, as long as some of the core technologies they had mastered were not obtained, they could imitate and try as much as they wanted. If you could successfully mass-produce it within ten years, then I lose.
After ten years, are you sure that those craftsmen will not be poached by the Daqin Dynasty? Are you sure that your country will still be safe and sound?
Daqin improved the production technology of muskets, the production technology of the Francis Gun and the Red Barbarian Cannon, the research on the General Weiyuan Cannon and the Blossoming Bullet, which one of them was not the result of countless craftsmen's painstaking research and experiments day and night?
Mass-Produce it just because you say so?
There was a huge difference in size between a small country and a big country. There was also a huge difference in the level of administration and the strength of political power. There was also a huge difference in the investment of funds. The importance of craftsmen was also far less than that of the Daqin Dynasty.
After the establishment of the Daqin Dynasty, when the craftsmen learned that they would be able to receive the benefits of officials, they all cried and screamed as if they were possessed.
When they got real money, real silk and satin, real rice, flour and meat, and lived in the new houses provided by Xiao Ruxun, it was even more so.
For thousands of years, the craftsmen could not even dream that they could live in such a bright and spacious courtyard, eat meat, drink wine, and have money to spend, and receive such treatment.
Then, when Xiao Ruxun announced that they would give their descendants the right to freely choose their profession, they immediately said, "What choice do you want? I have been doing this for generations, the little bastards have no choice! "
They were not willing to leave even if they were chased away, so Xiao Ruxun knew that his policy was successful. He kept the talents and did not let them spread among the people to cause harm to the Daqin Dynasty.
At the same time, Xiao Ruxun also ordered the local governments to widely search for craftsmen with special skills among the people. No matter what skills they had, they had to be recommended to the central government to try.
With the determination to buy a horse's bones with a thousand gold coins, he searched for craftsmen from all over the Daqin Dynasty and really got a batch of horses.
There were all kinds of skills, some could provide support in the military, some could provide support in agriculture, and some could provide support in engineering. Xiao Ruxun's action made some of the officials of the Daqin know that there were talents among the people.
After all, with a large base, the probability of producing talents was also higher. However, the talents among the people were not endless, and the talents cultivated by the government were endless.
With this idea in mind, Xiao Ruxun also proposed the idea of opening a technical school. He would train his own technicians, summarize and learn the skills, and cultivate talents who could contribute to the modern industrialization of the Daqin Dynasty.
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