Bishop Alexander, who had a clear goal, already knew what he had to do.
Therefore, in the decisive meeting convened by the governor of the Philippines to discuss how to deal with the Chinese, Bishop Alexander, on behalf of the Catholic Church, expressed his attitude to everyone — to hand over all the Chinese to Xiao Ruxun in exchange for the stability of the Philippines, and to prevent Xiao Ruxun from using various means to attack the economy of the Philippines.
Once the economy of the Philippines collapsed, it would be a terrible thing for the Holy See and the Spanish Empire. Not to mention the Holy See's current shortage of funds, the Spanish government was fighting wars everywhere, which required an astronomical amount of military expenses. Comparing the two, the importance of the Philippines was self-evident.
Everyone should understand the importance of the Philippines.
This was Bishop Alexander's final concluding sentence. After that, the atmosphere of the entire meeting froze. In the final voting segment, other than a few diehard members of the military faction who disagreed, most of the people agreed. Under the pressure from both China and the Catholic Church, they felt that it was necessary to send all the Chinese people, who had become an unstable factor, away.
The diehard military members expressed their protest by collectively withdrawing from the meeting, but to no avail. The governor of the Philippines finally issued a decision to contact the Burmese side and ask General Xiao Ruxun to send ships to pick up the Chinese people. They were willing to give up the Chinese people on the island in exchange for General Xiao's friendship.
Bishop Alexander and Ricci heaved a long sigh of relief — the crisis of the Philippines that had lasted nearly a month had finally been resolved through diplomatic mediation. They could avoid the terrible destruction of the Philippines by the war, protect their vested interests, and gain the friendship of Xiao Ruxun, which would allow them to spread the Catholic Church in Burma.
Congratulations! What a pity!
Ricci immediately returned to Burma to inform Xiao Ruxun of this matter, while Bishop Alexander, in order to strive for a good impression in front of the future believers, brought some food and supplies to the Chinese community to let everyone feel the warmth of God, laying the foundation for the next missionary work in Burma.
Anyway, he was already convinced that these people would be his believers, his supporters, and the backbone of supporting him to become the Pope.
When Ricci returned to Myanmar to visit Xiao Ruxun, Xiao Ruxun was inspecting the production lines of the craftsmen in the military territory in the northern mountains, as well as the workshops of the old masters who specialized in making rifled rifles for the guards.
At this time, Xiao Ruxun had no way to create an industrial production system. He could not use machines to mass produce rifled rifles. He could only rely on skilled craftsmen to polish the rifling lines one by one.
This was something that could not be helped. Xiao Ruxun could not travel through time and space repeatedly, so he could not do business in time and space. He also did not have the system to support him, so he could not earn points to buy high-tech products. Although his previous life was at the end of the world, there were many abandoned factories and a large number of machines that could be used. There were also batches of skilled workers, so it was not difficult to make guns and shells.
But now, he was poor. He only had a workshop and a group of old blacksmiths, as well as some technical workers recruited from abroad. A group of people worked together to create a few gun production lines. To be able to reach this point, Xiao Ruxun felt that it was not easy. He had spent hundreds of thousands of silver, not to mention other things.
In the beginning, some of the jobs had to be purchased from Daming and sent to Myanmar. From the time when they were purchased to the time when they could produce independently, Xiao Ruxun had also invested a large amount of silver to maintain the workshop's operations. He almost did not have the salary of an official. Fortunately, at that time, the business tax was levied, and the hundreds of thousands of silver in business tax solved his predicament.
Now, in the few gun production lines under him, the biggest production line was still the musket. He strived to make it to the extreme, such as increasing the size of the Daming musket. After all, the muskets of the Zhennan Army under Xiao Ruxun's command were more powerful and effective than the original Daming musket by more than a third. The quality was even better.
Xiao Ruxun immediately ordered the accountability system to be carried out according to the Qin Army's system. If there was a mistake in any link, the person in charge of that link and the craftsmen responsible would be held accountable. The salary that Xiao Ruxun paid the craftsmen was much higher than in Daming, so these craftsmen had to be held accountable. If there were any substandard products and the army complained, Xiao Ruxun would not hesitate to drag the craftsmen out to vent their anger, and then put them in jail.
Other than the musket musket, the second production line was the flintlock production line. This was a special batch of firearms produced in consideration of the windy environment. Only the most accurate and experienced gunmen, about two thousand of them, were equipped with flintlocks. They were also the firefighting team that had to stand in front of the rest of the gunmen at critical moments.
The remaining production line was the rifled musket production line, or rather, a small workshop. It was a workshop that gathered dozens of old craftsmen, specifically responsible for making firearms for Xiao Ruxun himself and his personal guards. As for rifled muskets, after three years, Xiao Ruxun only had a stock of more than three hundred, and about ten pistols.
It was not that they could not produce more, but the production efficiency was too low. Xiao Ruxun took the initiative to lower his requirements, and only produced enough.
When they couldn't deal with minnie bullets, the existence of a rifled rifle was of little value. To load a bullet, they had to use a wooden hammer to hammer the bullet into the barrel before firing. The time it took to fire a shot was several times that of a smoothbore gun. Although the accuracy was incomparable to that of a smoothbore gun, the firing efficiency was so low that before the second shot could be fired, the opponent's smoothbore gun would have already fired several shots in succession.
Therefore, at this time, rifled muskets could only be used as sniper rifles. With the addition of the shutter and the front sight, it was very effective for sharpshooters who were especially good at shooting to kill enemy officers on the battlefield and cause confusion among the enemy. If one hoped to use rifled muskets to defeat the enemy on the battlefield, then it was better to just wash up and sleep.
However, minnie bullets were also born at the wrong time. They were born a little too late. Only twenty years after their birth, the primer technology of bullets had already matured. Then came the era of reloading guns, and the front loading guns were quickly eliminated.
Xiao Ruxun picked up a newly made rifled musket and played with it. He looked at the shutter and the front sight, and felt that it was quite good.
"Is there still no progress on the mold of the ammunition?"
Xiao Ruxun asked her chief blacksmith, an old blacksmith in his fifties with 45 years of smithing experience.
"Marquis, we have tried to make the mold you gave us, but it is really difficult to grasp. This old man thinks that this thing really needs good steel to be used. It must be hard and sturdy. Even the steel that has been tempered a hundred times cannot achieve this effect. Now, I have let this old man's disciple hammer the steel that has been tempered three hundred times and five hundred times to see what the result is. As for the result, this old man can only say that he will do his best."
Xiao Ruxun could not force them. Using a manual workshop method could not compete with the production method of large machines. Xiao Ruxun nodded and did not continue to say anything, so as not to give too much pressure to the blacksmith.
At this time, someone came in to report that Ricci had arrived. Xiao Ruxun calculated the time and smiled.
He estimated that he had already completed his requirements and was now taking the initiative to report.
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