Chapter 395: 89: Troll! Shotgun_2
Chapter 395: Chapter 89: Troll! Shotgun_2
Wang Shouzhe said, and a swipe on the storage ring, he held a peculiar long rod-shaped object in his hand. Its structure somewhat resembled a blunderbuss, but the muzzle was flared like a trumpet.
“Fourth Uncle~ What kind of weapon is this?” Wang Zongwei braced himself, he knew that Fourth Uncle’s gifts were always extraordinary.
“We can test it in the yard.” Wang Shouzhe brought Zongwei and Ruotong to the courtyard, instructing the head of the household to arrange some wooden stakes.
Then he raised the blunderbuss, without aiming and randomly shot in any direction.
“Boom!”
As if thunder flashed and roared, countless tiny steel balls were scattered and sprayed out in a bell shape, covering all the wooden stakes several meters away. Several stakes were blasted and knocked off, with many pits and craters on them.
“This…” Wang Luotong was taken aback by the scene. Her cultivation base had already stepped into the Level Eight of the Spirit Platform Realm, a small expert.
But she found that if she were close enough, even if she pushed her Willow Catkin Body method to the limit, she might not be able to dodge the range of the blunderbuss attack in an instant.
“I brought a hundred blunderbusses altogether.” Wang Shouzhe said, “I also brought ten trained clan soldiers. They will train and guard with the patrol team and have a deterrent effect on those independent cultivators.”
“Fourth Uncle, isn’t this weapon too terrifying?” Wang Zongwei wiped the cold sweat, “If a team of patrolling clan soldiers fires together, I’m afraid even an advanced practitioner of the Spirit Platform Realm will die undoubtedly.”
“Wouldn’t say it’s too terrifying.” Wang Shouzhe shook his head, “This blunderbuss has good close-range power, and ordinary clan soldiers can get the hang of it quickly, and it can pose a great threat to ordinary cultivators of the Spirit Platform Realm. But there are also many drawbacks, firing one shot requires reloading black gunpowder and steel balls.”
Being a transmigrator, how could Wang Shouzhe not think about firearms? However, the difficulty in making firearms is not small, the first is concerning gunpowder. This point was still fine, after all, this world is prosperous with alchemists and gunpowder had already been invented.
But gunpowder is usually used in alchemy furnaces and mining. It’s said that some artifact refiners tried to make it into cannonballs, but they soon gave up due to their minor strength.
Wang Shouzhe also wanted to create weapons like long-range sniper rifles… but any high-tech equipment requires too much preeminent technology. Advanced guns must involve the use of precision lathes, but the Science and Innovation Research Room of the Wang family had just begun to develop primary water lathes.
Therefore, he could only make a simple blunderbuss for the clansmen to give the bottom line’s combat power a slight boost.
About technologies such as steam engines, Wang Shouzhe had long wanted to invent them. The principle seems simple, the craftsmen in the research room also understood it, but in the actual research and development process, each step was a hurdle.
It’s estimated that it would take decades to create a primary steam engine.
Many things in scientific research take a lot of time to tinker and accumulate.
Even if a small steel ball, wanting to produce on a large scale is very difficult.
The so-called steel balls in the blunderbuss could only be considered iron balls, not only end up rusting easily but also come in strange shapes and sizes. This was because the production process was quite rough, and they were all made by melting iron into paste and then spraying it, and then quickly producing iron balls via the cooling of air and water, so the overall quality was quite surprising.
Only by selecting suitable sizes and further refining shapes by craftsmen could they be used in the rolling bearings.
The rest of the steel balls were only used for the blunderbuss bullets.
Moreover, in the absence of a large number of basic industries, even those hundred crude-looking blunderbusses, because it was necessary to develop flintlock technology, also consumed a lot of time and money.
On average, each one cost more than ten pieces of Qian Gold coins.
This price could buy a top-quality warhorse, or two good-looking maidens.
The only two advantages were that it could patch up the lack of manpower in the Wang family’s bottom line of battle, and it solidified the knowledge of the basic gun technology.
…
Soon, the clan soldiers brought by Wang Shouzhe integrated into the ranch patrol team. The other members of the patrol team, after a brief training, quickly mastered the blunderbuss.
This stuff is even simpler than a crossbow, just trigger a pull in a general direction, it’s just that it’s very troublesome to reload after one shot.
More than ten days passed by in a hurry.
As the breath of spring began to thicken, two bouts of spring rain came and went.
The thirty thousand acres of pasture in Tianhong Ranch had verdant grass growing plentifully, creating an image of boundless green pastures against the azure sky that was a pleasure to behold.
Wang Feng!
Being a seventeen-year-old girl who served as the head of the household, her lineage had been loyal servants to the Wang family for generations. Because she had Class C potential since childhood, she was carefully nurtured by the Wang family.
Her training was as rigorous as that of the direct disciples of the Wang family, and she was even allowed to cultivate the family’s cultivation technique, the Wang Family’s Xuan Yuan Technique.
From then on, she worked hard. Her cultivation speed was quick, and she had always been an outstanding student in the clan school.
At this moment, she was dressed in soft but strong beast leather armor. She rode on a maroon horse, with her cloak flapping behind her, displaying an impressive image.
Behind her followed eight carefully selected clan soldiers, fully armed and carrying the newly-issued sawed-off shotguns.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Today, like any ordinary day, boasted fair weather.
Wang Feng led her ranch patrol team to perform their security patrol. Their main objective was to drive away the independent cultivators coming from the direction of the Huangfu Ranch.
Normally, these infiltrating independent cultivators used the cover of darkness to come and retreat under the night sky. Unless they had special backup, they would not dare to find trouble in broad daylight.
Murong brothers.
They were a pair of brothers who were famous among independent cultivators.
Despite being under forty years old, they both had attained the seventh level of the Vital Energy Refining Realm. Among independent cultivators, they were considered outstanding. Most importantly, the brothers had a unique movement technique known as Xunfeng Flash.
Once this technique was demonstrated, their movements were as swift as manic gusts of wind. Even cultivators of a higher stage couldn’t keep up. A few months earlier, they had caused trouble at Tianhong Ranch.
They even fooled Wang Luotong, whose cultivation base was higher.
Despite Wang Luotong having reached the Level Eight in the Vital Energy Refining Realm and having trained in the family’s Willow Catkin Body Method, this method prioritizes stealth and unpredictability; it was very effective in face-to-face combat.
However, when it came to chases, it was far behind the Xunfeng Flash in terms of speed.
On this day, they arrogantly crossed the border as reports showed that Wang Shouzhe had left. Meanwhile, Wang Xiaohan, the Spirit Platform Realm Old Ancestor stationed in Qianma Town, would be held back by an Independent Cultivator from the Spirit Platform Realm, hired by the Huangfu Clan at a substantial cost.
Their goal was not just to destroy dozens of acres of fields but to injure a bunch of ranchers who were starting to harvest their first crops. This operation was meant to instill fear in Tianhong Ranch, making the ranchers too worried to work.
The brothers were not alone in their mission; six or seven groups of independent cultivators were operating at the same time. The Murong brothers, however, were regarded as the main force.
Along the edge of the tens of thousands of acres ranch, the Murong brothers encountered Wang Feng’s patrol team quite unexpectedly.
“Heh heh, if it isn’t the pretty little lady,” The Murong brothers didn’t retreat when faced with the patrol team, but instead planned to have some fun thanks to their exceptional movement techniques.
Their speed was so fast that ordinary crossbow arrows would have a hard time hitting them, and they could retreat or advance as they pleased.
As the two of them performed their movement technique, they were as swift as a gust of wind in the fields, their speed exceeding that of galloping horses. They laughed maliciously, “Little Miss Wang Feng, we meet again. Come on, come and join the fun with big brother Murong~”
“Murong brothers!”
Wang Feng’s expression hardened, and she said angrily, “You are audacious indeed. By offending my Wang family this much, do you not fear our revenge?”
“Heh heh, revenge?” They rapidly approached, brazenly stopping a few feet in front of the patrol team, laughing continuously, “Even if your Wang family is powerful, you are still just a small overlord of Changning Guard. This mission will earn us brothers two thousand Qian Gold. After that, this world is vast and open; where can we not go?”
This is exactly why Wang Shouzhe has always had a dislike for independent cultivators. They have no roots and keep thinking about worst-case scenarios, fantasizing about starting anew elsewhere. How would one trust such individuals?
…