Read Online 1636 The Kremlin Games by Paula Goodlett, Eric Flint, Gorg Huff - Free Book Online Page B
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whether to do it got decided by default.
The czar, at his father’s urging, came down on the side of the service nobility. The money would be issued by the Czar’s Bank. All banks in Russia would be branches of the Czar’s Bank. Which, by the way, would offer nice jobs for lots of the service nobility. Something that didn’t make it into the general discussion was the fact that more money would make it easier for serfs to buy out of their bonds to the land. Not that that mattered much. Every year for the last decade and more had had a decree from the czar that the serfs couldn’t leave that year, even if they had paid off their debt.
* * *
Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev leaned over to his friend and chief henchman, Colonel Leontii Shuvalov, as the debate went on. “It was good that the note from Vladimir arrived in time to prevent the patriarch from dragging us into war with Poland, but the notion that they are truly from the future disturbs me.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable with it myself, my lord, but facts are facts and Bernie is real. The stuff he brought from Germany is real.”
“And the knowledge,” Sheremetev grumbled. “Slavery and serfdom were both banned in their world. It will give our serfs ideas. There are too many new ideas coming out of Germany these days and they will spread faster with this outlander from the future here. The Gorchakovs are really just puffed-up merchants, even if they did hold their land independently before it was absorbed by Muscovy. Why did Filaret give them the patent on these new inventions?”
He knew why Filaret had done it. It was precisely because the Gorchakovs were just puffed-up merchants with little connection to the factions in the great families. He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it won’t amount to much. Games and rumors are all that have come from that dacha of theirs in the months he’s been here.”
Chapter 15
Andrei Korisov sawed away at the barrel of the rifled musket. He had taken it out of the musket and was sawing off the breech end. He had, he thought, the beginnings of an idea. He had spent the last three months going over the history of firearms with Bernie, a subject that the up-timer knew rather less about than he thought he did. Andrei was convinced of that. Andrei didn’t know what parts were missing, and that was perhaps the most frustrating aspect of it all. But a week ago, they had gotten to talking about movies and Bernie had remembered that the ball and cap pistols of the old west had been muzzle-loaders.
That, of course, wasn’t what Bernie had said, but after discussing it with him for two hours, that was what Andrei was convinced the up-timer was describing. Powder, then shot shoved down a short barrel. There were six of the short barrels in a cylinder which was why the pistols were called six-shooters, but the six barrels weren’t full length. There was an earlier version that was called a pepper-pot, according to Bernie, in which the barrels were full length but the six shooters had short barrels that rotated into position behind a longer barrel. And that was what had led Andrei to his gun shop in the middle of the night, filled with uncertain inspiration.
How much force did you lose , Andrei wondered as he sawed, out of that gap between the short barrel and the long? It couldn’t be so much that the bullet stopped in the barrel. It couldn’t even be so much as to rob the bullet of its knock-down power. Not when sent through a short pistol barrel. But how much would you lose when it was fired though a long musket barrel? Would the length of the barrel make any difference? Was that why they only used the technique on pistols?
Having cut the rear five inches of the barrel off, Andrei carefully smoothed away burrs with a fine file, then reinstalled the barrel in the stock. Placing the back of the barrel in a vise, he proceeded to load it with powder and shot. He pressed a lead ball and wading into the
The czar, at his father’s urging, came down on the side of the service nobility. The money would be issued by the Czar’s Bank. All banks in Russia would be branches of the Czar’s Bank. Which, by the way, would offer nice jobs for lots of the service nobility. Something that didn’t make it into the general discussion was the fact that more money would make it easier for serfs to buy out of their bonds to the land. Not that that mattered much. Every year for the last decade and more had had a decree from the czar that the serfs couldn’t leave that year, even if they had paid off their debt.
* * *
Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev leaned over to his friend and chief henchman, Colonel Leontii Shuvalov, as the debate went on. “It was good that the note from Vladimir arrived in time to prevent the patriarch from dragging us into war with Poland, but the notion that they are truly from the future disturbs me.”
“I’m not entirely comfortable with it myself, my lord, but facts are facts and Bernie is real. The stuff he brought from Germany is real.”
“And the knowledge,” Sheremetev grumbled. “Slavery and serfdom were both banned in their world. It will give our serfs ideas. There are too many new ideas coming out of Germany these days and they will spread faster with this outlander from the future here. The Gorchakovs are really just puffed-up merchants, even if they did hold their land independently before it was absorbed by Muscovy. Why did Filaret give them the patent on these new inventions?”
He knew why Filaret had done it. It was precisely because the Gorchakovs were just puffed-up merchants with little connection to the factions in the great families. He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it won’t amount to much. Games and rumors are all that have come from that dacha of theirs in the months he’s been here.”
Chapter 15
Andrei Korisov sawed away at the barrel of the rifled musket. He had taken it out of the musket and was sawing off the breech end. He had, he thought, the beginnings of an idea. He had spent the last three months going over the history of firearms with Bernie, a subject that the up-timer knew rather less about than he thought he did. Andrei was convinced of that. Andrei didn’t know what parts were missing, and that was perhaps the most frustrating aspect of it all. But a week ago, they had gotten to talking about movies and Bernie had remembered that the ball and cap pistols of the old west had been muzzle-loaders.
That, of course, wasn’t what Bernie had said, but after discussing it with him for two hours, that was what Andrei was convinced the up-timer was describing. Powder, then shot shoved down a short barrel. There were six of the short barrels in a cylinder which was why the pistols were called six-shooters, but the six barrels weren’t full length. There was an earlier version that was called a pepper-pot, according to Bernie, in which the barrels were full length but the six shooters had short barrels that rotated into position behind a longer barrel. And that was what had led Andrei to his gun shop in the middle of the night, filled with uncertain inspiration.
How much force did you lose , Andrei wondered as he sawed, out of that gap between the short barrel and the long? It couldn’t be so much that the bullet stopped in the barrel. It couldn’t even be so much as to rob the bullet of its knock-down power. Not when sent through a short pistol barrel. But how much would you lose when it was fired though a long musket barrel? Would the length of the barrel make any difference? Was that why they only used the technique on pistols?
Having cut the rear five inches of the barrel off, Andrei carefully smoothed away burrs with a fine file, then reinstalled the barrel in the stock. Placing the back of the barrel in a vise, he proceeded to load it with powder and shot. He pressed a lead ball and wading into the
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