1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 65 Artillery ([-])

"If there is peace, there may not be so many people who would choose to be a soldier for food. In this day and age, being a soldier is not a good way out." Ning Qi was not so relieved about the plans of the Military Police Department: "Don't let the soldiers die. All the tricks, and finally become a strong man."

"You can rest assured about this." Tao Donglai said confidently: "There is no way out, it is the army of the Ming Dynasty, you must know that we can give soldiers more than meager wages and two meals of gruel a day. ."

In the planning of the Military and Police Department, the future naturalized soldiers will have a special social status, and the acquisition of this social status is not only because they are in the military, a violent institution. Indoctrination, to establish a tall and positive image of the military in the mainstream social culture.As long as they choose to join the naturalized army, their future military salaries, medical care, education, post-retirement employment, starting a family, schooling their children, pensions for disabled soldiers, pensions for dead soldiers, etc., will all receive special attention from the Executive Committee. Assure.

Of course, even if the military and police department can complete the recruitment of indigenous soldiers as planned, these recruits will not be ready for use right away.The military and police department is anxious to get angry and rush to expand, which is part of the reason.As for the real tactical training, people from the military and police department all understand that it will be a long-term process, and there is no rush.

"Isn't there a lot of people who want to join the commune recently? When we receive this batch of soldiers, you can recruit a group of people from the current migrant workers into the commune." Tao Donglai saw that Ning Qi's face was not very good-looking, so he quickly Got an idea for him.

"Okay, you don't need to persuade you. I still understand the principle of putting the overall situation first. Don't you want to send someone to set up a location in Yazhou City in a few days? Let them keep an eye on that kid Luo Shengdong, hurry up. Pull people over from Yazhou." Ning Qi finally chose to compromise.This is not a battle of morale between departments. Ning Qi can still tell which is more important.

Early the next morning, a group of red-eyed elders gathered in the metallurgical workshop one after another, preparing to participate in the trial production of the first artillery.It is said to be a workshop, but it is actually a reinforced version of thatched shed. The ceiling has been raised a lot just for fire prevention.But even so, the time travelers who came to visit still stared at their heads from time to time, lest sparks would float up at 01:30 and ignite the roof.

In the early 17th century, the Chinese gun casting process was still very primitive, mainly using the mud mold casting method.This cannon-casting method is cumbersome, and molds made of water and mud take more than a month to dry.Moreover, a clay mold can only cast one cannon, which cannot be reused, and the scrap rate is extremely high. Only two or three of ten cannons can be cast, so the efficiency of cannon casting is quite low.However, methods such as adding reinforcing ribs to the clay mold, roasting the clay mold, and boring the gun bore are completely unknown to the Chinese gunsmiths in this era.

One of the biggest drawbacks of this mud mold casting method is that the manufacturing size cannot be truly unified. The biggest consequence of such non-standardized production is that the diameter of the gun muzzle and the thickness of the gun barrel are often different in size, which leads to the shortage of logistics supply. The difficulty was thus greatly increased, and in extreme cases it was even necessary to cast individual shells for each gun to meet normal firing requirements.In addition, the thickness of the gun barrel is different, which also leads to a slight deviation in the charge of each gun. Only the gunner of this gun will gradually master the difference between the charge, the range and the angle of fire after several live ammunition shots. relationship between.In this way, if the gunner is damaged during the battle, even if a replacement gunner is replaced, the combat effectiveness of the gun will be greatly reduced because of the lack of understanding of the performance of the gun.

Even if it is such a backward technology, it is regarded as an undisclosed secret by the gunsmiths as the ability to eat. The Central Dynasty, which was in charge of artillery, had to import such weapons to Europeans, who were originally far behind in technology, by the end of the Ming Dynasty.Therefore, when determining the cannon-making process, Chuanzhong skipped the mud-mold casting method and chose the iron-mold-casting method, which is more advanced and easier to achieve standardized and rapid production.

Liu Xingli's professionalism is undoubtedly extremely high. After last night's meeting, he did not rest at all. He and a few people from the metallurgical team made two sets of cast iron gun models for 6-pound guns overnight.They even polished the surface of the two sets of iron molds with coarse sand before dawn, which made a group of people from the Military Police Department give their thumbs up.

Yan Chujie even more excitedly patted Liu Xingli's shoulder and said, "This is the attitude of doing revolution!"

The group of people who came today said they were participating in the trial production, but in fact, it is more accurate to describe it as onlookers.Although most of the people here have played with guns and guns, and many people have killed people in the first two battles, no one dared to do so if they were asked to operate the red hot molten iron in that big furnace.

The technical work still has to be done by professionals, Liu Xingli explained to everyone while operating: "Now we are brushing the slurry on the inside of the mold. This formula is still found in the database. The slurry is divided into two layers. The first layer is It is made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud, and the second layer is made of fine kiln coal and water."

After brushing, several people came up to close the two halves of the iron mold together, and then used iron hoops to fasten them from the outside, and slowly heat the iron mold with a furnace fire.After assembling the iron mold piece by piece, Liu Xingli ordered to start pouring.

At present, a miniature crane is used as a crane for lifting crucibles in the metallurgical workshop. This miniature crane produced by Maeda company looks like a spider when working. The small body stabilizes the center of gravity.The crane is so small that it doesn't even have a cab, so the operator can only sit in a small seat at the back of the car, and the maximum lifting capacity is only three tons.Originally, the purpose of preparing this miniature crane is not to replace the current driving, but to hoist the hydro-generator in the hydropower station project. In addition, there are several metal processing machine tools that have not been used in the material warehouse at present. This crane must be used for hoisting.

As for the special lifting equipment in the metallurgical workshop, the mechanical department chose to use the steam engine power with mature technology, and the design task has been completed. The assembly object of the first batch of steam engines produced is the metallurgy and mining departments.Of course, the current rudimentary workshop must be renovated at that time, and at least a few sturdy load-bearing columns must be obtained before the lifting equipment can be installed.

The small crane boom slowly lifted the graphite crucible filled with hot red molten iron, moved it to the top of the iron mold, and slowly poured the molten iron from the casting hole.Although the onlookers were standing more than ten meters away, they still felt a wave of heat coming from the surface.

Liu Xingli wore a protective mask, safety helmet, and mask on his head, as well as a full set of heat-insulating clothing, heat-insulating gloves, and heat-resistant shoes. He stood about three meters away from the iron mold and stared at the casting process without moving.It wasn't until the thin molten iron left in the graphite crucible was enough to fill the iron mold that Liu Xingli blew the whistle in his mouth, and the colleagues who operated the casting immediately adjusted the angle of the graphite crucible and stopped casting.The boom moved slowly, and then began to cast the second set of iron molds, and finally used the remaining molten iron to cast more than 30 spherical cannonballs.

After the two sets of iron molds were cast, Liu Xingli took off the whistle in his mouth and returned to the place where the crowd watched.In just a few minutes, Liu Xingli was already sweating profusely, which showed the high temperature of the place he was standing just now.Someone else immediately handed him a glass of cold boiled water, and Liu Xingli was not polite. After taking off his mask, he took it and drank most of it, then wiped the corner of his mouth and said, "Today is too short to do the central cooling method, so use With that kind of cannon casting method, the core has to be processed separately, which is a little more troublesome. When the test firing of the cannon is successful this time, it will be used when finalizing the production.”

The so-called central cooling method is to dissipate heat with flowing water inside the core, and accelerate the cooling of the gun barrel, so that the inside of the gun barrel can be hardened first, and when the outer metal of the gun barrel cools, it shrinks inward, and the metal structure of the entire gun barrel is It is more firm and can greatly reduce the cracking of the gun barrel due to uneven cooling and heat dissipation during casting.The 6-pound cannon that is cast now is not bad. Even if it is really scrapped, it will only cost 500 pounds of pig iron. However, if a large-caliber heavy cannon is cast, the barrel wall of the gun is much thicker than that of the 6-pound cannon. There will be uneven cooling, and it is difficult to control the rejection rate without this method.

This casts waste guns, and the labor is still a small matter. The key is that this kind of cast iron that has been used once cannot be used to cast guns again, and can only be used to make iron agricultural tools.In this regard, cast iron cannons are no match for bronze cannons. Bronze can be cast and used repeatedly, so there is no need to worry about the cannon casting process.However, considering the pitiful copper reserves of the Executive Committee, we dare not have such wishful thinking for the time being.

Liu Xingli only took a short rest before ordering the mold to be removed.Someone asked: "Will it be too fast to dismantle now? The barrel should not be cold, right?"

"It will be troublesome when it gets cold." Liu Xingli explained: "This kind of casting will definitely have some burrs, that is, to remove these burrs while the gun is still cold, and remove the mud core in the gun barrel by the way. "

This process was completed soon, and the visitors finally saw the two freshly baked cannons, which were exactly as dark and thick as everyone imagined, and they also emitted bursts of anxious smell.

"Come on, let's see if our two guns can stand the test." Seeing that the two guns were intact, Liu Xingli finally let out a sigh of relief.

(End of this chapter)