stubborn thief

Chapter 316 If He Needs

Generally speaking, when people discuss technology, it is easy to see which technology has the best performance.

But in practice, people may not favor the technology with the best performance, and they often choose the technology that suits them best in the end.

The same is true for cannons. In terms of red cannons alone, cast copper has better performance and can be fired [-] times without breaking; cast iron cannons are not so good. The weight of the same caliber weighs [-] to [-] percent, and they are not so durable. From the design, it is only required to play [-] times.

However, those who manufacture artillery often do not consider the issue of use, but pay more attention to the cost. The cost of twelve cast copper cannons and sixty cast iron cannons is the same, so it is obvious which one to choose.

Liu Chengzong is a special case. Before the Southern Expedition, there was a lack of iron mountains in the control area, but there were countless Buddha statues waiting to be transformed into bronze cannons. It was not that he wanted to use cast copper cannons, but that he had little iron ore. With cast bronze cannon.

But now this problem does not exist. Xining Mansion has discovered many minerals around Qinghai Lake. Gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead are not scarce, and weapons can be manufactured with normal logic.

Shi Chengwo's iron-in-copper wrapping is a composite technology that uses a forged iron chamber and a cast copper casing. The forged iron chamber has higher strength and toughness, and the cast copper casing utilizes the self-tightening characteristics of copper liquid solidification. While increasing the strength and toughness, the weight is slightly reduced compared with copper and iron casting.

In fact, this manufacturing method is not necessarily superior to casting cannons in terms of strength. Its biggest advantage is that it is easy to control.

Control costs and control material strength.

Forged cannons are not uncommon. Whether it is the Franji cannon captured in the early days or the Ye Gongshen blunderbuss created by Ye Mengxiong, they are all forged from iron. The cannon body has high strength, but those are small-caliber artillery.

Iron forging is very easy in the world. As long as you can forge knives and forge armor, you can roll iron into guns, and you can also roll out larger iron shells to make gun bores, and then make iron rings to fit on the gun bores. It's a Franco cannon.

As for the casting of large-scale bronze and iron wares, ancient China had unrivaled technological accumulation, and it was even possible to cast steel cannons as early as the Hongwu Year.

But it is not easy to control, pig iron, steel, and wrought iron are not separated, but it is called pig iron if the carbon content is more than [-]%, and it is called wrought iron if it is less than [-]%, and it is called steel when the carbon content is between pig iron and wrought iron. .

In this era, craftsmen can already increase the carbon content in the refining process, and can also reduce the carbon content in the refining process, but no more, no less, as long as that much... It is still not easy to achieve in iron smelting.

Because there is no method in the world to completely liquefy steel, even in the Central Plains, only a semi-solid liquid can be formed, but if the steel cannot be completely liquefied, there is no way to achieve precise control in steelmaking.

Therefore, under most conditions, when a furnace of iron is smelted, people can only guarantee whether it is pig iron or wrought iron, but no one can be sure whether there is or how much steel is in it.

Master Cheng, I chose iron-lined copper to make mortars. This is the reason. Liu Chengzong asked for a large-caliber, short-barreled artillery. It may be very easy to replace it with other gunsmiths. After all, the bowl-mouth guns in the early years It is this form.

But I can't do it as a teacher, he can only cast red cannons, and has no experience in making other artillery.

Besides, the city was under siege at this time. In order to ensure success, he decided to first build a cannonball according to Liu Chengzong's caliber requirements, then forge the barrel according to the cannonball, and finally pour copper shells layer by layer outside the iron core.

On the evening of the third day of the siege, the moat was about to be filled with a bridge. Chuoke Tutaiji finally couldn't hold back, and sent more than a thousand horsemen to rush out from the south gate, trying to launch a night attack on the besieging army, but bumped into Zhang Tianlin's headquarters training cavalry , had no choice but to retreat.

It is very difficult for any army to maintain its organization during night raids. When the golden drum flag is useless, night raids can only be carried out separately. So in fact, this tactic is a fight of last resort under the asymmetry of strength. Killing move.

Chuoke Tutaiji was in such an embarrassing position, unable to fight head-on, and the siege of the city for several days was limited to being suppressed and beaten. The morale of the various ministries was extremely low, and they could only rely on night raids to boost morale.

In fact, it is just to try your luck, relying on the night to pull the enemy to the same level as yourself, and see if you can beat it.

As a result, he bumped into Zhang Tianlin's patrolling soldiers.

Liu Chengzong was prepared, and he called it a night attack. The attacking army returned without success, and the morale was even lower.

Soon a large hollow iron bullet with a diameter of five inches was cast by the craftsman using the mud casting method. After receiving Liu Chengzong's consent, I taught the craftsman to forge the barrel, cut the wooden letter tube and wooden horse, and make it according to this caliber. gunpowder.

Liu Chengzong was holding a big hollow iron ball in his handsome tent, poured the gunpowder inside on the table, and swallowed involuntarily.

This scribbled cannonball weighs eight catties and 12 taels. After rough polishing, the irregular burrs on the surface are gone. It can hold four catties of gunpowder inside, but it feels scary to hold it in the hand.

It is actually a round iron bottle used to hold gunpowder. Liu Chengzong put the shells aside, picked up a five-inch cork, and looked inside. Through the small hole in the middle of the cork, you can see the bottom. There is light coming in from the side.

This wooden cork, which is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, is the shell fuse, and a tightly-fitting gunpowder rod is stuffed into it. The production method of the gunpowder rod is the same as that of granular gunpowder, the difference is that the powdered gunpowder is not made into granules, but is made into long strips.

The gunpowder made by this method has an average burning speed, is five inches long, and takes about 15 seconds from ignition to explosion.

In fact, through the experience of projecting explosive bullets such as flying cannons, the cylindrical explosive bullet is the most effective because it will not spin in the barrel and cause accidents, but Liu Chengzong wanted to maximize the power of the blast, so he chose the spherical shape.

Liu Chengzong held the cannonball while watching and laughing, and suddenly slapped his head: "Bring the pen and ink!"

In the handsome tent, Fan Sanlang hurriedly handed over the pen and rubbed the ink vigorously. After a while, he saw Liu Chengzong draw circle after circle of dense lines on the cannonball.

"Master, this is..."

Liu Chengzong frowned and thought: "When it explodes, it explodes into two petals and three petals. When casting shells, more grooves are cast. If other places are thicker and these lines are thinner, it will crack from the places with lines first, and more fragments will be broken. , go through a hole in a horse."

What he said was serious, but in fact Liu Chengzong didn't know whether it was easy to use or not.

He just let Shicheng and me try it out. Anyway, it doesn't work and there is no loss. At least he can be sure that four catties of powder will definitely explode the shell.

Even if only two petals can be exploded, that is in line with Liu Chengzong's original intention. If two petals hit the catapult, blasting four catties of gunpowder at close range is no less than a small bombardment.

The cannonball enchanted by Liu Chengzong with a brush was quickly sent to the craftsman's station, and the craftsman further rushed to make a mold with prefabricated fragments.

The next two days were peaceful, the attacking party did not fire any more cannons, and the catapults in the city died down after throwing thousands of mud bombs, and the outside of Bajiao City gained a rare calm.

But in the city, Chuoke Tutaiji is not just waiting to die, he is just waiting for Liu Chengzong to relax.

Although he was at a disadvantage in the early stage of the siege of the moat and the morale of the soldiers was low, Chuck Tutaiji was not discouraged, on the contrary, he was quite happy.

The shepherds in the city have been busy picking up shells for the past two days. They picked up more than 600 iron shells that fell into the city, all of which were seven-jin bullets; there were more two-jin iron shells outside the city, more than 900.

When he was beaten outside the border of Gansu, the Gansu General Soldier beat him so much.

So Chuoke Tutaiji felt that Liu Chengzong was running out of shells, so he wrote a letter on the seventh day of September and asked someone to shoot him out of the city.

This letter was quickly sent to Liu Chengzong. When he opened it, he probably meant that Chuoketu felt that he had no shells or gunpowder. Could it be that you, Liu Shizi, are richer than the chief soldier in Gansu?Advise him to accept it as soon as he sees it, it is better to negotiate a peace, let him lead the army back to Subei, and swear that he will never come to Qinghai again in this life.

Liu Chengzong was very happy by this letter, not to mention the matter of negotiating peace and releasing him back to Subei, Liu Chengzong didn't know who could mobilize more gunpowder and gunpowder funds between himself and the Gansu General Army.

But he knew that the Gansu General Soldier used this amount of ammunition to fight Chuoketu. It must be that the Chuoke Rabbit was only worth this amount of ammunition in the field, and it was by no means that the Gansu General Army only had this amount of ammunition.

There are two types of saltpeter that can be used as gunpowder. Potassium salt is found everywhere in the Northwest, and sodium salt is found in the Gobi Desert from Xining to Huoyanshan.

Liu Chengzong also knows that there is a place called Chile on the other side of the sea. The desert in that place specializes in producing sodium nitrate, so that the name of sodium nitrate is Chilean saltpeter, and the place with the largest reserves of Chilean saltpeter is called... Turpan.

This man seemed to have lost his mind, and dared to laugh at his gunpowder in the northwest.

Of course, most people only know that there are many gunpowder raw materials in the Northwest, but they don't know that there are so many gunpowder raw materials in the Northwest.

Liu Chengzong would not tell anyone about this, and he was lost by the messenger of the Turpan Khan who was left beside him. He still thinks that the specialties of his hometown are melons and beautiful women.

Liu Chengzong thinks that melons and beauties are good, at least before the land falls into his hands, it must be much better than gunpowder.

With such a happy mood, Liu Chengzong wrote a thank-you letter in Chinese to Chuoke Tutaiji, inviting him to leave the city and surrender, promising that as long as Khalkha's soldiers put down their weapons and surrendered, they would not kill anyone.

He took this letter and handed it to the guards, and searched around in the army. People who can speak Mongolian are easy to find, but there are not many who can write Mongolian characters, and there are not many who can translate the thank you letter from the beginning to the end. I had no choice but to send someone to call Xie Erhu.

In fact, Xie Erhu has asked to fight many times, but every time he was rejected by Liu Chengzong.

He didn't intend to let the Mongolian soldiers under his command join the battle, so Xie Erhu had to herd the sheep in the back and was responsible for finding suitable pastures by the way.

As soon as he heard the commander's call, Xie Erhu galloped over with three horses, and asked, "Master, do you want me to beat up these Khalkha robbers?"

Liu Chengzong stared at him, you Xie Erhu is a famous desert bandit, Liu Guoneng has heard of your reputation from Shi Li, how dare you call others a bandit?
Before he could speak, Xie Erhu had already seen to some extent that he was not called here for the purpose of fighting, so he said: "Marshal, just let me go, I have long wanted to beat them up!"

"Have a grudge?"

"Yes!" Xie Erhu said with a full face of grievance: "The nobles under Chuoketu robbed my pasture and my Jinsha River, if it weren't for them..."

Xie Erhu was quite angry at first, but after talking about it, he couldn't help laughing and said: "Actually, it's good to go east."

Of course, the Xining pickles that Ma Ke picked for him were only secondary, and the more practical benefit was to follow Liu Chengzong on the southern expedition, earning more than the previous ten-year travelers in the desert.

When Liu Chengzong heard that this was the case and he had old grievances, he didn't say any more. He raised his hand and handed over the letter and said, "You should copy five hundred copies of the persuading letter to Chuoketutaiji, and send it in with a cannon later." to the city."

Xie Erhu took the letter, his nose was not his nose and his eyes were not his eyes. He lowered his head and muttered unwillingly: "Surrender? Reincarnate them!"

Liu Chengzong didn't hear clearly, and asked, "What are you mumbling about?"

"It's okay, I, I said it's not about the Double Ninth Festival, how is the commander-in-chief?"

Liu Chengzong thought that what this guy said just now must not be this, but this sentence was very successful in diverting attention, making him ask involuntarily: "Do you also celebrate the Double Ninth Festival?"

Xie Erhu shook his head like a rattle, observed Liu Chengzong's expression carefully, and then said: "We don't pass, but we all know that the ninth day of September is the Double Ninth Festival."

How did he know about Double Ninth Festival?

Every ninth day of September, when Suzhou’s northern and southern frontiers are on vacation, the guards are empty, and the people ascend to worship their ancestors, and there is no one at home. If you find the right opportunity, you can make a few big pots and come back. The stewed mutton is so fucking delicious.

However, he dared not tell Liu Chengzong about this matter, Erhu very cunningly thought that it would be good for him to maintain the image of a Mongolian leader who likes pickled vegetables under the commander.

Maybe in the future when the commander-in-chief is happy, because he likes pickled vegetables, he will seal him a place where he can grow vegetables as toast.

The Chen Toast in Xining is very good, so comfortable, every day when I wake up, I can worry about 'I'm so poor' and 'How to get money fast'.

As the little leader of the nomads in Chuidan, he didn't live to that level at all.

Xie Erhu was sitting in the commander's tent writing a letter, absent-mindedly thinking that he would be able to seal a large pasture and a field in the future, so that farming and grazing would be the same. He wrote a few sentences and suddenly remembered something, raised his head and said: "Marshal, I Knowing that Han'er will celebrate the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of September, will Taiji in Bajiao City also know?"

Liu Chengzong was stunned when asked: "What do you mean?"

"We have to be prepared, but don't ask him to snatch all the horses when the army goes up the mountain to worship the ancestors."

Liu Chengzong slowly shook his head: "No, what I mean is, he knows that the Han people celebrate the Double Ninth Festival, but we don't."

In the past few years, the Lion Army had no conditions to celebrate festivals at all. Many festivals were either marching or fighting.

However, Liu Chengzong thought for a while and asked Xie Erhu: "Erhu, what you said is possible. Chuoketu saw my army going up the mountain and knew that we were going to worship our ancestors. He thought we were lax and took the opportunity to attack?"

Xie Erhu nodded, it was very possible, followed by him and asked in doubt: "Didn't the commander-in-chief say that he couldn't pass the Double Ninth Festival?"

"If Chuck Rabbit Taiji needs it."

Liu Chengzong took a few steps out of the handsome tent, nodded secretly and said: "I can celebrate the Double Ninth Festival."

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)