stubborn thief

Chapter 503 Ghost Soldiers
The defenders of Liangzhou City witnessed an agricultural revolution.

The local defenders in Liangzhou saw the marshal's army carrying farm tools to handle farming, and saw the excitement; Li Hongsi, who had actually fought against the marshal's army, was an expert and could see the way of the marshal's mansion's expeditionary army.

In just a few days, the marshal army started from the earliest hoes and manpower sowing to the animal-powered machinery sowing with three-legged columbine carts, and then more cattle and donkeys joined, and six-legged columbine carts were added, sowing efficiency was greatly improved. promote.

From the beginning, the two battalions alternated day and night defenses, plowed a piece of land in three days, and turned into the Ganzhou battalion to sow seeds in the early morning, sow all the fields at noon, and retreated directly to the rear; the succeeding Suzhou battalion directly changed places The camp started to work in the evening, frantically sowing seeds around Liangzhou City.

The Liangzhou army was quite happy to see the marshal's army working in full swing outside the city, but Li Hongsi realized this problem—these farm tools were all newly made.

There are iron shares on each foot of the columbine cart, three iron shares on the three-legged building cart pulled by donkeys, and six iron shares on the six-legged columbine cart pulled by oxen. This is where a problem arises.

The wood needed for columbine carts must have been manufactured in Yongchang, Shandan and other places. There are a large number of military craftsmen in those places, as well as a large number of farm tools. There is a high probability that they will be manufactured in Wei and assembled near Liangzhou. The key problem lies in the iron on the share.

In a few days, the marshal army pulled out hundreds of columbine carts near Liangzhou, which meant that they had to cast thousands of iron shares in a short period of time. These iron shares were either made before Liu Chengzong arrived in Liangzhou. It has been cast in Ganzhou and other places—or, Liu Chengzong opened an iron yard near Liangzhou.

The former is nothing to worry about, while the latter means that Liu Chengzong has the ability to cast iron on a large scale in a place very close to Liangzhou City.

As a general who had fought head-on with the Marshal's Mansion, he had long experienced Liu Chengzong's heavy firepower, and he knew that in terms of casting artillery technology, there was no barrier between the Ming Army and the Marshal's Army, and even to some extent, Liu Chengzong's cannon was better.

Just [-] paces outside the camp, Beetail Needle leaned on the Marshal's Officer's Yanling Saber, and stood quietly looking at the dark outline and figures of the camp in the distance.

It was very difficult for the ghost soldiers to attack, because in the past eight days, the Gansu Second Battalion had set up eight camps in the west of the city, and each camp meant that they had to plow the nearby fields.

Iron fan itself is not a technology for casting high-quality, high-value, and high-demand items.

Liu Chengzong never delved into how the raw material of the knife came from. It was cast from crucible steel. Some Hongwu iron cannons made in Shanxi also used this technology to cast steel.

So they decided to go out of the city to kill the vigor of the Marshal's army. At midnight, six hundred ghost soldiers, led by the Zhenyi guerrilla Tang Mingshi, wore the same military uniform as the Gansu Second Battalion, drew their helmets and spears, and opened their guns all the way. The urn gate of Ximen came out quietly.

"This……"

Beetail Needle is now a member of the Ganzhou Camp, but in the past, he was a thief from Shaanxi, and he was not a very good thief. He had followed Li Laozhen. At night, the eyes are bright like wolves.

On the seventh night of the first month of June, the Liangzhou ghost soldiers, who had been suppressed for a long time, finally discovered that the marshal's army had basically sown all the surrounding land that could be planted. They set up their camp back outside the west gate, and their work and rest hours were normal.

They sleep in the rear during the day, and are refreshed at night.

And behind the enemy, another group of black shadows was slowly approaching, in the field between the ghost soldiers and Liangzhou City... Lie down, it was the soldiers led by his general.

In the test firing at a slightly higher firing angle in normal use, it also achieved an astonishing range of [-] steps, that is, the effective range reached three miles.

In the silent night, the bee-tail needle raised its hand and shook its head. The artillerymen took out the fire pocket behind the field ridge and blew it on, igniting the fuse on the fire hook, and then the bee-tail needle blew out a loud whistle with its hands.

The farthest line is to send iron and copper materials to the front line from the Longshoushan Iron Works in Shandan, and then Liu Chengzong led craftsmen in Fenglebao to supervise the manufacture of heavy artillery.

Tang Mingshi thought about it, wondering if the hell is haunted?Didn't see them coming out of camp!

After a while, the gate of the camp was opened from the inside to the outside, and the two spies ran back, lowering their voices and shouting in surprise: "General, there is no one in the camp, and all the soldiers' blankets in the tent have been taken away, but the tea is still warm!"

The gun body of this gun is smooth and clean, unlike the potholes that need to be modified like mud casting. Of course, trachoma and pores are inevitable. This is a problem caused by the casting process itself. Even after 400 years, the casting will still exist. Trachoma and stomata.

Seeing a large group of fuzzy shadows standing outside the camp, the bee tail needle chuckled disdainfully and looked around: "Ghost soldiers? Let's see who is the ghost soldier."

The best cannon-casting technology in the world is in Shanxi, and there is crucible steel in Shanxi. Liu Chengzong seized a fake iron goose-wing knife from Bai Yingzi in his early years, which was made by a Shanxi swordsmith.

However, Liu Chengzong did not have the habit of changing the parameters without understanding the principle. For the newly built siege cannon, he still chose to use the length of eighteen times the caliber, but he enlarged the caliber and made a A twenty-pound iron cannonball.

This work is not difficult. Liu Chengzong has a bronze cannon that is cast strictly according to the model. After measuring, he found that this thing is very strict, and all parts have proportions. The most important thing is the caliber.

With some strengthening, the weight of this cast-iron cannon, which was over ten feet long and fired [-]-jin shells, jumped to [-]-jin.

The biggest advantage of iron molds is short time and large batches. This technology is very suitable for casting cannons in wartime. After all, even in summer, it takes a month to dry the clay molds and put them into use. With iron molds, building an iron kiln can be done immediately. , Repeatedly put into use.

A fire hook was aimed at the fire door of the artillery, and nine artillery with an average age of one hundred blasted at the ghost soldiers sent by Liangzhou City. Pieces of scattered fire were scattered under the night, frightening the ghost soldiers who were uncertain. They scattered in all directions, followed by the defenders in the city who had been prepared for a long time and fired artillery, trying to wake up the energetic Beetail Needle.

Then according to the diameter of the iron cannonball, the play was increased by three minutes, and the caliber of four inches and eight minutes was determined. Then, the parameters of the artillery were calculated and handed over to the craftsmen to make clay molds and iron molds, ready to cast the cannon at the same time.

The iron mold can increase the advantages of the iron cannon from another direction, the production speed.

Relying on the caliber, the proportions of the various parts of the gun body can be reversed.

This night attack must have failed. Tang Mingshi took the ghost soldiers and ran towards the west gate of Liangzhou City. There are still two or three miles away from the west gate. The soldier ran and asked: "General, do we have too many soldiers?"

Liu Chengzong took down the news, but he did not change his mind because of the dissuasion of the craftsman. It is imperative to cast iron molds for cannons, otherwise his army would not have heavy artillery capable of attacking the city walls.

The modulus I have mastered is the modulus of the Qianjin Cannon taught by Wang Zheng in Sanyuan in the early years, and the modulus of the Lion Cannon that was calculated and experimented with Gao Yingxiang in Shanxi.

Therefore, as soon as Liu Chengzong proposed iron mold casting cannons to military craftsmen, the craftsmen raised their concerns.

In fact, the surrounding land has not been planted yet, he just wanted to tease the officers and soldiers, so he set up the camp again after he was busy today.

Fortunately, it was just a test firing, and one gun was broken, but there were no casualties, so it was a safe bet.

Iron mold also has another name, Tie Fan, which can be traced back to the Warring States period, and was used to cast farm tools. Until the Ming Dynasty, most of the farm tools were cast in this way, including the iron share used by Liu Chengzong under the city of Liangzhou. so cast.

It was also this time when he personally measured the modulus of the artillery that Liu Chengzong discovered that the ratio of the multiple and diameter of the two types of artillery installed in the Marshal's Mansion is actually a bit lower as a field artillery.

He was right to be afraid.

Tang Mingshi is a brave general who is good at fighting. He led the ghost soldiers to steal the camp to avenge his shame. However, the battle with Gao Yingdeng made him realize that the Marshal's army is not that easy to fight, and he was very cautious in his actions. Not setting up sentries around the camp gave him a bad premonition.

So he decided to go into battle himself, pulled out a jack cannon for measurement, and got all the modulus of a cannon.

The defenders were optimistic about the marshal's farming under the city, but Li Hongsi was only afraid. Liu Chengzong came prepared and cast heavy artillery on the battlefield.

People say that the technical difficulty is not too great, it just needs to use a little brains, after all, no one has ever cast such a big thing with latte fan.

But at the same time, it is also the artillery with the shortest life since the Marshal's Mansion made the artillery. In the three test shots with equal-heavy ammunition, when the third shot was fired, it exploded into three pieces with a loud noise.

They told Liu Chengzong that the quality of the clay mold cannons used by the Marshal's Mansion is very good, which is the most common casting technology in Ming Dynasty. At the same time, there is also the clay mold lost wax method for casting cannons. It is smooth and needs no refinishing, but the lost wax method is best used in winter.

During the time when the Beetail Needle and Ding Guodong battalions took turns farming, Liu Chengzong established a cannon foundry in Fenglebao, fifty miles away, and opened three material delivery routes.

After all, Liu Shizi is a person who accurately knows that there is a thing called chamber pressure in the world. In terms of the ratio of the bombed one to the new design, he chooses the thickness of all parameters other than the caliber to be [-]:[-]. One-third, the cylindrical shape is directly selected.

After the new cannon was cast, Liu Chengzong immediately ordered the battalion to be pulled out and headed towards Liangzhou Wei, who was fighting wits with the second battalion in Gansu.

On his left and right, rows of soldiers were squatting behind the field ridges, three Hongwu general guns and six Wanli Nantang guns lined up, aiming at the black shadow in front of the camp.

For heavy artillery weighing more than [-] jin, even if someone like me is here, I don’t know what proportion should be used. We can only produce results through calculation and experimentation, which is too slow for Liu Chengzong.

Artillery is a completely different thing, and it requires toughness.

Now that the client had this request, the craftsmen no longer hesitated, strictly following Liu Chengzong's requirements and parameters, and only took three days to cast the cleanest and most beautiful heavy artillery since the Marshal's Mansion made it.

There is only one reason why this technology has not been applied to casting artillery. Farm tools are very cheap consumables, and the requirements for toughness are not high. Because of the fast cooling of iron casting, the cast iron is very brittle, which can fully meet most of the requirements. The use environment of agricultural tools, iron mold casting can quickly and mass-produce a large number of agricultural tools.

The cannon is very good, it can be said that it is the best cannon Liu Chengzong has seen in his life, but he can't walk.

Although the army moved to the camp after farming, and all the equipment such as tents and wooden barriers were taken away, the trenches they dug were not filled.

The quality of pig iron cannons is poor. If they want to achieve the same quality, they must be heavier and thicker, so they are very suitable for attacking guns, defending guns, and even artillery on warships.

According to the popular way of naming artillery, Liu Chengzong even wanted to name it Zhu Shou, the mighty general. As the saying goes, two horses make a chariot, four horses make a four, and eight horses make a chariot.

The artisans accompanying the army were terribly frightened, and Liu Chengzong, who recovered from the loud noise, was not angry. He just smiled and waved his hands and said to the artisans: "You all strictly follow my requirements. It has nothing to do with you if the cannon exploded. The problem lies with me. "

The quality of the iron cannons cast by these two iron casting techniques is far superior to that of iron molds.

In his view, there is no bad technology in this world, only technology that is not used in the right place. The copper cannon is of good quality, small in size and more durable. It is very suitable as a field cannon. The disadvantage is that it is expensive.

The military craftsmen respected the general Liu Chengzong who was willing to work with them, and they also knew that Liu Chengzong valued technology, so they didn't mind telling him more.

He stared at the big piece of iron that was blown away for a long time, and finally realized the problem by slapping his thigh—the jack gun in the marshal's mansion was made of copper, and he used it on the iron gun with the same modulus as a copper cannon. , but also used iron mold cast guns with poor cast iron quality, who would bomb it if it didn’t blow up?
With the experience of this failure, Liu Chengzong quickly changed the design, increased the ratio of various moduli other than the caliber, and changed the multiple diameter to 22 times.

The ghost soldiers walked very carefully at night, the marshal's camp was five miles away from the city, but they set up many bonfires between two and three miles away to prevent night attacks, and the ghost soldiers had to bypass the campfires.

The thickness of the outer diameter of the gun muzzle is twice the caliber, the thickest part of the gun body, the fire door and the outside of the medicine chamber, is three times the caliber, the thickness from the medicine chamber to the gun tail is equal to the caliber, and the overall length of the gun body is [-] times the caliber. times.

This time, the test firing effect was very good. It survived three test firings of equal-heavy ammunition, and shot a range of [-] steps at a high angle of fire, blasting almost twelve miles in one shot.

With a self-weight close to [-] kilograms, a sturdy and bump-resistant gun carriage, and a front or auxiliary carriage to load ammunition, what does this monster mean?
It means that this artillery group needs at least eight big Hequ horses to pull it. At the same time, the two groups of horse teams rotate, and it is also necessary to prepare spare horses after the horses are exhausted. Therefore, the entire artillery group needs to prepare 24 to 32 horses.

And the battle of fame that Bee Tail Needle played with Zhao Keke was also a night battle, so during the days when Ganzhouying was farming outside Liangzhou City, he and Ding Guodong took turns, starting farming in the evening and coming back in the middle of the night. It is a purposeful attempt to train soldiers' ability to operate at night.

At the same time, the ghost soldiers couldn't raise the fire, so they managed to get around the bonfire, and they could only walk nervously in the dark night, for fear of falling into the trench dug by the marshal's army.

Seeing that the camp with the gates closed was close at hand, he felt unwilling to retreat like this. He thought to himself, what if they were tired of farming?
So they sent two people to sneak into the camp to investigate.

The biggest problem is that if you cast a cannon with an iron mold, the cannon will explode.

Designing artillery is an unfamiliar job to Liu Chengzong, but he really doesn't have any talents who can master the modulus. Even if I send someone to ask Hehuang's Shi Cheng, it's too late for me.

At this time, when he ran to the range of the bonfire, the surrounding situation became much clearer. Only then did Tang Mingshi realize that there were a lot of people who followed him, not to mention that they had been bombarded, even if they hadn't been bombarded, it would have been impossible. There are more than 1000 people at a rough look.

The hairs on the back of Tang Mingshi's neck stood up all at once, because he suddenly realized that he didn't seem to have seen the soldier who was talking to him just now—boom!

Before he could turn his head, an iron bone hit his helmet. Before he passed out, the last voice he heard was the hoarse voice of the soldier who knocked him out: "There are enemies among us!"

　good evening!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)