Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 74

Wang Gong Factory was founded in the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty. It was just an iron foundry at the beginning. It was expanded into an arsenal after Yongle was moved to the capital.

This Wang Gong factory is very famous in history. However, this famous does not mean that the weapons and equipment manufactured here or the guns and artillery are famous. The reason why the Wang Gong factory is famous is because of a big explosion, an unprecedented and bizarre The incomparable big bang is called the Wang Gongchang big bang or the apocalypse big bang in history.

According to historical records such as "Records of Ming Dynasty", "History of Ming Dynasty", "Guoyan", "Beilue of Ming Dynasty", "Zhuzhongzhi" and other historical materials, this big explosion completely destroyed Shunchengmen Street in the east and Xingbu Street in the north. Tens of thousands of houses within a radius of more than ten miles caused at least [-] casualties.

In addition, in these historical materials, there are also huge pits with a width of [-] to [-] steps and a depth of two feet deep that were blown up on flat ground, stone lions weighing several thousand catties were blown away for more than ten miles, and more than ten large trees were blown to dozens of miles. Bizarre records such as inside and outside Miyun territory.

This also makes the Wang Gongchang explosion, the Tunguska explosion, and the Indian Death Hill incident one of the three unsolved mysteries in history.

Why do you say that?
Isn’t it normal for gunpowder explosions to cause house damage and casualties? Why is this one of the three unsolved mysteries in history?
In fact, the reason lies in the power of the explosion. According to a comprehensive analysis of various historical records, only the explosion of [-] to [-] tons of yellow explosives can produce such a large power. Gunpowder, that is, more than a thousand tons of ordinary black gunpowder.

Yellow explosives are special explosives developed by later generations, and their explosion power is at least five times that of black powder, but the explosion power of black powder in Wang Gong Factory is more than ten times that of yellow explosives, which is quite bizarre.

Some people say that this is definitely a meteorite from the sky, others say that this should be an explosion caused by an earthquake, and some even speculate that this is a big explosion caused by the crash of an alien spaceship, otherwise it would be impossible to have such a powerful force You know, in the Ming Dynasty, there was no yellow powder, only black powder.

Of course, the apocalyptic explosion has not happened yet, and the Wanggong factory is still there. Moreover, Taichang is planning to transform it into a factory specializing in the manufacture of muskets and artillery.

As for the gunpowder stored here, including the workshops for making gunpowder, he asked people to move all of them to Wulitun between Guangqumen and Zuoanmen, which is the southeast corner of the outer city. There is no one living within Yuli, and even if there is an explosion, not many people will be injured.

After a few days of moving and repairing, the Wanggong factory finally took on a new look, and the new type of artillery began to be cast. Naturally, Taichang couldn't wait to rush over.

This place was originally jointly managed by the Ministry of Industry and the Inner Palace Supervisor, and there are guards in the Beijing camp patrolling and stationing around. There must be no problem in terms of safety. After all the gunpowder is removed, there is no possibility of an explosion here, so he did not He didn't bring too many troops, that is, thousands of Jinyiwei escorted him.

The scope of Wang Gong’s factory is not so large. The right half of Guohongsi Street, except Yong’en Temple, belongs to Wang Gong’s factory. Inside a large circle of walls, there are cast iron workshops, foundry workshops, iron workshops, grinding workshops, etc. , there are more than [-] people, and there are more than [-] craftsmen and foremen.

At this moment, Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and Sun Yuanhua have all moved here, and they are organizing people to cast new-style artillery with great fanfare. The whole factory is crowded with people and is in full swing.

It's really big here, Taichang took Ge Cheng, Cao Huachun, Liu Shiyou and others around for about a quarter of an hour with a leading eunuch before arriving at the sand casting workshop where Sun Yuanhua and others were busy.

This is a big open tent, surrounded by a circle of bricks like a threshold, and inside are sandy fields like dry land.

Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and Sun Yuanhua were standing in the middle of several sand fields, directing more than a dozen craftsmen to dig things in the sand with excited faces.

The components of the first batch of ten light cannons have all been foundry and cast, and they are waiting to be pulled out for processing. They are naturally too excited.

This is also the reason why Taichang can't wait to rush over.

Question, why is this sand foundry workshop so crude? Taichang couldn't help but walked up to Sun Yuanhua and asked, "Chuyang, why are there no walls here? If it's windy and rainy, won't all the rainwater come in?"

Sun Yuanhua quickly cupped his hands, and replied excitedly: "Your Majesty, this sand-turning is a delicate job, if the light is not good, it is easy to break the sand mold, so the places where sand-turning is generally not built walls. "

Oh, so that's what happened, Taichang couldn't help but nodded slightly.

This kind of chatting between monarchs and ministers as if they were close friends is very common in Ciqing Palace, because Taichang has said that there is no need to salute when busy with business, and Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and Sun Yuanhua have long been used to this.

The craftsmen here were stunned by Sun Yuanhua's "Emperor".

This is the emperor!

Why didn't the emperor wear a dragon robe?

Why is no one singing "The Emperor is coming"?

The craftsmen who were busy working in the Shatian were all terrified, and quickly kowtowed and said: "The emperor forgives the crime, the villain does not know that the emperor is here, the villain deserves death!"

Uh, this.

Taichang thought for a while, and then said loudly: "Okay, get up, you can see me at work without courtesy, think about it, if you see me like this when you are pouring molten iron, then the person who loaded the molten iron Once the cauldron falls, you will not be scalded to death!"

All the artisans were taken aback when they heard the words.

These words seem to make sense.

Question, even if you are scalded to death, you can't be rude to the emperor!
Seeing this, Sun Yuanhua couldn't help raising his hand and said: "Okay, okay, this is the emperor's oral order, what are you thinking about there, hurry up and continue reading!"

After hearing this, all the craftsmen climbed up cautiously, picked up the wooden hoe and rake beside them, bent down and continued to turn over in the sandy field.

At this time, Taichang picked up a sub-cannonball on the flatbed cart and looked carefully.

The iron lumps from the sanding are not as good-looking as the finely crafted wooden models. The surface of the entire sub-cannonball seems to be covered with ant nests, full of fine holes and sand, and it is hard to process it.

He picked up a few small parts and looked carefully for a while, and Sun Yuanhua couldn't wait to say: "Okay, five sets have been assembled, you continue to look here, old Li, quickly push this car to clean it."

When an old craftsman heard the news, he quickly called the two boys beside him to push the cart and went out.

Sun Yuanhua asked impatiently, "Your Majesty, do you want to go and see it?"

Of course, I just came to see how you process the artillery.

Taichang nodded without hesitation and said, "Let's go, I'll go and have a look with you."

When Sun Yuanhua heard the words, he quickly led the crowd to follow.

The cleaning place is not far from the sand casting place, and everyone followed the flatbed cart for more than a hundred steps to arrive.

This is also a big open hood, inside is a half-person-high water tank, Lao Li pushes things in and yells, and the people inside surround the flatbed truck, each of them picks up a part, knocks it on the ground carefully for a while, and then Pick up the iron brush and soak the parts in the sink to clean them skillfully.

This job seemed simple, but the old man carefully checked every cleaned part carefully.

After a while, he threw several parts to the ground aside.

Obviously, these are all waste products that have not been cast well.

Sun Yuanhua couldn't help but twitched a few times, but he didn't speak, because this kind of simple sand casting is the easiest to produce defective products, and it's normal to lose a few.

After this cleaning, more than a dozen defective products were produced. Sun Yuanhua didn't say anything, just waved his hand, and ordered the old Li to push a cart of parts to the reaming workshop.

There are walls in this workshop, but there are only three walls. The side facing the passageway is not. There are all kinds of reaming machine tools inside, some are horizontal and some are vertical. There are more than a dozen large and small. .

Taichang didn't say a word, just watched from the sidelines, while Sun Yuanhua, Bi Maokang and Wang Zheng directed the craftsmen inside to fix various parts on different beds and prepare to open the hinges.

Generally, these craftsmen are used to the approachability of these three adults. As long as no one calls the emperor, they are all normal, and they are all busy with the work in hand, without any expression of restraint.

The work of reaming does not seem to be complicated. It is roughly to insert the prepared reamer into the hole of the part, and then turn the reamer. It is a reamer. First use a small rough reamer, and then change to a larger one Make a fine hinge, and then replace it with a fine hinge that meets the required size, and it will be done.

The small holes on parts such as the gun door and the gun lug seem to be easy to hinge, just a few clicks, but the barrel and sub-shells have problems as soon as they are finely hinged.

This kind of large hole is reamed with a vertical bed, probably because it is easy to press the reamer in. Generally, a craftsman only needs to stand on the millstone-like turntable and lightly jump a few times with the reamer. There was no problem, but when it was finely hinged, a craftsman just stood on the turntable and squatted down. With a click, the outer wall of the shell below it cracked.

(End of this chapter)