Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 84 Stimulation
Is Taichang really addicted to the harem and unable to extricate himself?

of course not.

He just wanted to take advantage of this rare free time to take a good rest. After all, he had been busy since he narrowly escaped death in the Hongwan case.

During this period of time, he was rectifying the harem, cleaning up the Qi Chuzhe Party, and cleaning up the Donglin Party, and he was always on the lookout for Wei Zhongxian, a mad dog. In order to increase taxes, he traveled to South Zhili and almost lost his life. Nanzhili hadn't finished his work yet, and another major incident happened in Liaodong, so he didn't even have time to catch his breath.

Now that he finally has some free time, he naturally wants to take the opportunity to take a rest.

Because the Shenji Battalion has already taken shape at this moment, it is enough to leave it to Qi Jin to practice, but the horses and guards of the Shenwu Battalion have not yet arrived, so he can't practice it even if he wants to.

As for Wei Zhongxian's secret tricks, he certainly knew that he deliberately turned a blind eye to want Wei Zhongxian to gain an advantage as soon as possible and clean up Donglin.

It's a pity that the happy time is always short-lived. After he had only rested for a few days, Bi Maokang suddenly ran over excitedly and told him that the model of the new flintlock gun had been made!
This thing is too important, because once the Shenji Battalion is equipped with enough new muskets and artillery, he will be invincible even in the face of the slave cavalry.

This is extremely important to turn the tide of the battle, so naturally there should be no delay.

He immediately followed Bi Maokang to the Ciqing Palace, and took over a brand new flintlock model from Prince Zhu Youxiao.

This new type of flintlock gun is really eye-catching. Bi Maokang not only hid the flint ignition device in the gun body according to his requirements to prevent the gun from being unable to shoot due to rain, but also designed the bolt, front sight, bayonet, etc. It's quite delicate.

This thing can already be regarded as an advanced weapon beyond the times.

He took the baby and checked it carefully, and felt that there was nothing wrong with it, so he stuffed the model gun into Bi Maokang's hand with excitement, and said excitedly: "Meng Hou, just follow this, and let Wang Gong's factory open the model immediately. Trial production, I will go over tomorrow to see the effect of the new gun."

He doesn't know much about mold opening and casting, so it's fine to let those experienced craftsmen do it. Anyway, it will take a night to cool down after casting before turning it out for processing. It's useless for him to go to Wang Gong's factory right now.

Early the next morning, after the morning court, he came to Wang Gong's factory excitedly.

At this time, Old Li had already led the craftsman to dig out the parts of ten sets of flintlock guns and cleaned them up. Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and Song Yingxing were already standing there rubbing their hands, waiting for him to come and start processing. .

Of course, he waved his hand without hesitation and ordered to start work!
There is a saying that is good, the ups and downs of life are too fast, it is too exciting.

The processing had just started, and Taichang was so stimulated.

He was happily waiting to test the gun, but there was a constant "click, click" in the processing workshop.

The barrel of the gun would crack as soon as it was barreled, because he required the barrel to be a cast iron pipe, not the old rags rolled up with a thin iron sheet.

It’s not that he doesn’t know how to pretend to understand, and he insists on showing his ability. The barrel rolled out of the thin iron sheet is really not good, and the iron sheet will be heated and deformed after a few shots, which is too easy to explode.

This is also one of the reasons why the Ming army has never used muskets as regular equipment for large-scale replacements. The barrels processed with thin iron sheets are too dangerous. If you are not careful, the enemy will not hit it, but your face will bloom. What? all?
Generally not experienced musketeers really dare not use.

If you use cast iron pipes, it will be different. As long as there are no trachoma and pores in it, the chamber will basically not explode if you do not blow up the chamber when you test the gun.

The problem is that the barrel of this gun cannot be made too thick. If it is as thick as the barrel of a gun, it may not be able to play without strength.

Therefore, the barrel designed by Bi Mokang is only one inch thick.

Just like this, a one-meter-long gun barrel weighs almost as much as a wrought iron bar, twenty or thirty catties!
It's a pity that cast iron is too brittle these days, with no toughness at all, and the thickness of an inch is not enough, and a reamer pokes it in, and it will split directly.

Not to mention the gun bolt and the bullet case. Due to the volume limitation of the gun body, the thickness of these two things is less than an inch, and the reamer pierced it into it and cracked it even more.

Ten sets of parts, other processing procedures have not yet started, the barrel, bolt, and bullet casings are all cracked, and no one is spared.

Bi Maokang was so anxious that the skin on his hands almost rubbed off, and Taichang's face was covered with black lines.

What's going on here?
The three most important parts cannot be processed, how can this new type of flintlock be produced!

Taichang frowned, then asked Sun Yuanhua, "Chuyang, do you have a solution?"

Among the three people, Sun Yuanhua is the most familiar with casting technology. Bi Maokang's specialty lies in design, not production. Wang Zheng's specialty lies in machinery, which is not in the same field as casting.

Hearing this, Sun Yuanhua frowned and said, "Your Majesty, to tell you the truth, the sub-cannonballs are actually very laborious to process because they are too thin and easy to crack. This minister is also having a headache because of this, but it is the easiest one. The demand for cracked sub-cannonballs is indeed the greatest. Ten sub-cannonballs for one artillery piece are too difficult. Alas, this is what is made of pig iron. It is brittle and brittle. If it is made of steel, it may not be cracked. , the problem, Baisteel is too hard, there is nothing to process it!"

Doesn't that mean you didn't say it?

Taichang thought for a while, and then asked: "Then what about other materials, okay?"

This one.

Sun Yuanhua said in embarrassment: "Gold, silver, copper, and iron. Except for iron, gold, silver, and copper are fine. Gold is the best, followed by silver. For copper, you can only use pure copper. Bronze is too brittle."

The meaning of this is obvious, it’s not that there is nothing to replace it, it’s that it can’t be used!

Taichang's eyes lit up when he heard the words, and he confirmed again: "Is pure copper really okay?"

Sun Yuanhua nodded helplessly and said: "Of course pure copper is fine, because pure copper is much softer than pig iron, it is easy to process, and pure copper is also high in toughness, the success rate of making sub-cannonballs is 30% if not [-]%. , even if it is a little thinner, it doesn’t matter. The problem is that we don’t have so much copper. A sub-shell costs [-] to [-] jin, and a barrel is at least [-] jin. A thousand cannons cost [-] million jin of copper. A thousand flintlock guns, including bolts and bullet casings, would require at least tens of thousands of catties of copper.”

If before, there was indeed not so much copper, Wei Zhongxian would have killed a doctor from the Ministry of Industry in order to grab the tens of thousands of catties of scrap copper, which shows how much copper is lacking at this moment in history.

However, now.

Taichang couldn't laugh or cry: "If you need copper, you should have said it earlier. Now Tongling alone can produce nearly 20 catties of copper in a month. What is this amount of copper?"

Ah!
Sun Yuanhua and Bi Maokang couldn't help but look excited when they heard the words, it would be easy if they had copper.

Bi Maokang couldn't help but rubbed his hands together and said, "Your Majesty, how about replacing all the parts of the flintlock gun with copper, so that the processing will be much easier."

Taichang nodded without hesitation: "OK, no problem."

Seeing the emperor's generosity, Sun Yuanhua rubbed his hands together and said, "Your Majesty, why don't the barrels on the cannon be replaced with copper ones, and the processing will be much faster that way."

Uh, a cannon weighs almost a hundred catties without counting the seat!
Taichang thought for a while, then nodded and said: "Okay, then replace them with copper ones."

At this time, you can't feel bad about money. Speed ​​is the most important thing. If you can build muskets and cannons one day earlier, you can turn the tide of the battle one day earlier. If you want Jiannu to continue to be crazy, you don't know what unexpected situation will happen.

(End of this chapter)