The end of the Ming Dynasty swept the world

Chapter 99
Li Zhongyi was silent for a moment, then his eyes lit up, and he said happily: "Your Excellency is really powerful, you can think of such a method."

Wei Jiye and Wang Weizhong who followed were both masters of using guns. They looked at each other and said in unison: "This will save a lot of time."

"And it's easy to carry."

For those like Qi Jiajun, carrying more than fifty bamboo tubes is already the limit, and they are all covered with bamboo tubes.

And with paper tubes, a hundred of them can't occupy the space of bamboo tubes.

The key is to increase the speed. Masters such as Wang Weizhong and Wei Jiye can reach the speed of one shot per minute. If there are enough ammunition and guns for them to practice, three shots in two minutes will be no problem in the future.

In Xu Dabao before, Ding Yi didn't have much ammunition and guns, so he didn't dare to let them practice.

Right now, he has plenty of money, some ammunition, and he needs to make a lot of guns, so of course he dares to train them.

After seeing gunpowder and shooting targets, Ding Yi led a large group of people to the place where guns were made.

Everyone followed Ding Yi, discussing a lot.

Today, almost all the important middle-level and above in the camp follow Ding Yi. Everyone has only one idea now, Mr. Ding seems to know everything.

Regardless of civilian ordnance, construction, farming, omnipotent, he can say a few words about everything, and he can say something important.

Everyone admires and respects Ding Yi more and more.

The firearms department now has eighteen craftsmen specializing in making guns.

They are divided into two waves, one wave is made of gun barrels by ten people, and the other is parts made by eight people. The parts made by each person are different, but the requirements are the same for each standard. Those who pass are rewarded, and those who fail are punished.

There are also apprentices to help. For example, in the early stage of the gun barrel, apprentices can do it. In the middle and late stages, the precision is high, but craftsmen can do it by themselves, which can save a lot of time and increase manpower.

When it comes to gun making, Li Zhongyi is an expert, and he introduced it to Ding Yi with great interest.

"Let's follow what the adults said and unify the standards."

"The total weight is required to be seven catties, and the error cannot exceed one or two."

"Six foot five."

The barrel of the Lumi blunderbuss, the longer the better, the more powerful, the longer the range, the greater the lethality.

The barrels of the original Lumi guns in the Naval Battalion were all four feet five or six inches long.

Dan Ding Yi invented granular gunpowder, which strengthened the power of gunpowder and improved the range and lethality.

Li Zhongyi shaped the gun barrel to four feet.

At present, they are all made of rolled steel sheets, and then fitted together by two large and small tubes. It is relatively simple to make steel sheets in the early stage, which can be done by apprentices.

Li Zhongyi kept Ding Yi's requirements in mind and paid close attention to the quality. Every gun barrel was weighed when it came out, and the wall thickness and length were measured to ensure that the error was minimized, especially the wall thickness must meet the standard.

The guns of the Ming army can explode because the craftsmen are not treated well, the manufacturing is rough, the wall thickness is uneven, the joints are careless, and they are not tight enough, which will cause the bombing.

"Don't worry, my lord, here, as long as there are enough materials, the brothers will do their best to make the best firecracker for you."

Li Zhongyi patted his chest to reassure Ding Yi.

He also quite likes this kind of work, because after all, he was a craftsman in his early years, and he didn't know how to fight. Now he doesn't have to go to the front line, and he has money and merit, which is quite suitable for him.

Ding Yi asked questions about materials and time.

"Each blunderbuss needs about thirty catties of iron material, and five catties of Sugang."

Li Zhongyi and his colleagues first used iron materials to refine them into refined iron. Thirty catties would yield about five or six catties, and then they added two catties of Su Steel to make it.

At present, Mintie is 0.15 yuan per catty, and 4.5 catties is about 0.5 taels. Sugang is 1 yuan per catty, and it needs [-] tael.

Coupled with the price of charcoal, the wages of craftsmen and apprentices, food and rice, the cost will reach 6 taels a gun.

Zhong Zhennu, who was next to him, used to be the firearms armor of the navy camp, so he immediately asked: "Fujian iron is more expensive, why not use other iron?"

Li Zhongyi smiled and said: "This Lumi gun was developed by Zhao Shizhen. He once said that Fujian iron must be used to make guns. The iron is dry and unusable. However, charcoal fire is the best for iron making. Charcoal is expensive in the north, so coal is used as a last resort. Fire replaces it, so there are more chambers to explode.”

This shows that he learned in practice that there is a big difference in material properties between steel smelted by charcoal fire and coal fire.

Hearing this, Ding Yi said: "Using coal as fuel, because coal contains more impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus, so steel contains more sulfur and phosphorus and is relatively brittle, so it is not suitable for guns, and charcoal is useless." Such a situation avoids this defect. In fact, it is not because of the iron, but because of the difference in ironmaking.”

People don’t understand what Ding Yi said about sulfur and phosphorus, but I can probably understand the meaning. It’s not that the iron in other places is not good, but Fujian Iron is smelted with charcoal fire, so Fujian Iron is good. Other suitable iron ore.

Mr. Ding really knows everything, and everyone is in admiration for a while.

The logistics department Du Ruhai thought for a while: "Then we need to make more iron barrels for burning charcoal?"

In the past, to make gunpowder, they used iron barrels to burn charcoal, which was of the best quality.

In fact, the price of this kind of charcoal is higher than that of coal, so on average, the cost of using or not using Fujian Railway is similar.

Of course, Ding Yi now makes his own charcoal, and relying on the abundance of trees near Lushun, the cost can be reduced a bit.

In particular, Fujian Railway needs to go to Fujian, Guangdong and other places to buy in large quantities. If you can make your own charcoal and train your own iron, the cost will definitely be cheaper than buying Fujian Railway.

"The charcoal used for gunpowder is different from the charcoal used for fuel. Just build a few places and burn a large amount." Ding Yi thought for a while: "Use hardwood first."

In the end, Li Zhongyi said, at the moment it is mainly the material that affects the time.

They are building a large iron furnace, which will take about two months to complete.

If the iron furnace is completed, the progress can be accelerated.

Because ironmaking now requires five or six refinements for pig iron to become wrought iron, and nine refinements for wrought iron to become steel.

Fortunately, Ding Yi just bought Sugang from Dengzhou, and Shen Shikui sent wrought iron.

As far as their materials are concerned, without the need to make steel, eighteen craftsmen and dozens of apprentices can make about 25 excellent Lumi guns a month.

After listening to this, Ding Yi said to Li Zhongyi with a solemn face that a thousand-jin iron furnace is not enough, but according to the current level of technology, this is also the limit of what Lushun craftsmen can do.

He asked to choose a good site, and the goal was to build ten such iron furnaces within two years.

Li Zhongyi opened his mouth, this will cost a lot of money and manpower?
But he didn't say it. Ding Yi rarely spoke with a serious face, which proved that this was what Ding Yi valued the most. He nodded immediately: "I will definitely complete the task of adults."

Ding Yi thought for a while, and then said: "The craftsmen are all here, everyone should use their heads more, think of ways to improve the Lumi blunderbuss, who can think of a way to make the Lumi blunderbuss hit farther and faster."

"The production time has also been shortened, my official, there will be rewards for every reward."

Everyone listened attentively, with serious expressions, and many craftsmen were thoughtful.

(End of this chapter)