Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 421 Royal Salute
The two followed His Highness out of the Yamen and came to the north of the Treasure Shipyard.

To the north is a large alfalfa field, surrounded by fences.

"This is the place where the governor's mansion grows fodder, and it is temporarily borrowed by the king." His Highness smiled and said, "Guess what it is for?"

The two secretly rolled their eyes, and heard roars coming from inside from a long distance away, which must be used for shooting cannons.

"That's right, this is my king's artillery field!" Pointing at the temporary wooden fence gate, the sixth child said triumphantly, "The old father allocated all the cannon-casting craftsmen of the Inner Court Staff Bureau to this king! Now here It's the Municipal Firearms Bureau!"

"That's it! The emperor really supports His Highness!"

"Although Ouchi's cannon-casting masters have been assigned to Shibo Division." Yu Tongyuan and the others were very excited, they all knew that Ouchi's cannons were of the best quality.

In fact, the method of casting cannons is the same, but the closer the department is to Boss Zhu, the higher the production quality will be.Because something went wrong he really killed.

~~
The guard of the Firearms Bureau is Zhu Zhen's Chu Wangjun, and his uncle Hu Quan personally serves as the director of the bureau, which shows how much His Royal Highness Chu Wang attaches importance to it.

Artillery came out in the Southern Song Dynasty, developed in the Yuan Dynasty, and reached its first small peak in the troubled times at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.The Yuan army and the peasant army had already commonly used artillery when besieging the city. Zhu Yuanzhang used forty artillery when he besieged Suzhou.

Moreover, in the Poyang Lake water battle, Zhu Yuanzhang also creatively put the artillery on the ship, which caused a lot of damage and great shock to Chen Youliang's Invincible Fleet.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang attaches great importance to the development of artillery, regards firearms as secrets, and does not allow the spread of firearms technology.

But the chaotic times at the end of the Yuan Dynasty were too short-lived, and the main enemy of the unified Ming Dynasty became the rogues on the grassland.No general dared to go deep into the grassland with such a heavy artillery, so that without waiting for the Mongols to fight, the nightmare logistics would drag down the Ming army first.

Suddenly losing the artillery of demand, she became uninterested like a former favorite concubine who was thrown into the cold palace, otherwise Boss Zhu would not easily agree to Lao Liu's request.

Fortunately, it has only been a few years since the cannon casting stopped, and the craftsmen are still...

Zhu Zhen summoned more than 100 cannon casting masters from the Firearms Bureau, and encouraged them with love to comfort their neglected hearts.And Xu doubled the wages to increase the performance, which really made the gunsmiths excited again!
"However, the king's salary is not so easy to get, you have to complete the task with high quality!" Zhu Zhen changed the subject and said loudly: "So you have to ask yourself first, after all these years of wasting, how can the cannon-making work be done?" Have you lost your craft?"

"No!" The craftsmen said in unison without hesitation: "Don't worry, Your Highness, the craftsmanship has not been lost at all!"

"Oh? So confident?" Zhu Zhen couldn't help laughing.

"Return to Your Highness." The chief gunsmith Luo Xiang explained loudly: "Although we haven't cast cannons these years, we have been casting bells all the time. Bronze bells are also cast with mud film, which is exactly the same as the casting technology, and the two can be seamlessly switched of."

"Why are you roaring so loudly?" His Highness King Chu's ears rang from his shock.

"The villain tried the cannon back then, and almost deafened his ears..." Luo Xiang hurriedly explained with trepidation.

"Is that so. Did you just say bronze bells and bronze cannons?" Zhu Zhen asked again, "What about iron cannons?"

"Return to Your Highness," Luo Xiang explained: "Pig iron is brittle, and it will cause great damage after blasting; copper cannons will not hurt people even if they explode. Moreover, copper cannons have fewer defects, high precision, are easy to make thinner, and are much lighter in weight. So, our Bingzhang Bureau only makes copper cannons, and the iron cannons are left to the low-level craftsmen of the Military Weapons Bureau of the Ministry of Industry to make."

When he said the last sentence, all the gunsmiths showed pride, as if they were very proud of their status as royal craftsmen.

"Understood. Copper cannons have many advantages over iron cannons." Zhu Zhen nodded, and asked again: "But copper cannons are also much more expensive than iron cannons, right?"

"That's..." The gunsmiths immediately lost their composure.

The country is seriously short of copper, and Boss Zhu has to print banknotes instead of copper coins. How can he have spare copper to make guns for them?So now the Ming army is using iron cannons cast by the Ministry of Industry.

"As for iron cannons, we generally know how to make them," Luo Xiang panicked, lest His Highness would lose interest in making cannons.He hurriedly put down his airs and said, "We can also learn, we can also build."

"Yeah, there's no way to do it." The craftsmen also echoed.

It's not that they have a soft spot for casting cannons.It is a niche product such as copper bells, which has too little demand.Moreover, it is a super durable product. A bell cast in a temple can be used for hundreds of years. The craftsmen have too little work to uncover the pot!

"Who do you take this king for? Can I use second-rate goods?" Zhu Zhen waved his hand and said in a rough voice: "If we want to make it, we will make the best one! Isn't it just copper? If you have money, you still worry No copper!"

"Yes, yes, our eyes are too shallow, and we dare to underestimate His Highness's financial resources!" Luo Xiang and others hurriedly admitted their mistake happily.

"Your Highness means that buying copper with money is not melting money into copper. Don't think about it, let alone talk nonsense." Teacher Luo, who was on the side, reminded me in a deep voice.

Because the imperial court strictly prohibits the melting of copper coins, talking nonsense will cause trouble for His Highness.Although His Highness already had the posture of not biting too many lice.

Teacher Luo did remind Lao Liu, and told him in a low voice: "Change the donation task of the big family in Suzhou from copper coins to copper ingots."

As for how the big households obtain the copper ingots, it has nothing to do with His Highness.

"Yes..." The corners of Luo Guanzhong's mouth twitched, feeling a little sympathetic to those big dogs.This old sixth can really squeeze wool, and repeatedly squeeze it, and squeeze it into the bald place...

~~
After interviewing the craftsmen and visiting the crude cannon-casting workshop, Zhu Zhen and his party came to the cannon-testing field which occupies the largest area.

More than a dozen cast copper cannons have been placed. The sound of the cannons that Yu Tongyuan and others heard before was the final adjustment made by Luo Xiang and the others.

According to Zhu Zhen's first glance, these bronze cannons can be roughly divided into two types, one is thick and short, and the muzzle is like a sea bowl. Luo Xiang introduced that this is called "bowl mouth cannon".

The other type has a slender body and a teacup-like muzzle, which is called a 'zhan muzzle gun'.

Luo Xiang asked His Highness to retreat to a safe distance, and ordered people to demonstrate the two types of artillery separately.Amidst the thundering roar, the characteristics of the two types of artillery were clearly displayed in front of His Highness the King of Chu.

The ballistic of the bowl mouth gun is curved, so it adopts a projectile similar to a mortar, and can launch large-caliber shells. It is a siege weapon.

The small-mouth cannon shells are small and have a straight trajectory. They can be fired flat and are more suitable for field battles.

As for the power, anyone who knows the unspoken rules of the cannon field must have full special effects, so that the audience will enjoy watching it...

After the demonstration, Luo Xiang asked His Highness politely, what else can I order?

"Fire the cannon at the mouth of the bowl and see." His Highness really had instructions.

"If you shoot flat, the range is not enough..." Luo Xiang said awkwardly.

"Shoot." King Chu said lightly.

"Yes." Luo Xiang had no choice but to order the cannon to be flattened, and the effective range was less than a hundred feet when the cannon was fired.

The king of Chu ordered to move the wooden board used as the target to a distance of fifty feet, and the cannon could only be aimed at the mouth of the bowl, but the power was so amazing that the wooden board was shattered in one shot.

"That's it!" Yu Tongyuan and Yu Tongyuan, who had been expressionless all this time, finally showed joy.

(End of this chapter)