King of German Mercenaries

Old Johnson's family, soon took a boat to Texel Island. At the same time, Old Johnson brought many of the tools of his cannon workshop in Weld to the ship. Among them, there are dozens of air-dried mud molds.

When the old Johnsons arrived on Texel Island, Marin arranged for them to build a cannon workshop on a small river south of Denborg. In addition, in order to facilitate the use of hydraulic machinery by Old Johnson, Marin also specially issued male labor throughout the island. In the upper reaches of the river, a dam was built to raise the water level to facilitate the use of hydraulic machinery in Old Johnson's cannon workshop.

However, Old Johnson told Marin that the 12-pound heavy cannon he is currently casting is actually very easy to blow. It's just that this chance is not too big. Moreover, the qualified rate of casting heavy artillery and artillery is less than 20%. The remaining 80% are waste products.

He also knew this well. Heavy artillery casting is a difficult problem. This problem was not solved until the time of the American Civil War by an officer named Rodman. This is the so-called "Rodman casting method".

Alas, although Marin knew it well, he did not want to tell the old Johnson this way. Because, old Johnson is a British subject. If Henry VII thought of him one day, an edict, Old Johnson might return. According to the contract, Marin could not stop him.

For this reason, Marin intends to keep it secret for the time being. Then, in the serf family on the island, he picked a group of smart young people, let them enter the forge gun workshop, and learned the forge gun with Old Johnson. Marin's plan is to wait for these "owners" to learn how to cast cannons, and then let them try the "Rodman casting method".

For the 12-pound cast iron gun that Old Johnson said is still easy to explode, Marin thought for a few days and finally thought of a way ...

The reason why the old Johnson's cast iron cannon is easy to blow up is obviously a material problem and has nothing to do with the technology of the cannon. The source of the material for his cannon was naturally a cast iron block produced in Sussex. In order to satisfy the old Johnson cast gun, Marin has sent ships to import a large number of cast iron blocks in Sussex, England.

These cast iron blocks are all pig iron and are not suitable for casting guns. But Marin has a way to process these cast iron ingots into cooked iron ...

The specific method is to put these pig iron imported from Britain into a reverberatory furnace for refining. Then, the refined wrought iron is cast into iron ingots to obtain the wrought iron ingots. The appearance of the wrought iron and pig iron is not much different, and the old Johnson could not see it. And the old Johnson held the refined wrought iron casting cannon, the quality must be greatly improved. Moreover, the old Johnson would not understand the mystery ...

As a result, Marin recruited several young blacksmiths on the island's serfs who knew how to make iron, and they were responsible for refining pig iron imported from Britain into mature iron.

To this end, Marin sent people to buy refractory materials, built a few simple "earth" reverberatory furnaces, using coal from Huffman Manor as fuel, to refine pig iron.

The reverberatory furnaces of these soils are actually large crucible furnaces. The surrounding furnace walls have been thickened in accordance with Marin's instructions to prevent heat loss. In addition, the crucible furnace has special air inlets and outlets to supply oxygen for refining. In order to increase the oxygen supply, the air inlet is also equipped with a special hydraulic blower. In order to make **** and remove sulfur and phosphorus, Marin also sent ships to Amsterdam to buy slagging agent-quicklime.

This is different from the Puddling kneading method that was popular in the 18th century in England. It is a combination of Puddling kneading method and Hundsman crucible method. The reason why the low-cost Pudrin method is not used is because the temperature of the smelting method is low, only 1400 degrees, and the quality of the refined steel is only better than that of pig iron, and not as good as that of open hearth steel. However, this also has some disadvantages. The main reason is that fuel consumption is high.

However, because it is an important artillery, Marin can bear it, even if it costs more. After all, gun quality is important to the safety of Texel. For civilian use, ordinary pig iron is sufficient. It is not necessary to use high-quality and high-cost wrought iron and low-carbon steel.

In this way, under the guidance of Marin, a semi-suspended "brick house", several local serf blacksmiths in Texel began to use the crucible reverberatory furnaces that were more primitive, and began to refining pig iron ingots imported from Britain. . In order to obtain high-quality steel, Marin extended the originally refined 6 to 8 hours to 10 hours. Although fuel-hungry, Marin didn't care. Because this is the steel used for casting cannons.

Uh ...

While worrying about the problem of casting guns, Marin suddenly remembered that he should pay attention to the problem of shipbuilding.

时代 The era of great sailing has begun, and when Da Gamma leads the fleet to India next year, the big sailing trade in Europe will officially begin.

In any case, Marlin is unwilling to miss such historical moments. So he began to build ships and teams for voyages.

For this reason, Marin personally came to the Frisian fishing village and selected 80 young Frisian fishermen who were willing to be sailors.

However, these fishermen are obviously not trained to become qualified sailors. The experienced sailors who know how to sail in the oceans are mainly concentrated in Portugal and Spain.

However, many nautical talents in Spain are not cultivated by themselves, but are imported from outside. For example, the discovery of Columbus for the Americas for Spain was actually a Genoa (harmony) from Italy.

Only Portugal. Because of Prince Enrique, he has trained a large number of maritime talents and sailors and is a true maritime power.

As for another more powerful maritime power, Venice, because it is only active in the Mediterranean Sea, it is not good at ocean navigation. Because the Mediterranean is relatively calm and there are no storms at all. It is completely different from sailing on the Atlantic Ocean and is not comparable.

So, Marin thought about it, decided to send someone to Portugal, hire high-paying experienced captains and sailors, and train these young Frisian fishermen to make them truly qualified sailing talents.

Of course, it is not enough to have sailors and captains, but also ships. To this end, Marin decided to send someone to Spain and Portugal to buy two larger Clark sailing ships.

As for the size of the ship? Marin decided to refer to Dagama for India's flagship, the "San Gabriel".

圣 "San Gabriel" is 27 meters long, 8.5 meters wide, 2.3 meters draught, 178 tons of displacement, and installed 20 Fran machine guns. This is the data for future generations. Although Marin did not see the flagship when Da Gama set off in July next year, he has long been familiar with these data.

As a result, Marin wrote down the data of the "San Gabriel" and gave it to his men, intending to let them go to Spain and Portugal to buy two similar ships. By the time the sailor and captain are trained, it is almost time for Da Gamma to leave. At that time, Marin intends to let his two ships follow Dagama's fleet to pick up ready-made peaches ...

Alas, Marin knew that neither Clark nor Calavel were suitable for ocean sailing. The Caravel sail is too small to sail in shallow waters. The Wadden Sea is quite suitable for Caravel sailing, but ocean sailing is not as good as Clark sailing.

However, Clark sailing boat is too wide, it has high resistance on the head, can't get up fast, and it is easy to run aground. Columbus found the flagship of the Americas-the Clark ship "Santa Maria" stranded on Haiti.

Let's talk about the best sailing ship in the big voyage. Of course, it is the legendary Galen boat ...

Speaking of it, the flying shears that developed later were faster. However, the clipper ship is too thin to fit artillery ~ www.readwn.com ~ This is a big disadvantage.

You know, there are many pirates in the era of great sailing. A ship without artillery is very dangerous. Therefore, in general, it is still better for Galen ships, not only can they have self-insurance capabilities, but also have a large cargo capacity.

In Marlin's mind, there are data and models of the legendary American warship "Constitution". Because, during his previous birthday, one of his sailing classmates gave him a model ship of the "Constitution". Marin was placed in the room, and every day, he was basically familiar with the shape of the Constitution.

Umarin intended to build a gallen ship, so a shipyard was needed. When it comes to the shipbuilding industry, Venice is the most developed. However, the man-made boats in Venice are only suitable for sailing in the Mediterranean. To build ocean-going ships, you have to look at Portugal. Although Spain is stronger, sailing is less important than Portugal. Therefore, at this stage, the strongest ocean-going ship builder is Portugal.

As a result, Marin decided to send someone to Portugal to recruit a group of shipbuilders to build a shipyard in Tholencher, first building Clark ships and Caravel ships. When the time is right, build a gallen ship.

To this end, Marin once again contacted Jewish merchants and asked them to go to Portugal to help recruit skilled shipbuilders. The reason for finding Jews is that Jews are most likely to do business and buy people, and their footprints cover most of Europe, except for Spain, which is still a very popular place. Moreover, Marin now has a serious shortage of talent and has to resort to Jews. Therefore, when recruiting captains, sailors, and shipbuilding craftsmen, Marin had to turn to Jewish merchants and pay a lot of commissions ~ www.readwn.com ~ Welcome the book readers to read the latest, fastest and hottest serial works Just at ~ www.readwn.com ~ Mobile users, please read.