Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 307 Death
Taichang, Sun Yuanhua and others tested the firing, and they have figured out several key factors that determine the range of the artillery.

The ratio of the length of the barrel to the caliber of the gun is the most critical factor. It can be said that the greater the ratio or the multiple, the farther the range of the gun will be.

Rifling can increase the range of artillery to a certain extent. Although this increased range is not unlimited, engraved rifling is the best choice under the existing conditions.

Because it is not possible to make too long barrels at the moment, and the caliber of the artillery cannot be too small. If the caliber of the artillery is small, the shells will become smaller accordingly. In this era when the lethality of the shells basically depends on its own weight. , making the shells smaller is obviously a bit of a waste of time.

In other words, it is not advisable to increase the range of artillery by increasing the length of the barrel or reducing the caliber of the artillery, at least not in this year.

Because the shells cannot be made too small these days, and to increase the range of the artillery, the barrel must be lengthened, and the longer the barrel, the more difficult it is to process, and the barrel length of more than one foot cannot be mass-produced.

Therefore, Taichang chose to increase the range of the artillery by mainly engraving rifling.

This engraved rifling is relatively simple.

However, rifling is not without problems at this time.

Because they used manpower to pull the reamer to engrave the rifling when they made samples.

This method is okay to make one or two doors and try it out, but it will definitely not work if it is mass-produced.

After all, the human output is not balanced, and even the speed at which one person pulls the reamer cannot be constant.

That is to say, if the rifling is carved by pulling the reamer manually, it is very likely that the rifling of each gun will be different.

This kind of mass production is not feasible, but the rifling affects the range. If the rifling is different, the range will definitely vary.

That is to say, if a reamer is used to engrave the rifling by manpower, it is very likely that a thousand five-hundred-jin Thor cannons will have a thousand ranges, and the range difference may reach several feet or even tens of feet.

What is the accuracy of the artillery produced in this way?

The gunner who controls the artillery is probably going to be nervous when encountering this kind of mass-produced artillery!
Therefore, the process of pulling the reamer to engrave the rifling must also be performed with a steam engine, so as to ensure that the engraved rifling is exactly the same.

There is a problem here. If a steam engine is used to pull the rifling reamer, the steam engine must move with the rifling reamer.

When the steam engine is activated, the pipelines that transport the steam must also be activated.

Question, at the moment, the official roads conveying steam are all made of copper pipes. When the steam engine is turned on, don’t these copper pipes burst directly?
This problem is not impossible to solve.

The method is actually very simple, that is to make a thicker rubber hose to connect.

As long as a hose is made of the high-temperature-resistant rubber used as a sealing ring and connected to the steam engine, the steam engine can also move within a certain range when it is working.

Although this method is simple, it needs to consume a lot of precious rubber.

You know, a sealing ring doesn't use much rubber at all, and a rubber hose that is several feet long or even ten feet long consumes a lot of rubber.

At the moment, the Qiongzhou government has no way to produce rubber. Their only source of rubber is the [-] barrels of raw rubber shipped by the Spaniards from the Americas every year.

Ten thousand barrels of rubber sounds like a lot, but if it is used to make this kind of rubber hose, it is not much, because a barrel of raw rubber can't make a few of these rubber hoses!

Fortunately, this kind of breech bed does not need to be made too many, and one or two is almost enough.

Because the efficiency of rifling is quite high, it is no problem for a bed to pull the rifling of one hundred barrels a day, but at this moment, it is impossible for the cannon factory to produce two hundred cannons a day.

When Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and others heard that Taichang was going to use the precious rubber in this way, they were really in pain.

However, they still made the rubber hose according to Taichang's request.

Moreover, they also improved the breech bed according to Taichang's request.

On this day, Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and others invited Taichang to the steam engine factory again.

They have already finished the bridging bed, and it is quite beautiful, and they have also improved the areas that Taichang asked for improvement.

For example, the way to fix the barrel.

It turns out that the gun barrel is fixed at one end, because the lathe can also clamp one end of the gun barrel.

If it is fixed in this way, the barrel will actually shake a little when it is rotated, and the rifling effect will definitely not be very good.

They directly added a few bearings at the other end as a support, supporting the other end of the barrel.

In this way, the barrel will not swing, and the bearing will not hinder the rotation of the barrel.

There is also the reamer for pulling the rifling. Originally, one end is fixed, and it is inevitable that there will be shaking when pulling the rifling, so the engraved rifling will definitely be affected to a certain extent. They have also changed it to be fixed at both ends.

This is more complicated, because the other end of the reamer is a large turntable that drives the barrel to rotate.

The method they chose was to directly cut a hole in the middle of the large turntable, and added a sliding seat and a thick copper tube that was fixed quite firmly at the other end.

In this way, the breech bed made is a bit long.

The bed that rifled the five-foot-long barrel was more than ten feet long.

The bed that rifled the one-foot-long gun barrel was more than two feet long.

When Taichang saw these two beautiful big guys, he couldn't help but nodded in appreciation: "Well, if you do well, you should be bold. Don't be afraid to make the machine tool bigger. As long as it can realize the function, it doesn't matter how big the machine tool is. "

Bi Maokang, Wang Zheng and others were not excited when they heard the words.

Because they feel distressed, just that one foot long rubber hose has ruined most of their barrels of rubber!

They haven't had such a luxury yet.

However, after the broaching bed has been improved, the effect is indeed much better, and the operation is not so troublesome. You only need to clamp the barrel, fix the reamer, and then open the two air valves in turn.

Anyway, there are a lot of [-]-jin Thor cannons at the moment, and all of them need to be rifled. Taichang directly ordered people to bring dozens of such barrels to test the newly made breeching bed.

The efficiency of this new broaching bed is also much higher than that of the original bed that was randomly modified with a lathe. When the rifling is pulled up, one barrel is pulled, and one barrel is pulled after another. up.

Taichang was watching with enthusiasm, but Liu Shiyou suddenly ran over and hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, the imperial concubine is about to give birth!"

Ah!
When Taichang heard this, he immediately left everything behind and hurried to Qianqing Palace.

Fortunately, the imperial concubine Wu Wan'er just started to suffer from abdominal pain, at least one or two hours before giving birth.

Taichang saw that Wu Wan'er, who was usually innocent and lively, was lying on the bed moaning in pain, and he was really anxious.

The problem is, he can't help with the childbirth!

He was about to go up to comfort him, but his mother-in-law, Mrs. Chen, came up to her and bowed her body, "Your Majesty, I want to discuss something with you."

What are you discussing at this time?

Although Taichang was anxious, he followed his mother-in-law to the door.

Mrs. Chen hesitated for a moment, but still gritted her teeth, and said carefully: "Your Majesty, it's not that the concubines can't trust the female officials in the palace. However, the concubines still think it's better to invite a few stable women from the people. The Wen woman has delivered more babies than the female officials in the palace, and she has seen all kinds of scenes."

this!

Hearing this, Taichang couldn't help thinking of the terrible death rate of the prince and princess.

You know, he originally had seven sons and ten daughters, but only two sons and three daughters survived.

The mortality rate is also terrible.

So, what is the reason why the prince and princess died so easily?

There are rumors in later generations that there is radiation in the palace, which is not good for people's health, this is bullshit!

Although there were not many emperors who became emperors in the Ming Dynasty, there were still some, such as Jiajing and Wanli, who had been emperors for more than 40 years.

If there is really deadly radiation in the palace, it is not easy for an emperor to live to be 40 years old, let alone an emperor who has been an emperor for more than 40 years.

The reason why the prince and princess died so easily is probably because the female officials in the palace are inexperienced.

Because they can also deliver babies to concubines in the palace.

When the emperor can give birth again, he can give birth to dozens of them at most.

That is to say, these female officials have at most dozens of delivery experiences in their lifetime.

The folk Wenpo is different. It is estimated that they deliver more than a few dozen children a year.

As for bringing children, let alone.

What kind of experience can the female officials in the palace have with children!
As for the concubines, it is the same, because after they enter the palace, they basically have no chance to contact the outside world.

This may be the fundamental reason why princes and princesses tend to die young, because everyone is inexperienced!
(End of this chapter)