prosperous age

Chapter 138 Chapter 137
"Bang bang."

In the distance came two short cannon shots, the sound of which was muffled.

"Go and see the effect."

Zhang Shigui, who was standing at the front of the crowd, spoke at this time.

There is already a certain distance from the Jiujiang Wharf, and far away from the place where they test the artillery, there is still a team of soldiers standing guard on duty.

Several nearby soldiers started to clean the barrel after firing the cannon, and were ready to reload, but when they saw the crowd approaching, they all temporarily stopped their movements.

Zhang Shigui led the crowd and did not stop at the artillery position, but passed through them and continued to walk forward. About fifty steps ahead was a mountain wall. At this moment, the originally intact mountain wall had been severely damaged by a large number of small lead. hole.

Looking at the crowd that had already moved forward, Wei Guangde did not follow, but squatted next to a cannon and observed carefully.

The gun body of this artillery is about 2 feet from the beginning to the end. Seven iron hoops are added to the gun body.

However, this gun was not placed directly on the ground, but a small hole was dug at the tail of the gun to fix the tail of the gun, and the two iron claws on the gun body were also inserted into the ground, all for fixing the gun.

Wei Guangde touched the breech of the cannon, feeling a little hot.

"Is the belly of this gun two inches? How much ammunition is loaded in each shot? How much lead?"

Wei Guangde saw that the gun was relatively thin, and the gun wall was not too thick, but because it was too thin, the caliber of the gun was also small.

"Have."

A soldier next to him knows Wei Guangde, he is a soldier of the Wu family, so he naturally knows who the teenager in front of him is, this is Wei Xiucai, Wei Wenqu.

Well, Wei Guangde was very satisfied with the answer he got, which was in line with his impression that the bigger the body-to-weight ratio, the better.

The length of the cannon is about two feet, and the running diameter is two inches, which is almost ten times the ratio of body to tube.

Although it is incomparable with 40 times or 50 times of future generations, the current level of technology should not be bad.

You must know that the craftsmen of the guards who cast this cannon are not the master craftsmen of the Beijing Armament Bureau and the Weapons Bureau. It is already very good to be able to make it without exploding the cannon.

The man went on to say: "This cannon costs six dollars for medicine every time it is fired, wrap it in cloth in advance and put it away directly."

At this time, the cleaning of the gun bore was completed, and Wei Guangde stood there watching the gunners reload, and also listened attentively to the man's introduction.

This man is the leader of this team of personal soldiers, so he is the only one who is free, and the others are working hard.

A gunpowder bag wrapped in cloth was put into the gun barrel, and then someone stuck a stick into the gun barrel and pounded it. It should be compacted gunpowder.

But at this point, they stopped moving and did not continue to load ammunition.

Wei Guangde didn't ask, because he saw that in the box next to him, there were small lead pellets and a few larger ones, about the same size as the gun barrel. bomb.

Wei Guangde knew that they were waiting for orders, and there were quite a few big figures in front of the gun muzzle at this moment, so they didn't load the gun with ammunition, also for the sake of safety.

Wei Guangde felt that what he looked at here was almost the same, similar to putting a bowl-mouthed gun, but this one looked smaller and lighter than the bowl-mouthed gun.

Immediately, Wei Guangde smiled and nodded at the captain of the personal army, and hurriedly chased after the person in front.

Soon, Wei Guangde arrived at the mountain wall. Zhang Shigui, Wu Zhankui and Wei Daddy had already stood here for a while, measuring the impact area of ​​the shotgun.

Wei Guangde walked from left to right, and estimated that more than 200 lead shots fired by these two cannons had a killing width of about 20 meters.

The lead fell into the soil, Wei Wencai and Wu Dong measured the depth of the soil, about an inch.

But these are not important, because Wei Guangde has heard the discussion of Zhang Shigui and others.

"Fifty steps to break armor is no problem."

"Well, the iron armor will also be pierced. If the two cannons are placed one step apart, they can hit a width of twelve steps, which is pretty good."

"Has this gun been tried in Pengze?"

At this time, Zhang Shigui turned his head and asked Wu Dong.

"I tried five or six cannons, and the two are almost the same."

Wu Dong hastily answered his uncle's question.

"Then let's try the power of solid bullets."

Zhang Shigui had an idea in mind, nodded and smiled and said to the others.

"it is good."

"As it should be."

Naturally, Wu Zhankui and Wei Meng would not refuse.

Not long after, there were two more cannon shots from the gun emplacement.

Still, the crowd went through the gun positions to the mountain wall to check the shooting power. Wei Guangde first went to touch the temperature of the gun barrel, this time it was much higher than the previous one.

As the soldiers cleaned the barrel with a wooden stick wrapped in sackcloth, the temperature of the barrel also dropped, but it was still very hot.

"If this cannon is fired continuously, how many times can it be fired?"

Wei Guangde felt that the heat dissipation of the gun barrel was a bit poor, and he was very worried about the properties of the iron material these days.

Well, back then when I was still in Bengshan Fort, I often heard people talk about the explosion of firearms.

In fact, Wei Guangde knew that some of these news might be true, but a lot of them were fabricated, in order to make him less likely to touch the blunderbuss.

Just kidding, everyone knows that firearms explode, will other guards still practice firearms?
How could there be so many accidents where firearms exploded.

When I was in Bengshan Castle, I didn't see anyone else use this thing except myself playing with firearms.

Even if some gunpowder was allocated from above, it was my father who took it to the city and exchanged it for money and firecrackers.

This is little Wei Guangde's memory, but now Wei Guangde firmly believes it.

"Up to five shots, the body of the cannon is hot, and you can't continue to fire the cannon. You need to cool down before you can continue to fire."

The soldier captain immediately said, "I tried it in Peng Ze before. After firing five cannons in a row, the craftsman and the gunner touched the cannons and said they couldn't continue to shoot."

Wei Guangde shook his head with a smile, not because he disliked the low number of shots, but because he felt that there were not many chances for this thing to fire a second shot.

With the loading speed of these personal soldiers, at a distance of fifty steps, when you are still preparing for the second shot, they are almost running in front of you.

Even if the opponent's speed is slower and you are asked to fire after loading, it is absolutely impossible for the third shot to be fired.

The next two cannons were fired three more times, a total of ten cannons were fired. Zhang Shigui and others stood beside the cannons, reaching out their hands to caress the hot barrels.

They also knew about the test conducted by their cousin in Pengze, and now they came to inspect the gun barrel in a similar manner.

"Five times is enough, such a short distance, unless you defend the city."

Zhang Shigui was very satisfied with the performance of the iron cannon, and nodded to Wu Zhankui and Wei Meng.

"Yeah, the range of this cannon is not far. For field battles, I guess two cannons are the limit. If you want to defend the city, you can prepare cold water to cool down."

Wei Meng also agreed.

"What do you think of our proposal?"

Wu Zhankui was standing next to Zhang Shigui and asked in a low voice, apparently because he wanted to collect those bronze cannons in the guard.

"It's feasible. Let's think about it again when we go back. We will have a meal at the mansion during the Chinese New Year, and we will finalize the matter then."

Zhang Shigui nodded slightly and said.

(End of this chapter)