Capital Datang

www.x.om "Boom~"

Before Li Yin and the others reached the artillery manufacturing area, they heard a thunderous explosion from inside, followed by a commotion inside.This shocked Li Yin and the others, thinking that something had happened inside, they all hurried towards the artillery manufacturing area.

But when Li Yin and the others rushed to the scene of the incident, there was no scene of casualties everywhere as they had imagined. What appeared in front of them was a group of disheveled craftsmen, discussing something around a big pit.

"Xu Wei, what happened just now?" Li Yin saw an acquaintance among the disgraced people, and immediately shouted angrily, the explosion just now was not a normal cannon sound, there must have been an accident.

Hearing Li Yin's voice, a guy of medium height with a dusty face in the crowd turned his head to see Li Yin and the others, with a serious look on his face, and stepped forward a few steps: " Please refer to Your Highness, just now this subordinate and others are testing the cannon, but there is a problem with this kind of cannon itself, so the first shot blew up the chamber." Capital Datang 350

The person who spoke was Xu Wei whom Li Yin called just now. This Xu Wei used to be a coppersmith who specialized in making all kinds of copperware for others. Later, he was selected by Li Yinxiang and hired heavily to help develop the artillery. He made a lot of contributions to the launch of the artillery and is now in charge of managing the artillery production area.

Hearing that it was an explosion, Li Yin couldn't help feeling a little nervous, and immediately asked, "How is it? Are there any casualties?"

Exploding the cannon is not fun, not only the cannon will be blown up, but also casualties will be caused if you are not careful, and the craftsmen who develop the cannon are all priceless treasures, and Li Yin will be very heartbroken if there is any damage.

"Don't worry, Your Highness, we were all well protected in advance, and we were all far away, so we only ate a few mouthfuls of dirt, but no one was injured!" Xu Wei bowed and said.And Li Yin finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, other craftsmen also reacted, and they all stepped forward to salute Li Yin, and Li Yin laughed and asked them to die without courtesy, then told them to pay attention to safety, and finally asked about the specific reasons for the bombing accident.

But Xu Wei gave a wry smile after hearing this, picked up something from the ground and said, "Please look, Your Highness, this is our test artillery."

Li Yin took a closer look.He found that it was a piece of artillery shell that had been blown up, and when he took the piece into his hand to examine it carefully, he found that the piece was actually made of pure steel. This made Li Yin very surprised and said: "Xu Wei, you have already Have you started developing steel cannons?"

Although Li Yin also knew that most of the cannons of later generations were made of steel, but in the era of Tang Dynasty, he didn't have the extravagant hope of getting it right in one go, so at the beginning he asked people to use bronze trial-produced cannons.Copper is more malleable than steel, and bronze is strong enough.Compared with steel, it is more suitable for making guns. The only disadvantage is that the gun body is a bit bulky, and the price is relatively expensive, but there is nothing at present. Li Yin only needs to make the gun first, so he still chose to use copper at the beginning. Build cannons.

Speaking of the front-mounted slip-boring gun that Li Yin wanted to build, there was really no big problem. The only thing that had to be solved was the sturdiness of the gun body.In addition, the diameter of the inner bore must be consistent and smooth enough. These problems have been studied by Xu Zhi's craftsmen.It was quickly overcome, so the development of the bronze cannon has been very smooth, and it can now be put into actual combat.

However, the bronze cannon was not what Li Yin really wanted, so after the bronze cannon was successfully developed, Li Yin ordered Xu Wei and other craftsmen to improve the current bronze cannon, and at the same time asked them to think about using cheaper and stronger steel. They came to make cannons, but they didn't ask them to do it right away. I didn't expect to come this time, and I saw that they were already doing trial production.

Seeing that Li Yin saw that what he was trial-manufacturing was a steel cannon, Xu Wei couldn't help showing a confident smile and said, "Your Highness, this is exactly the steel cannon, and this is not the first time the chamber has exploded. After so many experiments, the subordinates have already "touched" some tricks, presumably after a while, it will not be too difficult to create a usable steel cannon."

"Okay!" Li Yin patted Xu Wei's shoulder excitedly after hearing this, and praised him loudly. Of course, he did not forget the other craftsmen present, encouraging them to use their intelligence and talents, and think of what others don't know. Dare to think, as long as the artillery can be improved, then he, King Qi, will not be stingy with rewards.

And these craftsmen also knew Li Yin's generosity, so they were all full of energy when they heard his words. After Li Yin asked them to disperse, these people immediately returned to their posts excitedly, and carefully considered the existing artillery. There is room for improvement.

Next, Li Yin was accompanied by Xu Wei, and roughly visited the production process of the artillery, but now the artillery production is all bronze, so there is also a bronze production factory here, with [-] craftsmen in it. Bronze was all used to produce bronze artillery.

Li Yin is actually not interested in these production techniques and the like. What he needs most is the results of these techniques, so after a cursory turn around the artillery production area, he immediately took everyone to the rear of Perak Island. , there is a very secret army stationed here, the number is not large, only 500 people, of which 1000 are musketeers, and the remaining 500 are artillery. It is these people who make the constant roar on Perak Island.

Li Yin and his group passed through a valley, and soon came to a relatively flat highland, which was divided into two parts, and a relatively flat part was built as a school field. Teams of Musketeers stood on the school field, practicing Shooting the target, I saw that these soldiers formed a team of three rows. After the soldiers in front aimed at the target in front and fired a shot, as a puff of black smoke rose, they immediately backed away, took the time to clean the barrel, and loaded the gunpowder and gunpowder. Bullet, and at this time the second row stepped forward and fired again, taking turns, the flying bullets formed a continuous barrage, fully exerting the power of the musket.

In another larger area, five hundred artillerymen manipulated bronze cannons, firing one after another at the distant mountain peaks. Although the power of solid bullets was not great, every time After a shell hits the ground, it will hit the rocks on the mountain and scatter in all directions. If it is used to attack a city, as long as it does not encounter a fortified city like Chang'an, it must have a good effect.

It's just that Li Yin also found the disadvantage of the artillery, that is, the rate of fire is too slow. After a cannon is fired, it is necessary to immediately cool down the cannon body, and then clean the barrel, charge, ignite and other steps. After these steps are done, it will take 2 minutes at the fastest, that is to say, the rate of fire of the artillery is at most 2 minutes.But there is no way around that, after all, this is a common problem with front-mounted artillery. As for rear-mounted artillery, Li Yin guesses that he doesn't have to think about it in the past few decades.

In addition, the shooting range of this kind of bronze cannon is also very short, usually up to two miles. Of course, if you are not afraid of exploding the chamber and put more gunpowder inside, the shooting range can be improved, but this It depends on your luck, if there is a bang, the cannonball fails to hit, and you hang up first.Capital Datang 350

For Li Yin's arrival, someone immediately came forward to greet him. He was tall and thin, wearing a strange military uniform, with a dark complexion, and a scorched yellow beard under his chin. He looked old-fashioned. I know he is the kind of unsmiling person.

"My minister Liu Rengui, see Your Highness!" This tall and thin man is Liu Rengui. At the beginning, Li Yin transferred him from a small county captain to Qi Wangfu, and then entrusted him with important tasks. They have been collected and used, and they are still the kind of loyal people, so Li Yin also let Liu Rengui take care of two such important things as muskets and cannons.

Speaking of it, Liu Rengui is indeed a rare talent, no matter what he does, he can do it very well. At the beginning, Li Yin asked him to promote the method of drying salt. Salt production accounts for almost one-third of the national salt production, but now with the promotion of sun-dried salt method, many sun-dried salt farms have appeared in other places, so the proportion of Dengzhou salt has decreased.

However, Liu Rengui is not only an administrative talent, he is an all-rounder in both civil and military affairs, not only capable of writing, but also capable of martial arts. He brought out the 500 hot-armed troops in front of him, and according to some valuable experience put forward by Li Yin , Let him completely build this army into an elite army with firearms. If there is a battle with the same number of people, it is estimated that there is no other army in the world that can compare with them.

"Rengui, get the venue ready, I want to fire a few shots myself!" Li Yin looked at the curious Yifan beside him, and ordered Liu Rengui with a smile.Although he had been here a few times before, but because there were too many things to do, he couldn't spare time. In addition, the muskets were indeed not safe at the beginning, so until now, Li Yin has not really fired the muskets he made.

"Your Highness, please!" Liu Rengui has a strict temperament, and he didn't talk nonsense when he heard Li Yin's order, so he immediately led them to the leftmost side of the school grounds, where there was a separate shooting range, and when shooting 』Beside the shooting range, there is a small warehouse.

"Your Highness, there are some different muskets in this warehouse, all of which were trial-produced by craftsmen in Maejima. Some of them are inferior in performance, and some of them are even better than those used by sergeants now. Unfortunately, the cost is too high. It's expensive, so it can't be widely promoted, you can go in and pick one that suits your hand." Liu Rengui opened the door and pointed to the musket on the shelf inside.

Li Yin and Yifan walked in with great interest, and found that there were several rows of shelves next to the wall in this small warehouse, and some muskets were placed on them. Some of these muskets had strange shapes, and some were similar to those used by soldiers outside. As soon as Li Yin entered the door, he immediately saw the first musket on the shelf on the right, but when he looked at this gun, there was a strange smile on his face.

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