After sighing, Xu Guangqi opened the wine bottle, poured two glasses of wine, and took out two snacks from the case, and began to pour himself up.

Looking at the wine in front of him, Zhu Youxiao just looked at it and didn't drink it, while Xu Guangqi was not surprised and drank it by himself. The wheels rolled, went out from the doorway, spared the fence, and walked along the road that had been planned for a long time.

"Here's the winery, here's the dam, here's the newly built dock......"

Xu Guangqi picked up a scroll of atlases that had been placed on the desk a long time ago, and after unfolding it, while pointing to the sketch, he introduced Zhu Youxiao to the Tiangong workshop that has changed greatly now.

The whole Tiangong workshop is distributed along the Yongding River, from the former site of the Tiangong workshop closest to the capital, it flows upwards and towards the east bank of the river, and now it extends out, only more than ten miles away, which can be called a small city. Today, more than 100,000 people are working under the command of a large number of officials from the Ministry of Industry.

If the Red Pill Rebellion Case was a storm that blew over the upper class, then this Tiangong workshop was a storm that blew in Jingshi and even the entire Beizhili, where almost all the idle laborers around worked here, mixing three meals a day and thirty wages.

Although the scene here is large, but roughly calculated, it is only a million taels of silver, and the income from the seizure of those officials is far more than this amount, and there is no need to use Zhu Youxing and the savings of Zhu Ming's royal family for generations. The savings of 30 million taels are like a devil, constantly bewitching Zhu Youxiao, making him let go of his hands and feet and do a lot of work.

The Tiangong workshop now occupies a vast area, and the scene is grand, even if it is a carriage, it takes a morning to browse this face, and when I return to the original site, after hastily having lunch, it is almost three o'clock in the afternoon.

Due to the thick walls of the city, the fortified area, and the excellent secrecy, the former site of the Tiangong workshop was used by Xu Guang as a research and development base to conduct various experiments and imitations, while other areas were used as a place for large-scale production. Zhu Youxiao handed over to Xu Guangqi to imitate the flintlock pistol here.

After everyone had eaten, Xu Guangqi led Zhu Youxiao to a secret factory, which was very similar to the workshop of later generations, with all kinds of tools, and more than a dozen craftsmen of the grade were working hard here. After glancing around, Zhu Youxiao was quite relieved, the people who can gather here are all top craftsmen, representing the most profound technology of the Ming Dynasty, they can create any exquisite parts with just one hand.

Chinese are very smart, and Chinese craftsmen are even more so, they have exquisite craftsmanship and have created countless inventions that amaze the world, but they pay too much attention to the improvement and inheritance of their own skills, and never think about how to promote, how to simplify and popularize technology. And this is precisely what is taboo in the tide of industrialization.

"Your Majesty, please see, this is a finished product imitated by the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry." Xu Guangqi came to a workbench and picked up a musket and introduced.

"Come, old Yu, take this musket apart." Xu Guangqi beckoned and asked the old craftsman with a gray beard who was waiting next to him to come over.

"Come on, Lord Xu." The old craftsman laughed, skillfully dismantled the musket, and cut off the parts one by one to introduce, "This is the barrel, this is the flint, this is the trigger, this is the medicine pool, pull the trigger and pass through the ......."

Lao Yu may be old, and when it comes to his professional things, he can't stop talking, introducing them in a verbose manner, and even trying to explain in detail the firing principle of this flintlock pistol, how can Zhu Youxiao not know this.

With a wave of his hand, he stopped the other man's movements, then picked up the musket himself, looked closely, and slowly assembled it. This close observation, he had to sigh for Lao Yu's craftsmanship, it was really ingenious, and each award was polished round and smooth, very accurate.

With a few clicks, Zhu Youxiao recalled the action of dismantling just now, and assembled the musket in a few clicks, and the whole musket adopts a riveted structure, which looks like a whole, like a handicraft. Picking up the gun, he put it down after a few false aims.

"This musket is good, but unfortunately it is not practical." Zhu Youxiao sighed and said with a little pity. The whole musket is made of stainless steel, the barrel is round and flawless, and the inner chamber is polished smooth and round, like a handicraft, which cannot be done in a short time.

"Indeed!" Xu Guangqi also nodded, "At that time, I handed over the flintlock pistol to Lao Yu, who has the best ability to make firearms, but unfortunately he understood the wrong direction and spent a month to create this musket. ”

"Fortunately, when he asked me for credit, he was discovered, and he was busy asking him to reuse ordinary materials and make some more." Xu Guangqi glanced at the somewhat embarrassed old Yu next to him, and picked up a musket from the table again.

Zhu Youxiao took it and looked at it, this one was much more normal, the barrel was wrought iron, and the butt still had log burrs, except for the inner chamber that was as smooth as that one, everything else was more than one grade worse.

"What is the range, how much does it take, what is the time?" Zhu Youxiao played with the musket and asked three questions in one breath.

"If you use the new type of granular black powder, you can reach a range of one hundred and twenty steps, and if you are powerful, you can pierce through the iron armor within sixty steps." Xu Guangqi thought about it and reported a test data, this value surprised Zhu Youxiao, to reach this level, the musket is already useful. A musket of this caliber is already twice as powerful as the fifty steps of the Luminous Gun piercing through the iron armor.

Don't look at the rebellious forbidden army's projectile that night can reach a distance of hundreds of meters, that is, a distance of about seventy or eighty steps, but the bow and arrow of that level basically has no power, as long as it is an armored unit, it can basically be ignored, and this kind of projectile can only deal with unarmored soldiers.

"Your Majesty's particle gunpowder is really a miracle skill, and it increases the effective range of the musket by ten steps out of thin air." Xu Guangqi sighed.

At this time, the bow and arrow power of the Qing army, twenty steps through the iron armor, fifty steps through the cotton armor and the like, and then there is nothing to be done in the face of the armor. Ten more steps will give you ten more steps of strike distance, which can already determine the victory of a battlefield.

The ancient step is a double step, that is, the modern two steps are an ancient step, and the distance of one step is about 1.5 meters. Ten steps is fifteen meters. In other words, after the use of granular gunpowder, the muskets of the Ming Dynasty had an attack distance of about fifteen meters more than the bow and arrow. When the two armies faced each other, the bows and arrows of the Qing army were not yet lethal, and the muskets of the Ming army were already able to penetrate the iron armor.

The Ming Dynasty also had a Lu Mi gun, which was a very sophisticated arquebus, which could pierce through the iron armor within fifty steps, and if it was used well, it was also a big killing weapon. Although Zhu Youxiao developed a flintlock pistol at this time, it was made of cast iron, and the range of the musket should be about the same as that of the Lu Mi gun.

The reason why there are more than ten steps is entirely because of the use of granular gunpowder technology, which can slow down the combustion of black powder, so that the musket can obtain a stable chamber pressure, and avoid the problem that the powdered gunpowder burns too fast, resulting in the problem that the projectile burns out before it is discharged.

With the use of black powder, the barrel can be made longer, so that the projectile can gain more acceleration time and increase its power.

"In this way, it is necessary to find a balance between the material and range of the firearm, as well as the amount of charge." Xu Guangqi is a university scholar and has a deep understanding of Western science, and Zhu Youxiao's explanation immediately understood.

"Yes, that's it, but the most important thing is the material of the forging musket, that is, the quality of iron, if you use a hundred steels to make a musket, I am afraid that it can pierce the iron armor a hundred steps away." Zhu Youxiao replied, thought about it, and then asked, "The most critical thing about the musket is the barrel, how much can this kind of useless barrel be produced now?" ”

Xu Guangqi did not answer, but lowered his head to think, silently thinking in his heart, after a while, he said, "With water power, the forging of iron is much more convenient, after making a suitable thickness of iron plate, and then there is a blacksmith to roll the abrasive, this is a water grinding kung fu, forging can not be too hard, not too fast, otherwise the forging is uneven, and the inner diameter of the iron pipe is also easy to deform." ”

"This is the most important process of barrel manufacturing, and it is also the most time-consuming, if you are familiar with it, plus the inner chamber polishing and scrap products in the back, it will take about half a month to produce a qualified one." Xu Guangqi slowly gave an answer, "If there are about 500 blacksmiths with such skills in the palace workshop today, there will be 2,000 muskets produced in a month. ”

Two thousand!

This number may sound like a good number, but you must know that today's palace workshop gathers all the craftsmen of the entire Ming Dynasty Ministry and the Inner Court, so that there can be this number.

"If you have a thousand, if you accumulate it for a few months, it will barely be enough, so let's make sure that the length of the musket is determined, and then we will produce it in full force, and when we are producing, we will also test it to see if there is a better way to speed up the forging of the barrel." Zhu Youxiao nodded and gave an order.

"How's the artillery casting going? Take me to see it. Zhu Youxie asked about the others, but without waiting for Xu Guangqi to answer, he changed his attention again, "Forget it, I don't know how to cast cannons, so take me to see you erect a blast furnace." ”

"Your Majesty, please."

Under the leadership of Xu Guangqi, Zhu Youxiao followed to another place, and he was not idle in the past, throwing out the advanced technical terms he had seen several cannon casting, what iron mold casting cannon, what cold inner core casting, what mold was erected to cast cannons, and so on. The Chinese language is broad and profound, and as soon as Zhu Youxiao finished saying a few words, Xu Guangqi probably thought of how to apply these techniques.

After thinking about it carefully, his eyes flickered, and he was full of brilliance, but he didn't expect His Majesty to have so many wonderful ideas, which was really breathtaking. He can't be sure what these technologies will be, and he can't guarantee whether they can be used, and they still have to be developed in detail, but only based on his personal experience and vision, if they are really applied to practice, they will definitely be able to greatly improve the speed and quality of casting guns.

If there are enough manpower and materials, it will not be a problem to have thousands of artillery pieces in a month. In the era of underdeveloped industry, it has always been easier to do big things than small ones.