"Arms dealers are in no hurry." Zhang Bolin said, "Can we also equip ourselves with smoothbore guns, there are too many blank spots in firepower now." The three turrets on the Bopu Highway do not have a cannon, and Bairen City also does not have a single cannon. In addition, we always have to build an indigenous army. Indigenous armies could form artillery units with smoothbore guns. In this way, it will be converted into an Armstrong gun in the future, and a group of qualified gunners will be trained. ”

Zhang Bolin, an artilleryman, is most concerned about the artillery team he dreams of, no matter what kind of artillery it is, it is better to have it than not to have it.

It was felt that this suggestion was reasonable, even if the cost of manufacture and the need to arm the indigenous army were ignored, the cost of use of smoothbore guns was much lower, because smoothbore guns were not rifled, so shells could theoretically be anything that could fit into the bore, and there was no need for elaborate shells, the simplest was a solid iron ball, which was acceptable even in the 19th century on land and sea - in fact, solid shells were the most common shells until the smoothbore guns withdrew from the arena of war. Much more reliable than grenades with dubious lethality.

"Well, we can also develop some special spherical shells, such as grenades and incendiary bombs."

"There's another benefit that you may not even be aware of." Wang Luobin said, "Mr. Wen's theory of generation difference. ”

"The theory of generation difference?"

"In this plane, at least in our lifetimes, we are outsiders. And in order to conquer and rule, we have to rely on the help of the locals. So sooner or later an indigenous army will be created. ”

Once the indigenous army is established, because of its large number, it will inevitably become the main armed force through the country.

No matter how much effort you put into brainwashing, political work, and control, the army, as a violent machine, will become greedy once it realizes its strength, and they will strive for more power and interests, while the liliang of the traverser itself is limited. The only way is to keep the jishu generational difference.

The 20mm flintlock pistols of the indigenous forces are equipped with bolt-action rifles. This ensures that a very small number of people can suppress a large crowd. Similarly, if the Traverser could make 92 infantry guns himself, the best artillery for the indigenous army could not exceed 37mm guns.

This theory has not yet been perfected, and he is now thinking every night about the future military institutions and political organizations -- "the perpetuation of the country of the traverser" is his goal.

After several days of preparation, the work on the casting of the cannon began. As a jishu reserve and practice, the artillery group will first cast a traditional smoothbore gun. Generally speaking, smoothbore guns are best made of copper, and the life of the gun can reach almost 1,000 rounds, compared to the life of cast iron guns is only 600 rounds. However, copper is much more expensive than iron, and it is a precious industrial raw material for travelers, and the pig iron bought by Deng Yingzhou from Guangdong has excellent quality and low sulfur content. Ideal for casting cannons.

Historically, the pig iron in the Fujian and Guangdong regions of the Ming Dynasty was known for its superior quality, and the iron-making workshops in this area used charcoal as fuel to make iron, and the sulfur content was much lower than that of pig iron smelted from coal in the north. Sulfur is a major factor in making pig iron brittle and deteriorating in quality. The people of the Ming Dynasty could not understand this reason, but it became a consensus at that time that the artillery cast in the south was stronger than that in the north. So much so that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, large-scale cannon casting was carried out in Guangdong. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli, when Xu Guangqi was ordered to train troops to defend the capital, he suggested that the imperial court recruit craftsmen from Fujian and Guangdong to cast cannons in Beijing. In the third year of Chongzhen, he invited himself to go to Guangzhou to cast cannons, the reason is: "there are many craftsmen, the iron material is particularly fine, and the price can also be saved by one-third ......" and in the early years of Chongzhen, Wang Zunde, the governor of Liangguang, cast 200 cannons at one time.

Wang Luobin suggested whether to recruit a few masters from Guangzhou who were good at casting cannons to demonstrate the traditional Chinese cannon jishu, and everyone had an intuitive concept before improving it. Lin Shenhe said that there was no need: in 1628, not to mention the level of Chinese gunsmiths, even the level of cannon casting technology of the Europeans who learned from the law at that time was not much higher. There is no need for the traverser to learn from them.

In the book, Matteo Ricci talked about the problems of Chinese artillery at that time: the charge was small, the firing range was short, there was no crosshair, it was impossible to aim, the outer mouth of the gun bore was wide, the inside was small, and it could not effectively gather fire gas, and the inside of the gun bore could not be qualified round, and the gun bore was not boring. The shells are as big as you want and even in any shape. The projectile clearance is too large. The gun had no lugs and was top-heavy, and if the charge was too dense, it would explode upside down and explode when fired.

The Hongyi cannon introduced at that time was essentially no different from all kinds of traditional artillery manufactured and equipped by the Ming army, all of which were smoothbore front-loading guns, using black fire yao and solid shells. However, thanks to the understanding of science, European artillery has some obvious advantages in terms of design, such as the thicker wall of the barrel, the larger diameter of the gun, and the thicker body from front to back. Therefore, it has advantages in terms of range, lethality and safety. The gun body generally has a crosshair and a light door, and the gun body is cast with lugs, which is convenient to be erected on the gun car, and it is easy to adjust the firing angle and move.

The smoothbore cannon that the Traveler wants to make can be roughly regarded as a Hongyi cannon, but the blueprint is slightly more advanced, imitating the 6-pounder cannon of the French army in the early 19th century. THE EFFECTIVE FIRING RANGE OF THIS GUN IS 500 METERS, THE MAXIMUM FIRING RANGE IS 1500 METERS, AND THE WEIGHT OF THE GUN BODY IS ABOUT 250KG.

Lin Shenhe and Wang Luobin decided to first adopt a 17th~18th century Western cannon casting method, which also required the manufacture of clay molds.

They asked a wood processing factory to process a batch of special wood molds: conical timber used as supports, and gun tail molds made of turning. After completion, the first thing to do is to start with the blank of the male mold. First, the shape of the cannon was tightly wound with straw rope on the conical wood used as a support. At this time, there is still a margin of about 25cm from the final size. Then the plaster mixed with clay and water is evenly pasted layer by layer on the male mold wool. Wait for the top layer to dry thoroughly before you can paste the next layer.

When applying, they make the whole male mold a little larger than the actual size of the cannon, because the casting shrinks. When the zuihou layer of plaster has dried and the shape has been corrected, a layer of wax is applied to the outside of the male hairy coat - if paraffin wax is missing, beeswax is used instead. The surface of the male mold will be smooth, and the negative mold will not stick to it in the next process. The gun tail is a wooden mold made of a car, which is fixed to the male mold wool with screws.

After the completion of the male mold, he began to use it to make casting molds for casting guns. The casting mold is a semi-liquid marl made of clay, clay, fine sand and water mixed on the male mold layer by layer. Again, one layer should be dried thoroughly before applying the next layer. After it is completely dry, add the stiffeners of the iron bar to the outside of the mold.

After the mold is completely dried, the male mold should be taken out by cutting the head and tail of the casting mold, taking out the conical wood of the inner core of the male mold, and then pulling out the winding straw rope. Because there is a layer of wax between the male mold and the casting mold, it is easier to take it out, but if it is really difficult, the wax surface can be melted by heating to cause the void to break away. The molds for the gun tail are made separately.

The third part of the mold is the core, which is made of clay attached to the iron bar, usually a cylinder, but may have a special shape in the part where the fire is installed. The core is loaded into the main mold, and the iron core brace mounted at the tail of the main mold and the clay ring at the muzzle part of the mold hold the core in place.

After the three molds are firmly assembled, the molds are completely solidified, and the zuihou molds are buried in the pit next to the furnace with the muzzle facing up. Jiang Ye designed and installed a wooden hanger that could lift the entire mold, because the need for casting cannons was not taken into account when the iron furnace was built, and the floor of the steelmaking workshop was hardened. As a last resort, another iron melting furnace was built in the foundry, but because there was no need to make iron, the metal could simply be melted, and the furnace did not use a regenerative furnace. The runner is one out of four. Ji Wusheng personally came to guide, and Zhan Wuya himself also had some experience in casting, so the first casting was very successful.

After the casting is completed, it will be kept warm for 24 hours before being dug out of the mud pit. After further cooling, the stiffeners on the outside of the mold were removed, the mold was broken, and the artillery team used hammers and chisels to remove the remaining ash from the gun.

Zuihou, this cast-iron 6-pounder cannon is cast. It also requires further processing, which is to be boreted and polished in the breech. The mechanical team built a simple boring machine to process the gun chamber, and the power did not even use an electric motor or a diesel engine, but a donkey. The donkey drives a winch to drive a boring bar, and at the top of the boring bar is a rifling knife made of high-carbon steel.

The boring operation can greatly improve the finish of the inner wall of the gun, but after measurement, it is found that the boring process cannot really cut a cylinder or correct the deviation of the core of the casting process. Hard residues can also be very damaging to the boring bar during the entire process. In other words, the process is too expensive.

"No wonder in 1713 it was changed to drilling." Lin Shenhe was a little frustrated. The drilling method is to first cast a solid iron rod, and then use a drilling rig to drill out the gun chamber. This jishu was first used by the Dutch, but it was not fully developed until the late 18th century, and the British naval arsenal continued to manufacture naval guns using the casting method described above until 1770.