Winter turned to spring, when Li Zicheng laughed and burned Luoyang City and Fuwangfu and opened the seal, and Emperor Chongzhen could only cry angrily and helplessly.

The north and south of the river once again showed some spring. However, Liaodong is still a land of ice and snow.

However, this year is different from previous years, for the first time in many years, the military and civilians in Liaodong no longer have to worry about the "grabbing the west" of the eastern Tatars, and they no longer have to worry about their lives all day long.

It's been a great year!

From Jinzhou to Dalian, although it was cold, the faces of the common people were smiling. Even for the people in Jinzhou and other places, for the first time in many years, they have had a stable and warm winter - last year, General Zu opened a coal mine outside Jinzhou City, dug out a lot of coal, and naturally there is no need to worry about heating in winter.

Of course, the people of Jinzhou do not know that this coal mine is also extremely important to Dalian, which is across the sea, and the Dalian iron plant needs both high-quality iron ore from the Fangbao Yinsu iron ore in the Datong River Estuary, as well as high-quality coal coking from Jinzhou.

In this relatively primitive era of metallurgical technology, high-quality raw materials are the fundamental premise to ensure the quality of firearms, and low-sulfur and low-phosphate iron ore is the best raw material for casting guns, the reason why the British Navy can dominate the sea, Sweden's low-phosphorus iron is one of the most important reasons, when the Spanish and French gunners are frightened and worried about the cannon explosion, the British gunners can fire unscrupulously.

Even, the explosion of the chamber, is also the Ming Dynasty bird gun soldiers are most worried about the thing, in order to reduce the possibility of bombing, they have reduced the charge, many people will blame the Ming Dynasty corruption, but in fact, the most fundamental reason is the quality of raw materials, China's iron ore itself is generally sulfur, phosphorus content is higher, the result from the Song Dynasty and embarked on the "heresy" of coal refining, the sulfur, phosphorus and other impurities in the coal into the molten iron, further deteriorate the quality of iron, sulfur and phosphorus seriously exceed the standard resulting in brittle iron, naturally easier to blow up.

Therefore, after the establishment of the Dalian Arsenal, Zhu Guoqiang has not relaxed the quality control, first based on the early 19th century stone iron-making blast furnace in Europe, built two iron-making blast furnaces with a weekly output of 100 tons. This was followed by the construction of simple coke ovens, which were initially made locally and later switched to Jinzhou coal, which had a lower sulphur and phosphorus content. The iron ore comes from Yinli, where the quality of low-phosphorus and low-sulfur iron ore may not be as good as that of Benxi, but it is far superior to other iron ores in China.

High-quality raw materials ensure the quality of Dalian firearms, however, sometimes quality is not the first priority.

"Shi Ziye, now the artillery for sale, we use an iron mold, first cast an iron mold with a sand mold, and then cast a cannon with an iron mold, not to mention the fast casting speed, and the cost is extremely low, but because the iron of the cannon is purchased scrap iron, a pound costs 20 yuan, and the price of a cannon iron costs 50 taels of silver, if we replace it with our own iron, the cost can be at least doubled......"

In the workshop where the cannon was cast, watching the craftsmen take out the fiery red cannon body from the iron mold, and then use tools to directly level the cannon body and gun chamber, Zhu Guoqiang said with a smile.

"The quality of our iron is too good, these cannons are sold to Jiannu, they can't be used so well, and if it weren't even for the sake of appearance, there was no need to level the cannon body."

The quality is too good, but also quite helpless, in order to ensure the "poor quality" even have to use high-quality scrap iron, which is even more helpless, but this is no way, after all, these cannons are "export goods".

"Lord Shizi, our iron-cast cannon can shoot 1,000 rounds without a problem, and the maximum with inferior iron is three hundred and forty or fifty rounds, hey, the cost is too high, and it's not cost-effective." I made a lot of money! ”

Chen Yujie's tone was quite regretful.

He is not only a cannon caster, but also the head of the arsenal, as Xu Guangqi's nephew, although he has not won the imperial examination, but because he has followed Xu Guangqi to learn Western studies since childhood, he has made great achievements in astronomy and military, so he entered the calendar bureau in Beijing in the second year of Chongzhen to participate in the compilation of the calendar, and in the twelfth year of Chongzhen, he was recommended by Shi Kefa to become a doctor of Qin Tianjian. After Li Chuang conquered the capital and Chongzhen was martyred, he served as the secretary of the military department of the Hongguang Dynasty, responsible for the supervision of firearms. However, after the Qing army captured Nanjing, he committed suicide and martyrdom on the observatory of Jiming Mountain.

However, now his fate has undergone some changes, last year he was called by Zhu Guoqiang to the army to cast cannons, with the knowledge of casting cannons and other aspects learned in Xu Guangqi, plus some information provided to him, he quickly mastered the knowledge of weapon manufacturing in the book, unlike Sun Hewu who is good at casting cannons, he is not only good at casting cannons, but also good at manufacturing machines, but in half a year, with reference to the objects and drawings brought by Zhu Guoqiang, hundreds of various machine tools have been manufactured, even those machine tools are at the level of the early 19th century, But in this era, it is enough to defy the sky. He even took his two nephews, Xu Guangqi's grandson, and set up an apprenticeship school to teach machines.

"It's okay, make less money, it's okay, it's a big deal to find a few more buyers."

Zhu Guoqiang said with a smile.

In order to make the artillery low-quality, in addition to inferior iron, even deliberately used the iron mold casting cannon this "artifact", its only benefit is to speed up the production rate, but the iron mold casting cannon products are very serious, due to the cooling speed is too fast, although it is relatively smooth, but almost all of the generated white iron, resulting in increased brittleness, the performance of the artillery seriously declined.

These big guys, who weigh nearly 3,000 catties, can only be used on ships, even if they are barely used in field battles, they have little mobility. So Zhu Guoqiang was not worried about Jiannu using them on land.

Of course, Jiannu's purchase allowed Zhu Guoqiang to find a new way to get rich.

"Buyers? We have a new buyer for our guns? ”

Chen Yujie wondered.

"Zisheng, the prince should be referring to the Japanese, since Jiannu wants to cross the sea to rob the Japanese, as long as they rob back and forth a few times, they will definitely cast cannons to build forts, let's just sell the cannons to them at that time, so that they can have a good ...... with Jiannu."

Sun Hewu's explanation made Zhu Guoqiang laugh.

"Arms dealers who don't sell arms to both warring sides are not good arms dealers, and the harder they fight each other, the easier our artillery will sell. And it doesn't matter if the life of the artillery is low, they will buy more guns when the life is low, right? ”

At this moment, Zhu Guoqiang seems to have transformed into a Japanese businessman in the twentieth century - product life? Why do you have such a high lifespan? Enough is enough! What the? A bit low? If it's not low, can you change it often?

Anyway, in a word, the price is high and the quality is poor, this is the king.

In fact, the quality is really not bad!

And it is definitely better than the quality of the cannon cast by the Macau Bugarao Cannon Foundry in this era. Now the guns of the Bugarao Cannon Foundry are a well-known brand in East Asia, and Zheng Zhilong once purchased 150 guns to arm his fleet.

After leaving the cannon foundry, Zhu Guoqiang walked towards the gun factory not far away, and when he walked there, he didn't need to look up to see two towering chimneys spewing soot, which was the chimney of the steam engine, and five months ago, after solving a series of technical problems, the Dalian Arsenal finally entered the age of steam - three locally produced steam engines were installed in the rifle factory and the gun foundry, although it was extremely bulky and the power was only a dozen horsepower. However, there is still plenty of power for the two plants.

The use of steam power is not just a reliable power for the plant. The most important thing is that its appearance increases the speed of the machine tool, not only improves the production speed, but more importantly, improves the machining accuracy of the machine tool. It is thanks to this arsenal that a qualified universal fuse has been manufactured, which also makes Zhu Guoqiang no longer need to buy grenade fuse accessories from another world for the first time, although it is not expensive to buy from the other side, but it is dangerous, although they may not know the use of those parts, but it is always right to be careful, and you will definitely pay a price if you are not careful.

Of course, the most important thing is that the improvement of machining accuracy has made it possible for the factory to produce some industrialized products.

"How's our new rifle made?"