At the same time, the Great Qin Empire, Beizhou, the northern suburbs of Xianyang, and the Iron Smelting Division!

In the ironmaking division, it is still as hot as ever, ironmaking Ling Luhai is standing next to a blast furnace, carefully pondering how to raise the purity of refined iron to the highest level, this pondering is not a day or two, it has been pondering for a month, but there is no progress at all.

He is not the only one who is pondering, but all the iron-making craftsmen of the Ironmaking Division are pondering this matter.

"Lu Ling, why don't you burn it for a while? Maybe after burning for a day or two, you can train higher purity iron! An ironsmith not far away couldn't help but say.

Lu Hai shook his head, "You can't burn more, if you burn more, the blast furnace can't bear it, by the way, you can try this method!" Lu Hai's eyes suddenly lit up, as if he had thought of something.

His family has been smelting iron for a living for generations, once when his grandfather was smelting iron, he mistakenly mixed coal and limestone into the iron pot, and thought that the refined iron would be wasted.

This kind of fine iron made of utensils, very hard, wear-resistant, castability is also very good, but the shortcomings are also very big, this kind of fine iron can not be forged, too brittle, just in response to that sentence, to be rigid and easy to break.

Because at that time, they were all building farm tools and weapons to support their families, and farm tools and weapons were often wielded, so it was not suitable to use this kind of fine iron to build farm tools and weapons, after all, people went down with a hoe, the hoe was broken, and they did not find his family to lose money, if the army took this weapon to the battlefield, a knife was broken, and the court had to cut down a family.

It is precisely because of this that this method of iron-making is not much used and is not known, and I am afraid that he alone knows this method in the whole world.

Lu Hai said that he would do it, and began to prepare materials, coke, the ironmaking division has, but not limestone, but this did not bother him, under a series of actions, he finally found a thousand catties of limestone, and then successively threw limestone and coke into the blast furnace!

Ten hours later!

The blast furnace pipeline is open, and the molten iron in the blast furnace flows down the pipeline to the cooling pool, and after a period of time, the cooling pool is filled with about 30,000 catties of refined iron.

"What a high purity!" An ironsmith couldn't help but exclaim!

Take high-grade refined iron as an example, when high-grade refined iron was just trained, there were a large number of impurities visible to the naked eye on the surface, so as to judge the purity of refined iron, the Ordnance Department got this batch of fine iron, and had to re-condense and forge to remove a little impurity.

That is to say, seventy percent and a half of the purity of refined iron produced by the ironmaking division can reach eighty percent purity after being re-condensed and forged by the Ordnance Department.

"With such a high purity, the ordnance divisions of the Ordnance Department don't need to condense and forge, they can be directly turned into molten iron, poured into abrasives and formed, Lu Ling really deserves to be an iron-making family, and he will get things done as soon as he makes a move!"

"Lu Ling's craftsmanship is superb, admire and admire!"

Many iron-making craftsmen have flattered Lu Hai, and their faces are full of smiles, according to the rules set by the imperial court, as long as they come up with a new practical process, they can get a lot of rewards, and now Lu Hai has made this kind of high-purity refined iron, and the entire iron-making division will be stained.

For these flatteries, Lu Hai was very useful, but he still had a straight face, and said with a serious face: "Don't be happy too early, although this kind of fine iron is of high purity, it is easy to break, and it cannot be used in short-range combat, and I don't know what kind of weapon the artillery in Fang Ling's mouth is, if it is a melee weapon, this fine iron is a waste stone!" ”

"Immediately send someone to send the refined iron of this cooling pool to the Ordnance Department, so that Fang Ling can give it a try!" Lu Hai then said!

"Yes!"

Next, all the 30,000 refined iron in the cooling pool were salvaged and escorted to Xianyang City through ox carts, about three quarters of an hour passed, and the Ordnance Department received 30,000 catties of high-purity refined iron sent by the Iron Smelting Division.

Because the degree of refined iron is more than ninety, so there is no need to forge to subtract impurities, after melting, directly poured into the mold that has been prepared, when the ironmaking division developed a new type of refined iron, Fang Zi was not lazy, he not only improved the power of the shell, but also made a mold of various parts of the artillery, so only need to wait for the molten iron to solidify in the mold, a little grinding can be assembled.

On July 6, the weapons test site twenty miles north of Xianyang City!

At this time, it was noon, the scorching sun was shining in the sky, making the earth extremely hot, even the wind was hot, at this time, the people were nesting in the shade to chat, or lying in the house to take a nap, but the armorers on the weapon test site worked hard to test their weapons.

On this day, Fang Zi pulled the latest artillery developed by himself to the weapons test site, and the armorers who participated in the development of the artillery also came here to visit.

The artillery was pulled outside a red line, and the muzzle of the cannon was aimed at a three-foot-thick stone brick wall three hundred steps away, and Fang Zi and Zheng Yue stood behind the artillery, recording the current data of the artillery in detail!

"Artillery code name Zero One!"

"Barrel length: two zhang!"

"Barrel caliber: three fingers and two sections! (Relative to the caliber of three two-segmented fingers combined, three segments equals one finger)"

"The total length of the cannon body: two feet and six feet!"

"Gun mount height: seven feet!"

"The weight of the whole gun: fifteen thousand catties!"

Zheng Yue reported the data of the Zero One artillery, and after listening to the data of the Zero One artillery, Fang Zi nodded, and then said to Zheng Yue: "Start the zero No. 1 artillery test immediately!" ”

"Yes!" Zheng Yue's solemn expression responded!

"The first test of the Zero One gun begins!"

At the sound of the order, three armorers came out with tools and fixed the gun mount, and then two more armorers worked together to carry out a black round cannonball from a large wooden box, the size of a man's head, and weighed ten pounds.

Two armourers came to the barrel with the cannonball, and then one of the armorers took out the fire fold and lit the fuse of the cannonball, and then the armorer holding the cannonball immediately stuffed the cannonball into the barrel, and then immediately took 20 steps back, and Zheng Yue and Fang Zi also immediately took 20 steps back.

The city fell silent, and everyone could hear the fuse burning in the barrel.

One breath... Two breaths... Three breaths....

"Boom!"

The body of the cannon shook, let out a monstrous roar, the barrel of the cannon spewed out a piece of flame, and the huge rear thrust also shook the dust around the artillery, and then everyone saw a burning sphere in the air across an arc and landed in the open space about one hundred and seventy paces!

PS: "Brothers, the era of cannons is coming!" ”

(End of chapter)