The wisdom of the working people is infinite, or an old craftsman solved the problem. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 He used a thin rope as the core, and then twisted five leads around the core rope into a strand, wrapped tightly in oiled paper and wound with twine. After another test, neither strong winds nor water penetration could extinguish the fuse. The successful development of the fuse not only solved the problem of artillery shells, but also solved the problem of dumb fire after the rocket fell into the water.

At this time, although it was already dark, Zhao Yu had no intention of leaving, and Zhou Xiang could only prepare a meal for His Highness and make room for His Highness to rest temporarily. And now he doesn't care what he eats or where he rests, and he still thinks about the fuse in his head. This thing not only has the function of igniting explosives, but also has the function of timing, so it is necessary to ensure that the burning time is the same regardless of the interception, and only in this way can the explosion of the shell not be advanced or delayed. He pondered that it was difficult to ensure uniformity by manual operation, which only machinery could do.

Zhao Hao didn't sleep all night to light the lamp and consume fuel, drew a set of drawings, and immediately asked people to take them for trial production. And the newly cast shells over there have been made overnight. He hastily ate something, and immediately went to the test site again, chose the smallest one, and watched the craftsmen weigh and fill the cartridge casings. After the fuse was installed and weighed again, it was lit and thrown into a wooden house made of thick planks.

"One, two, three, four, five......" Zhao Yu silently counted the timer behind the sandpile, and before he counted to ten, he felt that the time seemed to freeze in an instant, and he wanted to look up, but was held down by Ni Liang.

'......Boom'

"Go check it out!" After the muffled sound, Zhao Hao broke free of Ni Liang's arm and jumped up and shouted, only to see that the closed cabin had been lifted off the roof, crumbling, and smoking.

"Bah, bah......" Zhao Hao, who rushed in front, opened the door, and was pounced on the sand.

"Your Highness, let's do it!" The craftsmen looked at His Highness's hands dancing and said with a smile, everyone felt that if it weren't for His Highness's young age, they would just look at him more like their peers when he worked.

"Look for it carefully, and cut off the wooden boards, and see how many pieces are broken, so that nothing is missing!" Zhao Yu thought about it, so he didn't want to make a mess, and retreated two steps.

"Yes, Your Highness!" Several craftsmen saluted, waiting for the smoke to completely dissipate before entering, carefully collecting the scattered shrapnel.

"It's much better than it used to be, isn't it?" Zhao Yu counted the shrapnel he had collected twice, there were four or five large ones, more than 30 pieces the size of a fingernail, and more than 10 pieces the size of a bean grain, which should be quite satisfactory.

"It's done, Your Highness, some of these fragments are embedded in the planks more than half an inch, and if they hit people, they will be seriously injured if they don't die." A craftsman nodded vigorously.

"This charge is four taels just now, how about we change it to a big one this time?" Zhao Hao licked his lips and twisted his face and asked.

"Well, listen to Your Highness." Several people nodded, they were actually curious to see how powerful it could be.

The men here weighed, charged, installed the fuse, and prepared for the second test explosion, while others over there repaired the wooden house. Zhao ordered the fuse to be lengthened, and moved the shelter back thirty steps, and only after everything was done did he order someone to light the fire again.

'Boom! This time the charge is two and a half catties, and the power will be greater, Zhao Yu told everyone to lie on the ground and no one was allowed to move, so as not to be injured by the scattered shrapnel. Although it was quite far away, everyone felt like a thunder in their ears, and a gust of wind was blowing above their heads, and their bodies were shaken. It took a while for everyone to get up and look in the direction of the wooden house, where chaos was already shrouded in smoke and dust.

"Oh, even the gods are afraid to be blown up!" When the smoke and dust cleared, it was clear that the wooden house made of half an inch of wood should be scattered to the side at this moment, and he couldn't see the original appearance at all, Ni Liang opened his mouth and said in surprise.

"If people are inside, they will really be crushed!" The craftsmen on the side also sighed with emotion.

"Look at it!" Zhao Yu waved his hand and led everyone over to take a closer look, and a crater nearly two feet deep was blown out at the explosion point, and fragmented shrapnel was found within three zhang of the surrounding area, and the wooden planks were basically broken into several pieces, and there were a lot of shrapnel embedded in it, and the largest piece of shrapnel found was the top of the shell, which was the heaviest part of the shell.

After the verification, Zhao Yu breathed a long sigh of relief, the explosive power and shrapnel lethality of the cannonball had exceeded his expectations, and the next thing to see was the test firing of the ballista. Although he had considered balance at the beginning of the design, if the shell tumbles in flight, or if the trajectory is unstable, it still cannot be considered a success. The hut was no longer usable, so he had a wall of planks erected as a target, and three of each of the remaining shells were filled with gunpowder by weight, but there was no need to install a fuse.

Sure enough, it was unfortunately expected by Zhao Yu that the stability of the shell was very poor, although it did not roll, but the trajectory was unstable, and it often did not land with a warhead, but horizontally and vertically, so it was difficult to penetrate the heavy gunwale, and the hit rate was not as good as the spherical projectile in the past. He had to readjust the shape of the bullet again, change the counterweight, and repeat the experiment, but he had to give up again and again and still change back to spherical bombing.

Zhao Yu is aware of his failures, one is because of his own design problems; The other is that they have to consider the complexity of the process and the cost of manufacturing, and do not add a tail to the shell. After several trade-offs, he could only sacrifice a little power, and still used a spherical projectile with a simple manufacturing process, easy quality control, and low cost, but after scoring, the fragmentation rate was still guaranteed, and it was basically stable at about 40 pieces. After many tests and comprehensive consideration, only three types of ammunition were retained, namely three catties, five catties and ten catties, which were charged with half a catty, one catty and two catties respectively.

The last item was live-fire targeting, and Zhao Yu asked people to find two medium-sized warships that had no use value as targets, and invited the main officials and officers above the commander of the government to visit. He personally served as the commander, first of all, with medium and heavy ballistas respectively to shoot without gunpowder empty shell shells to test the penetration, this test has been many times, if the shooting angle is correct, it can basically hit the four-layer porthole, the success rate of this shot has also reached 60%.

The ensuing live firing reached a climax at the outset, as a three-pound shell hit only seven rounds and basically destroyed the superstructure of a medium-sized warship and caused a fire. Then, with a heavy ballista, he fired 10 catties of live ammunition at a distance of 300 paces, and 10 rounds and 6 hits completely destroyed one side of the ship's side, and after entering the water, he sank to the bottom of the river with his arms crooked. The other warship was very lucky, and after only one round of bombardment, it was blown off by a shell and the keel sank to the bottom, which made the people watching the excitement unbearable...... (To be continued.) )