Early the next morning, Hong Xu summoned the civil officials and staff in charge of general affairs on Nanao Island and Dongshan Island, specifically for Chen Kaibuda.

Chen Kai, since he joined Zheng Chenggong's scene, has been a civil official and a man of the hour among his staff, and has repeatedly created miracles and won Zheng Chenggong's praise.

In this regard, if there is no jealousy, it is impossible, but with Chen Kai's victory in the battle of Chaozhou, this jealousy quickly turned into awe - not to mention, a civil official, not only dares to sneak into the city, but also uses himself to attract the attention of the opponent to cover the army, and what is more terrible is that this person really dares to fight to the death with a military general, and in the end he can still win, let alone say that he has seen it, even thinking about it will make them shudder.

Buda is very smooth, no matter what these civil officials and staff think in private, but they are all extraordinarily deferential in front of Chen Kai, as if they are afraid that they will anger such a killing god.

As soon as this side ended, Hong Xu hurriedly set off, and the supply of goods in Chaozhou must be determined as soon as possible, so as to make better use of the advantages of Zheng's group in sea trade to obtain more resources. In comparison, Chen Kai's side is much simpler, and after a conversation with these people, Chen Kai mentioned the rise in the price of eggs and radishes, and asked to see how these people reacted.

Unexpectedly, after this remark, most of the people seemed to be a little confused, but among them, there were two junior officials on Nanao Island who were in charge of the affairs of other towns, and they actually looked at Chen Kai with a strange face, as if you would like to ask this matter knowingly.

"Is the rise in the price of eggs and radishes the reason for Lao Tzu? Did I eat that much! ”

That look, the more Chen Kai thought about it, the more awkward he felt. Assuming that he is really that good at eating, does he still need to work hard here? Go directly to Nanjing, eat up all the grain of the Qing court, force it to withdraw to the north, and then continue to eat in the capital, and use the food shortage as a weapon to eat the Eight Banners Army back into the old forests of Liaodong, wouldn't it be as trouble-free as now. When the time comes, he will find an emperor of the Ming Dynasty and ask for the title of the king of the county, and even the name he has thought of, so it is very appropriate to call him the king of big stomachs.

In an instant, Chen Kai's mind was full of thoughts, but he stared at them with big eyes and small eyes, seeing that they were unwilling to speak, Chen Kai did not continue to ask, just chatted about some of the work they were responsible for and then announced the end of the meeting.

Chen Kai will not give up the investigation of this matter, and he will also take time to visit and explore the civil affairs of Nanao Island and Dongshan Island. At this stage, weapons manufacturing, his own work is the real top priority, because Zheng Chenggong is about to usher, or has begun a new round of military expansion, and it is a continuous expansion, and the pressure on weapons has increased, and this is also the most important factor in his final determination to let Chen Kai return to Nanao Island.

After the meeting ended, Chen Kai was not in a hurry to check the account books of Nanao, those things, the news of his takeover had already spread, even if there was greed for ink, those guys had seen the example of You Er, and knew that Chen Kai's temper was probably smoothed out, but he was not in a hurry.

Returning to the Ordnance Bureau, Chen Kai did not continue to inspect the workshops he had visited yesterday, but planned to visit the workshops for cannon casting and gunpowder processing. These two places were not inspected yesterday, and they happened to be made up today.

In the cannon casting workshop, on the north side of the bird gun production workshop, Chen Kai entered the compound, and the first thing he saw was the molds that were drying in the shade.

As early as the year after the year, Zheng Hongkui sent a ship to send these gunsmiths over. The reason for the delay was that the illness was that the master of these gunsmiths was the master, and the others were his apprentices. In addition, this master is also Zheng Hongkui's best skill in the hands of the cannon casting master, it is said that the craftsmanship was originally in the Bugarao cannon foundry in Macau with Portuguese craftsmen, the cast artillery, its scrap rate can be as low as negligible, probably except bad luck, there is nothing to stop this master from casting a good cannon.

"Zheng Hongkui is really willing."

Seeing this master at that time, Chen Kai chatted with him for a morning and left the cannon casting workshop, and he said to himself in his heart at that time. But when he really saw Zheng Hongkui himself this time, Chen Kai felt that this was nothing unusual, because the Zheng Hongkui he saw was an elder who pinned all the hopes of family revival on Zheng Chenggong, nothing more.

Regarding the matter of casting cannons, Chen Kai specially checked some books before the arrival of this master, and talked with him in detail, basically having a preliminary understanding. As far as the method is concerned, there are two main popular ones now, one is the lost wax method, and the other is the mud mold method.

To put it bluntly, the lost wax method is to make a mud core according to the size of the muzzle and the inner chamber, and then cover the outer layer of the mud core according to the thickness of the gun body, after forming, cover the outside of the wax with a layer of mud shell, dry it for several months and then roast it with fire, the wax will flow out, and then bake it again and then fill it with molten iron, and wait for the iron to solidify, even if it is basically formed.

However, this method is generally not used in the south because it is not easy for the wax to be completely solidified in hot weather. Even in the north, it is only useful during the cold months. In contrast, there is no such restriction in the clay mold method.

Chen Kai stepped into it, and the dry mud molds were all used to cast cannons using the mud mold method. In this method, it is necessary to spin out a wooden mold according to the shape of the cannon body, press the molds such as the cannon lugs, hoops, and ornaments, and then apply mud to it, knock out the wooden core after drying, inject molten iron into the mud mold, and wait for solidification to be completed.

There is no specific temperature and time range for this method, but there is one point, that is, the clay mold must be dried for more than four months, and the moisture in it needs to be thoroughly dried.

Because of the long waiting time, Chen Kai also asked a stupid word about whether he could be roasted dry with fire, but he was directly rejected by the master on the grounds that it was easy to crack when roasted with fire. When you think about it, it seems that this is really the case.

The clay molds in front of you, especially the ones closest to the inside of the yard, are the clay molds that first began to dry. Chen Kai chatted with the old master for a long time, and then went out of the casting workshop, but what he was thinking about was whether there was a more time-saving method.

"It seems that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the iron mold casting cannon was developed......"

Thinking of this, Chen Kai couldn't help but shake his head. Originally, after talking to the old master for the first time, he had pinned his hopes on this, but as time went by, in the process of recalling the iron mold casting cannon, he suddenly remembered that in the past, on the forum, many people had mentioned how fast the iron mold casting cannon was, and how to lead the European powers of the same era, but was directly fanned back by a technological emperor.

The speed of the iron mold casting cannon is incomparable to the mud mold method and the lost wax method, which is indeed undeniable. However, the problem is that due to the rapid solidification, graphitization is not enough to form, and the cast artillery is basically white iron, and the toughness is insufficient, so it can only rely on increasing the thickness to make up for the huge defects of its anti-chambering ability, which leads to the fact that the Chinese artillery in the late Qing Dynasty is often much heavier than the foreign cast artillery under the same caliber, and its actual performance is still much inferior.

In fact, the so-called iron mold casting cannon, there is nothing unusual, in the Han Dynasty, the two Jin Dynasty and the Song Dynasty there are unearthed iron molds used to cast agricultural tools, Gong Zhenlin is just used to cast cannons. The reason why it was praised to an unattainable height in that era and later generations, and was recognized as a strong proof that China's cannon casting technology is leading the world, is that the people of backward countries have a blind and deformed national pride. From a scientific point of view, it's ridiculous.

If you want to solve the problem and realize the reversal from white iron to gray iron, with the scientific and technological level of the late Ming Dynasty, the hot blast technology can be replaced by metal hot air pipe technology or regenerative chamber technology, but the internal mold water cooling technology needs the specific quantification of various parameters.

The peaks of science and technology are originally piled up from a grain of sand and a stone, little by little, and it is tantamount to a fool's dream to directly bypass the process to achieve the result.

"Temperature, white iron, gray iron, silicon, graphitization, his grandmother's, it is not as worry-free as casting copper cannons, at least copper casting technology China has always been very mature."

Copper can be used as currency, but it is much more expensive than iron, and the cost is really not cost-effective. However, some of the necessary technologies, some Chen Kai can't even remember the names very clearly, let alone what kind of parameters are needed and how to operate.

Thinking about it, plus since that period, he has also spent more energy on the plan to seize Chaozhou, as far as it is now, a few months have passed, and he still hasn't figured out any way to come out, and even he has begun to find that the physics and chemistry knowledge he had in school seems to be a little insufficient.

Out of the cannon casting workshop, Chen Kai also became a little discouraged. The technical difficulty in this is already a little beyond his imagination, and some methods in later generations have become difficult because of the technical difficulty. Now there are only two paths in front of him, either try to improve the technical level, or simply rely on sacrificing quality to meet the quantity, there is no other way.

With this in mind, Chen Kai left the Ordnance Bureau with a frown and went to the gunpowder manufacturing workshop. Originally, Chen Kai, a gunpowder manufacturing workshop, planned to build an area expanded from the new factory of the Ordnance Bureau, but it was unanimously opposed by the Ordnance Bureau and even the surrounding people, and in the end he had to compromise and build it alone in the center of a large open space in the city, so as to avoid accidental explosion of gunpowder and cause more unnecessary losses.

Chen Kai entered the workshop, and the familiar smell came, and his heart was a little more relaxed. But it didn't take long for something that made him even more obtrusive to see appear in his sight, and even made him drink and ask.

"These eggs and turnips, not in the kitchen, what are you doing here?!"