The Northeast has already started fighting, but Zhao Gou in Bianliang City did not pay too much attention to the battlefield.

Because he felt that he couldn't lose this battle at all.

In the Inner Court's office, he had already inspected a number of important military affairs, including the second-generation arquebus and the first-generation flintlock pistol, which had not yet been finalized.

As a traverser, it is impossible for the use of medicinal powder to stay on the powder packet permanently. The development of real firearms is the way forward.

However, it takes a long time, and it also requires a high level of skill.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, when the iron pot had just appeared, it was not easy to make a barrel that could be used in actual combat. Not to mention reducing the cost of such barrels to the point where they can be used universally. In a few years, Zhao Gou didn't need to think about it at all.

This is the biggest reason why he didn't use guns at all at the beginning of the crossing.

But even if he is now an emperor, the training and manufacturing process of this musket barrel is still immature, which is a barrel, but in fact, it is a great step forward in metallurgical technology.

If this thing is done, the scientific and technological tree in metallurgy in the classical Chinese era will also reach its peak.

But this obviously requires the accumulation of failures again and again, and even if it is an experiment at any cost, it will take enough time to do it.

These masters convened by the office are all first-class masters in China, but even so, the process is still not mature. That is, there are still a lot of high-quality iron ore in China, especially after the destruction of the Western Xia, the iron ore in the Hengshan area was returned to the Zhao and Song dynasties, but it brought a huge boost to the experimental team of the office.

As mentioned above, the cold calcination technology of the Xixia people is not a cow break, and the reason why the results are obvious is that the party people have studied the cold calcination skills very deeply, and the second is that there are many ultra-high-quality iron ores in the party territory.

Anyone who has an understanding of China's metallurgy should know that the criticism of China's iron ore in later generations is, in addition to the low quality, that is, excessive phosphorus. Compared with the iron ore in Europe, America, Oceania and other places, the iron content of China's iron ore in later generations may be less than half of that of the other party, and the excessive phosphorus content has a huge impact on the steel texture.

But now it is before the Northern Song Dynasty, it is the communication between the two Song Dynasty in history, and the Hengshan Iron Mine, which has long been unknown in later generations, is quite well-known in this era.

Relying on the high-quality iron ingots produced by the Yokoyama Iron Smelting Bureau, the gun team of the compliance office has created a batch of qualified barrels - barrels that can be fired in a row and are still intact after firing ten rounds in a row.

However, this is limited to iron ingots produced in Yokoyama, and if it is produced by other iron smelting bureaus, it must be refined iron after thousands of tempers. It's too expensive and too labor-intensive.

It's just that Zhao Gou really doesn't know much about iron smelting. We can only take advantage of the current conditions of the world and use the greatest support to promote the development of iron-smelting technology.

This is equivalent to him choosing the fullest seed, choosing the most fertile land, and then inviting the sun and rain to moisten it, watching and caring for the seed to take root and sprout little by little, and then break through the soil and grow into a small sapling. But in the end, whether it can become a real tree in the sky will have to pass the test of time.

In the manufacturing process of the two muskets, Zhao Gou also promoted standardization. From the most basic barrel to the trigger part, as well as the wooden holder, everything is standardized in terms of size and weight. It is basically possible to do repairs such as parts replacement. This will play a great role in the maintenance of logistics equipment in the future, and even the speed of gun manufacturing. In a sense, this also strengthens the cost of the gun.

"The next thing you have to do is to experiment deeper. Experiment with the durability and accuracy of the two muskets, as well as their armor-piercing. "Starting from the continuous firing angle experiment, from the twenty rounds of continuous firing after cooling down and then continuing to shoot, Zhao Gou wanted to get a better understanding of the performance of the arquebus and flintlock pistol in front of him.

As for accuracy and armor-piercing attributes, those are also the two major aspects of the performance of muskets, aren't they?

However, in addition to the musket, there is also a second product in front of Zhao Gou, that is, a new generation of horse infantry armor. Relying on the newly developed hydraulic hammer and metallurgical technology, the armor is moved closer to the direction of the plate armor, and a new type of armor with balanced weight and protection is created to the maximum.

This is a very important R&D topic.

Although the plate armor thing is compared to the musket, it is completely restrained and backward. But it's also easier to get results than muskets, isn't it?

Besides, even if the musket was successfully developed, it would not be possible to quickly equip the army on a large scale, right?

Whether it is from the perspective of cost or maintaining the continued competitiveness of the imperial army, the musket is the hidden hand of the Song army. It's like the artillery development. The latter already has a mature manufacturing process, but it has been hidden by Zhao Gou.

Zhao Gou was reluctant to expose this kind of big killing weapon so early, because in the current world, the counterweight trebuchet was already invincible, and there was no need for artillery at all.

Exposing it early is completely to give the enemy a chance to catch up with him. Create obstacles for the future Zhao Song's conquest.

He always hid the artillery tightly, and no one in the entire court knew about the existence of the artillery.

This is the treasure he left to posterity at the bottom of the box.

As for why the cannon was made so quickly than the musket, not to mention the huge size, bronze is far more malleable than iron, which is also a point that cannot be ignored.

The only downside is that the bronze cannon is too expensive to consume.

A bronze cannon, small is hundreds of catties, more than thousands of catties, most of the metal is copper, China is a country lacking copper, the cost of that cannon is not small.

It is also for this reason that Zhao Gocai made people develop in Luzon on the one hand, because of how much Luzon copper mines were in later generations. On the other hand, he sent people to Raozhou in the south of the Yangtze River.

What are you doing in Raozhou?

Naturally, it is for copper prospecting. Because the Dexing City of China in later generations was in Raozhou at this time.

If you want to think about copper mines in China, Dexing is a name that cannot be avoided. As the copper capital of China in later generations, Raozhou also had copper mining as far back as the Li Tang Dynasty.

The Tang and Song dynasties set up the Yongping Prison here, a name that many people have not heard of in later generations, but in history it was the official minting center of the Tang and Song dynasties, and the famous coinage supervisor in the Tang and Song dynasties. Up to now, there are 600,000 yuan of money a year.

There are two important mines in Yongpingjian, one is the Xingli Field in Raozhou, and the other is the Lead Mountain Field in Xinzhou.

But Zhao Gou believes that a mere Xinglichang will definitely not be able to fully exploit the potential of Raozhou's copper mines......