"Alright, just park here, unload the guns, and start setting up the gun mounts immediately. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

On the steep cliff from the city, nearly 800 paces (about 1,000 meters), Zhao Jie ordered the gunners to stop advancing the heavy dragon striker, unload the gun from the gun truck, and set up the gun carriage on the spot.

According to Zhao Jie, this distance is the maximum distance of the accurate range of this heavy dragon striker, and in addition, its effective range is 1,500 steps (about 2,000 meters).

When listening to Zhao Jie's introduction to the range of the dragon cannon being so far, Li Xiao was happy.

He knew that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, even the most powerful new Hongyi cannon had an accurate firing range of about 600 meters, and as for the effective firing range, the highest was only 1,500 meters.

It can be seen that the dragon hammer produced by Li Xiao far surpasses this era.

After the heavy solid wood clad iron artillery carriage was placed, this heavy dragon strike gun was carried on the gun carriage by a group of gunners, and then the dragon hammer weighing 2,500 pounds was fixed and secure.

"Prepare for clearing!"

After Zhao Jie shouted, these gunners immediately opened the sealing cover of the muzzle, stretched into the dry cloth to wipe the protective oil in the gun chamber, then opened the fire door cover, poured in a little ignition powder, and then poured all the rest of the fixed artillery gunpowder from the gun, and then smashed it with a stabbing stick until it was half solid, and then from the muzzle of the gun, two gunners worked together to stuff the huge 32 catties of iron bullet into the gun chamber.

"Adjust the gun position!"

After Zhao Jie shouted, the gunners immediately used the gun gauge to measure the range, adjust the gun lug, select the upward firing angle, and then carefully calibrate the front sight and the door, and then opened the cover of the fire door, plugged in the fire rope, and prepared to open the gun.

"Ready, light!"

One of the gunners immediately lit the long fire rope in his hand, and the fire rope emitted a light blue flame and burned slowly.

"Put!"

After listening to Zhao Jie's order, the gunner immediately lit the fire rope on the fire door of the dragon hammer gun in front of him, and had to hide a beam of light into the fire door.

"Bang!"

Almost instantly, the dragon mortar let out a blast that almost burst the eardrums, and the muzzle of the cannon floated a crimson afterglow, and a large cloud of choking white smoke immediately filled everywhere, and a blackened cannonball whistled out of its chamber and struck fiercely at the lime-marked place on the cliff.

A muffled sound was heard in the distance, the shells were accurately painted on the cliff with large circles of lime, the rubble was splashed, and the surrounding gunners suddenly cheered.

Li Xiao saw from the clairvoyant mirror that the cannonball accurately hit the circle on the cliff 1,200 meters away, taking the hit part as the starting point of radiation, and the entire bluestone cliff showed a huge crack like a spider's web, which showed how big a blow this 32-pound shell had caused to the cliff.

"Very good, reset the gun carriage and keep fighting!"

Zhao Jie then went on to order, and the gunners then began to reset the dragon blaster, which had been tilted back due to the heavy recoil, cleaned the chamber with a damp cloth, wiped off the slag, and then began to reload as before.

In this era, there was no gun mount retraction machine used in modern cannons. In the whole world, whether in Europe or China, all artillery is called a rack retreat, that is, when the gun is fired, the whole gun is recoiled by recoil, and it needs to be reset by manpower.

Such artillery has a huge disadvantage, that is, under a long artillery battle, it will greatly consume the physical strength of the artillery. Some military analysts believe that although there were a series of political and military reasons for Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, one of the important reasons was that the artillery under his command could not be completely reset.

In fact, in the late 18th and 19th centuries during the Industrial Revolution, European countries also made great efforts to study various systems of regression and regression, but basically all of them failed.

The main reason for the failure was that rigid systems such as springs were not easy to manufacture at the time, and they quickly became elastic and fatigued, and they were complicated to replace and repair. It was not until the end of the 19th century that the gun body reset device was invented using liquid or pneumatic brakes that would not be elastic and tired, and it was not until this time that the artillery retraction system was truly practical, and the so-called tube retreat appeared.

This problem cannot be solved now, after all, Li Xiaojun's mechanical industry level is too low-level and primitive, far from reaching the level of being able to produce pneumatic or hydraulic devices, so Li Xiao can only acquiesce to reality, or let the gunners exert more strength.

Regarding this problem, Zhao Jie also proposed a mitigation plan to Li Xiao, and this mitigation method was still thought up by Sun Yuanhua back then. That is, on the selected artillery positions, let the soldiers dig with shovels and build small mounds behind the artillery. When the gun is fired, the recoil retreats, and it will slide to the small mound through the slope, and the soldier pushes harder, and the gun will slide down the slope, and it can be easily reset with a little correction and adjustment.

Of course, this solution is too simple and perfunctory, but on the battlefield, it is still quite a practical trick.

At the same time, Li Xiao noticed that these gunners under his command were not skilled enough to reload, and their cooperation was still a little rusty, although they saved a lot of time by ordering gunpowder, but when the full set of actions was completed, it took nearly 5 minutes.

At that time, the British Navy was the fastest in the world, and on average, it could refire every 2 minutes. The gunners under Li Xiaojun are proficient in operation, but they still need to be improved.

In the following, Li Xiaojun fired eight more cannons in succession, but he stopped firing because the bore of the cannon was overheated, and he was afraid that continuing to shoot would cause the bore to explode.

Li Xiao saw that a big hole appeared in the circle on the cliff, and huge cracks spread around the big hole in a circle, and large pieces of bluestone collapsed from the cliff and rolled down at the foot of the mountain.

Being able to have this strike effect at such a long distance, Li Xiao is very satisfied.

Just imagine how quickly those walls, which are far less solid than the mountain cliffs, would collapse under the fierce blows of dozens of such heavy dragon guns.

Hmph, when these heavy artillery pieces are produced in a certain quantity, they will bring them to Taiwan, and then whether it is the city of Santo Domingo in Spain, or the city of Chichicheng or Gelanjia in the Netherlands, they will all be quickly destroyed under the powerful blow of such artillery.

From then on, Li Xiaojun's attack on Jiancheng, which has always been the weakest, will no longer be a headache to restrain Li Xiao.

In addition to the huge striking power, the dragon hammer made by Zhao Jie has another advantage, which makes Li Xiao even more happy.

That is, the number of shells that a dragon striker can fire at one time.

According to historical records, the current Ming army and the Qing army can only fire each artillery four or five times on average, and the cannon will overheat and can no longer be used, otherwise it will explode.

When the chamber of this kind of artillery is overheated due to multiple firing, it cannot be quickly cooled by pouring water, because the red-hot barrel, in the case of sudden cold water, is likely to immediately produce extremely small cracks, which will explode in the next firing, so it can only be slowly and naturally cooled before the next round of firing can be carried out again.

The cooling time generally takes at least half an hour, and if it is a hot summer, it takes an hour and a half.

The number of shells fired by Li Xiaojun's dragon hammer gun is almost twice as much as that of the current Ming army and Qing army's artillery, thanks to Li Xiao's use of stainless steel cannons, which conducts heat quickly, and at the same time, the slightly rough surface makes it dissipate heat well, which makes the dragon artillery have nearly twice the time for firing and firing more than the artillery of the Ming army and the Qing army.

"Mr. Zhao, at the current rate, how many heavy dragon guns can be cast every month?"

Li Xiao, who was very happy in his heart, did not hide it much, and asked Zhao Jie directly to the point.

"Governor Yudu, such a heavy dragon cannon, because it consumes a lot of steel, and it is not easy to make clay molds, at the current speed of our army, I am afraid that it can only produce at most two guns per month." Zhao Jie replied with a difficult face.

Hearing Zhao Jie's words, Li Xiao frowned unconsciously.

Li Xiao has three battalions of troops, all of which must be equipped with dragon guns, while the artillery factory can only produce two guns a month, which is indeed a bit slower.

However, Zhao Jie's words made Li Xiao seem to have discovered some breakthrough.

Clay mold casting cannon?

What if you replace it with an iron mold cast cannon?

As if only in an instant, this thought flashed out of Li Xiao's heart.

In his previous life, Li Xiao had read some books that introduced clay molded cannons. This clay mold casting cannon is a traditional Chinese casting process, that is, using water and mud to make a mold, and then Fan Jin pouring it, layer by layer, and finally making the cannon body.

This kind of clay mold has one of the biggest drawbacks, that is, it must be dried thoroughly, otherwise although the appearance is dry, the inside is moist, once the metal melt, the moisture is self-generated, and the cast cannon has a honeycomb, and the gun chamber is easy to explode and hurt people when it is released. And drying the clay mold is a patient work, it needs to be dried naturally, not to use the rapid fire to smoke and bake, so as to make a qualified clay mold, often take a month, if it encounters rain, snow and cold weather, it will take two or three months. Moreover, a clay mold can only cast one cannon, and then it is discarded and can no longer be used.

The iron mold cast cannon, in Li Xiao's impression, was invented by the Qing man Gong Zhenfeng during the Opium War, which can be regarded as a rare time for the Chinese to lead the world in artillery production technology. Because of this advanced method of casting cannons, it was not until 30 years later, in 1873, that this technology was first used in England in Europe.

During the Opium War, Gong Zhenlin, a county in Jiaxing County, Zhejiang, was transferred to the Ningbo military camp by his boss and ordered to make artillery. Because of his urgency, he invented the iron mold casting method to quickly produce artillery against the British army.

The specific method is to first make artillery from wax, and then turn the sand several times to make an iron mold. When casting the gun, first brush the inside of each petal of the iron mold with two layers of slurry. The first layer of slurry is made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud; The second layer of slurry is made of fine kiln coal and water. Then, the two petals are combined, tightened with iron hoops, baked, and continuously continued, and finally the molten metal is cast. After pouring enough molten liquid and cooling and molding, the iron mold is immediately peeled off according to the order of the mold flaps, and the gun body is gradually exposed like peeling off the bamboo shoot shell.

At this point, a cannon made of iron mold casting cannon method was officially formed.

Compared with the mud mold casting gun, the advantages of the iron mold casting cannon are: the process is simple and easy, saves the mold raw materials, is not limited by climatic conditions, shortens the manufacturing cycle, reduces the production cost, and has no moisture residue, especially solves the problem of honeycomb (bubbles), greatly improves the quality of artillery casting, and greatly reduces the rejection rate of the casting.

After Gong Zhenlin successfully developed the iron mold casting method, his colleagues praised it: "The method is simple, its use is the most convenient, one work can earn hundreds of profits, and one gun saves dozens of times the capital." And spin casting spin out, no delay day, flawless, natural smooth, twice the result with half the effort, the use of infinite, the guide track of the public theory, open the door of the eternal law, which is beneficial to the country's armed forces, is not shallow and fresh! ”

Gong Zhenlin himself is also very proud of the iron mold casting cannon that he has worked so hard to develop.

In his "Diagram of Iron Mold Casting Cannon", he also specially summarized the many advantages of iron mold casting cannon. Among them, the characteristics of the iron mold are that one mold is more cast, low cost, less man-hours, reduce the surface cleaning, the workload of milling the inner chamber, the casting mold does not contain water, less air holes, collection after use, easy maintenance, if the war is urgent, it can be quickly put into production for emergency needs.

It's just a pity that Gong Zhenlin, an outstanding talent in cannon casting, was not appreciated by the corrupt and incompetent late Qing court, and this world-leading cannon casting technology was not further applied and improved, and finally drowned in the process of history and disappeared.

And Gong Zhenlin himself, in 1861, was chased and killed by the rebellious Taiping army when he was the prefect of Taizhou, and was finally killed in Huangyan County.

Now, Li Xiao briefly told Zhao Jie and others about the iron mold casting method he had learned in his previous life.

When the dragon cannon was developed last year, Li Xiao did not propose this iron mold casting technology to the firearms craftsmen, because Li Xiao believed that the details of this iron mold casting technology, such as the slurry composition ratio, and the sand turning method of the iron mold, Li Xiao only understood a general concept, and did not particularly understand it, so he could not explain it in detail to the craftsmen just by language guidance.

Moreover, from the 16th century to the first half of the 19th century, the whole world was still using the technology of clay mold casting cannons. Then, for this group of craftsmen from the Dengzhou Firearms Battalion, it is normal to choose the customary clay mold casting cannon, which is much easier than groping for an iron mold casting cannon with only an empty concept out of thin air.

Now, the technology of casting dragon guns with clay molds has matured, and Li Xiao can naturally ask craftsmen who have considerable experience in making cannons to grasp the direction provided by themselves, to explore the technology of iron mold casting cannons by themselves, and find the relevant technical parameters of various productions.

Once the iron mold casting cannon is successfully developed, Li Xiao will no longer be constrained by the casting speed of the artillery, and the process of Li Xiao's conquest of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia will be greatly accelerated.

In order to ensure that the progress of the research and development of the production of dragon hammer guns and iron mold casting cannons will not be delayed, Li Xiao ordered that Zhao Jie be given another 1,000 workers, who will deploy them, and must develop iron mold casting cannons as soon as possible on the basis of ensuring that two heavy dragon guns per month can be developed.

At the same time, Li Xiao secretly calculated in his heart that if he could get the speed of two heavy dragon guns a month, if he went to Taiwan again at the end of this year, there would still be five months to go, and a total of 10 heavy dragon guns that could shoot 32 pounds of iron bullets should be able to be regenerated, plus more than 10 dragon guns of three types of light, medium and heavy that had been developed earlier, then with these more than 20 dragon guns, the power of firearms is also considerable, although it may be more difficult to eliminate the Dutch in Tainan. But to get rid of the Spaniards, who have a small number of troops stationed in northern Taiwan, should have a great chance of winning.

Next, after receiving Li Xiao's 1,000 taels of silver, Zhao Jie, the chief of firearms, who met Li Xiao's eager gaze, responded loudly and promised to complete Li Xiao's entrustment as soon as possible. Then he said goodbye to Li Xiao and led the crowd back to the artillery factory in Iron Dragon City.

Zhao Jie had just left for three days, and Li Haoran, the captain of the guard who went to Beijing to deliver the good news, led the light cavalry and returned to Chifeng City smoothly.

He reported to Li Xiao that he had successfully delivered the letter to Yang Sichang, the secretary of the imperial court's military department, before leading his troops to return.

Li Xiao was very happy in his heart, and comforted him with a big prize, so he let them go down to rest.

It's just that now in the study, Li Xiao, who is pacing repeatedly, is silently thinking about the following things.

Next, how will the court reward itself?

And will the emperor agree to hand over the capital city of Nadengzhou to himself to manage? (To be continued.) )