The artillery workshop is now busy, and everyone is waiting for an iron guy in the center of the field that is two meters high and half a meter in diameter. This is the iron model for making artillery, and Ma Cheng saw it for the first time, so he couldn't help but be very curious, and stepped forward to see it in detail.

Song Yingxing saw Ma Cheng's curiosity, and shouted on the side: "Zhonghe, come back quickly, it will be cast in a while!"

Ma Cheng heard Song Yingxing say this, quickly left this iron guy, walked to Song Yingxing's side and said, "Teacher, it's the first time I've seen a casting cannon!"

Song Yingxing rolled his eyelids when he heard Ma Cheng say this: "Zhonghe, I don't know where you copied these drawings from there, and when it comes to organ mathematics for teachers, you can be regarded as the first person in Daming, but you haven't seen these drawings!"

"Haha, didn't the disciple tell the teacher, they all learned from that Franc machine missionary, as for whether it is right or not, the disciple doesn't know!"

Ma Cheng was sloppy here, and Song Yingxing also knew that Ma Cheng was not telling the truth. Song Yingxing is not the kind of official who does not ask about the world in the later Manchu Dynasty, the officials of the Ming Dynasty have a close relationship with those missionaries, although Song Yingxing did not join the church like Xu Guangqi, but he still had contact with the missionaries, and those blonde and green-eyed foreign devils do not have the ability of Ma Cheng.

Song Yingxing knew that Ma Cheng would definitely not tell him the truth, so he snorted and sat on the chair. The dogs of the battalion division of the military department are obviously better than Ma Cheng to Song Yingxing, and a seven-grade director saw Song Yingxing sitting down and hurriedly stepped forward to serve tea, and Ma Cheng, who was watching, secretly scolded the dog in his heart for looking down on people.

This is also something that can't be helped, Song Yingxing was born on the right path in the imperial examination, and has been in the officialdom all his life, from the lowest-level eight-grade teaching to the five-grade Zhizhou, most of these Ministry of Industry officials in front of him are Song Yingxing's juniors, and with Song Yingxing's attainments in the organs, those Ministry of Industry officials are naturally respectful.

But Ma Cheng is different, he doesn't know a single big character, he is still from Qiu Ba, although Lao Tzu Ma Shiying is the first assistant, but Ma Shiying's notoriety and Song Yingxing's clear name cannot be compared, so naturally these officials of the Ministry of Industry look down on Ma Cheng.

The highest position in the workshop is Ma Cheng, and the lowest is Song Yingxing, and now the lowest Song Yingxing has a seat, and the highest Ma Cheng has no seat. Xu Zhenye couldn't look past it on the side, so he hurriedly shouted: "What are you doing? I'm not going to get a chair for the military lord to sit on! ”

Ma Cheng was very grateful when he heard Xu Zhenye say this, it was nothing if he couldn't sit or not, as long as he really couldn't get off the stage just now. Ma Cheng heard Xu Zhenye finish speaking and hurriedly said, "No need! No more! In front of the teacher, there is a place for the disciples! After Ma Cheng finished speaking, he stood behind Song Yingxing and began to watch the casting artillery.

The preliminary work has been almost prepared, and the next step is to put the iron guy into the pit, and then sift in fine sand around the perimeter to fix the iron fan. When all the work was ready, the craftsman began to cast at the signal of Song Yingxing, and slowly poured the freshly baked molten steel from the adjacent steelmaking workshop into the six holes in the iron fan.

After pouring molten iron, the water began to be introduced into the inner fan, and for a while, the entire artillery workshop was foggy, like a fairyland on earth. When the molten iron is almost cooled, take out the iron fan as a whole, and then remove the iron fan from the outside to the inside.

After all the iron fans were dismantled, a big black and steaming guy appeared in front of Ma Cheng. If there are military enthusiasts of later generations who come to the scene, they will definitely find that the big guy in front of them is the pinnacle of smoothbore artillery, the Napoleonic cannon.

The Napoleon cannon is a type of smoothbore cannon named after the Emperor of France. It was an effective weapon with ferocious firepower, extremely simple to manufacture and use, and the original cannon was cast in bronze. Although the Napoleonic cannon was superior, it did not mean that it was without defects, and due to the heavy weight of the bronze cast breech, the weight of the whole gun was large, which made it very difficult to maneuver.

However, Ma Cheng's cannon cast with molten steel does not have the shortcomings of a bronze cannon, because of the material problem, the weight of this steel cannon is much lighter than that of a bronze cannon of the same caliber, but the steel cannon also has disadvantages, that is, the service life is not as good as the bronze cannon.

Ma Cheng came to the front of the artillery to watch in detail, this big guy has not completely cooled down, and the whole body is still exuding temperature, Ma Cheng wanted to reach out and touch it but was stopped by Song Yingxing.

"Zhonghe, don't touch it, now his temperature is very high, and it has to cool down slowly!"

Ma Cheng hurriedly retracted his hand and asked, "Teacher, why can't you cool it with water?"

"Now the temperature inside and outside of this iron cannon is not the same, if you pour water on the outside to cool it, there will be cracks on the inside, and it is easy to explode."

Ma Cheng didn't expect Song Yingxing to know that he was far away from the uneven heat and cold, and hurriedly asked: "The teacher is really talented, and he understands the truth of uneven heat and cold!"

Song Yingxing nodded when he heard Ma Cheng say this, and said, "Uneven heat and cold? That's a good term. The division had already tested it a few days ago, and immediately after the casting, it was cooled down with water, and it was known that there were cracks in the cannon body. ”

Ma Cheng heard Song Yingxing say this, only to know that these guys had already done an experiment a few days ago, probably because they failed, they didn't tell themselves, and today they were completely sure that they notified themselves to watch.

Just as Ma Cheng and Song Yingxing were chatting, the temperature of the artillery slowly dropped, and Ma Cheng could get close and watch carefully this time.

This artillery is different from the previous Ming artillery, and the Ming army's cannon has five to six stiffeners on the gun body due to material problems to prevent explosions. This artillery is very similar to the Hongyi cannon imitated by the Ming army, but the caliber ratio is larger, that is, the cannon body is longer.

Ma Cheng's imitation of this Napoleonic gun is 1.6 meters long and has a caliber of 9 centimeters, which has reached 17 times the caliber, which is about the same as the M1841 6-pounder field gun.

A craftsman on the side got a boom and hoisted the cannon on the ground scale, and the figure was 734 catties. One pound in the Ming Dynasty was equivalent to more than 590 grams, and these more than 700 catties were more than 300 kilograms in later generations, which was already lighter than a 6-pound bronze cannon.

Song Yingxing frowned when he saw this weight, he knew that the Hongyi cannons in the Ming Dynasty all started from a thousand catties, and the heaviest Shenwu general was even more than 10,000 catties, even the large Franc cannon with a firing range of only more than 100 steps also had eight or nine hundred catties, and this kind of small cannon was only 700 catties, so it seems that the range should not be far.

This artillery was completely completed according to the drawings provided by Ma Cheng, so Song Yingxing was very uneasy, and asked worriedly: "Ma Cheng, this kind of small cannon is so light, it is estimated that it only has a range of 200 steps."

Ma Cheng laughed: "Teacher, don't worry about this, let's test shoot once in a while!"

The artillery carriage for this artillery has already been prepared, and by the time the craftsmen have finished trimming the artillery and placed the artillery on the gun carriage, a field gun is officially completed.

Ma Cheng's weapons bureau was in Beicheng, because it was located in the city, and it was impossible to test artillery, so Ma Cheng had no choice but to find a few mules to drag the artillery to the Nancheng University Yard to test the new artillery here.

There is a total of fifteen miles from the north city to the south city, and if it is the kind of Hongyi cannon that is thousands of catties, it will be troublesome, and it is impossible to transfer the position once for a few days. However, because of the light weight of this cannon and the addition of a new gun carriage, two mules could drag the cannon away, and within an hour it could be transferred from the northern city to the southern city.

The Dajiaochang outside the southern city occupies a vast area, and most of it is open land and farmland except for Ma Cheng's military camp. Ma Cheng chose a place with flat ground and a wide field of vision, where he prepared to test the gun. When passing by his own barracks, Ma Cheng called all his main generals over and asked them to see what real field artillery was.

When they arrived at the place, several craftsmen began to tinker with artillery, according to the regulations of the Ming army's thousand-pound Buddha Lang machine gun, it was necessary to load gunpowder eight taels and six dollars, these craftsmen thought about this artillery has seven hundred catties, in order to ensure that it does not explode, the first charge was only loaded into six taels.

The craftsman put the gunpowder bag and the cannonball into the barrel in turn, pierced the gunpowder cannon with the fire tongs inserted into the breech, then poured gunpowder into the ignition hole, and then ignited and fired at the signal of Ma Cheng.

Because of the insufficient charge, this test firing only hit a distance of about 500 paces, which was about the same as a thousand catties of Hongyi cannons. Ma Cheng frowned after listening to the distance and asked, "How much gunpowder did you use?"

The craftsmen hurriedly replied: "Back to my lord, the villain used six taels of gunpowder just now!"

"Double, this time with a pound and two taels!" The gunpowder used in this artillery is a new type of gunpowder developed by Ma Cheng, and its power has far exceeded that of the Ming Dynasty. Song Yingxing heard Ma Cheng say this and hurriedly said: "No, you can only use one catty at most, this is a test cannon, in case it explodes, it will be troublesome!"

Ma Cheng heard that the teacher objected to him, so he had no choice but to nod and let the two craftsmen fight according to the teacher's arrangement.

After Ma Cheng's order, the two craftsmen trembled and restarted the charge, this time loading a pound of gunpowder, and one of the craftsmen said: "Brother, this time it depends on luck, you and my brother will die together!" The 5,000-pound Hongyi cannon in the Ming Dynasty was only charged with two catties, and this small cannon now has to be loaded into one catty, and these two craftsmen are ready to be blown up.

When everything was ready, a craftsman closed his eyes and lit the powder with a torch, and felt a loud bang on the ground, and when he opened his eyes a while, he found that he was fine.

The distance of this artillery fire was 700 paces, and the distance in later generations was about 1 kilometer. In the Ming Dynasty, the firing range of tens of thousands of catties of Hongyi cannons was only three miles, and now the firing distance of this seven-hundred-pound small cannon is comparable to that of 10,000 catties of Hongyi cannons, and all the officials present were stunned for a while.

Song Yingxing and the others were civil officials, but they were shocked by the firing distance of the artillery, but they didn't understand the specific meaning. The officers who followed Ma Cheng to watch the excitement were connoisseurs, and if this powerful and light artillery was equipped in large quantities, then the field battle would not be afraid of the Manchu Eight Banners.

Although Zhang Guozhu's character is not very good, but he is a qualified military attaché, if this weapon is put into the battlefield, it will definitely change the balance of strength between the enemy and us, thinking that his army can be equipped with this powerful artillery, Zhang Guozhu trembled with excitement.