The firearms bureau cannon foundry in the Eastern Domain was actually a place with extremely tight guards.

An entire battalion of soldiers was stationed around the Craftsman Division, plus the guards and the peripheral peasants, and the personnel of the Military Intelligence Department were in charge of inspection, and outsiders could not fly in without the permission of the highest level of the Military Division.

When a group of Nanyang and two tall Dutchmen entered the foundry, the two northern guests, accompanied by Fu Qian, had already started their visit to the foundry.

Deng Wenjun and Lu Sihai are two generals under Wang Zhi, and their identities are extremely special, and it is even said that after Wang Zhi leaves, one of these two will take over the position of the Jiedu envoy, that is, Wang Zhi's successor.

The other person is estimated to be the queen of the festival, that is, the deputy of the festival.

Before coming to the Eastern Domain, the two had been fighting against each other, until the fifteenth year, the situation in the north was even worse, but Xu Zixian, the old man, was able to grant the prince to open the mansion, and mastered the southern sea, Wang Zhi simply sent these two confidants to see the next move of His Royal Highness King Qin, and then decided the northern Wang Zhi's department, the next position and approach.

If Xu Zixian can clear the remnants of Yan Qi and Liu Dan, master the sea surface of many countries, and fight a real decisive battle with Pu Xingfeng, Wang Zhi's meaning, of course, is that he hopes that his subordinates can participate in it.

The two pirates from the north enjoyed the climate of the Eastern Domain, especially the warm climate of the south, and when they first came to the island, they both wore thick cotton jackets and leather coats on top of their jackets, and both of them wore bear skins, and when they walked around, they looked like two black bears waddling along.

Within half a day of going to the island, people from the north were sweating, but they refused to take off their robes, preferring to wet their robes with sweat and to keep their bodies warmer.

Deng Wenjun's face was a little gloomy, but Lu Sihai talked a lot, and he smiled at Fu Qian: "Brother Fu doesn't know, we delayed a winter on Phi Island and Juehua Island, and then the seaside froze, and the boat really had no way to stop before leaving...... That cold ground is frozen, at a glance there is no other color except white, we are all shivering on the boat and on the shore, Dengzhou is better, but we generals are staying in Juehua and Phi Dao, and the matter of transporting grain is left to the little ones to do......"

Fu Qian said in a deep voice: "What is the situation in the north? ”

Deng Wenjun said: "The situation is very bad, sentry cavalry battles and small-scale cavalry battles, we are not opponents of the Donghu people. Now we are forced to be in Jinzhou and the Yuhe area, the imperial court wants to build a city in the Yuhe River, the most unfortunate to repair Jinzhou City, the military grain and grass are still flowing from Pingzhou, Yuguan to the outside of the pass, but the war dragged on for half a year, the soldiers were tired, according to Li Zhao's idea is to enter the army in the autumn and winter after the spring and summer, when the Donghu war horses are weak, and before the winter is also the weakest time for the Hu cavalry...... However, it seems that the imperial court can't wait. ”

The two people from the north were in a bad mood, Deng Wenjun and Lu Sihai were running in the ice and snow for half a year, and they saw with their own eyes that a lot of military camps were erected in the barren land outside Yuguan, and then they watched the Hu cavalry approaching, and many light cavalry battles broke out on the seaside of the narrow corridor of western Liaoning, they saw those Eastern Hu cavalry with bows and arrows and the Great Wei cavalry chasing and killing each other, watching one by one knights fall off their horses with arrows, or they were cut off their horses by long knives, and the western Liaoning entered winter after October, and the ice did not disappear, Many loyal and brave Han family sons and barbarians, like the barbarians, died in the snow after falling off the horse, and now after a long time, there are still many frozen and stiff corpses from the sea to the interior, and some of the corpses of soldiers have been collected, and a large number of corpses are left in the wild and discarded. Some of the corpses of Donghu and war horses were left in the wild, and the war horses were quickly dragged away, which was a supplement to military rations, while the human corpses were decapitated, and the headless corpses were left in the wild, to be eaten by wild dogs and crows.

Such a scene, in the warm and moist Eastern Domain, it is simply unimaginable, Wang Zhi's fleet has been responsible for the transportation of grain for the army, and it only stopped after the seaside was frozen in winter, Wang Zhi also spent a lot of money for this, and the pirates under Wang Zhi's command also paid a lot, originally they did not have much deep affection for Great Wei or Huaxia, but at this moment it is completely different.

Even here in the Eastern Domain, there is an indelible melancholy between Deng Wenjun and Lu Sihai's eyebrows.

"This is our newly forged artillery." Fu Qian pointed to the many heavy cannons displayed in the courtyard of the Firearms Bureau, and there was a smug look on his face, he said: "Crossbow machines and trebuchets will be eliminated sooner or later. ”

The small artillery created by Taizu of the Great Wei Dynasty was mostly manufactured by the forging method, which is also called the forging method.

The first step in the forging method is to refine the pig iron into mature iron. When refining pig iron, the first step is to choose high-quality raw materials and fuels. Then the selected pig iron raw materials are refined in the furnace, and the straw is finely chopped, mixed with loess, and continuously sprinkled into the fire to make the iron feces come out of itself. In this way, five or six fires are refined, and then loess and pulp are used, straw is added, soaked for one or two nights, and then iron is put into the pulp, and after half a day, it is taken out and then refined. Each furnace must be refined to more than ten fires, and five to seven catties of pig iron are refined until only one catty is left, and then it is considered to be ripe.

The second step is board making. The refined wrought iron is beaten into iron blocks, and then the iron plates are divided into eight pieces, and then the small iron plates are beaten into tiles, each iron tile is one foot four inches long, one foot one inch wide, thick in the middle, and thin on the edges.

The third step is the roll. Four iron tiles are rolled into an iron cylinder with a tire rod, and eight iron tiles are rolled into two iron cylinders.

The fourth step is engagement. Cut the ends of the two iron cylinders neatly, and use several iron nails to join the two iron cylinders into one.

The fifth step is to thicken the belly, charge, and firing place of the gun body. Divide it into two pieces of thirty pounds of iron, and beat it into iron tiles, and enclose it around the belly of the cannon and the place where the charge and fire are fired, and thicken these places to make them strong.

The sixth step is to make the rough blank of the cannon and hoist it on the shelf. After being put on the shelf, it should be hung with an ink line, and there can be no deviation. Then use a steel drill to mill the inside of the chamber to be smooth and round, and even the ash in the chamber must be cleaned up with medicinal solution.

The seventh step is to install the fire door, file the light door and guard door on the gun body.

In this way, a small artillery piece was successfully made.

"Taizu's small cannon made by the method of wrought iron rolling is weak, and the killing and wounding are not more than a hundred steps, and the firing range and the double-bow bed crossbow are far inferior, let alone a triple bed crossbow like the eight-cow crossbow." Fu Qian stroked the bronze cannon in front of him, this is a nine-jin cannon, and it is also an early product of the Eastern Domain Firearms Bureau, even if it is an early product, its casting process and level are obviously more than the small firearms cast by the Great Wei Imperial Court before this.

"No matter how we try to cast iron into a cannon, there are too many impurities, the barrel is too thick and heavy, and it is difficult to move." Fu Qian continued: "Later, we tried to use bronze to cast cannons, and the casting process was much simpler, but if we wanted to assemble bronze cannons on a large scale, our financial resources could not afford it, and it was too difficult to purchase copper materials on a large scale. Later, we improved the mold and at the same time improved the cast iron process, and now we are finally able to produce iron artillery on a large scale...... Let's cast the cannon with the mud mold method, nine steps before and after, from the mold to the refining ingredients, and then to the iron, the heart, the bore, the mouth, the chamber, the drill fire door, a heavy artillery before and after nine steps, it is complicated to say, and it is very simple to do more. The most important thing is iron, in the autumn of last year, we have not solved the problem of iron, the two of the iron ore in the East Fan Iron Mine Iron Yard have also been to see, we use coke to make iron, wrought iron impurities are not many, but can not be completely solved, until later I have a new idea, to solve the iron problem of the cast cannon, I am afraid to solve the furnace room temperature...... It is common knowledge that the higher the temperature of the molten iron in the furnace room, the fewer impurities. How can I increase the furnace temperature? The higher the blast furnace, the thicker the furnace wall, the higher the temperature it bears, and the less impurities of the molten iron comes out......

Fu Qian talked eloquently, and the two guests from Liaodong were already in a semi-sluggish state.

However, although they didn't understand those complicated terms, Deng Wenjun and Lu Sihai could understand a little bit, and after that, the sailors of the Eastern Domain would gradually eliminate those bulky bed crossbows and trebuchets, and use more artillery.

This is also a general trend, in some things, Qin King Xu Zi first used a more pragmatic approach, such as the current Wei army is still an army based on cold weapons, Xu Zixian did not plan to step towards heat, soldiers, weapons, flintlock pistols and bayonets are of course good, Napoleon cannons are better, but training, forming an army, making guns and casting cannons, without 30 years of work, can not succeed, and even just tactics and training have to take a long time.

The current technological node should correspond to the sixteenth century, and Europe was also just at the junction of cold and heat, as evidenced by the fact that there was no military formation like the Spanish phalanx that relied on the export of firearms.

At this time, he directly walked towards heat, soldiers, and weapons, but cut off his arms, and the profit was not much, but the cost was very great.

It is the same to change the Fu Ship Battleship to the Taixi Battleship, in terms of technology, capital, personnel and time, the gains outweigh the losses, so the current government army naval division is still mainly to build the Fu Ship Battleship, as for the Taixi Battleship, it still has to wait until the Pu Xingfeng is finished, digest the South Seas trade, and eliminate all the pirates, and then it may take decades to gradually phase out the Fuchuan Battleship and build the Taixi-style sail battleship instead.

And artillery, because of the foundation laid by Taizu of Great Wei, as long as the process is slightly improved, it is much more suitable to use than a bed crossbow.

A three-bow eight-bull crossbow has as many as 100 people to control it, and at least 70 or 80 people, and the artillery power is slightly worse, and the accuracy and range are worse than the bed crossbow in this era, but the artillery crew of four to six people, and a maximum of ten people is enough.

The manpower saved alone is completely worth replacing bed crossbows and trebuchets with artillery!

The artillery in front of you, most of them are ten-pound cannons, that is, the twelve-pound cannon of Taixi, the Europeans are using the sand turning method to cast the cannon, and the sand casting process is the earliest recorded in the Song Dynasty of our country, but the unearthed cultural relics can be found in the north and south at the earliest, and it is likely to be the traces of sand casting. Europe did not turn sand until the 15th century, and the Arabs mastered sand casting in the 12th century. It is not excluded that it was the Arabs who spread the technology of sand casting to Europe.

"In terms of craftsmanship, it's no worse than the Tianfang and Taixi people." Deng Wenjun stroked the cast iron cannon body, felt the smooth cannon body, and then saw the rifling after polishing, and said sincerely: "We have been at sea for many years, from everyone using angle of attack and trebuchet, to the Tianfang and Taixi people began to use artillery, it is less than 20 years in a flash. Now the sailors of the Great Wei have also begun to cast cannons, and in another twenty years, I don't know what the situation will be at sea. ”

Fu Qian said with a smile: "If Brother Deng and Brother Lu come to the Eastern Domain, what will happen in the future will be under the control of the two of them." ”