The Great War was about to break out, and in addition to urging all localities to pay close attention to spring ploughing, Marin was constantly adjusting the tactics and tactics of the British army and replacing some weapons.

The English army was very different from the armies on the European continent, so Marin needed to change some tactics. For example, the arquebusiers, Marin intended to equip the arquebusiers in the front row with breastplates and helmets. Because, in the event of a battle, England's huge number of longbowmen will definitely "rain arrows". If you don't wear breastplate armor and helmets, you can easily be shot into a hedgehog by the English longbowmen. Because, the arquebusier's rate of fire was far from that of the English longbowmen.

In addition to the musketeers and spearmen in the first three rows, who wore chest armor and iron helmets, the fighters in the back row, Marin also intended to issue iron helmets. This is because English longbowmen like to shoot, and there is a high chance that an arrow will hit the head. In order to prevent excessive casualties, Marlin transferred a large number of helmets from other armies for use by the English expeditionary force.

In addition, Marin had already begun a systematic process of replacing muskets with musketeers. That is, the old arquebuses used by musketeers, such as the Mushket musket, were gradually replaced with more advanced clockwork muskets.

Since Leonardo da Vinci and others came up with simple carbon spring steel, it has become easier to create clocksprings and springs. The elasticity and toughness of spring steel make it more suitable for making springs. The emergence of this material has made the creation of the mainspring and the yield increase a lot.

Before the advent of spring steel, Italian craftsmen made clocksprings, generally by repeatedly heating and beating a pig iron rod, and in the heating and forging process, removing the impurities in the pig iron, making it transition from pig iron to steel - this is a physical process (in ancient China, this is the so-called "forging pig iron into fine iron" process, which consumes a lot of effort and materials in the middle). It takes a long time to forge this iron rod, and finally it is forged into an elongated "iron ruler". At this time, this "iron ruler" can no longer be regarded as pig iron. Because, in the heating and forging process, a lot of carbon elements are consumed, which reduces the carbon content of pig iron, making the iron ruler become a steel ruler.

Then, the craftsman heats this "iron ruler" at a high temperature. After heating, it is bent and fixed on a fixed table and is painstakingly wound into a roll. Then, it is put into the annealing furnace for stress relief annealing.

But the premise is that there is nothing wrong with the "steel ruler". Because it is purely hand-forged to remove carbon, it is difficult to control the carbon content of the steel ruler. After all, the quality is difficult to control by hot forging to remove carbon. Therefore, the finished product rate of using pig iron rods to make clocksprings is very low, generally less than one percent. Among them, the most difficult part is to hot-forge the pig iron rod into a steel ruler with appropriate carbon content. Only steel rulers that meet the quality standards are suitable for making clockwork...... The subsequent bending and annealing process is not complicated. Therefore, such a low yield rate (which is still the yield of skilled craftsmen) has caused the price of clockwork to remain high.

And even if you know how clockwork is made, it's hard to make it without a craftsman who has been immersed in it for many years. Because it is too difficult to control the carbon content of the iron ruler by manual hot forging, it requires extremely rich experience.

However, after Marin made ordinary carbon spring steel, the biggest problem in making clockwork, the material problem, was directly solved.

Therefore, the first stage, which was extremely difficult in the eyes of the craftsmen, the stage of forging the iron ruler, was directly replaced by a cast iron ruler. Then, after a short period of forging (to make the steel ruler more compact), it can be used to roll the mainspring......

After repeated experiments by craftsmen, Marin found that after using spring steel, the process of making the clockwork became simpler, and the yield rate increased from less than 10% to more than 80% using pig iron rods for hot forging......

In this way, the manufacturing cost and manufacturing time of the mainspring are greatly reduced......

Of course, this process took a long, long time, and the craftsmen have repeatedly verified it before they did it. Just when Marin was busy presiding over the spring ploughing, the clockwork casting workshop came to report the good news.

Marin was naturally overjoyed, and the cost of clockwork was greatly reduced, which meant a significant reduction in cost. In this way, there are conditions for the large-scale installation of clockwork muskets.

Of course, Marin didn't forget to keep it a secret. After rewarding the craftsmen with a large amount of money, the craftsmen and their families were moved into a small town dedicated to the residence of the secret unit. This is somewhat similar to the military-industrial units established by the later Republic in the mountains and deserts of the Midwest, and the secrecy is very good. Moreover, the people of this era have very low requirements for spiritual and cultural life, as long as they are well fed and clothed every day, those craftsmen and their families will be satisfied.

After calculations, the cost of the spring was reduced by about 7 times after the application of spring steel and new clockwork production technology. Although the cost of a clockwork musket is still much higher than that of an arquebus, it is of great significance.

Why? Because of the arquebus arquebus, the use of the gun is very inconvenient. In order to prevent the sparks on the arquebus from igniting the gunpowder of the comrades around them, in the Spanish phalanx, the distance between the arquebusiers had to be 1 meter from each other. Otherwise, there will be a major safety hazard.

The distance between each musketeer is one metre from each other, which really enhances security. However, the firing density was also reduced. After all, the interval of 1 meter in the middle was almost enough to stuff an extra musketeer in.

Therefore, after the flintlock pistol replaced the arquebus, because they were all smoothbore guns, although the range did not change, the shooting density of the musketeer was greatly increased.

Even, musketeers with flintlock muskets can achieve a high-density three-row salvo of "standing in the back, bending in the middle, and crouching in the front". Even if the smoothbore gun has a low hit rate, it is a high hit rate when the three platoons of musketeers are only fired in a salvo next to each other.

Clockwork muskets, like flintlock pistols, do not use a fire rope, so it doesn't matter if they keep a distance of 1 meter from each other. Therefore, if a clockwork is used on a large scale, it is also possible to shoot in a high-density queue like a flintlock pistol. In this way, the lethality of the musketeers will be increased to a certain extent.

And one more point - the clockwork musket is not afraid of wind and rain. As long as you pay attention to cover the gunpowder when loading, so that the gunpowder does not rain, when shooting, you can completely expose the musket to wind and rain......

Historically, the black-shirted knights relied on the characteristics of the clockwork musket that were not afraid of wind and rain, and beat the French knights to flee in disarray.

Marlin had to replace the musketeers with clockwork muskets in order to increase the density of the shots and to prepare for rainy weather.

The weather in England is different from that in Germany, where the climate is humid and rains a lot, because of the warm Atlantic current. And once it rains, the arquebus will be completely scrapped and become a burning stick. (In fact, Ireland is the one who really faces the North Atlantic Current, so the western part of the island is very humid and rainy, so it is not suitable for agriculture and has to be grazing.) Only the eastern rainwater "shade zone", i.e. near Dublin, is suitable for agriculture. The island of England is suitable for agriculture because the island of Ireland blocks the water vapor of the Atlantic. But even then, England received more rain than Germany and had a wetter climate. ）

In the case of defending the city, Marin can also make a shooting canopy on the city wall to help the arquebus protect from the wind and rain. But now Marin is the attacking side, and the army needs to move frequently, and there is no condition to get a shooting canopy, and it is not convenient to carry. Therefore, a musket like a clockwork musket that is not afraid of wind and rain and can also increase the density of fire is the best choice.

However, due to the high cost of manufacturing, Marin was only equipped with the Black Shirt Knights, not the infantry musketeers. Now that the technical problems of cost and rapid mass production have been solved, Marin decided to increase production capacity and mass-produce clockwork muskets to completely replace arquebuses.

It's just that it takes a certain amount of time, after all, it takes time to make a clockwork. Therefore, out of the 20,000 troops attacking England this time, only the musketeers of the First Army (that is, the old main army of Marin) began to change their wound guns. As for the English legion in Saqqara, the rate of musket armament was not high, and there were quite a few archers. Therefore, it is not allowed to change the clockwork musket for the time being. Besides, because of the urgency of time, Marin couldn't come up with enough clockwork to reload the English legion with a clockwork musket......

With enough breastplate armor and iron helmets to withstand bows and arrows, and enough clockwork muskets that were not afraid of wind and rain and could also increase the density of fire, Marin felt that the seven thousand English longbowmen in front of him should not be much of a problem, even in the rain and fog of England......