At the same time as organizing a mighty army, Lu Yuan also had to prepare for the manufacture of weapons and establish his own military factory.

Now with the steel industry, forging high-quality cold weapons is not a problem.

The molten steel can be forged directly, and the efficiency is very fast, and a quasi-mechanic can forge about twenty pieces of cold weapons in a day.

Six or seven days can meet the cold weapon needs of the entire mighty army.

I don't know how much faster than before, when a blacksmith needs to forge a high-grade cold weapon, and it needs to be refined into steel.

However, the mighty army must not only rely on cold weapons, this is an era when hot weapons have begun to appear, and the mighty army must have its own firearms and equipment.

However, although Lu Yuan now has a steel industry, he is not yet able to make firearms for use.

Because gunpowder is required for firearms to fire, the chemical industry is needed to create deterrent firearms.

Lu Yuan even went back to Linqing because of this, and recruited three masters who specialized in preparing gunpowder in Linqing, and Lu Yuan directly hired these three gunpowder masters as quasi-technicians, and established Chunfeng Chemical Company.

These three gunpowder masters are responsible for preparing gunpowder for Chunfeng Chemical Company, but Chunfeng Chemical Company will only use the most explosive gunpowder, and will also give heavy rewards to those who are adopted, so that these three gunpowder technicians form a competition.

Sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal and other gunpowder raw materials, Lu Yuan asked Zuo Tiejian to purchase a batch when he opened the steel factory.

At present, it is enough to meet the demand for raw materials for gunpowder required for daily training.

The steel plant was taken up by Lu Yuan himself.

After Zuo Tiejian handed over the mining operation to an apprentice named Qi Liangbo with him, he was ready to only be responsible for the manufacture of firearms, and served as the leader of the machinery group of Chunfeng Machinery Company.

Lu Yuan grouped Chunfeng Machinery Company, of which the machinery group was responsible for the manufacture of firearms.

Lu Yuan did not let the left iron arm make the bird gun, but let the left iron arm directly start to make the mini gun.

After all, Lu Yuan now has the industrial conditions to make Mini guns.

The so-called Mini gun is nothing more than a pre-flint boring gun, and the most critical technology lies in the Mini bullet and rifling.

Now Lu Yuan has used the crucible graphite steelmaking method to manufacture high-carbon steel, and the hardness of high-carbon steel can be directly used as a hook knife to draw rifling.

As for the principle of the mini bullet, it is nothing more than using lead bullets to make conical bullets with round holes at the bottom, using gunpowder to burn to cause the bottom of the bullet to expand and squeeze the rifling so that the bullet can rotate at high speed to improve accuracy and range, so it is better than flintlock pistol in performance.

Lead bullet is also relatively soft and easy to process, so there is no problem in manufacturing lead bullet.

Lu Yuan asked Hong Qingyun, a craftsman who had made lead bullets in Liaodong, to be the leader of the second group of the continuing machinery, who was specifically responsible for manufacturing this kind of mini bullets, and stipulated the specifications for Hong Qingyun to manufacture mini bullets according to the caliber of 18 millimeters of mini guns.

According to Lu Yuan's requirements, Zuo Tiejian began to manufacture firearms in a mechanical group.

First, the left iron arm placed an iron rod directly on a wooden boring machine made by mechanic Zeng Dongsheng, and then used a wooden manual machine tool to turn the drill bit to drill the barrel.

As the wooden turntable rotated with the left iron arm, the drill bit began to rotate, and little by little iron filings were drilled in the center of the iron rod.

Although Zuo Tiejian already knew that high-carbon steel could process pig iron, he still opened his mouth in horror when he saw the scene when he could drill out the barrel by simply turning the wooden machine tool: "Childe, I really didn't expect that the barrel can be made like this, I used to make the barrel of the gun to first break the iron into pieces, and then roll it on the iron rod, sprinkle it with iron powder for welding, the whole process is time-consuming and laborious, and from time to time it leaks and blows up the chamber, this is good, don't worry about air leakage, and save effort and speed." ”

"The most important thing is that it's not that difficult to learn, and it won't be long before these apprentices around you can drill the barrel independently!"

Lu Yuan said with a smile, and said to Zeng Dongsheng, who was asked to observe the effect of the manual machine tool: "Master Zeng, do you want to think about the way to be sure that you don't need to use manual work, and use the hydraulic power of the valley next to it to drive the drill bit of this lathe to rotate, so that it may be faster, after all, you don't need manpower, and you can work day and night." ”

Zeng Dongsheng nodded, he has now made a hydraulic blower for the steel mill, and it shouldn't be difficult to make a hydraulic lathe, so he agreed: "Don't worry, Childe, I'll try it then." ”

Lu Yuan nodded and didn't speak again.

After ten days, Zuo Tiejian drilled out the first barrel, he was so happy that he hurriedly came to Lu Yuan: "Childe, I have been building a bird gun for so many years, why haven't I thought about improving the method of steelmaking, and now you can make a new way to make a barrel, and it took less than ten days to make a barrel, and it is obviously much thicker than the barrel I built in the past, which really makes the little one too admirable!" ”

Zuo Tiejian was still a little dissatisfied with Lu Yuan's interference in making firearms in the past, but now he is completely convinced by Lu Yuan, you must know that he is a master who has been building bird guns for nearly twenty years, but he never thought that one day he could make a good barrel in such a simple and fast way.

"Ten days is still too slow", Lu Yuan frowned.

Jiannu didn't have much time left for him, he had to let his mighty army carry out firearms training and array training as soon as possible, and one barrel in ten days, which means that a master can only make about three barrels in a month, and it is still a barrel that is not rifled.

"Childe, is this still slow? The small one can be regarded as a skilled craftsman, and it takes a month to polish a bird gun barrel just by polishing it! It's only been 10 days! ”

Zuo Tiejian said a little unpleasantly, he thought Lu Yuan would be very happy.

"Master Zuo, I believe that as long as you dare to think, you will definitely have the opportunity to make ten barrels a day in the future, of course, this cannot only rely on you, but also on the joint efforts of the three machine tool groups and the one group of firearms in the machinery."

As soon as Lu Yuan said this, Master Zuo had no choice but to nod, but he was also thinking about what else could make the barrel faster.

At this time, Lu Yuan said again: "I decided to give up rifling first, Master Zuo, you will directly hand over the work of drilling the barrel to your apprentice, and I want you to immediately take the lead in assembling the flintlock gun I told you!" ”

Zuo Tiejian asked with some disappointment: "No, isn't it Childe, let's not rifle and do what you call the Minnie gun?" ”

"Don't do it for the time being, the time is too tight, first make a batch of flintlock pistols for my soldiers to use, and then I will have someone notify the second mechanical group to stop making Mini bullets and make round ball lead bullets in batches first."

As Lu Yuan spoke, he directly asked people to call Hong Qingyun from the second mechanical group, and agreed with Zuo Tiejian on the caliber of the barrel of the flintlock pistol and the specifications for the required lead bullets.