Affected by the high cost of purchased raw materials, the prices of ordnance produced in the Tang Dynasty are relatively high.

Even if the Ministry of Industry has now adopted assembly line production, the yield rate has been improved, and the production efficiency has also improved a lot, but the cost of various ordnance of the Datang New Army is still high.

The cost of a musket, if converted into silver, costs about five taels of silver, which is much higher than the price of the bird gun built by the Ming Dynasty in history.

Even if it is a cold weapon, such as the most common knife, the waist knife distributed to ordinary soldiers in the sword workshop of the Ministry of Industry, the price is about one or two silver, of course, this kind of waist knife is also guaranteed by quality, not the kind of all-iron knife, but most of the blade is iron, but the blade is covered with steel.

As for the new, better-quality command waist knives issued to the officers, the price was even higher, almost four taels of silver.

The price of the armor is higher, if it is a new pair of cotton iron armor, the price required is more than twenty taels of silver, even if it is transformed with the armor captured from the Ming army, it still requires a few taels of silver to transform the cost.

As for the artillery, the price is even more ridiculously high, you must know that the current artillery of the Tang New Army is all cast in bronze, and copper was currency in ancient times.

In other words, the new army of the Tang Dynasty directly casts artillery with money, coupled with the difficulty of casting, the cost has always been high, if converted into silver, this kind of artillery of 1,300 catties, the original and labor costs alone will be as high as more than 300 taels.

Therefore, the muskets, artillery, and even swords and spears used by the new army of the Tang Dynasty are actually not cheap. The same weapon, the same quality, if the Ming Dynasty organized craftsmen to produce it in large quantities, the price could be reduced a lot.

It's just that in the Tang Dynasty, these ordnances were produced by themselves and then directly delivered to the army, and there was no monetary connection between the military and the Ministry of Industry, so many people didn't have much feeling about the high price of many weapons in the Tang New Army, and the generals of the military didn't even know the value of their own weapons.

But as the tax department in charge of money in the Tang Dynasty, they are extremely sensitive to the cost of ordnance, listening to the surrounding military generals looking forward to the future need for more artillery, Yang Xiucai, who has been promoted to the Ministry of Taxation, complained in his heart, these martial artists really don't know how expensive firewood and rice are, and they don't care about how much it costs to equip these weapons when they open their mouths.

The casting cost of this artillery is only one aspect, in order to make the artillery exert its combat effectiveness, you still need ammunition, and the shells are okay to say, just an iron lump, but gunpowder is expensive.

In addition, what is more troublesome is that such a 1,300-pound artillery, its guns themselves, gun mounts and ammunition together, need at least ten or even more than twelve horses to pull, in addition to a dozen artillery and almost the same number of musketeers to protect.

An artillery team with only six of these 1,300-pound guns would need at least more than 100 soldiers and seventy or eighty horses to be able to sustain the operation.

Judging from the cost of various arms in the Tang Dynasty, the resources spent by an artillery team are enough to arm three elite cavalry teams or eight infantry teams.

This artillery is a big gold swallower!

However, although he had these thoughts in his heart, Yang Xiucai did not say it, now the Tang Dynasty is facing great military pressure, and all the departments of the Tang Dynasty are operating to support the expansion of the army and fighting, and his tax department is naturally no exception.

The huge expenses required by the new army of Datang have to be supported by his tax department, and the pressure on military spending is not ordinary!

If the tax department he is in charge of cannot raise enough money and food to support the expansion and war of the army, then he will not be able to serve as the secretary of the tax department, and His Majesty will not hesitate to replace him.

Although he was forced to join the bandit den of the Tang Dynasty at the beginning, but since he was a thief, and his name has been reported in various documents and even folds on the Ming Dynasty, he is called the "head of the Pseudo-Tang Tax Department" and "one of the leaders of the Pseudo-Tang Dynasty thieves", he has lost all his retreats, and what he can do now is naturally to hope that the Tang Dynasty can support it, and he is also getting better and better in the Tang Dynasty, it is best to be able to get the title of a university scholar like Liu Bagou and them.

The thoughts of the civil and military ministers behind him, Li Xuan was naturally in no mood to care about it at this time, and he was only paying attention to the test firing of this artillery now.

After the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry and the veteran artillerymen temporarily transferred from the artillery battalion made relevant preparations, Zhou Kesong of the Ministry of Industry said to Li Xuan: "Your Majesty, you are ready, can you start testing the artillery?" ”

Li Xuan nodded slightly: "Let's start!" ”

After Li Xuan nodded, the artillerymen dozens of meters away in front were loaded according to the standard process at the beginning, these artillerymen were all veterans who operated 800 catties of artillery, and the loading process was naturally extremely skilled, and the entire loading process was completed in one go, without any problems.

After the reloading, I saw that the temporary gun commander gave the order to open the cannon.!

Rumble!!

The sound of a huge cannon suddenly rang out in the test range of an artillery workshop, and the rumbling of cannon rang out at the same time. A cloud of white smoke also rose from the muzzle of the cannon, but no one paid attention to the rumbling cannon and the smoke, but instead stared at a huge thick wooden plank two hundred meters away.

The first test firing was conducted using a reduced charge to shoot at a target at a distance of 200 meters.

Because of the operation of the old artillerymen, and the craftsmen who were most familiar with the gun personally calculated the parameters and the amount of charge, the hit rate of this first gun was quite impressive.

Directly hit the thick plank that was only a few meters large, and directly punched a big hole in the fast thick plank, and after hitting through the plank, the solid ball cannonball did not stop, but continued to bounce forward and roll, plowing a large crater on the ground, which shows its great power.

"Good!"

"Yes, it's really powerful!"

The first artillery test firing was successful, and many people shouted loudly, especially the generals of the military, who were even more excited, they had seen a lot of artillery shooting, and they had seen the 500-pound and 800-pound artillery shooting, but the power was incomparable with the artillery in front of them.

Later, this artillery gun was tested three times, one with a range of 400 meters, and the second with a range of 460 meters, and the two test firings also had a considerable hit rate, and the 400-meter test firing achieved an accurate hit, and although the 460-meter test firing did not hit the wooden plank that was only three meters wide, the test firing that did not hit was only a few meters away from the target.

Such a hit rate can be called accurate, you must know that this is a gun, not a musket, and a deviation of a few meters is not a problem at all.

After firing at an effective range, the gun was also tested at a range at a large elevation angle, successfully gaining a range of 3,600 meters.

More than a dozen test launches were carried out, and almost all of the tests were tested, and the shooting parameters obtained met the design requirements.

Li Xuan is still very satisfied with the test firing results of this sample cannon, and since he is satisfied, then Li Xuan naturally needs to consider how to equip and use these thousand-pound heavy guns.