On a wasteland near the Chengnan Shipyard in Qinghe County, four cast-iron cannons with dark bodies are fixed side by side behind the pre-built stone wall, and the sun shines on the cannons.

This open space, which covers an area of thousands of acres, is the test site of the armory factory, and at this time, the four guns are separated by several feet, and each cannon is simply placed on the gun carriage that resembles a naval gun behind the stone wall. This kind of gun truck is the gun car of the Qing army, and it is also the ship gun gun car obtained by the Ming Dynasty during the salvage at sea, and it has been used for half a century. Despite its inconvenience, it was suitable to be used as a test gun carriage at the proving ground.

At this time, Zhu Mingzhong didn't have the heart to consider why the Chinese people had not developed field artillery vehicles for decades, he just looked at these four cannons, and these four newly cast artillery pieces were likely to completely change the balance of strength between the loyal and righteous army and the Qing army.

After everyone had retreated to a distance of thirty feet, with an order, the gunners on the other side immediately lit the fuse rope, which was two feet long, enough to burn for a minute.

"Da ......"

Staring at the ignition rope at the end of the cannon over there, Zhu Mingzhong opened the pocket watch, which was rewarded by Zheng Chenggong, a full twelve pocket watches, ten of which were handed over by Zhu Mingzhong to the artillerymen for timing.

After the second hand turned around, suddenly, the muzzle of the cannon spewed out a scorching flame, only to hear "Boom!" "Boom! "Boom! "Boom! At the same time, the entire gun position was shrouded in gunsmoke, and at the same time, the wooden target erected a hundred zhang away was smashed out of a hole of more than a foot by a projectile weighing six catties.

"Hurry up and take a look, there are still a few that haven't exploded!"

Before the smoke cleared, Zhu Mingzhong was the first to rush over, and then rushed to the gun position. I saw that three of the four guns didn't seem to have cracks, and only one seemed to be faintly cracked.

"Keep trying!"

Without any hesitation, Zhu Mingzhong gave an order, and the gunners who had been training for half a month over there immediately dipped the cannon rod wrapped in several layers of cotton cloth, and then stuffed it into the gun chamber, wiped the gun chamber cold, and then wiped off the moisture in it with a dry cloth gun shaft, and then increased the amount of gunpowder to try again.

"Six pounds of medicine!"

The normal charge of the six-jin cannon is three catties, and the doubled charge is six catties, and the gunners under Xu Youzheng's training are no longer like in the past, using bamboo tubes to hold medicine, but taking out a pack of arm coarse paper tubes, which are filled with gunpowder, and then directly stuffing them into the gun chamber.

"Whole charge!"

Seeing this scene, Zhu Mingzhong suddenly thought of the picture of the front-loading artillery shell that he had seen before. The structure of that kind of shell is very simple, it is nothing more than a cloth bag with wooden stoppers and iron bullets, and the whole charge can maximize the rate of fire of the gun.

"You elm head, how did you forget such an important thing!"

Thinking of the whole load, Zhu Mingzhong naturally thought of the British Navy, which had been galloping across the ocean for more than 200 years, why did they cross the ocean? At that time, the accuracy of artillery was not high, so we had to pursue overwhelming firepower density to overwhelm the opponent, and there were two ways to increase the firepower density: one was to load as many guns as possible, and the other was to increase the firing speed of artillery.

In many cases, multi-loading guns are just one of them, and the shooting speed is fast, in addition to being achieved through repeated training, the more important thing is to reload! It can be said that it was through repeated high-intensity training, as well as reloading, that the British Navy won naval battles again and again with a non-dominant number of guns. The speed of artillery fire, like the speed of a boxer's punch in the boxing ring, is sometimes not necessarily a one-hit kill, but the first enemy can damage the opponent's eyes and head, and can also reduce the opponent's resistance and ultimately achieve victory.

Of course, training and reloading are not the whole story, the British Navy's gunnery is ahead of the rest of the world's navies, and there is also some of their unique skills - porcupine thorns. The British have studied porcupines and found that porcupine spines are hollow, strong, resilient and burning. So they took off the spikes of the porcupine and filled them with gunpowder, and when they fired their guns at sea, they could directly pierce the fire holes, which was one of the secrets of the British guns being fast. Later, they also made fuses from goose feather tubes, which were more readily available.

This kind of hard ignition tube filled with gunpowder, after piercing the ignition hole and connecting with the gunpowder in the chamber, can form a whole without burning slowly like a priming rope, thus greatly increasing the rate of fire. Of course, in addition to porcupine spines and goose feather pipes, the British later began to use flintlock machines to fire artillery, while the French Navy still did not generally use this firing mechanism until the Battle of Trafalgar, so it is not surprising that the guns are slow to shoot.

The continuous innovation of artillery technology is the reason why the British Navy is dominating the seas!

"That's right! It's a goose feather tube! Introduce goose feather pipes into the army first, and then use flint hair machines in the future......"

The enlightenment brought by the whole load made Zhu Mingzhong constantly recall the technological innovation of the Napoleonic era in his mind, and slowly some of the once neglected, even some inconspicuous little things, were thought of by him one by one.

And while he kept recalling those "gadgets" that could improve the combat effectiveness of the troops, the second and third rounds, doubling and doubling the test firing of three artillery pieces, still persisted.

However, despite this, the three guns were still loaded with nine catties of gunpowder and fired six catties of iron bullets, and according to the regulations of this era, the artillery could only be considered qualified after five consecutive tests.

In the test, Zhu Mingzhong took out a solid iron bullet shaped like a lead ball from the wooden box on the side, which is the shell of a six-pound cannon, the weight of the bullet is six catties, if it is converted into kilograms in later generations, it should be about 3.6 kilograms, and if it is converted into the imperial system, it should be about 8 pounds. Although its power cannot be compared with the famous twelve-pound gun, but the weight of 1,200 pounds is barely suitable for field artillery, as for the ten-pound gun weighing 1,400 pounds, although it is only 200 pounds heavier, but the weight of the increased artillery carriage is at least nearly two tons of weight, far exceeding the mobility level of this era. Even if it is a 6-kilogram gun, the total weight of the gun body, gun carriage and wheels is more than 2,500 kilograms.

"The artillery still needs a twelve-pound Napoleon...... But what size is the Napoleon cannon? ”

Of course, even if he racked his brains, Zhu Mingzhong couldn't remember the size of the 12-pound Napoleon's gun, but it did not prevent him from looking forward to that future, although he knew the results of the 200 years of artillery technology progress of Napoleon's guns, but people always had some ideals......

"It's ......"

Looking at a fine line in the center of the cannonball, this is the iron fan seam left during casting, when casting pig iron cannonballs, they are all molded and cast with two semi-circular blanks, which is very rough and must leave a line mark of fit. The appearance of the cannonball is not smooth, it will inevitably affect the accuracy, recalling the information that later generations have seen, it seems that during the Opium War, there was also such a problem, and later Ding Gongchen switched to the lost wax method casting, and the cannonball was cast to the point of being round without a trace, but this cannonball accounted for a very small proportion in the entire war. And the solution to this problem, there is also a way to adopt manual polishing, of course, the cost of this method is relatively high.

Unless...... With the help of a milling machine, it is easy to mill the seams!

Looking at the whitish and gray cannonballs in his hand, Zhu Mingzhong knew that in order to reduce costs, these cannonballs were cast with iron molds, which meant that the materials of these cannonballs were all white pig iron without exception, and white pig iron could not be milled unless it was malleable and annealed.

Zhu Mingzhong, as an engineering student, is no stranger to malleable annealing, which is a heat treatment process that converts brittle white iron into malleable cast iron with good toughness and plasticity by placing white iron in a sand box or furnace with shielding gas. The process is not complicated, and it can even be said to be simple.

"Well, you can order someone to study it when you go back......"

Thinking like this in my heart, the artillery test fire has been completed over there. Xu Youzheng was ordering someone to take down the cannon body, then put it up vertically, and pour water into the cannon chamber.

"After the test release, this cannon needs to be filled with water and placed for a day and a night, if there are traces of water seeping on the surface, it means that the cannon is not usable, if there is no water traces seeping out on the surface, it can be equipped with 300 rounds of iron, and then sent to the army for retention......"

Each cannon is equipped with 300 shells, which is the usual life of artillery in this era, but Zhu Mingzhong obviously has his own opinion on this,

"These three cannons do not need to be sent into the army, wait until the water inspection is over, and then test it here, at least fifty cannons a day, after each 50 shells, then load water for inspection, so that it continues to be fought, do not stop, until the cannon body produces cracks, and then see how many shells are fired, and then count the life of the three cannons, if the three cannons are not good, cast a few, and then test it! I still don't believe it, it only has a lifespan of 300 rounds! ”

Perhaps, the life of the artillery cast by the Qing army is only 300 rounds, but Zhu Mingzhong believes that the improved cast iron and cannon casting technology should be able to improve the life of the artillery, so naturally the old routine will not be followed, and now, Zhu Mingzhong hopes that his subordinates can break the convention.

"The subordinate obeys!"

Regarding the order of the envoy, Dai Cang and Xu Youzheng agreed one after another, and Xu Youzheng said on the side.

"After the war, after the cannon hole has been sharpened, it can be said that the chamber is as clear as a mirror, even if it is a bird gun, it is just like that, in the opinion of the lower officials, the clearance between the cannon and the cannon hole should no longer follow the old practice, since the chamber is smooth, it is said that the shell can be appropriately increased, so that it can not only increase the weight of the cannon, but also increase the power of the cannon......"

Zhu Mingzhong naturally did not object to Xu Youzheng's suggestion, what he needed was this attempt to break the convention.

"Zishu's method, you can also try it, I think that's it!"