When Li Xuan stepped forward to look at the three sample guns, the person in charge of the Zhaoqing Arsenal and the director of the Ordnance Department of the Ministry of Industry, and several other people who were specifically responsible for the imitation of the cannon also followed, and explained to Li Xuan the details of the imitation work of the gun!

"Since we purchased the twelve-pounder gun from the Francophone in May, we have been mapping this gun for the first time and preparing to start mass production on our own!"

The person who spoke was Bi Guanlin, the director of the Ordnance Department of the Ministry of Industry, who, like many officials of the Ministry of Industry, was a technocrat who had become a monk halfway!

At first, he was not a formal official, but a manager in the arsenal under the Ministry of Industry, but soon because of his excellent administrative management ability, and because he understood technical affairs, he was soon transferred to the Ministry of Industry, and his promotion was the same as riding a rocket.

Although he is an administrative official, he is relatively proficient in all kinds of technology, so he will not be vague about the data like other officials.

I only heard him continue: "According to the strength of several arsenals under the Ministry of Industry, in the end, we decided to let the Zhaoqing Arsenal start the preliminary imitation work, make technical preparations, and then promote it to other arsenals, and then achieve large-scale production!" ”

"After the efforts of many engineers in the Zhaoqing Arsenal, we made a total of four sample guns, and some time ago carried out intensive limit tests on the first sample gun, according to the test results, we found that although the weight and range of the gun have met the requirements, but the life of the body tube is worse than our seven catties and five catties of artillery, the same cannon made of bronze, the body life of the seven catties and five catties of artillery can reach about 1,000 rounds, but our imitation of the nine catties of artillery, the life of the body tube is only 800 rounds."

"After the efforts of the engineers, the formula of the material and the processing technology were repeatedly improved, and the life of the barrel finally reached the average of 1,000 rounds of bronze artillery, but after the improvement, the weight of the gun was slightly higher than that of the 12-pounder gun of the Franco!"

"Our processing problem is not big, mainly because there are certain defects in the material, at present we have been dispatched from various arsenals, more than 30 engineers with outstanding ability in the field of materials, and a working group has been set up to study the formula of various materials, so as to improve our current level in the field of materials!"

Li Xuan nodded slightly while listening, now in the Tang Dynasty, the processing level is actually not bad, Zhaoqing Arsenal is the most outstanding representative, they use water power and animal power as the power, with a variety of primitive machine tools, primary processing of materials and industrial products, greatly improving production efficiency, and improving the yield rate, such a production model has barely entered the stage of primary industrialization!

However, it is a big shortcoming in the field of materials, even if the ancestors have been playing bronze for thousands of years, it is actually a relatively large defect, not to mention steel products.

For example, the Tang Dynasty has always wanted to use iron to cast artillery, but so far, there are many problems in casting artillery with iron, the most important of which is that the materials are unqualified, and the processing technology is limited by the limitations of the times, so it has always been difficult to cast large-caliber artillery with iron.

At present, in the Tang Dynasty, only in two catties, three catties, two small and large-caliber, short-barreled shotguns cast with iron on a large scale, because the chamber pressure of these two kinds of artillery is relatively low, and the quality requirements for artillery are not too strict, so it is barely possible to cast with iron, that is, the life of the body tube is poor, and the weight is larger, but these defects are not worth mentioning at all compared to their cheap cost and the feasibility of large-scale production.

Nowadays, the two-catty and three-catty shotguns used in the entire Tang Dynasty are all iron-cast, and the bronze cannons made before have been recycled.

In addition, it was also possible to manufacture five-pound guns with iron on a small scale, but the defect of making this kind of long-barreled artillery was too big, first of all, the quality was not good, it was easy to blow up the barrel, and in order to avoid blowing up the barrel, it began to thicken the wall of the barrel, which caused a surge in weight.

It is inconvenient for the army to equip such a heavy iron-cast artillery, so the iron-cast five-pound artillery is only equipped by the navy, and the navy is not very sensitive to the weight of the artillery anyway, and it is not a big problem to be heavier.

Weight is not the point, the more important thing is that the life of the body tube is too low!

The life of the iron cast five-kilogram artillery is only a mere 350 rounds, compared with the life of the 1,000-round barrel of the bronze five-kilogram artillery, the gap is really too big.

If the army's artillery unit is equipped with this kind of iron-cast artillery, it is possible that after a large-scale battle, these iron-cast artillery will have to be scrapped, you must know that the army's artillery can shoot hundreds of shells casually in a large-scale battle, and if it is a long-lasting battle, it is possible to shoot 200 shells.

Such a poor life of the body tube is acceptable only to the navy, because the navy's warships cannot fight often, and they don't want the army's artillerymen to be at war with the enemy for three days and at both ends, and they are very sensitive to the problem of the life of the body.

Of course, the navy is actually reluctant to ask for these garbage goods, but it is cheaper to hold these iron cannons, and the navy needs more artillery than the army, and it is more urgent, so now the navy is also pinching its nose and equipping these iron guns of poor quality that are almost unbearable.

The quality of the artillery is not good, and the material and processing problems are the key!

At this time, Bi Guanlin continued: "After preliminary development and strict limit testing, we finally determined the manufacturing process and determined the detailed parameters of the artillery, and produced three prototype guns on a trial basis!" ”

Li Xuan knew that the three nine-pound guns in front of him were the guns they tried to produce artillery, as for the previous sample guns, they were not representative at all, the previous samples were all for the purpose of finding problems and determining the production process and process, and most of them had been scrapped by various extreme tests, and they had already been recast, and Li Xuan couldn't see it even if he wanted to see it.

"The caliber of this gun is one hundred and sixteen millimeters, the barrel is 2.6 meters long, 22.6 times long, the total weight is 1,400 kilograms, and the fired solid ball projectile weighs 5.44 kilograms!"

"The effective range of the ruler is five hundred and fifty meters, and the maximum range can reach three thousand six hundred meters when we test it, but as before, we strongly recommend not firing beyond the effective range of the ruler, that is, five hundred and fifty meters, because the hit rate will be very low!"

The various units used by Bi Guanlin were all advocated by the Tang Dynasty, to be precise, the new system advocated by Li Xuan, which was specially promoted by Li Xuan for large-scale industrial production.

Therefore, if the weight of the new shells is used, this gun should be a 5.5 kg gun, but this conflicts with the new classification of artillery that the army and navy are preparing to implement on a large scale.

Because it is no longer possible to classify the many types of artillery in the Tang Dynasty in detail by using the method of bullet weight, the army and navy are currently preparing to use the method of combining age plus caliber and double diameter to classify in detail.

However, habits are difficult to change, so at present, many people are still accustomed to calling it a nine-catty artillery, at most, a three-year type is added to the front, and it becomes a three-year nine-catty artillery, and Li Xuan is not ready to make a forced change in this title, anyway, it is a title problem, and it does not affect the measurement problem.

If Li Xuan is willing, it's okay to call this cannon Hongyi Cannon, but is it necessary? No!

Li Xuan knew the performance data of the twelve pounds of the Franc man, which was basically similar to the nine-pound gun he produced, that is, the weight of the nine-pound gun produced by himself was larger, but it was not much bigger.

After all, it's a big guy weighing more than a ton, and the difference in weight of less than a hundred kilograms is nothing

After a brief explanation, the live-fire test began, and the live-fire test had actually been conducted many times before by representatives of the arsenal and the military, otherwise they would not dare to take it out and demonstrate it in front of Li Xuan.

Therefore, the result of the test launch was naturally very successful!

After the test launch was completed, Li Xuan instructed the Ministry of Industry to start mass production as soon as possible!

Now both the army and the navy have a very large demand for this kind of cannon with a caliber of 116 mm, that is, a nine-kilogram gun.

After watching the test firing, Li Xuan naturally did not go home directly, but went to the factory area of the Zhaoqing Arsenal to inspect, focusing on inspecting the existing production lines of muskets, artillery, and various weapons in the arsenal.

At the same time, I also saw the many processing machines in the arsenal that have begun to be put into practical use, and are powered by waterwheels and animal power.

In Li Xuan's opinion, these machines are still very, very primitive, but he also knows that these machines are actually very high-tech in this era, especially the rather large hydraulic forging machine, which makes Li Xuan sigh.

It is not easy to develop such an arsenal with initial industrialization in a handicraft industry!

When he saw these machines, Li Xuan knew that the Tang Dynasty could already improve the production of plate armor!

Plate armor, whether it is Li Xuan or the military generals in the Tang Dynasty, is no stranger, because they have been in contact with the Franc machine man before, and they have already discovered this kind of plate armor equipped by the Franc machine man.

They even have some plate armor in their hands, and they have already bought a few plate armor from the Franc machine man in the arms trade with the Franc machine man, of course, at first it was only used for research, not to say that they were bought for direct equipment.

However, although they have studied this, they never thought that His Majesty would directly say that it would be mass-produced and equipped with plate armor!