Chapter 209: Artillery

From the beginning of Li Shimin's decision to develop mortars, to the present, the Armament Institute has produced more than 20 mortars and nearly 300 shells every month. The price of these output quantities is 10,000 catties of steel production per month.

Almost every day, you can see an endless stream of horse-drawn carts pulling iron ore and coal along the wide and flat road slowly entering the back door of the equipment yard, and then leaving empty.

Located in the north of the equipment yard, the relatively independent iron smelting bureau, four huge blast furnaces and eight smaller blast furnaces run from morning to night, and the thick black smoke coming out of the chimney is uninterrupted. Today, the craftsmen used in this iron smelting bureau account for more than half of the entire equipment institute.

When Zhang Yunwen asked Feng Nuo, the new manager of the Equipment Institute, about the mortars and shells he was now stockpiling, Feng Nuo was silent for a moment and replied respectfully: "Report to my lord, there are now 379 mortars and 17,260 shells in the warehouse of the Equipment Institute!" ”

When Zhang Yunwen heard this single-digit number, he patted Feng Nuo's shoulder with great satisfaction: "Old Feng did a good job!" Well, today you first allocate me ten cannons, three hundred shells, just half a month's output, I want to give those little rabbits a practical lesson! ”

Vonno hesitated for a moment, then nodded in agreement. Zhang Yunwen suddenly patted Feng Nuo's shoulder happily and asked the accompanying students to go in and move things.

"My lord, these things must be registered and submitted to His Majesty!" Feng Nuo saw Zhang Yunwen's elated appearance, and couldn't help but remind.

"Of course I know! Go ahead and sign up! Besides, will His Majesty still approve of the development of artillery when he supported it in the first place? ”

Zhang Yunwen only brought a few dozen students over, and when he heard that Zhang Yunwen and Feng Nuo had finished negotiating, he immediately walked into the warehouse and moved the cannons and shells out.

More than 420 trainees sat cross-legged on the ground. It's March, and the weather is still cool, and it's even colder on the ground. However, the students sat on the ground indifferently, just because of Zhang Yunwen's order to "sit down".

In this group of students, there are not only the children of the Han family who perform well, but also the children of nobles who perform averagely, and even some of them are terrible, and several of them are still familiar with Zhang Yunwen, like Liu Xuanyi, the eldest son of Xing Guogong Liu Zhenghui, this guy's performance is very bad. When he first signed up, he didn't report to the command department at all, but directly reported to Zhang Yunwen's artillery department. Although Liu Zhenghui, who learned the news, didn't say anything in Zhang Yunwen's face, he secretly criticized Liu Xuanyi fiercely.

Another person who is familiar with Zhang Yunwen is Zhang Liang's appearance Zhang Hun. This person reported to the artillery department at the beginning, and Zhang Liang did not object. He was one of the generals who accompanied Li Shimin to visit the artillery test.

Ten mortars were neatly placed in the open space in front of the cadets, and two boxes of shells were placed next to the mortars.

"Do you see what's in front of you? This is the cannon that will accompany us as our loyal partner! Artillery artillery is the soldier who operates the artillery! From today onwards, you should take good care of this cannon as your daughter-in-law and understand it carefully. To understand it is to know more deeply than to know your daughter-in-law! As soon as Zhang Yunwen's voice fell, all the students let out a burst of laughter.

A student smiled boldly: "Instructor, are we more than 400 people like this with ten daughters-in-law?" ”

The student's words caused even more laughter. Zhang Yunwen couldn't help laughing: "Of course not!" This small cannon is used by two people, and there is also a large cannon that is used by five people. In other words, now you are two people and one daughter-in-law! In the future, you will be five people and one daughter-in-law! ”

The students continued to laugh.

Zhang Yunwen looked at them quietly, and when the laughter was over, Zhang Yunwen said again: "Today is the first class of our artillery department, and I will personally teach you some artillery-related knowledge!" However, before you touch the gun, I am afraid that we will have to go through a period of theoretical training. So, today's cannons are just for you to see! ”

There was a burst of boos from below.

Zhang Yunwen smiled without mind: "Since it's for you to see, so you can't touch it, I'll touch this cannon today to see your instructor!" As he spoke, he motioned for all the students to stand up, and then he walked to a mortar, opened the wooden box on the ground, took out a shell, and said to the students: "This cannon is composed of a cannon and a cannonball, both of which are indispensable!" Come, look, is there a target over there? ”

At this time, Zhang Yunwen and the students were standing in a huge open space, with Weishui to the north and undulating hills to the south. Following Zhang Yunwen's fingers, everyone saw that nearly three hundred steps away from them, there were wooden stakes lined up densely. Form a circle with a circumference of nearly a kilometer. And there are several such circles at the position of 400 steps and 500 steps.

In the eyes of all the students, Zhang Yunwen stretched out his right index finger, measured the distance slightly, and then leaned down, adjusted a mechanism on the muzzle of the cannon, and slowly raised the muzzle. When a white line on the mechanism turned to a scale, Zhang Yunwen said to the students: "Look at it, the target of 300 steps!" ”

The cannonball in his hand slid down, landed in the barrel, and then crouched down and watched the target at three hundred paces explode.

In the amazed eyes of the students, Zhang Yunwen hit the target at 400 or 500 steps with a mortar.

After the three shells were fired, Zhang Yunwen waved his hand: "Let's go, let's go over and have a look!" "Immediately take the trainees to the target.

When I approached the target made of arm-thick logs, I saw that the logs that had been neatly arranged were centered on the point where the cannonballs landed, and they were tilted in all directions, like chrysanthemums in full bloom. This was caused by the force of the impact of the shell's explosion. The logs at the landing point were all blown into several sections, and a three-foot-large crater appeared in the ground. The flying shrapnel and thistle terrestris were deeply embedded in the logs around the landing point, and even the outermost logs were inserted with shrapnel.

The students were stunned. A cannonball can have such a power when it falls in the middle of a log, but if it falls in the crowd, how lethal is it? Only one cannon fired one shell, if a hundred cannons were fired at the same time, what would it look like?

Zhang Yunwen saw the expressions of the students and was slightly proud. He waved his hand again: "Let's go, go over there and have a look!" ”

In this way, three targets were visited. For the 300-step one, the shell landed almost in the middle, the 400-step one was a little worse, and the 500-step one was even worse, but all three shells hit the dense log formation.

Zhang Yunwen's move, first, is to establish the self-confidence of the artillery, and to make them have the idea that "in the Tang army, attack me is the strongest". The second is to deter these boys and remind them that cannons can't be fired casually!

From the target to the same place, all the students were silent all the way.

Zhang Yunwen secretly laughed twice in his heart, it seems that his goal has been achieved.

After the shooting, Zhang Yunwen's first class was almost over, and he ordered the trainees to move the cannons and shells back to the warehouse, and at the same time solemnly warned that if anyone dared to move this mortar and fire a shell, the trainees would be expelled immediately, no matter who the trainee was or who the student's parents were! Suddenly, everyone nodded solemnly.

For a period of time after that, Zhang Yunwen came to teach classes every day, but it was impossible for more than 400 people to teach in the same classroom at the same time, so they were really busy. Zhang Yunwen had no choice but to find some instructors to come over, and spent a few days teaching classes while explaining to the instructors the so-called triangular ranging, artillery ballistics, and curve shooting theories. And Zhang Yunwen has not yet explained these theories to the students. It is often here that Zhang Yunwen teaches the theory to the instructors, and then the instructors teach the students these on the second day.

Such days lasted for almost a month, and Zhang Yunwen was too tired to do it. Even when he hurried back to Chang'an from Mobei in the first month, he was never so tired.

However, this month was not without effect, and after this period of cramming education, these students have mastered the theoretical knowledge very richly. So Zhang Yunwen announced that it was time for live firing.

The so-called excellent artillery bombarders are actually piled up with shells, accumulate a lot of shooting experience, and only after shooting again and again can they become excellent artillery bombarders. Therefore, Zhang Yunwen transferred 50 mortars and a large number of artillery shells from the Equipment Institute for the trainees to fire with live ammunition.

And he sat next to him, instructing the trainees to shoot. When he had taught all the tricks and was about to put down his burden and take a good rest, Li Shimin went to him, saying that he had something important to discuss.