At this time, the equipment yard was busy. When they learned that His Majesty the Emperor would bring his generals to the equipment courtyard to watch the artillery firing, these craftsmen who had not yet seen the "dragon face" were immediately excited. I can't wait to pave the ground with yellow sand, clean water and clean streets, and welcome the arrival of His Majesty the Emperor with the most solemn welcome ceremony.

Therefore, when Li Shimin came to the equipment institute, he saw a long line of craftsmen standing outside, welcoming the arrival of His Majesty the Emperor. Of course, it is not excluded that these guys want to see the excitement and meet the emperor's "dragon face".

Zhang Yunwen walked beside Li Shimin, and Yan Lide greeted him.

"Your Majesty, ladies and gentlemen, the preparations for the artillery test firing have been made, please come over here!" Yan Lide said neither humbly nor arrogantly.

At this time, Yan Lide was only in his thirties, and he was already a member of the Ministry of Labor, and he was young among the officials at the same level in Datang.

"Good! I would like to see the power of the cannon in Yunwen's mouth! Come, Yan Aiqing, lead the way! Li Shimin behaved extremely cordial and kind in front of people.

Yan Lide was immediately flattered, and hurriedly bent over to open the way in front.

A group of people came to the bottom of the gentle slope next to the equipment yard. I saw that on the gentle slope, a section of the city wall towered, and under the gentle slope, nearly 500 paces from the wall, the muzzles of five large-caliber guns were facing the city wall. According to Zhang Yunwen's estimates, the caliber of this artillery is probably more than 180 millimeters, which can be regarded as a large caliber.

Next to the five guns, three mortars are raising their barrels, and a wooden box of shells is placed next to it.

Not far from the artillery, there were two rows of chairs neatly arranged, which were for Li Shimin and the generals to sit on.

As soon as Li Shimin and the generals sat down, they called to Zhang Yunwen: "Yunwen, come here!" ”

When Zhang Yunwen passed, Li Shimin pointed to the five artillery pieces in the open space: "Yunwen, those iron barrels are the artillery you said?" ”

Zhang Yunwen nodded: "Well, this is artillery!" ”

Cheng Yanjin said beside him: "Good girl, how much iron does this need, if it is used to cast Modao iron armor, I am afraid it can be cast a lot!" ”

Zhang Yunwen turned his head, did not accept the words of this general, whose thinking was still stuck in the era of cold weapons, and said to Li Shimin confidently: "Your Majesty, the minister said that the day that this artillery is as easy as a hand. Now a section of the city wall has been built over there, which is built according to the specifications of the city wall of my Tang Zhongzhou, which is half a zhang thick. Your Majesty, please look, in a while, Weichen will use artillery to collapse the city wall! ”

Li Shimin nodded: "Okay, then it's up to Yunwen's means!" ”

Zhang Yunwen walked to the artillery, measured the distance and wind direction, corrected the angle, used a sandbag and said to the five craftsmen: "Okay, you guys are the same as usual, just load and shoot!" ”

"But my lord, we haven't let go of the cannon yet! In the past, it was all Lu Dajiang who did it himself! Will this thing explode, my family is old and young! A craftsman said with a bitter face.

Zhang Yunwen stared at him fiercely: "You are standing here now, you have to let it go, you have to let it go, if you dare not let it go, believe it or not, Lao Tzu will stuff you into the barrel and beat you out!" ”

Under such a threat, the five craftsmen made a bitter face, pulled the bolt, and laboriously picked up more than 20 catties of shells, stuffed them into the barrel, closed the bolts, and held iron chains. The other end of the chain is attached to a mechanism in the bolt, and if you pull the chain hard, the two flints on the mechanism will spark and ignite the primer at the end of the cannonball, and the cannonball will fly out.

Looking at the trembling appearance of these craftsmen, Zhang Yunwen thought in his heart that he would pick some people from the academy to come out and train them as artillerymen, so that this situation would not occur again when the artillery was tested in the future.

Retreating to a safe distance, Zhang Yunwen said to the five craftsmen with a serious face: "The city wall in front of the target!" Ready, put! ”

Hearing the word "put", the five craftsmen pulled the chain with all their might.

A deafening sound of shelling was heard, and then the sound echoed throughout the valley for a long time.

And Li Shimin and the others have been staring at the five artillery pieces without blinking since they heard Zhang Yunwen shout the words "the city wall in front of the target". Only a loud sound like thunder was heard, and the crowd was suddenly frightened, and several generals even stood up directly.

At the same time as the cannon sounded, a burst of fire flashed at the muzzle, followed by the sound of explosions. Everyone's eyes couldn't help but fall on that section of the city wall at the same time.

I saw that four cracked openings were blown out of the seemingly solid city wall, and the ground was covered with bricks and stones. The half of the city wall that had been bombarded almost crumbling.

Of course, in addition to the quality of the city wall, it also shows that the power of the artillery is indeed huge. However, what made Zhang Yunwen unhappy was that a cannonball turned crooked and exploded in the right rear of the city wall, blowing up a large crater close to the zhang.

Li Shimin and the generals suddenly looked at the city wall and the big pit in amazement, and involuntarily stood up, their eyes full of shock.

Zhang Yunwen walked up to them with a smile and said to Li Shimin: "Your Majesty, I don't know if you are satisfied with the power of this artillery?" As he spoke, his eyes squinted at Cheng Biting Jin, "Isn't it much more powerful than the catapult in Wagangzhai?" ”

The generals suddenly remembered what Cheng Yanjin said at the last staff meeting, and immediately laughed. Cheng Yanjin said nonchalantly: "Hehe, the catapult is a hair!" If there had been artillery back then, Lao Tzu could occupy Luoyang alone! ”

The generals laughed again.

Li Shimin looked at the artillery, which was emitting wisps of white smoke, and said, "Yunwen, this is a good thing!" You go and fire two more cannons, and blow up that section of the city wall for me!" ”

It seemed that the desire for destruction in Li Shimin's heart had been born, and he saw a frenzy flashing in his eyes, waving his arms, eager to plow the city wall in front of him with cannonballs.

This kind of emotion was also felt when Zhang Yunwen saw the artillery acting, the kind of shells falling from the sky, the constantly flying dirt all over the mountains, and the huge explosions, which were very easy to stimulate the nerves of some people and make them fanatical. Obviously, Li Shimin is this kind of person.

Zhang Yunwen couldn't help but splash cold water at Li Shimin and said, "Your Majesty, do you really want to fire a cannon?" This cannonball is precious! ”

"Well, I haven't asked yet, how much did it cost to build these cannons?" Hearing Zhang Yunwen's words, Li Shimin suddenly calmed down, looked at the five artillery pieces and asked.

"Well, almost 100,000 times! Put a shell like that just now, put it on one and put it into a few hundred! Zhang Yunwen said this number lightly.

"Uh, forget it, I'll see later!" Li Shimin said with a distressed face.

Since Li Shimin took the initiative to ask about the money, how could Zhang Yunwen not seize the opportunity, and said at the moment: "Your Majesty, don't look at the money spent like running water, but look at these cannons, they are full of power, if they attack Tuyuhun and Goryeo in the future, those countries that have built cities, it will be really easy, as long as two or three artillery generals will blast their city walls open." Let's not talk about the siege, let's talk about the field battle, a volley of shells bombarded over, and at least a thousand and eight hundred people would die in the enemy's military formation. Once this thing is out of the world, who can compete with it? Hehe, Your Majesty, or you will ask for more money from the household, and let's make a few more? ”

Li Shimin was moved when he heard this, but he shook his head: "This thing is too expensive, if you want to manufacture it in large quantities, I'm afraid it won't work!" ”

Zhang Yunwen continued: "Well, Your Majesty, at the beginning, the minister said 100,000 yuan, which meant the cost of researching and manufacturing this cannon and the cost of being together. In fact, the manufacturing cost is not much, but the research cost is more than the research cost again and again. Nowadays, the research costs are no longer required, and all that is needed is the manufacturing costs. For such a cannon, the steel was taken from the Ministry of Works, and the investigation institute only had to pay for gunpowder, labor, and other costs. Zeros and zeros add up, a cannon costs about 2,000 pieces, and a shell costs about 800 wen. If it is large-scale manufacturing, the cost will be further reduced! ”

Li Shimin nodded when he heard this, looked at the artillery in the field, pondered for a moment, and said, "Still can't do it!" Yunwen, I am in charge of the country, but I have to consider the overall situation, but now the big policy of the Tang Dynasty is to prepare for next year's war against the Turks, so I can't take out the money to build more artillery! However, the power of this cannon is obvious to all, and I withdraw a thousand yuan from the inner treasury every month, which is counted as the cost of casting the cannon in my private life! ”

When Zhang Yunwen heard this, he was stunned at first, and then his face was moved. Li Shimin's actions reminded him of Japan before the First Sino-Japanese War, when the emperor squeezed money out of the imperial expenses to build ships.

Pointing to the mortars: "Your Majesty, that kind of large artillery can not be built for the time being, but this kind of small cannon can still be built." ”

Li Shimin looked at the short mortar and asked in surprise: "This cannon is also so powerful?" ”

Zhang Yunwen shook his head and made a gesture to the craftsman not far away, who understood the meaning and immediately picked up a cannonball and put it into the barrel.

Just listening to the sound of "tom", the shell whistled out, landed at a distance of about 400 paces, and exploded with a "boom". The clods of earth flew and shrapnel shot deep into the trunks of nearby trees.

Li Shimin's eyes suddenly lit up, and he asked softly, "Yunwen, how much does this little cannon weigh?" ”

"Well, about thirty pounds!"

"And how much does it cost to make a small cannon like this?"

Zhang Yunwen made a rough estimate: "Uh, it will take about a hundred!" This kind of shell costs about 200 wen each! ”

Li Shimin clapped his hands and said, "Okay! This cannon is good! You are now starting to make this kind of small cannon for use in the next year's war against the Turks. As for this cannon, wait a few years to rebuild it. At that time, I pacified the Turks, the treasury was gradually rich, and the warehouses were full, so I could make this kind of cannon! Between the words, there was a lot of regret that I couldn't forge this kind of cannon now.

"By the way, what's the name of this cannon, can't it be called such a big cannon and a small cannon!" Li Shimin said suddenly.

"Well, please give your majesty a name!"

Li Shimin pondered for a moment, pointed to the cannon in the field and said: "This kind of cannon is infinitely powerful, when the cannon is fired, it is like thunder, I named it 'Tianwei General Cannon', symbolizing my Tang Tianwei!" If the alien race dares to offend my Tianwei, I will bombard them fiercely with the 'Tianwei General Cannon'! As for that kind of small cannon, it is easy to carry, if you take them with you from afar, it is convenient and powerful, so I will name it 'Zhengyuan General Cannon'. Uh, what do you think of Yunwen? ”

Zhang Yunwen immediately said: "Your Majesty's name is both apt and majestic, it is really suitable!" ”

Li Shimin smiled "hehe" and looked at the cannon in the field, full of joy.