On December 25, Li Zhi expanded his artillery workshop. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The artillery workshop now has five gunsmiths, who can cast ten cannons a month, and can produce more than 100 cannons a year. The production capacity of these five people is enough to supply Li Zhi's army, and Li Zhi's army, which has been developed for so many years, is only equipped with one hundred and forty field guns.

But now that Li Zhi is developing the navy, the production capacity of these artillery guns is insufficient. Li Zhi had to carry 20 cannons on a large ship, and after Gao Ligong's introduction, Li Zhi produced large ships in six places at the same time, and six sailing ships were launched every two and a half months. In other words, Li Zhi needs one hundred and twenty cannons every two and a half months.

To produce so many cannons, Li Zhi had to vigorously expand his artillery workshop.

Li Zhi transferred twenty-five skilled foundry craftsmen from the workshop that produced the dragon tail car to the artillery workshop, raising the number of people in the artillery workshop to thirty. The original five gunsmiths all served as masters, teaching the new foundry craftsmen how to cast cannons.

Li Zhi set a reward system for five gunsmiths, each with five apprentices. It is stipulated that for each disciple in the church, the master's monthly income will be increased by one tael. If all the five apprentices are out of the school and can participate in the casting of cannons to increase the production capacity of artillery, the master's monthly income will increase by five taels.

After a few months of teaching, the artillery workshop will be able to produce dozens of cannons per month.

This kind of reward system is very attractive, the five gunners originally only had a monthly salary of three taels a month, but when they heard that the apprentices of the church could raise the monthly salary to eight taels, they all felt that joy had fallen from the sky, and they no longer hid their secrets. They teach their apprentices hand in hand, and strive to train them as quickly as possible.

In fact, casting cannons is similar to other casting work, and it is not difficult to teach the casting technology to skilled foundry craftsmen. The well-known Buga Lao Cannon Foundry in the Far East, which employs gunsmiths from Guangdong and Fujian, has trained a large number of gunsmiths and brought Western cannon casting technology to the East.

In Li Zhi's artillery workshop, the five old gunsmiths are the leaders, and the other new gunsmiths are the masters, and the new gunsmiths do not need to fully master the details of the cannon casting technology. It is estimated that the increase in the capacity of artillery workshops will take only a few months.

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In order to cope with the future war at sea, Li Zhi decided to develop a flowering pop-up.

The so-called flowering shells are cannon shells that explode after hitting the target. Compared to solid iron shells, flowering shells have much more destructive power. The use of flowering shells in naval artillery battles can greatly damage enemy ships. The flowering shells fired by the eighteen-pounder cannon can sink an enemy ship as long as a few of them reach it.

The structure of the early flowering bomb was simple and easy to manufacture, and Li Zhi had learned about it before crossing it.

In fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were also flowering bombs. However, this flowering shell technology was in the hands of a small number of elite artillerymen in the Beijing camp and was never passed on. Moreover, according to Li Zhi's inquiry, this flowering projectile technology seems to be to ignite the fuse of the cannonball and the propellant of the cannon respectively. The operation is very complicated by the cushion between the shell and the propellant.

The flowering bomb that Li Zhi wants to develop is more advanced, and it uses the flame of the cannon propellant when it explodes to ignite the delay fuse of the cannonball, which is simple to operate. This flowering technology was gradually matured in the eighteenth century, and now it was brought to the end of the Ming Dynasty by Li Zhi at once.

Li Zhi came to the casting workshop where the dragon tail car was cast, and instructed the craftsmen to produce flowering bullets.

Li Zhi's flowering bomb is also very simple, it is to cast a hollow iron ball, put black powder and a shotgun iron ball as a killer object in it, and have a hole at the top of the shell, and insert a wooden time-delay fuse into the mouth.

When firing a gun, the gunner cuts the length of some of the fuses according to the distance of the enemy ship, so as to control the detonation time of the fuse. The shell of the naval gun only needs to ensure that the shell explodes after it is fired into the enemy ship, and the explosion time does not need to be pinched too accurately, and the time is slightly longer.

The opening of the fuse needs to be threaded with a lathe, and there are also threads on the body tube of the wooden time-delay fuse, so that the time-delay fuse can be screwed into the shell so that it will not fall off during flight.

The wooden fuse is also very simple, that is, a hollow wooden tube filled with hard black powder. When the density of black powder is large, it will burn stably according to the law of parallel layers, so as to achieve the effect of delaying the ignition of the explosives in the shell.

The wood pipes of the wooden fuse need to be made of hard wood. Before manufacturing, vinegar should be used first, and then the wood should be soaked in alum solution, which can enhance its combustion resistance and prevent the wood from being ignited to drive the burning of the lower layer of black powder.

Early immature flowering shells, the gunpowder in the shell and the shotgun iron ball as a killer object are in direct contact, this kind of shell is more dangerous, when the shotball collides with each other, it may directly ignite the gunpowder and cause the explosion, and it is also in flight, so there are very few shells that effectively reach the intended target and detonate smoothly. The improved version produced by Li Zhi is to isolate the explosives and the shotmarites with iron plates, which is safer, because the gunpowder and the projectile are not in contact.

In order to increase the armor-piercing ability, the wall of the flowering bullet produced by Li Zhi is relatively thick.

Behind the flowering bomb, Li Zhi also added a wooden bullet stock to the flowering bullet.

The wooden butt was as large as the caliber of the eighteen-pounder gun, which allowed the cannon's propellant to be better sealed when ignited. The shell and the wooden tray are combined into one, and the wooden tray is fixed to the tail of the shell with an iron sheet. In this way, due to the low density of the wooden tray when the shell flies in the external ballistic state, the head of the shell will always face forward when flying, and there is a head-heavy and light-tailed self-stabilizing structure similar to a shuttlecock, which increases the shooting accuracy. Not only that, but the wooden cartridge also has the effect of cushioning the chamber pressure, which can reduce the peak chamber pressure of the shell.

The craftsmen who cast the dragon tail car and the Fanjiazhuang lathe who operated the lathe were busy for several days under the leadership of Li Zhi, creating the most advanced flowering bullet of this era.

Li Zhi pushed the eighteen-pounder cannon onto the school field to test the effect of this flowering shell.

According to Li Zhi's guidance, the gun commander aimed at the fuse of the cannonball marked with a scale, and truncated a section of the fuse with large pliers. Then the gunners loaded the cannon with firing charge, loaded the propellant, and poured the gunpowder, and put the flowering shells attached to the wooden tray into the barrel, and aimed them at the target two hundred paces away.

In the Ming Dynasty, one step was 1.5 meters, and 200 steps were 300 meters.

Li Zhi gave an order, and after the artillery commander lit the fire rope, he ran more than ten meters away.

The flowering bomb was the first test launch, and no one knew what would happen, so it was better to stay away.

Only a boom was heard, and the blossom ejection shot out of the barrel. The shell pierced a wooden plaque three hundred meters away, made a large hole in the wooden plaque, and landed behind the wooden plaque.

Everyone waited for a few seconds, and then they heard a loud bang, and the flowering bomb that landed exploded. The flames flew everywhere, and a dozen pounds of shells exploded a dazzling spark from 300 meters away.

Li Zhi was overjoyed when he saw the spark of the cannonball's explosion. Imagine such a shell being fired into an enemy ship, and the destructive power can be imagined. (To be continued.) )