For Dingjun, as long as the money is in place, everything can be carried out quickly, and the smelting of copper is the simplest of all metals.

Thousands of years ago, his process has been completely summarized, and now, even if there is no scientific research process, the accumulation of pure time will allow many copper processes to be developed.

In fact, when iron was not yet popularized on a large scale, copper was already a fairly mature process, and almost everything that used iron could be replaced by copper, but some things made of special copper could not be replaced by iron, and one of the distinctive examples was the copper mirror.

Bronze mirrors, in the Ding Navy has been eliminated, Ding Navy for the Northern Song Dynasty, for Bianliang, the method of purchase restrictions, in order to ensure that the glass mirror, as well as a large number of glass crafts, can be sold in Tokyo at a high price, so it is impossible to popularize the glass mirror on a large scale.

But in the Dinghai Navy, there is no such problem, ordinary people, even if they carry mirrors out, how many, the Dinghai Navy is just in the propaganda, propaganda do not easily take the special products of the Dinghai Navy, leave the Dinghai Navy to sell, but there is no forced search, ordinary people, can not bring much things, as long as the businessmen are controlled.

In this way, glass windows, glass mirrors, and all kinds of glass products are all over the Dinghai Navy, and even copper mirrors can be replaced, and others are either replaced by glass products or iron products, and the original bronze objects are almost all recycled and used for storage.

The production of artillery is the top priority of the Dinghai Navy, and after having a goal, the entire Dinghai Navy quickly takes action.

A large number of coppersmiths were dispatched from the Dinghai Navy to form a research group, and then the copper began to be smelted.

This research group is in charge of the Institute of Materials, but the most senior researcher, Niu Dali, did not participate.

He can't participate if he wants to, in the ferroalloy, Niu Dali has a very terrible talent, and now in the laboratory, every once in a while, Niu Dali will come up with an alloy, occasionally one, or a very wide range of applications, and the range of use is very high.

However, because the basic ability is not solid enough, Niu Dali is on alloys other than iron, and the level is very poor, basically even ordinary researchers can't be called.

Although copper is said to be the earliest metal, and bronze is the earliest alloy, it stands to reason that as long as it is a fixed method, it is good to make them, and there is no need to think about others, but Zhao Xin still wants to let him go further.

In one day, almost 500 craftsmen were transferred, all of whom had rich experience in the production of copperware, and even some of them had work experience, which reduced a lot of unnecessary trouble.

For example, the integration and process problems, after two days of running-in, the first smelting began.

Metal smelting, are all figured out, copper temperature is low, melting point is also low, so it is the first widely used metal, in Dinghai, has already used coke on a large scale, and smelting has also chosen a more sealed one.

On the basis of iron smelting, the construction of the steel-making furnace can also be used as a smelting copper, as long as the relative place is modified, such a large-scale production, all craftsmen are the first, but under the overall planning of the Dinghai Navy, only scrap 3 furnaces of copper, the overall adjustment was completed, and the fourth furnace successfully completed the smelting.

One-time, about 30,000 catties of copper, which is very rare in the history of the Northern Song Dynasty, and can only be achieved by the Dinghai Navy and such a huge steelmaking furnace.

One-time casting molding, this is the choice of the navy, there are special molds, copper smelting, compared with high-end steel, a lot worse, there is no need to mix and quench, as long as the casting is completed.

In the sand mold, it is slowly cooled, and then shaped, and the craftsmen polish it with sandpaper, remove some joints, spikes, etc., and a mighty-looking copper cannon is completed.

Then, after a series of details, such as installing the magazine, polishing the interior, and even preparing a bracket for the copper cannon.

After all this was done, the test gun began.

The first attempt, because of no experience, chose not nitrocellulose, but black powder, and even the charge, which was only half of that of an ordinary iron cannon.

When the fuse was lit and the copper cannon made a huge roar, the cannonball was pushed by the gunpowder and erupted, and the first test was successful, but the effect was not very satisfactory.

The propulsion of black powder is insufficient, which has been known for a long time, but it is not enough to this extent, it is still unexpected, and the 5-inch gun port does not even have the range of a 3-inch gun.

The whole process of the whole experiment was recorded, and then some inspection was carried out, and the tests continued, mainly to test the endurance of the entire copper cannon.

Artillery is not a one-time thing, and the artillery of this era, whether it is gunpowder or projectiles, has not reached the level of later generations, and these are the places where the reduction lies.

However, after the tenth attempt, the gunpowder had not yet been increased to the maximum value, and the cannon could not withstand it at first, and the bronze cannon body appeared to be in a state of fragmentation.

A total of 10 cannons were fired, although the artillery of this era has just been developed, and the effect should not be very good, but it is unacceptable to be so low, after all, the first few times, the number of black powder added is not much, and when converted, it is 5 times.

The artillery uses the chemical energy of gunpowder combustion, and under the impetus of this energy, no artillery can be used for a long time, which Zhao Xin also knows that in later generations, his service life is probably in a few minutes.

But these minutes refer to the time that the shell, in the chamber, flies, and generally speaking, the flight time of the shell is very short, tens of days, or even hundredths of a second, so that even the worst artillery can withstand 500 to 1,000 shots.

5 to 10 times, no reason can be justified, and even now, only black powder is used, nitrocellulose has not been used.

After Zhao Xin knew the news, suddenly, there was an illusion, could it be, copper could not withstand more powerful artillery, in fact, after the appearance of fixed ammunition, copper cannons also began to launch the historical stage.

If this is really the case, then the trouble will be big, so much energy has been wasted, and even such a huge amount of money has been invested, 40 million copper coins, said to be the development of cannons, it was taken over, and after it was melted and cast, it has no cash value, only the value of copper itself.

From the beginning of Dingjun to the present, other aspects have not been done very well, but only the methods of the laboratory are very concerned, from top to bottom, in accordance with the rules.

The steel-making furnace that continues to be licensed is now called the Copper Furnace, and they will produce 5 guns in a row at a rate of 30,000 gold in 2 hours, and then continue to try this problem.

The gun, which had been cracked, was sent to the laboratory, where it was cut and studied with the help of tools and analytical instruments.

The results soon came out, there was a problem with the forging of copper, in which there were a large number of bubbles, which, for ordinary copper, or even the casting of copper coins, would not have any problems, but for artillery, for artillery that used the chemical energy of gunpowder, he was in big trouble.

At this time, it highlights the heritage of the Dinghai Navy, among the 1,000 coppersmiths, there are just people who have encountered it, and the solution he gave is not very targeted, but it perfectly solves the problem.

Add some additives and stir with something that can hold more heat, and then control the speed as well while it is condensing.

This method, in the subsequent smelting, was used, and the final product was not taken to experiment, but by an experienced coppersmith to knock it, judging by the sound, the internal bubbles have been reduced on a large scale.

I took it to try, and sure enough, the durability was improved a lot, and in the case of gunpowder of the same specification, more than 200 consecutive fires did not destroy his structure.

In this sense, the bronze cannon of black powder has been completed, with a caliber of 5.5 inches, which is almost equivalent to 140 mm in later generations, but in terms of performance, there is a huge difference with the artillery of later generations.

The performance of black powder is much worse than nitrocellulose, but this bronze cannon can still reach a range of about 1200 meters, which is already quite good.

If Zhao Xin hadn't figured out nitric acid and nitrocellulose, he might have accepted this and continued to study this copper cannon family to make it more reliable, miniaturized, and have a longer range.

On the premise of nitrocellulose, of course, nitrocellulose is chosen, so that the power will increase and the rate of fire will be accelerated.

However, nitrocellulose, the power is still a little bigger, after research, the bubbles are reduced, the bearing capacity of the copper cannon, or a little worse, after adding only half of the black powder of nitrocellulose, the power of the cannon has increased by almost 10%, but the durability has not been greatly improved, after 40 times, it was found that it was broken.

40 guns, a little reluctantly, it would be nice if it was a little more, the same thing, the amount of nitrocellulose added is not enough, if the standard number is followed, the service life of the artillery will definitely be greatly reduced.

In fact, from the time the concept of the copper cannon was proposed, to the present, the casting of the cannon has basically been completed through smelting, which is a huge improvement compared to the iron cannon that is still slowly being dug out.

Without forging, without a press, it can be formed, and then simply repaired, it can be used, and the power of the copper cannon is not small, at least it has crossed the limit of thermal weapons.

But Zhao Xin still wanted to try, he wanted to know whether copper could withstand nitrocellulose.

However, this problem does not need to be stared at by Zhao Xin personally, naturally there are personnel from the research institute to conduct a series of detailed research, which takes a long time to run-in, and similarly, research on copper alloys has also begun.

Compared with ferroalloys, Zhao Xin knows that the proportion of carbon added represents the quality of steel, and then the stable element is added.

In later generations, copper was rarely used in other places except for wires and water pipes, and Zhao Xin didn't know what kind of concept copper alloy was, only from the ferroalloy, of course, not to add carbon, but a variety of trace elements.

This is a process that is destined to be long, and Zhao Xin has this time to wait without hurry.

In this way, quietly, the Dinghai Navy has crossed the era of hot weapons, if in the era of cold weapons, there are still barbarians who defeated civilized countries, in the era of hot weapons, barbarians no longer have this way.

The Ming Dynasty was equipped with large-scale thermal weapons, almost pressing the nomads to fight, even in the middle of the decline of the Ming Dynasty, even after the Tumubao Incident, the musketeers of the Ming Dynasty were invincible.

It's just that thermal weapons have relatively large requirements for national strength, and with the same money, the number of soldiers with thermal weapons may be three or four times less than that of spearmen.

The finance of the Ming Dynasty, even if it started from Zhu Yuanzhang, was not very high, the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty has always been about 2 million taels, in the middle and late periods, because of Zhang Juzheng's reforms, increased to 4 million, in order to suppress Liaodong, a large number of looting, from 5.2 million to about 20 million taels, which has made the people's voices boiling, and the peasant war is also becoming more and more fierce here.

In contrast, the Northern Song Dynasty reached 20 million guan during the Renzong period, and easily increased to 60 million in the later period.

If the musketeers appeared in the Song Dynasty, especially in the Southern Song Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty could support the consumption of musketeers in large quantities, as long as there were a considerable number of musketeers, the cavalry was mainly Mongolian, whether it could defeat the Southern Song Dynasty, or two words,

On the contrary, in the Ming Dynasty, the musketeers were once invincible in the world, and the Mongols constantly fled to the depths of the steppe, but in the later period, the climate of the Xiaoice River was repeated, disasters continued, under the premise of continuous blood loss, the finances began to go bankrupt, and in the later period, even qualified weapons and armor could not be worthy, the first battle of Henan, the last battleable soldiers were lost, and they could not resist the footsteps of the peasant army at home, and outside, they could not resist the invasion of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and knowledge was a matter of time.

History has no if, the Northern Song Dynasty's tolerance of businessmen caused the Northern Song Dynasty's commerce and trade to be very developed, but starting from Zhu Yuanzhang, perhaps it was the past experience that made Zhu Yuanzhang more hostile to businessmen, the entire Ming Dynasty, the status of businessmen was relatively low, and Shen Wansan, the richest man who donated half of the construction cost of Nanjing, was finally forced to death by Zhu Yuanzhang, which has already made a bad start, and the total number of commercial taxes in the entire Ming Dynasty has been hovering at a very low level.

The misfortune of the Northern Song Dynasty will be reversed by the appearance of Zhao Xin, and now the development of the navy, whether it is manufacturing or commerce, is very high, and there are abundant funds, which can support the expenses of the entire army, even if it is all the expensive hot weapons, and even to bear the high consumption of ammunition, it can be fully supported.

The longbow is only now, or even just the current small-scale military force equipment, in order to train the obedience and integrity of an army, and it is still the thermal weapon that really shows its strength.