Copper is a small kind of resource distribution in the whole earth, and it only occupies a relatively small share of various minerals on the surface, although it is the earliest metal mineral used in the whole earth, but in fact, from the very beginning, his price is relatively high.

From the original knotted rope counting, to the later shells, pieces of paper, the whole world, the calculation method of money, and finally unified into metal money, and even after bronze was replaced by iron, copper coins have always existed.

In history, at a certain time, there was iron money, but it was only a flash in the pan, or it was called a bad government, and it existed in order to loot people's money.

Compared with copper, iron is a little cheaper, mixed with some impurities, and the iron money that fools people can completely abolish the name of iron money.

From the sword coins of the Warring States period, to the Qin Banliang of Qin Shi Huang's unified weights and measures, and then the shape of the copper coins was fixed.

Studying history, among the monarchs in history, there are few admirers, but Qin Shi Huang is definitely one of them, not to mention his merits and demerits, the standards he set, how many dynasties have been affected.

Qin Banliang determined the shape of the copper coin, in terms of weight, much heavier than the copper coin in later generations, about 8 grams, after the improvement of the entire many dynasties, there are some repeats, to the Song Dynasty, the weight of the copper coin is basically about 4 grams, almost doubled.

Even if it is 4 grams, according to the usual calculation of 1000 Wen, the consistent copper coin is 4 kilograms, and a cannon, even if it is the smallest 50 catties of small Huzun cannon, they need more than 6 copper coins.

Tiger cannon, this is a kind of small cannon, is the development of artillery, to a certain extent, born after a certain degree of artillery, infantry artillery, not very powerful, but the support ability is very strong.

Zhao Xin didn't want to create a tiger squat cannon, which weighed less than 50 catties and fired 2 catties of lead bullets and gravel artillery, and its lethality at close range was amazing.

However, given the technical level of the navy, there is no way to develop such a lightweight artillery as the Tiger Squat Cannon for the time being, and the development of large artillery and small artillery is not directly proportional, and it cannot be said that the cost of large artillery is high and the cost of small artillery is low.

Before there is no drilling machine and a series of other equipment in place, large and small artillery need to be dug up, although it is said that the smaller ones are easier to dig, but the ones that are too small are not easy, and it is not easy, besides, the Ding Navy does not have a deep understanding of artillery, and there is no certain degree of lightweight artillery.

For example, the 3-inch cannon that was first experimented, their caliber may be a little larger than the Tiger Squat Cannon, but the large one is very limited, but its weight is more than 4 stones, that is, it is at least 8 times heavier than the Huzun Cannon.

Perhaps in-depth research will reduce the weight of the artillery in turn, but this time is relatively long.

Of course, Zhao Xin knew that when the army had a few artillery pieces, especially the Tiger Squat Cannon, the power was not small, but the weight was relatively light.

The current situation of the Northern Song Dynasty, most of the places, is undeveloped, and under the premise that there are no roads and no cars, too heavy artillery has no possibility of practical application at all.

In an ordinary road environment, under the premise of animal power, the artillery used by the army should not exceed 500 catties.

500 pounds of artillery, can make wooden reels, move with horses, increase mobility, as for the Tiger Cannon, 30 to 50 pounds, with the basic quality of soldiers in this era, a single soldier can easily lift it, may not be able to lift it for a long march, but in a short time, you can increase mobility.

In fact, the tiger squat cannon was originally made for the sake of the Japanese invaders.

At that time, the Japanese were uncertain, and the individual combat ability was extremely strong, and in addition to the battle, it was in the Jiangnan water network area, when almost all the artillery of the Ming army could not be used, and the weapons experts, specially according to the actual environment, created the tiger squat cannon.

In fact, the tiger squat cannon also lives up to the trust, this head and tail is only 2 feet long, with two iron forks erected, has considerable stability, mainly to fire 3 pounds of lead bullets, or the same weight of gravel, the former can attack, the latter can scatter, the power is endless.

In the anti-Japanese war, it played a huge effect, and therefore, it was used by the Ming army on a large scale, and in the standard of the Qi army, every 500 people, 3 tiger squat cannons will be used.

The Tiger Squat Cannon is a good, lightweight artillery that can increase the combat capability of the Dinghai Army, but after consideration, Zhao Xin finally vetoed this direction of development.

The army is very important, even in the era of air supremacy in the 21st century, to finally solve the battle, it is still necessary for the continental army to go up, otherwise, but with the air force, at most it is a great destruction of the enemy, and if you want to completely occupy it, it depends on the will.

However, in this era, the current situation of the navy is located on the island, and whether the navy is strong or not is directly related to the safety of the navy.

Perhaps, in this era, no one can threaten the Dinghai Navy itself, and the fortress that runs almost every 2 miles almost surrounds the Dinghai Navy.

However, this is only a fixed defense, if someone threatens the shipping lanes of the Dinghai Navy, threatens the transportation of the Dinghai Navy, and a simple passive defense cannot defend this.

You have to rely on warships, and warships and artillery are perfectly combined.

The heavier artillery on land is not so obvious when placed on the warship, even if it is a 9-inch gun of about 15 tons, the same is true, the wooden sailing ship needs to strengthen the gun position, and then change some of the center of gravity, so that he is more suitable for artillery attacks, and most of the problems can basically be solved.

The combination of crossbow and gunpowder gives the warships of the Dinghai Navy an extremely terrifying long-range ability, and in the battle against the pirates, it shows terrible power.

But in the future, the situation that the Navy will face may be the entire pirate group, in this era, to be able to make a living at sea, it is absolutely unruly, and experienced, and the strong crossbow is a little inadequate.

Speaking of which, the strong crossbow and gunpowder can be combined, but the gunpowder is on the crossbow, the reliability is not high, in the Dinghai experiment, at least 60% of the gunpowder is extinguished, if the battle is continued, such mistakes will be more.

This is not an inconsiderate decision on the part of the navy, using ignited gunpowder, under the command of the crossbow to fly, to attack, this ignition time is not very accurate, and it is always impossible to adjust each crossbow to determine the time of gunpowder explosion with a standardized time.

Sometimes, the situation on the battlefield changes rapidly, a little earlier explosion, the crossbow can not be attacked, a little later, it is easy to say, but it is also easy to produce other variables, only an impartial hit, and then explode, can have the greatest effect.

But this effect is too difficult, even in the future generations, in the era of high technology in the 21st century, there is no way to solve it, let alone this era, not to mention, there is still a situation of extinguishment.

Dinghai's research on fuses is the simplest kind, combustible materials and gunpowder are mixed, and they are easily extinguished on high-speed flying crossbows.

Low-intensity battles, perhaps this situation, does not have a big impact, but under high-intensity, high-intensity battles, what will happen.

Even in order to cope with future naval warfare, it was necessary to develop large-caliber artillery, and now, under the premise that steel does not work, copper has become the only option.

Compared with iron, copper is heavier, this, as long as you have a little understanding of copper and iron, you will know, one of the most obvious examples is that some people forge copper coins, often using iron, without the premise of counterweight, the weight is obviously insufficient, the difference is quite obvious.

In this sense, if the copper cannon is used to replace the iron cannon, the weight will rise, and the specific gravity is greater is one aspect, but the other aspect is that there is a certain gap between the performance of copper and iron, let alone steel.

In the Ming Dynasty, with firearms as the main body, Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, the basis for driving Yuanmeng out of the fortress is firearms, although Yuanmeng is weakened, but their cavalry has always been relatively strong, without stronger weapons, it is impossible to drive them out of the fortress.

However, during the Ming Dynasty, even in the middle and late periods, in countless firearms research, many things were thoroughly eaten, but the gunpowder of that era was still black powder, and it was not even black powder with the most perfect proportional formula.

What is used by the Dinghai Navy, nitrocellulose, this thing, not only is the most perfect propellant, it burns sufficiently, it is not easy to smoke and remain, and the explosive power is two or three times that of black powder.

Even if it is perfect black powder, copper is thicker and heavier than iron, not to mention nitrocellulose, and the weight of a 9-inch copper cannon of the same caliber may exceed 50,000 catties.

The copper consumed in this way is an astronomical amount, according to 8 catties, 500,000 catties, almost more than 60,000 catties, this number, even if it is placed in the Dinghai Navy, it cannot be said to be a very small number.

Zhao Xin has no choice at this moment, under the premise that steel can't go through, the only thing he can choose is copper.

It is very difficult to get some high-grade steel, forge it, and dip it in the fire, and some of the complex annealing reactions are not something that can be understood by the smelting of this era.

However, among ordinary copper, whether it is bronze or brass, in the entire Northern Song Dynasty, you can find a lot of smelting people, and even Dingjun, there are a lot.

Dinghai has always attached more importance to technology, under certain circumstances, technology is the first, starting from the Daimyo Mansion, the wages of craftsmen, are first-class, although it is said that the Dinghai Navy has not vigorously developed the copper industry, but because of the relationship of Dinghai currency, a large number of copper coins flowed into the Dinghai, except for a few parts, through forging, forging into large copper ingots, as some reserves, others, there is not much use.

In daily life, things that can be used with copper, Dinghai basically, can be solved with iron, and some materials, even after using iron, the effect will be better, which makes these copper coins have no maximum use.

In this case, most of these copper coins were placed there in vain, although they had cash value, and as long as they were taken to various places in the Northern Song Dynasty, they could have purchasing power.

However, what the navy needs, simply the huge industry of the navy, the products produced, in the Northern Song Dynasty, is a buyer's market, plus the Dinghai currency is more convenient and valuable than ordinary copper coins, but when a large number of copper coins arrive

Zhao Xin thought about using these copper coins to create some copper coins, and Dinghai coins have a certain gap, but after thinking about it, it still did not happen, the reason is very simple, Dinghai coins, is to have coinage income, the price of copper coins is high, easy to be forged, even if, the carving of ingenuity, the use of stamping methods, to complete, the page is not good, a large number of interests, there will be people who take risks.

If it is low, there is no need for this, in a sense, everything in the Dinghai Navy has a cost, and this cost, ordinary time, is not shown, but in Zhao's confidence, he can let the craftsmen do more important things, can do other work, produce other products, instead of wasting on this.

Perhaps, in the future, after the Navy has a larger area and more population, it can make a choice and use the method of executive orders to push it hard, but before that, it is absolutely not possible.

However, in the Dinghai Navy, there are also copper coins, the price of Dinghai coins is 200 Wen, this price is not low, even at present, the salary level is very high Dinghaijun, it is not to say, 200 Dinghai coins, just as change, there are some below, itself, Zhao Xin is ready to use paper and pen, but after thinking about it, especially the current circulation of Dinghai coins in the Northern Song Dynasty, it is not realistic to rashly prohibit copper coins.

Dingjun, under the premise of a large number of circulating Dinghai coins, copper coins only exist as change, and the unit of calculating him is a penny or two, rather than the traditional guan.

With Dinghai currency as the main currency and copper coins as a supplement, the copper coins used by the entire Dinghai Navy are about 20 million to 30 million, which sounds like a lot, but compared to the money earned by the Dinghai Navy, it is very small.

Dingjun's various products, the annual sales in the Northern Song Dynasty, almost 500 million to calculate, in the middle, a certain part of the Dinghai currency returns, but more copper coins, just a few years in the first half of the year, the net inflow is as high as 200 million, these money, except for those in circulation, most of the others have little effect.

Now, with the plan of the copper cannon, the money can be used, Zhao Xin even generously allocated 40 million yuan of money at once for the trial production of the copper cannon, and the money alone is enough to support the use of it for a long time.

40 million guan of copper, that is, 160,000 tons, this is a very large number, even if a cannon is 30 tons of copper, it can almost make 5,000 guns, in a study, it will never fall 5,000 guns, and 500 guns can be used, which is already very good.