At the end of more than ten years, Nanyang Mansion entered the interior, and more than 30,000 elite soldiers were stationed in the wilderness outside the city.

As far as the eye can see, the military tents are spreading, the banners are hunting in the camp, and the shouts of killing are all day long.

At this time, the Wei soldiers lined up in formation on the school field, holding a knife in one hand and a shield in the other, under the supervision of the generals, "hey, hey, hey" slashed a few times, and nearly a thousand people moved neatly and magnificently.

On the school field on the other side, the musketeers skillfully lifted their guns to shoot, the pikemen fought hard to stab, the war horses galloped back and forth, rushed high slopes, jumped into the trenches, and the training of the non-commissioned officers of each battalion was very hot.

After taking Yiling, Gao Yihuan left 30,000 horses to guard all parts of Huguang, while southern Henan gathered nearly 70,000 troops.

Of the 70,000 horses, 40,000 were guarding various dangerous passes, and the 30,000 elites were concentrated in Nanyang, stepping up training to observe the changes of the times.

After Gao Yihuan set off from Jingzhou, he galloped to Nanyang in a few days, urging the training of soldiers while waiting for news from Guanzhong, and inspecting the newly built weapons workshop in Nanyang by the way.

Now, with the expansion of Gao Yihuan's territory, Runing is no longer suitable as the center of Wei Wujun.

Compared with Runing, Nanyang is located in a basin and surrounded by mountains, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

In addition, the Nanyang Basin has many fertile fields, and the surrounding mountains are rich in mines, rich in products, and connected to the lake, so it is suitable for Gao Yihuan's nest than Runing.

For this reason, Gao Yihuan set up the newly built firearms workshop, as well as some other weapons workshops, in Nanyang and Xiangyang.

Nowadays, there are many workshops in Runing, Nanyang and Xiangyang, and according to the different locations and different ways to obtain resources, there will be certain differences in the distribution of workshops.

Because Xiangyang is close to the Ming Dynasty, and the Han River is connected to the Yangtze River, it is convenient to obtain materials such as cotton cloth and fine iron from the south, so many workshops such as clothing, quilts, military shoes, and banners have been built.

Runing also rebuilt the cannon to make guns, but no longer increased craftsmen, and a large part of the production capacity was transferred to Nanyang.

There are many mountains around Nanyang Province, Tongbai Mountain Area, there are various minerals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, etc., in addition to the gold and silver minerals are too low and difficult to mine, copper and iron have a certain output.

There are mines in Nanyang and coal in Pingdingshan, and the establishment of workshops in Nanyang is also convenient for transportation and reduces the transportation cost of raw materials.

Previously, Gao Yihuan was short of resources, so he mainly cast fire guns and iron cannons.

Now after the craftsmen found a copper mine in the Tongbai Mountains, Gao Yihuan used the captured green battalion soldiers in Ruzhou to mine, and then sent craftsmen into the mountains to smelt, and then used mules and horses to transport the copper ingots out of the mountains, and gradually accumulated some copper ingots.

The artillery built by Gao Yihuan in Nanyang was not an iron cannon made by Runing, but a lighter copper cannon.

The Qing army began to use the earth-shaking thunder, which surprised Gao Yihuan and felt a lot of pressure, so soon after he arrived in Nanyang, he led a group of people to the workshop for inspection.

Now that the territory of the Qing army is vast and the population is large, Gao Yihuan must give full play to his advantages in equipment in order to offset some of the advantages of the Qing army.

At this time, a group of people rode out of the camp and galloped to the cannon foundry in Wollongong, where they saw rows of red brick houses and several huge blast furnaces standing in the distance, billowing smoke.

At the end of October, the weather had turned cooler, Gao Yihuan looked at the chimney, and galloped all the way without anyone to guide the way.

He rode first, followed by dozens of horses, followed by him, and in a short time, everyone arrived at the cannon casting workshop where the chimneys were towering.

Although this workshop has only been built for less than a year, the scale is much larger than that of Runing's workshop.

The whole workshop covers an area of nearly 1,000 acres, including the refining and purification of copper and iron, the casting of artillery, the manufacture of shells, and a shooting range for test guns, as well as a gunpowder workshop.

Gao Yihuan divided the craftsmen into grades, starting from the apprentice, each level of promotion, the treatment was different, which stimulated the enthusiasm of the craftsmen, so that he had many experienced craftsmen in three years.

It is under this encouragement that the team of craftsmen under Gao Yihuan has expanded to more than 1,000 people, and there are more than 5,000 apprentices.

Now there are more than 200 craftsmen and more than 1,000 apprentices in this workshop in Nanyang. Although there is still a shortage of personnel in the workshop, it will not take much time to recruit people, and there is no problem.

Gao Yihuan and his entourage restrained their horses outside the cannon casting workshop, and Chen Huiting led a few masters to wait outside.

"Humble position, see the big handsome!" Chen Huiting led the small officials and master craftsmen of the workshop to salute respectfully.

Gao Yihuan jumped off his horse, threw the horsewhip to the guards, and said with a smile: "This marshal has come to take a look at the situation in the workshop, and also learn about the newly made copper cannon." ”

"Returning to the marshal, the workshop has made three sample cannons according to the marshal's requirements. Recently, the craftsman door has been repeatedly experimented, and the results have been found to be quite good. Chen Huiting stretched out his hand to invite Gao Yihuan into the workshop and reported.

Gao Yihuan bowed slightly, and said with some expectation: "Go to the shooting range, pull it out and show Ben Shuai!" ”

Gao Yihuan went straight to the point, and under the guidance of Chen Huiting, he came to a very wide test site.

At this time, not long after Gao Yihuan and the others arrived, the three craftsmen each pulled a healthy horse, and each dragged a slender cannon out of the horse.

These guns were not as thick as the red-coat guns, and the length was shorter, only about seven feet, and the gun carriages used were also a little different from the four small wheel gun carriages of the Hongyi cannon, but only two large wheels, and the long gun mount was between the two wheels, which were dragged forward by horses.

Just looking at the appearance, Gao Yihuan's eyes lit up, a bit like the field bronze cannon he wanted, but he didn't know how far he could fight.

"Obediently, how much does this cannon cost?" Zhao Daxian was a little stunned when he saw it.

Chen Huiting said: "Dashuai, this artillery was cast according to Dashuai's requirements, and it took a total of three experiments before it was successfully cast. ”

Gao Yihuan didn't know much about the technology of casting cannons, but the appearance was a little reflective, so he drew a shape for them to refer to, and the shape he didn't want to make was really as he thought.

At this time, everyone's eyes were attracted by this horse-drawn artillery, not to mention the range, just in terms of transportation, it was already excellent and convenient enough to keep up with the speed of the army.

Gao Yihuan waited for the three cannons to stop, stepped forward and touched the body of the cannon, and didn't talk nonsense, "Come on!" Hurry up and fire two cannons and let Ben Shuai take a look. ”

This kind of artillery is a solid bullet, which is used to strike the enemy from a long distance, and the range requirements are very high.

Now, the artillery looks pretty good in appearance, but I don't know if it can hit far, and if the range is not much stronger than that of the Franc machine, then this kind of gun is meaningless······

(End of chapter)