The door stinks of wine and meat, and there are frozen bones on the road', which is probably what it looks like. The ministers dispersed, looking at the two flying-like bills, Xiong Jing somehow thought of Du Fu's two poems. He is very thrifty, although he does not eat one less egg a day like Guangxu, but he no longer slaughters calves every day, and often stews a few chickens and ducks.

The Queen Mother, Mi Xuan, and Princess Yingnan, spending 37,000 gold is really terrifying, and this money can build forty-six gluttonous-class cargo ships, or twenty-three Chaos-class gunboats. Two flying messages came, and four fleets were sunk.

In the late autumn, a newly launched Chaos-class gunboat was sailing on Shaobei, the autumn wind was blowing, and when the twelfth bell rang, the artillery captain Wu Kong, who was standing on the gun deck, ordered the soldiers to reload, and at this moment there were only four eighteen-pounder naval guns on the deck.

Artillery must be built with great care, especially since the artillery carriage of the Mariner is completely different from that of the Infantry Cannon. The Pawn Gun Carriage was a low, four-wheeled cart on which the guns were mounted, and the ropes on either side of the end of the cart were connected to the ship's bulwarks next to the opening of the gun door. The huge recoil caused by firing the shells will cause the gun mount to retreat rapidly, and the sea boat is not land, and the longest beam is only ten meters, and these ropes can control the distance between the rear seat of the gun mount within two meters.

The gun mount, the gun itself, and even the load-bearing capacity of the gun deck, the center of gravity of the gunboat, all of which determined that the cannon should not be reckless. This is also the reason why Xiong Jing did not choose a twenty-four-pounder naval gun. A 24-pounder naval gun weighs two tons, and this is just a calculation, but in fact, the weight of a 24-pounder cannon often reaches two and a half tons, and with the addition of more than 400 kilograms of artillery carriages, its weight is already close to three tons. A sixth-class frigate with a draft of 5 or 600 tons is equipped with 24 18-pounder guns at most, and no matter how heavy the ship is, it will be unstable.

Although it is not in the sea, Xiong Jing standing on the deck of the stern can still feel the hull rise and fall with the waves, he likes this kind of ups and downs, but Xiang Yan and the others standing next to him don't seem to like this kind of ups and downs very much, which makes people dizzy.

"If you want to talk about cannons, you should talk about horses first. The general thinks that the infantry cannon can be saved? Xiong Jing wanted to laugh at this time, Xiang Yan was obviously red-eyed, the navy first had artillery, and then he was reluctant to be empty.

Kong's surname is also Mi, the witch. But this Wu clan ...... Ahem, women are in trouble with the country, when the king of Chuzhuang, Wu Chen was puzzled by Xia Ji's beauty, and he eloped with Xia Ji to the Jin Kingdom. Therefore it is ashamed to mention one's name to others, and to say only one's name to others. Wu Kong went from a crossbow to a trebuchet to an artillery, although the principle of firing weapons was different, but he was extremely skillful in using it. Xiang Yan originally had high hopes for Wukong to form the first infantry artillery unit, but he didn't expect that he was transferred to the sea boat by Xiong Jing.

"I think it's six horses." E Zhuo replied, "The total weight of the infantry cannon is 1,800 ......."

"Wrong!" The 12-pounder gun body was easy to build, but it took nearly three years for the gun carriage to be reluctantly finalized, and in the end, the weight of the 12-pounder gun was 1,830 kilograms. "Quadruple charge, the barrel of the gun has been thickened, and the weight of the ranks has exceeded 1,900 kilograms."

"That's it, you can also pull it with six horses." E Zhuo was stunned by Xiong Jing's 'mistake', as the director of the transportation department, he knew that the six-horse pull could pull multiple cars.

"How many stones can a six-horse cart fit on the grass?" Xiong Jing knew that E Zhuo didn't realize his mistake, so he had to ask a different question and talked about the Xianyang surprise attack that he had been planning. According to the plan, the cavalry of the four kingdoms would make a detour from the steppe to Yanshi Sai, and finally attack the Qin state, and the supply of the cavalry would be carried by accompanying four-wheeled carriages.

"Walking in the meadow, meadow ......" Ezhuo originally estimated that the four-wheeled carriage pulled by six horses could be loaded with a little five tons, but in fact, one five tons and six horses began to lose weight not long after, this is still a horse, if replaced by a smaller Di Ma, the situation will be even worse.

"How many horses does the king think the infantry cannon will take?" With red ears and red ears, Xiang Yan had to speak out to save the scene.

"Eight horses necessary." Xiong Jing's answer made him, Xiang Yan was slightly surprised. "The dragon horse can be reduced to six."

A few years ago, because of the publication of a certain history of field artillery, someone proposed that one horse could only tow 160 kilograms, and that the gun cart could only tow three horses and six horses, and that there were too many to use it, so he had a deep memory of artillery horses. A horse's normal pull is between 12 and 15 percent of its body weight, and the smaller the horse, such as the Mongolian horse, the higher the percentage. This is a normal pull, and in extreme cases it can reach or even exceed half of the horse's body weight.

The pulling force is like this, and the pulling weight is the towing weight multiplied by the drag coefficient. This is not only related to road conditions, but also related to wheels and bearings. Although Chu Guo had roller bearings, there were no rubber wheels, and the drag coefficient of any dirt road was more than 0.1, and many times the drag coefficient exceeded 0.15, close to 0.2.

That is to say, a horse weighing 300 kilograms, under normal pulling force, can only reach at least 225 kilograms, which is 250 kilograms normally. Twelve pounds weighing 1,900 kilograms in the ranks must be towed by four horses and eight horses, while a four-wheeled carriage towed by six horses cannot be carried by more than 1,800 kilograms because the coefficient of resistance on the grass reaches 0.15, and the weight that can be towed by six horses on the grass is 1,300 kilograms at most, minus the carriage of 500 kilograms.

Of course, Xiang Yan didn't know the scientific summary of later generations, and when he heard that Xiong Jing was going to use the precious dragon horse to drag the cannon, he shook his head again and again: "I'd rather have eight horses than a dragon horse." ”

Xiong Jing couldn't imagine how long the queue of artillery, and he said, "I don't think that the two armies can fight without artillery, but it is not good to have artillery." ”

"Please tell me more about it." Xiang Yan was puzzled. He didn't know if Xiong Jing really didn't want the county armies to be equipped with artillery, but wanted to monopolize this thunder artifact by himself.

"The artillery needs to be towed by eight horses, deployed in front of the array, and bombarded before the engagement." Xiong Jing roughly talked about the use of artillery in battle, "However, if the enemy army retreats a mile and then ranks in formation, what will our army do?" ”

"Our army should pursue it." Xiang Yan replied: This kind of problem is military common sense.

"What about artillery?" Xiong Jing asked again. "Will the army wait for the artillery to fight any longer, or not for the artillery to fight?"

"This ......" eight-horse towed artillery, in the field state is flat ground, if there is a ravine, it will not be able to pass at all. When the two armies face each other, they can't wait for the artillery to arrive before they start fighting, right? If the pursuit is carried out, the artillery has not yet arrived, and the two armies have already rushed together.

"Although the artillery is good, it can't be advanced with the army array in time, what is the use of being good?" Xiong Jing Road. "Jutiefu is trying to make the cannon small, and only by making it small can the artillery be pursued with the army."

Involuntarily, Xiong Jing remembered the leather cannon used by the Swedes. The so-called leather cannon is a cannon made of rolled leather. Why roll cannons in leather? It was the Swedes who partially abandoned the lethality of artillery in pursuit of its mobility. Of course, it is impossible for the Chu army to use leather cannons, and Jutiefu is trying to produce lighter six-pounder cannons.

"Furthermore, instead of artillery firing shells, it is better for soldiers to throw cannonballs." Xiong Jing talked about another way. "Put a few catties of gunpowder in a pig iron can, ignite it and throw it into the enemy's formation, which can break the formation. The two armies are facing each other, isn't the one who asks for it to break the formation? ”

"Putting ——!" As soon as Xiong Jing finished speaking, Wu Kong's order to fire came from the bilge gun deck. The sound of "......, ......, ......, and ......" was deafening.

The four eighteen-pounder naval guns opened fire one after another, and everyone standing on the aft deck immediately felt the sea boat under their feet move violently to one side, followed by a pungent smoke rushing towards them. Each cannon of the pawn cannon can make the whole sea boat move sideways, but the foot pawn can only be thrown by manpower with a pig iron can, and everyone suddenly has a feeling of crying and laughing.

Xiang Yan is a person who understands, he was not affected by the cannon fire, he only nodded and said: "It is true, but it is inconvenient for the iron can to be ignited." ”

"It is inconvenient to use a fire rope for ignition." Xiong Jing said. He didn't plan to make arquebuses, but that wasn't to say he wouldn't.

"Arquebus?" Xiang Yan was puzzled.

"If it rains heavily, the fire rope will not be extinguished." Xiong Jing explained. "The arquebus can be wrapped around the neck of a soldier, and the tin can can be lit during the battle, and then thrown into the enemy's line. After the explosion, the enemy soldiers are disturbed, killed and wounded, and our army can take the opportunity to break through its formation. This is the easiest too. ”

Breaking the formation is always the theme of warfare in the era of cold weapons. In order to break the formation, Wei trained warriors, Qin trained sharp soldiers, and Chu trained heavy cavalry, spending so much effort and materials, all they wanted was to break the enemy formation during the battle. Breaking the formation is not equal to victory, but breaking the formation is infinitely close to victory, and gunpowder is the weapon that makes the Chu army infinitely close to victory.

"That's how it is!" Xiang Yan remembered the power of gunpowder he had witnessed for the first time, and half of the ten-meter-thick city wall was blown down.

"Of course." Xiong Jing nodded repeatedly. After much consideration, he found that the simplest, most effective, and most rapid way to use gunpowder in warfare was to form grenadier units. Even if the Qin army was familiar with the thunderous explosion in the future, it was unable to defend against the bombs thrown from behind the Chu army when the two armies were fighting. Hundreds of grenadiers concentrated on a certain point, and the army formation was sure to break.

It's just that the premise of the effectiveness of the grenadier unit is to get high-purity saltpeter, otherwise it will be difficult for the bomb-grenadiers with four times the weight to be thrown into the enemy position no matter how powerful they are, and maybe they will injure their own people and let the Qin army break the formation.

Since I don't know how to purify nitrate, the remaining option is to purchase saltpeter. Before the ammonia industry in 1909, Chilean saltpeter was supplied to the whole world, and before Chilean saltpeter was supplied to the world, India had a monopoly on the supply of saltpeter to the world market. The former is sodium nitrate and the latter is potassium nitrate, because of the monopoly that has lasted for more than a century, another name for potassium nitrate is Indian saltpeter.

Now India does not export saltpeter, if the Chu State deliberately looks for saltpeter, will the secret of gunpowder be broken by the Indians? Perhaps the best option is the Atacama Desert in Chile, or some unknown, hot and dry island.