According to the agreement, both sides have half a month to prepare, and the game will officially start half a month later.

Anthony said that he couldn't do it alone to install a machine tool to drill the barrel, and that someone needed to help him. Chen Yue allocated ten blacksmiths to him as assistants, and of course, for the sake of fairness, he also gave Liu San the same ten people.

Liu Sanxi personally selected ten of the best blacksmiths in the Ordnance Division, and everyone was a good hand at making gun barrels.

In order to ensure the fairness of the competition, Chen Yue announced that the winning group would each receive a prize of ten taels of silver. This decision suddenly eliminated Liu San's other thoughts, he wanted to secretly order a few people allocated to Anthony to do tricks in the game, but now for the sake of the bonus, no one will listen to him anymore.

Only Chen Yue knew that this was not a fair game at all, one side used a machine tool to drill the barrel, and the other party made it purely by hand, and the technology was not made up for by manpower.

But Chen Yue's purpose in setting up this competition was to take a look at Anthony's ability and force him to show all his skills. At present, the technology of the Ming Dynasty has lagged behind the West a lot, take the firecracker as an example, the firearm made by the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty is far from the Western musket in terms of range and accuracy, otherwise it would not have appeared twenty years later, when Zheng Chenggong led an army of 20,000 to fight the generals, he could not break through the castle defended by the Dutch, and could only rely on the siege of the city for eight months to force the defenders to surrender.

There are less than 1,000 Dutch soldiers, tens of thousands of Zheng troops, and Zheng Jun naturally has guns and artillery in the army, but the range and power are far from the Dutch. Of course, the fortified castle of the Dutch is not conducive to the attacking side on the island, which is another reason.

Chen Yue was determined to build a powerful army, exterminate the thieves, expel the Manchus, and raise the prestige of the Ming Dynasty in the world. In this era of combining hot and cold weapons, if we want to build a strong army in a short period of time, we can only rely on the development of firearms to make up for the shortcomings of soldiers' personal combat skills and physical fitness.

In developing firearms, it is natural to learn from the advantages of Western firearms. Now the technology of the Ming Dynasty is not too far behind the West, not as big as the gap two hundred years later, and it will not take much time to catch up.

Another purpose of setting up this competition is to make the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty realize their own gaps. In fact, the Ming people are not like the Manchu Qing Dynasty, closed off but still think that the Celestial Empire is the upper country, and was beaten by the Western powers into Xiang but also scolded others as barbarians, the Ming people are actually very willing to learn advanced technology, as long as they see the advanced of others, they don't mind using it. For example, the Hongyi cannon, when he saw the power of the Western cannon, immediately began to imitate it.

Liu San and other blacksmiths make the barrel by hand, and they have been doing this work at present, but there is nothing to prepare. It is Anthony who needs to be prepared.

After all, the machine tool needs power to work, and now the steam engine has not yet been invented, and electricity is a shadowless thing, and the power of the machine tool needs to rely on manpower, animal power, or water power. The Portuguese Arsenal in Macau, a machine tool that is on the verge of obsolescence, is powered by hydropower.

Hydraulic drive naturally needs water, fortunately, there is a stream in the valley of the Ordnance Division, at the request of Anthony, Chen Yue ordered hundreds of people to build a dam in the upper reaches of the stream in ten days, blocking the river, making the water turbulent, forming a drop of ten meters high.

At the same time, according to the drawings provided by Anthony, the carpenter battalion of the Ordnance Division made a waterwheel, of course, this waterwheel was not used to lift water, but to generate power by the impact of the water, and the machine was rotated by the connection of wooden bearings.

Such hydraulic machinery is not uncommon in Daming, and making such a waterwheel is not a problem for the Ordnance Division.

It took ten days for the machine to be installed, but when he saw that the Ordnance Division had provided the iron, Anthony frowned again, believing that the quality of the iron was extremely poor and not suitable for making barrels.

At Anthony's request, another blast furnace was erected by the stream and the iron was re-smelted.

There are a lot of iron ore in the Ming Dynasty, but high-quality iron ore is not, after ironmaking, when making iron, the blacksmith door needs to be repeatedly forged to beat the dregs in the iron, so as to get good iron. The iron weapons and weapons of the Ming Dynasty were all made in this way, and the barrels of the guns were also made in this way.

However, drilling the barrel with a machine tool requires drilling a uniform hole in the iron rod, not forging, so the quality of the iron rod is extremely important, and high-quality iron is required.

Chen Yue himself naturally doesn't know how to make iron, but there are people in the Ordnance Department who do, such as Liu San and other blacksmiths, such as Pan Xuezhong and Chen Yujie. According to Pan Xuezhong, Antonili's blast furnace is a common refining furnace in Europe, and the style is slightly different from that of the Ming Dynasty.

It took five days for the blast furnace to be erected, during which Anthony made some molds, and the half-month preparation time that Chen Yue said had arrived, and the competition officially began.

Liu San led a few subordinates, divided into three groups, the iron furnace ignited a raging flame, put the iron into the fire to calcinate, and then began to forge.

The process of hand-making the barrel is like this, first the iron is beaten into a thin and uniform iron piece, and then the iron piece is rolled on a round iron rod, and then the side seam is welded together, the whole process needs to be made by a small hammer little by little, which requires incomparable patience and superb technology, and the speed is extremely slow, a good blacksmith, half a month can make a barrel, the speed is not slow.

Of course, the blacksmiths in the workshops under the military department, because of the extremely poor treatment and the deduction of their superiors, there are also some guns that take a few days to make a gun barrel in order to cope with the errand, but that kind of firearm cannot be used at all.

In the Pingnan Army, the quality requirements for the guns are extremely high, and the situation of bombing and boring is categorically not allowed, and the Ordnance Department has regulations to strictly control the quality, and if there is a problem with the firecrackers, the craftsmen will be held responsible. And this competition, not only compared to the speed of making firearms, but also to the quality, Liu San didn't dare to play any tricks.

While making the barrel of the gun, Liu San actively paid attention to the situation of his opponent and often sent people to the river.

On the third day, seeing that the iron under the hammer had been beaten into a thin and uniform iron sheet, Liu San showed a satisfied smile.

"Third brother, third brother," Qiu Ba, a subordinate sent to investigate the enemy's situation, returned.

"How?" Liu San hurriedly asked.

"The red-haired ghost seems to have a problem smelting iron, and he is jumping on his feet and muttering and scolding!" His subordinate Qiu Ba reported with a smile.

"Hahaha......" Liu San looked up to the sky and laughed, "Drilling the barrel of a gun, Lao Tzu has never heard of it, the red-haired ghost is fooling around, and Hou Ye is even accompanying him!" ”

"Qiu Ba, how can you understand the red-haired ghost scolding, can you understand the bird language?" The other subordinate scolded with a laugh.

"I don't understand what he is saying, but I secretly asked Master Chen, the secretary of the Ministry of War, that is, there is a problem with ironmaking." Qiu Ba said with a smile.