Several of the cables that held the Enterprise were loosened, and the Enterprise remained on the slipway for a while before it began to slide slowly down the teak rails, and finally the stern crashed into the water, causing a huge splash. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 The info boat shook lightly on the surface of the water a few times, and gradually regained its stability. The workers, who had been prepared for a long time, began to approach the Enterprise in various small boats.

There is still some distance between the launch of the ship and its commissioning. After launching, the ship also needs to carry out internal decoration, the placement of various equipment, and even need to drift at sea for a period of time to relieve the stress during manufacturing. So, its maiden voyage will definitely have to wait until next year.

"If nothing happens next year, it will be a year for me to return to the light. In this year, my Ming Dynasty will be able to wipe out the rebel army, including Li Chuang, Zhang Xianzhong and the like, but at the end of the year, the Manchu Qing will once again enter the Guannei, not only wiped out the most combat-effective and loyal Tianxiong army in the Ming Dynasty army in one fell swoop, so that Lu Xiangsheng, one of the pillars of the Ming Dynasty, was martyred, but at the same time, it is difficult to say sad from the perspective of multiple history, it is difficult to say that it is happy to plunder hundreds of thousands of people. Zheng Sen thought, "It's really unwilling, watching the Manchus retreat to the outside of the border with hundreds of thousands of people." If only we could snatch some of the population back from the Manchus. ”

Zheng Sen estimates that by the end of next year, he should also have a business hall in Tianjin, which can be regarded as a small base. It's just that Tianjin is too close to Beijing, and it is impossible for the imperial court to allow itself to build a city there. Therefore, the strength that the Tianjin base can support is quite limited. However, on the Denglai side, there should also be a sub-base. When the time comes, the use of sea freight can help to support it. It's a pity that the horses purchased from the Taisi people can't arrive at this time, and even if they do, they may not be able to form combat effectiveness. Otherwise, if you put in a light cavalry using Arabian horses, you can take advantage of the chaos and pick up a lot of cheapness. Now that there is no such condition, then we can only act at the opportunity.

"The hydraulic forging machine has been basically completed, but the strength is not very satisfactory." Zheng Sen remembered the hydraulic forging machine he had given high hopes for, and the craftsmen of the Zheng family finally completed the machine by relying on the most critical stress-bearing parts made of iron birch wood obtained from the Manchu Qing Dynasty. In the era when there was no large-scale production of steel, Zheng Sen could only use iron birch as a substitute for steel. The gears, crankshafts, bearings, and the like of this machine are all made of the hardest iron birch in the world, which is more than twice as hard as ordinary steel. This kind of practice, in the future generations, is definitely a tyrannical thing. But in this era, this is almost the only way for Zheng Sen.

The development of refractory bricks for steelmaking has not made much progress, so for a long time, those vital machines will have to rely on the iron birch in stock. If Huang Taiji knew that the iron birch he sold played such an important role at the beginning of the development of Zheng Sen Group, he would probably regret it very much.

"Maybe the next step should be to build a dam, right?" Zheng Sen thought, "But today's hydraulic forging machines can already be used to forge relatively small artillery. At least the six-pounder is fine, the twelve-pounder is not clear. However, considering that there are no heavy horses today, the ground forces can also use six-pounder guns. So for the time being, the six-pounder cannon is enough. ”

However, what Zheng Sen didn't expect was that the bronze forging he had high hopes for was in trouble again.

……

"How did this copper come to be like this?" Qian Wanguan looked at a large piece of wrought copper in front of him in a daze. The copper had a rough, dull surface, and the forging was criss-crossed with cracks. Especially in the edge part of the forging, some cracks are more noticeable.

Obviously, such copper could not be used to make artillery. When subjected to chamber pressure, those cracks can become obvious weaknesses and eventually lead to bore accidents.

And this is not the first piece of copper that Qian Wanguan has forged. Although this copper can be smelted back into the furnace and re-made into copper ingots, each such cycle means that manpower and material resources are consumed.

Compared with steel, copper alloys must be forged with more precise temperature control, either too high or too low. The temperature range suitable for forging is much smaller. What's worse is that in this temperature range, where the difference is generally only about 200 degrees, there is also a medium-temperature region where the material will become brittle, which also needs to be avoided.

Zheng Sen doesn't know much about this, although he knows that each metal has the most suitable temperature range when forging, but what is this temperature range, he is not a metallurgical student, and there is no Baidu to query, so naturally he doesn't know.

"The heating time, forging time, and so on just now have all been recorded, right?" Qian Wanguan turned his head and asked his apprentice Zhang Chongdao.

"Master, I've written it all down." Zhang Chong replied.

"Okay, let's reduce the heating time by a tenth and try the next copper ingot......" Qian Wanguan said.

Qian Wanguan was originally a well-known blacksmith in Foshan, but after being invited by the Zheng family, he is now engaged in forging copper. It seems a bit out of place professionally. However, considering that in this era, bronze rarely needed to be hot-forged (generally bronzes were cast, while other copperware, such as copper basins, copper bottles, etc., were directly cold forged. There is also no experience to refer to. Therefore, the coppersmiths are not as experienced as the blacksmiths in the heat of hot forging and so on. Therefore, the matter of bronze forging was entrusted to a group of blacksmiths.

But for the blacksmiths, bronze is a completely different metal from steel, so much of their original experience is not used for the time being, and the only way is the stupidest way - try slowly. Try every possible heat. Then record them one by one until you find a way that works. In fact, for a long time, the technology of heat treatment of metals has basically been tested little by little by relying on this method.

And until he found a truly suitable forging method, Zheng Sen still had to continue to use cast artillery.

"Old money, your time is up. You can't dominate the machine anymore, this machine is our time. ”

Qian Wanguan was about to give instructions to his apprentices for the next round of experiments, but he heard such a voice. He looked up and saw that it was another famous blacksmith, Zhang Dazhuang. Like Qian Wanguan, he is also a blacksmith involved in this project. Qian Wanguan nodded, didn't say much, just stepped aside.

Each blacksmith chose a temperature range to heat the copper. Of course, whether the temperature has reached this point or not depends mainly on the experience of the blacksmiths. They are accompanied by several apprentices trained by the factory protection team, who are responsible for strictly recording the situation of each experiment, including the size of the fire, the heating time, and the results of the exercise.

Because there is only one hydraulic forging machine that can forge large pieces, all craftsmen first conduct preliminary experiments on their own small furnaces, and then carry out experiments on hydraulic forging machines after certain results. And the experiments with the small furnace began much earlier, before the first parts of the hydraulic forging machine were designed. But obviously, the temperature control of a small object is not quite the same as that of a large object. Therefore, although Qian Wanguan obtained good results when forging small pieces of bronze, the experiment after replacing them with large pieces still ended in failure.

However, although he failed, Qian Wanguan was not very frustrated, because he felt that he had gradually touched the edge of success. This time the wrought copper was in a state of cracking, and he had already had a similar failure when he was experimenting in a small furnace. Compared with the records on the small furnace, he knew that it was mostly caused by the high temperature of the wrought copper. Therefore, he is confident that he will slowly find a suitable treatment method in the next experiment. Now he is worried about another thing, that is, what will happen to Zhang Dazhuang and their experiments. Because Zhang Dazhuang also succeeded in the small furnace, now it depends on who can preemptively succeed in the forging of large pieces. It's not just a matter of face, it's about high bonuses.

So Qian Wanguan did not leave the scene, but stood aside and stared intently at Zhang Dazhuang's experiment. Although according to the rules established above, when it comes to large-scale tests, all experimental data must be shared. But Qian Wanguan is still here.

Zhang Dazhuang's experiment also failed, and he seemed to have failed even more severely, because although his piece of wrought copper did not show dense small cracks, but there were several deep large cracks.

"Zhang Chong, quickly check our little book, how did this crack happen?" Qian Wanguan hurriedly said to Zhang Chong. On the small stove, Qian Wanguan conducted thousands of experiments, so some of the results could not be remembered clearly by himself if he did not look through the records.

The so-called "small book" is not a complete record of the experiment. The records of thousands of experiments are piled up in a small half room, and it is very time-consuming to find them. However, some of the classic images, Zhang Chong organized them into a small book, as long as you find similar images, and then find that interval, you can find the results of the small furnace experiment that are closest to this failure.

"Here, Master, do you think it's a bit like the crack on this picture?" Zhang Chong soon found a picture from a small book.

Qian Wanguan took it and looked at it, although he was actually illiterate, but for more than a year, at least he could recognize some of the common words in the small book. Under that picture, it was labeled "Fifty-Eight Heat", and next to it was "Not enough heat, not hot enough." ”

Qian Wanguan nodded, and was about to instruct Zhang Chong to make a record, but saw that Zhang Chong had already marked the big forging experiment report just now: "Preliminary determination: the suitable heating time should be in ...... Between. ”