In the Taiyuan Defensive Battle two years ago, Li Yanqing annihilated more than 40,000 besieging Jin soldiers with full preparation and thunder-shattering sharpness, creating the first major victory in the Song-Jin War.

Later, Wang Ding took over the defense of Taiyuan, and also followed Li Yanqing's defensive ideas, which also made the Jin soldiers unable to capture Taiyuan City for several months, and the Jin soldiers also suffered heavy losses.

The Jin soldiers finally captured Taiyuan City, but they still attacked at night, using the power of earth-shattering thunder to blow up the city gate, and finally captured Taiyuan City.

After returning from the warehouse, Li Yanqing immediately came to the Taiyuan Arsenal, which was actually a military armor building center set up by the Jin Kingdom, in addition to Yanshan Mansion, followed by the Daimyo Mansion and Taiyuan Mansion.

There are about 300 craftsmen working in the ordnance field, all of whom are the official weaponry craftsmen of the Song Dynasty in the past, about 400 people, making knives and guns here, making armor, after the Song army captured Taiyuan, these ordnance craftsmen turned to serve the Song army, but they worked harder, and the whole ordnance field was in full swing, a vibrant scene.

At present, the arsenal is in charge of Hao Wu, the Jingzhao firearms supervisor who came with Li Yanqing's army, Hao Wu is Hao Er, his brother is called Hao Wen, and the two brothers have followed Li Yanqing for many years and are the core figures in the manufacture and development of firearms.

"How's your brother going on with the firebolt?" Li Yanqing asked with a smile.

Since Li Yanqing handed over the task of developing the firecrackle to Hao Da three years ago, Hao Da has been immersed in the research and development of the firecracker almost his entire mind, and has failed countless times, but he still perseveres.

Hao Wu smiled bitterly and said: "Last time, it was proposed to use a bamboo tube to make a gun body, but the practicability was too poor, and it was destroyed at most twice, and my brother still decided to use pig iron or cooked copper to build, gunpowder has been successful, and the gunpowder can be replaced by the incendiary powder of the earth-shaking thunder, the key is the forging of the gun body, which was originally fused into a cylinder with two semi-circles, but it will still crack after using it more than a dozen times." ”

"Then why don't you use the method of shaking the sky and thunder sand mold to cast copper pipes at one time?"

The shell of the earth-shaking thunder is a one-time casting, first make the inner and outer two layers of molds with coarse sand, pour copper water into the two layers of molds, and after the sand mold is broken, you can get a complete earth-shaking thunder shell, this technology has matured, the gunpowder bureau of Lin'an Mansion and Jingzhao Mansion can make more than 100 shells every day, Hao Dahao Er is the founder of the earth-shaking thunder, it is impossible not to know this method.

Hao Er explained: "This method was also used later, but the thickness of the copper pipe shell was uneven, and there were many impurities, which was easy to blow up, and a craftsman's left eye was blinded because of this, so now it is changed to flatten and forge pig iron sheets, and after repeated forging to remove the impurities, then bend into a tube, and pour molten iron at the joints to fuse, but the idea is very good, but there will always be such and such unexpected problems in advance, but the problem is constantly being solved, and it is about to succeed." ”

Li Yanqing smiled and nodded, "I'm looking forward to the early release of the first firecracker." ”

The two spoke, and soon walked into the arsenal, which covers an area of 200 acres, divided into five large courtyards, in the middle is the general warehouse, and there are five workshops around the general warehouse, if you look down from the sky, the layout is like a five-petal flower.

Li Yanqing and Hao Wen passed through the crossbow courtyard, where the production of divine arm crossbows and military crossbows had been suspended, and more than a hundred craftsmen were working hard to make trebuchets, and the semi-finished products of forty heavy trebuchets were neatly placed in the wide courtyard.

It takes at least two years to make a good trebuchet, and the process is in the production of the throwing rod, which is generally glued together with a long piece of bamboo, and then wrapped in three thin cloths, and then soaked in oil and dried, repeated more than a dozen times, and then brushed ten paints, and then dried, it takes two years to complete the production of a throwing rod, and the toughness of the rod is excellent, and it is difficult to break.

But fortunately, after more than 200 trebuchets in Taiyuan City were destroyed by the order of the Jin soldiers, the throwing rods were retained by the craftsmen, and now as long as you build a shelf with giant wood and install the throwing rods, you can use them, and you can complete the production of hundreds of heavy trebuchets in a few days.

"Craftsman Sun, how many trebuchets are there now?" Hao Wu stepped forward and asked an old man with a smile.

As soon as the old man turned around, he saw Li Yanqing, and hurriedly stepped forward to kneel down and salute, Li Yanqing smiled and waved his hand, "Steward Sun, please excuse me, tell me about the current progress?" ”

Steward Sun got up and said: "Now is the third batch of trebuchets to be made, the first two batches have been made eighty, the king has already pulled to test, in two days this batch will be completed, then there will be one hundred and twenty trebuchets, our goal is to build two hundred, to ensure that there are fifty on each side of the city." ”

Li Yanqing said with a smile: "There are more than a dozen more as alternate replacements." ”

"Please rest assured, in addition to repairing crossbows, we are making trebuchets with all our might, and we also have two particularly long throwing rods, and we are going to build two super giant trebuchets with a range of five hundred paces, which has enough deterrent power for the golden soldiers."

Li Yanqing suddenly remembered that the three largest trebuchets in Tokyo City played a huge role, but unfortunately the Song army could not move away when they withdrew to the inner city, so they poured fire oil on it and burned it, thinking of this incident, Li Yanqing was quite regretful, and now there is actually this kind of super trebuchet, which really interests Li Yanqing, he hurriedly said: "The super giant trebuchet you said is very important, and it should be manufactured as soon as possible." ”

"The villain understands and starts preparing materials today."

After inspecting the crossbow field, Li Yanqing came to the general warehouse, and he did not find the earth-shaking thunder when he inspected the warehouse outside the city, and later learned that Jin Bing's firearms were stored in the warehouse of the arsenal field, but there was no gunpowder maker in Taiyuan Prefecture, and the stored firearms were sent from outside.

Hao Wu took Li Yanqing to the warehouse, came to the northeast corner of the warehouse, and opened a small iron door, "Qi Qi Dutong, Jin Bing's earth-shattering thunder all exist here, there are a total of three hundred and twenty-five!" ”

Li Yanqing walked into the room, only to feel that the room was gloomy, the light was very dim, but it was quite dry, and there were dozens of rows of iron shelves in the wide room, on which hundreds of swarthy earth-shattering thunderbolts were neatly placed.

"This isn't our earth-shattering thunder!"

Li Yanqing recognized at a glance that these earth-shaking thunders were different from the Song Army's earth-shaking thunders, the shape was very round, and the shape of the mouth was also different, obviously the sky-shaking thunders cast by the Jin people themselves.

"This is the second generation of the Jin Kingdom!"

Hao Wu said with a smile, he can be called the first expert of the earth-shaking thunder, he knows all kinds of earth-shaking thunder well, he explained to Li Yanqing with a smile: "In the past, Jin Bing's earth-shaking thunder was inherited from the Liao State, and it was also learned from the Western Xia, not to mention the crudeness, the dumb thunder is very serious, at least half of the ten earth-shaking thunders are dumb mines, and the skin is thin, and the power of the explosion is not large, and later the Jin Kingdom imitated our earth-shaking thunder, which is now, the structure inside is very similar, and the success rate is also high. But it's still half as powerful. ”

"Why is this happening?" Li Yanqing asked puzzled.

"The reason is still the same as before, Jin Bing did not master the formula of burning gunpowder, the gunpowder in the earth-shaking thunder can not be fully burned, our iron shell is too thick, their gunpowder can't explode, they have to use a thin shell, or even a ceramic shell, of course, the power will be weakened a lot, and there is no arquebus holder in it, if you use a projectile, it is very easy to cause the firewire to deviate after landing, thus becoming a dumb mine, and if the firewire is too short, it will explode in advance in the air, which is why the Jinbing does not use the throwing sky-shaking thunder much."

Li Yanqing groaned and said: "But Taiyuan was conquered by the Jin soldiers, and the Jin soldiers used the earth-shaking thunder to blast open the city gate. ”

"They can't blow up the gate of Taiyuan City with their own sky-shaking thunder, they must use our sky-shaking thunder."

"Then let's try it, and we have to see it with our own eyes."