Cannon?

Long-range cannons?

Everyone is a little worried, this cannon is not comparable to the bird system, you can build hundreds of them in a month, that thing is piled up with silver, a red-clothed cannon will cost thousands of two hundred silver, and the poor can't afford it. And it's not enough to have silver, but also iron ore or copper ore, copper was equivalent to gold in the previous few hundred years, and it was very valuable, and it was only in modern times that iron cannons were developed.

Compared with copper cannons, iron cannons are much cheaper, and although the smelting process of high-grade iron cannons is complex, it is still low cost compared to scarce copper ore. However, compared with the copper cannon, because of the casting process and material, the barrel of the cannon is easily filled with small holes, which cannot be smooth as satin.

At this point, the backward Jurchens walked in front of the Ming Dynasty, Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming rebelled from Dengzhou, ran to Houjin, accompanied more than 10,000 people, and brought almost the country's leading artillery and artillery casting divisions, as well as many Hongyi cannons.

To Kong and Geng, Huang Taiji led the Houjin nobles out of Shengjing ten miles to greet each other, sealed the two high-ranking officials, and formed an army called "Tianyou Army", which was extremely important, and the craftsmen and gunners who brought it to be treated well and built artillery for Houjin.

Huang Taiji did this, of course, he had enough of the suffering of the cannons, in Fushun, in the Daling River, and in Shenyang, the iron bullets shot from the city smashed the Eight Banners to pieces, and the corpses were all over the field, and even Nurhachi was injured by the cannonballs, and died early with hatred. Therefore, after getting the Ming Dynasty didn't care much about the cannon caster, Huang Taiji regarded it as a treasure, and gave what he wanted, and soon rewarded the Houjin technology leap forward, and developed a very representative lost wax method casting cannon, the cannon created in this way has a smooth inner chamber with few flaws, and it is not easy to explode, and it is very easy to use.

On the other hand, after killing Sun Yuanhua, who escaped from Kong Youde, there was no firearms expert in the Manchu Dynasty, and there were many eunuchs in the military bureau, who only knew corruption and did not know military affairs. The status of craftsmen is low, the wages are low, they can't even support their families, and no one can take care of casting cannons and improving the process, it's good to survive, why do you want to do so much?

In the early years of Yongli, the large-caliber artillery of the Qing court has surpassed that of the Southern Ming, both in quality and quantity, it is much sharper than the Southern Ming, especially the Han army that fought in the front, especially like artillery, Wang Huan met Wu Sangui in Shaanxi, if it wasn't for Dolgon's loyalty and did not give him more firearms, otherwise the Kuizhou army would have fought with the Qing army outside Xi'an.

Wang Huan has money and iron, Sichuan's silver and iron mines are producing a lot every day, Ma Chongming has to say that he is a business genius, under his management, although it is inevitable that there will be some water penetration and collapse accidents in the mine, but it has not affected the output at all, and I don't know how he did it.

But just the materials can't make a cannon, skilled and skilled craftsmen are treasures, as soon as he thinks of this problem, Wang Huan hates itchy, there are so many traitors in this era, but in terms of destructive power, no one can compare to Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, these two people took away the most outstanding gunners and gunsmiths in Daming, Dengzhou Prefecture, these people are equivalent to Qian Xuesen in later generations.

Wang Huan didn't have Qian Xuesen, but fortunately, he found another master.

Xu Erjue, a member of the Ming Army.

A few days ago, Xu Erjue was left in Hanzhong by Wang Huan after he came to Hanzhong to announce the decree. In the days before leaving Hanzhong to attack Shaanxi, Wang Huan was busy, and he had to meet Xu Erjue every day, chatting and talking, the inherent temperament of engineering men made the two hate to see each other late, Xu Erjue admired Wang Huan as a military general who actually knew so much about the craftsman work regarded as a lowly job in this era, and Wang Huan, from Xu Erjue's mouth, was also shocked to learn that the artillery technology of the Ming Dynasty had opened a huge gap with the artillery technology of Europe.

Wang Huan lived in the era, in Europe, all kinds of field artillery, cannon has been as a standing firearm in the armies of various countries, in addition to the fortress artillery and city artillery, field artillery has been towards lightweight, portable development, France, Britain, Spain and other countries between the war without artillery participation, it is unimaginable.

However, the emergence of the Macao artillery factory greatly made up for this gap, and the red-haired ghost spared no effort to teach advanced artillery technology to the Ming Dynasty in order to make money in Macao, so that many Ming Dynasty officials realized the importance of it.

Xu Erjue is one of them.

Although Wang Huan doesn't know how to cast cannons, he has never eaten pork and has seen pigs run, and in the exchange with Xu Erjue, he put forward many creative ideas, such as adding cannon ears, quantitative medicine packets, standardized manufacturing and other fresh words, which made Xu Erjue feel very new and called Daigo empowerment.

Wang Huan chose a site outside Hanzhong City, and quietly built the Hanzhong Military Bureau, with Xu Erjue as the military ambassador, recruiting craftsmen, and focusing on cannon casting.

As a result, the two major military industrial bases of the Kuizhou Army were formed, and the Shizhu Kuizhou Military Bureau was responsible for manufacturing yellow gunpowder and light firearms such as bird system and thunder, which were also easy to transport and would not be restricted by road conditions; The Hanzhong Military Bureau is responsible for the manufacture of large firearms such as artillery, Hanzhong has developed transportation, can be passed on all sides, and the artillery can be easily transported after it is built, and there are not many iron ores in Shaanxi, which can be taken from nearby materials.

However, Wang Huan is not optimistic, because the Hanzhong Military War Bureau has not long been opened, craftsmen are extremely scarce, and the casting cannon is not something that can be done by pulling a few blacksmiths, and Wang Huan does not dare to use the qualified iron cannon made by skilled craftsmen.

The people in the hall were all in the upper echelons of the Kuizhou Army, and of course they also knew that the Hanzhong Military War Bureau was currently unable to provide artillery, so everyone was helpless.

"Wait, wait a few more months, Jiang Hao won't be beaten down so easily." Wang Huan solemnly looked at the ghost painting talisman left by Ma Mingtu again, and the names of the main generals of the Qing army on it were impressive: "If he doesn't have a little preparation, he won't dare to rebel, and I conclude that he can hold out for a while." Taking advantage of these days, we must calm the hearts of the people, vigorously expand civil affairs, spread the prestige of our Kuizhou in the northwest, and completely bring the land of Guanzhong into our control, which will be handed over to Governor Meng; Second, to strengthen military training, the newly expanded thousand-man team is much worse than the veterans, and it must be trained in the shortest possible time, and the three battalion commanders are each responsible for their own battalion heads, and the local soldiers and horses will be handed over to Wang Yongqiang; Third, it is to cast cannons, within these two months, there must be the first batch of cannons into our Kuizhou army! I'm in charge myself. ”

He said seriously, everyone listened carefully, everyone nodded heavily when they heard their errands, Kuizhou military and civilian division, each performing its own duties, cooperating with each other, efficient and fast.

In the end, Wang Huan set his eyes on Chen Xiang, this tall brother, who has now grown into a burly man, with a shiny bald head that sets off a thick eyebrows and a big face with a little more ferocity, why does he look like a heartless and reckless man. However, Wang Huan knew that in fact, Chen Xiang was wise and foolish, and he was very measured.

"Over there in Guangdong, have you gained something?" Wang Huan asked.

Chen Xiang nodded slightly, and said in a deep voice: "I bought two with money and tied two of them, a total of four red-haired ghosts, packed in wooden barrels, and on the way." ”

(End of chapter)