"Back then? Back then, I was working as a cannon and striking iron in the smelting department, but it was a tiring job at that time, and the king followed him every day, sweating every day. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

The descendants of the Li family suddenly felt a little magical, and exclaimed: "Third grandfather, can you always see the king at that time?" ”

"Yes, of course. It was thirty-seven years, and we were busy making molds for cannons, and the king went to Sucheng. Three months after coming back, the first cannon was cast, and it failed......"

"Three months? Why does it take that long? Why did it fail? ”

Li San recalled and sighed: "Where is it so easy? A high platform should be built so that the smelted copper could be poured into the mold; A furnace was also built on a high platform, a furnace made of pig iron turned into wrought iron, separated by a wall, and the copper and tin that had been smelted on the other side of the fire were made and melted again before they could be poured in. ”

"The king said that there are some impurities in the coal and charcoal, and it will not be clean when smelted directly with copper, and it will be very brittle, so you can only use that kind of furnace, which took some time. The furnace is not difficult, the first batch of iron-smelting furnaces of the smelting division were equipped with that kind of furnace, which is nothing more than the fire from above, using a wall to separate copper from coal, charcoal, etc., and relying on hot gas to remove copper. ”

"As a result, after the first infusion after three months, everyone's hearts were cold. The mud rod, which is the core of the cannon, was bonded together with the copper cannon after cooling, and it was burned into bricks. ”

"I had to re-smelt and find a way to improve, and it was more than two months, and it was too troublesome to make molds."

"After this time, the mandrel can be taken out, but the inside is not smooth at all. Holding a slender iron rod, one end is red-burned, and through the red-hot iron light, there are a lot of trachomes, which are not good at all, and they have to be changed again. ”

"I have been tossing and turning like this for thirty-eight years, and finally I got a red-hot iron rod and stuck it into the breech of the sand hole, but this is not enough, the eyes look smooth on the inside, but in fact they are not flat at all."

"It was filled with gunpowder, tried it once, but it didn't blow up, and the king was very happy at the time, saying that it could be used if it wasn't fried."

Then I had to make an iron or hard brass knife and carefully swirl it into it little by little. A big wheel-style thing, the axle is an iron rod, one end of the iron rod is equipped with a rotary knife, turn the big wheel, drive the thin iron rod, the wheel turns a circle of the rotary knife also rotates a circle, but how thick is the wheel, how thin is the rotary knife? So you can cut the moving copper. ”

"You can't spin too much every day, you have to cover the outside of the copper cannon with wet wool felt little by little, and you have to change it at any time, and the inside will be hot as soon as it is swirled, and you have to stop when it is hot."

"After spinning for a long time, I finally finished spinning, and I have to drill the fire door, otherwise how to light the gunpowder inside? It's not easy to drill the fire door, you have to drill into the innermost part of the gun chamber. A little bit forward, a little gunpowder, and as soon as the gunpowder behind the fire door exploded, the cannon was crooked. ”

"Add oil to the fire gate little by little, and you can't be in a hurry, other cities can use wood to drill jade, of course we can use iron or bronze to drill cannons, but it's slow."

"When we were making cannons here, the Carpentry Division was also busy making cannon racks, and Wang Shang was going back and forth between the Smelting Division and the Carpentry Division every morning at that time."

"At that time, the whole Yucheng revolved around these two workshops, and all the good things were given priority to these two workshops. Except for some iron-making farm tools, the people of the smelting department basically gathered around to watch, and each veteran had to bring three or five people to work together. ”

"I remember that I started making molds in '36, and it wasn't until September '38 that the first cannon was ready. How big is it? Do you think about how big is three catties of iron balls? That small cannon is the kind of three-pound small iron ball, how thick can it be? ”

"At that time, the gunpowder was loaded, the gun carriage was ready, and a mound of earth was dug behind to support it, and the rest of the people with the ignition rope ran away. It was aimed at a wall one hundred and fifty paces away, and with a bang, the wall collapsed! We all screamed, think, what would it be like if it hit someone? Later, I tried again, and the three-pound iron ball could hit three or four hundred paces away, and it could penetrate three or four people at a distance of about one hundred and fifty paces. ”

"Everyone was crazy with joy. You must know that the bows and arrows of the Dongyi people are very good, and the people of the Xia Kingdom are not good at shooting at that time, so they all think that if they make a hundred of these small cannons, what are they afraid of? ”

"As a result, the king poured a scoop of cold water on our heads, saying that this cannon had been built twenty times, and only one could be used, and it took more than two years for 70,000 people in the Xia Kingdom to support it, and the rest of the cities and towns were supported by copper, tin, people, and grain. Not to mention a hundred, you can't afford to build ten. ”

"We were all surprised at the time, and thought to ourselves that if we didn't build so much, why did we have to let most of the veterans of the smelting division learn this? The king said that there is a difference between not making so much and not being able to build so much. ”

"So from then on, only a part of the people who made the guns remained. In addition to building this three-pound cannon, it is also necessary to build a batch of smaller cannons that can shoot about a pound of iron balls and can be carried by two or three people. ”

"After reading it, the king chose some people to be responsible for casting cannons, but he didn't choose me."

"At that time, coal was already able to burn coke like charcoal, and the original iron smelting furnace still used charcoal, but the furnace that turned pig iron into wrought iron used coke. The furnace that used to fry wrought iron with pig iron was not good at all, the temperature was not enough, and the stirring iron was hard, and it was still a bunch of impurities after taking it out, and it still needed to be smashed out little by little. ”

"I changed the coke, and this time it was said that the heat was enough, but the walls of the stove were burned! Those bricks couldn't withstand the heat of coal coke at all, there was no way, so the king looked for Yuemei to return to Yueyi, and helped build a stove for burning better and smooth pottery there, and built a workshop specializing in burning clay bricks, and this back and forth for more than half a year. ”

"By the time all this was done, it would be the summer of thirty-nine. Your four grandfathers were all selected to practice the cannon at that time, and we continued to dig the earth and stove there. ”

"Replace the burnt clay bricks, here is the coal coke fire, and in the middle is the wall, and the fire and smoke go from above, and the pig iron is heated through the wall."

"Under the pig iron is some iron slag spreading, and when the pig iron is melted, take an iron stick and stir it in a place that can burn people, and you have to drink three or five cans of salt water a day, and you can't breathe when it's hot."

"Strange to say, the pig iron that had melted was stirred for a while, and it became sticky like porridge, and it became more and more unmoving. The heat is still there, but it just can't turn into water anymore. ”

"Take out this iron, it's much simpler, go to the scum below, it's wrought iron. You can smash it, and you can smash it no matter how you smash it. ”

"At that time, there were two groups of people, one group of people smashed the armor pieces with small pieces of wrought iron, and we used these wrought iron to smash the barrel of the gun. With water hammer that can smash the armor, the armor is much faster, but we who roll the barrel can only rely on our hands to knock little by little. ”

"At that time, I didn't know if it was to smash the barrel, but let it be smashed."

"I have two men under me, an anvil with a recessed semicircular groove on the anvil, a large hammer, a small iron furnace with bellows, a pair of pliers with iron, an iron plate one foot long for each person, and a round iron rod one step long."

"That's it, first beat the wrought iron into an iron plate, put it in the bellows furnace and burn it red, smash it on the anvil while it is hot, put the iron rod into it, and continue to smash it, and when the iron plate is smashed in a circle around the iron rod, it will be finished."

"I received the first piece of wrought iron from October of '39, and by June of '40, the whole smelting division was the first to smash out a one-foot-long round pipe. Eight months! After eight months, in the eyes of the blacksmith now, I am afraid that I have to laugh at us for being too slow, but at that time the king rewarded me well. ”

"The barrel of our gun is very thick, let's put it this way, it is half a circle thicker than it is now, because we are afraid of exploding. In addition, a group of people also beat some one foot long, and the iron rods in them were as thick, but one side of them was thicker, and the two iron pipes were burned red, and the thick one was put on ours, and then smashed together hard, and became a stick more than two feet long. ”

"We are only responsible for the barrel of the gun, and some people are responsible for drilling the barrel, some are responsible for making wooden supports, some people are responsible for grinding gunpowder, some people are boiling lead pellets, some people are drilling fire doors, some people are rubbing fire ropes, some people are making taps, each has its own business. Whoever does it should have your number plate engraved on what you make...... Otherwise, your fourth grandfather wouldn't know that I made the barrel that blew him in the eye. ”

"I did the math, as far as the situation was concerned, not counting gunpowder, wooden trays, fuse boxes and the like, just the barrel of the gun and drilling, six people were busy for half a year, maybe they could get one. That is, three people don't have to do anything for a year, and they specialize in hitting and drilling out a gun barrel. And there must be a veteran of the smelting division among these three people. ”

"Where is this weapon, it's clearly piled up with money. At that time, the leaders didn't understand that with so much money, so much iron, and so much food, they could actually raise more soldiers, even if these people all went to fight armor, it was one iron armor per person. If one person has one iron armor, who can beat it? What do you want a musket for? ”

Li Shilang sighed, and took the words over: "Not only you, but those of us who were the first to touch the musket are also full of resentment. ”

"A bow is two or three catties at most, and how many catties does a long ge have? Do you know how heavy that heavy musket was? Ten pounds! ”

"Shen is easy to say, the most difficult thing is to fill it and start a fire. There is a small fuse box outside the fire door, and gunpowder is poured into the fire box, and the fire rope ignites the fine gunpowder inside, and then ignites the gunpowder inside the fire door to ignite the gunpowder that shoots out the lead shot inside. ”

"They carried ten pounds of guns on their backs, a bronze sword hanging from their waists, eight cans of gunpowder, a trays of arquebus, lead pellets, and a wooden fork for each man to mount the musket on it and shoot."

"You can't use it when it's raining, you can't use it when it's windy, you can't use it at night......"

"When you are queuing, people are far apart, and if you get a little closer, it may be that my arquebus ignites the gunpowder you are carrying, and it burns with a breath. It's just that I'm a gunner, I just need to know how to use this thing, and there are very few opportunities to touch this thing, otherwise I can't stand it. ”

The children asked curiously, "Then how can you get injured by a gun?" ”

"Forty-one years, the musket is part of the competition skills of the Grass River Festival, I want to try it, anyway, everyone has never touched it before, and then the gun exploded......"