(From this chapter onwards, it is automatically uploaded, and I went back to my hometown for the New Year.) Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info I hope that the vertical and horizontal automatic upload will not be wrong. I wish you all a prosperous Year of the Rooster in advance. ）

After the explosion, more than a dozen craftsmen such as Luo Wei and Li Dazhui had already rushed into the smoke and dust. The cold wind in the valley was strong, and after a few moments the smoke and dust were blown away towards the southwest, and at the same time the shouts of Lowe and the craftsmen were heard.

"Congratulations, congratulations. The barrel was intact, and the test firing was successful. Liu Xun straightened his face with surprise and congratulated Wang Yuan.

Wang Yuan laughed, and rushed to the side of the cannon barrel with everyone, but when he saw Luo Wei raised his eyebrows, he arched his hand to Wang Yuan and said, "Xiangguo is overjoyed." The test launch was successful. You see, intact, the barrel does not have the slightest crack and does not twist. The old man deliberately added an extra five coins of gunpowder just to see if it could withstand it, and now it seems that it is extremely strong. Hahaha. ”

Wang Yuan nodded again and again, stretched out his hand to caress the barrel, but felt that his hand was hot, and the barrel was already slightly hot after a launch. But the appearance is complete, except for the dust that burst on the ground and falls on the upper layer of the barrel, there is really nothing unusual at all.

"Then we should be able to conduct a live-fire test." Wang Yuan said with a smile.

"Of course. However, you still have to wait for the old decay to be checked. Lowe arched.

Luo Wei didn't dare to be sloppy in the slightest, and carefully inspected the inside and outside of the barrel, and wiped it new with soft silk. After rechecking the fixation of the barrel, the order charge began. After the medicine was loaded, Luo Wei asked Li Da Hammer to hold a round iron ball, use a stick with half of the bamboo basket at the front end, and carefully send it into the depths of the cannon chamber.

Luo Wei explained: "Dashuai, just using this thing to reload is that I don't want to directly reload the iron bullet and make the iron bullet hit the gun chamber and the front wall of the medicine room. This iron bullet is solid and heavy, and once it hits out of the dents and twists, I am afraid that the barrel will be scrapped. ”

Wang Yuan nodded in admiration, and was very satisfied with Luo Wei's caution in his heart. This cannon is temporarily unable to fire thunderbolts, and under great pressure and temperature, thunderbolts will explode in the barrel, and there is no solution yet. Therefore, from the very beginning of the development of iron cannons, Wang Yuan targeted solid iron cannonballs. In Wang Yuan's view, solid bullets can be infinitely powerful. Under the huge kinetic energy, the siege power of the implementation bullet should be no less than that of the thunderbolt. And it is more powerful when attacking strong walls and fortresses. Just imagine, a huge iron bullet with a huge speed smashed into the city wall and fortress buildings and other objects, like a meteorite falling from the sky, and the earth and rocks that will be smashed will fly, no less than a big explosion.

"Be careful, everyone, get ready to light the fire." Lowe shouted. Turned to Wang Yuan and said: "Please also ask the marshal and everyone to step back, this is the first time to test the firing of live ammunition, and the old man doesn't want any accidents." ”

Wang Yuan smiled and said: "Steward Luo, this is the first time that the live ammunition is ignited, and I want to come in person." ”

Luo Wei was stunned, and hurriedly waved his hand and said: "No, it can't be done, I said that this is the first live ammunition test firing, and it is unknown whether it can be successful. ”

Wang Yuan laughed and said: "Steward Luo, I, Wang Yuan, am not a big eater, what kind of danger have I not encountered?" If I'm unlucky, I've been dead several times. This cannon is something I hold very seriously, otherwise I wouldn't have come. The first live-fire test firing was a must-have. ”

Everyone persuaded Wang Yuan to do so. Everyone also knows Wang Yuan's temper, once he makes a decision, no one can persuade him, so he can also let him. Wang Yuan waved his hand and ordered everyone to leave, but Zhao Qing and Tan Ping insisted on not retreating, preparing to use their physical bodies as shields to protect Wang Yuan if there was an accident. Wang Yuan didn't bother to talk to them, so he stayed where they were.

Everything was ready, Wang Yuan lit the torch and approached the fuse, facing the first official test of gunpowder firing shells since the beginning of the world, Wang Yuan was also excited and nervous. God knows what the outcome will be, but Wang Yuan will never back down because he is afraid.

The fuse was ignited, the green smoke and flames quickly spread and burned out, and Wang Yuan, Zhao Qing and Tan Ping rushed to the sandbag construction more than a dozen steps away and hid afterward. But when an earth-shattering explosion sounded again, the air was filled with gravel and dust, and Wang Yuan and the others were filled with smoke and dust in their mouths. But Wang Yuan didn't care about it, and rushed to the barrel of the cannon as soon as it exploded. At a glance, I was relieved to see that the barrel was intact.

Everyone in the rear quickly ran up and asked if Wang Yuan was okay, and only after a while did they remember to ask where the iron bullet had gone. No one knew where the bullet had hit.

"The smoke was so thick that I couldn't see where the iron projectile had hit. The barrel of the gun was facing the cliff in front of it, and it should have hit the cliff, but why didn't it move? Luo Wei was surprised.

"Could it be that the iron bullet got stuck in the barrel of the cannon, and it wasn't shot out at all?" Someone wondered.

Wang Yuan was speechless, if the iron bullet didn't shoot out at all, it would be really funny, working for half a day is equivalent to working in vain.

"Impossible, if the iron bullet is stuck, won't it blow up the barrel?" Lowe immediately denied it, and at the same time personally inspected it from the front barrel. It turned out that the shells did go out, but they were missing.

Everyone was puzzled, and suddenly a rumbling sound sounded from behind the opposite cliff, and a cloud of smoke and dust rolled up in the distance, like the sound of a landslide and a crack.

"What's going on?" Someone asked.

Wang Yuan waved his hand and shouted, "Let's go, go and take a look." ”

They got on their horses and galloped along the valley, crossed the hillside in front of them, dismounted and climbed to the top of the opposite cliff, only to find that there was smoke and dust billowing from another valley behind the cliff. A cliff seemed to have collapsed, and many rocks were tumbling and tumbling into the valley.

"This ...... What's going on? Everyone scratched their heads.

Wang Yuan twisted his eyebrows and thought for a moment, and suddenly laughed.

"Why is the big guy laughing?" The crowd was puzzled.

Wang Yuan laughed and said, "If I guess correctly, this iron bullet crossed the mountain cliff that it was aiming at and hit the mountain cliff behind, shattering the cliff wall and rocks, causing the cliff to collapse. Haha, a successful test launch. ”

"This ...... This cliff is four or five miles away from the launch site, can it hit this far? Liu Xun said in astonishment.

Wang Yuan said in a deep voice: "Yes or no, speak with facts." If you fire another shot, and set up a dozen lookout posts on the hillsides on both sides, you can know if this is the case. ”

Reloaded and reloaded, this time Wang Yuan personally stood on the top of the hill to observe. The moment the cannon rang out, the valley roared, and the smoke and dust rose on the ground, Wang Yuan's eyes locked on the cliff to the north. A cloud of red dust was evident on the cliff a few miles away, and then the rocks burst apart, and the sound of falling rocks rolling down could be seen on the top of the mountain two miles away. This time completely confirmed the fact that the iron bullet can shoot a range of five miles, and it is still extremely powerful.

Everyone was dumbfounded. To be honest, many people don't actually think that this kind of iron cannon will be much more powerful than the Shenwei cannon. For example, Li Mi has always thought that it was unwise for Wang Yuan to waste a lot of money and materials on the development of iron cannons. But now, Li Mi has nothing to say. At least for the time being, in terms of range, the iron artillery will have an absolute advantage, and it will be able to bombard the enemy's city from a distance of several miles, and the opponent will be attacked by it without hearing about them, which is a great advantage. For the big city, the advantage of the iron cannon is even more obvious. A medium-sized city, with a radius of only seven or eight miles, can almost be covered by iron cannons. In other words, the siege will no longer be the siege gate, and there will be no safety in the attacked city, and it will be bombarded with iron cannons falling from the sky.

Even in huge cities such as Chang'an, Luoyang, and Chengdu with a radius of twenty or thirty miles, this kind of iron cannon can cover a large area of the city, causing great damage. This is obviously an epoch-making siege weapon. Think about it, if there are hundreds of such cannons bombarding the opponent's city in unison, isn't it a rainstorm of big iron balls in the sky? No matter how strong your house is, you will not be able to withstand the bombardment of this heavenly iron ball. It's chilling to think about.

Next, the shooting continued, and Wang Yuan wanted to know where the limit of the use of this cast iron cannon was. If it can really reach more than 100 cannons without scrapping, or even if it is only 80 or 90 cannons, Wang Yuan thinks it is acceptable. Although the cost is huge, for the attack on the key cities in the key battles, if this price can be exchanged for victory, it is definitely worth it.

The bombardment of artillery and the roar resounded in the valley one after another. The crowd gradually adapted to the deafening sound. Gun after cannon, and when it was fired until one hundred and twenty rounds, the barrel of the cannon finally burst open, the iron pieces scattered in all directions, and the cannon body exploded and overturned. Fortunately, the further back they went, the more careful they became, lengthening the fuse, allowing the people who fired the cannon to run farther, and the onlookers also ran fifty or sixty paces away, so that there were no casualties.

The previous cannon also burst after more than 100 charges, and this one was also outside 100 times, so it can be basically concluded that the life of this iron cannon is more than 100 shots, which basically meets Wang Yuan's psychological requirements. But the shortcomings of this cannon were also exposed. One is that solid shells are not as practical as charged shells after all, and the shells are completely large iron balls weighing dozens of pounds, and the cost is really expensive. But this point cannot be overcome for the time being, and the limitations of science and technology make it impossible for Wang Yuan to make shells that can be filled with gunpowder for the time being, but he is helpless. I can only throw this problem to Zhang Zhengyi to see if he can come up with a solution. In addition, Wang Yuan pondered whether he could replace the iron ball with a stone ball, but this was not easy to do. Stone ball shells need to have extremely high strength, otherwise they may explode in the chamber, and such stone is probably not easy to find.

The second disadvantage is that because the gun is directly filled with gunpowder, the barrel of the gun will be hot and soft after firing a few rounds, and it cannot continue to fire. It can only be cooled by watering, and the limitations of the battlefield become greater. It is necessary to carry a large amount of water for cooling during the launch. Otherwise, you will have to wait for it to cool down naturally, wasting too much time. In the future, if it is used in a water-scarce place, I am afraid it will not be so easy to use. Moreover, Wang Yuan is also worried that if it is watered and cooled for a long time, it will not have an adverse effect on the cast iron and affect its launch performance.

In short, all kinds of limiting factors are unavoidable, after all, this is the era of scientific and technological wilderness, and even if Wang Yuan knows a little about some things, it is difficult to solve some obvious problems. It can only be left for the future to be slowly improved. Even so, Wang Yuan was already very satisfied with this iron cannon.

More than 100 shells were fired until mid-afternoon, and everyone sat on the spot, drinking water and eating some dry food. Wang Yuan said to Luo Wei: "Manager Luo, today's test launch can be regarded as a complete success, which shows that this kind of iron produced in Yaozhou is suitable." However, if you want to cast this cannon in large quantities, you must go to the Kapok Mountain Range at the southern foot of the Daxue Mountain. Luo is in charge, I can only work hard for you to make a trip. ”

Luo Wei arched his hand and said: "Xiangguo rest assured, tomorrow the old man will go to the line." See if the iron ore there is suitable. But if it is the iron that is produced there, what should we do? Do you want to recruit people to go deep into the mountains to mine and make iron? ”

Wang Yuan said: "That's inevitable, if the iron ore is used there, I will order someone to recruit people." Within half a year, I need at least 100 of these guns to equip the army, which requires tens of thousands of catties of iron. I don't know how to smelt and I don't know how much manpower is needed to get there. ”

Luo Wei frowned and said: "It is indeed quite difficult to cast more than 100 of these cannons in half a year, and it is not easy to open an iron mine, but if there are enough manpower, it is not impossible to do it." It's just that it's in a remote area, and it's extremely difficult to recruit manpower and smelt and transfer ores. I think it will take at least three to five thousand people to go all out to meet the requirements of the commander. ”

Liu Xun said straightly: "Manpower is not a problem, once it is confirmed, I will immediately recruit manpower to open the mine." The most important thing we don't lack in Jiannan now is manpower. ”

Wang Yuan shook his head and said: "I can't recruit in Chengdu, I don't want to publicize this matter." It is too far away from Yaozhou, and it may take 20 days to recruit people to get there, which is too delayed. It is very close to Nanzhao Kingdom, and I want to let Luo Feng, the lord of Nanzhao Kingdom, use the labor of other countries to open mines for me, which is both secret and fast. Moreover, those Nanzhao barbarians shuttle freely in the mountains and rough places, and they are better than our people. ”

Li Mi nodded and said, "That's a good idea." ”

Wang Yuan stood up and said with a smile: "In any case, we have to know whether the mine is still there, and whether the iron mine is the kind of cannon we cast." Everything has to wait for news from Steward Luo. Old General Li, you arrange for people and horses to follow Luo's stewardship and escort them all the way, the sooner the better. ”

Li Mi nodded in agreement. Wang Yuan said with a smile: "I have worked hard for you today, I am very happy to have a complete success, I will serve you wine another day, but now I still have a lot of things to do, so I will take a step first." ”

Everyone hurriedly gave each other away, watching Wang Yuan, Li Mi and others turn over and get on their horses and gallop back to the city.

Luo Wei looked at the backs of Wang Yuan and the others, and asked Liu Xun in a low voice: "Steward Liu?" Xiangguo said that he invited the Nanzhao barbarians to mine, is this reliable? Will the barbarians listen to us? Will the lord of Nanzhao listen to Xiangguo's words? ”

Liu Xun smiled and said: "Steward Luo, then you don't know, my handsome Mrs. Ru is the princess of Nanzhao Kingdom, and Luo Feng, the lord of Nanzhao Kingdom, is the brother-in-law of Xiangguo." When Xiangguo sent troops to Tibet, Ge Luofeng sent troops to help, not to mention asking him to send some people to mine? Rest assured. ”

Luo Wei was stunned and said: "Didn't Xiangguo lead his troops to fight Nanzhao?" Why did you marry someone else's princess, and she was still Mrs. Ru and not the main room? ”

Liu Xun laughed and said, "Surprised, right? Dashuai's other concubine is still Gao Xianzhi's sister-in-law. That's it, don't ask more, if you want to talk about Wang Xiangguo's experience and ability, I can't finish talking about it for three days and three nights. And I'm afraid that your jaw will drop after listening to it, and you won't be able to pick it up. ”

Lowe did drop his jaw, his mouth open, and his gray beard fluttering in the wind.

……

When the cannons rumble in the Xishan Valley, Chengdu North Gate Square is also full of people.

Xuanzong came to the North City Gate Square at the end of the day to give relief to the tens of thousands of people placed in the North City Gate Square. Yesterday, he asked Yan Zhenqing and Wei Jiansu to arrange this matter for him, Xuanzong thought that since Wang Yuan had won people's hearts with the matter of relief, he could no longer sit in the Scattered Flower Building, but should actively participate in this matter, and could not let Wang Yuan be beautiful.

After arriving in Chengdu, Xuanzong had never appeared in public. After experiencing this great change, Xuanzong knew that the people's popularity was low, and he did not dare to face those displaced refugees. Second, Xuanzong didn't have the heart to care about the refugees, he was like a wounded beast that needed to lick its wounds to recover its strength, and he didn't want to show his face.

The holy car arrived at the square inside the north city gate, and seven or eight princes at least followed Xuanzong's car and arrived at the same time. When it comes to such shows, no one will be left behind.

However, the imaginary scene of thousands of anticipatory and eager tears of gratitude did not appear, and the people in the square stood silently in place, watching Xuanzong's gorgeous car slowly coming, with a silent face.

Xuanzong looked at the people in the square from outside the car window, and immediately frowned. These people were all ragged, yellow-skinned, and their bodies were tattered and dirty. Most of these people are old, weak, sick and disabled, supporting each other and staring blankly at the car, without any excitement and gratitude.

"This Yan Zhenqing, his father came to help, why didn't he arrange a screening in advance. Why are these people dressed in such tatters, the smell on their bodies is very bad, and they don't understand the rules, so they don't know how to kneel to welcome the holy driver. Li Mao rode on the side of the car on the white horse of the night lion, frowning.

Xuanzong was also very unhappy, Yan Zhenqing really didn't know how to arrange things, he wanted to come to the relief just to go through the motions, and greeting him in advance was to let him screen the people in advance and arrange the process. But the situation in front of him shows that Yan Zhenqing obviously has no arrangements. Moreover, the attitude of the people towards coming to the relief in person made Xuanzong deeply unhappy. In the past, the people everywhere they drove were worshipping and cheering, but now they couldn't see even the slightest excitement on their faces. Not to mention the situation where the people I expected were cheering and shouting long live.

However, this kind of unhappiness Xuanzong will not show on his face, he vaguely knows the crux of the problem, that is, his prestige plummeted after the chaos, and the people suffered so much, maybe this is the reason why the people are not enthusiastic.

"What about Yan Zhenqing? Tell him to come to me. Xuanzong said in a deep voice.

When Yan Zhenqing heard the call, he hurriedly trotted from the back of the car and knelt down beside Xuanzong's car to salute.

"Chenyan Zhenqing see Your Majesty."

Xuanzong didn't get angry, and said with a smile on his face: "Get up." Yan Zhenqing, can the relief be arranged? ”

Yan Zhenqing thanked him and got up, bowed back and said, "It's already ready." A rice and grain distribution station was set up in the east, and later His Majesty moved the high platform to distribute clothes, rice and other things to the people. ”

Xuanzong nodded and said, "Very good, I will do it according to your arrangement." ”