Zhang Chu immediately led people to the Qiaojiagou mining area on horseback. Deng Qingnian and others have organized personnel there to relieve the disaster, the scene is a mess, the entire blast furnace has collapsed into a ruin, the molten steel has cooled and condensed into black pieces, the fire ignited by the molten steel has been extinguished, some combustibles are still emitting light smoke, and the craftsmen are still cleaning up, with solemn expressions. Seeing Zhang Chu coming, he hurriedly dodged a road.

"Is anyone hurt?" Zhang Chu jumped off the horse and asked eagerly.

"Two of the craftsmen in charge of the observation were burned by molten iron, and the others were fine." Deng Qingnian replied.

"How are they hurting?" Zhang Chu was still not at ease.

"Fortunately, the injuries were not serious, and everyone retreated in time without causing major injuries." Deng Qingnian saw Zhang Chu hurriedly came over to introduce the situation.

Now the fire has been extinguished, because there was a special person monitoring the blast furnace, found that the blast furnace was in abnormal condition and issued a warning to everyone in time, everyone evacuated, only the monitoring personnel who stayed behind were scalded by the splashing molten iron, but there was no danger to life.

Zhang Chu first went to see the injuries of the injured person and comforted him to recuperate with peace of mind.

Zhang Chu and Deng Qingnian carried out a careful investigation at the scene to investigate the cause of the accident, the original blast furnace ran normally for the first few days, but due to the use of preheating air supply and coke, the furnace temperature increased, the consumption of refractory materials in the furnace accelerated, and the gradual thinner furnace wall could not be supported, and finally collapsed.

The reason is found, and the next step is to improve the method, and no matter what, ironmaking cannot be stopped. Now all I can think of is to strengthen the furnace wall, use iron to cast the outer furnace wall to thicken the refractory bricks in the furnace, first insist on this for a period of time, pay attention to the consumption of refractory materials in the furnace at any time, and then send people to the outside to buy better refractory materials.

A new blast furnace was to be built immediately, and after Zhang Chu gave the order, Deng Qingnian immediately allocated manpower to start the reconstruction of the iron-making furnace.

After everything was done, Zhang Chu and Deng Qingnian could finally sit down and rest for a while.

"How is the life of the craftsmen and their families lately?" Zhang Chu asked with concern.

"Everything is fine, now everyone and their families can eat enough, and they are very happy." Deng Qingnian replied.

"I promised to make everyone live happily ever after, but now our strength is still very weak, if only we could make cannons and muskets." Zhang Chu said helplessly.

"With the technology of our brothers, the cannon can be cast, but the yield rate should be very low, and it may not be successful to cast it several times, and it is not easy to make clay molds, and it will take several months to wait for them to dry, and it will not be able to be cast for a while." Deng Qingnian replied.

"It's good to be able to cast, as long as it can be manufactured, I'm not afraid of high costs. I have a way to shorten the drying time for clay molds. Zhang Chu thought about the improvement methods of artillery in later generations, and really thought of methods. So he continued: "We can replace the clay mold with an iron mold, make an iron core with wrought iron and polish it, and then paint a thin layer with coal ash and refractory powder as the inner core, and the outer mold can be treated with wrought iron in the same way." This saves time for the mold to dry. ”

"This method can really be tried, I'll arrange someone to do it."

"Don't worry, tell everyone to pay attention to safety, start small, gradually increase, and there is another way to improve the quality, that is, to strengthen the mold and cast it from above, so that the impurities in the molten iron are concentrated near the muzzle, and the bottom of the gun is relatively strong, reducing the danger of explosion." Zhang Chu instructed while thinking.

Deng Qingnian was very inspired when he heard it, and he couldn't wait to experiment immediately. Zhang Chu also told him to strengthen the safety and security of the workshop, and nothing must happen again.

"In addition, it is also necessary to pay attention to secrecy work, because there is no new technology that cannot flow out of the workshop, and in the future, the workshop will develop and produce some advanced weapons, and the security team will rely on these to defeat the enemy." Zhang Chu continued.

"I understand this, the master's skills in the past are not easy to pass on to outsiders."

"I don't mean that, I mean that technology can't go outside of the security team, and in the workshop, we encourage everyone to teach each other's skills. You really reminded me that we have a reward system in the workshop, if you teach your unique skills to others, the workshop will give rewards, if anyone comes up with a new process, the new technology will give a heavy reward, you go to receive a hundred taels of silver cast into a piece, placed in a conspicuous position in the workshop, tell everyone that if you can innovate, the reward will be cashed out at any time. Zhang Chu decided on new measures.

Deng Qingnian happily went to do it.

What Zhang Chu never forgot was the issue of muskets, which had to be manufactured first regardless of whether it was good or bad, which must represent the direction of the development of weapons. So Zhang Chu went to craftsmen with experience in making guns to study the improvement of muskets.

Zhang Chu also summed up the experience and let the team members strengthen the publicity of rent reduction and interest reduction, and strive to unite the poor people and obtain the support of the people at the bottom.

Special communication channels have been established between the villages to exchange news, so that they can support each other in a timely manner, and Li Yi's cavalry is ready to support each other at any time as an emergency mobile force.

But the problem still exists, and several Zhuangzi security teams with Zhuang forts still can't enter. Some large landowners kept asking the government for help, asking the government to send troops to exterminate the security forces. These people are also constantly recruiting troops and buying weapons to strengthen their own defense forces. If it weren't for the major events in the DPRK, maybe the officers and soldiers would have come to exterminate the security forces.

Yanchang County Yanai Ma Zhixian was depressed again, the reason why he couldn't be promoted for a long time in the past was because he was also a genuine Jinshi background, and he had many connections with other scholars, and was considered to be a party in Donglin, and at that time, the eunuch party was in power, and the nine-thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian covered the sky with one hand, so it was not bad that he was not dismissed for a few years. But after the new emperor ascended the throne, Wei Zhongxian fell out of favor, and just came from the capital, in November, nine thousand years old died, and the emperor began to check the eunuchs. Why did he die, Ma Zhixian was secretly annoyed, the money was spent in vain, and the matter of contacting the eunuch should not be exposed, if he was not exposed, he still pretended to be a party of Donglin, and he was expected to be promoted, and if he was counted as a eunuch, he didn't know if he couldn't lose his head. Therefore, Ma Zhixian adopted the tactic of shrinking his head and turtle for the rebels in the county, pretending not to know, anyway, Wu Baihu led the troops outside, and a landlord came to ask for troops, so he said that he had sent Wu Baihu to go out to investigate. will definitely urge Wu Baihu to work hard to suppress bandits and give Da'an a peaceful world. He kept listening to the news of the DPRK and China, and decided what to do when the wind was set.

Wu Baihu sneezed in the barracks for no reason, and someone must be thinking about him. Now Wu Baihu's days can be regarded as very regular, every day at a fixed time to teach a few captains, and then practice by themselves, life is leisurely, Wu Baihu really didn't find out that he still has this talent before, he used to be too lazy to say to his subordinates, and he was a sycophant language to Shangfeng. I want to vomit now, but now I can talk about the method of marching and fighting, and those captains are also respectful to themselves on weekdays. In order to teach the lesson well, Wu Baihu found his own military book and studied it carefully when he had time, life has never been so fulfilling, Wu Baihu's former soldiers also came back from the coal mine, but they chose to ignore Wu Baihu. These people were scattered and divided into various squads, and the food and salary were paid on time, and the families were also settled in the valley, and even the families of the soldiers who died in the last battle, Zhang Chu was also placed in the valley, and they were able to eat through their own labor or Zhang Chu's relief. Wu Baihu asked himself, if he did it himself, he might not be able to do it. This security army is really different from ordinary thieves, they don't rob property easily, everything has to be distributed, Zhang Chu personally watched the distribution of food and salary, and never defaulted or deducted. It's just that the training is too strict, and the officers also practice together, if you join you don't know if you can eat it, how did you think of joining the thieves, Wu Baihu quickly dispelled this idea.

A loud bang sounded intermittently in the valley of Qiaozhuang Village, where Zhang Chu was experimenting with the newly cast artillery, which had been carried out many times, but today the difference was that the gun carriage with iron wheels was installed on the artillery. This is the result of Zhang Chu's desperate search in his mind.

The iron mold casting method proposed by Zhang Chu has shown its power, and the craftsmen have cast several cannons in a short period of time, but the first cast cannon looks a little ridiculous, the barrel is also arm thick, and the cannonball is only the size of an egg, but it is also good, it is quite strong, from the time it was made to the present, a lot of cannons have been put up, and it has not been damaged, and then the cast artillery gradually increased the caliber, and it was not so lucky, some of the newly cast achievements cracked, some found trachoma on the cannon body, and one cannon exploded during the test firing, Fortunately, Zhang Chu reminded him many times to pay attention to safety, so there were no casualties. In the end, four artillery pieces withstood the test, and now Zhang Chu and they are going to test fire the largest caliber in them. A small squad of security guards was responsible for firing artillery, and they were specially selected, all of them were quick-witted and quick to accept knowledge, and they had already mastered some rules of artillery firing during the test firing in the past few days. The craftsman also made auxiliary tools such as cannon gauges according to Zhang Chu's statement, and is now groping for use.

When the time came to test the gun, the team members cleaned the gun chamber according to the division of labor in advance, added gunpowder and shells, did a brief aiming, and then lit the long lead, everyone retreated to a safe distance and waited, a loud noise came, the gun was full of smoke and dust, and the gun was pushed backwards by the strong recoil and slid back and rushed up the pre-built dirt slope behind. At the same time as the artillery recoiled, with the fire of the muzzle, a three-pound black iron ball flew out of the muzzle, and flew to about two miles away before falling, which should be the longest range of this artillery. The team pushed the gun down the dirt slope and reset, repeating the process of loading and firing, but this time adjusting the angle of the shot. The target was some planks erected there at five hundred meters. After the sound of cannons, people walked towards the target with Zhang Chu without waiting for the smoke to dissipate. When I got there, I saw that the shell hit one of the planks, pierced the plank, and smashed into the rocks behind it, which shattered and bounced far away. Zhang Chu was very satisfied with the test results, and finally had a way to smash open the turtle shells of those landlords' old Caizhuang Forts. Looking at this future god of war, Zhang Chu was full of confidence in the life of the Ming Dynasty for the first time, and this young seedling would continue to grow, and eventually grow into a god of war admired by thousands of people. Zhang Chu immediately ordered the security team to prepare for the expedition, and this time he must give a look at the landlords who were huddled in the fort and did not buy the security team's account.