Due to the large amount of bribes demanded by corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty, Wu Tianxiao accelerated the forging of artillery and firearms. For the fire hammer casting technology, at this time in Daming is actually very proficient. Although the technology of casting firecrackers in the blacksmith yard of Tamsui City is not as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, from the secret casting techniques acquired and the knowledge of Wu Tianxiao's later generations, Tamsui City will soon be able to cast its own firecrackers.

It's just that due to the unfamiliarity of forging technology, the caliber of the fire gun cast in the iron yard of Tamsui City is actually seven times larger. That is, 0. 7 inches, about two centimeters. And the artillery is also a five-foot-long, five-inch caliber copper cannon. Although there are also attempts to cast wrought iron cannons and wrought iron guns, copper cannons and copper fire guns are still early casts.

And the bullets are also used in a single pack under the guidance of Wu Tianxiao, not the bulk gunpowder projectiles like the original Daming Fire Gunner. It is only a single bullet like a small cannon, with a copper head wrapped in a lead body, and a waterproof oil-paper shell bullet is used, and it is shot with a flint lit fuse. The copper pipe of the fire gun is also a rifling pestle designed by Wu Tianxiao, and three rifling wires are pulled, and the fire gun is also called the flint rifling fire gun.

Rifling the fire gun is also a native method that Wu Tianxiao came up with. After the copper tube is cast, it is heated again, and when the copper tube reaches a certain heat and becomes soft, the three-line rifling pestle designed by Wu Tianxiao is used to drill through the copper pipe. In this way, after borrowing heat, the copper and iron can be softened, and then it is not difficult to pull out the rifling of the gun barrel and the fire barrel.

It's just that the early casting of guns and guns, although they can be cast in batches with sand molds, but each guns or guns need to be manually polished in the later stage to ensure accuracy, especially the rifling is not fast. So even though there are hundreds of workers in the blackworks in Tamsui City, the number of workers is increasing every month. But only twenty or thirty guns could be made a month, and only five cannons.

August of the seventeenth year of Jiajing (1538). The Tamsui City Iron Yard began to officially cast muskets and artillery in batches. In addition to the manufacture of grenades, the powder field also produced new weapons, namely copper-clad lead-grease paper bullets with a caliber of more than two centimeters. with solid armor-piercing artillery shells, and secondary explosion sub-shells.

Solid armor-piercing bullets differ from submunitions only by the warhead. The sub-shell, also known as the flowering shell, is a hollow copper shell with an explosive pack at the innermost point, which is then filled with gravel. This was followed by fired gunpowder wrapped in oiled paper. After the shell is filled into the breech, the fuse is ignited, and the first explosion will fire the copper case warhead, which will also ignite the explosive pack fuse inside the copper case. This fuse is very short, only a minute or two. In this way, when the second fuse ignites the explosive pack, the bullet and gravel are exploded. Because it was two explosions, it was commonly known as a sub-bomb. After several test firings, the artillery had a range of more than 2,000 steps. The range of the firebolt is also as high as 600 paces.

Thanks to the availability of muskets and artillery, the ships and soldiers of Tamsui City began to equip them with musketeers and gunners. With the increase in personnel, Wu Tianxiao selected musketeers and artillery men from the grenade soldiers to form a new class. Of course. Wu Tianxiao's own personal guards were the first to receive artillery and firearm training.

And for the design of shipborne artillery. Due to the fire prepared by Wu Tianxiao, the medicine belongs to the high-explosive medicine, which leads to the relatively large recoil of the artillery. In order to solve the problem of the recoil of shipborne artillery, Wu Tianxiao and Shen Cheng also designed a shipborne gun mount, on which each gun was mounted. In addition to the bow and stern guns, there were gun windows in the inner compartments on both sides of the ship, and a gun carriage under each of them. The barrel of the gun was only five feet long, but the gun carriage occupied an area one step wide and one foot long. Each gun has three gunners, one who is responsible for cleaning the barrel, one is responsible for aiming and igniting the gun, and one is responsible for carrying the shells and pulling the winch back to its original position.

The gun carriage design holds the barrel on the gun carriage and can move 45 degrees on the muzzle of the gun for flat firing, or 90 degrees from side to side. There is a winch and a rope in front of the gun carriage, which is used to pull the gun carriage back to its original position after the gun is fired. Under the gun carriage there were sheaves, which were nearly two steps long and were used to counteract the recoil of the gun.

The artillery and the gun carriage itself are about four or five hundred pounds, and after the artillery is fired, the weight of the gun itself can offset part of the recoil. After the cannon is fired again, the gun carriage and gun will be pushed back with the sheaves, and the traction of the winch will completely cancel out the remaining recoil force. In this way, even if dozens of guns were fired at the same time, the recoil of the guns did not have much effect on the ship. Because the recoil after firing is canceled out by its own weight and the sliding of the sheave.

At this time, Tamsui City also had a bumper harvest of grain for the first time, and the rice was piled up. Tamsui City has also built a new rice mill, a brewery and an alcohol refining workshop, and uses alcohol for medical purposes. This made Wu Jiajun no longer buy grain from the Ming Dynasty, but began to sell rice and rice wine to the Ningbo government, which greatly increased the financial income of Tamsui City.

As for that Zhang Juzheng, after coming to Tamsui City, he was placed in a private house near the school in the city. Here, you can't go anywhere without a sea boat, so don't be afraid that Zhang Juzheng will escape. This also gave Zhang Juzheng a complete opportunity to understand Tamsui City.

Because Wu Tianxiao bribed several key officials of the Zhejiang Chengxuan Political Division, and with the assistance of Chen Qianhe and Tang Xianyao, some landless peasant households or poor people secretly defected to Zhoushan under the solicitation of villagers or relatives and friends, and finally arrived in Tamsui City. Although the monthly increase in population by several hundred did not put pressure on Wu Tianxiao, it made Wu Tianxiao powerless in management. Yang Jingchun and Jin Xuezeng, who were hired to show talents, although they could help Wu Tianxiao in some government affairs, they were still powerless to stand alone. What's more, these two people also have to take care of teaching hundreds of schoolchildren, which makes Wu Tianxiao desperately need to find a civil and administrative talent who can help him govern the city-state.

Although Zhang Juzheng is still a child now, Wu Tianxiao is affected by the memories of later generations, coupled with the idea of being in a hurry to do things. So I really wanted Zhang Juzheng to manage this freshwater city for him.

this day. Two months after Zhang Juzheng was forcibly taken to Tamsui City, Wu Tianxiao once again came to the courtyard where Zhang Juzheng lived. Zhang Juzheng has been spending two months, and he no longer has the anger he had at the beginning. It's just that he saw that the person who came was Wu Tianxiao, but he didn't pay attention to it, and looked at the books borrowed from the Enlightenment School to pass the time.

Wu Tianxiao knew that it was wrong for him to forcibly kidnap Zhang Ju, so he asked kindly: "Brother Zhang Xian." Are you still used to it in the past two months? Since I returned to Tamsui City, I have been busy with mundane affairs and have not come to see you much. If there's something uncomfortable, just say it. ”

Zhang Juzheng snorted coldly: "Hmph." The wild island has allowed you to deceive so many fools, and your plans are not small. As he spoke, he slapped a mosquito to death with one hand and hated: "A savage land is a savage land, and there are mosquitoes everywhere." ”

Wu Tianxiao chuckled when he heard this: "Don't worry." I thought people would plant a lot of mosquito repellent grass on the farm. Soon after, the mosquito coil farm was built to produce mosquito coils, and then there was no fear of mosquito bites. As for you saying that I have deceived the foolish people, you have wronged me. You haven't been imprisoned in Tamsuida, you know that the people here are happy now. You must know that they used to be landless peasants in the Ming Dynasty, or poor people who were oppressed by the government and gentry and had no way out. Coming to this desert island to open up the wasteland gave them a new life. If I deceived them, then how would they be willing to do things for me? ”

Zhang Juzheng argued: "Hmph. You have moved these people to a desert island, and who will plant the farmland of the Ming Dynasty? ”

Wu Tianxiao argued: "If these people can make a good living in Daming, how can they follow me here." Do you know how many people were displaced by the Tianfu flood last year, and no one paid attention to the roadside who starved to death? The first people here were the victims who were abandoned by the Ming government at that time. If I hadn't found them a place to live here, these people would have been dry bones. ”