The two technical routes of Mead Zheng and Tian Dayu are both understood by Li Shi.

Mead is the traditional method of splicing, as is the account of "Heavenly Creations". A short pipe is forged from several wrought iron bars, and then two or three short pipes are welded into a long pipe. The advantage of this route is that it is possible to make long barrels, and the segmented barrels are cooled relatively evenly, and the degree of solidity is guaranteed to a certain extent. But the shortcomings are also obvious, the quality of the barrel is determined by the segmented welding, and this welding technology depends on experience, without more than ten years of accumulation, can not produce qualified products, this is the so-called Seiko route.

Tian Dayou's genre is similar to Qi Jiguang's shotgun construction method in the "New Book of Ji Xiao", that is, it is directly rolled with a double-layer wrought iron plate. The advantage of this technique is that the barrel does not have to be welded, but the disadvantage is that it cannot make a long barrel, and the cooling of the whole tube is not uniform when forging. As a result, there is a difference in the texture of the front and back of the pipe body, and if the cooling difference is too large, it is easy to blow up.

Originally, Li Shi's plan to build a hundred shotguns in ten days, the difficulty was only in drilling the barrel. But now that the two are fighting like this, even making a gun barrel has become a problem. If the two of them were separated and did their own work, Mead was patting his chest and saying that he could take out thirty rough barrels in ten days, and Tian Dayou also reported the same amount, but looking at the eyes of the two of them staring at each other like fighting cocks, he knew that this number was completely the result of vindictiveness, even if they could spell it out, Li Xi could not rest assured about the quality of the barrel.

"I only have ten days, and I don't have the time to make any orthodox or unorthodox judgments on your technical schools, but now I only need to borrow your most basic knowledge and everyone will work together to do this."

Li Xi looked at the circle of men around the blacksmith shop, and said in his heart that since there was no steam engine and no hydraulic forging hammer, it would be better to pile it up with manpower.

After listening to Li Shi's arrangement, Mead Zheng and Tian Dayou both had half fire and half ice in their hearts, and they were still wrapped in a thick fog of doubt.

"If you don't pile up manpower, what is that called the Great Leap Forward......"

Li Xi checked his plan again, and at the same time confirmed that there were no obvious technical problems from the two stoves, and said this in his heart.

His plan was not to let Tian Da be built by Mead on his own, but to work together around a set of tools. And this set of things is very barbaric and violent, when the cannon was built in Fengtian Village in the past, He Gui once made a rotating extraction frame for the cannon core, and used this frame to transform the Chengren forging hammer. Hundreds of pounds of pig iron are used as forging hammers, and the forging hammers are lifted with the help of gears by manpower pushers, so as to forge the barrel as a whole. The advantage of this is that it avoids uneven cooling of the barrel and lays the technical foundation for the direct transfer to the hydraulic hammer later.

In the plan, it took four or five days to transform this set of manpower forging hammers, including smelting pig iron forging hammers, adding iron sheets to the transmission gears, improving transmission efficiency, and adjusting and reinforcing the shelves, which was the responsibility of Fengsheng and He Guilai.

And the specific barrel forging technology, and even the forging table, all use the technology of Tian Daiyu. That's a double-layer reel, plus a straight forging table with a groove in the middle, instead of a mead's concave forging table with an arc. The barrel is rolled and forged in the groove, and it can be directly formed, which is a small trick that both Europeans and Chinese people will use.

Tian Dayou didn't think that he had the upper hand, because Li Shi didn't let him be responsible for the detailed execution. Mead has decades of experience, and letting him be in charge of turning the barrel, checking the condition of the steel skeleton in the barrel, and pulling out the steel skeleton at the right time to cool it is equivalent to putting Mead in charge of quality control. Mead is naturally even more unhappy, his technical route has been denied, and he can only take care of the heat like a barbecue master.

But the two of them looked at the process flow diagram drawn by Li Xi for a long time, and finally found their psychological balance. Tian Dayu said that his technical line has been affirmed and he is the biggest winner. Mead also found that he didn't have to wield the forging hammer himself, and the quality of each barrel was controlled by himself, which naturally recognized his attainments in forging the barrel as better than Tian Daiyu.

"Fourth brother...... Where did you learn this? ”

Mead was not like Tian Dayu and them, he was used to the surprise brought by Li Shi, and the more he looked at the flowchart, the more frightened he felt. This method not only separates forging and rolling, but also operates continuously. For example, if the steel bone needs to be cooled, it will continue with another one instead of stopping like before. When the barrel is forged to cool down, it is returned to the furnace to heat it and continue to forge another one. In short, there are furnace workers who push the manpower forging hammer in shifts, and the manufacturing process does not need to stop at all.

"It's really a trivial matter to have this set of manpower forging hammers and a hundred barrels......"

Meade sighed.

"The knowledge of the fourth brother is passed down by the immortals."

Tian Dayou was also convinced, this set of processes turned around, not to mention a hundred, a thousand barrels are also a trivial matter.

The two no longer argued, and there was a technical spark. When Li Xian heard that the two of them were thinking about wrapping the first layer of gun barrel and forging it with a layer of iron wire one more time, and then rolling the second layer, Li Xi was very surprised, this is the process of making cannons used in making guns. 【1】

Of course, Li Shi nodded his head at this suggestion, and when he became familiar with this set of things, the technology of using steel wire to make cannons in the future would be considered to have laid the foundation.

Tian Dayu Mead is a professional, and when Li Shi shows this set of things, they can already see that in addition to the time of transforming the human forging hammer, it is estimated that it will only take two or three days at most to forge a hundred barrel blanks, and this is seven or eight days......

"Fourth brother, you only have two or three days left to drill the barrel?"

In this matter, not to mention Mead, Tian Dayou's doubts have not been dispelled.

Li Shi smiled and raised a finger.

"I have a golden finger, three days may not be enough, but I can do it in five days at most."

Tian Dayumed was looking at his finger, thinking to himself, could it be that the fourth brother had learned some magic skills, and he could really use his fingers to drill the barrel of the gun?

In the next seven or eight days, it was a busy time for Li Xi to come to the world, and he even wanted to be separated in three places, one to follow the teenagers for shotgun training, one to guide the progress of the blacksmith shop, and one to take care of the progress of Carpenter He. Every day is so busy that I don't have time to eat. After all, the whole set of things was built brand new, especially the manpower forging hammer, and there were several situations, which almost injured people, and Li Xi had to improve it on the spot and adjust it in time.

Fortunately, these are all very simple things, and with Li Xi's mechanical knowledge, he can also deal with it, plus He Carpenter already has a basic understanding of gear machinery, and the problem is quickly solved. Of course, those who support this progress also have the silver that Li has spilled. On the one hand, they will purchase any materials they need immediately, and on the other hand, they also give special allowances to all craftsmen, and promise heavy rewards after completion, which stimulates the enthusiasm of the craftsmen.

Whether it was at the training ground or in the mine, the sound of gunfire, the sound of striking iron, the shouts of gunfire and the shouting of pushing the hammer rod were all in one place, and there was really a warm scene of the Great Leap Forward.

Seven or eight days passed in a flash, and Xiao Sheng withdrew with the shotgunmen who had been training with the young guards. Before leaving, Xiao Sheng stretched out his palm to Li Shi: "Five days, it is estimated that it is five days." According to the news from the Nanxiong Association, Yang Chun's brigade shook the Qujiang River outside Shaozhou City, failed to hook the officers and soldiers, and after plundering, it was heading south. Shi Junmen has already obtained the official order of Zhao Zhitai to command all the standard battalions and local cooperation, and is giving orders to all standard battalions, and it seems that he has a comprehensive plan. It is estimated that in five days at most, there will be a big move in the north. ”

Yang Chun has a big plan, Li Shi has already known it from Niu Shiyi, thanks to Li Shi, Xiao Sheng, the acting head of the small camp, also understands the overall situation, so he can estimate the time.

According to Niu Shiyi, Yang Chun tasted the sweetness of his previous two hunts, and in the first battle, he gained both fame and fortune. Not only did his prestige among the bandits stand up, but he also looted a large amount of supplies in Xunhuan, which was enough to gather the bandits in the entire Nanlian Shaodao. His next goal is to hunt in the Qujiang area of Shaozhou, and want to deal with the local officers and soldiers mainly from the Southern Xiongxi.

Yang Chun is very open-minded, he didn't think about capturing Shaozhou City. At this time, the battalions of the Sanjiangkou Association had already surrounded and chased after them, and the officers and men of the six or seven battalions were only dispatched according to the mobilization level of the bandits, and the total number of soldiers was less than 3,000.

At this time, Shi Shibiu's men and horses had already arrived in Yingde, it was impossible to escape in the face of bandits, the place of the battle should be north of the county seat, calculating the distance, Xiao Sheng had an estimate of five days.

In the current situation, Xiao Sheng's Zhenbiao Zuo Battalion must be dispatched, and Li Shi also reached an agreement with the Peng family, the Peng family will contribute money in name, and Li Shi will send people to support the county's Lian Yong again. It is equivalent to Li Xi actually exercising the power of the general practice during this special period. So he also had to take "Lian Yong" and follow the left battalion. But this will be the bandits have not yet come to the city, it is not an emergency, with Xiao Sheng's help, Li Xi himself has found some excuses, and it is not a big deal to delay it for a few days.

"Five days...... Well, it should be fine. ”

Li Xian nodded, Xiao Sheng got on the boat with confidence, at least on the people, Xiao Sheng was relieved. In the past seven or eight days, each of those young guards has fired five or six hundred shots, and their marksmanship has far surpassed that of ordinary green battalion soldiers. Although in his opinion, the formation is still very lacking, after all, the time is too short, but to fight against the bandits, it should be enough.

Then the rest is a shotgun, Xiao Sheng is not worried about this, even if Li Shi didn't make it, he can still ask the other shotgunners in the battalion to exchange the shotgun for Li Shi.

But Li Xian was not happy, in the past seven or eight days of training, those shotguns broke more than ten guns, not very little charge, but the barrel cracked instead of exploding, he had to lose a lot of people. In real combat, he wouldn't dare to use such a guy.

After sending Xiao Sheng away, Tian Dayou and Mead came over with sweat, and the two straightened their chests and reported with relief that one hundred and twenty barrels had been forged, and the extra twenty were spare parts.

"Fourth brother, let's all wait to see your golden finger."

Tian Dayu was the same as Mead, and the look of urgency on his face could not be more obvious.

Li Xi pointed to the waterwheel that was creaking along the river in the distance and said, "Right there, it was erected yesterday, and you didn't notice?" ”

Tian Dayou frowned: "Isn't that a waterwheel......

Then he was stunned: "This is a mine, and there is no field to irrigate, how can you build a water wheel?" Could it be that the fourth brother wants to build a mill here? ”

Without waiting for Li Xi to answer, Mead was taking a breath: "Could it be ......?"

Li Xi nodded: "Yes, it's a mill, but it's a gun barrel instead of rice and wheat for grinding." ”

The gear load coefficient required by the hydraulic forging hammer is too large, and the time is too fast to tinker with, so Li Shi only relies on the hydraulic drilling machine for the application of hydraulic power.

As a carpenter, He Gui naturally has a long concept of waterwheels, and Li Shi also told him about the structure of the hydraulic sawing machine planer, in fact, the core is a point, how to transfer the water power, and then turn it into a machine that can do many things. The specific details are not very clear, after all, he is not a mechanical major, but the reason is very clear. When Li Shi told He Gui the principle of this hydraulic drilling machine, He Gui quickly came up with a design.

"Try it, anyway, I can carry it with a hole in the pig iron with a fallen steel drill bit."

He Gui has obviously lost weight in the past few days, and he is the number one contributor to this shotgun Great Leap Forward movement. He specially modified the manpower forging hammer, and also instructed the apprentices to make the gun body, and also built this hydraulic drilling machine on the side of the mine. But he was excited at the moment, and he wanted to test his results.

Looking at the whirring waterwheel, Tian Dayou and Mead were stunned, first the manual forging hammer, and then the hydraulic drilling machine, they suddenly felt that a lot of their own skills had to be scrapped.

"No matter how much I knew before, wouldn't I be able to live? Now relying on the fourth brother's things, it only takes a few points to make Yuzi better, what else is there to sigh about? ”

Guan Fengsheng came over to comfort the two, and his feelings had been felt by him as early as when he was casting the cannon.

[1: Iron wire is also iron wire, Kangqian period is a famous product of Foshan Iron Yard, sold at home and abroad. 】