"Boom~"

Before Li Yu and the others could reach the artillery manufacturing area, they heard a thunderous explosion inside, followed by a commotion inside. This made Li Su and the others all startled, thinking that there was an accident inside, and they all accelerated their pace and rushed to the area where the artillery was made.

However, when Li Su and the others rushed to the scene of the incident, they did not have the same situation of death and injury as they imagined, and what was presented in front of them was a group of dust-faced craftsmen, who were discussing something around a big pit.

"Xu Wei, what happened just now?" Li Su saw an acquaintance among the group of grizzled people, and immediately shouted angrily, the explosion just now was not a normal cannon sound, there must have been an accident.

Hearing Li Su's voice, a medium-sized guy in the crowd with a face covered in dust turned his head and saw Li Su and the others, and immediately showed a solemn look on his face, and took a few steps forward and said: "Your subordinates, see Your Highness, just now your subordinates and others are testing the cannon, but there is a problem with this kind of cannon itself, so the first cannon was blown up." ”

The person who spoke was Li Su just called Xu Wei, this Xu Wei used to be a coppersmith, specializing in helping people make all kinds of copperware, not only exquisite craftsmanship, but also the nature of all kinds of copper is also well understood, and later Li Su Xiangzhong, hired a lot of money to help develop artillery, for the advent of artillery has made a lot of contributions, and is now responsible for the management of artillery production area.

Hearing that it was a bombing, Li Su couldn't help but feel a little nervous, and immediately asked, "How is it, are there any casualties?" ”

Exploding artillery is not fun, not only will the artillery be blown up, but it will also cause casualties if you are not careful. And the craftsmen who developed the artillery were all priceless treasures, and any damage Li Su would be heartbroken.

"Your Highness, rest assured. We all took precautions beforehand, and we were all far away. So just after eating a few mouthfuls of soil, no one was hurt! Xu Wei bowed down and said, and Li Yu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At this time, the other craftsmen also reacted, and stepped forward to salute Li Su, and Li Su laughed, let them be exempt from courtesy, and then told them to pay attention to safety, and finally asked about the specific cause of the explosion accident.

After hearing this, Xu Wei smiled bitterly, picked up something from the ground and said, "Your Highness, please take a look." That's how we test artillery. ”

Li Su took a closer look and found that it was a piece of artillery cannon that had been blown up, and when he took this piece of fragments into his hand and looked at it carefully, he found that the fragments were actually made of pure steel, which made Li Su very surprised: "Xu Wei, you have already started to develop steel cannons?" ”

Although Li Su also knew that most of the artillery in later generations was made of steel, but in the era of the Tang Dynasty, he did not expect to do it in one step. So at first he had bronze prototype guns, which were more malleable than steel, and bronze was strong enough. It is more suitable for making guns than steel, and the only drawback is that the gun body is a bit bulky and expensive. But there is nothing yet, Li Su only asks that the cannon be built first. So at the beginning, I still chose to use copper to make the cannon.

Speaking of which, there is really no big problem for the front-loading slip boring gun that Li Su wants to build, and the only thing to solve is the solidity of the gun body. In addition, the diameter of the bore should be the same and smooth enough, and these problems were quickly overcome under the research of these craftsmen, so the development of the bronze cannon has been very smooth, and it can now be put into actual combat.

However, the bronze cannon is not what Li Su really wants, so after the successful development of the bronze cannon, Li Su ordered Xu Wei and other craftsmen to improve the current bronze cannon, and asked them to think about using cheaper and stronger steel to make the cannon, but they were not required to start immediately.

Seeing that Li Yu saw that he was trying to produce a steel cannon, Xu Wei couldn't help but show a confident smile and said: "Your Highness, this is a steel cannon, and this is not the first time it has been blown up, but through so many experiments, it has already made some tricks for his subordinates, presumably after a while, it is not too much of a problem to create a usable steel cannon." ”

"Good!" After hearing this, Li Yu patted Xu Wei's shoulder excitedly, and praised a few words loudly, of course, he did not forget the other craftsmen present, and encouraged these craftsmen to give full play to their wisdom and talents, thinking about what others dare not think, as long as the artillery can be improved, then he, the king of Qi, will not be stingy with rewards.

And these craftsmen also knew Li Su's generosity, so they were all full of energy when they heard his words, until Li Su let them disperse, these people immediately returned to their posts with excitement, carefully scrutinizing the existing artillery that could be improved.

Next, accompanied by Li Suyou Xu Wei, he probably visited the production process of artillery, but now all the artillery production is bronze, so there is also a special bronze production factory here, which has 300 craftsmen, and all the bronze produced is used to produce bronze artillery.

Li Su was actually not interested in these production processes and the like, what he needed most was the results of these processes, so after a hasty turn around the artillery production area, he immediately led everyone to the rear of Perak Island, where a very secret army was stationed, only 1,500 people, of which 1,000 were musketeers, and the remaining 500 were artillerymen, and the constant roar of Perak Island was emitted by these people.

Li Su and his group passed through a valley, and soon came to a relatively flat plateau, which was divided into two pieces, a relatively flat lot was built into a school field, a team of musketeers stood on the school field, was practicing target shooting, only to see these soldiers every three rows as a team, the front soldiers aimed at the target in front of them and let go of a shot, with a burst of black smoke, they immediately retreated, seized the time to clean the barrel, loaded gunpowder and projectiles, and at this time the second row stepped forward, shot again, and went down in turn, The bullets that flew out formed a constant barrage, and the power of the musket was fully exerted.

And in another larger area, it is five hundred artillery operating bronze cannons, one after another to the distant mountain peaks to shoot, although the power of the solid bullet is not large, but after each shell landed, the rocks on the mountain peak will be scattered and splashed, if it is used to attack the city, as long as it does not meet a strong city like Chang'an, it must also play a good effect.

It's just that Li Su also found the shortcomings of the artillery, that is, the rate of fire is too slow, after a cannon is fired, it is necessary to immediately cool down the gun body, and then clean the barrel, charge, ignition and other steps, these steps are done, the fastest time to do it is two minutes, that is to say, the rate of fire of the gun is at most two minutes per shot. But this can't be helped, after all, this is a common problem of front-loading artillery, as for rear-loading artillery, Li Su estimates that he doesn't have to think about it in recent decades.

In addition, the range of this bronze cannon is also very close, and it can generally reach two miles, of course, if you are not afraid of exploding, put more gunpowder in it, the range can also be increased, but it depends on your luck, if you can't make a bang, the shell didn't go out, and you hung upside down first.

For Li Su's arrival, someone immediately stepped forward to greet him, only to see that this person was tall and thin, wearing a strange-looking military uniform, with a somewhat dark complexion, a scorched yellow beard under his chin, and an old-fashioned appearance.

"Weichen Liu Renliang, see Your Highness!" This tall and thin man is Liu Renliang, when Li Su transferred him from a small county lieutenant to the Qi Palace, and then entrusted him with a heavy responsibility, he had already taken this late bloomer into use, and he was also the kind of die-hard person, so the two important things of muskets and artillery, Li Su also let Liu Renliang temporarily manage.

Speaking of Liu Renliang is a rare talent, no matter what you do can do very well, Li Su asked him to promote the method of drying salt, as a result, in just one year, there have been countless salt fields in Dengzhou, and the annual salt production accounts for almost one-third of the national salt production, but now with the promotion of the method of drying salt, there are also a lot of salt drying fields in other places, so the proportion of salt in Dengzhou has been reduced.

However, Liu Renliang is not only an administrative talent, but also a civil and military all-rounder, not only able to write, but also able to martial arts, the 1,500 people in front of him are the hot weapons troops he brought out, and according to some valuable experience put forward by Li Su, let him completely build this army into a firearms elite soldiers, if the same number of people fight, it is estimated that there is no army in the world that can compare with them.

"Ren Rail, prepare the venue, this king will personally release a few shots!" Li Su glanced at the extremely curious Yifan beside him, and said to Liu Renliang with a smile. Although he had been here a few times before, he couldn't spare time because there were too many things, and at the beginning, the musket was indeed not very safe, so until now, Li Su has not really hit the musket he made.

"Your Highness, please!" Liu Renliang was a one-sided character, and when he heard Li Su's orders, he didn't talk nonsense, and immediately led them to the far left of the school field, where there was a separate shooting range, and next to the shooting range, there was a small warehouse.

"Your Highness, there are some different muskets in this warehouse, all of which are trial-made by the craftsmen of the former island, some of them have poor performance, and some of them are better than those used by the current sergeants, but unfortunately the cost is too expensive, so they can't be promoted in large quantities, you can go in and choose a suitable one." Liu Renliang opened the door and pointed to the musket on the shelf inside.

Li Su and Yifan walked in with great interest, and found that there were several rows of shelves next to the wall in this small warehouse, on which were placed some muskets, some of these muskets were very strange, and some were similar to those used by the soldiers outside, and as soon as Li Su entered the door, he immediately saw the first musket on the shelf on the right hand, but when he looked at this gun, he showed a strange smile on his face. (To be continued.) )