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The Ordnance Bureau was also urgently expanded, and the number of apprentices was 2,000, and with the addition of craftsmen dug everywhere, the number of the Ordnance Bureau skyrocketed to more than 8,000.

This is a place that burns more money than the army, and the cost of investing in the Ordnance Bureau every month reaches more than 100,000 taels, of which labor costs account for 1/3. Being a craftsman is more profitable than being a soldier, and the income is higher. Not only does it increase income as the craft improves, but it also rewards you for inventing productivity-enhancing technologies.

Glass mirrors are currently only sold as luxury goods, although sales cannot be expanded for a while. However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the means of production were highly concentrated, resulting in a sharp increase in luxury consumption, and at present, those big merchants in Shandong have been fully distributed in the south, and more than 500,000 taels of income have been received last month.

The rich people of the Ming Dynasty are everywhere, and the main source of income is land. A large amount of land has been annexed, and the number of wealthy households with thousands of acres of land has reached more than 100,000. There are also 20,000 or 30,000 households on 10,000 acres of land.

Such large-scale land annexation has created a large number of wealthy households, but it has also created many peasants who have lost their means of production, and the reason for this is that the profit margin of land is too large.

Just like the house speculation in later generations, because the house has a good profit, all the funds go to that area, resulting in high housing prices.

In addition to the wealthy households who rely on the land for food, there are also many wealthy households who make their fortunes by opening workshops, salt goods, selling, embezzlement and bribery, robbing houses, and sea trade.

With so many wealthy households, the consumption of luxury goods will naturally not be low, and it is estimated that there is still a relatively large room for monthly sales to rise.

Coupled with the materials that those businessmen kept transporting to exchange glass mirrors, last month's income was estimated to be about 700,000 taels, and Zhao Yan still had a lot of money at hand for a while, so he decided to expand his recruitment and expand the scale of the Ordnance Bureau.

The research on artillery in the artillery laboratory is still progressing slowly, so far, only the hydro-spring frame withdrawal method and the sleeve gun have been developed, although the rifling is manufactured, but the manufacture is very troublesome, and the rifling of a barrel has to be drilled for seven or eight days with a hook knife on a wooden broaching machine to produce a barrel.

This wooden broaching machine was so simple that the early American colonists were able to make it themselves. The production of this tool for front-loading rifled guns was very fast. But on the cannon, it's much slower.

The artillery battalion is being formed, how can it be done without artillery! Zhao Yan had no choice but to go out in person and go headlong into the artillery laboratory.

Under the command of Zhao Yan, after half a month of research, the cannon latch was manufactured, which eliminated the accident when loading ammunition, which was a technology that only appeared in the nineteenth century. Gun latches are more complicated, and it takes a long time to make one.

Productivity without mechanization is a common problem, slow speed, high cost.

A 75-mm field cannon was put together and pushed to the range for test firing. At present, the body of the missile is cylindrical, so the name of the bullet weight is not used, but the caliber is changed.

This 75-mm field cannon has a double diameter of 20 and a tube length of 1.5 meters. Rifling was added, and the rear loading, cylindrical projectile body, frame retreat, cast iron was made, and several circles of steel wire were wound, plus the total weight of the gun carriage was 630 kilograms, and the bullet weighed 10 kilograms.

Compared to the artillery of later generations, it is simply extremely clumsy. The more than 75 mm guns of later generations, with such a double diameter, can be directly carried on the shoulder.

"Boom!" After a loud bang, the shell flew out of the barrel smoothly. The craftsman hurriedly rode his horse to measure the range, and after more than ten minutes, the measurement results were obtained.

The craftsman excitedly told Zhao Yan that the shot just now hit more than 2,000 meters.

"Go on." Zhao Yan is still quite satisfied with this range.

After successive tests, the effective range of this field cannon is about 1,200 meters, which is not bad at all compared to the range of the two-ton Hongyi cannon.

This is the effect of rifling, and those Hongyi cannons are still smoothbore guns. The safety of the artillery was confirmed, so the safety fuse was abandoned and continuous fire was carried out.

It can shoot two shells in one minute, and in the artillery of this era, it is not bad to be able to shoot one shot in two minutes.

Not only because of the rear loading, but also has a lot to do with the quantitative distribution of ammunition.

With the artillery technology of this era, the artillery had to be measured with a ruler when charging. At the same time, because of the relationship between the front load, the double diameter can not be too large, and the power will naturally not go up.

20 times the diameter, the power is still a little smaller.

This model of field artillery is okay with it! The most important thing is the rate of fire and lethality. The rate of fire has increased, and the lethality still depends on grenades.

The grenade was invented in 1803 by Henry Slapone of the British Royal Artillery, and for more than a century, there was no better shell than this one.

Shrapnel and iron balls are mixed with a small amount of gunpowder into the shell, and then ignited with a fuse, and after the shell is fired, it explodes within the specified time of the fuse, emitting a large amount of shrapnel to kill and injure the enemy. It is the most effective weapon against infantry and cavalry.

Because of the friction between gunpowder and elixir when filling, it sometimes explodes prematurely. So the second modification was made of a metal tube inserted into the shell, which was filled with gunpowder and separated from the shrapnel inside the shell.

The third modification was carried out in 1840 with a further iron plate partition and fitted into a cylindrical projectile body.

Grenades, also called explosive bombs, can also play a powerful role in naval warfare, and the shells can explode after entering the hull of the ship, causing secondary damage. Originally considered to be an inferior weapon to solid shells, the French artillerymen devised a short, lightweight, and low-powered cannon that smashed a two-deck battleship in 1824.

It was only with the destruction of the Turkish fleet in Sinop that people realized the importance of explosive bombs (grenades).

The production of grenades is not difficult, especially for a prophetic traveler like Zhao Yan, there is almost no need to take detours.

In just two days, Zhao Yan designed the grenade.

"You design another field gun based on this 10-pound grenade. It is enough for the shells to hit 1,000 meters away, and they can be as light as they can be. Zhao Yan has settled all of these, as long as the craftsmen experiment according to different sizes, and finally determine the strongest mobile surname.

This kind of grenade designed by Zhao Yan is to deal with cavalry, and the stronger the mobile surname, the better, and the range and ability to attack the fortification are not so important.

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