In the past, when I was in Jingbian Fort, there were only six or seven craftsmen such as Li Maosen, and Tu Pu was at the beginning of the first 1,000 years, there were more than 20 craftsmen, more than 30 craftsmen, and there were several pairs of craftsmen, fathers and sons, and brothers working in the craftsmen's workshops. For Li Maosen now, Wang Dou is very important to him, and he has relevant rewards for every batch of weapons he makes, and in Shunxiang Fort, he is considered a high-income senior technician, and he doesn't want to smash his signboard.

When Wang Dou entered Shunxiang Fort as a base, there was a lot of work inside, and the craftsmen were in full swing. Each ironworker has anvils, hammers, pliers, furnace boxes and other equipment in front of them. Carpentry equipment is simpler, that is, axes, saws, planers, chisels, etc.

Next to the craftsman's workshop, there is a fire system assembly room, where many simple beds and other things are placed after the fire system is made in several places. Li Maosen led some craftsmen to take charge personally. On the other side of the assembly room, there is also the assembly of weapons such as knives, guns, armor, etc. Due to the low level of skills, many old and infirm women are already qualified for the job. After the finished product, it was signed by Li Maosen and collectively sent to the warehouse.

Next to the assembly room, there is a large house, where all the men and women are old and weak, and only a few craftsmen are in charge of patrolling and supervising.

Here, these workers make fire ropes, which are made of hemp rope or tightly twisted strips of cloth, soaked in some kind of solution and dried, which can be burned slowly during battle. There were also cartridges of ammunition, which were carefully weighed by some people, with a certain amount of gunpowder and projectiles in them, and then some people packed them in boxes of fifty sticks.

When it comes to their reward wages, these workers are working hard when Wang Dou comes in. They didn't bother to look at it.

When Wang Dou found Li Maosen, this shrewd and stout middle-aged craftsman was wearing a leather skirt, assembling the fire system, gritting his teeth and screwing a screw into the yin thread at the end of the mirror tube. This screw is screwed into the end of the mirror to hold the breath, and if the sergeant wants to clean the inner wall of the tube, the screw can also be screwed out.

When Wang Dou called him, he still looked at the black and thick fire bowl in his hand with satisfaction, and his expression was like looking at his beloved woman

Seeing Wang Dou, he hurriedly greeted him.

In fact, Wang Dou came to Li Maosen today, in addition to seeing if Li Maosen could make 500 fire mirrors before the July war came, he also had other ideas, such as asking the craftsman workshop to make some grenades, mines, and artillery. Forty pairs of iron armor need more than 14,000 catties of wrought iron and more than seven tons of iron every month. It's nothing in the future, but in the Ming Dynasty, it's an extremely large number. I'm afraid that the entire security state guard does not have so much iron material from above every year.

Does Koujiagou Iron Works have this production capacity now?

Wang Dou groaned, indeed, with a monthly output of 10,000 catties of iron, the people of Shunxiang Fort have already admired the production capacity of Koujiagou Iron Factory. If we want to expand production and reach 20,000 catties per month, we can only continue to increase manpower, and I believe that under the demands of the people's naval war, there is still a way for the Koujiagou Iron Works to produce 700 catties of wrought iron a day.

It's just that this manpower, where does it come from? Shunxiang Fort is now using manpower to the limit.

In addition to some iron-making craftsmen, there are about 200 men working, and the rest of the stout women are escorting, using wheelbarrows to transport butterflies in or out of iron every day.

Not long ago, Wang Dou sent more than 100 new military men to the Koujiagou Iron Works, bringing the number of local miners to more than 300.

These miners used some simple tools to mine, such as hammers and axes, and there were no later machinery, so the mining volume was quite small. At this time, Da Ming already knew that he would use gunpowder to blow up the mine to open the mine, but where did Wang Dou get so much gunpowder? It was just that the miners were asked to chisel the stone with hammers and axes every day. According to the calculation that two tons of iron ore smelt one ton of pig iron, and the pig iron must be smelted into wrought iron that is easy to be corrupted, the Koujiagou Iron Works will produce 700 catties of wrought iron a day, and at least several thousand catties of iron ore will be needed every day. The work of the miners is very tiring, it is impossible to work every day, they work in shifts, digging with hammers every day, and the amount of mining is so large, it is indeed a shortage of manpower.

In addition, there is a lot of iron production, more coal is needed, and the manpower to transport coal is also increased, and manpower is needed.

There is no manpower in Shunxiang Fort.

Seeing that Wang Dou was groaning, Li Maosen said: "My lord, in fact, to make armor, you don't have to use iron, you can make armor and leather armor, and it can also prevent arrows." ”

Cotton armor can indeed effectively protect firearms, when the Eight Banners make cotton armor, it is to soak the cotton, and then repeatedly beat it to make a very thin cotton sheet, after embellishing a number of such cotton sheets into a thick cotton cloth, install an iron sheet between the two layers of cotton cloth, and fix it with copper nails inside and outside, and the cotton armor is made.

Such armor has a very good defensive effect on firearms, and it can also protect against cold in winter.

Compared with iron, cotton is also more common in the north of Daming, and the price is lower than that of iron. However, Wang Dou took into account that there are wars everywhere now, the supply of raw materials such as cotton cloth is unstable, and he is controlled by others, and the Koujiagou Iron Factory is next to Shunxiang Fort, so it is easy to control his raw materials, and he does not need to worry about the source of raw materials from time to time, and the same is true for leather armor.

Besides, the Qing soldiers mostly used bows and arrows, and from the north to the cotton armor, the iron armor had better protection against bows and arrows.

Just use the fire to control the iron armor, Wang Dou made up his mind, and he said to Li Maosen: "Craftsman Li, you don't have to worry about the iron, I will find a way, you just have to take the craftsmen to make the fire mirror armor." ”

Seeing that Wang Dou said this, Li Maosen respectfully accepted the order.

To Wang Dou said that just now he wanted to make some grenades and mines, etc., Li Maosen thought about it, clasped his fists and saluted: "My lord, please forgive Xiao's bluntness, the mines are flashy, the killing effect is weak, and the original small amount of iron gunpowder will be wasted, and all the iron materials will be used to make the fire armor." ”

In the end, he revealed a message to Wang Dou, the stockpile of gunpowder in the craftsman's workshop was running out, and he asked the adults to think of a way.

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Old White Cow:

I went out to do something during the day, and only wrote one chapter, and the second one was put in the evening. , If you want to know what will happen next, please log in, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!