Although Wei Zheng concurrently served as the commander of the musket battalion, the real formation of the musket battalion fell to the military advisor Zhou Shuyuan.

Because, among all the officers of the Haw Par Army, only Zhou Shuyuan has really come into contact with the official army firearms unit and understands what kind of soldier can become a qualified musketeer.

However, more than 300 musketeers were available to form a musket battalion, but the equipment that would determine whether the musket battalion could form combat effectiveness became a distant prospect.

In this sortie at Santun Fort, the Haw Par Army captured thousands of muskets of various kinds. However, after Zhou Shuyuan's selection, there were only less than 150 arquebuses that could really be used. In other words, in order for the musket battalion to become an army, it must also find a way to get at least 150 qualified arquebuses.

Before the flintlock pistol was developed, the arquebus of acceptable quality was undoubtedly the only equipment available to the musket battalion at present.

Because, as long as the arquebus barrel is qualified, its lead bullet range far exceeds that of the arrows fired by the Tartar archers. Truly on the battlefield, the arquebus could also suppress the Tartar archers in range.

However, it is difficult for a good woman to cook without rice, before the weapons factory has not really developed and grown, how can you ask Wei Zheng to come up with so many qualified arquebuses in a short period of time....

Again go out of the mountain to the hands of the Tartars to grab the ......

This path will definitely not work.

Since the Santunpu incident, the Tartars in the entire Zunhua territory have gone crazy, looking for their traces everywhere. At this time, if you go out of the mountain to commit a crime again, not to mention whether you can achieve the results of the battle, the Haw Par Army, which has finally hidden itself, will definitely be exposed, and it will be further retaliated by Dolgon's bloody revenge.

Under such circumstances, Wei Zheng could only pin his hopes on the ordnance factory, hoping that the change of the ordnance factory would bring him some hope.

Wang Tiezhong was still the same as before, standing by an iron furnace without an image, and his face was blackened by the black smoke produced in the iron-making furnace.

Seeing Wei Zheng coming in a hurry, he didn't care about cleaning up, and came out directly.

Facing Wei Zheng, he said with a sad face: "General, there is still not much progress in the research of flintlock pistols... Although many old craftsmen have joined the armory, these people have not seen the flintlock pistol you mentioned... After research, it will take us at least half a year to come up with the first flintlock sample gun. ”

Wei Zheng waved his hand and said, "Lord Wang, I didn't come today to flintlock the pistol..."

"As you may have heard, I formed a battalion of musketeers in the Haw Par Army. Although we have seized a lot of arquebuses from the Tartars, there are less than 150 arquebuses that are really qualified. ”

"In order to equip his musket battalion with arquebuses and form a fighting force as soon as possible, your armory factory must do its best to produce one hundred and fifty arquebuses of acceptable quality, and the sooner the better... How's that, is there a problem..."

Wang Tiezhong was stunned for a moment, then shook his head violently and replied, "General, aren't you embarrassing me?" ”

"Although the strength of the armor factory has expanded considerably, the number of experienced blacksmiths has also increased to ten. However, arquebuses are not ordinary cold weapons after all, even if we go all out to build muskets, we can only create ten qualified ones in half a month..."

Wei Zheng's brows furrowed, and he asked puzzledly: "How is it possible, it only took a week before and after I built an arquebus with you last time." And you now have ten skilled blacksmiths, even if you build one arquebus a week according to one person, you can produce at least twenty in half a month, how can you only have ten? ”

Wang Tiezhong, who quickly showed a wry smile on his face, hurriedly explained: "General, you should know that the most important thing in building an arquebus is to create a qualified barrel. The last time we rolled it into a barrel in just a week, we were lucky....In the process of actually building a musket, the pass rate of the barrel can only reach 50% at most. ”

"That is, for every two barrels that are created, one of the barrels will meet the requirements and can be loaded for use...."

"In this way, it takes a skilled blacksmith an average of half a month to build a musket."

"If the blacksmith is not skilled and does not reach the point of proficiency, not even a month will not be able to make a good arquebus. So, I said that building ten arquebuses in half a month is still the best result of our luck. ”

After recalling the process of building the musket barrel he had experienced, Wei Zheng had to admit what Wang Tiezhong said,

However, it was urgent for the troops to need muskets to train your company, so in this case, Wei Zheng had to open another way of thinking. With the advanced knowledge and skills that he knew in his own mind, he transformed the process of making musket barrels.......

After being led by Wang Tiezhong into the sweltering iron-striking area of the manufacturing factory, Wei Zheng pointed to a blacksmith who was constantly hammering a piece of red-hot iron and asked: "Lord Wang, you have burned the iron over and over again, then hammered it, and finally cooled it again, the purpose of which is not to make the iron harder, which is the phrase we often hear, 'a hundred tempered into steel'..."

Wang Tiezhong replied with an approving face: "Yes, the general.....Tong guò constantly beats to make the freshly baked pig iron harder, and finally reaches the level of steel required to make the barrel......"

As a special forces soldier with a graduate degree in later generations, Wei Zheng is very aware of the series of chemical changes that occur when pig iron becomes steel in the process of '100 refining into steel'...

Generally speaking, it is a very simple chemical change: a large amount of carbon mixed in pig iron is heated and constantly beaten, and little by little it reacts with oxygen in the air to produce carbon dioxide gas, reducing the carbon content in pig iron and reaching the standard of steel...

Since it was to make a chemical reaction between the carbon in pig iron and the oxygen in the air, Wei Zheng immediately came up with a word he heard in high school chemistry class, "copying steel".

Tongguò is a refractory material that is constantly stirred in the molten pig iron that has been calcined into a liquid, and a large amount of air is blown into the liquid molten iron, forcing the carbon contained in the pig iron to chemically change with the oxygen in the air at the molten iron stage, so as to obtain a molten steel with little carbon content.

At that time, as long as the molten steel is cooled into ingots, you can get a large number of steel ingots with excellent performance by copying steel.

Although Wang Tiezhong didn't know what chemical changes and what carbon content Wei Zheng said in his explanation...

However, Wang Tiezhong still understood the entire steel copying process explained by Wei Zheng.

With a face full of excitement and expectation, Wang Tiezhong directly mobilized all the blacksmiths and apprentices of the entire ordnance manufacturing factory, and began to build iron-making furnaces, steel furnaces, blast bellows, and refractory materials in accordance with the requirements of Wei Zheng--...

After a few days of suffering and waiting, a pot of red pig iron molten iron weighing 100 catties was put into the frying furnace under Wang Tiezhong's order.

After the huge bellows is pulled by a horse, a large amount of heated air begins to pour into the furnace. Then, two blacksmiths, who were completely protected by iron armor, began to stir the molten pig iron in their hands with refractory materials.

One minute, two minutes......

After the color of the red molten iron began to slowly darken, Wei Zheng, who felt that the time had been almost the same, decisively ordered the blacksmith to stop copying steel.

When the water outlet of the molten iron is opened, the red molten iron quickly flows out of the frying furnace and flows into the molds that have already been built along the grooves.

Cooling, cooling... Five small steel ingots weighing twenty pounds finally appeared in front of everyone.

Seeing the scorching gaze on Wang Tiezhong's face, Wei Zheng ordered in a deep voice: "Lord Wang, you immediately let everyone test the hardness of these steel ingots to see if they can meet the requirements for making musket barrels......

"Yes, General..."

A few blacksmiths who had been waiting next to them quickly picked up the steel ingots and rushed to the stove where they had made their muskets.

Heating, thrashing, chopping experiments with already machined steel knives ...

An hour later, several blacksmiths in charge of the test rushed over with excitement on their faces. From the smiles on everyone's faces, Wei Zheng affirmed that the 'steel frying method' he tested was successful.

When Wang Tiezhong listened to his subordinates' reports, a heartfelt smile immediately appeared on his face. He excitedly reported to himself: "General, you are really a god descending to earth....success, the steel frying method you said is successful..."