After patting the cold cannon pipe wall in front of him, Wei Zheng, whose eyes were shining, directly opened his mouth and ordered.

"Bring me a round of blossom shells right away, I'm going to try how powerful this cannon really is..."

Under the orders of the guards, the four-foot-long barrels of the cannon were quickly leaned against a sack filled with sand, at an angle of about thirty degrees to the ground. At the same time, several iron drills used to fix the artillery barrel were also pierced into the ground.

Not only that, in order to prevent the strong recoil of the gun from hurting the gunner, the tail of the barrel placed on the ground was specially fixed.

Under the gaze of Wei Zheng, it took a full tea time for the seemingly simple artillery to prepare for the cannon.

At this moment, the gunner, who was really in charge of firing the cannon, finally hurried over.

Under Wang Tiezhong's order, the black powder, which had been sifted into granules, was carefully poured into the barrel of the black hole of the artillery by the gunner. Then, use a special wooden tool to tamp it. Finally, the pitch-black iron shells were carefully placed into the barrel by the gunner.

After a series of dazzling movements, an arquebus, no more than three inches long, was quickly inserted by the gunner through a small hole in the tail of the barrel into the gunpowder chamber where the gun was filled with a certain amount of black powder.

Knowing this time, the artillery in front of him is really ready to be fired.

Although this process is very complicated for Wei Zheng from later generations. However, Wei Zheng still had a full face of anticipation, wanting to see the specific power of these artillery.

As soon as the torch approached the arquebus, the dry arverbus was lit, and the sparkling spark. Along the fire rope. Quickly look inside the barrel.

When the sparkling spark disappeared behind the small hole in the tail of the barrel. A deafening explosion suddenly reached Wei Zheng's ears. The ground under his feet couldn't help but tremble with the sound of this explosion.

Of course, this is only what Wei Zheng heard.

Under the dead gaze of Wei Zheng's eyes, the barrel of the black hole of the artillery quickly spewed out a flame mixed with a large amount of black smoke, and under the wrapping of this flame, a pitch-black iron cannonball. Directly at an unprecedented speed, it rushed out of the barrel and into the sky.

As the sharp whistling of the cannonballs across the sky reached Wei Zheng's ears, the black cannonballs had already streaked across the sky hundreds of paces. Then, slam into the ground......

And in this moment...... The same fireball mixed with a large amount of black smoke quickly rose from the point of impact, and then, a violent explosion sounded to Wei Zheng's ears......

Although it is not clear how powerful this shell really is, but. The Equipment Division was able to spend less than a month without much reference. The research on such a powerful cannon still made Wei Zheng's heart excited.

After taking a deep breath, he exclaimed loudly: "Yes, the power is good...... Pass on my order, the artillery workshop and ammunition workshop under the equipment department will be rewarded with ten taels of silver per person, and the craftsmen and officials will be doubled ......"

"Your Excellency Governor Xie..."

A group of craftsmen led by Wang Tiezhong quickly knelt on the ground and replied with excitement on their faces.

At this time, Wei Zheng's gaze once again shifted to the artillery in front of him, which was similar to a mortar, and even the firing method was not much different from the mortar. A glimmer of inspiration suddenly came to my mind. Then, he asked Wang Tiezhong.

"Lord Wang, the test just now is not the longest range of this artillery..."

Wang Tiezhong replied with an affirmative face: "Yes, my lord....if the muzzle continues to be raised, when the gun is fired, the tail of the gun will affect the shooting accuracy due to vibration and ground subsidence..."

Hearing this, Wei Zheng fell directly into deep thought.

Because, according to their own memory, taking into account various factors such as air friction, the range of smoothbore artillery will be the farthest when the elevation angle is 50 to 60 degrees.

Obviously, the gun in front of you already has this condition, it can increase the elevation angle, further increase the firing range, turn it into a real mortar. And the only trouble is to find a way to solve the problem of the recoil of the artillery yourself.

Since this artillery is going to be turned into a real mortar, several key components of the mortar have already appeared in Wei Zheng's mind unconsciously.

Soon, a bold idea of transformation was conceived by Wei Zheng.

Under the incomprehensible gaze of Wang Tie and others, Wei Zheng, who looked pensive, returned directly to the Equipment Division, picked up a special drawing pen, and began to draw what he wanted on a blank piece of paper.

Half an hour passed, and Wang Tie and others outside the room were a little impatient. Wei Zheng's closed door was finally pushed open.

Just as Wang Tiezhong was about to speak, Wei Zheng had already taken the lead and said, "Lord Wang, this is a drawing that the official just drawn, you immediately arrange someone to build all these parts..."

"In addition, a few things that should be added to the barrel of the artillery, all of them are also added... Try to build it for me tonight, I'll be useful..."

With the production technology of this era, although Wei Zheng had no way to process bolts, which were essential precision parts for the production of mortars. However, the Wei Zheng, which does not require too high shooting accuracy, directly chooses to replace it with a latch.

Therefore, with the joint efforts of dozens of craftsmen, a pile of parts and components that still exuded a trace of heat appeared on the weapons test site as soon as it was dawn the next day.

Seeing these parts, Wei Zheng's eyes quickly shot out two rays of light.

Then, he didn't care about his identity as the governor of Shanxi, so he directly picked up these parts and began to assemble them.

With the help of two gunners, in less than half a minute, a heavy home-made mortar that looked like a mortar of later generations, but was very rudimentary and more than twice as heavy, appeared in front of everyone.

After nodding with a satisfied face, Wei Zheng directly turned his head to the shocked gunner beside him and ordered: "Try this modified cannon and see if it has a longer range..."

"Boom..."After a dull explosion sounded, the cannonball, which was wrapped in orange-red flames, quickly flew out of the muzzle. With a whistling sound, fly into the sky.......

Under everyone's anxious waiting, it took twice as long as last night before it landed and exploded.

Seeing that the place where the fire rose was more than 300 steps farther than last night, and in terms of range alone, it had surpassed the results of the heavy Franc machine artillery, except for Wei Zheng, everyone showed a stunned and shocked expression on their faces...

After seeing the power of the artillery, the shocked expressions on everyone's faces became even stronger after seeing the artillery in front of them that had not changed in the slightest due to recoil.

At this time, Wei Zheng asked directly to the gunner in front of him.

"This brother, if all this kind of artillery in the future uses this kind of bracket and chassis, which one is better than the original sandbag......" (to be continued......