Originally, Yu Xiaotian expected that if Chu Cai Lao learned the news, the time to come to Xingshi to ask for guilt would probably be around the end of January, but when the time came to the end of January, he did not wait for the news that Chu Cai was committing a crime, which made him a little surprised.

The training is still in progress, through the nearly 20 days of training and joint training, the sea wolf's fleet cooperation is more tacit, all kinds of artillery fire after live ammunition training, the accuracy has also been improved to a certain extent, the morale of all the staff is quite high, the sea wolf troops from top to bottom are gearing up, just waiting for Chu Cai to get old and find bad luck.

It can be said that the personnel and equipment preparing for the war have been adjusted to their best state so far by this time, although there is still a lot of room for improvement, but now looking at the surrounding area, there are really few opponents who can compete with his fleet.

In addition, in terms of material reserves, the sea wolf has secretly purchased a large amount of grain from various places during the period before and after the new year, and has reserved a considerable amount of dried fish and salted meat, which can at least ensure that if they do not replenish it from the outside for two months, their grain will not have any shortage problems.

The forts and fortifications everywhere are also secretly being reinforced, and some new enemy towers and forts have been built, making the defensive firepower configuration of the wolf's den and the merchant inn area on Nanri Island more reasonable, not to mention a rabble like Chu Cailao to attack, even if the imperial court sends a regular army of eighteen thousand to attack, Yu Xiaotian thinks that it will be difficult for them to bargain in his hands under such circumstances!

In addition, the various workshops under the ordnance office on the other side of the workshop area also produced at full capacity during this time, and after a month or two of cannon making, they were provided with nearly forty six-pounder guns, and ten twelve-pounder cannons and two twelve-pounder cannons were cast.

In addition to the fact that most of these guns were added to the ship, the twelve-pounder cannons were placed in two batteries at the dock, and several twelve-pounder cannons were deployed elsewhere to enhance the ability to defend the area.

In addition to being busy casting cannons, the cannon is also responsible for providing various projectiles to the sea wolf, and a special shell field is set up in the gunnon, and an iron furnace is opened to cast various types of cannonballs with some rough iron.

Because most of the Seawolf's artillery has adopted the standard imitation six-pounder cannon and twelve-pounder cannon, the iron fan casting method has made the caliber of the cannon chamber truly unified, and the shell is much more convenient to manufacture.

This also makes the production of artillery shells encounter a lot of problems, the shells they cast must be smaller than the caliber of the breech, and the caliber of the bore is large and small, once the cannonball is cast big, some cannons can not be stuffed into it at all, forcing sometimes some officers and soldiers or users, temporarily sharpen the gun, and repair the cannonball a little smaller with a file, such a scene appears on the battlefield, it is both ridiculous and sad, making people cry and laugh.

Therefore, when casting the shells, the craftsmen had to cast the shells according to the cannon with the smallest caliber, so that the shells could be stuffed into all the barrels as much as possible.

In this way, we encountered trouble again, some cannons with slightly larger calibers, the tolerance of the shells is too large, after the shells are loaded into the barrel, they roll directly into the chambers, and there is a large gap between the chambers and the shells after the ignition, causing a large amount of gas after the deflagration of gunpowder to leak from these gaps, which seriously affects the power and range of the shells, and also affects the accuracy of the artillery, which is also one of the reasons why the cannons in this era are often inaccurate.

But the sea wolf basically does not have this problem now, because their iron fan casting method ensures that the caliber tolerance of each cannon is very small, and the caliber of the cannon is basically unified, so when casting the cannonball, it also saves a lot of trouble.

In this way, the combination of the shell and the inner wall of the barrel is relatively tighter, the gap is less, and the situation of gunpowder deflation is no longer so serious.

In addition, the sea wolf is packed with fixed charges, and the charge of the package is wrapped after strict weighing, and the error of each gunpowder filling is very small, so it ensures the accuracy of their artillery shooting.

Similarly, the production of muskets of the Seawolf also adopts a unified caliber and unified system, the projectile is cast with lead or tin, and the fixed ammunition is also used, and the accuracy is naturally higher than the ordinary firearms used by others.

In order to ensure the uniformity and accuracy of the ammunition, including the projectiles used on the muskets, Yu Xiaotian also made them in a unified manner, packaged them together with the fixed gunpowder, and issued them to the musketeers in a unified manner, instead of carrying a pair of pliers for making projectiles, a long-handled small crucible and some broken lead or crushed tin like Western musketeers, so that they could make projectiles for their muskets by themselves in the interval between battles, which not only saved the musketeers a lot of trouble, but also ensured the accuracy and quality of the projectiles.

After the twelve-pound cannon was made, Yu Xiaotian began to let the cannon try to produce some new types of shells, in addition to the grapeshot shells that had been put into use, the bomb casting yard of the cannon was made the first batch of chain shells a year ago.

As the name suggests, the chain shell is a cannonball with a chain, which is composed of two semi-circular cannonballs, and the two cannonballs together are a round ball, like an ordinary solid cannonball, but the cannonball is hollow, and an iron chain is connected between the two cannonballs.

This kind of chain bomb is often used in naval warfare, mainly used to attack the mast of the enemy's ship, relying on the huge kinetic energy of the chain bomb, cut off the opponent's mast, so that the opponent loses power, if it hits the opponent's sail, it can also cause huge damage to the opponent's sail, at least it will pull out a big hole, and it may even tear off the entire sail, even if it touches the sailline on the opponent's sail, it can also cause huge trouble to the opponent, and want to repair the sail rope on the battlefield for a while and a half, and raise the sail again, It is estimated that it will not be easy.

Even if it is placed on the battlefield on land, the chain bullet is also a big killing weapon, against the dense infantry, a dozen large areas, it is really like a death scythe, the person where the chain bullet flies will be cut off by the iron chain, and it is also a very good shell to deal with the cavalry, the structure of the chain bullet is destined to have a larger killing area than the ordinary solid bullet, whether it is a person or a horse, when it encounters this thing, it will be torn apart, so he is also an indispensable special ammunition for the old artillery.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian asked the bomb casting field of the artillery to try to produce this kind of chain bomb very early, but because the manufacturing process of the iron chain was immature, when the chain bomb was test-fired, the strength of the chain link was often insufficient, and after the shell flew out, the chain of the link would break, and the shell would lose its accuracy when it was unstable, and it would lose its power.

Therefore, the craftsmen of the bomb casting field had to find a way to improve the process, and the iron chain was hammered to forge the opening to enhance the strength of the iron chain, which solved the problem of the strength of the chain bullet and made a batch of qualified chain bullets and delivered them to various departments for trial.

However, the production cost of chain bombs is dozens of times higher than that of ordinary solid bullets because of the complex process, and the production speed is also very slow, so that even if this chain bomb is put into production, it cannot be produced in large quantities.

On the other hand, in the two months after the year and the new year, nearly 80 flintlock spears were produced, and nearly 100 double-barreled short guns were also made, most of the long guns were basically equipped for the war barracks, and a small amount of equipment was given to the ships of the fleet, but the short guns were basically equipped on the ships.

When the first batch of finalized double-barreled shortguns were created and delivered to a small number of personnel for trial, those who were lucky enough to get this double-barreled short-barreled short-barreled guns spoke highly of this thing, and they all thought that this thing was definitely a weapon for melee combat, especially when the ship was fighting against the enemy's white-knuckle combat, this thing could play a great role.

The double-barreled short gun is short and concise, can be carried around, like a saber in general, easy to carry, because the barrel is short, so it is relatively easy to load, although the accuracy is poor and the power is insufficient at a long distance, but within twenty steps, the accuracy and power can still be guaranteed, if the seawolf can suddenly take out a bunch of these things when engaging in a broadside battle, and fire on the enemy in front of them, a row can knock over the enemy on the side of the opponent's ship, and then the broadside battle is much easier, which can greatly reduce the loss of their own members.

Yu Xiaotian also felt that this evaluation was very reasonable, and deliberately gathered a group of short guns on one boat to do a simulated drill of broadside battle, and put some humanoid targets on the side of the other boat, and when the two ships approached, they used the short guns to suddenly shoot at the humanoid targets on the other boat.

After the fact, more than 10 humanoid targets placed almost more than sixty percent of the bullets, to know that the pirates of the road are very few in armor, and the individual protection can be said to be very low, once the projectile fired by the short gun at close range, the personnel are either dead or wounded, even if the solid bullet is not used, the short gun is only loaded with large iron sand scattered bullets, it can also beat the enemy all over the blood, completely lose combat effectiveness, and even in close combat, the effect is better than a single solid bullet, sometimes it may be a shot to injure more than two enemies.

So Yu Xiaotian ordered the gun to draw out some craftsmen in the past few months and began to produce this double-barreled flintlock short gun in large quantities, and allowed the gun to appropriately reduce the production of some long guns, but to ensure the production of short guns first.

Since this kind of thing is very suitable for use on ships, it is necessary to produce it in large quantities to ensure the needs of the ship, and if this kind of thing is equipped in large quantities on merchant ships, it will play a great role in ensuring the safety of merchant ships.

(Thanks again to the Eagle Warriors for the tip!) I'll try to stay updated! Thank you! ）