In this way, with the addition of these craftsmen and the improvement of various tools, the shipyard of Nanri Island quickly resumed its function.

In addition to two docks, there are also three slipways built on the beach, and when the docks are not available, boats can be towed ashore and cleaned and repaired on the slipways.

Over the course of a month, more than half of the Seawolf's ships were thoroughly cleaned and refurbished, removing attachments from the bottom of the ships and making them much lighter.

After the winter, the sea wolf's ship basically got an overall repair, which made the sea wolf's fleet more capable, including the horse owl stationed in Nangantang, which was also replaced by Wang Hong, and the ship was repaired once, so that the personnel of the third division got a period of rest.

As a result, a rotation system has been formed on the Nangantang side, and the garrison personnel are rotated every three months, and some people in the province stay there for a long time to suffer, and some people do not have to go anywhere, resulting in injustice.

At this time, there was also good news from the cannon work, with the joint efforts of Lei Blacksmith and Zhang Blacksmith and others, the first cannon cast by the sea wolf itself was finally successfully cast.

Yu Xiaotian did not leave the cannon for a day on the day when the cannon officially began casting, and stayed in the cannon to watch the casting of the first cannon in person.

The mouth of the molten iron was knocked open, and the molten iron immediately flowed out, and was caught by two people with a crucible, and after a pot was full, it was immediately carried away, and another crucible was placed in the place where the molten iron was produced, and continued to hold the molten iron.

Two men carried a crucible filled with molten iron up to a platform, and the iron fan of the cannon had been erected and buried in the mound, leaving only a mouth for pouring molten iron.

Under the command of the blacksmith, the craftsman poured the molten iron from the pouring port into the cavity of the mold, a pot of molten iron was about fifty catties, and after pouring six pots of molten iron, the cavity of Tiefan was completely filled.

The next step is to cool down and wait for the molten iron to gradually solidify, the advantage of Tiefan is that when the molten iron is injected, no water will be stirred out, and the casting process is relatively safe.

Although it was the end of November at this time, the outdoor temperature was already very low, but the heat wave was still hitting people in the iron work shed, Yu Xiaotian's heart was hanging high, sweating profusely and staring at all the steps on the scene, for fear that there would be an abnormal situation, making them lose their efforts.

But after all the molten iron was cast, there was nothing abnormal on the scene, which made Yu Xiaotian feel relieved.

After the molten iron solidified, the blacksmith immediately beckoned his craftsmen to pick up the mound, revealing the iron fan in it, the temperature of the iron fan was still very high at this time, and the heat was scorching when he walked close, and the craftsmen wore very thick clothes in order to prevent burns, and the cotton clothes had to be wet with water.

With the roar of the thunder blacksmith, the erected cast cannon iron fan was carefully put down by the craftsmen, while the temperature of the cannon body was still very high, the thunder blacksmith personally went into battle, and began to peel off the iron fan outside the gun mold section by section, and quickly let people lift the cannon mold away, and gradually a whole body was dark, and the surface of the smooth cannon was presented in front of everyone, and a cursory look at the outside of the barrel of this cannon, no air hole was found.

There was a cheer in the shed, and some people had already begun to prepare to celebrate their success in casting the cannon, but Yu Xiaotian raised his hand to stop the cheers of these people, because he knew that there was still a very important process that had not yet been completed, this cannon only stripped off the iron mold on the outside, but the shaped barrel mud core inside had not been cleared, so the success of this cannon was not yet known.

Then the shed fell silent again, except for the sound of the Thunder Blacksmith and one of his blacksmiths pulling out the mud core from the barrel with their tools.

With the efforts of the Thunder Blacksmith, it was not difficult to take out the cannon core while the cannon body had not yet cooled, and soon the cannon core was all taken out of the gun chamber by the Thunder Blacksmith.

An artillery cannon was basically formed, Yu Xiaotian breathed a long sigh of relief, it seems that there is nothing wrong with his memory, according to the method he gave, Lei Blacksmith They still succeeded in casting a cannon with the iron fan casting cannon method, although it has not yet been thoroughly inspected, but he can also see that this cannon should not be a big problem.

But at this time, the work is not finished, the iron cannon must also go through the process of annealing, if it is directly placed at room temperature, the cooling rate will be too fast, resulting in the wall of the cannon becoming brittle, increasing the danger of exploding, the craftsmen of this era have understood the importance of annealing.

For this reason, Lei Blacksmith also built a large furnace for annealing the artillery, and everyone worked together to move the still hot cannon body into the annealing furnace, and after leaving it for a day, it could be taken out and started the next process.

A few days later, Lei Blacksmith found Yu Xiaotian accompanied by Zhang Blacksmith with a flattering expression, and when he saw Yu Xiaotian, he quickly knelt down and said:

"Enlighten the master! Congratulations, congratulations, our first cannon has been ready! Please check it out! ”

After hearing this, Yu Xiaotian jumped up like a spring under his buttocks, and rushed out of the residence with three steps and two steps, and the hat band ran crookedly all the way to the cannon work.

It was so bad that the blacksmith Lei, who was still waiting to be praised, took Blacksmith Zhang to run all the way behind, chasing Yu Xiaotian back to the cannon.

As soon as he entered the cannon, Yu Xiaotian saw a smooth iron cannon appear in front of him, which was placed on a pedestal, which had a special sense of display.

Yu Xiaotian hurriedly walked closer and carefully tested the temperature of the body of this cannon, which had already cooled down at this time.

The entire outside of the cannon body is originally cast by iron fan, and the surface is already quite smooth, and now it has been carefully polished by Lei Blacksmith and others, and a small number of burrs on the surface have been removed, and the gun body appears much smoother, and the whole is checked from top to bottom from front to back, Yu Xiaotian did not find a single pora, which made him very satisfied.

Only from the appearance of this cannon, looking at all the guns currently owned by the Seawolf, it is impossible to find a cannon that can be comparable to this cannon in appearance, which shows the superiority of the iron fan cast cannon, and basically completely avoids the defects of air eyes and pores on the cannon body caused by water vapor.

But Yu Xiaotian is not satisfied with the quality of the workmanship of this cannon from the appearance, the most important thing to really see the advantages and disadvantages of this cannon is to look at the internal condition of this cannon.

So he immediately had a few whale oil waxes lit, and a bronze mirror was used to reflect the light to the inner wall of the gun chamber, and with the help of the light, he approached the gun muzzle and carefully observed the situation on the inner wall of the gun chamber.

After the cannon core was taken out and the annealing was completed, the barrel of this cannon was carefully polished by the blacksmith Lei with special tools, so that the inner wall of the cannon chamber became very smooth.

Then Yu Xiaotian was still not at ease, so he asked people to take a tool to detect the inner circle of the gun chamber, and probed into the gun chamber inch by inch to measure the inner circle of the gun chamber, and finally found no problem with the inner circle of the gun chamber.

Yu Xiaotian was afraid that the cannon chamber would not be straight enough, and there would be deformations in the cannon body that could not be observed by the naked eye, so he let them cast an iron rod with the same diameter as the cannon chamber in advance.

After inserting this iron rod into the barrel, the iron rod, which is almost the same as the inner diameter of the barrel, is easily fed into the bottom of the barrel.

If there is a situation in the middle that cannot be entered, then it means that the gun chamber is not straight enough, so even if it can be used, it will seriously affect the accuracy of the cannon.

However, after inspection, Yu Xiaotian also did not find any problems with the cannon chamber, so he nodded with satisfaction and continued to observe the appearance of this cannon.

The appearance of this cannon completely abandons the shape of the ancient Chinese cannon, the shape completely belongs to the Western-style artillery, is a standard Hongyi cannon, from the muzzle to the tail of the gun, from thin to thickened, the inner wall of the gun chamber remains unchanged, the gun wall from the tail to the muzzle gradually thins, in line with the requirements of the gun chamber pressure, the part of the muzzle is thickened, which is equivalent to strengthening the muzzle, so as not to appear when the muzzle is fired, it is broken.

There are two lugs cast on both sides of the center of gravity of the gun body, which can be easily erected on the gun carriage or gun carriage, which is also one of the important elements to distinguish between Chinese and Western artillery.

At the same time, the upper part of the gun body of this gun also casts a door and a front sight, so that when the gunner is aiming, he no longer needs to use the method of estimation and experience to aim, and only needs to find the target by looking at the front sight to form a three-point line, so that it is easier to aim at the target, and it is more accurate when firing.

Lei Blacksmith had a conspicuous expression on his face, sneered and walked behind Yu Xiaotian with a smiling face, and said: "Qi Yu big boss, this cannon has a thick mouth of two and a half inches, the gun body is five feet long, weighs three hundred catties, can be charged two and a half catties at a time, and can be filled with a sealed door weighing six catties, the small ones have cast dozens of iron bullets, polished, as long as the big boss is happy, put it on the gun truck, you can test the cannon at any time!" ”

Yu Xiaotian didn't need him to say it, and he already knew these data, because these data were basically formulated by him personally, the first iron cannon cast, in fact, he designed it according to the data of the six-pounder cannon in the West, although the caliber of this cannon is not large, but it is more suitable for training.

Moreover, although this kind of cannon is a light artillery, it is definitely not good to use it as the main gun to fight against Western warships, but when used against peers, the power is already quite good.

More importantly, this cannon is of moderate weight and power, not only can it be used on ships, but it can also be used as a land gun, and when necessary, a horse or a mule can pull it on the march, and if it is heavy, it is not easy to use on land.

This is also one of his plans for the future, he can't stay at sea forever, as long as he seeks development, sooner or later he will have to land, and it will not be possible to temporarily hold on to his feet at that time, not to mention that he has a big plan in his heart to be implemented as soon as possible, this six-pounder gun is the weapon he needs most at the moment.

So he straightened up and rubbed the cannon with his hand, his heart couldn't suppress the excitement and joy, but he didn't dare to show his emotions too much, and said as lightly as possible: "At the moment, this cannon is still well-cast!" You've worked so hard these days! But in the end, whether this cannon can be used or not, whether it is good or not, whether it is accurate or not, you can't just look at it with your eyes and say with your mouth, it is a mule or a horse that you have to pull out of the cannon to slip around!

Come on, load this cannon on the gun truck, and pull it out tomorrow morning to test the gun! If this cannon is available, then I will not treat you badly, and I will be rewarded! ”