In a shed, there are two vertical old-fashioned boring racks, which are boring the inner chamber of the fixed iron cannon, and a horizontal boring machine that has just been made, which is also experimentally boring a cannon chamber, using the power of two oxen to pull it.

The steward in charge here is surnamed Qiu, and he is also an old blacksmith, and he is about forty years old, but because he has been engaged in high-temperature and heavy physical labor for a long time, he looks like he is over sixty years old.

He used to work in the iron yard in Foshan, Guangdong, and his skills were quite good, and he could also cast cannons, and he used to be quite famous in the iron yard in Foshan, but because he was a little old, he was sick once, and he couldn't afford to be sick, so he was dismissed by the shopkeeper.

After this Qiu blacksmith fell ill, the people in the family spent all the family's savings in order to treat him, and later owed a lot of debts, and finally saved his life, but his body was very weak and could not continue to work, and one of his sons originally took over his craft and became a blacksmith, but once accidentally, there was an accident in the iron yard, and he was killed by the fallen shelf on the spot.

Qiu's blacksmith family suddenly fell into a predicament, and later the creditor forced him to pay a debt, and drove him, his wife and a young son out of the house, because he was unable to work, so he lived on the street begging, and later was accidentally discovered by a person from the Sea Wolf Council Hall who went to Guangzhou to do business, so he brought their family of three back to Nanri Island.

Originally, it seemed that Blacksmith Qiu was already half-dead, and no one paid too much attention to him, but after Blacksmith Qiu arrived on Nanri Island, he was valued by Blacksmith Zhang, who made the gun.

Blacksmith Zhang heard that an old blacksmith had come to Nanri Island, so he went to find Blacksmith Qiu when he was idle, chatted with him, and found that this Blacksmith Qiu had very good skills, so he quickly recommended it to Yu Xiaotian.

After Yu Xiaotian heard about it, he attached great importance to it, and hurriedly went over to see Qiu Blacksmith in person, and set up his family, sent people to serve Qiu Blacksmith with good food and drink, and ordered the medical officer to carefully condition his body.

This Qiu blacksmith is also considered fateful, after meeting Yu Xiaotian, after some conditioning by the medical officer, coupled with good food and drink and sufficient nutrition, he saw that his collapsed body actually miraculously recovered.

Later, he gradually regained most of his physical strength and became strong again, so he returned to his old profession and went to Nanri Island to work as a craftsman.

Blacksmith Qiu's skills are quite good, even much better than the skills of the Lei blacksmith at the beginning, and he soon stood out among the craftsmen and put forward a lot of useful suggestions, so Yu Xiaotian asked him to be a deputy steward in the Nanri Island Artillery Works, which is actually equivalent to the work of the director of the technical arts.

This time, Nanri Island was put into production, Yu Xiaotian saw that Qiu Blacksmith had good skills, good popularity, was older, and worked steadily, so he first asked him to come over to watch the construction of the factory, and then appointed him to be a steward here, that is, the position of factory director.

Blacksmith Qiu survived in a desperate situation, and he was grateful to the sea wolf and Yu Xiaotian, and he worked very hard, and now he is making the cannon work on the side of Tamsui in full swing.

There are more than 200 craftsmen in the freshwater cannon today, and the number of formal craftsmen is not very large, but there are many apprentices.

Most of these apprentices were slaves purchased by the sea wolves from the land, some of them were young men or teenagers, some of whom were selected for training in the new barracks and entered the sailors or war barracks, some were left in the workshops to serve as various apprentices, and some of the old and weak were sent to the immigrant villages to become farmers.

This part of the apprentices who are slaves are basically the industrial workers of the sea wolf in the future, and will become the industrial pillar of the sea wolf in the future, but most of them are not apprentices now, and they are still in the workshop, learning the craft from the masters.

However, the apprentices here are different from the apprentices of the craftsmen on land, they belong to the slaves of the sea wolf, and in fact belong to Yu Xiaotian's private property, unlike the apprentices on land, who have to work as cattle and horses for many years before they can begin to learn the craft.

And the craftsmen here do not dare to enslave these apprentices like that, although the apprentices must also start with rough work, but Yu Xiaotian has a strict order, the craftsmen must teach them skills, otherwise the future of the craftsmen is worrying, here the craftsmen want to spare the arts, there is no way out, and will soon be squeezed out of the bottom of the workshop, and they can only do rough work in the future, and they will get less wages.

However, for the craftsmen who are willing to teach their skills and crafts to their apprentices, Yu Xiaotian ordered them to pay a certain allowance according to the number of apprentices, which is also a kind of promotion to improve the living conditions of craftsmen, so that they can better pass on their skills to these apprentices.

The apprentices are basically slaves, and they don't need to be paid, and the sea wolf is responsible for all their food, clothing, housing and transportation, which is relatively economical, but these apprentices will be given a little allowance every month, so that they can buy a little personal supplies.

But the apprentices have no opinion on this, they themselves are on the land, they are some bankrupt peasants or small people in the city, they really can't get along, many people are self-planted straw and sell themselves, in order to make a living, but even so, many people have no chance to find a good way out, few people can meet the good-hearted owners, buy them back, treat them well.

Some children will be bought home by some small landlords and used as adopted children, in fact, they are slaves of small landlords, farming for them, and some people will be bought back by large families and become slaves of small houses, and their lives will not be very satisfactory, at best, it will be good to be able to eat with a mouth.

Even if they apprentice craftsmen on land, they have no wages, and they have to work for many years for the master to learn some crafts, but after they have completed their studies, they can't leave the craftsman's shop, and they have to continue to work for the craftsman for a long time, and they can only get a small salary, which is actually similar to that of a craftsman.

Now they were bought by the sea wolves, although when they were first transported here, they knew that they were bought by pirates, and they were all frightened, thinking that they were going to force them to become thieves and pirates, but after arriving here, they found that this place was much better than they had imagined.

The sea wolf provided them with quite good food and lodging and clothing, so that they could be fed, and this alone made them very satisfied, and Lang Zhong gave them physical examinations, and the sick were treated, which surprised them even more.

It's just that there are too many rules here for the sea wolf, a little too strict, eating, drinking, Lazar and sleeping, there are rules, so that the slaves who come here for the first time are a little unbearable, but think about it carefully, even if they are bought by others, every household still has rules, and if you don't make a mistake, you will be beaten more ruthlessly than here, and it is common for the head of the family to beat the house slave to death, and many times the government does not care, so it is psychologically balanced.

In addition, after they come here, there will be people from the sea wolf who tell them every day about the future of following Yu Xiaotian, the big boss, how good the sea wolf is to them, and how bright their future will be in the future, and gradually these slaves will adapt to the life here.

After Yu Xiaotian walked into the cannon, Qiu blacksmith also rushed over to see when he heard the sound, led Yu Xiaotian to take a big turn in the whole cannon, and told Yu Xiaotian that the current work here is basically going relatively smoothly, and a group of old craftsmen have been transferred from Nanri Island, who are all familiar with each other, and they are all familiar with the casting work here.

Moreover, the method of casting iron fan cannon is also much simpler than that of clay fan casting cannon, as long as you are careful, you can basically ensure that there will be no problems with the quality.

After Yu Xiaotian went to the finished product warehouse, he took a look at the finished products that had been cast here, and in the finished product warehouse, there were at least 20 artillery pieces of various types.

Among them are the twelve-pounder cannon, which is now beginning to be mass-produced, as well as the ordinary twelve-pounder howitzer, and two twelve-pounder guns, as well as a few three-pounder light Furlong cannons that have just been cast, and even a whaling cannon that has just been cast and has not yet been put to trial, and of course, there are also a few tiger squat guns for the sea wolf's own use.

But Yu Xiaotian is not concerned about these cannons at the moment, he is more concerned about a new cannon that he asked this side to start trial production last year.

The new cannon that Yu Xiaotian asked for was actually the famous Caron gun in history, which was actually a large-caliber naval gun with an ultra-short barrel, which was once produced and equipped on ships by Western countries, especially the United Kingdom, in large quantities.

The caliber of the Caron cannon is generally relatively large, and the gunpowder loaded is not as much as that of the same caliber naval gun, but the projectile weight is very large, the light one reaches 24 pounds, the general 32-pound cannon is mostly a 32-pound gun, and there are even 48-pound and 64-pound heavy Caron guns.

Its main feature is that the barrel is very short, the length of the barrel is only four to eight times that of the caliber, generally about six times, short, thick, short and fat, and the wall of the gun is relatively thin, so the weight is naturally much lighter than the cannon or howitzer of the same caliber.

In addition, when the long-barreled naval gun is used on the ship, because the barrel is long, the gun is heavy, and when it is reloaded, it will be more troublesome and laborious, but the Caron gun barrel is very short, it is much easier to load, and the reset is also fast, and the firing speed is naturally faster than that of ordinary artillery, even if the gunner is not very well trained to operate this cannon, at least it can be guaranteed to be fired once a minute, and if the gunner is fully trained, it can reach 1.5 to 2 shells fired in a minute, This is very important in naval warfare.

(The monthly pass is not powerful!) Who still has a commuter pass? Can you just leave it at that? Come on! ）