After hearing this, the blacksmith Lei was startled, pinched his fingers and exclaimed: "Big boss, is this new cannon you said too heavy?" If this cannon is cast, the cannon body alone will have at least 1,000 catties, and if the gun carriage is added, it will cost at least 1,500 catties, and we may not be able to use it on the ship! ”

Yu Xiaotian rolled his eyes and said: "I know this better than you, we really can't use it on these ships now, but it doesn't mean that we won't be able to use it in the future!" I'm going to take this cannon and put it in the battery on the shore, and it's okay to be heavier! In short, you can do it for me as soon as possible, if you can't do it, you come to see me, and I will change someone else to do it for you! ”

The blacksmith Lei was so frightened that he shrank his neck, quickly bowed down and agreed again and again, turned his head and glanced at Li Gouzi with a hint of resentment, as if he was complaining that Li Gouzi had killed him this time.

At present, because of the method of casting the cannon with Tiefan, his craft is no longer so valuable, after mastering the method of casting the cannon with the iron fan, many people can take his place and manage the artillery.

If Yu Xiaotian is not happy to take him down, he can only be an ordinary craftsman, and the salary is at most two taels of silver a month, although for a craftsman, such a salary is already very high, but compared to the monthly salary of ten taels of silver he gets next month, it is much less.

Now that he gets paid every month, he can comfortably go to the brothel on the island to find a beautiful bitch to sleep with for many days, not to mention, it's enough for him to go to the casino when he has nothing to do, not to mention the comfortable life, and he has a lot of face, if he is taken away by Yu Xiaotian, his good life will be over, so it's no wonder that he is not nervous.

didn't see the new cannon, which made Yu Xiaotian very unhappy, and the cannon was not interested in continuing to inspect, so he turned around and went straight to the gunpowder workshop in the back mountain pass.

Now the gunpowder workshop is also the most important workshop of the sea wolf, and it is the basis for ensuring that the sea wolf's firearms will not run out of food, so it is very valued by Xiaotian.

However, the gunpowder workshop is not more dangerous than ordinary workshops, so it is not placed in the workshop area, but in the col far away from the crowds, and in the event of an accident, the damage can be smaller.

Moreover, the warehouse of raw materials for the production of gunpowder and the warehouse of finished products of gunpowder were also separated from the workshop, and an accident in the province destroyed all the gunpowder reserves, so that the sea wolf was immediately stopped.

At present, the number of workers in the gunpowder workshop has increased to thirty or forty, and the division of labor is more elaborate than when it was first established in Treasure Island, and the tools are also better, so Yu Xiaotian did not hesitate to take out a large amount of silver and copper, and made copper and silver tools for the gunpowder workshop to prevent the use of iron or stone tools to collide with sparks and cause explosions or fires when crushing raw materials.

However, the increase in production requires the guarantee of raw materials, and sulfur can be easily obtained, but the supply of saltpeter has always been more problematic, and the sea wolf has not been able to find a stable supply channel for saltpeter.

At present, it is known that the Spaniards have sufficient saltpeter resources in their hands, because the Spaniards occupied the colony of Chile, and Chile is the area with the largest saltpeter reserves in the world, and has occupied seventy percent of the saltpeter production in the world in history, so the Spaniards do not lack saltpeter at hand.

However, so far, the sea wolf has not established contact with the Spaniards, and can only be purchased through other means, not to mention the high cost, and the quantity cannot be satisfied and guaranteed.

So a few years ago, Yu Xiaotian had asked Mao Shengyuan to come forward, send a ship to carry goods, and trade in Manila, so that Mao Shengyuan sent personnel to Manila to negotiate with the Spaniards, Mao Shengyuan could provide them with all kinds of goods they needed, but asked the Spaniards to provide Mao Shengyuan with sufficient supply of saltpeter, even if it was barter trade.

It is important to know that the Ming Dynasty is the largest silver absorber in the world, and Westerners are very fond of Chinese porcelain, silk, tea and other handicrafts, so they have to purchase from the Ming Dynasty continuously.

And they can sell Daming things, but not a lot, glass is probably one, the other is some spices and other things produced in the colonies they control, and the rest can be sold to the Chinese There are really not much.

As a result, the Ming Dynasty was basically in a state of export surplus, and Western countries could only buy Chinese goods with large quantities of cash.

Now Yu Xiaotian agreed to barter trade to exchange saltpeter from the Spaniards, so for the Spaniards, it can be said to be a great news, they will no longer have to use the silver to buy goods, and Yu Xiaotian can basically solve the problem of demand for saltpeter.

However, so far, this matter has not been completed, so Yu Xiaotian made two preparations before the beginning, on the one hand, he sent Mao Shengyuan to contact the Spaniards to negotiate the purchase of saltpeter.

On the other hand, for the sake of safety, he decided to buy a large number of nitrate from the north, because the south is rainy, it is not easy to use the nitrate accumulation method to obtain nitrate, and the northern climate is arid, and the saline-alkali land is easy to produce nitrate.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian asked some businessmen to go to the north to find a way to help him buy a large number of this kind of soil nitrate, how much to want, and then boil nitrate on Nanri Island after pulling it back, and purify the nitrate with relatively high purity, which is used to alleviate the demand for saltpeter.

After the year, there were two merchants, and they really bought a large amount of soil nitrate in the northern Shandong area in the spring, and loaded four boats to pull it to Nanri Island, and now the gunpowder workshop is using this soil nitrate to purify and obtain saltpeter to produce gunpowder.

The saltpeter purified by the soil nitrate boiling method is of average quality, and the power is slightly worse than that of gunpowder prepared with pure saltpeter.

But this is also a way to do nothing, he can't purify better saltpeter at present, he can only use this method to solve it temporarily, the power of gunpowder is slightly worse, it can also be used, and after solving the problem of saltpeter supply, this method can be stopped and used as a reserve.

The workers of the gunpowder workshop are busy in the workshop, they are no different from other places, they can only work during the day, and at night in order to prevent accidents, it is not allowed to light up production here, so throughout the day, it must be operated at full speed to meet the needs of the sea wolf.

Some workers are responsible for boiling soil nitrate, purifying nitrate, some workers are responsible for crushing saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, and more workers have to use a sieve to constantly sieve and sieve out enough fine raw materials for preparation.

According to different needs, the powder of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal is prepared according to different proportions, and some primers do not need to be made into granules of gunpowder, and they are directly stored.

However, gunpowder, which is used as propellant and explosive, needs to be made into granular gunpowder to give full play to the power of gunpowder, and at the same time ensure that the gunpowder components will not be stratified again due to different specific gravity during transportation, so that the ratio is out of balance and the power is reduced.

All these processes, after a long period of exploration and production testing, have basically matured, so the quality of the gunpowder produced by the gunpowder workshop has been relatively stable, and the power can be guaranteed.

Yu Xiaotian simply asked about the production of gunpowder and the reserves of raw materials, as well as the reserves of finished gunpowder, and when Li Gouzi told Yu Xiaotian that they had stored more than 5,000 catties of various gunpowder, Yu Xiaotian shook his head and expressed dissatisfaction.

More than 5,000 catties is at best more than two tons, don't look at the number is not small, but if there is a big war, this reserve is simply not enough, so he asked to continue to expand the gunpowder workshop, increase the output of gunpowder, and ensure that the reserve of gunpowder is at least increased to more than 20,000 catties to basically be enough.

Li Gouzi nodded in agreement and wrote down the incident, but his face had not become very good, and he looked like he was dying of pain.

(Twenty-three days of low-grade fever, I feel a little better after waking up this morning, and I will try to update another chapter in the afternoon!) As long as you live, you won't stop codewords! ）