Hearing that there was a problem with the ordnance superintendent, Zhao Yan naturally did not dare to slack off, hurriedly said goodbye to Zhao Shu and left the palace, and then hurried to the ordnance superintendent, but he didn't see Shen Kuo and Su Shi when he came here, and asked the little officials who were doing the work to know that the two of them rushed to the gunpowder department outside the city early this morning to deal with things, it seemed that the gunpowder department had an accident, and the specific things were not clear, and finally Zhao Yan had to hurry to the gunpowder department outside the city.

As soon as Zhao Yan entered the Gunpowder Department, he heard a scream from inside, as well as the "snapping" sound of hitting the board, and walked a few steps forward, and saw a young man lying on the ground, and a soldier on both sides was executing with a board in his hand, and he didn't know what mistake he made, what Zhao Yan didn't expect was that Shen Kuo and Su Shi were also here, and Cao Chong, who was in charge of the Gunpowder Department, was also accompanying him.

When Shen Kuo and the others saw Zhao Yan coming, they immediately stepped forward and saluted, "Meet the county king!" ”

"No need to be polite, I heard that there was an accident in the Gunpowder Department, what the hell is going on, and why is this young man being beaten?" Zhao Yan was not polite, and directly expressed his intentions, as the adviser of the Ordnance Prison, although he was mainly responsible for the design and improvement of weapons, if necessary, he could also intervene in the management of the prison.

Hearing Zhao Yan ask about this matter, Shen Kuo, Su Shi, and Cao Chong glanced at each other, and finally Shen Kuo stood up and reported: "King Qiyu, there was indeed an accident in the Gunpowder Department yesterday, which caused a warehouse to be burned down and lost a lot of materials, and two craftsmen were seriously injured, and seven craftsmen were slightly injured, but fortunately, no one died. ”

"What kind of accident caused so many injuries?" Zhao Yan was also relieved when he heard this, although the accident caused many injuries and lost a lot of supplies. But as long as there are no dead people.

"King Qiyu, the cause of the accident is all because of this young man who is being tortured, he privately designed a new gunpowder weapon, but he did not expect it to explode during the test, and the result was that the warehouse was ignited, and most of those craftsmen were injured while fighting the fire." At this time, Su Shi also stepped forward to report. At the same time, he glared fiercely at the beaten young man, the warehouses in the ordnance prison were all managed by him, and he lost so many materials this time, he didn't know how to explain to his superiors?

"Nonsense! Stop the execution now! Zhao Yan was very angry when he heard this, this frightened the two executioners, and hurriedly stopped and stood aside, even the young man who was being beaten did not react for a while, and looked at Zhao Yan with grinning teeth.

I saw Zhao Yan step forward and question Shen Kuo: "Shen Kuo, in addition to producing weapons, the ordnance supervisor is not only producing weapons. There is also the duty to improve and design new weapons, although the new weapons designed by this young man did not succeed, and even caused some losses to the ordnance superintendent, but he cannot be convicted for this, otherwise who will want to design new weapons in the future? ”

Regarding Zhao Yan's questioning, Shen Kuo said with some grievances: "King Qiyu, it's not that the Weapons Supervisor discourages craftsmen from designing or improving new weapons, but there are some rules in it. In particular, gunpowder weapons were very dangerous, and the average craftsman had the idea of a new weapon. It needs to be reported to Zuo Tou, and then some experienced craftsmen will study it, and only if they think it is feasible can they start the manufacture and implementation of new weapons, but this Qi Yu's idea has long been rejected by Zuo Tou, thinking that it is too dangerous and unlikely to succeed. Unexpectedly, he actually designed and manufactured it privately, and it exploded, so he was punished. ”

"Huh?" Zhao Yan was also stunned when he heard this, he didn't expect that the Ordnance Supervisor already had such a formal evaluation system.

But at this moment, I only heard the beaten young man shout in a weak voice: "The king of the county." Although the villain is not talented, he firmly believes that his own ideas can definitely succeed, and he can't give up such a good method in vain because of the disapproval of others! ”

"Oh?" Zhao Yan glanced at the young man named Qi Yu with some surprise, and asked with great interest at the moment, "This king also knows a lot about gunpowder, now you tell your thoughts, if it is really feasible, this king can call the shots and support you to continue to design your new weapons." ”

Hearing Zhao Yan's words, Qi Yu's eyes immediately lit up, and he stood up and saluted Zhao Yan and said, "King Qiyu, the villain designed a weapon called the Assault Musket before......"

"Oh, you made the assault rifle?" Zhao Yan was shocked when he heard this, and looked up and down at the young man in front of him, he had naturally heard of the name of the assault rifle, this was the first tubular jet weapon in history, although the muskets and artillery of later generations had undergone great changes, but its basic principle was actually the same as that of the assault rifle.

"How does the king know about the assault gun?" At this time, Su Shi was very surprised and said, he had the inventory of the ordnance superintendent, although the weapon of the assault rifle was clear, but the practicality was not strong, so except for a few samples in the warehouse, it was not produced in large quantities, and Zhao Yan had never been to the ordnance superintendent, so it should be impossible to know about this weapon.

"Cough~, this ......" Zhao Yan didn't know how to answer Su Shi's question for a while, he couldn't say that he had seen it from the history books of later generations, fortunately, he reacted relatively quickly, and quickly said, "Although this king has not been back for a long time, he has also been paying attention to the exhibition of the armory supervisor, and some time ago he asked Lao Huang for some information about the armory supervisor, and it just happened that some new weapons were mentioned above, among which this assault rifle made this king deeply impressed." ”

The Ordnance Supervision is an important department that needs to be kept secret, and there are people arranged by the Imperial City Division inside, and nothing can be hidden from their ears and eyes, Su Shi also knows this, but what makes him unable to figure out is that Zhao Yan can obviously register the account books with him openly, but why did he go to the people of the Imperial City Division?

Zhao Yan didn't explain much about the above question, and asked Qi Yu at the moment: "Just now you said that you designed the assault rifle, did you have a new inspiration from the assault rifle and design a new weapon?" ”

"The king of the county is wise, the villain did think of a new weapon from the body of the assault gun, speaking of which the assault gun is a bamboo barrel, and the explosion of gunpowder pushes the gravel or iron slag inside, but the range of the assault gun is not far, and the power is also very limited, so I thought that I could use the iron cylinder instead of the bamboo tube, and then thicken and thicken the iron cylinder, and put more gunpowder at a time, so that it can produce enough thrust when it explodes, and even reach the range of the ballista!"

When Qi Yu said this, there was also a fanatical expression in his eyes, their family is a generation of gunpowder craftsmen, and he has also grown up in the gunpowder pile since he was a child, which also made him have a great interest in gunpowder, and he has an intuition that the true power of gunpowder has not yet been fully excavated.

After listening to Qi Yu's statement, Zhao Yan glanced at the other party in surprise again, according to his thoughts, this is simply the prototype of a cannon, and then Zhao Yan asked with some curiosity: "Qi Yu, just now Judge Shen said that you are doing it by yourself, how did you do it, and why did you burn down a warehouse?" ”

"This ......" Qi Yu also looked a little embarrassed when he heard Zhao Yan's question, but finally replied, "The villain let people cast a long iron cylinder, one end is closed, there is only one hole to ignite the gunpowder, and then the bottom of the iron cylinder is stuffed with gunpowder, and some iron slag is put in, I thought it could be successful, but I didn't expect it to explode like a cannon after ignition, and the fragments of the explosion fell into the warehouse, and I don't know how to ignite the things in the warehouse, many people were burned in order to put out the fire, I am indeed guilty of this, and it is not unjust to be beaten. ”

Zhao Yan also wiped a cold sweat when he heard this, the cannon was cast with copper at the beginning, this is because when the cannon is fired, it will produce a very strong chamber pressure, which has extremely high requirements for the casting of the cannon body, and only copper is more suitable for this metal, of course, it can also be used with steel, but it requires an extremely high casting process, otherwise it will be like Qi Yu to blow up the chamber, and it is fortunate that he did not blow himself up this time.

It is estimated that the reason why Shen Kuo disagrees with Qi Yu's idea of artillery, first, is that it is too dangerous, after all, the power of artillery is not comparable to a small assault gun, and secondly, even if the artillery is really successful, but its role is the same as that of the ballista, but the volume is smaller than that of the ballista, but the real operation may not be as good as the ballista, and it can only shoot solid bullets, which is almost the same as a trebuchet, so they are unwilling to spend a lot of effort to study this weapon, but unfortunately they don't know, Artillery is one of the important directions of the future gunpowder exhibition, and the ballista designed by Zhao Yan is just a trick.

Thinking of this, Zhao Yan immediately said to Qi Yu: "You are too reckless to do this, the power of gunpowder explosion is extremely great, and ordinary steel can't stand it at all, so you'd better use copper to try it, of course, it's too extravagant to use copper, but we can cast a sample first, and then find a way to use cheaper steel to cast it after mastering the characteristics of this weapon." ”

"Cast in copper?" Qi Yu's eyes lit up immediately when he heard Zhao Yan's construction, and he slapped his thigh and said, "Good way, why didn't I think that although copper is softer than iron, it has strong toughness, and there should be no more explosions!" ”

Hearing the conversation between Zhao Yan and Qi Yu, Shen Kuo and Su Shi both glanced at each other a little helplessly, it seemed that Zhao Yan not only agreed with Qi Yu's idea, but also prepared to participate in it personally, which made them have no choice, after all, the research of the new weapon was originally in charge of Zhao Yan, and they only had to fully cooperate. (To be continued!)

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