Yu Xiaotian told Li Dazui and Meng Fei that this kind of cannon can't be their turn for the time being, and they don't need this thing, and if they want a cannon, it's not impossible, but they can only be given light cannons like tiger squat cannons.

These two people were greatly discouraged when they heard this, but they had no choice but to follow orders, and the reason why Yu Xiaotian didn't issue such artillery to their combat team was because they really didn't need this thing at the moment.

So far, the combat corps is only subordinate to the auxiliary force under the naval corps (he has already called his combat fleet the naval corps, and if his strength continues to expand in the next step, he is ready to change the name to the navy).

The combat corps will only go ashore with the support of the seamen, and they do not yet have the ability to complete the battle alone, so it is of no great use to distribute them with such artillery, not to mention that they must be equipped with cattle to drag these cannons, which is really useless at the moment, and if they really need it, they can temporarily hang a few cannons from the ship to use.

After all, the tiger squat cannon weighs only thirty or forty pounds, and two people can run away with it, which is a kind of mortar in this era, and they don't need to be equipped with livestock, and it is easy to move on complex terrain.

And if this thing is loaded with loose pieces, it is very powerful at close range, like a big broom, a dozen large pieces, and it is a firearm that is very suitable for them to use so far, so the request of the two guys was categorically rejected by Yu Xiaotian.

However, in order to appease their emotions, Yu Xiaotian promised them that in the future, when they can use it, they will definitely be issued with this kind of cannon, and now they will also let the cannon work specially open the mold for them, and cast some beautiful tiger squat cannons separately for them to use.

So this calmed the leaders of the two warbands and asked them to go back with their soldiers honestly.

Yu Xiaotian immediately gave an order to the cannon after the end of the test, so that they immediately began to cast new cannons, while casting new cannons, began to open the mold to try to make larger Hongyi cannons, and then when the mold was reopened, the caliber of the new cannon was enlarged to about four inches, and the weight of the cannonball reached about 12 catties, which was close to the 12-pounder cannon in the West, but the barrel did not require to continue to be lengthened, and the length of the barrel remained five feet, which was a special short cannon on ships.

The weight of such a twelve-pounder cannon can be controlled below a thousand catties, and at the same time it is convenient to operate on a ship, and the firing range does not require much increase, and it is enough to maintain an effective range similar to that of a six-pounder gun.

The technology of this era limited the accuracy of artillery shooting at sea, even Britain, the future overlord of the sea, in the naval regulations, also stipulated that the distance of naval engagement should not exceed 400 meters, and artillery was not allowed to fire outside 400 meters, in fact, in the era of sailing ships in history, the distance of naval engagement was often close to about 100 meters, and even almost the muzzle of the gun was against the muzzle before firing, because during the shaking of the hull at sea, even if the effective range of the artillery was long, it was difficult to hit the target 400 meters away, In order to ensure the accuracy of hits, it is necessary to get as close as possible to the enemy ship.

Therefore, when Yu Xiaotian's Mandate Cannon tried to make a new twelve-pounder gun, he didn't have to lengthen the gun body too much, which is the reason.

What's more, the longer the barrel, the greater the weight, his current main ship is still a Chinese-style sailing ship, the hull structure determines that this kind of Chinese-style ship, it is difficult to withstand too heavy artillery, no matter how big the cannon is, it is useless.

The Ming Dynasty once produced a kind of big hair, weighing more than 500 catties, the result of this kind of big hair can not be loaded on the ship to fire, once the cannon is fired, it may shatter the deck, destroy the ship, as a last resort, when fighting, actually have to drag a strong big raft behind the ship, and hang this big hair on the raft to fire, think about this scene, it makes people a little unbearable.

So far, even if he produces a twelve-pounder cannon, he may not be able to equip it in large quantities, and most of the ships he currently has on hand may not be able to withstand such heavy artillery.

However, the Western-style sail warships of this era, because of the advantages of its ship structure, can already be equipped with heavy guns of more than thirty-two pounds, thinking about such a gap, Yu Xiaotian is both a little discouraged and very anxious.

The matter of cannon making was settled, and the cannon work on Nanri Island was strictly guarded, and all the gunsmiths involved in the cannon casting were given a gag order, ordering them not to mention their cannon casting methods to anyone who was not a cannon maker at any time, and those who violated the order were responsible for the consequences.

The cannon work was also completely rolled out, and the furnace fire began to burn day and night, and the cannon casting work began day and night.

The iron mold casting method completely solves the problem of long time cycle of casting cannons, so that no matter when they are, as long as there is no problem with the iron fan of the casting cannons, they can continue to produce, which also greatly improves their production speed and production efficiency.

But then they faced a new problem, that is, the source of raw materials was a bit out of line with their needs.

Although Guangdong produces iron, and Foshan is also the most important iron-producing place in the south of the Ming Dynasty, it is not very difficult to buy pig iron and wrought iron from Foshan, and the iron merchants in Foshan are also happy to sell.

But now they are facing a relatively big problem, that is, because the Dutch are still working against the Ming Dynasty at this time, constantly raiding the coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian, plundering passing ships, and under the auspices of Nan Juyi, the Fujian sailors are basically concentrated in Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Chaozhou.

During this period, the north-south sea traffic was greatly affected, and many merchant ships did not dare to travel easily at this time, so that the number of merchant ships at sea has plummeted a lot recently.

Although Yu Xiaotian paid great attention to the reserve of copper and iron and other metals before, once he found copper and iron on the ship when he hijacked the ship, he directly stored it and kept it for his own use, and also reserved a batch of copper and iron here.

But if these reserves are used to cast cannons, it seems a little too little, he has a total of thousands of catties of iron and more than 1,000 catties of copper, which sounds like a lot of numbers, but once a large number of cannons are started, they will not be used at all.

Even if he only casts the current six-pound light cannon, the net weight of a cannon will reach more than three hundred catties, and if the loss is added, it will take at least five hundred catties of pig iron to cast a cannon, and these irons must belong to fine iron, and his little inventory, at best, can cast six or seven six-pounder cannons, which is considered good, so he must find a way to get a large amount of iron to meet the needs.

Yu Xiaotian first sent the news of the purchase of a large number of pig iron to the various maritime merchants who were related to them, and the price was relatively high, but at the same time, he considered that it was not a long-term solution to always rely on these maritime merchants, first, the cost was higher, and the supply of goods was not under his own control.

So he had to find a way to solve this matter by himself, so this matter fell on Zhao Mazi's head again, Yu Xiaotian ordered Zhao Mazi to take three boats such as the Walrus, plus a bird boat as an escort, to form a fleet, and go directly south to Guangdong, to find the Feng family to buy a batch of pig iron.

The Feng family itself has an iron factory, and the scale is not small, plus they are very familiar with the land in Guangdong, as long as they have their help, even if the imperial court is ordering artillery in large quantities, they will not have much problem buying a large amount of pig iron.

But it is obviously not a cost-effective thing to go south by such an empty boat, and the best way is to fill the ship with goods when going south, so that it is more cost-effective to go back and forth without running empty.

As for the question of what goods to transport south, this is not for Xiaotian to worry about, because Li Yi is now trying his best to win over Yu Xiaotian and try to tie up with the sea wolf, so that the interests of both of them will be greater.

Li Yi was a little hesitant about Xiaotian's proposal to cooperate with each other to open a store in Fuzhou Mansion, but after Yu Xiaotian defeated Chaojianglong, his attitude changed and he began to become positive.

And Yu Xiaotian didn't mention this matter again because he had a lot of things at hand, and in addition, in order to let Li Yi understand, he no longer relied on his Li family everywhere as before, so several times Yu Xiaotian purchased bulk goods, he deliberately bypassed the Li family and handed it over to Li Yi's colleagues to handle it for the sea wolf.

Li Yi quickly realized the seriousness of the matter, Yu Xiaotian was deliberately embarrassing him, now Yu Xiaotian is no longer the Wuxia Ameng of the year, he can no longer contain Yu Xiaotian, the sea wolf, Yu Xiaotian can still live even if he completely gets rid of him Li Yi now.

But if he, Li Yi, offends Yu Xiaotian, then the matter will be much more serious, and Yu Xiaotian only needs to give an order to pinch off his Li family's maritime business, so that his Li family's business will immediately plummet from now on.

At this time, Li Yi didn't dare to hesitate anymore, Yu Xiaotian's intention to cooperate, he began to think about it carefully, and finally felt that this business could be done, with Yu Xiaotian, the big man on the Fuzhou Sea, behind him, he stood at the front desk, and ordinary people didn't dare to go against them at all, although the profit was definitely Yu Xiaotian's share, but as long as the business was spread out, the remaining small head would be much bigger than when he did it himself.

And through Li Yi's cooperation with Yu Xiaotian for more than a year, he can also see that Yu Xiaotian is a trustworthy person, a standard man who spits and foams and nails, as long as the two parties agree, Yu Xiaotian is worthy of cooperation.

So Li Yi took the initiative to find Yu Xiaotian and mentioned the cooperation again, Yu Xiaotian is now busy and doesn't have much time to take care of this matter, so he deliberately delayed Li Yi for a few days, which made Li Yi even more nervous.

Yu Xiaotian saw that Li Yi was really anxious, so he lowered his posture and handed over the cooperation between the two sides to Liu Laoliu and Zhao Mazi to discuss with Li Yi.

Yu Xiaotian proposed a way of cooperation, the two sides cooperated to set up a joint-stock firm, nominally Li Yi came forward, Yu Xiaotian as the major shareholder of the firm behind the shares, Li Yi with his current shop as a share, accounting for 40% of the shares of this firm, Yu Xiaotian with goods and part of the cash input, plus he is fully responsible for maritime transportation matters, accounting for 60% of the shares, the two sides together to send the account management to be responsible for the management of the account, at the end of the year the profits are divided according to their respective shares.

After Li Yi calculated for a while, he finally agreed to Yu Xiaotian's condition, which was basically the same as he originally expected, and even Yu Xiaotian gave him more shares than he expected, at first he thought that it would be good for him to account for thirty to three percent of five, but now Yu Xiaotian gave him forty percent of the shares, which has made him very satisfied.

In this way, after the two sides finalized the cooperation, the Li family's business name was changed to Maoshengyuan, which is still the exclusive business of his Li family, but only a few people know that this Maoshengyuan is actually a business cooperated by the sea wolf and the Li family.

Yu Xiaotian also according to their agreement, converted the large number of goods left on hand before into silver, and invested them in Maoshengyuan, and in addition, he put out 3,000 taels of silver from the sea wolf's treasury silver, and filled it into the Maoshengyuan firm, and in the next year, he successively invested another 5,000 taels of silver as his shares.

In fact, the capitalist industry and commerce of the Ming Dynasty had already begun to sprout, and the improvement of social productivity coupled with the growth of population led to an increase in idle labor, which also provided a guarantee of human resources for merchants to open workshops.

Therefore, a businessman like Li Yi is very shrewd and open-minded in business, and it is easy to understand the benefits of this kind of joint-stock cooperation for him, so the two sides quickly reached an agreement.

Through this cooperation with the Li family, Yu Xiaotian is equivalent to opening a door for himself on land, in addition to obtaining the exit of business, but also gaining a real collaborator and foothold on land, and the most important thing is that he can directly put his eyes in Fuzhou, an important town in the south, and can observe the official dynamics at any time, and it is much easier to obtain information.

And this time, Yu Xiaotian sent a ship south to Guangdong to purchase pig iron, and Mingli carried it out in the name of Mao Shengyuan, with Li Yi, an old maritime merchant, in charge, he didn't have to worry about what goods to pull and where to sell them when he went this time.

(Iron Hand has a mistress, and I'm rewarding me today!) Oh, thank you so much! The cold wind continues to work with illness, and two shifts a day are guaranteed! This chapter is basically 4,000 words, and it was forced out last night! Huh)