Now the whaling ships are equipped with a whaling cannon specially cast by Yu Xiaotian, with this kind of whaling cannon, whaling has become much easier, no longer need to let sailors go down to the boat, chase whales, use whaling forks to hunt whales, that is really a very dangerous thing to do, many whaling sailors in whaling, because of the whale's resistance, are either injured, or were beaten into the sea and drowned.

But with the whaling cannon, the whaling began to become much safer, after the whaling ship found the whale, it began to chase the whale, after approaching the whale, the gunner operated the whaling cannon, aimed at the whale and fired, the whaling cannon would shoot a thick iron gun with a barb, into the whale's body.

The whaling fork has a rope behind it, and a large wooden barrel is tied to the tail end of the rope, after the whale is injured, it cannot dive, and on the way to struggle and escape on the sea, it will lose a lot of blood, and the whaling ship can follow it behind, and wait until it loses too much blood and loses the ability to struggle, and then send someone down to the dinghy, sail to the whale's side, and strive to give the dying whale the last blow and end its life.

So since the whaling cannon was made to equip the whaling ship, the whaling efficiency has been greatly improved, and now the whaling fleet here in Keelung can harvest a few whales every month, which can fully meet the current demand of the sea wolf for oil, and can also export some to earn some small money.

And other parts of the whale, such as whale meat has become a good meal in the rice bowl of the sea wolf, now they do not have a large-scale breeding industry, the supply of meat is very small, in addition to hunting, to rely on immigrants to raise some pigs and sheep privately, to meet the needs of the sea wolf, beef is not to think, the cattle are the first class of protected animals of the sea wolf, unless the old cattle can not work can be slaughtered to eat meat, the rest of the cattle have to work in the field, many workshops also need to work cattle as animal power, to provide a source of power for some simple machinery.

In addition to being able to make leather armor, whale skin can also be made of high-grade leather, whether it is on land or in the West, they are very interested in the whale skin produced by the sea wolf, which can be sold at a good price, and the skin of a whale can make the sea wolf earn a few hundred taels of silver.

As for the offal, as long as it is not a poisonous place, it can be eaten, it can be pickled and chopped to make a messy stew, whether it is the sea wolf tribes, or the craftsmen of the workshop or even the students of the school, they all like to eat it, it is too difficult for the poor people to eat meat in this era, and it is enough to make people feel very happy to eat some whale offal.

However, such an industry has brought a negative impact, that is, as soon as you arrive in Keelung Fort, you can smell the strong stench produced by the oil residue when refining whale fat in Jilong Bay, which is also mixed with the fishy smell and fishy smell emitted by the aquatic product processing plant, which lingers, so that people who come here for the first time can't help but have a desire to cover their noses.

In addition to the fish and cetacean processing plant that has begun to take shape here, the overall fortification system of Jilong Bay has now been basically completed, and three batteries have been built at the mouth of the bay, forming a cross-fire on the sea surface of the entire bay mouth, which can tightly block the mouth of the bay.

Moreover, the three batteries themselves have quite strong defensive capabilities, and even if the enemy forces force their landing, it will not be easy to capture the batteries.

In addition to a large number of cannons, the three forts themselves are also surrounded by trenches, and there are carbonized bamboo sticks all over the inside and outside of the trenches.

In addition to these three large forts, Keelung Fort has added a number of pillboxes on the high ground on all sides, where people may pass.

These bunkers are usually guarded by a group of soldiers who regularly change their guard posts, once the enemy comes to attack, they can live in the strength of three squads at any time, and in the bunker can also immediately add a twelve-pounder mountain howitzer and two tiger squat guns, anyone who wants to bypass the fort at the mouth of the bay from the land and directly attack Keelung Fort will be blocked by these pillboxes.

Even if all the outer defense lines are lost, Keelung Fort itself is a strong fortress, built according to the structure of the western fortress, and it also has a very strong defensive force, coupled with the materials stored by Keelung Fort itself, it is enough to hold on for a long time and will not be easily broken by the enemy, and there is no problem in waiting for the time when reinforcements arrive.

After Yu Xiaotian arrived at Keelung Fort, he inspected the situation of the guards here non-stop, and basically expressed satisfaction with the construction of the fortifications, but pointed out some problems in some places, and asked the black heads to continue to improve in the next step.

However, Yu Xiaotian is not very satisfied with the vigilance of the current personnel in Keelung Fort, and the personnel on duty in the forts and pillboxes everywhere are relatively lax psychologically, and it is generally believed that no one dares to come here to trouble them now.

In this regard, Yu Xiaotian caught Heitou and Sun Baoqiang, and reprimanded them for a while, asking them to pay attention to it, and strengthen the patrol on the sea, expand their current patrol area, and triple the patrol area of the warships left behind in Keelung Fort to prevent the enemy from being discovered when they arrived in front of them.

In addition, Yu Xiaotian is not very satisfied with the road situation here, although some roads have been built here, but the terrain here is relatively undulating, and the transportation of materials is not very easy, if the road condition is worse, it will be more difficult, the war is not easy to mobilize limited troops, reinforcements to the places where they are needed, especially some heavy weapons such as artillery, it is not easy to transport them to the places where the battle is most intense, so Yu Xiaotian asked the black heads to rectify this point.

As for the workshop situation here, Yu Xiaotian didn't pay too much attention, at present, the industrial zone of Seawolf is focused on the side of Tamsui City, where the transportation is more convenient, and Keelung Fort is mainly in the fishing industry, and the gun has not set up a branch factory here, only the gun has set up a branch factory here that is not large.

This time, Yu Xiaotian came here mainly to see the production of the artillery branch here, and there is only one large workshop for the artillery in Keelung, which is equipped with three casting tables, and at most three cannons can be cast at the same time.

However, the artillery here is not the same as that of Nanri Island and Tamsui Artillery, which is only responsible for casting heavy artillery, and the lowest artillery is also a twelve-pounder cannon, but the main production is the twenty-four-pounder cannon that was only cast into one cannon on Nanri Island before.

This kind of twenty-four-pounder cannon, the cannon body alone weighs more than 3,000 catties, plus the gun carriage, the weight is as high as more than 4,000 catties, at present, all the ships of the Sea Wolf, for the time being, can not effectively carry such a heavy cannon, even if it is loaded, it can only hit a few shells, the result is that not long after the cannon is fired, the ship's board should be cracked, basically it can only be regarded as a hammer deal, if you win the enemy, your own ship is at least scrapped, and if you don't get it right, it will cause serious consequences, and the ship will sink into the sea with the cannon, It's just not a good deal.

Therefore, after the successful trial production, the gun was transported to the Keelung Fort and installed on the Heping Island Fort for use as a shore gun.

This 24-pounder gun, when using standard solid bullets with very small tolerances, has a direct firing distance of about two miles, and after accurate measurements, it can basically reach 920 meters, and within this range, the shooting accuracy is quite high, and it can easily and accurately hit a target about the size of a Feizi clipper.

Moreover, the power of this cannon is also extremely great, and the speed of more than 20 catties of shells within two miles is very fast, which can basically ensure that it can penetrate the hull of all the enemy troops they may encounter at present, and inflict considerable damage on it.

However, when this kind of 24-pounder cannon was actually used as a shore gun, the firing range was far more than two miles, and according to the results of the test, when this cannon was used as a shore gun, the effective firing range could reach at least two kilometers, that is, about four miles, and it could also ensure a considerable hit rate.

Such a result, basically thanks to the sea wolf is currently a very advanced iron fan casting cannon method, so that when the cannon is cast, the cannon body is very strong, can reduce a lot of weight, if the Ming Dynasty craftsmen on land imitate, this kind of cannon they should at least double the thickness of the cannon wall, the weight must reach at least 7,000 catties or more, for the user, it is simply a disaster, waiting for a cannon without a hundred and eighty strong man, it is estimated that even the aim can not be done, let alone reset.

Moreover, the weight of this self-cast twenty-four-pound cannon of the sea wolf is much lighter than that of similar cannons cast by craftsmen in Western countries at the same time, and the casting process is much better than theirs.

But the reason why it was only cast into a cannon at the beginning, and it stopped, is because when it was first trial-produced, the iron reserves of the sea wolf were still very small, and this guy consumed iron is really powerful, and to cast this cannon, it is necessary to refine the pig iron purchased from the land, and after refining, there are only six or seven hundred catties left, and it takes more than five thousand catties of iron to cast this twenty-four pound cannon.

At that time, the Seawolf needed six-pounder and twelve-pounder guns, and the demand for this kind of twenty-four-pounder gun was not large, so it was regrettable to stop production first.

But now, Seawolf has established a number of ways to import iron by expanding the purchase channels everywhere, and has initially solved the problem of insufficient raw materials, and has reserved a considerable amount of iron.

In addition, the time for the possible Spaniards to snatch Jilong Bay is getting closer and closer, so Yu Xiaotian specially ordered to build a slightly smaller artillery in Jilong Village when the industry was relocated, and was responsible for casting medium and heavy artillery, so as to meet the needs of this side first.

Therefore, after the construction of the chicken coop was completed last year, the work of recasting the 24-pound cannon began.

Yu Xiaotian came to Keelung Fort this time to check the production of this kind of medium and heavy artillery here.

(Squint a little and rush to the hospital!) ）