These sloops were his next weapon against the Spanish fleet, which had to be formed before the Spanish fleet came to Taipei, so that the sea wolves could gain the initiative in the battle at sea.

Therefore, the opinions of Liu Yidao and others were more in line with his ideas, so after discussing with everyone, Yu Xiaotian still decided to strike first this time, and kill the warship fleet they assembled before the official army began to launch, and directly disrupt the government's plan.

As for Yu Xiaotian's idea, Comrade Lin Yiyang, a staff officer of Lin University who had just been recalled from Tamsui City, also agreed.

In the matter of dealing with the official army, Lin Yiyang and Yu Xiaotian's thoughts also coincide, although Lin Yiyang did not know that Yu Xiaotian was going to prepare to fight with the Spaniards next year, but Lin Yiyang, as a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, still did not want Yu Xiaotian to go too fast and too far on the road of rebellion to some extent.

But he is not opposed to repairing the Fujian official army, so that the new Fujian governor Zhu Qin will taste the bitterness, but he also hopes that the killing of the official army in this battle can be controlled within the acceptable range of the government and the imperial court, otherwise it may cause the imperial court to be angry, and gather the official and military warships of the southern provinces to deal with their sea wolves, so that the sea wolves will have a lively life in the future.

Although the Ming Dynasty is now declining, the border is full of troubles, but after all, the emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, once the real anger, if you want to mobilize an army of 180,000, it is not impossible, once the imperial court wants to do something, the resources that can be mobilized are so great, I am afraid they can't imagine, once the ships in Zhejiang, Fujian, and the coastal areas of Liangguang are ordered to build warships, I am afraid that it is not too many to build thousands of them a year, even if the sea wolf is strong, it will not be able to withstand so many fleets and soldiers and horses of the official army.

In addition, there are still hostile forces such as Chu Cailao around, who have been eyeing the sea wolf, if the government fights against the sea wolf, these guys will definitely take the opportunity to beat the water dog in the future, and keep putting the sea wolf to death, they will be happy, and after killing the sea wolf and Yu Xiaotian, this Fujian coast will become their world, which has real benefits for them.

Therefore, for various reasons, Lin Yiyang also agreed very much to control the conflict between the sea wolf and the Fujian official army within a certain range, not only to hurt the Fujian official, but also not to provoke the matter too much, leaving a certain amount of room for maneuver for the sea wolf in the future.

So under the discussion of everyone, a battle plan gradually took shape, and was finally finalized by Yu Xiaotian.

Within a year, the sea wolf had to fight two big battles, the first time was to deal with the old group of his peers, Chu Cai, and the second time he had to deal with the current government and army, which was really a lot of pressure for the sea wolf.

However, fortunately, Yu Xiaotian exploded the industry on Nanri Island early in the morning, and now the industrial base of Seawolf is quite good, so that the Seawolf Group has basically achieved self-sufficiency in weapons.

Although now the sea wolf has basically stopped the production of cold weapons, and instead purchased it secretly from the land, but for the sea wolf, the impact is not great, this kind of underground trade can basically meet the sea wolf's demand for cold weapons, but it has freed up more craftsmen to invest in the production of firearms, greatly increasing the production of sea wolf firearms.

At present, not counting the cannons produced in the workshops in Tamsui and Chicken Coop, the cannons and guns of Nanri Island alone can produce nearly thirty or forty guns of various kinds every month, of which the output of six-pounder guns has been gradually reduced, and the production of a twelve-pounder short-barreled gun has begun to be turned on.

This twelve-pounder cannon, compared with the previous twelve-pounder cannon, is much shorter, although this makes the effective range of this cannon a little, but it greatly reduces the weight of the cannon, so that the weight of the whole cannon is reduced to between 500 and 600 catties, so that it can be easily equipped on most of the warships that the Seawolf currently has.

This kind of 12-pounder short gun, in fact, is a kind of mountain howitzer, the direct firing distance is only two or three hundred meters, the longest range of solid shells is only about 1,000 meters, the effective range is about 300 meters, beyond 300 meters, the accuracy is basically uncontrollable, when used on land, you can also hit a little farther, but if you want to hit the enemy ship at sea, you can basically only hit within 200 meters.

But this is not very important for the fleet of sea wolves, because even if they are equipped with a twelve-pound cannon on their ship, the effective range can reach 500 meters, but in naval battles, such a long-range firepower advantage can only be reflected in the bombardment of the opposite shore, and when it is really a naval battle, this range advantage cannot be effectively exerted most of the time.

This is also the reason why many naval battles in the era of sail warships controlled the combat distance at about 200 meters, and even the reason why the warships of the two sides approached each other to within 100 meters face to face before they began to bombard, because the naval guns of this era did not have a stabilizing device, and it was difficult to ensure the accuracy of shooting if it was a little farther away.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian felt that the twelve-pounder naval guns and twelve-pounder cannons produced before were a bit of a chicken rib, and most of the time they could not give full play to the advantages of combat, and they also increased the weight and cost of the cannons, and it was also difficult to arrange the long-barreled cannons on the ship, so they could only be installed on the deck of the ship and used as a swing gun, and it was relatively difficult to reload and push the cannon to reset.

Because of its weight, it could not be equipped on some slightly smaller ships, but could only be mounted on larger ships of about 300 materials, and the hull had to be reinforced.

After such a long period of trial, although the power of the six-pounder cannon used by peers is far greater than that of the tattered miscellaneous guns used by peers, after all, the projectile quality of the six-pounder cannon is limited, and in naval warfare, it is often possible to open a relatively small hole in the enemy ship, and it is impossible to easily destroy the structure of the enemy ship, and it is often necessary to concentrate a lot of firepower and fire repeatedly at an enemy ship, which requires a lot of shells to completely destroy the enemy ship.

If it is used against Western-style galleons with rough skin and flesh, then the shells of six-pounder guns hit these Western-style galleons, and in many cases, I am afraid that they cannot even guarantee penetration, and they cannot effectively destroy enemy ships.

Therefore, the weapon of the six-pounder cannon, in the eyes of Xiaotian, has become a chicken rib, and there is not much need to continue to increase production, and the soldiers cannot be equipped, but the sailor thinks that it is not powerful enough.

Therefore, after some consideration, Yu Xiaotian ordered the cannon to be made, opened a new gun model, and specially trial-produced this short-barreled 12-pounder mountain howitzer.

This new twelve-pounder cannon, the barrel length ratio is compressed to about ten times, making this short cannon appear very short, a little unsightly, and the wall of the barrel is also thinner than the previous twelve-pounder gun, the charge is slightly reduced, but it makes the weight of the cannon greatly reduced, making it similar to the weight of the previous six-pounder gun, but the close-range power is multiplied.

Even in naval battles, as long as they were within an effective range of 200 meters, they could inflict far more damage on enemy ships than the six-pounder guns with long barrels.

More importantly, after such a long time of casting cannons, the cannon and Yu Xiaotian himself have accumulated quite a lot of experience, and the iron fan casting method has greatly reduced the difficulty of casting cannons, greatly improved the yield of cannons, and made the sea wolf have the advantage of casting cannons at any time all year round.

But after all, when casting guns, there are still castings that the outside of the gun body cools faster than the inside, forming a certain difference in internal and external pressure, resulting in the hardness of the outer layer of the fast external cooling exceeding the inner wall of the gun chamber that cools slowly, so that the hardness of the inner chamber that should be stronger than the outer wall of the gun body is not as hard as the outer wall of the gun body, and the result will still produce defective products to a certain extent, which can only be scrapped.

There are still certain defects in the iron fan casting method, so that the finished product rate of the cast cannon hovers between 70 percent and 80 percent, and can not be improved, and there are also heavy guns with larger calibers, because the cooling rate of the inner and outer walls of the barrel is different, and the cooling rate of the outer wall exceeds the inner wall, resulting in the higher the scrap rate of the cast gun.

In fact, the casting cost of a Hongyi cannon is not too high, even if it is used to cast the cannon by mud fan, the casting cost of an eighteen-pound cannon will not exceed one hundred and fifty taels of silver.

But when the Portuguese sold the cannon to the Ming Dynasty, it was still an eighteen-pound cannon sold for more than a thousand taels of silver, if in terms of cost, this must also calculate the scrap rate, as well as freight and profits must be added to the price, plus in this era, the Westerners have not yet invented the iron fan casting method, and the method of casting the cannon is also mud fan, resulting in the artillery casting, the scrap rate is also high, far more than the sea wolf's iron fan casting method. This led to the high price of Hongyi cannons imported by the Ming Dynasty.

Even so, when the Portuguese sold these eighteen-pounder cannons to the Ming Dynasty, they were already very cheap, because these cannons were not cast by the Portuguese themselves at all, but simply salvaged from a British shipwreck in the sea around Macao, so they were sold so cheaply.

It is said that the price of the five eighteen-pound cannons that Chu Cai Lao bought from the Portuguese exceeded three thousand taels and one guns, which was dark enough!

It is precisely for these reasons that in order to ensure the solidity of the gun body, the gunsmith has no choice but to increase the thickness of the gun wall to improve the strength of the gun barrel, which also brings the disadvantage of increasing the weight of the gun, and at the same time increases the scrap rate, forming a vicious circle.

For Yu Xiaotian, who also encountered this kind of problem, during this time he was busy thinking about how to continue to improve the quality and yield of the cannon, and at the same time ensure the power of the artillery, find a way to reduce the weight of some cannons, and fundamentally solve the problem of the scrap rate of the cast cannon.

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