Xiao Ming saw Gu Shouzhen on the boat after a long absence, and the two were very excited to see each other, Gu Shouzhen has now almost become the chief craftsman of the entire Hangzhou smelting and steelmaking experimental base, and several steelmaking methods invented by him have obtained several types of steel, which have been greatly improved from strength to toughness.

This treasure ship was built by Meng Kang, who has a special hobby for shipbuilding, for the Gu family, and it cost Xiao Ming a lot of money, because he used several special techniques, and this ship looks like a treasure ship from the outside, but in fact, the knife-shaped bottom is the first time to be applied, and it looks like a flat bow but there is a very sharp knife-shaped impact angle below the waterline.

In the history of shipbuilding in China, this shape of the collision angle is rare in the bow of the ship, basically in the bow of the packaging of iron armor or insertion of sharp knives, at that time in the water war, the ship still needs to collide many times, but in the bow of the waterline below the collision angle is Meng Kang's first creation, more than 500 years earlier than the West.

This treasure ship uses a mixture of sail power and rocking, and when the steam power is not fully mature enough to provide power for the boat, many sea ships use these two power combinations, so there are many sailors on the ship, and there are at least 300 sailors on the Gu Shibao ship.

Looking at this treasure ship with a floor as high as three floors, Xiao Ming was very excited, it was indeed not a simple matter to be able to build such a big ship in such a short time, Gu Shouzhen introduced: "In fact, the entire keel of this ship is made of steel, and I have used the technology of elastic steel to build it on it, don't you see that my ship is very wide?" ”

The use of steel in the keel is another innovation, the steel and wood structure of the ship did not appear until the 18th century, the keel is riveted together with steel, the strength and tonnage are certainly not low, but Meng Kang on this basis increased the application of the wooden structure in the cross-section, even so, the construction period is greatly shortened.

Xiao Ming praised: "Good ship! ”

Gu Shouzhen said: "There are still surprises, you can come and see"

He led Xiao Ming to the side of the ship and introduced him to the other innovations and features of the ship, that is, the defensive weapons of the ship, from the rocking and rising nail shield to the bed crossbow, as well as the small car, and the most surprising thing for Xiao Ming was that there were two bronze cast copper pipes on both sides of the ship, and the walls of the pipes were very thick enough to have a caliber of 150 mm!

"Bronze Cannon!" Xiao Ming exclaimed.

Gu Shouzhen was shocked: "How do you know?" This is the killing weapon that Master Ding has just made! ”

How could Xiao Ming not see this thing, the appearance of the entire modern artillery does not look like the original front-loading artillery at all, although it is still only a bronze barrel, yes! It was indeed a rear-loading cannon, and he had a bracket attached to the hull and wheels, only now it had been removed and set aside.

Xiao Ming was immediately attracted to it, and studied it carefully, this rear-loading bronze cannon has a very large caliber, which is bound to cause a large cannonball, Gu Shouzhen took out a round black ball, which is a cannonball wrapped in a thin iron sheet, with some leads around it, and the propellant is cylindrical, wrapped in a cardboard shell, and there is a copper primer plate underneath.

Gu Shouzhen introduced: "This propellant is very dangerous, and it will burn if it collides too violently!" ”

"Is it thundermercury? Did this guy even invent thunder mercury? Xiao Ming couldn't believe it.

In fact, the manufacture of mercury is very simple, and its appearance is the expertise of Ding Jianpeng's artificial chemistry major, mercuric mercury (mercuricfulminate), also known as mercury thunderate. Chemical formula Hg(OCN)2. organic compounds, white or gray crystals, dark brown crystals; Soluble in hot water, ethanol and ammonia. Thundermercury can be detonated when it is dried by slight friction, impact or heat, so it must be stored at a low temperature.

Its manufacture is very simple, using mercury and nitric acid to dissolve, and then adding dry alcohol to produce mercury nitrate, and using anhydrous alcohol to precipitate water to produce thunder acid gong, the production of this substance is bound to indicate that nitric acid has been produced and can be manufactured in batches.

With thundermercury, the trigger fuse of the firearm can be used, and when the bronze cannon is loaded in the breech, it triggers the primer of the propellant through the high-pressure spring firing pin, so as to push the shell out, and at the same time ignite the fuse of the shell, and the fuse on it is ignited after the shell flies out, and it will explode after a gap of more than ten seconds, and the shell is also wrapped in a large amount of iron slag and broken porcelain and burning oil in addition to nitrification explosives, so that the effect of a shell is enough to make the opponent stupid!

The breech of the bronze cannon is well designed, the sealing effect is good, and the interface is all sealed with silk and fish glue to preserve the chamber pressure to the greatest extent, and the loading of the propellant, Xiao Ming found out again, the reason is that he found that the mixture of nitrocellulose and black powder was used in the cardboard shell, which shows that cotton is already common.

Gu Shouzhen told Xiao Ming that the cotton planting promoted by Richanglong last year has obtained a bumper harvest, and the yield is very high, and Richanglong has begun to use cotton spinning machinery to weave cotton cloth in large quantities, and the drawings of the machine are still the earliest before, Xiao Ming provided Su Bi, and now the new cotton cloth has almost replaced the production of linen cloth, and the sales are excellent.

Xiao Ming asked, "Then have they already disposed of all the original linen and silk?" ”

"I've heard from people who are growing up that there is still a lot of backlog and that they are preparing to go south to find buyers"

Xiao Ming nodded, noncommittal about it, looking at the bronze cannon, he was still very excited in his heart, and said to Gu Shouzhen: "How many cannons like Mr. Ding have been built?" ”

Gu Shouzhen said: "Master Ding said that the current materials are not up to par, and now there are only less than ten experimental castings, he hopes that I can provide steel barrels, but at present, I haven't thought of how to cast steel barrels, not only that, I find that the control profile is very useful, I plan to use the twisting method to try it......"

He began to chatter with Xiao Ming about the manufacturing method of steel tubular materials, but Xiao Ming didn't understand this, and spread his hands and said: "You are embarrassed for me, these ideas of yours are indeed very good, but I am not the object of your discussion, you should go to Mr. Ding to discuss, but your ship is a good ship, why did you suddenly decide to take the boat out to pick me up in person?" ”

Gu Shouzhen said with a smile: "At present, this ship is still an experimental ship, when he first launched the water, many people felt that with such a heavy steel in the hull, I don't know if it can still sail in the water?" Although he was very advanced, everyone had a wait-and-see attitude, and if it turned out that this ship was a good ship, Richanglong would order two cargo ships for them to transport goods to the Guangdong region. ”

Now the entire port terminal of Hangzhou Bay belongs to the industry of Hangzhou Gu's refinery, for such a major event, Gu Shouzhen naturally has to personally ask, shipbuilding is a major matter, Xiao Ming does not object to Gu Shouzhen personally asking, but this kind of ship is not the ship in his mind, he told Gu Shouzhen, to wait for Richanglong to improve the steam-powered machine, at that time to build a steam ship, this is a good project to really make money.

The steam engine is now the technology that Richanglong is promoting, at present, the cotton textile that has been formed has accounted for half of the production scale of Richanglong, and the allocation of many resources has been tilted towards cotton spinning, which is also the direction of the future development of Richanglong.

Xiao Ming can't say that the elders of Richanglong are short-sighted, after all, they are cooked and not raw, and the weaving industry of Richanglong is extremely developed at present, almost monopolizing the market of cotton, linen, silk, silk and other things in the entire Great Song Dynasty, and their counterparts in Shudi and Huguang are far inferior to them, and it is also their best choice to continue to increase the monopoly in this field.

However, the bronze cannon in front of him is what Xiao Ming needs very much, if Ding Jianpeng has only built a few such experimental weapons, then it is a good way to let Xiao Ming personally test it on the battlefield, so Xiao Ming shouted: "I want a cannon!" ”

With a transport ship like Gu's treasure ship, Xiao Ming has a port base in Lushunkou, basically everything he needs will be transported from the sea, this is the best moment to seize business opportunities, so Xiao Ming's clear idea is to expand the scale of the commercial fleet, for the scale of the commercial fleet, Xiao Ming suggested, requisition and leasing.

A large number of production and life of ironware, hoes, kitchen knives, iron pots and so on can be transported, grain, salt, tea, porcelain can also be transported, Richanglong's cotton, linen and silk can be transported, I believe that this will attract a lot of Song Dynasty merchant ships to come to join, and Xiao Ming can set up a tax collection point at Lushun Port to collect a part of the tax, which is equivalent to him building a city in Lushun.

Gu's treasure ship was excellent in performance and sailed quickly, just in time for the last monsoon of cold air southward, and arrived at Laizhou Bay in Shandong the next day, where Uncle Zhang personally came to meet him.

Because Xiao Ming's identity is very special, Zhang Shuye did not bring his officials at all levels to the scene, just some relatives, but among these people, there is no Song Jiang who Xiao Ming knows, there are many people at the moment, and Xiao Ming is not good at asking Zhang Shuye, so he has to bury it in his stomach.

Zhang Shuye was also very happy after getting the next volume of Ma Zhi's "Mountains and Rivers of the Great Liao Kingdom" given by Xiao Ming, this person has an ambition in his life, that is, to recover the sixteen states of Youyun, the homeland of the Central Plains, after getting this book of "The Mountains and Rivers of the Great Liao Kingdom", he couldn't help but be overjoyed after careful study, and sighed: "God help me the Great Song Dynasty!" ”

Of course, Xiao Ming's request to set up a seaside supply base in Weihai has also been carefully considered, Youyun and other states have undulating terrain, and the Liao army is defending dangerous places, so it will definitely be difficult to attack head-on, and if you bypass this place by sea and attack from behind, it will be a big thing.

He reported this plan and idea to the imperial court, Emperor Huizong also wanted to support, but he couldn't come forward, if in the busy spring season, the people were requisitioned for conscription, fearing that the hundred officials would oppose it, and the people would resist, so he instructed the table to express his position, but the specific operation let Zhang Shuye find a way in the local area, in comparison, maybe Huizong was more interested in the officials she dismissed in the corruption case in Denglai Erzhou, which would save the imperial court a lot of official money.

Xiao Ming had a long talk with Zhang Shuye, of course, after Zhang Shuye accompanied him to inspect Weihai in person, and Qian Baguang, as Xiao Ming's plenipotentiary ambassador, also accompanied him throughout the whole process.

Now Weihaiwei only has some scattered villages in the surrounding area, the name of Weihaiwei is still after the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty government set up a guard in this place, and then it was named: Weihaiwei, but in the Song Dynasty at that time, it still belonged to the jurisdiction of Qingzhou, and even included Qingdao in later generations.

Now Weihaiwei is only a village with the name: Weihai Village and Haijing Village, and most of the people are fishermen, and there are many farmers.

"Lord Xiao, at present, you want to build this supply base, although we don't need to pay the money, but I can also allocate some materials and personnel to help you, the taxes in Denglai and Denglai are not much, so I can't draw it out, or focus on the people's livelihood, but how to solve the problem of the personnel who built the base?" Uncle Zhang raised his own questions.

Xiao Ming smiled and said, "Master Zhang, I have two methods for you here, see which method you need to use!" ”

"Oh, I don't know which two ways they are, Ji Zhong would like to hear the details......

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