The staff of Ouyang Xuan Training Institute mainly adopts the mode of on-site teaching. The first stop he made was the newly established artillery foundry, where he watched the launch of the prototype Tiger Squat Cannon and the Mother and Child Cannon, the Franc cannon. Before going to Qiongzhou to sell salt, Ouyang Xuan had already drawn detailed drawings of these two cannons to Li San'er, and asked them to explore the trial production and imitation first, and the sample cannons had been made. The location of the test gun is still in a secluded place on the side of Liuliba Mountain. The two newly-built Tiger Squat Cannon and the Mother and Child Cannon were test-fired. Judging from the firing range and explosion effect, the Tiger Squat Cannon was obviously inferior to the Mother and Child Cannon, but even so, after the loud noise and gunsmoke, the small trees and bushes in the area where the shells were scattered were blown down, and the grass and trees not far from the explosion point were also blown up. This made everyone applaud, and it also made Hu Erhammer, who was in charge of casting the cannon, quite proud.

The cannon foundry is the core unit of the industrial company, which was expanded from Hu Blacksmith's blacksmith shop, and is now headed by Li San'er as the factory director, and Hu Blacksmith's second son, Hu Erhammer, as the deputy factory director. Unlike the crowd who were overjoyed, Ouyang Xuan did not cheer. He walked closer to see the effect of the explosion, returned to the test place to take a closer look at the two cannons, and put his hand into the still-warm chamber of the cannon and rubbed it repeatedly. After a while, he first encouraged Hu Erhammer and the others, and then turned to Li San'er and said, "These two cannons still need to be recast." As soon as these words came out, not only did Li San'er and the craftsmen who cast the cannon lose their smiles, but also made everyone in the research institute next to them puzzled, especially Du Daquan and others who had not seen the cannon fired were even more surprised, this power was like a thunderbolt from the sky, Brother Xuan was still not satisfied?

Ouyang Xuan saw that everyone was puzzled, so he asked everyone to stand around the artillery and explained the reason for recasting the artillery: "First of all, although the barrel of this tiger squat cannon is reinforced with iron rings, the thickness is uneven, and the inner and outer walls are rough and uneven, and there are even potholes. In addition, the biggest problem of the mother and child cannon is that the length of the barrel is too short, and the ratio between the cannon and the caliber is not suitable, and the gap between the mother cannon and the mother cannon is too large, so that the firing range becomes shorter and the power becomes smaller." Ouyang Xuan pointed to the part of the artillery again, and explained the direction of improvement to everyone.

In addition to improving the mold and polishing the inner chamber, the quality can also be improved by strengthening management, such as carving the name of the craftsman on the gun. As for the ratio of the diameter of the mother and child cannon, it is a scientific problem derived from long-term practice, and Ouyang Xuan directly told Li San'er and others that the ratio of the pipe diameter of the artillery should be between 20 and 30 times. If the sub-mother cannon has a large fitting gap and insufficient closure, the chamber pressure will be insufficient, which is mainly caused by the insufficient accuracy of the production. The firing range of this mother-child cannon test was only about two miles, while the prototype Franc machine gun could shoot about five miles. After Ouyang Xuan explained the principle in detail, everyone suddenly realized, and their admiration for him deepened a lot.

While paying close attention to artillery casting, Ouyang Xuan also went to the main production sites of the industrial and mining industry to conduct on-site investigations. In addition to solving some production problems on site, he also collected a lot of technical problems, and he asked Du Daquan to record the problems one by one as the direction of future research. In addition, Ouyang Xuan also sorted out a list of key points for the research institute in the near and long term, listed the main methods and steps, and clearly requested that the production process be jointly developed with industrial and mining companies, which are necessary for the development and growth of the Perak Army.

The first focus of recent research is cement firing technology. Cement was used for construction quickly and was built extremely strongly, and when combined with artillery, it was definitely a fortress that broke the teeth of the Mongol army. Limestone, clay and iron ore, the three main raw materials for cement production, are not lacking in this mountain, and the production is not very difficult, only three production processes are required. The first step is to grind the limestone and clay together into raw meal. The second step is to calcinate the raw meal until it is partially or completely melted, and this product is called clinker. The third step is to grind and mix clinker with iron powder or iron slag to produce cement.

The second focus in the near future is the improvement of steelmaking furnace technology. The focus is on improving the blower equipment, the existing equipment is a manpower to pull the sheepskin bellows, the air output is small and the manpower required is more. The next step is to consider a hydraulically pulled blower and blow in heated air, which will increase the furnace temperature and make the steel quality better. At the same time, it is also necessary to test the use of fluorite as a solvent for blast furnace steelmaking, and now Liuliba uses limestone as a solvent. In order to solve the problem of "knowing what it is, but not knowing why it is true", Ouyang Xuan also wrote down detailed instructions under the relevant list, such as writing the role in the solvent entry: limestone can make the impurities in the molten iron adhere to it, forming oxidized slag for easy cleaning, which is conducive to the purity of the molten iron; Fluorite is a flux that lowers the melting point when added to the furnace, shortens the smelting time, and removes impurities from the steel.

The third item of focus in the near future is the development of musket barrels. The most difficult to manufacture the parts of the musket is the seemingly simple barrel. The main reason is that the barrel cannot be cast like an artillery, but can only be produced by the coiling, cutting and extrusion methods. However, the barrel coiling method is handmade, and the production efficiency is extremely low, and a skilled craftsman cannot make several guns a month, and the barrels produced are of different sizes. The cutting method requires a machine tool, that is, a straight hole is drilled in the barrel blank, and then a turning tool is inserted to pull out the rifling little by little. Although this production method is still slow, it is much faster than the coiling method, and the accuracy of the bullet is also high due to the rifling. As for the extrusion method, in addition to the machine tool, it also needs an extrusion device, and the research conditions are not available at present. Therefore, Ouyang Xuan's idea is to first use the simplest coiling method to produce a small number of barrels, and then use the cutting method to mass-produce barrels in the next step.

The first focus of long-term research is the large-scale production of sulfuric acid and nitric acid technology. There are many raw materials for making sulfuric acid, in addition to the sulfur ore in the mountains, sulfur dioxide gas can also be collected from iron ore and coal, mixed with excess air and water vapor, and then passed into the corrosion-resistant lead chamber to become dilute sulfuric acid. Now there is no lead ore in the mountain, but a large ceramic jar can be used instead of a lead chamber. As for nitric acid, because there is a fire nitrate, you only need to find out the production process and process according to the method written by Ouyang Xuan.

The second focus of long-term research is the production of caustic soda. The production of caustic soda is also very simple, only sodium sulfate is heated with charcoal and limestone in the furnace. After the reaction of sodium sulfate and charcoal in the furnace, sodium sulfide and carbon monoxide are generated, and then sodium sulfide reacts with limestone to produce sodium carbonate and calcium sulfide, and caustic soda (sodium carbonate) can be obtained after purification. When writing this, Ouyang Xuan told Du Daquan, who was standing beside him, that the underground of the plain outside the mountain contained extremely rich sodium sulfate ore, which made Du Daquan wonder. But when Ouyang Xuan told him another name for sodium sulfate, Du Daquan suddenly realized: "Yes, Yixing Township, not far from Hengyuan, produces this miscanthus salt, which is also a traditional Chinese medicine, and the price is extremely cheap." ”

The third focus of long-term research is the improvement of gunpowder. Compared to modern gunpowder, black powder has much less explosive power. After cotton cloth was purchased in Qiongzhou and regenerated to produce sulfuric acid and nitric acid, modern gunpowder such as smokeless gunpowder and nitroglycerin could be developed. In addition, the improvement of grenade and artillery shell trigger technology is inseparable from the production of mercury thunderate, which is also a technology that the institute needs to learn and pay attention to.

The fourth important long-term research focus is not related to the industrial and mining industries, but to the engineering company, which is the construction of the fortress. How to prevent other people's artillery attacks, in addition to preventing technology leakage, also need to have defensive means, and the fortress equipped with artillery is the best defense against artillery attacks. Ouyang Xuan couldn't remember the specific structure of the fortress, he could only draw a simple schematic diagram with a principle explanation, so that the engineering company could gradually improve it in combination with the actual situation.

There is a specialization in the art industry. Although Ouyang Xuan is proficient in chemical knowledge, because of his profession, although he has also dabbled in knowledge such as mining and gun manufacturing, he is mostly half-understood, and only knows the direction and general content. The knowledge he taught still needs to be constantly experimented in order to transplant modern science and technology to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, and he has a lot of affairs and cannot do everything himself, and he must work together to give full play to the enthusiasm and wisdom of the people, so the improvement of the scientific research incentive mechanism is very important. At the military and political conference, Ouyang Xuan also put forward a proposal to promote scientific research, in addition to actively discovering, excavating, and introducing talents, the main thing is to reward those who have made achievements in research, and important contributors are regarded as equivalent to military merits. There must be brave men under heavy rewards, and it is also applicable to the field of technical research.