Chapter 151

Different from the peace of the past.

Qingzhou City people these days obviously feel the atmosphere of the Department of equipment some dignified.

Because I don't know when, the number of soldiers guarding the equipment department suddenly increased several times, and all of them were dressed in silver full body armor, and they were fierce. Any people who were slightly close to the equipment department would be driven away immediately.

Everyone who enters the equipment department needs to show his token and accept interrogation. Someone once saw a man who didn't take a token trying to sneak in and was beaten by soldiers and put into prison on the spot.

Among the various signs, many people are guessing what happened in the equipment department?

Only Xiao Ming knew this best. At this time, he went to the door of the equipment department and gave the horse to the guard.

He came at the right time. Chen Qi in the equipment department is taking the craftsmen to pour the molten iron into the iron mold.

Although the current Qingzhou can produce high-quality steel, but not all steel can be used to cast artillery.

In fact, in modern times, until the appearance of Krupp gun steel, there were no more than three materials for gun casting: copper, bronze, and iron.

Of course, there is no need to explain the copper. This is a waste of money. In Dayu, where the mining rate is very low, it's almost like using gold to make toilets.

Bronze is an alloy, which needs different metals, including lead and tin. Similarly, the lack of these metals in Qingzhou is not easy for Xiao Ming.

Therefore, he could only honestly choose the cast iron gun. Although this kind of gun had disadvantages, it was still the mainstream of modern artillery from the 15th century to the end of the 18th century.

After all, the pursuit of any product is relatively cost-effective, and cast iron gun obviously has a great advantage in cost-effective.

"Your Highness, it will be ready in a moment."

The iron mold of the gun is set up next to the blast furnace. As long as the door of the blast furnace is opened, hot metal will be poured into the iron mold.

However, there are still many things to prepare before that. The casting of artillery is a delicate work. A failure will cause great losses, and it will also delay the casting of the next artillery.

So before casting the artillery, Xiao Ming told the craftsmen to strictly follow the procedure of casting the artillery step by step.

Under his supervision, a craftsman began to paint the inner surface of the iron mold with a mixture of fine rice husk and fine sand. The preparation of these two things was also very strict. Rice husk was crushed into powder and sieved more than 30 times to get a uniform powder. The sand was basically the same, and the particles in it were basically the same size.

This is to avoid holes of different sizes on the gun body, and also to prevent the gun body and the iron mold from sticking together, otherwise the gun and the iron mold will be discarded together.

At the end of the first coating, the craftsman brushes the second coating again, which uses fine pulverized coal ground into powder.

The purpose is very simple. It is for carburizing. As we all know, the higher the carbon content in iron, the greater the hardness of iron. After pouring hot metal, this layer of pulverized coal coating will go deep into the outer layer of the gun, making the shell of the gun hard, thus reducing the burst rate of the gun.

These two kinds of coating brushing is also very particular, must be uniform and careful.

When the craftsman finished painting, Xiao Ming checked and asked the craftsman to deal with some defects again.

Then let the craftsman fasten the iron mold with iron hoop.

At the same time, some craftsmen began to heat the iron mold to prevent the outer layer of molten iron from cooling too fast when contacting the iron mold, which would affect the carburizing effect.

After all this work, Xiao Ming asked Chen Qi to make a special ceramic core and insert it into the mold.

Generally speaking, the production of artillery needs to use clay core, but learning from the experience of later generations, in order to improve the quality of artillery as much as possible, he decided to use ceramic core.

In this way, the inner side of the gun can be cooled quickly by injecting water into the middle of the ceramic core, so as to improve the strength of the inner chamber.

And this process is also called tight water.

"Let's go." When the preparatory work is finished, Xiao Ming asks with great expectation.

Nodded, Chen Qi's look excited, busy for a month, this Qingzhou first artillery finally to be born.

At this time, Chen Qi suddenly has a kind of uneasiness and joy that a woman is pregnant and about to give birth.

With trembling lips, Chen Qi called out: "pour in the molten iron!"

At the command, a craftsman suddenly opened the door of the blast furnace, and the red hot metal flowed down from the pipe groove of the blast furnace with a hot smell.

Even if it was five meters away from the blast furnace, Xiao Ming still felt a warm feeling on his face.

And the close-up craftsman is sweating, but now every craftsman's eyes have a sense of expectation.

Chen Qi told them that if the gun was successfully cast, his highness said that everyone would be rewarded with 100 liang of silver, which would be an incentive for all craftsmen.

For these ordinary craftsmen, who is not in pursuit of a better life, and money is their greatest encouragement.

The red molten iron was slowly poured into the mold. When the height of the molten iron was about to be level with the muzzle of the gun, a craftsman took a hammer and gently knocked on the mold.This is to make the hot metal deposit more uniform.

After the molten iron was completely flush with the muzzle, another craftsman in charge of cooling began to pour well water into the ceramic core of the iron mold.

At the same time, a craftsman put a section of dried pig large intestine into the ceramic core.

The water in the ceramic core needs to be changed continuously until the molten iron inside is completely solidified, and the cooling water needs to be changed continuously at this time.

In this era, Xiao Ming obviously couldn't find anything like rubber tubes, so he had to use dried pig intestines instead.

In fact, in ancient times, animal viscera did replace rubber tubes.

Even in modern times, the pig's large intestine is still used. It can be seen that the toughness of the pig's large intestine is good, and it can replace part of the rubber tube.

The craftsmen above are busy replacing the cooling water.

After waiting for a while, seeing that the molten iron in the mold had solidified, the rest of the craftsmen immediately began to take off the mold under the command of Xiao Ming.

At this time, the outer layer of the gun was still red hot, and many protruding burrs could be seen outside. The craftsman in charge of deburring immediately began to clean it, making the gun body smooth and round.

After all this work, Xiao Ming finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the rest was waiting for the gun body to cool and solidify completely.

Chen Qi said at this time: "Your Highness, is this gun as magical as you said? When can we pull this gun out and try its power? How much more powerful is it than the firepower of Dayu? "

"You don't have to try to know one day at a time." Xiao Ming said confidently.

Dayu's fireplaces are not only crude but also poorly made. Although they basically have the rudiment of artillery, they still lag behind.

The effect is not as good as the Huihui gun that the barbarians snatched back from the western regions.

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