Chapter 780： Guns meritorious service (middle)

Soon, the old craftsman Niu Dafu took the governor of the Guangdong and Guangxi Chen Jin and his entourage to the southwest corner of Luorong County, surrounded by the guards of the brigade.

Niu Dafu pointed to a section of the wall road:

"Sir, this is it! The flash flood broke out from the west. There were masters of the thief chief who proposed to use a big ship and put a few irons in the bow. Then, thousands of people pushed the big ship along the flood and hit the city wall, causing the city wall to be Open a gap ... "

Chen Jin stroked his beard and said:

"This way of breaking the city is wonderful!"

Niu Dafu nodded and said:

"Although it was wonderful, it also took advantage of the situation. At that time, the mountain rushed from the west, and the water flow was very urgent. If the flow is gentle, the impact force is not so great, and it may not be able to hit the city wall. However, because of the corrupt behavior of Hu Zhubu This section of the city wall is not reliable. It was not made of glutinous rice juice and brown sugar. After more than thirty years of wind and rain, it is definitely not very reliable. Therefore, the old thinks that you can try to hit it with artillery, or The gap can be opened. "

"So good!"

As a result, Ming Army mobilized 20 earth cannons to bombard that section of the city wall according to the guidance of Old Man Niu. Sure enough, I heard the difference ...

If you bombard a general city wall, the shells hit the wall, and a relatively clear sound will be made. However, when shells hit the wall of this section, they would make a muffled noise. This muffled sound resembles a weakened drum sound ... Obviously, the wall is indeed hollow ...

As a result, the Ming army bombarded even more. After all, the Ming Dynasty was not short of gunpowder. The ingredients of the three powders of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur are only slightly insufficient in sulfur. After all, Daming does not produce natural sulfur, and alchemists often obtain sulfur from pyrite. Therefore, what is very different from the situation in Europe is that the Ming Dynasty was the most expensive for sulfur, while saltpeter and charcoal are both cheaper ...

Of course, the so-called expensive sulfur is also relative. Compared with Europe, sulfur here is still cheaper to die, only a few dozen articles per catty. Therefore, the cost of Daming gunpowder is relatively low, and it does not have to be stingy when used. After all, firecrackers made of gunpowder are now used by ordinary civilians for the holidays.

But everyone was a little embarrassed to find that the earthen cannons produced by the Ming Dynasty seemed to have insufficient power ...

Why? First of all, the caliber of those earthen cannons is relatively small, which is similar to that of the Frang cannon, and even smaller. In addition, the barrel is shorter ... In this way, the speed of the gun ejecting the bore is slower, and the impact force is smaller ...

More importantly, Daming's artillery was made of stone bullets. After all, using iron bombs is a bit extravagant. Moreover, these earth cannons are usually used to bombard enemy battle fronts, rarely used to bombard city walls.

Two days later, Master Niu took Chen Jin to observe the results and found that it was not ideal. The wall was bombarded by stone bombs, which seemed to be loose, but it was a little worse ...

"It would be nice if it was replaced with an iron bomb!" Niu Dafu shook his head.

"Difficult, iron ball shells are not without them. However, it is difficult to make suitable shells. After all, if it is not suitable for the gun, the iron **** are difficult to polish, and the stone shells are easy to polish." An old gunner said.

At this time, Chen Jin's staff, Master Zhou, suddenly said:

"Dong Weng, have you forgotten the ten Frang cannons sent by the ghosts?"

Chen Jin snapped his head and said:

"Yeah, I almost forgot them!" Chen Jin quickly ordered the Governor's personal barracks to drag all the 10 Frang guns to the front ...

Then, these 10 Frang cannons, replacing the position of the short-barreled big earthen cannon, began to bombard the city walls ...

These 10 Frang cannons are equipped with iron bombs, a total of 500 rounds. The firing rate of Fran ’s cannon was very fast, and even the shells were burned out in ten minutes ... Although the city wall was also smashed by 500 iron balls, there was no shell ...

So, the Ming Army let the Sword and Shield soldiers hold the shield, and recovered the iron ball shells under the city wall ...

However, there were generally moats around the Ming Dynasty wall, and 500 rounds of iron ball shells, most of them fell into the moat. In the end, after paying some price, the Ming Saber and Shield soldiers only recovered more than 90 shells-these were hit on the city wall and bounced back to fall on the ground ... If you want to recycle more, then you have to dive into the moat to fish . But the uprising troops on the city head are not blind. If you dare to go down the river, they will definitely stone you or shoot them with arrows ... so, only so much can be recovered ...

"Not enough!" Chen Jin felt a little depressed.

At this time, Li Sanshui, a hundred households mobilized from the Guangzhou avant-garde to help train the artillery, suddenly came out from the crowd and said:

"Sir, we can cast more shells!"

"Casting shells? How to cast?" Chen Jin is a civil servant after all.

Li Sanshui waved his hand, let his men take a sand box up, pointed at the sand box and said:

"We can turn the sand and cast iron bombs, very fast!"

After that, Li Sanshui briefly explained the process of using wet sand to turn sand to cast shells. This method was actually introduced to him by Kong Tai. Even this sand box was sent by Kong Tai.

Niu Dafu raised a question at this time:

"Master Li, Lao Xun is a craftsman. Although he is mainly engaged in civil engineering, he also knows a little about casting. If you cast an iron bomb according to your method, then the iron bomb must be potholey! The water vapor is coming straight, so that there are many gaps in the shells! Such shells are not real! "

Thinking of what Kong Tai said at the beginning, Li Sanshui shook his head and said:

"Mr. Niu, this is a bad word. This kind of casting law enforcement will indeed make the shells empty again. But how about that? Are iron bullets with gaps and iron bullets without gaps both used to hit people and walls? As long as the size is correct, the artillery can be used, so why care about the gap? "

Niu Dafu thought about it, really ...

The craftsmen of Daming are not ignorant of sand casting, but using wet sand casting, the ironware has many voids and is often not reliable. Therefore, no matter the cast cannon or the cast iron ball shell, it was later changed to the mud mould method.

But the biggest disadvantage of the mud mold method ~ www.novelhall.com ~ is the drying of the mud mold, which takes at least two or three months. Moreover, after using it once, the clay mold is scrapped. Therefore, it is so troublesome to cast iron cannons and iron ball shells. In addition, iron is more expensive, so most of the Ming artillery uses stone bullets. After all, stones are everywhere.

In fact, Ming artisans also fell into a misunderstanding. Because the artillery resists a certain pressure, it must naturally not have a blowhole, otherwise it will explode. However, the artillery shell is not so expensive, anyway, it is pushed out by gunpowder gas to smash people, not so sophisticated.

After all, what the shell needs is the impact of the kinetic energy brought by its mass, not its robustness. As long as the quality is similar, a flawless iron ball and an iron ball of equal quality filled with voids will have almost the same effect.

Moreover, when casting with wet sand, the speed is very fast. As long as the molten iron is poured into the hollow part where the iron ball is pressed out in the two half-boxes through the sprue, a shell can quickly be formed. Although the water vapor will make a lot of honeycomb on the iron ball because the wet sand is heated and transpired, how about that? It's just an iron ball that hits people and hits walls.

After figuring out this section, Chen Jin quickly ordered to collect iron materials everywhere, and then opened the furnace to melt the molten iron. At the same time, I got dozens of sand boxes, and then got some river sand in the river, and began to cast inferior iron ball shells in batches by wet sand method ...