Chapter 98 The Truth Is only Within the Range of the Cannon
[Recite the URL three times silently. Do you remember it? If not, I will ask again in the next chapter. It would be best if you could share it on Facebook for me]
In the autumn of the seventh year of Tianqi, when Qin Hao set foot on the land of Taiwan Island again, it announced that the journey to the Ming Dynasty, which lasted for more than a month, had temporarily come to an end.
Of course, it was only temporary, because in a few days, he would send another batch of salt back, and then he could collect a huge amount of salt money, and go to Xiaoxiang Pavilion to help Li Xiangjun redeem herself, and have a beautiful wife to take care of herself.
The purpose of coming back this time was, on the one hand, to calm people's hearts, and on the other hand, to inspect the situation in various places. Although the sparrow is small, it has all the internal organs.
The former Qin Hao's appearance caused a lot of sensation, and he calmed everyone's hearts by walking around for a day. The latter inspected two main places, one was the shipyard and the other was the cannon foundry.
For wooden ships, the biggest problem is the service life, which is also the most difficult to solve, because the bottom of wooden ships is easy to breed marine organisms. In order to attach to the bottom of the ship, they will release corrosive hydrochloric acid, which will cause cracks and holes in the ship. For this trouble, Qin Hao directly ordered the craftsmen to wrap the bottom of the ship with copper. Copper is an inactive mineral and will not react with hydrochloric acid. Just such a small change has solved the problem that has existed for hundreds of years.
In the stunned eyes of the shipbuilding master, Qin Hao took Li Chun to the cannon foundry without stopping.
Men, all like to play with knives and cannons, Qin Hao is no exception, and naturally pays special attention to the cannon foundry.
On the first day of entering, there were rows of newly forged cannon barrels on the ground of the cannon foundry, which made Qin Hao's blood boil.
He knew that cannons were the future, and all truths were only within the range of cannons. You have to have cannons to speak to me. Besides, there will be money soon. Once the cannon sounds, there is nothing to fear about gold.
If you have money, you can make it!
We can fire as many shells as we can, we don't lack money!
Okay! Our artillery construction will start with bronze cannons, but we will start with the highest level of bronze cannons, the Napoleon bronze cannons!
Thanks to the mining sites on Taiwan Island, the most non-ferrous metal mineral in the entire Taiwan is copper.
The Tongshan copper mine in Yilan in the future has a proven volume of 300,000 tons, and 180,000 tons can be mined in the shallow layer. Li Chun sent people to prepare early, so there is no shortage of copper in the warehouse. Moreover, if Qin Hao changes silver into copper coins, it will be up and down in a few hundred thousand coins in a minute, and he doesn't care about these coppers at all.
In addition, nowadays, countless water wheels and water rafts have been established in the riverside areas. Through the promotion of the concept of water wheels as a source of power, many craftsmen began to think about using water power to do work that cannot be achieved by manpower.
Okay! With basic power, raw materials and skilled workers, Li Chun's work progress will naturally not be dragged down.
Use steel casting to make a cylinder, one end is closed, and there is a solid cylinder in the center. The cylinder is 122 mm thick and 20 cm shorter than the cylinder. Both the cylinder and the steel column must be polished and ground to make the maximum error no more than 5 mm. Break the refractory bricks and grind them into a fine powder like flour, then mix a small amount of animal oil and apply the thinner layer by layer on the surface with a small brush.
Finally, inject molten copper into the plastic film to cast the gun barrel. After casting, forging, boring, grinding, rapid cooling, adding gun ears, and tying iron chains, the gun body is pulled out of the steel mold by hydraulic power and sent to the drilling machine to drill holes to make the fire door. In this way, a bronze cannon completes all the processes.
Unfortunately, there is no large hydraulic press in the cannon foundry. If there is a hydraulic press, the cannon made by the self-extrusion method will be of better quality. It will be faster, easier, and cheaper.
After the craftsmen weighed and measured, Qin Hao could confirm that he had obtained the first bronze forged cannon with a caliber of 122 mm. According to the conversion of caliber and weight, it should be a very powerful 12-pound cannon in this era.
However, looking at the copper flowing in like water, Qin Hao still felt a little painful. After all, this was money. He asked: "Is it too expensive to make cannons with copper?"
In order to save experimental funds and uphold the fine tradition of thrift and diligence of the Chinese nation, Qin Hao ordered that anyone who could think of a way to save money, even if it could only save a little, would be rewarded with a minimum of 100 taels of silver, with no upper limit.
After this, many craftsmen came up with many ways within three days, but they were all small improvements on the original basis, without major technical difficulties, and none of them were good ways in Qin Hao's mind. Of course, a lot of money was sent down.
Finally, Qin Hao could only turn his attention to our chief craftsman Li Chun.
Li Chun was also very clear about what he did. As long as it was related to the gunboat, Qin Hao found that there was nothing he couldn't do.
In full view of the public, he first used carbon steel to make a steel pipe with an inner diameter of 17 mm. After dividing the steel pipe into two halves, he performed polishing treatments such as boring and grinding on the inside. Then he made a steel rod with a diameter of 8 mm.
Then, he fixed the steel pipe and the steel rod, fixed the steel rod in the middle of the steel pipe, and then poured clay ground into fine powder inside. Then, he burned the medium carbon steel red, forged it, and burned it red again after forging until it was translucent. Then, he used a hydraulic press to force the red-hot steel rod into the steel pipe. Then, he slowly rotated the steel rod in the center of the steel pipe. When its color turned completely black, he pulled out the steel rod and separated the steel pipe, and he got a nearly perfect steel pipe.
When he brought this steel pipe and the process test record to Qin Hao, Qin Hao's first reaction was, my God!
Isn't this the best musket barrel? ! If it is rifled, heated, and quenched with a mixture of horse urine and cold salt water. Then plated with copper, it will be a perfect rifle barrel!
Qin Hao held Li Chun's hands, "Old Chun, you are really my lucky star!"
Qin Hao knew very well that the biggest cost of today's muskets, whether it is a matchlock gun, a flintlock gun, or the so-called early and iron cannons of the Japanese, is the manufacture of the barrel.
Li Chun rolled his eyes helplessly, somewhat despising his own boss. He would have known these technologies a long time ago. If you hadn't arranged for me to do those useless jobs many times, these guns and cannons that surpassed the century would have been made long ago, and there would be no need to wait until now.
Of course, Qin Hao didn't care about his contempt at all. With these good things, who would care about your contempt?
"The guns are ready, let's go out and try them." Looking at the full row of 12-pound main guns, Qin Hao was so happy that he couldn't walk. "It turns out that being so happy really makes your legs weak."
In the end, Qin Hao was carried aboard by several people.
"Raise the sails!"
"Raise the sails!"
A few loud slogans, dozens of white sails like clouds were full of wind under the operation of the sailors, and with a beautiful rotation, they sailed to the distant sea. All the way, the rumbling sound of cannons came all the way.
The sailors were happily conducting adaptive training and artillery exercises, but Li Chun, who was also a designer, was not satisfied with such a warship.
From the perspective of structural and other technical parameters, the scissor sailboat is not very suitable for being a gunboat, especially not suitable for carrying a large number of artillery. In order to make up for this defect, Li Chun had to reinforce the keel and deck a lot. He even used carbon steel as the keel of the ship, which seemed to be a waste of money to the craftsmen.
This behavior was criticized by the shipbuilding craftsmen invited by the Ming Dynasty, but Qin Hao chose to believe it despite all the opposition.
The result was that this choice would not go wrong at all. After Li Chun's transformation, the warships were greatly improved in terms of stability, displacement and speed. Finally, he asked the craftsmen to assemble the ship modules.
"This is to use the assembly line in shipbuilding" Qin Hao was stunned by this idea.
If this method is successful, a dock can launch a large ship with a displacement of about 300 tons in just seven days, which is simply horrifying.
Qin Hao stood on the lookout tower at the bow, looking at the gunboats speeding on the sea, and was secretly proud in his heart.
Although his maritime power is in the initial stage, compared with the old maritime countries such as Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom on the sea, his maritime power is too weak, and the number of ships, sailors, and artillery are not enough, but as long as he makes a little progress every day, he can eventually send the warships of these Western European countries to the graveyard.
Besides, Qin Hao is not completely powerless now. Before the next departure, the entire Keelung Port will have 10 250-300-ton scissor-type sailing ships, each equipped with 20 12-pound steel cannons, which is enough to dominate the sea of the Ming Dynasty.
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