Cutting 1719

Chapter 34 Rapid Development

The Ningjia Iron Mine in Yunmeng County was boiling, and blast furnaces stood in Zhuangzi. Black smoke spread into the sky like black clouds.

Slightly blazing yellow molten iron flowed out of the blast furnace with white mist, and everyone cheered.

The elder of the Ning family, Ning Zhongxin, who was in charge of the Ning family mine, looked excitedly at the molten iron that had just been produced from the blast furnace, as if he had seen a myth.

When did ironmaking become so easy?It can even be said that this is not ironmaking, but steelmaking.

Looking at Ning Yu who was standing beside him, Ning Zhongxin opened his mouth, swallowed his surprise with great difficulty, and said with a smile, "You kid, why do you have such a brain? The quality of this iron is comparable to mine on Daye Iron Mountain. It’s much better to see! That iron is impure, brittle and not durable, but our iron is too pure!”

Ning Yu said with a smile: "This blast furnace steelmaking method originally produces steel, so it is not surprising that the iron produced here is of high purity."

The so-called high-purity refined iron is actually the product of the local method of steelmaking that Ning Yu knew in his previous life. A small blast furnace was built with clay bricks, and then the wood was burned into charcoal to remove the excessive carbon in the iron, so that The carbon content is reduced to become steel.

Therefore, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the technology Ning Yu brought up was simply an epoch-making product. Therefore, Ning Yu also specially warned not to let unrelated people touch the core part of ironmaking.

Ning Yu has been here for ten days. After more than a dozen furnace experiments, this blast furnace finally produced the first furnace of high-quality pig iron.If this kind of iron is used to cast cannons, Ning Yu believes that the life of the mother and child cannons can be extended by more than double.However, the smelted iron is not for personal use, but is cast into weapons and armaments, and then sold at a high price.

In addition to the more sensitive mother and child cannons, such as shotguns and swords can be cast, and the quality is much higher than that of Shangguanying, so they can also be sold at a higher price.

Ning Yu naturally wouldn't object in his heart, because he knew that what the Ning family lacked most today was time and funds, and only after full development could they turn their potential into strength.

As soon as the things here were over, Ning Yu immediately returned to the Young Eagle Camp. After Ning Si had been guarding for such a long time, he also admired Ning Yu in his heart, so he has always been Ning Yu's driver and the Chief of Guard.

At this time, the Young Eagle Battalion was no longer just more than 350 apprentices. After accepting a large number of children of mine salt workers, the number of apprentices had risen to more than 12, but the ages of them were uneven, so Ning Yu went to the school again. Juveniles under the age of 12 are classified as Boys’ Battalion and belong to the Young Eagles Battalion. The students of the Boys’ Battalion will pass the assessment when they are [-] years old. Those who pass the assessment can enter the Young Eagles Camp. If they fail to pass, they will be assigned to other mines. field or farm.

However, the students who entered the Young Eagle Camp were unwilling to leave any more, so they all worked very hard to train, and even the Boy Camp was filled with shouts of fighting and killing.

Sometimes Ning Yu would also wonder whether it was right to do so, but every time he had this thought, Ning Yu would tell himself that in fact he had no choice, and if he couldn't move forward, the result would be extremely tragic.

Today's Young Eagle Camp has an office area, which is the staff office, military law office, and teaching office. There are people on duty every day. The relevant military camp regulations have been issued, and everyone must abide by the regulations.

Dong Ce walked over with a stack of papers in his arms, saluted Ning Yu, and said, "Barrack, now the barracks training is almost saturated, and the daily meat supplements are also greatly increased. military supply."

The current Young Eagle Battalion has not yet formally established a logistics department, and the supply of materials for Yiying is directly in charge of the Ning family's old house, while the staff department is responsible for reviewing the logistics supply and taking part of the logistics responsibilities.

However, this status quo will soon be changed. Ning Yu will set up a logistics office in the near future, because a large number of logistics materials will soon arrive at the Young Eagle Camp.

Ning Yu briefly flipped through the pages, then signed with a brush to express his agreement, then wiped his face with a towel, and asked, "Did Lei Tuozi ever send someone over?"

Dong Ce said respectfully: "Report to Yingzuo that Lei Tuozi's apprentice has come over and said that the son's previous instructions have made progress, but there are still some problems that need to be resolved."

Ning Yu quickly put down the towel, "Where is the person, take me there quickly. Also, during this period of time in the camp, we must strengthen our security to prevent anyone from getting in."

The person Lei Tuozi sent was his apprentice, and Ning Yu had seen it with his own eyes last time, so he didn't say much, and followed him to the cannon making workshop with his guards.

With Ning Yu's strong support, today's cannon making workshop has expanded a lot, even taking advantage of an empty valley behind the mountain, where a large number of craftsmen make some iron farm tools every day.

These agricultural tools are mainly provided for the use of surrounding counties and counties, and they are still used to deceive people. However, in addition to making agricultural tools, Lei Tuozi also started making cannons under Ning Yu's order.

However, with Ning Yu's suggestion and Lei Tuozi's improvement, today's gun-making technology has undergone tremendous changes.

Because the original iron mold casting cannon method greatly accelerated the casting speed and reduced the cost, but the improvement in the quality of the cannon was not particularly high. This is mainly because the gun core part still uses the old method - the iron core wrapped in mud .

This method will lead to improper preparation of fan mud, and the moisture problem is difficult to solve.If the gaps between the mud powder particles are large, it will absorb the moisture in the air. After the molten iron is poured in, the moisture will be heated and evaporated, forming air bubbles in the molten iron, resulting in the resulting cannon still having honeycombs, but it will be less than in the past. a lot of.

Therefore, in Ning Yu's idea, the mud core is completely discarded, so as to completely solve the problem of air bubbles.But it is not that simple to solve the problem of the inner bore, because this technology has been used for decades, and the British relied on the brute force of the steam engine to drill the barrel directly on the solid iron column.

This method is too hard-core, and obviously it cannot be solved by Ning Yu today, so there is only one method, which is the iron cannon core.

Lei Tuozi has studied this problem for a long time, but found that there is no way to take out the iron cannon core. If the cannon core is taken out too early, the inner chamber inside will not be cooled. If it is taken out too late, the iron core will melt with the cannon. Together, they completely became an iron pillar.

Ning Yu thought about it for a long time, and asked Lao Gao, a carpenter in the artillery field, to set up an additional spiral crane on the platform, and then inserted the iron core into the cannon. When the molten iron poured into it cooled and initially formed, he shook the handle Turning the iron core, and then hanging it out, can solve the problem of sticking.

At this point, Ning Yu's iron mold casting method is considered a great achievement.

In fact, only making cannons according to the original method is enough for use, at least it can beat the current Qing Dynasty by a large margin.

But in Ning Yu's heart, the most ideal cannon in this era is the Napoleon cannon that became famous in the American Civil War.All this is just laying the groundwork.

(End of this chapter)