The Soul of the Han Dynasty in the Late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 282

The excited slave chief thought that God bless the Kingdom of Jin, and named the newly cast cannon "God Bless the Great General".

In a few days, he set up a new camp outside the Eight Banners Army, "Wuzhenchaoha", which translates into Chinese as "heavy soldiers". There are many.

Hong Jie appointed the big traitor Tong Yangxing as the commander-in-chief and Cao Zhenyan as the instructor. "Wuzhenchaoha" completely imitated the Ming army's artillery tactics and three-stage bird shooting platoon shooting for training.

Due to the brutal military discipline of the post-Jin army, the combat effectiveness of the trained "Wuzhenchaoha" was even worse than that of the Ming army with the same number and equipment.

This is the case with what kind of people lead what kind of soldiers. Too many Ming soldiers who were captured by Jiannu joined the Jin army and their combat effectiveness skyrocketed.

In history, when Wu Sangui, Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and Shang Kexi served for Ming Dynasty, they always suffered defeat and always chose to run away.

However, after recognizing the slave-building masters, they all became the vanguards and pawns of the slave-building after the Jin army entered the customs. These traitors participated in every tragic massacre.

Hongxie thought that with the cannons and artillery in the Dajin Kingdom, the Dajin Army's attacking ability would be greatly improved, and it would no longer be afraid of the Ming Army to hold on to the city.

Indeed, since the fourth year of Chongzhen, the later Jin army really dared to fight urban offensive and defensive battles. In the next battle of Daling River, Zhang Chun, the commander of the Ming army, suffered from the loss of barbarians and had artillery fire, and was blasted out of the car formation. lead to a rout.

After 1631, Jin was able to cast the Hongyi cannon, which was clearly recorded in the annals of history. Of course Huang Han knew it, so he was not idle when he was in the capital at the end of last year.

Sun Yuanhua became the governor of Denglai, a feudal official in Xinjiang. Of course, it is impossible to personally participate in the casting of cannons as before when he was working in the Ministry of Industry.

The imperial court gave preferential treatment to scholar-bureaucrats, but never to skilled workers. Those great craftsmen who followed Sun Yuanhua to forge Hongyi cannons are still dawdling in the capital today.

Huang Han knew that there were a lot of great artisans in the capital who possessed the skills of casting cannons and blunderbusses, and the imperial court did not pay too much attention to these people. He used Xu Guangqi's relationship to directly ask dozens of households to send them to "Tiger Cave" city before the New Year's Eve.

These great craftsmen have all been secretly checked by the "Banner Guard", and without exception, they are all masters with superb skills. Huang Han's acquisition of these people means that the "Red Banner Army" of Ming Dynasty's highest cannon-casting technology will soon be possessed.

Now and then, Huang Han has the "Tiger's Cave" city as his base, and he is full of confidence.

With soldiers in hand, money and food, if you can't break the golden finger at this time, when will you wait to cast cannons, make guns, and produce glass?
Counting to the cold winter, the factories in the system are operating at full capacity, and there are still job opportunities in this feline winter. Shengdou Xiaomin is very happy. Nowadays, no skilled labor can get about a tael of silver in steel factories and kiln factories. There is no doubt about the enthusiasm of the remuneration.

The output of steel produced by Huang's has been rising steadily, the quality has stabilized, and the management regulations are also advancing with the times. A small amount of spring steel has begun to be produced, and the research and development of high-hardness drills has repeatedly failed and started from scratch.

Both Houjin and Daming used the "lost wax method" or "investment molding method" to cast iron cannons, and both used clay molds. This method was time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the yield was extremely low.

Huang Han Kai Goldfinger led the master blacksmith to adopt the technology of steel mold hollow casting invented by Major Thomas Dean Rodman of the US Army in the [-]th century.

That is to cast the gun around the core, and then cool it with running water. This is a method to harden the inside of the gun bore first. The principle is that the outer metal shrinks inward when it cools, and continues to pressurize the hardened inner layer.

The explosive force of the barrel propellant cast by this process is absorbed by the entire thick metal layer around the barrel instead of expanding outward.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were technical records of casting cannons with iron core and copper body.

The craftsmen cleverly took advantage of the physical properties of copper, which has a melting point of more than [-] degrees, which is far lower than that of iron, which is [-] degrees. After the iron body was cooled, it was molded by clay casting or lost wax method, and the copper wall was cast.

Compared with the previous iron or copper cannons, this new type of firearm is not only thinner, lighter, less expensive, but also more durable.

The same is true of the hollow casting process principle of Huang Hankai Goldfinger. This method was not difficult to use in the Ming Dynasty. Cast iron or cast steel can be used. It is nothing more than a load-bearing container. Besides fixing the gun mold, it plays a role in heat dissipation. The master craftsmen have tested it. This technique was quickly mastered.

The advantage of the steel mold with quartz sand lining on the inner wall is that it is convenient to integrate and can be recycled, which greatly shortens the casting cycle and saves costs. Unlike clay mold casting, it takes time to wait for the clay mold that can only be used once to dry in the shade.

The disadvantage of the steel mold is that the heat dissipation is too fast, so that the molten pig iron has a large degree of supercooling when it is cooled. The cementite in the molten iron has no time to precipitate, and the graphitization has not had time to proceed, and the graphite has already solidified.

Therefore, the cementite in cast iron mainly exists in the form of iron carbide, that is, white iron that is brittle and easily cracked.

Huang Han has checked the information a long time ago and knows how to make the iron mold slowly dissipate heat. The method is very simple, bury the iron mold in the hot sand and let the mold and casting slowly cool down with the hot sand, which is a better solution to this problem. question.

The technologies mastered are different. It took half a year for the Jin army to obtain six fireable Hongyi cannons. After the cannon-casting masters of the "Red Banner Army" system completed the theory and practice, they were able to cast sixty smoothbore cannons in one month. gun.

In the busy work, spring is gone in the blink of an eye. After several months of training, and because the supplementary recruits already have a certain foundation, the combat effectiveness of the "Red Banner Army" has been greatly improved.

Chongzhen is more concerned about the "Red Banner Army", and wants to know whether the "Red Banner Army" has been fully staffed and how much combat power has recovered in the past six months?

He sent Shao Xishao, an internal officer, to Funingwei to inspect the troops of the Yongping Reinforcement Battalion stationed here, and to see the "Red Banner Army" drill with his own eyes.

Huang Han did not hide his strength. He personally led [-] "Red Banner Army" soldiers to accept the inspection.

But the careful Shao Xishao discovered that young men aged 1000 or [-] actually accounted for more than half of them.Because of Fang Zhenghua's relationship, the eunuchs already had a good impression of Huang Han, and Shao Xishao got a big red envelope worth [-] taels of silver, of course he would tell the truth when he saw the emperor.

When Shao Xishao returned to Beijing, he truthfully reported that the "Red Banner Army" had the ambition to serve the country from top to bottom. Unfortunately, the army was young and children accounted for the majority. It still needs time to sharpen.

The emperor learned that Huang Han worked hard and had a full battalion in less than three months after returning to Funing. Of course, he knew that the "Red Banner Army" had many recruits and many child soldiers, and believed that it would take time to form combat effectiveness.

(End of this chapter)