The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 105 Gypsum Slag Cement
The most troublesome thing about casting cannons is making molds. If the molds are not well made, there will be problems with casting cannons. For example, if the clay mold is not dry enough, honeycomb trachoma will easily appear in the center of the cast cannons.The mud mold made of clay cannot be dried quickly by flooding, and the quick-dried clay mold is more prone to problems.

Instead of clay molds, sand molds can also be used, but the defective rate of sand molds is higher than that of mud molds.Another way is to cast it directly with iron molds!The difficulty of casting cannons in iron molds is that Song Yingkui does not know the formula of the thinner coating on the mold. The scenes of casting things he has seen before are all sprayed with ready-made thinner, even though he knows that the main material of the thing should be clay. Things, but in addition to the main ingredients, other ingredients are also very important, and random mixes may not be very useful.Besides, even if the iron mold is used to cast the cannon, the original iron mold must be cast out of the clay mold first.

The time is very urgent, but it is not too urgent to wait for a month or two, so Song Yingkui is going to make a few clay molds for casting cannons first, and then make a few clay molds for iron molds, and let them dry slowly in the shade , Wait for the mold to dry before casting the cannon.Experiment with several technologies at once, and in the worst case, scrap a few.Now there are ironworks, it is convenient to return the waste iron materials to the furnace, and there is not much waste!

After using the lost-wax method to cast the clay mold and place it in a specially vacated room in the fort to dry in the shade, Song Yingkui began to consider making other weapons for the soldiers in the garrison.First of all, we need to solve the problem of armoring all employees. Everyone must have a die-cast helmet and a set of felt armor lined with iron at key positions.

After smelting iron by yourself, it is not a big problem to equip soldiers with full iron armor.But the full iron armor is not only more labor-intensive, but also the weight is a problem. After thinking about it again and again, Song Yingkui thinks that the comprehensive performance of the felt armor with iron lining is more suitable.The method of iron lining is very simple, that is, to sew several leather sandwich layers on the felt armor, and then insert thin iron plates into them.

Ding Yumei asked some craftsmen and soldiers' wives to do the work of sewing the felt armor, so that she could do some serious work instead of staying in the fort all day washing and cooking.

Making knives and guns is relatively simple and you don’t have to worry about it. Most people can’t do it when making muskets. You have to slowly rub them out by yourself.Making bows and crossbows allows Ding Huanyi and others to share most of the work, and he only needs to worry about the key parts.

Thinking of making bows and crossbows, Song Yingkui realized a big problem.At present, the crossbow made by myself is fine for infantry combat, but not for cavalry combat.In addition, the current sentinel team members are still far from fully mastering riding and shooting. According to their posture, it may take two or three years to practice effectively using bows and arrows on horseback.

Mounted archery does not mean that you can shoot arrows while riding on a horse.In the process of moving, aiming while pulling the bow hard, it is difficult to ensure accuracy without a little effort.Fanzi and the nomads in the north have been playing with this thing since they were young, so riding and shooting is not a big deal for them, and they can even play various tricks on horses.The people of Dazheng do not have this condition, and they will practice only when they are almost adults, and they will be very slow to learn.

Recently, after observing Yang Shunan's cavalry team training with sentry, Song Yingkui realized that the traditional martial arts that he had seen before was to practice the horse fighting skills, so it was called the horse fighting skills.Poor people in Dazheng, using this simulation method to practice horse fighting skills, can they compare with people who have been fighting on real horses since they were young?

Could it be possible to make it easier for sentry riders to get started with riding and shooting through technical improvements?After pondering for a few days, Song Yingkui felt that improving the current crossbow so that it could be mounted on a horse, and that the work of pulling the bow forcefully was done in advance during the movement, so that the cavalry could only do the work of aiming and pulling the trigger when riding and shooting. Method.

The current crossbow is just a bow with a base and a trigger on the back. The body of the crossbow is too large, and the arrows on the buckle are not fixed. Such a crossbow cannot be mounted on a horse.Bows and crossbows used for horse warfare must first be small in size, easy to hang on the saddle, and easy to take and place.It is impossible for a cavalry to bring a bow and crossbow when fighting, but at least a saber, and the cavalry must switch freely between the two weapons in wartime.

Like Yang Shun'an, the way of fighting with both a spear and a bow is more complicated to operate.There will be a rope connected to the saddle at the handle of the gun. When using the bow, the gun will be dragged on the ground. After using the bow, quickly insert the bow into the quiver hanging on the saddle, and then quickly pull up the gun and get it in your hand.A gun with a rope attached to it also has restrictions on gun skills during combat. Sometimes it is necessary to remove the lanyard first, and then quickly tie the rope when the gun is to be dragged away.

In short, to have Yang Shun'an's ability, it is impossible to achieve it without three to five years of hard training.

The best way to shrink the body of the crossbow is to take the bow and make it like a gun of later generations.Making such improvements is both difficult and easy to say.The difficulty lies in the material, as long as a spring that meets the stretching requirements can be made, and then inserted into the crossbow, the rest of the work will be simple.Song Yingkui had seen the appearance of a wingless crossbow in later generations, and he could even consider installing an axle to save the effort of pulling the string.

Find a way to refine high-performance spring steel. This is the most realistic solution to make it easier for the sentry cavalry to learn how to ride and shoot.A cavalry who can't ride and shoot is useless for a toothless tiger.Song Yingkui didn't have high requirements for the sentry cavalry team, but at least they had to have a certain ability to block and contain the enemy.If you want to have this ability as soon as possible, you have to get out the wingless crossbow.

Is it okay to let the cavalry use muskets directly?The answer is of course no. Before the problem of fast reloading of muskets cannot be solved, cavalry cannot use this thing.The muskets made now are not easy to reload on the ground, let alone reload on a high-speed moving horse.If you insist on letting the musket mount the horse, the cavalry can only shoot and run away, playing one trick.

"Adjutant Yang, in the last few days, we will draw some people from the main army to start the work of laying stones for the Guancheng. The first thing to do is to select the stones that can build the wall, and then draw some people to make the cement. , let’s start building the wall.” All the messy work was put together, in addition to building weapons, you also had to wrap stone walls for the Guanbao for inspection, who let yourself blow the bull out of the certificate?Song Yingkui had no choice but to ask Yang Shunan to draw some soldiers to do the job.

"Defense, can you really make mud that can stick stones?" Building a wall with small gravel can't be done without adhesives. Until now, Yang Shun'an didn't believe that Song Yingkui could make such an unimaginable thing.

"It's not difficult. It just so happens that the waste furnace slag after ironmaking can be used as raw materials. This will save you the trouble of disposing of the waste residue. It will serve multiple purposes!" Seeing the waste residue of ironmaking, Song Yingkui thought of a way to compare the waste of later generations. Common portland cement is easier to make cement, gypsum slag cement.There are gypsum associated mines along the limestone mines along the gorge. In addition to gypsum and cold brittle granulated slag, the raw material used is lime.After heating the gypsum and grinding the other two raw materials together, the gypsum slag cement can be used. It is not easy to make this kind of cement.

(End of this chapter)