Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 217 Arms Diplomacy
In the middle reaches of Xindian Creek, where the Firearms Bureau is located, an 18-pound long gun with fine workmanship and exquisite decoration is undergoing preparations for testing.

This is a bronze cannon cast using the lost wax method. It will be used in the fortresses of Keelung or Danshui in the future. Seven cannons of the same type produced using the same batch of raw materials have been tested, and all of them have successfully passed acceptance.

"Brother Araki, please look at this. This is the latest cannon made by the Firearms Bureau of Jinhe State. This cannon is more than one foot long and weighs more than five thousand kilograms. It can fire cannonballs weighing fifteen kilograms several miles away..." Lin Hai pointed out He introduced the artillery to Sotaro Araki and Ou Zuoji.

The test personnel of the Bureau of Firearms are installing this 25-caliber 18-pounder gun. In front of them is a loose earth wall several feet thick. Three huge logs are deeply inserted into the earth wall. They are used to clamp Fixed artillery.

According to the Bureau of Firearms' artillery testing regulations, only heavy artillery of 12 pounds or above needs to use this kind of tooling; artillery smaller than this can be fired from the gun carriage.

Of course, loose soil and thick walls are necessary, and the medicine line also needs to be led to the other side of the soil wall. All personnel must stay in the safe zone to prevent the chamber from exploding during the test.

Before installing the artillery, another group of people were inspecting the gunpowder for testing. The inspection method was to put two cents of gunpowder in the palm of the hand or on a wooden board. After igniting, white smoke appeared in the palm of the hand, the palm of the hand was not hot, and the wooden board left no trace, which means the gunpowder was qualified. Otherwise, the gunpowder was qualified. If there is black smoke, the palm of the hand is hot, or the board is burnt, it is not qualified.

After all preparations for the test were completed, Lin Hai took Sotaro Araki and Ou Zuoji and retreated to the safe zone. He only heard the test password coming from the other side of the earth wall: "First shot of the half-medicine gun!"

Lin Hai explained to Sotaro Araki: "When testing the cannon, a total of six rounds need to be fired. First, use a half-medicated shot, then use a regular shot, and finally, double the shot and double the shot. Fire twice at each point to check that the gun body is intact. It can be delivered from the factory.”

Just as Ou Zuoji was translating, the testers on the other side of the earth wall had completed loading the half-medicine gun, and then they came to the safe area and ignited the medicine line.

"Brother Araki, this is the cannon foundry of Jinhe Kingdom. How do you feel?" After the visit, Lin Hai asked with a smile.

At this time, there happened to be an artillery piece sent from the foundry workshop working in the pond. The operator first put a spiral iron gun into the muzzle and checked whether there were any obvious unevenness in the inner bore through contact.

"It's an eye-opener, it's an eye-opener!" Araki Sotaro sighed repeatedly. He had a shipyard, but he didn't have an artillery factory. The shogunate had very strict control over firearms.

"The second shot of the half-medicine gun..."

The copper melting furnace is not simple either, it uses a reverberatory furnace design. Different from traditional shaft furnaces, the metal in the reverberatory furnace does not come into contact with the fuel, which can reduce the entry of harmful impurities such as phosphorus and sulfur, which is also very important for the quality of the artillery.

After the gun detector checked that it was correct, the rod and cone-shaped gun was burned until it was extremely red, and then inserted into the barrel of the gun as a searchlight to visually inspect whether there were other defects.

In the end, the artillery successfully passed the factory test. Lin Hai then took his brother-in-law and Sotaro Araki to visit the gun foundry, and the director of the Firearms Bureau also accompanied him.

The machining accuracy of the vertical boring machine is higher than that of the horizontal boring machine, because the rotary cutter and its rotating shaft have a typical cantilever beam structure, which will bend due to gravity when placed horizontally. With the material stiffness of this era, this effect cannot be ignored. The longer the rotary knife's rotating shaft, the more obvious this problem becomes.

The medicine line stretched several feet long. After a while, a loud noise was heard. The tester went over to clean the barrel and inspect the barrel, and then loudly reported to the person in charge: "The barrel is intact."

As the commands sounded one after another, the 18-pound cannon fired six times in total. The last two were Gongsun bullets fired with double charge. The total bullet weight was twice the weight of a single bullet. This kind of gameplay will seriously affect the life of the barrel, especially for cast artillery, which is not suitable for frequent use.

Everyone finally came to the workshop responsible for machining. The main processes here were grinding the muzzle, rotary boring, and drilling the fire door. Of course, one thing needs to be done before that, which is to check the inner bore of the semi-finished artillery. Ming Dynasty military books generally call it "gaitang".

These Araki Sotaro could only watch the fun, and Lin Hai didn't have to explain it to him in detail. The main reason for bringing him here was to prove to him that the 18-pound long gun just tested was produced by Jinhe Country, and to pass on this information. To Guangnan Kingdom.

In addition, the most eye-catching thing is the wooden machinery used for lifting, transporting and guiding the weight. The clay mold of the artillery is even heavier than the gun itself, and it cannot be moved without such machinery.

Therefore, as long as the barrel length exceeds a certain threshold, the Firearms Bureau's operating procedures specify that a vertical boring machine must be used for rotary boring operations.

Of course, this step can also be achieved by using a reflector to reflect sunlight, but that must be done outdoors and has weather requirements.

If the cannon fails to pass the test, the cannon can be declared scrapped. There is no need for further processing and it can be recast directly. The copper material may not be lost much, but the clay mold, which took the longest time, was made in vain. It is a one-time use.

"To be honest, Brother Araki, I was surprised when I came to the firearms bureau of Jinhe Kingdom for the first time. There are the best cannon-casting craftsmen in the world. I think they are even better than the Ming craftsmen and Nanman craftsmen." Lin Haichui It doesn’t sound like it’s awesome, but the company’s firearms bureau does indeed integrate Eastern and Western technologies.

After passing through Kantang, the artillery was sent for rotary boring. The Firearms Bureau has both animal-driven vertical boring machines and water wheel-driven horizontal boring machines.

Everyone first came to the workshop where molds, cores, and molds were made. There were many clay molds and cores being dried in the workshop, and several clay mold revolving racks were applying mud to the gun molds.

The Nguyen Lord of Annan is not a local leopard. The Portuguese help make firearms and train the army, but Lin Hai estimates that the Quang Nam Kingdom still cannot make the 18-pound long cannon. This will give Ruan Fuyuan an intuition about the military industry capabilities of the Kim Ha Kingdom. impression.

The foundry also has these machines, but the most eye-catching ones are the musket casting table and the furnace. At this time, the lower mold core installation operation is being carried out in the kiln of the gun casting platform. This is a very critical process. The accuracy of the core mold installation and positioning has a great influence on the accuracy of the gun bore.

"Lin Sang, could the treasure you mentioned yesterday be the collapse of the country?" Sotaro Araki suddenly realized and asked again. The little devils like to use exaggerated words. Guobeng is what they call cannons, and blunderbuss are called iron cannons.

"Brother Araki is indeed very perceptive, but what Her Majesty the Queen wants to give to Lord Ruan is not the cannons we saw just now, but ten more practical small cannons." Lin Hai replied with a smile.

What he planned to give to Lord Ruan was the Weiyuan Cannon, but there was nothing interesting in the forging workshop except for the hydraulic forging hammer. The visual impact was stronger in the foundry. Anyway, Sotaro Araki could just watch the fun, so Lin Hai took it He brought it here.

The reason why the Weiyuan Cannon was given was not because Lin Hai was stingy. This thing was indeed more practical for Guangnan Country. The Zheng Ruan dispute in Annan will begin to enter a hot war mode this year. Compared with heavy artillery that can only be used to attack or defend cities, light artillery such as Weiyuan artillery is indeed more practical. Moreover, the wrought iron cannon with a bamboo shell structure is a unique technology of the Ming Dynasty. As far as the 3-pounder cannon is concerned, its overall performance has basically reached the level of the cast copper cannon during the Napoleonic Wars.

In fact, during the French War, the French army had a 3-pound mountain gun whose technical specifications were basically the same as the Weiyuan gun. The caliber, magnification, and weight were all very close. When the Ming army used light artillery such as the Weiyuan cannon, it was common practice to use double charges to fire Gongsun bombs. This method was basically only used to test cannons in Europe.

It can be seen that the forged iron cannon is quite solid. This is because the forging process can remove the loose structure and adopt the bamboo shell structure forging process. The weight of the same-power cannon can reach the level of the cast cannon two hundred years later.

It should be noted that European cannon casting technology experienced leaps and bounds in the 18th century. Great progress was made from metal smelting to casting to machining. The most critical one was the adoption of solid bore technology, which resulted in cannons of the same power being more powerful than two It was less than half the weight of a century ago.

This is why heavy field artillery in the Thirty Years' War basically did not move during battles, while all field artillery in the Battle of Nairobi placed great emphasis on mobility. This is also why Prussia developed cavalry artillery at the end of the 18th century. This is an artillery unit that can follow the cavalry in rapid maneuvers. Once it appeared, it quickly became popular in various countries.

Give the Weiyuan Cannon to Ruan Fuyuan. If he gets addicted to using it, he will have no choice but to come to Jinhe Country to buy it again. On the contrary, for things like Hongyi cannons, he had other channels. There were many Portuguese private traders willing to serve the Guangnan ruler, so he could just buy them from the Bocaro Cannon Factory in Haojing.

This can also be regarded as paving the way for Huiyu Company's future arms trade. It is unrealistic to expect that the size of this thing can be compared with raw silk, but its diplomatic significance is of great importance. It can be said that firearms technology is indispensable for the success of Western devils in Asia. This is the reason why many countries have contacts with them.

"Brother Araki, the ten small cannons that Her Majesty the Queen gave to Lord Ruan are already on their way to Keelung. You can see them when you return to Keelung."

Lin Hai also asked the Firearms Bureau to compile a user manual a year ago to provide detailed instructions on the use and maintenance of the Weiyuan gun. There is no such service in this era. He believes that it can definitely bring a different user experience.

The user manual is written in Chinese. The Annan character is only used among the people, and the official text is still in Chinese characters. There is no need to send people for user training. The Guangnan Army's level of firearms use is not low. This user manual is completely sufficient.

After sending away Araki Sotaro, Lin Hai stayed in Tamsui for a few more days. This boy was so happy that he simply lived on a flower boat in Guandu, hired two servants, and enjoyed the blessings of the whole family every night.

The sailors brought out by Ou Zuoji were naturally not idle. Suddenly, more than ten flower boats were overcrowded, and their performance reached a record high.

However, Lin Hai had no time to fool around with his adopted brother. He first summoned Wu Guoyi to give instructions on the Army Department's adaptation plan.

Since the top military bureau is placed in the Security Department, the clause submitted by Wu Guoyi is not complicated. The main focus is to increase the rate of firearms equipment.

Judging from the several battles with Zheng Zhilong's troops, as long as the firearms unit performs well, the killer team will basically not take action in the battle.

Of course, Zheng Zhilong's troops are just a ragtag group and cannot force the Army Department into brutal hand-to-hand combat, but this does not mean that this will be the case for all future enemies. Therefore, the killer team responsible for melee combat is still indispensable. As long as they stand, they will be the psychological support of the gunman, especially if there are cavalry on the opposite side.

In view of this, Wu Guoyi proposed to add a team of gunners to each sentry, that is, each sentry would be composed of four killer teams and two gunners teams, and the firearm equipment rate would be increased from one-quarter to one-third.

Lin Hai generally agreed with this idea, but his idea was a bit more radical: "Guoyi, I think the proportion of gunners is still not enough. It is best to reach more than half of the entire army."

Wu Guoyi heard this and said, "What does the chief officer mean by saying that there are four killer teams and four cannon teams at each sentry?"

"No, I plan to put the musket hand below the bureau, with three musket whistles and three killer whistles in each bureau." Lin Hai continued to explain, "Judging from our current situation, we need to act independently in whistle units. There are not many cases, not to mention that now that there is a leading military bureau, a battle of this scale does not require the Ministry of War to take action. "

Putting musketeers on sentry posts was something Qi Jiguang did when he was fighting against Japanese invaders in the south. Because Japanese pirates often move in small groups, it is necessary to mix hot and cold weapons at the sentry level with less than a hundred people in order to improve their ability to fight independently. ability.

This is no longer in line with the current actual needs of the Ministry of War, and Wu Guoyi also agrees with this.

The second major aspect is about artillery. Wu Guoyi proposed to abolish the artillery bureau, and then add an artillery post to each bureau with two Weiyuan cannons and four Franco machine guns.

Regarding this point, the two had preliminary exchanges on Dongshan Island, and Lin Hai did not raise any objection.

The third point is to set up personal soldiers directly under the local department at the bureau level, and to set up personal soldiers directly under the department at the department level. In the past, the chief officers at these two levels were only equipped with two soldiers plus one literate person. , which is obviously not enough.

Lin Hai also agreed with this, but he changed the personal sentry posts of the headquarters to the direct jurisdiction of the Chinese Army. At present, the Ministry of War has only one department, and Wu Guoyi serves concurrently as the officer in charge and the commander-in-chief of the department. This is actually the same thing in actual work.

However, there is a difference in name. The direct control of the Chinese Army means that this personal guard post is Lin Hai's personal soldier, and the Chinese military officer Wu Guoyi is just in charge of it for him.

After this round of reorganization, the number of personnel in each bureau of the Army Department reached 350. It was no longer appropriate for the chief officer to be called President Bai, and he was renamed Commander General.

The division-level officials were renamed from the General Manager to General Manager Qian, and from the four subordinate bureaus to three bureaus. In terms of headcount, this General Manager Qian was worthy of his name.

The total number of people in the War Department has basically remained at its original size, but the number of soldiers has increased, and the artillery has been cut by more than half.

Changjiang Yu, the former artillery bureau officer, was equivalent to losing his official position. Lin Hai still had high hopes for this person and planned to talk to him in person.

(End of this chapter)