Chapter 418 Copper-Iron Alloy Cannon 1 However, in this era of cold weapons, it is absolutely feasible to carry out technical improvements in cold weapons.
The combat effectiveness of the army in this era is mainly to rush into battle in groups, and does not depend on the combat effectiveness of individual soldiers, or in other words, the combat ability of individual soldiers is the most negligible.
From a long time ago, even during the training in Xiayi, Kong Sheng secretly began the research and development of firearms.
After hundreds of formula tests, Kong Sheng finally mastered the limit of what can be done at present, and improved the traditional black powder, which greatly enhanced its explosive power.
As for the use of firearms, in fact, it existed in the Tang Dynasty.
However, most of them stayed in the field of small individual weapons such as rockets, which were rudimentary and had a long firing cycle, which was difficult to withstand the rapid impact of the opposing cavalry, and the role they could play in the war was really limited.
The so-called musket and the like, in Kong Sheng's view, have limited lethality.
The main reason is that it is impossible to form industrial-scale manufacturing and production, and it is impossible to equip the whole army.
He does not have the ability to completely transition the era of cold weapons to the era of hot weapons, and the current military war is still based on cold weapons battle arrays.
So he had long decided on the idea of developing artillery.
As for the research and development of artillery, it began as early as after he entered Chang'an and was awarded the title of Chang'an.
Many of his industries flourished, and at least half of his wealth was secretly used by him in the development of artillery.
There is a manor in the mountains outside the city of Chang'an, which is Kong Sheng's secret firearms workshop and artillery research and development base.
Now the manor is firmly guarded by the Forbidden Soldiers, and no one knows what it is.
Even the generals under Kong Sheng's command didn't know Kong Sheng's true intentions.
In fact, artillery appeared in the Song Dynasty, not far from today, and later, in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the casting of ancient artillery reached its peak.
Kong Sheng could even imagine that if he could develop the cannon hundreds of years in advance, its lethality could definitely be called a big killing weapon, as another bargaining chip for him to settle down in this era.
Kong Sheng asked Wu Xianwu to solve the two of them, and recruited dozens of folk craftsmen of all kinds, carpenters, blacksmiths, gunpowder masters, and so on.
These craftsmen worked day and night to experiment and explore according to Kong Sheng's ideas.
Kong Sheng drew on the advantages of the cannon and the Yuan and Ming artillery of later generations to determine the drawings of the Kong's artillery.
The difficulty lies in the casting of the barrel.
The barrel of the gun is long, the wall of the pipe is very thick, and it is gradually thickened from the muzzle to the tail of the gun, which conforms to the principle of high pressure from high to bottom when gunpowder is burned; There are cylindrical lugs on both sides of the center of gravity of the gun body, and the gun can adjust the firing angle with this axis and change the firing range according to the amount of gunpowder; It is equipped with a crosshair and a light gate, and the trajectory is calculated according to the parabola, which is very accurate.
The cannon he wants to develop is about 3 meters long, with a caliber of 110,130 mm and a weight of more than 2 tons.
When the projectile is heated, it is loaded into the barrel, the fuse is lit first, and then the barrel is ignited, and the projectile explodes after reaching the target.
Its principle of action is to convert the energy burned in the barrel into the muzzle kinetic energy of the projectile to eject the projectile, and at the same time produce sound, light, heat and other effects.
But if one is not done well, it will explode.
This puts forward higher requirements for the material of the barrel.
Judging from the current level of smelting skills, Kong Sheng knew that it was not realistic to cast cannon barrels with steel.
It's better to use copper instead.
It's just that the current copper is a scarce metal, and the mining amount is not high, and most of it is used to make money and control resources for the government.
According to the information obtained by Kong Sheng from the Ministry of Household and the Ministry of Industry, there are 104 iron mines and 62 copper mines in the Central Plains today.
The annual income of copper is about 260,000 catties, which is the government's tax statistics, and the actual output may be greatly exceeded.
The Tang Dynasty began to mint coins in the fourth year of Wude, and now there are 99 coinage furnaces in the first year of the Qianyuan Dynasty, all of which are located in copper-producing areas.
The coin furnace in Jiangxian County is equivalent to 13 in the country, indicating that the Zhongtiao Mountain copper mining area is extremely prosperous.
In the Tang Dynasty, each furnace could mint 3,300 taels of money per year, requiring 21,200 catties of copper and 500 catties of tin.
According to the calculation of 99 furnaces, about 2.1 million catties of copper and 50,000 catties of tin are used every year.
It was difficult for Kong Sheng to allocate a large amount of resources from the Ministry of Households, the Ministry of Industry, and even the state treasury, so he could only purchase them through non-governmental channels, and the materials obtained could only barely be enough to cast one or two cannons.
Kong Shengzhi thought about it again and again, weighed it again and again, and ordered the craftsmen to test the copper-iron alloy first.
Although Kong Sheng is not a process mechanic, he has the common sense of science and technology, and knows that the melting temperature of copper and iron is not much different, both are about 1200 degrees, and they are completely compatible.
It has excellent electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, ductility and corrosion resistance, combines the advantages of copper and iron, has both the toughness and quality of copper, and the hardness and brittleness of iron.
A month ago, after hundreds of trials, the craftsmen finally smelted the best formula of copper-iron alloy.
Because the test was carried out under the leadership and supervision of Kong Sheng, the formula was firmly in the hands of Kong Sheng after it was determined.
Kong Sheng has adopted a management method of sub-process and step-by-step operation for the craftsmen participating in the test, and the craftsmen in each post and each link only know the process requirements of their posts, and collusion and communication are strictly prohibited, and no one has mastered the overall process.
This is for the sake of confidentiality and intellectual property protection.
The craftsmanship and recipe of Confucius Distillery have not been leaked so far, and they are inseparable from Kong Sheng's confidential management.
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As a result, the cost of artillery R&D and manufacturing has once again been greatly reduced.
Compared with copper, the price of iron is relatively low, and this cost is within the range of Kong Sheng's affordability.
With Kong Sheng's current financial resources, there is no problem at all in supporting the research and development of artillery and making a few finished artillery pieces.
In later generations, this was nothing at all, but in this era, Kong Sheng knew that this could be called a major technological revolution.
With the raw materials for casting, Kong Sheng began to order people to cast the artillery according to the drawings he had drawn himself.
The first step in the casting method is molding.
Use very dry nanmu or fir wood, according to the style of the cannon body, to make a cannon mold.
The two ends of the gun mold should grow more than a foot to make a shaft head, and an iron swivel stick is added to the shaft head, and then the gun mold is placed on the rotating frame in order to rotate the mud.
After the gun mold is made, then the gun lug, the gun hoop, the mold with the word flower head is installed, and the gun mold is evenly painted with a layer of carbon ash that has been finely brushed, and then used the good glue yellow mud and the sifted fine sand after drying, mixed with two or eight phases, mixed into mud, and shaken off the wool, mixed into the mud, and evenly made "warp".
After the mud is adjusted, paste it on the gun mold, then turn the swivel stick, use a round mouth wooden swing board, dip it in water and wait for drying.
After drying, apply the mud again according to the previous method.
After the mud reaches a certain thickness, use a thick iron wire to wrap it from the head to the tail of the gun mold, and then apply the mud according to the method just now.
When the required thickness is almost reached, the iron bar with a large finger is used to compare the length of the gun mold, the long one is used more, and the short one is used less, and it is evenly placed on the gun mold as a skeleton.
Then, an iron hoop 1 inch wide and 5 minutes thick was used to evenly tie the iron bar from the head to the tail of the gun mold.
Then put on the mud and swing evenly.
After it is completely dry, the wooden core is taken out and the charcoal fire is put into the clay mold, on the one hand, to burn the clay mold, and on the other hand, to burn the ear, hoop and flower head characters into ashes.
After cooling, sweep out the ash and slag, place the bottom of the wooden mold, and then install the tail beads.
Then put on the mud, after drying, take out the bottom of the wooden cannon mold, and then burn the tail beads with charcoal fire, after completely cooling, wait for the kiln casting.
At the same time, the mold was made of iron, the length was equal to the length of the inner diameter of the gun, and the size was half of the inner diameter of the gun.
The second step is to place the gun mold and mold core.
With the help of simple machinery, the gun mold should be placed first, and then the mold core should be installed in the gun mold, the lower mouth should be plugged tightly, and the surrounding area should be padded with dry soil.
The third step is the refining ingredients.
Whether it is pig iron or copper, it must be refined first, and then cast into thin sheets of three or five catties, waiting to be poured into the furnace for casting.
The fourth step is pouring.
The refined copper and iron are put into a pre-built brick-shaped copper pouring furnace, and then the copper and iron are catalyzed into juice with a high fire, and then the copper and iron are gradually added.
When all the copper and iron juice is cleared, like oil and water, and there is a golden flower and green flame on it, the copper and iron juice will be drawn out, and gradually put into the mold, and when the wooden mold is filled, even if the casting is completed.
The fifth step is to start the heart.
Within 3 days of casting, shake the mold center loose; On the 5th day, take out the mold core; On the 8th day, the soil was dug up, the cannon was put down, the two ends were raised more than 2 feet high, the mud on the mold was removed, and the cannon body was cast.
The sixth step is to look at the chamber.
It is to use a certain method to polish the gun chamber smoothly, which is a very painstaking and meticulous work, and dozens of craftsmen take turns to fight day and night to complete it for several days.
The seventh step is to take the same mouth.
After the cannon is cast, the muzzle is uneven, and it must be in unison to make the muzzle neat and smooth.
The eighth step is the chambering.
The knife was slashed into the muzzle of the gun, and the inside of the gun was extremely smooth.
The ninth step is to drill the fire gate.
The proper placement of the cannon is related to the use of artillery.
Therefore, according to the size of the inner chamber, close to the bottom of the gun, use a rough drill dipped in oil to drill the fire door, and the fire door must be parallel to the bottom of the gun to be considered appropriate.
The cannon body is all machined, and finally it is mounted on the gun carriage to cast a finished gun.
Today, a quiet copper-iron cannon was cast.
All the craftsmen in the manor, although excited, actually did not know the true power of the cannon.
And without a test launch, it is impossible to determine whether the artillery was successfully cast.
Kong Sheng did not lightly order the test firing.
He decided to go into the mountains tomorrow and go to the depths of the mountains for a test launch, and once successful, for Kong Sheng, it would have the amazing power to change the pattern of this era.
Kong Sheng tiredly returned to the Chang'an Marquis Mansion, and at this time, Princess Ji Guo broke into the mansion and went straight to his study.
Princess Ji Guo often came and went and was a frequent visitor to the Marquis of Chang'an's Mansion, so the people did not dare to stop her. oshow7 t1706231537: