Chapter 055
Artillery is the god of war. Having an artillery unit can play a decisive role in setting the tone on the battlefield. However, after Cheng Shijie received the eight Franco machine artillery pieces, he did not immediately send someone to receive the artillery pieces. Instead, he threw the artillery pieces to the gun bureau.
“Organize manpower and imitate the imitation!”
Zhou Yandong said: "But the production of gun tubes..."
Before Zhou Yandong could finish speaking, Cheng Shijie said: "Stop the gun tube first. I have a better way to make the gun tube!"
After giving up this order, Cheng Shijie walked like a gust of wind towards Ninghai Haijun's steel mill. The steelmaking was not in Ninghai City, but the iron ore was in Yangjialing. Yangjialing was closer to Muping County, the state seat of Ninghai Prefecture, only forty miles away. But it is a full 140 miles away from Ninghai City.
In fact, it was not Cheng Shijie who played a decisive role in this blast furnace, but the craftsmen of Zuo Qianhu Institute who built it themselves. Some time-travel novels go to ancient times to build blast furnaces and smelt steel, which is awesome. In fact, as early as the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, China already had blast furnace steelmaking. By the Song Dynasty, the technology had matured, and the Ming Dynasty was no longer a rarity.
The Ming Dynasty's annual steel production capacity was more than that of the entire Europe. The largest blast furnace has reached fifty cubic meters. According to a one-third accumulation rate, almost one furnace can smelt more than twenty tons of steel.
"See Lord Guard!"
"Are you ready?"
"Ready!"
"ignition!"
As a craftsman stepped forward and threw the lit torch into the furnace, the firewood with tung oil was quickly burned. After a primer, the craftsmen added coke into the furnace and closed the furnace.
As the blower swelled and deflated, strong airflow was blown into the stove. Soon, the fire became fierce, and a column of smoke shot straight into Yunxiao, with bright red sparks.
In addition, the technology of using coal to make steel has been mature since the Song Dynasty, but the current blast furnace is only 17 or 8 cubic meters, and can refine more than 10,000 kilograms of steel at most.
The quality of the coke was good, and the fire was very strong. Under the fierce fire, the ore began to melt little by little. The foreman kept instructing the workers to add coke and blow the air vigorously. He even ran over to push Cheng Shijie away and occupied the observation hole to observe every subtle change inside. It was obvious that this craftsman was quite dedicated.
When Luo Baishun saw the ore melting, he grinned and shouted: "Make the fire stronger! Make the wind stronger! The fire cannot be weak at this time. If it weakens, the furnace of molten iron will be over!"
In fact, Cheng Shijie's purpose of watching the opening of the furnace was not his only. He wanted to enter the final check on the cold casting process of the shaft.
While the blast furnace was making steel, a shaft about 20 meters away from the blast furnace had been built. For the purpose of experiment, Cheng Shijie did not directly build a more than ten meters deep shaft in the manner of later generations. This shaft was only more than three meters long. , wait until the technology is explored and matured before digging a deep well.
The cold casting mold has also been manufactured. This mold has an inner diameter of thirty-two millimeters and an outer diameter of forty millimeters, which means that the thickness of the barrel is eight millimeters. In later generations, the average rifle barrel was only three millimeters. Four millimeters, the barrel thickness of a sniper rifle is thicker.
Cheng Shijie had no choice. The smaller the caliber, the more difficult the shaft cold casting process was. And for the same problem, once it exceeded 150 mm, the technical difficulty of the shaft process also increased with the higher the caliber.
The easiest caliber to manufacture is the intermediate caliber, such as 60, 80, and 90 calibers.
Cheng Shijie looked at the responsible craftsman beside him and said: "You must remember that the preheating must be sufficient. As long as there is a little moisture, the molten steel will explode. That is no joke!"
"Master Guard, how do we know that the preheating is complete!"
"Use fire to burn the mold until it turns white, and that's almost it!"
Cheng Shijie was also fumbling, because later generations had measuring equipment, and through instrumental analysis, he could easily draw the conclusion that if measured with an infrared thermometer, as long as the mold exceeds 300 degrees, it is generally impossible to contain moisture.
Steelmaking workers are very enthusiastic about their work. They used to work in the Heishan Iron Mine in Qingzhou Prefecture. They worked hard every day and could only make ends meet, so they didn't have to think about their wages. They should be grateful when their boss gives them a bite of food. It's easy not to want to work. Anyway, the technical content of iron ore is very low. The craftsmen who master the technology have enough to eat and drink, and their small lives are quite nourishing.
At least ordinary workers were cheap labor, but they were unwilling to work. Some refugees were willing to work. It was not easy to survive in the late Ming Dynasty, and there was no place to work hard if they had the strength. Later, Luo Changqing, the only son of foreman Luo Baishun, fell ill. In desperation, he had to take Luo Changqing to Dengzhou for medical treatment.
Fortunately, Luo Changqing survived and survived, but they lost their livelihood. It happened that Cheng Shijie recruited military households, and he used the skills in his hands to successfully infiltrate the ranks of military households.
When they came to the Yangjialing Iron Mine, Luo Baishun discovered that not only could they eat three meals a day, but they could also eat salted fish every now and then. In addition to taking care of food and housing, the living conditions are not bad. Single craftsmen are given a house for every four people, and each person has his or her own cabinet where valuables can be placed.
Every month he can get one or two taels of silver, or two stones and four buckets of food. Where can he find such good things? Luo Baishun thought of the workers who helped him, but the results were good. He heard that the treatment here in Yangjialing was so good. After Luo Baishun's deception Next, more than 600 craftsmen came over.
Now these craftsmen are getting paid and well fed. If they don't work hard, they all feel sorry for Cheng Shijie. The workers are shouting slogans, adding coke to the furnace, and the blower is blowing fierce wind.
Despite the biting cold wind, these workers were still sweating in their short shirts.
The fire burned for a day and a night until the iron ore in the blast furnace turned into a furnace of boiling molten iron. The craftsmen excitedly came together to see what was new. Seeing so much molten iron, they were all very excited.
"Master Guard is done!"
Cheng Shijie waved his hand: "Put out the molten iron!"
An iron drill gently poked at the gate. As the gate was opened, the fiery red molten iron poured out like a torrent. It flowed rapidly along the cooling tank, with red stars scurrying around and purple smoke lingering in the sky. Spectacular.
As an iron ingot cools, the blast furnace gate is immediately blocked.
Luo Baishun held a small hammer and gently tapped the iron ingot with a smile on his face: "Master Guard, this is good iron, rare and good iron. This furnace can produce tens of thousands of kilograms of good iron." iron!"
"It's just for you to practice your skills. You can build a bigger blast furnace in the future!"
Cheng Shijie looked at these ordinary high carbon steels and frowned slightly. He looked at Luo Baishun and said, "Add manganese powder into the furnace and stir!"
"okay!"
Charcoal is an important component that determines the quality of steel. "Tiangong Kaiwu·Hardware" by Yingxing of the Ming and Song Dynasties states: "Any iron can be divided into raw and cooked. It will be raw when it is not fried, and it will be cooked when it is fried... Anyone who makes pig iron for smelting and casting needs this. It flows into long strips, round blocks, and can be used within the scope.”
Pig iron has a carbon content greater than 2%. Industrial pig iron generally has a carbon content between 2.11% and 4.3%. Carbon content from 0.60% to 1.70% is high carbon steel. Basically, different carbon contents have different qualities and uses.
For steel with the same carbon content, the hardness will be greatly increased after quenching and engineering heat treatment. After adding the fierce powder and stirring.
Cheng Shijie then said: "Open the gate, release the molten steel, and proceed directly to the cold casting of the shaft!"
After giving the order, Cheng Shijie hurriedly ran away. As he ran, he said: "Unrelated personnel disperse, and the staff take precautions!"
Once the molten steel explodes, in addition to the shock wave, the flying molten steel will burn the workers, which is much more powerful than a bomb. However, the protective effect of pure cotton protective clothing and asbestos aprons is actually not great. Once an explosion occurs, it is basically both death and injury.
This kind of work was too dangerous. After running more than 200 meters, Cheng Shijie climbed up a watchtower, holding a telescope and observing the direction of the shaft.
As the molten steel continues to cool in the cooling tank, the temperature of the molten steel also decreases rapidly. When the molten steel in the cooling tank flows into the mold in the shaft.
"There was no explosion!"
Cheng Shijie breathed a sigh of relief.
As long as the first drop of molten steel does not explode, there will be no further explosions. When the molten steel flows into the mold, the water in the shaft will quickly cool down the mold, and the chassis of the mold will separate from the mold under the action of gravity. Under the action of the keyboard, it slowly sinks. As the winch extends, the seamless steel pipe Just cast it.
After about a quarter of an hour, the wire rope of the shaft winch reached the marking position, which means that the casting of the seamless steel pipe in this shaft was completed.
It took a quarter of an hour, that is, fifteen minutes, to cast twenty-four blunderbuss tubes with a length of three meters, a thickness of eight millimeters, and an inner diameter of 32 millimeters.
When the furnace door is closed again, the molten steel in the cooling tank is led to the mold of the steel ingot to continue casting, while the workers raise the winch and the seamless steel pipe in the shaft slowly rises.
The craftsmen from the Gun Bureau who came after hearing the news looked at the high manganese steel barrel in the shaft with a blank expression.
"This...is it possible in such a blink of an eye?"
The length of the barrel of a fire gun is only eighty-five centimeters, and four can be cut out of this shaft. Twenty-four times four, that is, ninety-six.
Ninety-six sticks can be produced in fifteen minutes. This efficiency...
What if there were not one shaft, but ten?
Zhou Yandong smiled and said: "Congratulations, Lord Guard, with the barrel, we can imitate the Thunder Gun right away!"
"So much the better!"
Cheng Shijie suddenly thought of another question: is a thunderbolt with a caliber of 32 mm still a gun?
Should the name be changed to Thunder Cannon?
The larger the caliber, the thicker the tube wall, and the higher the bore pressure resistance, which means that each blunderbuss can add more gunpowder and have greater kinetic energy, which means that they create thunder blunderbuss, no, The Thunder Cannon has a longer range and is more powerful.
Think about the effect of being hit by a lead bullet with a caliber of 32 mm?
Think about being shot by a thunder cannon with eighteen rounds or twenty-eight rounds. What would it be like?
That scene... was absolutely wonderful.
