Chapter 210
Since the Ming Dynasty banned the sea, generations of shipwrights like the Shachuan Gang have no longer been able to use their skills. Some of them have turned to carpentry and furniture making, while others have taken advantage of their water skills and become sailors for maritime transportation.
In fact, these outstanding shipbuilding craftsmen were the most precious wealth of the Ming Dynasty. However, the Ming Dynasty did not give these precious craftsmen the treatment they deserved, and neither did the Manchu and Qing Dynasties.
However, Cheng Shijie gave them the most basic treatment as craftsmen. The income of ordinary workers in southern Liaoning ranges from seven silver coins to one to two or five coins, depending on the industry, such as coal mining, mining, steelmaking, and cement burning. , high-intensity work such as coking, the income is relatively high.
The shipbuilding industry is actually the same, but craftsmen who can earn up to one or two or eight taels of silver have fallen out of the category of ordinary workers.
Although workers and craftsmen have different words, their treatment is actually different. Craftsmen will be called so-and-so master in the factory, but workers will not. Each of these craftsmen of the Shachuan Gang has more or less apprentices. Although they receive an income of one to two or eight taels of silver, they also have a share of income when they have apprentices.
This is what Cheng Shijie came up with based on the tradition of Hansteel Group. In Hansteel Group, any employee who enters Hansteel Group, even if it is a clerk position, must become an apprentice. There will be a master who is familiar with the work. Generally speaking, the apprenticeship period and probation are The three months are overlapping.
The master can decide whether the new employee is qualified. If the master signs that the new student has met the apprenticeship standards and can become a regular employee, then the master can get 30% of the apprentice's probation period salary. If the apprentice's monthly salary is 3,000, even if the master takes the apprentice The cost is two thousand seven.
Of course, the master's fee is not free. After the apprentice becomes a formal employee, the master is also responsible for co-insurance and mutual insurance with the apprentice within one year of being a new employee. Of course, this joint and mutual guarantee only involves safe operation. If the apprentice is safe and has no accidents that month, there are no "three violations". It is both illegal operation, illegal command and violation of labor discipline.
Then the master can get rewards ranging from 500 yuan to 1,500 yuan. This period is one year. Generally, veteran employees lead apprentices. If the apprentices are good, each master can basically get an additional reward of 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.
In order to encourage craftsmen in various factories to not hide and co-opt, Cheng Shijie borrowed this reward system. If a shipbuilding craftsman with a monthly salary of one to two or eight yuan has five apprentices, he can earn an additional 30% of the apprenticeship salary in a month. , calculated in this way, the income of these shipbuilders is more than three taels of silver per month.
In addition to salary income, these shipbuilding craftsmen also have uniform work clothes. This kind of work clothes is sewn from old coarse cloth. It is not only strong but also durable. With four sets of clothes a year, there is basically no need to buy clothes yourself.
Except for the difference in income, the treatment of craftsmen and workers is similar. In particular, adhering to the principles of the state-owned enterprise management system, Cheng Shijie designated new employee villages for each factory, just like military districts, and built unified housing for them. Adopt a three-heyuan structure.
There are three sizes: 200 square meters, 400 square meters, and one acre. However, in order to unify the sanitation aspects, the courtyards were built in a unified format. From a distance, they look red.
Instead of using blue bricks and gray tiles for buildings, Liaodong uses red bricks and red tiles because red bricks are fired at a lower temperature, shorter firing time and lower cost than green bricks. Of course, red bricks cannot remain weather-free for one or two hundred years like blue bricks. If the environment permits, they can remain intact for two thousand years.
Nowadays, the blue bricks in the tombs of the Han Dynasty are still the same as before. This is the quality of the green bricks. It is a pity that we do not have the conditions now. We must first solve the problem of food and clothing, and then consider improving it.
Despite this, these craftsmen of the Shachuan Gang feel like they have entered heaven. They are so motivated that they do not need supervisors at all. These craftsmen not only work seriously, they even trot to the toilet for fear of wasting this time. A little bit of time.
For everyone in the Shachuan Gang, it is no secret that Zheng Zhilong wants to deal with Cheng Shijie. Whether Cheng Shijie can defeat Zheng Zhilong is related to their own interests. If Cheng Shijie loses, it is conceivable that they will have a big house, a well-oiled meal, and All the high-paying jobs that could not be found in the entire Ming Dynasty disappeared.
In the shipyard in Xigang, Jinzhou, technology and tradition coexist now. For example, now, the parts turned out using woodworking lathes need to be put together. If you follow the traditional craftsmanship, you need skilled craftsmen, hammer after hammer. Go in.
But now, craftsmen in the shipyard only need to put various parts into the mold, and then step on the pedal, and the mold driven by the water wheel will fall hard with a strong impact, and a large ship deck will be completed. Now, if we were to complete such a large deck like before, it would take dozens of craftsmen working continuously for more than half a month.
Nowadays, it only takes one stick of incense, and the speed has increased thousands of times.
The production work at the shipyard was extremely smooth. When Cheng Shijie came to the Gun Bureau, Huang Lidong, the head of the Gun Bureau, brought a group of technicians and craftsmen to greet Cheng Shijie.
"Meet the Marshal!"
Cheng Shijie looked at Huang Lidong and said, "Huang Lidong!"
"Here we are!"
"You can be considered as following this handsome old man, right?"
"The little old man has been following the commander for two years and two months!"
Cheng Shijie said angrily: "Normally you have been following me for a long time. I wonder if I don't like to play this trick? I will give you another chance this time. If you don't do it next time, I will give you a chance." Fucked off!”
Hearing this, Huang Lidong broke into a cold sweat.
"I don't dare to do that anymore, little old man!"
Only now did Huang Lidong know what it felt like to slap a horse's hooves with flattery.
As the war approaches again, Cheng Shijie is naturally concerned about the results of the Gun Bureau. If there are results that Cheng Shijie wants, Cheng Shijie's chances of winning will be higher.
Huang Lidong and others left the other craftsmen and technicians busy with their own business. Cheng Shijie followed Huang Lidong to the inside of the factory. The Guns and Artillery Bureau was originally built in the old city of Jinzhou Acropolis. At that time, in order to protect the safety of the factories under the Guns and Artillery Bureau, but then After the victory in Haizhou, Cheng Shijie finally gained a firm foothold in southern Liaoning, so he moved the Guns and Artillery Bureau out of Jinzhou Acropolis.
The current gun bureau is located in Daheishan, fifty miles away from Jinzhou City. There was originally a temple called Shengshui Temple. This temple was built in the Hongwu period. However, due to the massacre of the people of Liaodong by slaves, Shengshui Temple has long been gone. The temple is empty, leaving only broken walls and ruins all over the ground, but the general main hall, Zen room, mountain gate, and lower courtyard are still there.
Cheng Shijie established Ning Haijun's Guns and Artillery Bureau on the basis of Shengshui Temple. The Guns and Artillery Bureau occupies a huge area, even larger than Jinzhou City. It not only houses the R&D department of the Guns and Artillery Bureau, but also There are a large number of factories.
In order to build the artillery bureau, Daheishan was pitiful. This big mountain had countless hills destroyed by bombs. Along the straight corridor, Cheng Shijie first came to the R&D and manufacturing plant of the artillery bureau.
In order to make use of water power, the Gun and Artillery Bureau built a reservoir at the northern end of Dahei Mountain, taking advantage of the mountain. Through the canal, most of the hydraulic machinery can be driven. Of course, when it freezes every winter, the hydraulic machinery cannot be used and can only be used. Animal-powered machinery.
"How is the research and development work of the Gun Bureau going now?"
Huang Lidong smiled bitterly and said: "The workers have been working day and night, barely keeping up with demand!"
When it comes to the production tasks of the artillery factory, it is definitely the heaviest. Ning Haijun's Army Artillery Department needs at least 180 three-inch guns and 96 four-inch guns. But the problem is that the navy's demand is the largest. A batch of eight Sea Shark-class ships has 190 guns. Now there is a Jusha-class warship, and each one has 76 guns.
If Ning Haijun's consumption is met, it may not be possible within two consecutive years. No one knows how this battle will turn out in the future, and no one knows how many battleships will be lost.
To Cheng Shijie's great surprise, the craftsmen here are now producing a new cannon, and the caliber has reached an astonishing five inches, which is 157.5 mm.
Cheng Shijie asked: "The four-inch cannon has just been produced, and this five-inch cannon has come out?"
Huang Lidong smiled bitterly and said: "Commander, don't you want rifling? But our cutting tools are not good enough and it is quite difficult to process... Manganese steel cutting tools, Commander, you know that once they are overheated, they will become soft immediately, so we can continue processing." If it does, it will be useless, so we have to stop every process to cool down the tool and then continue, which is very inefficient. In order to avoid this situation, we just make the tool bigger!"
"Then what?"
"Then the knife is too big and the barrel is too small to fit in!"
Huang Lidong did not dare to look Cheng Shijie in the eye: "So we can only enlarge and cast a thicker barrel!"
"The more tubes the artillery has, the more technically difficult it becomes. How to solve the big problem of easily producing bubbles, bulges, and cracks?"
"We tried many methods. At first, we used bronze to cast the barrel of the artillery. Later we found that although this kind of bronze is easy and easy to make rifling, new problems appeared again. The chamber pressure was too low and the range could not reach the commander's desired range. the result of!"
"Bronze artillery has been eliminated by the times!"
"Who says it isn't?"
Huang Lidong continued: "We have changed to a low-carbon steel cast gun barrel. This gun barrel is made of low-carbon steel. It is easier to cut, but even though it is low-carbon steel, it is much stronger than bronze. If you want to deal with it, It’s not that easy, it’s not easy to process.”
Cheng Shijie now understands that the current firearms and artillery department has fallen into a strange circle. In order to draw rifling, the steel composition of the knives can only be modified repeatedly. As a result, the knives made are too big, and even the three-inch and four-inch guns cannot be inserted. Increase the caliber of the barrel.
The result is naturally a weird one, which is like a joke on the Internet. When kneading noodles, if there is too much water, add noodles; Just replaced it with a big pot.
Cheng Shijie had to admire these great gods.
However, just when Cheng Shijie thought that these great gods had accomplished nothing in the end, a burst of cheers came from the distance.
"what happened?"
"It's done!"
"What's done?"
"The new cannon is ready!"
Cheng Shijie hurriedly walked over and saw an artillery with a huge barrel. This was a five-inch gun, which was 157.5 millimeters, but it had a diameter of about 30 times. The length of the barrel was four meters seven. many.
This is definitely the artillery with the longest barrel among all the cannons of the Ning Navy so far. What surprised Cheng Shijie most was that this artillery actually had the shadow of later artillery. In addition to the gun hoe that appeared on the three-inch gun, a spring return was also installed.
The cannons like the Hongyi Cannon are so angry that they move back several meters as soon as the cannon is fired. It is easy to handle with the hoe. As long as the hoe is installed and the hoe is nailed deeply into the ground, the cannon will not shift. Of course, this is a light artillery that can solve the recoil problem with a gun hoe, but the recoil of a large-caliber artillery is too great. Without a muzzle brake, the consequences will be the same.
But with a gun hoe and a muzzle brake, the effect will be much better. The key is that rubber is actually used on this artillery. Rubber is not widely used now. This is what Bishop Robben arrived in Liaodong two months ago. At that time, they carried half a boat of rubber. Now the main purpose of rubber is to make rubber sticks.
Rubber sticks hurt people but do not hurt. Especially in the colonies of Europe, they are very effective when used to supervise work. However, in Liaodong, these craftsmen immediately discovered other functions of this kind of rubber. After some exploration, they were successfully used. Applied to the breech seal and gun wheel.
After testing, the performance is satisfactory. After using rubber on the breech block, the sealing performance is greatly improved, and the gas leakage has almost completely disappeared. The rubber wheels make it easy to drive the gun carriage on the road. In the same road conditions, using wooden With wheels, one person can pull a small cannon down when tired, but with rubber wheels, one can pull it along for a trot.
This artillery was beyond Cheng Shijie's expectation: "Have you tried the artillery? How is the effect?"
"It's not too late to report back to the commander-in-chief!"
"Then let's test the cannon!"
"Is it here?"
"Where is it if it's not here?"
This is the real reason why Cheng Shijie moved the Gun Bureau from Jinzhou City. The Gun Bureau in Jinzhou City is in the downtown area. It is okay to test the muskets. After all, the range is limited and the penetration is also limited. Shooting against the wall is not a big problem. .
But artillery is different. In theory, this five-inch cannon can shoot outside Jinzhou City, but what if the test fails?
In this way, under the operation of more than a dozen craftsmen, the artillery began to aim at the south of the gun bureau. To the south was a large virgin forest in the Daheishan Mountains. Even if the cannon shells exploded, there would not be a big problem.
Cheng Shijie was just a little worried. Looking at the springs of these brakes, they were as thick as a little finger. But the question was, could such springs have enough elasticity?
The point is, there's no way to calculate this.
Huang Lidong introduced the artillery to Cheng Shijie: "This artillery is the result of the "C" group of the Gun Bureau. It has a total of twelve right-hand rifling..."
Just as he was talking, there was a loud bang.
PS: This chapter is from yesterday, and I still have it tonight.
(End of chapter)
