"This big tube doesn't look difficult to make, but the big bell in the temple looks a little more difficult to cast!"
"The Buddha statue is even harder! This tube doesn't look difficult at all, it's just a big stick with a hole in the middle!"
"Wow! What a thick stick... Hey, are there two balls under the stick?"
"Sister Dinggu, that's not a ball, it's a wheel. This tube is placed on top of the wheel and is pulled by eight horses."
"Eight horses? How heavy is that?"
"It looks heavy, it weighs one or two thousand pounds!"
"One or two thousand kilograms are made of copper? How expensive is that? Can it be made of iron?"
"You have to use copper...haven't you heard? Gunpowder becomes violent when it meets copper!"
"If you use copper, just use copper. Count it as two thousand kilograms of copper per tube, and add another thousand kilograms to account for labor costs... which is three thousand kilograms. How much is that?"
"It's only one thousand guan. If you build a thousand big tubes, it's only one million guan. Compared with the entire Kingdom of Jin, what is it?"
"Yes! It's nothing at all!"
"This money must be paid! You can do it even if you sell it!"
Wanyan Zongqian, four Jiedushi envoys, and three representatives of Jiedushi envoys had a lot of discussions, and the matter of casting the big tube had been finalized.
Big tubes are really not that expensive!
Even if the yield rate is not too high at the beginning, only 10%, a cannon costing three thousand guan is overwhelming - a cannon that failed to be cast does not need to be thrown away. The copper material is still there. Although there is loss, it is still Can recover most of it.
Not to mention the extremely rich Southern Song Dynasty, or the miserable Xixia (which may not be so miserable now), if you really tighten your belt and start casting tubes, one or two hundred "big tubes" will not be a problem.
As for the Kingdom of Jin, how much wealth could it have saved by robbing the Liao and Song Dynasties over the years? There was no need to use the gold and silver in the treasury. Wanyan Zongqian and the seven Jiedu envoys below him could scrape together enough money to cast a thousand large tubes.
This time Wanyan Zongqian summoned the Jiedushi envoys and representatives of the Jiedushi envoys under him to Daxing Mansion, just to let everyone pool money to cast tubes, cast hot pots and build thunder.
And these people below can all distinguish whether money is more important or country is more important - they are basically the founding generation of Dajin. They can start from a tribal alliance, overthrow Daliao, and create such a big Jin Dynasty. Of course they will not be confused. To the point of asking for money rather than life!
Wanyan Zonggan coughed, and the discussion immediately stopped. Everyone looked at Wanyan Zonggan.
Wanyan Zongqian nodded and said: "Since everyone is willing to pay, let's spend money together to make a big copper... Let's collect some materials first and collect three million kilograms of copper! If we can get it together, then We don’t have to melt copper coins to cast cannons.”
When he said this, he pointed at Wanyan Dan and said, "Hela's territory is small, so he doesn't need to produce this copper." Then he said to Hebule, "Hedong Town is also poor, so there is no need to produce copper... ...But if we don’t have copper now, when the cannons are cast, we will only have a few fewer cannons.”
Of course Wanyan Dan had no objection. His territory was limited to the west of Liaoning and Zhao Kai couldn't reach it, so he said to Wanyan Zong: "I will listen to my uncle in everything."
But Hebule was a little unhappy. He had participated in the Battle of Montenegro! The dozens of small tubes of the Song Army beat the Jin soldiers all over the ground, and even the likes of Wanyan Loushi were beaten into sieves!
Now the Song Dynasty has upgraded its barrels, and the small barrels have been changed to large barrels... If the Mongols don't have big barrels, will they still be alive next time they fight?
"Marshal Du," Hebule said solemnly, "Isn't it just copper? Even if I, Hebule, steal and rob, I still have to get enough!"
Wanyan Zongqian was waiting for his words. It was impossible for Hebule to seize the territory of the Datong Jiedushi. He could only seize the territory of the Song Dynasty or Daliao (Yelü Dashi)...
"Okay! Since Grand Master He (Jinjiedushi) said this, let's continue to discuss how to cast the big tube!" Wanyan Zongqian looked at the big guy and said with a smile, "Three million kilograms of copper... ...How about if the Marshal's Palace pays 120,000 catties, the remaining six families will share it equally?"
"Okay," Wanyanyan said with a smile, "Isn't it just 300,000 pounds for a family... Isn't that enough to copy some temples and melt the Buddha statues in the temples?"
"That's right!" Hebule slapped his thigh and laughed loudly, "My sister is right, those temples left by the Khitan are full of copper!"
Today's Mongols believe in the Immortality of Heaven, while the Jurchens mainly believe in shamanism. They are all barbaric! It's not a big deal to snatch Buddha statues and use them as cannon-making materials.
"Copper is easy to handle, but where are the craftsmen?" Wanyan Zongbi asked, "We have many blacksmiths, but no coppersmiths!"
During the Kingdom of Jin's conquests in the east and west, many craftsmen were captured, but mainly blacksmiths and not many coppersmiths.
"This is easy to do!" Wanyan Xiyin said with a smile, "We can pretend to donate money to the temple to build Buddha statues first, and those bald donkeys will naturally find a good coppersmith for us... When the coppersmith arrives, we will If the temple is confiscated, doesn’t that mean we have everything?”
"What a brilliant idea!" Wanyan Zongbi slapped his thigh, "Brother, that's it!"
Wanyan Zongqian nodded and asked: "So... where should the casting of the big tube be started?"
As soon as these words came out, there was a sudden silence in the hall.
Wanyan Zongqian considered it and said: "Zhao Kai is delaying the war now because he must be accumulating the number of tubes... It can be seen that this big tube is not easy to build! We started slowly. If we don't work together, we may wait. Zhao Kai called us, but we don’t have many tubes to use.”
As he spoke, Wanyan Zongqian smiled and turned his gaze to 13-year-old Wanyan Dan.
Wanyan Dan immediately said: "It's better to put it in Jinzhou!"
Wanyan Dan is now a harmless being, and putting the cone factory on his territory is indeed the most reassuring thing.
As expected, everyone present Wanyan nodded in agreement, and Hebule naturally had no reason to object.
Wanyan Zong smiled dryly and said: "Now that everyone has agreed... let's hurry up and implement it separately! But we can't just cast big tubes, gunpowder, explosive pots, cannons, hot pot cannons, etc. , we have to hurry up and build them! There is no need to put these in Jinzhou, you can just go back and build them yourself. If you encounter any difficulties, feel free to come to Daxing Mansion to ask us for help."
Of course, he was speaking to Hebule. Among the festivals present, his territory is the most desolate. It is estimated that it will be difficult to gather the resources to make explosive pots, hot pot cannons and gunpowder. He can only rely on the Marshal's Mansion. .
...
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, pull harder..."
Yingtian Mansion, at the foot of Niutou Mountain, is deep in a military restricted area enclosed by wooden fences. Following the sound of labor chants, a rather large-looking artillery mounted on a four-wheeled gun carriage was pushed into the gun position by several gunners.
This is a cannon similar to the 10-pound long-barreled cannon, perhaps a little heavier (the gun is heavier). The barrel is very thick and very intimidating.
Now that the cannon is in place and the muzzle has been leveled, several gunners began to hurriedly fill the gunpowder packets and shells into the muzzle. After filling, they also inserted a lead into the fire door of the cannon. A gunner came from the side. A soldier on board took a ignition stick in his hand and nervously waited for the order to launch.
Zhao Huan and Zhu Lian were already standing behind a wall of sheep and horses dozens of steps behind the cannon waiting to be fired. Behind them were several civil and military officials.
Zhao Huan and Zhu Lian came today to watch the test firing of the 12-pound long tube - the Southern Song Dynasty was capable of making money after all!
The Kingdom of Jin was still wondering where to find copper and coppersmiths. The cannons had been cast in the Southern Song Dynasty... If they really wanted to play with bronze cannons, the Southern Song Dynasty was really cheating!
The Southern Song Dynasty is now the country with the largest copper production in the world - its copper production is more than the production of all other countries in the world (including the Northern Song Dynasty) plus one!
If there is more copper, there will naturally be more coppersmiths, and the craftsmanship of copper casting will naturally be higher.
These days, to cast a large Buddha statue, the Japanese had to travel across the ocean and spend a lot of money to hire craftsmen from the Southern Song Dynasty... You can only imagine the level of craftsmen in the Southern Song Dynasty.
Therefore, before Yu Yunwen sent someone to send the sketch of the 10-pound cannon back to the Southern Song Dynasty, many hot pot cannons had been cast in the Southern Song Dynasty, and trial production of casserole cannons had also begun.
But with the arrival of the drawings of the 10-pound large tube, the trial production of the casserole cannon was stopped - the bigger the tube, the better, right? The bigger the tube, the bigger the meatballs, the bigger the meatballs, the greater the power!
Therefore, Zhao Huan, Li Gang, and Zhao Mingcheng all agreed that they should abandon small casseroles and cast large tubes... Didn't the Northern Song Dynasty make 10-pound tubes? In the Southern Song Dynasty, barrels with a bullet weight of 12 kilograms were made!
Too heavy to transport?
It's okay, the barrels of the Southern Song Dynasty were mainly placed on fortresses and warships... Zhao Huan, Li Gang, and Zhao Mingcheng have now given up their plans to attack the Northern Song Dynasty and Northern Jin Dynasty from land, and instead focused on "fortification and sea defense" Enter".
The so-called "fortress defense" means building a large number of castles along the rivers and Huaihe Rivers, and then setting up artillery as the basis for long-term defense.
And "Sea Advance", of course, means launching an attack from the sea!
The Southern Song Dynasty was a strong and powerful ship!
Their "grenadier ships" can hit all directions, let alone the bobbin ships? Since you can beat him, you have to take the offensive.
And if you want to take the offensive, you have to carry the big T-shaped tube with stronger attack power on the ship... What does one or two thousand kilograms count if you use a shipping tube? It was not a problem at all, so the emperors and ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty wanted to make big tubes.
"Rumble..."
The big tube finally started to roar, and the earth was really shaking!
Almost at the same time as the earth shook and the mountains shook, the corner of the tall brick wall pointed by Tongzikou, which had been driven for 200 to 300 steps, suddenly collapsed!
"It's hit, it's hit..." When Zhao Huan saw this scene, his face turned pale and he muttered, "The time is running out, the time is running out..."
The Queen Zhu Lian next to her was also so frightened that her face turned pale, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. When she heard her husband's words, she casually asked: "Guan family, when will we run out!"
Zhao Huan said: "We in the Southern Dynasty don't have much time... Because the gold thief can't stop the third brother, our Southern Dynasty is the next target of the third brother!"
