After sorting out the answers of these bandit prisoners of war, Luo Zhixue was confused again.
These bandits said that the mountains to the west were ambushed by officers and soldiers, so they were defeated miserably, and then they got lost in the mountains, and finally hit the west side of Sanshui Village by mistake.
Luo Zhixue didn't care about them getting lost in the mountains. He cared about the officers and soldiers these bandits encountered.
Since when have there been so many officers and soldiers in this mountain?
A group of officers and soldiers came to the mountain ahead, but they were led away by Sun Chengli.
As a result, a group of at least a thousand officers and soldiers came from the west.
Is there any treasure in Funiu Mountain?
Otherwise, why would these officers and soldiers run into the mountains one after another?
At this time, Luo Zhixue did not know that the officers and soldiers who attacked Ta Tianhu and his party were the same group of officers and soldiers who had previously pursued Sun Chengli and others.
After all, Sun Chengli is still out and has not yet sent anyone to send back the news. Now Luo Zhixue does not know that Sun Chengli has led the officers and soldiers to the west, and also let the officers and soldiers fight with the Sky-Tampering Tiger.
Little did he know that before Sun Chengli could be happy, he was discovered by officers and soldiers again...
Roads in mountainous areas are difficult and information transmission is slow, which makes it impossible for Luo Zhixue, who is in the mountains, to grasp the movements of Sun Chengli and the officers and soldiers in a timely manner.
Although he didn't know the details of the outside situation, it did not affect Luo Zhixue's step-by-step execution of his plan.
Busy with the autumn harvest and subsequent grain collection matters.
The autumn harvest in Sanshui Village has been completed, and the grain collection in the surrounding villages has also been carried out one by one by Xu He and his troops, and it has gone smoothly.
As the warehouses filled with food, Luo Zhixue sent people to continue recruiting new soldiers from surrounding villages.
Before Sun Chengli came out, Luo Zhixue had discussed with Sun Chengli to continue recruiting soldiers after the autumn harvest was sufficient. However, the newly recruited soldiers did not mean to be directly assigned to the supply camp.
Instead, they will recruit and train briefly first, and then allocate them to the three armies of the left, center, and right as well as the supply battalion, striving to make these four infantry-based troops each have a hundred troops.
Then complete the original plan to recruit five hundred soldiers.
In his spare time while busy with these things, Luo Zhixue went to the weapons workshop to toss around weapons with Blacksmith Song and his family.
Nowadays, the most lacking thing in the Funiu Mountain Baoxiang Camp is artillery. However, the long-barreled artillery of more than 500 kilograms planned in advance is difficult to produce and takes a long time.
At the same time, they also faced this huge threat from officers and soldiers. For this reason, Luo Zhixue asked Blacksmith Song and the others to make a few short-barreled shotguns of 200 kilograms for use while they were thinking about making long-barreled artillery.
This kind of two-hundred-pound short robe is much easier to make, because the diameter is small and the manufacturing difficulty is not high. Moreover, Blacksmith Song, a veteran who has cast many artillery, personally led the people to cast it.
Now a cannon has been built.
Blacksmith Song pointed to the two hundred kilogram short cannon in front and said: "According to Sir's instructions, this kind of light cannon is not placed directly on the chariot, but on the two-wheeled artillery cart."
"The gun carriage can be dragged directly by horses."
Luo Zhixue stepped forward to take a closer look. The barrel of this thing was very short, but it looked thicker. Looking at the barrel alone, it looked like a short and fat mound.
The entire thick and short barrel is mounted on the gun carriage with the lugs.
Luo Zhixue is more familiar with this gun mount, because this is the basic pattern he drew personally. It uses large double wheels, and the tail is used as a supporting gun mount, and the elevation angle of the gun mount can be adjusted, thereby adjusting the gun's range.
When marching, a two-wheeled front vehicle is added, and it becomes a four-wheeled gun mount with a steering mechanism.
The style of this gun mount was originally drawn by Luo Zhixue directly based on his limited memory, well, that is, the artillery that he had seen in the movies and TV dramas he had watched. It was generally the style of modern artillery mounts.
However, it is impossible to directly turn the basic drawing into a physical object. It was gradually improved after discussions with Song Tiejiang San and his son, Huang Carpenter and other craftsmen.
Therefore, it is not the credit of Luo Zhixue alone, but a reflection of collective wisdom.
This gun mount style is much better than the traditional messy artillery carriages, and is more convenient for maneuvering and combat.
Nowadays, many of the antique gun mounts are very strange. Some of the gun mounts have large double wheels at first glance. They seem to be no different from modern gun mounts, but there is actually a wheel in the rear support frame...
Or simply a four-wheel gun mount that is fixed, with no distinction between front and rear vehicles, and the artillery is directly fixed on it.
After the artillery with this kind of antique gun mount reaches the end of the field, you have to remove the wheels and anchor the gun mount before you can fire the gun.
But what Luo Zhixue created does not require dismantling the wheels... it can be fired directly.
Therefore, it is not only prepared to be used on the 500-jin long cannon, but also used in the 200-jin light cannon after being reduced in weight.
After all, even a short robe of two hundred kilograms is not heavy enough to be carried directly by manpower. The method of maneuvering it is to either directly deploy it on a carriage, or to get a special gun carriage for it.
Luo Zhixue chose a specialized artillery truck. After all, it was more convenient to maneuver and fight, and the cost would not become higher.
After carefully looking at this freshly baked 200-pound cannon, Luo Zhixue directly asked someone to test-fire it.
Whether this is useful or not remains to be seen.
Following Luo Zhixue's order, the three gunners who had just made a guest appearance as a cavalry team two days ago and played a wave of cavalry shooting quickly started taking action with several others.
Instead of firing directly, the artillery was carried for a short distance by horses and mules as a test maneuver.
I saw that this artillery moved very easily. After all, a two hundred kilogram light cannon is not heavy.
At first, I still used two horses to drag it. Later, when I used one horse to drag it, I could also drag it, but it was not so easy. When encountering a steeper slope, I couldn't go up.
After the maneuver test, the gunners pulled the artillery down in front of Luo Zhixue and others, turned their backs to Luo Zhixue and others and began to untie the artillery cart, pulled the front cart and ammunition cart aside, and pulled the horses to the rear to take care of them.
At the same time, there were gunners who pointed the muzzle of the artillery forward. Several large wooden boards had been erected in front of them to test the lethality of the shrapnel after firing.
Another gunner came forward to adjust the elevation angle, then loaded gunpowder, shotshells, and made final aiming.
After everything was ready, the gunner looked at Luo Zhixue and others who were more than ten meters behind him, separated by a parapet.
Seeing this, Luo Zhixue nodded slightly, and An Yongduo beside him immediately shouted: "The military advisor has ordered, fire!"
After Luo Zhixue gave the order, the gunner lit the match rope. In the next moment, he saw the small short robe violently ejecting a cloud of white smoke, and at the same time, it drove the entire gun mount back a little distance.
And a loud rumble sounded at the same time.
Looking again, a few thick wooden boards about a hundred meters away in front of the artillery had already been punched with many small holes.
"Okay!" Seeing that the test firing was successful, Luo Zhixue couldn't help but cheer directly, and then turned to look at Blacksmith Song: "This test firing is successful, Master Song has made a great contribution."
"Some new houses were built some time ago. Master Song will go back and pick one."
"I'll have someone deliver five kilograms of bacon to Master Song later."
The infrastructure construction work in Sanshui Village has not been heard, and the construction of houses is naturally the same. Most of them are long rows of wooden houses where the soldiers live. In addition, there are some single-family houses provided for the leaders to live.
Although the conditions were limited, the houses built were not very good either. They were still made of wood and mud as the main materials. But after all, they were houses prepared for several bosses, so the overall conditions were naturally not too bad.
After hearing this, Blacksmith Song was slightly excited.
Although he knew that these single-family houses were not very good, after all, they were in ravines, and it was impossible to build any very good houses.
But, he also knew that after he came to this den of thieves, he couldn't expect to leave in a short time. Since he couldn't leave with his family, he naturally wanted to make his family's life as good as possible.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have worked so hard with his son to make this artillery and build weapons.
The purpose is to save the lives of the whole family while still being able to eat, drink, wear and live well.
People, even if they are temporarily trapped in a den of thieves, they still have to pursue a better life, right?
So Blacksmith Song was very excited and said to Luo Zhixue: "Thank you, military advisor, for the generous reward. I will definitely work hard to create more and better artillery in the future."
He wouldn't say more, and he also knew the real reason why Luo Zhixue and others valued his family.
So I didn’t say anything else except that I would work harder to make artillery and other weapons.
Luo Zhixue was still very satisfied with his reaction and treated him well without wasting his time.
He immediately said with a smile: "Then I'll wait and see."
While they were talking, the artillery in front started the second round of testing. This time the target was to hit a target 150 meters away. The test results were acceptable.
When the distance is further expanded to about 200 meters, the shot shrapnel, iron beads, etc. are spread too large, and the number of shrapnel hitting the target is much less. At the same time, the power is also reduced a lot, and it will not hit some thick wooden boards. It can't be penetrated.
After Luo Zhixue read several rounds of tests, he knew that this 200-pound light cannon was as expected. In terms of its maximum range, the iron pieces it fired could fly several hundred meters away, but the maximum range was nothing. significance.
In terms of effective range, the best effect is between 100 meters and 150 meters, the power can be guaranteed, and the dispersion is also controlled within a certain range, which can kill the enemy to the greatest extent.
If it exceeds 150 meters, there will still be some effect, but the hit rate and power will drop rapidly. Especially after it exceeds 200 meters, the hit rate is too impressive. At this distance, Firing is a waste of ammunition.
In terms of pure performance, it is actually not much different from many light artillery of the same level used by the contemporary Ming army. After all, they are all made of the same process. Apart from the quality problems caused by cutting corners, the others are not much different.
The biggest difference is the rapid maneuverability and convenient combat deployment brought by the gun mount.
Luo Zhixue ordered the weapons workshop to continue building this 200-pound light cannon, and also asked the artillery team to train more frequently, striving to form an army as soon as possible for actual combat.
