Dai Xinhan is not a traditional scholar. Of course, he has nothing to do with a craftsman in the traditional sense.
He came from a family of officials. Several generations of his ancestors worked as officials in the official weapons workshops in Xiangyang City. They were passed down from generation to generation. Finally, Dai Xinhan also became an official in the official weapons workshops in Xiangyang City.
As for the officials in the workshop, if you want to say that he is a craftsman, he is not. If you want to say that he is a scholar or even an official, he is not.
It can be regarded as a relatively special group in the traditional feudal dynasty.
Because the production environment is pretty good, it is better than the best. Dai Xinhan has been reading and writing since he was a child, but he comes from a family of officials. Naturally, he cannot take part in the imperial examination... he does not have the qualifications!
Also due to the influence of his family, he was exposed to various types of guns, swords and spears since he was a child, which cultivated his strong interest.
When I get older, I will also search for relevant books to read, and I will also think about improving related tools and gun craftsmanship.
However, these were of little use during the Ming Dynasty. As an official in a weapons workshop, he was not qualified to change anything without authorization.
After the Da Chu Empire came to Xiangyang and took over the official workshops under the Ming government, Dai Xinhan also took advantage of the situation and joined the Da Chu Empire.
Of course, at first, like many people, especially the officials or craftsmen, he did not think that he had officially joined the Chu Empire to join the bandits. They just thought that they were just working in the factory.
After Dai Xinhan turned over to the thieves, he became a junior manager in the Xiangyang Arsenal.
At this time, the Chu Empire was looking for professionals in various sciences, especially those who made guns and cannons, and offered them generous salaries.
Dai Xinhan didn't have much thought at that time. He just wanted to get more money to improve his family.
At that time, his wife had just given birth to three children for him. The life of his second brother's family was also very tight and he needed his support from time to time. Moreover, he also had a younger brother who had not yet married, and his old father had passed away. The eldest brother is like a father and naturally needs to shoulder corresponding responsibilities.
The pressure of raising a family is not small!
In order to get a higher salary, Dai Xinhan went to his boss and told him some of his ideas for improving machinery and guns. Unexpectedly, his boss took it very seriously.
It didn't take long for Dai Xinhan to become an engineer, leading a group of people under him to solve various technical problems in gun manufacturing.
Gradually, Dai Xinhan became a senior engineer at the artillery factory affiliated to Xiangyang Arsenal.
When the Dachu Empire was preparing to build the Hantian Arsenal, Dai Xinhan, together with other mid-level and senior technical personnel, was transferred to Daye County, Hantian Prefecture, and served as a senior engineer at the artillery factory affiliated to the Hantian Arsenal. He was mainly responsible for the research and development and production of long-body tubes. of artillery.
That is, the nine-pound naval gun used on naval battleships.
After the success of the research and development, the nine-pound naval gun he presided over the development and production quickly passed the inspection and was successfully installed on the navy's warships.
He then continued to develop the fourteen-pound naval gun, and successfully produced many before the Eastward Campaign.
At this time, Dai Xinhan had become the leading heavy artillery research and development expert in the artillery factory. His title was also changed from senior engineer to deputy engineer of the artillery factory. He was responsible for presiding over the development of various long-barreled heavy artillery and solving many problems in the production process. technical challenge.
Later, the Ministry of Industry of the Dachu Empire, based on Luo Zhixue's oral instructions, divided the artillery factory under the Hantian Arsenal and separated it into a heavy artillery factory.
Dai Xinhan also took advantage of the situation and became the chief engineer of the heavy artillery factory.
At this time, Dai Xinhan had actually deviated from his initial expectations. He not only worked for the arsenal of the Chu thieves, but also became an official of the Chu Empire.
Because in several important factories under the Ministry of Industry of the Da Chu Empire, their core technical positions, mainly deputy chief engineers, would be awarded official status and enjoy corresponding political treatment.
As the chief engineer of the heavy artillery factory, Dai Xinhan was awarded the fifth grade.
The chief engineer of the Hantian Arsenal, who is further up, has a rank of third grade, which is equivalent to the rank of the subordinate directors of various ministries and the chief envoys of various provinces.
Similarly, the senior management positions in these arsenals are also hierarchical.
The supervision of the heavy artillery factory is the fourth grade, and the co-organizer is the fourth grade, which is basically related to the grades of a prefect and a co-prefect.
However, these official grades are only limited to senior management and senior technical personnel. For ordinary middle and lower management and ordinary technical personnel, the method is still adopted as ordinary employees.
After Dai Xinhan became the chief engineer of the fifth-grade heavy artillery factory, his main focus was on the research and development of new artillery, namely the eighteen-pound naval gun.
This 18-pound naval gun is roughly equivalent to the 24-pound naval gun from the foreigners.
There is actually nothing wrong with the basic design. Just enlarge the fourteen-pound naval gun. The fourteen-pound naval gun in the Chu army was derived from the nine-jin naval gun.
This nine-pound naval gun is estimated to be derived from the traditional Hongyi artillery.
Generally speaking, the technical route is still the same. Even if there are subsequent changes, the overall changes will not be too big.
But the difficulty lies in production!
Or to be precise, mass production.
You must know that the Da Chu Empire has a very large demand for artillery, and it has adopted a preliminary industrial system and used mechanical equipment for processing.
This can be seen from the production of a large number of bronze field artillery by the Chu army. Although the entire production process is similar to the traditional Hongyi cannon in terms of technical route, in terms of specific processing and production, it is similar to the traditional Hongyi cannon. Hongyi cannon production is different.
The most typical one is to use a large hydraulic boring machine to finish the barrel of the bronze barrel, making the inner diameter of the barrel highly uniform and smoother.
It is worth mentioning that, with the exception of mortars, all long-barreled artillery pieces of the Chu Empire, whether they were army field guns or naval guns, including those fourteen-pound and eighteen-pound heavy artillery, were all made of bronze. Casting.
The reason why they did not adopt lower-cost cast iron cannons was mainly because the Chu Empire did not lack copper materials, at least the copper materials for casting cannons, so that they would not be forced to use cast iron cannons due to lack of copper materials.
In addition, copper-cast artillery is easier to process than cast-iron artillery and has lower requirements for mechanical equipment.
This means that if copper artillery is used, with the current technical capabilities of the Chu Empire, a barrel with better performance can be processed.
Finally, there is one very important point, even the most important, that is, the Chu Empire really does not lack the money for artillery!
"This star really wants to retire"
A nine-pound naval gun used by the navy has a mouth of 115 mm and a barrel of 24 times. It fires solid shells weighing nine pounds. If it is cast in bronze, the cost of the whole gun is about 800 taels.
If iron cannons are used, the cost can be controlled at about three hundred taels.
But the problem is that the Chu Empire does not need those five hundred taels...
One gate costs 500 taels, one hundred gates costs 50,000 taels, and a thousand gates only cost 500,000 taels. Compared to the Chu Empire, which spends 20 to 30 million taels a year on military expenses, this is not even a fraction. superior……
For the Chu Empire, the problem of artillery has never been about price, but about production capacity and performance!
Even if we talk about cost, we are talking more about maintenance costs. For example, for the Army Artillery Force, the cost is not the purchase cost of the artillery itself, but the expenditure on artillery, mules and horses, and ammunition for training operations.
For the navy, even the maintenance cost is much lower. After all, it does not use mules and horses. If it is exhausted, it will be the expense of the gun crew members.
Therefore, long ago, all kinds of long-barreled artillery in the major arsenals of the Chu Empire began to be fully converted to produce bronze artillery, and large-caliber naval guns were no exception.
The purpose is to increase production capacity, while reducing the frequency of troops changing guns, and indirectly increasing artillery production capacity.
If a division on the front line uses cast-iron artillery, there will be basically three large-scale and high-intensity battles, and each artillery fires hundreds of rounds. These cast-iron artillery will have to be replaced, otherwise they will explode in minutes.
But if copper artillery is used, then these copper artillery can last ten large-scale high-intensity battles or fire thousands of rounds before the artillery needs to be replaced.
The difference between the two is huge, and it is far more important than the cost of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.
Taken together, the Dachu Empire was more inclined to use copper artillery. However, even if copper artillery was produced, the processing difficulty was relatively low. However, as the caliber of the artillery increased, the length of the barrel became, those large The difficulty of processing caliber naval guns has also skyrocketed.
Apart from anything else, it is very troublesome to move the barrel of a large-caliber artillery and adjust its position during processing.
At the same time, it becomes very difficult to use a boring machine to finish the barrel of a large artillery machine.
Taken together, the Chu army faced a series of technical problems that needed to be solved in the mass production of large-caliber artillery.
And Dai Xinhan led the people, from specially designing and building new large-scale hydraulic machinery, to improving processing methods and many other steps, before finally finalizing the production of eighteen-pound naval guns.
To be precise, Dai Xinhan did not design an 18-pound naval gun, but solved the problem of mass production of an 18-pound naval gun.
And this is actually even more important for the Dachu Empire.
As for the design of artillery, there is actually no good design for artillery these days. It is just a barrel. If you want to shoot farther and be more powerful, then the barrel should be longer and thicker.
If you want mobility, make the barrel shorter and thinner.
If there is any, it is just some details on the gun mount that have been adjusted.
Or maybe study some patterns carved on the barrel...
What really troubles the engineers and arsenals/workshops who cast artillery in various countries is how to build the artillery.
Low cost, high volume manufacturing, and still maintain performance.
And this is the problem that many technicians in the Chu Empire urgently need to solve and improve!
