Wu Yizhou laughed and said, "Family master, don't worry!" It must have been done properly! ”

Liu Pei said seriously: "Yizhou, you have to remember one thing, that is, don't let your subordinates get involved. Your men are soldiers, warriors, not robbers who kill people and steal goods. It's okay for Liu Jiang's subordinates to do this kind of thing, understand? ”

Wu Yizhou hurriedly arched his hand and said, "Understood, family master." Don't worry, I will restrain my subordinates. ”

Liu Pei sighed and said: "How many armies in all dynasties were loyal and brave and disciplined in the early days of their establishment! But often the bad thing is bad in military discipline! So you have to remember that it is your first priority to pay close attention to military discipline! In particular, the navy has been floating on the sea for a long time, and people feel a little uncomfortable, so it is not unusual to do some strange things. But don't let them turn into a bunch of murderous bandits. ”

At this time, a family member came to report and said: "Tell the master of the house, all the things in the village have been moved, and everyone has boarded the boat, please show the master of the house." ”

Liu Pei waved his hand and said, "Let's go home!" ”

A month and a half later, there was a very big case of destruction in Songjiang Mansion. The head of the deceased's family was a man. All 14 members of the family died. It has been two days since an autopsy confirmed that the person was dead. At the same time, another body was found at the scene of the crime. Judging by his dress and posture, he is undoubtedly a pirate. Moreover, the officers also found a lot of property that was obviously stolen goods in the house! So in the end, the prefectural decree concluded that this was a pirate infighting caused by an uneven distribution of spoils. The man was the master of the pirate's den on land.

While the servants were desperately tracking down to the seashore, the men who did it had already headed inland with easy-to-carry gold, silver, jewelry, and other goods, and quietly joined the hitchhiker on the way back to Shandong.

When Liu Pei returned home, there was good news. It turned out that Liu Jiang bought back two craftsmen who cast cannons in the barracks. Liu Pei was very happy to hear the news! Immediately ordered someone to set up a special cannon casting workshop and sent a special person to take charge of it.

In order to hone their calculations, Liu Pei specially arranged for them to try to cast a few small cannons first. However, Liu Pei did not let them use the traditional sand mold casting method, but taught them the iron mold casting method.

The Chinese iron mold casting method was pioneered in 1841 by Gong Zhenlin, a native of Changzhou County, Suzhou, Zhejiang Province, and 30 years earlier than the West. The book "Diagram of Iron Molds for Cast Cannons" written by him can be called the world's earliest scientific and technological monograph on the systematic discussion of metal cast cannons, and was included in Wei Yuan's scientific and technological series "Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" compiled by Wei Yuan.

This iron mold casting cannon should first be divided into 4 to 7 sections according to the size of the iron cannon, make a mud cannon, and then divide the iron mold mud type according to the number of mud cannon sections, each clay type is divided into two petals, and the inner surface is rotated with a car plate to make the surface smooth and clean, the shape is regular, and then dried for later use.

A prefabricated handle is placed in the clay mold, and it is cast into one piece with the iron mold when poured. Then, when turning the cast iron mold with the mud mold, first put the section of the muzzle upside down on the mud plate, fill one of the petals with mud, after drying, cover the mud plate, tighten the mold, and obtain a petal of the first iron mold after pouring. Then remove the filling mud, and cast another iron mold in the same way. In this way, the section by section pouring can be cast into a complete set of iron molds with layers of tenons.

Finally, when casting the iron cannon with the iron mold, the inner surface of the mold is first brushed with the paint made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud and water, and then the second layer of paint prepared by extremely fine coal powder is painted, and then the iron mold is tightened, the mud core is heated, and the molten iron is poured. After solidifying, immediately take off the iron mold, while the gun body is still red-hot, remove the burrs, remove the pottery core, and get the finished gun.

This method is much faster than the original methods such as the mud mold method and the lost wax method. Compared with the clay mold casting gun, the advantages of the iron mold casting cannon are that the process is simple and easy, saving the mold raw materials, not limited by climatic conditions, shortening the manufacturing cycle, reducing the production cost, no moisture problem, especially solving the problem of not going out of the honeycomb, thus greatly improving the quality of artillery casting, and greatly reducing the scrap rate of the casting gun.

The gunsmiths lived for a few months to become familiar with the iron mold casting method, but the inner chamber cooling method taught to them by Liu Pei was still at a loss. The key is that Liu Pei only knows what the principle is, but does not know the specific method. I had to hand it over to the blacksmith to slowly grope around.

The so-called central cooling method is to dissipate heat with running water inside the core, and cool the barrel, so that the inside of the barrel can be hardened first, and when the outer metal of the barrel is cooled, it shrinks inward, and the metal structure of the entire barrel is more firm, which can greatly reduce the cracks of the barrel caused by uneven cooling and heat dissipation when casting the gun. Now the casting of this 6-pound cannon is good, even if it is really scrapped, it is 5oo pounds of pig iron, but if it is cast large-caliber heavy artillery, the barrel wall is much thicker than the 6-pound gun, and it is easy to have uneven cooling after casting, and it is difficult to control the scrap rate without using this method.

In the end, it was not the gunsmith who came up with the solution, but the carpenter! The carpenter who came to help suggested that when casting the cannon in the future, the muzzle of the cannon should be erected upwards to cast, so that the core of the pottery could be drawn and put into the iron pipe for water cooling. This is also a layer of window paper, and it's really nothing if it's poked open. However, Liu Pei still rewarded the carpenter. Therefore, after nearly a year, the first artillery cannon cast by Liu Pei's own family appeared!

Liu Peizhe also had another idea when he came back, that is, to form an all-firearms unit. He brought back a large number of muskets from modern times and experimented with the infantry phalanx. But after a few performances, I always felt that something was wrong. So I put out this thought for the time being, and I was thinking about what the problem was.

Just when Liu Pei was drawing drawings at home, he suddenly came to report to the soldiers, saying that Yang Jingfa and Yang Qianhu came to visit him. This made Liu Pei feel very strange. What is this Yang Jingfa coming to visit him for? But he went out to greet him anyway.

As soon as Liu Pei walked out of the gate, he saw Yang Jingfa standing outside the gate with a family member. That family member is Yang Jingyuan, who delivered the title deed to Liu last time, and Yang Jingfa, who has not seen him for many days, has not changed much, but he looks thinner. Liu Pei immediately arched his hand and said, "Lord Yang, I haven't seen you for many days." ”

Yang Jingfa also arched his hand and said, "Lord Liu, don't come to harm!" ”

The two laughed at the door, and Liu Pei invited him into the hall. After the soldiers served tea, Liu Pei asked, "I don't know what Lord Yang is doing here?" ”

Yang Jingfa pondered for a moment and said, "I have confidential matters that I want to talk to Master Liu about carefully. Please also ask Lord Liu to step back and leave the left. ”

As soon as Liu Peiluo thought about it, he arranged for his own soldiers to handle the door, so that he could talk to Yang Jingfa in detail. Liu Pei said: "At this time, there are my personal soldiers guarding the door, and no one will disturb us." Tell me something. ”

Liu Pei was very wary of Yang Jingfa's coming. After all, it was he who took Yang Jingfa's position, causing Yang Jingfa to be transferred elsewhere. So he thinks that Yang Jingfa's intentions may not be good, but he just doesn't know if he guesses accurately.

Yang Jingfa stood up and bowed his hand to Liu Pei and said, "Lord Liu, I really have something to ask for when I come here this time, and I hope Lord Liu can agree." ”

Liu Pei also got up and said, "Lord Yang, why be polite between you and me!" If there's anything I can do, I'll do my best. ”

But Yang Jingfa looked a little red and a little embarrassed at this time. He said slowly: "I want to go to Lord Liu this time, and I ask Lord Liu to take me in." ”

Liu Pei couldn't help but open his mouth wide after hearing this, and his eyes were glazed! After a long time, he said, "Lord Yang, are you joking with me?" It's not funny! ”

Yang Jingfa sighed and said, "Lord Liu, I'm really not joking with you. I have indeed come to you. ”

At this moment, Liu Pei didn't know what to say. Liu Pei himself is just a thousand households. And Yang Jingfa is also a thousand households. The two are people of the same level, how could Yang Jingfa have the idea of coming to him? It doesn't make sense.

So Liu Pei said: "Lord Yang, what happened here?" Can you tell me more about it? ”

Yang Jingfa sighed again before he explained to Liu Pei. It turned out that Yang Jingfa was a relatively alternative figure in the health center when he was a thousand households. However, he is hereditary, and he is usually respectful to Shangguan, so there is no big problem and no one can touch him.