Since Nanyangwei obtained a large amount of copper ore imported from Luzon, the artillery used in the north and south oceans was cast by iron-core copper shell technology, and the yield rate was further improved, and the durability of the artillery was also improved a lot.

If you want to break a cannon, it's hard.

But the artillerymen were still optimistic about the durability of the Dutch artillery, and most of them believed that the two guns that had been picked out would be destroyed after ten consecutive firings, but after ten times the guns were still intact, and the experienced craftsmen struck the muzzles with sticks and ran away with a calm face.

"Shuai, that cannon is made of steel."

He had never seen steel in Spain's artillery in the past, and it was amazing to have a few cast iron cannons, where to get steel cannons.

Could it be that the war in the Dutch province suddenly invented a cannon made of steel?

Chen Mu also thought about making cannons directly from steel when he was in Nanyangwei, which is not impossible, but because the steel made of pig iron and wrought iron is not even, it cannot be guaranteed that all of it is steel, and the texture is uneven, some places are brittle and some places are tough, but the quality is not as durable as the iron-core copper shell cannon.

He even had some doubts now that his military craftsmen were in the Ordnance Bureau through the back door, and they couldn't tell the difference between steel and iron?

"Keep fighting, hit until it's fried, and see what it is!"

Order, this is a pain for the worried artillery in front, the front ten guns are fine, anyway, I know that it will explode sooner or later, but after firing ten cannons in a row, the pressure in my heart is a little different.

Every time the cannon was released, I thought the cannon would explode, and I hid behind the wall and panicked, but every cannon did not explode.

I couldn't even bear it in my heart when I got to the back, and I put a few pairs of cuirasses on the other side of the wall, and the more I fought, the more scared I became.

After firing thirty cannons in a row with a normal amount of gunpowder, Chen Mu already believed that the angular cannon was a steel cannon, so he had no choice but to order it to be fired with a strong charge, which was the normal amount of gunpowder of the Ming army in the past.

In the past, the normal amount of ammunition used by the Ming military artillery was the same weight as ammunition, but later the gunpowder used by the Nanyang military government was improved and the trajectory was studied, so the amount of gunpowder used was reduced to half the weight of the shell.

In the end, Chen Mu was really too lazy to watch, so he went home and drank a cup of tea, and then the flag army came to report quickly, and one of the two cannons was finally damaged, and it was suffocated from the middle of the cannon body.

It is indeed a steel cannon, but it is different from the cast steel cannon in Chen Mu's imagination, it is a forged steel cannon.

The body of the cannon is like a large spring broken in two, and when viewed from the cross-section, the inside of the barrel is made of a splicing technique similar to that of the Portuguese-made Franc machine, and the steel bars are hooped into the barrel like a barrel.

Outside the gun chamber, it is wrapped with steel bars from the tail of the gun like a coil to the muzzle, and then from the muzzle of the gun circle and back to the tail of the gun, just by looking at it, you can know how much effort it took to build this cannon, after wrapping three layers, then wrap a layer of iron paddle grinding and polishing, and finally add some decorative parts.

It was very interesting, and the time-consuming workmanship was breathtaking, but it also paid off as it was due, and the strength of the material greatly increased so that the cannon was unbeatable in terms of durability, leaving Chen Muping with all the artillery he had seen in his life.

"Can we do this kind of artillery-making process?"

Facing Chen Mu's inquiry, the old craftsman shook his head and said, "No problem, this is too simple, but it is twice as durable and costly." ”

This production method is very labor-intensive at first glance, but it achieves a not very practical result, Chen Mu smiled: "We have to try to use this method to make artillery of different specifications and calibers to calculate its cost." ”

The reason why it is said is not very practical, because it is rare for a single gun in a battle to have more than ten shots in a row.

Regardless of naval or land battles, they are all fighting for a while and resting for a while, for example, Li Dan's Jiazi ship fired seven rounds of salvos in the previous round, which is already a lot of fire.

In the early years, Chen Muqin led his troops to defend the Mongolian cavalry, and his artillery kept being released without stopping, and more than half of the shells were wasted.

In addition, a gun that has been tested and qualified has a clean chamber during the firing process, and proper maintenance work can make the gun extremely durable, and the chamber will hardly be exploding until the chamber is severely worn to the point where it is difficult to aim.

But that's not to say that this method of production is without merit.

Chen Mu believes that this method of making artillery is less expensive than iron-core copper-shell cannons, after all, copper is three times more expensive than steel, but the cost of labor will increase by a large part, so he thinks this is a mathematical problem.

When making a light gun with a total weight of no more than a certain weight, less copper is used, but the steel bar chamber will increase the cost, and it is not appropriate to reduce the production in order to increase the strength.

However, when making heavy guns that exceed this weight, the consumption of copper increases, and the weight of the gun body must be increased in order to improve the strength of the iron core.

Figuring out the production process of the Dutch artillery, Chen Mu is not very interested in the rest of the parameters, the principle of the front-loading smoothbore gun is like this, as long as the shape is fixed, there will not be much difference, Zhao Shizhen likes to ponder these things, and the various parameter experiments on the 'Dutch artillery' are handed over to Zhao Shizhen to supervise.

He rode on a tall horse and took Xu Wei all the way to see his little donkey.

Donkeys are good, hard-working and obedient, and only one person can lead four or five donkeys to the road, and Panama needs them on the mountain roads.

In terms of the transportation of bulk goods, because of tariff barriers, Chen Mu is reluctant to let Daming's goods arrive in the Gulf of Mexico through the official Mexican road, and he is also unwilling to let the purchased goods flow in through there, and the mountain road that is not suitable for people is obviously more suitable.

Besides, it's half the way.

Anyway, the goods are subject to taxes, and it is better to give them all to yourself than to give them to New Spain.

At present, the Panama Mountain Road has also been set up by Deng Zilong along the way, and it is not difficult to transport goods from west to east, but it is just time-consuming and difficult to walk on the mountain road.

This mode of transportation was not conceived by Chen Mu, in the past, the Spaniards transported large quantities of goods in this way, and the famous battle of the English pirate Drake was to attack the Spaniards' treasure transport team on the Isthmus of Panama.

"We'll have to get more donkeys from Spain, and wool, anyway, the Spaniards have been raising sheep, so it's good to let them continue to raise sheep in the future."

Xu Wei rode the donkey from side to side, holding the wine jug and pouring it into his mouth but couldn't pour it out, only to find that he had drunk not a drop left, and put the wine jug back in the donkey's saddle bag with a dissatisfied face, and then nodded and said, "It's good." ”

"But Marshal, what the military government lacks most at the moment is not wool, nor donkeys and the like, what we lack most is iron, and if we don't solve the source of iron ore, the military government can't make anything even if there are more craftsmen."

Iron.

Chen Mu slowly bowed his head.