When the report of Shi Si and Zhang Di's proposal to build an armed merchant ship was handed to the Economic and Strategic Embassy, Zhu Mingzhong was looking through the report of the cannon foundry, which had been trying to cast solid cannon blanks and then mill the cannon holes using a boring machine for the past few months.

Based on the understanding of modern artillery casting, Zhu Mingzhong naturally knew that after the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century, European artillery was cast by casting solid gun blanks.

Although the experiment of the foundry encountered some problems, after continuous attempts, the foundry has now successfully solved some of these technical problems.

"The tool is running out too fast...... Well, that's for sure, after all, carbon steel cutters are used, and when there is high-speed steel in the future, this problem can be solved! ”

In self-talk, looking at the performance comparison between the hollow method and the solid bore method in the report, the same 12-pounder gun, the latter's life is as high as 875 rounds, which is 27.3% higher than the former.

"Maybe it's time to think about the caron cannon!"

In his own words, Zhu Mingzhong once again took out the drawings of the caron cannon from the drawer, which was the attached drawing in the e-book of the Victory.

In the latter decades of the 18th century, the British Navy achieved two major technological innovations, one was to cover the bottom of the ship with copper plates, thereby improving the life of the navy's warships, and the other was to adopt large-caliber caron guns to enhance the power of the navy's warships.

And the caron cannon is the practice of the ideas of artillery theorists such as Benjamin Robbins and John Mill. As early as 1747, Robbins's pamphlet suggested replacing all naval guns under 18 pounds with larger guns of the same caliber. The starting point for this suggestion was that historically, most naval battles had taken place at close range, when the destructive power of artillery would increase disproportionately with the size of the shells. At the same time, he proposed to reduce the weight of the guns by reducing the weight of their propellants to one-third of the weight of the shells. Mill, a professor at the Royal Army Military Academy, believed that lighter and shorter guns should be made, and the clearance of the guns should be reduced to 24 times the diameter of the shell.

Of course, their proposals, which eventually became a reality, were based on one foundation – the basis of technological progress. By the late 18th century, Britain had made significant progress in artillery casting. At this time, the artillery was no longer directly cast with a hollow gun body as in the past, but first cast a cylindrical solid gun body, and then drilled out the barrel with a boring machine. The application of horizontal boring machine, sand mold casting gun, gray cast iron and other technologies has improved the reliability and accuracy of artillery, and also improved production efficiency. The application of these new technologies has also laid the foundation for the emergence of the Caron gun.

The caron cannon was a very unique type of artillery for its time. Its magnification is close to that of howitzers and mortars, but it is used in a flat-firing manner like a cannon. It has only a single lug, a ring on the button, and the muzzle is not expanded, but retracted. Its caliber is huge, even up to 64 pounds, but its weight is much lighter than that of a cannon of the same caliber. Because of this, the heavier but less powerful naval guns can be replaced by the more powerful caron guns on warships. Even the 64-pounder caron, the largest caliber, weighed less than the 32-pounder cannon, which was much smaller in caliber.

Although the Caron cannon has a short body and a small charge, which brings a short range and poor accuracy, this defect is not obvious at sea. Because in the naval warfare of the Age of Sail, a very close distance of 200 yards was a normal range, the accuracy and range of the Caron cannon could fully meet the combat needs of this distance, and the large-caliber shells it fired were full of destructive power.

"Solid cast cannons, boreholes, gray cast iron...... Technically there should be no problem! ”

Nodding, Zhu Mingzhong casually put the drawings of the caron cannon into an official letter to be sent to the arsenal, and soon it will be sent to the cannon foundry, and the cannon factory will be cast.

"Bottom clad lamina...... When the merchant ships to Japan come back and have copper, they can carry it out, and they will make do with it first. ”

Many times, many things are like this, the implementation of many new technologies is always subject to raw materials and technical level, in this regard, Zhu Mingzhong can be said to have a deep understanding, just like the current knife loss rate in the foundry is too fast, resulting in the rise in artillery costs, the reason is that there is no suitable tool, and because of the high cost of steelmaking, the price of carbon steel as a tool remains high.

"The daily production rate of spontaneous guns has exceeded 100, so that if you make 100 spontaneous guns a day, you will have 36,000 spontaneous guns a year......"

Looking at the other content of the report, although I know that the establishment of such a flintlock pistol production capacity in half a year is already a miracle in itself, but after all, this is a pile of hundreds of workers, if their technology is more skilled, the production capacity can be increased at least more than twice, after all, the most difficult technical difficulty of those flintlock pistols is only a barrel, and with the help of hydraulic forging hammers and other machines, the barrel manufacturing speed is much faster than the old manual work.

"At least 100,000 units should be produced to meet the needs of the Loyal Army, well, urge the arsenal to improve production and increase production."

Zhu Mingzhong, who has always believed in the basic principle of "technology is combat effectiveness", will devote a lot of energy to the manufacture and design of weapons, from artillery to armor, everything is involved, just to improve the combat effectiveness of the loyal army.

After finally reading the submission of the arsenal and taking a sip of tea, Zhu Mingzhong picked up another report on the table.

"Build armed merchant ships?"

But just read this report hastily, Zhu Mingzhong immediately became interested, and he almost immediately ordered someone to call Zhang Di, who was in Qinghe.

When entering Jinglue's public room, Zhang Di couldn't help but take a deep breath, although this was not the first time he had seen Jinglu, but it was the first time he had been summoned alone.

"Xia Guan has seen the scripture!"

Noticing that Zhang Di seemed to be a little nervous, Zhu Mingzhong immediately said with a smile.

"Yuelin, sit, don't be so nervous, this official doesn't talk about any official authority here, besides, you are also half a navy soldier, if the navy soldiers are so submissive, how can you become a captain."

Zhu Mingzhong, who knew that such words would not have much effect, immediately cut straight to the point.

"Yuelin, I saw that in the report between you and Shi Si, you mentioned that you want to build armed merchant ships and give them a certain subsidy, so tell me what you think."

After the words fell, Zhu Mingzhong immediately put on a look of great interest, he knew that under the nervous situation of the other party, after entering his professional field, he would soon be able to relax.

Although the strength of the naval fleet should not be inferior to the Zheng fleet, but when it comes to the number of artillery and the number of ships, it is still far less than the Zheng army, in the naval battle, if the Zheng family naval army besieges our fleet with a numerical advantage, although our army seems to be invincible with its strong ships and guns, after all, it is difficult to defeat four hands with two fists, but once it implements broadside warfare regardless of casualties, and constantly implements fire attacks, because of the number of ships, so that it is impossible for our army to defeat the other side, and even if it is victorious, it will be a crushing victory......"

Although Zheng Jun was not the opponent of the Loyal Army, because Zheng Jun was the most powerful naval opponent that the Loyal Army had to face, Zhang Di naturally regarded it as an imaginary enemy.

"Although Zheng Jun's ships are numerous, there are no less than hundreds of large and small sea ships, but there are only dozens of their warships, and most of their ships are all kinds of merchant ships, the small ones are only 500 materials, and the large ones are also 2,000 materials......

More ants bite the elephant!

Of course, Zhu Mingzhong is very clear about this reason, in fact, the reason why the Ming Dynasty, who was at a technological disadvantage in the naval battle of Liuluo Bay, won the victory by virtue of its numerical superiority. Later, when Zheng Chenggong recovered Taiwan, he fought with the Dutch, and also relied on this advantage.

"The numerical disadvantage is the biggest disadvantage of our army now, and with the scale of our naval army, it is impossible to raise hundreds of warships, even the cheapest 12-gun warship, its cost is several times that of sand ships, including artillery, the cost of silver is as high as 2,000 taels, therefore, if we want to make up for the disadvantage in quantity, we have to encourage the people to build merchant ships, with armed merchant ships to supplement the shortage of naval forces, in wartime, like Westerners, directly recruit armed merchant ships to participate in the war."

Because it was mentioned that it was his field of expertise, Zhang Di's expression did not have any of the previous nervousness, but he seemed very calm, and even emphasized it later.

"In the Anglo-French naval battle of 1588, the Spanish Armada had a total of 130 ships, of which 44 were armed merchant ships. In addition to the 34 naval warships, England, which is its opponent, also has more than 60 private warships, and these so-called private warships are probably armed merchant ships, but their structure is stronger than ordinary merchant ships......

Of course, Zhu Mingzhong knew about this extremely famous naval battle in the history of naval warfare, and he also knew what those private warships were-privateers - privateers, and it can be said that the British relied on these dozens of privateers to lay the foundation for victory in naval battles, especially the "Drake Detachment" that played an important role in naval battles. When the last few dozen wrecked ships of the Armada returned to Spain after the end of the naval battle, Spain began to decline and the British Empire became the new maritime hegemon.

"Armed merchant ships...... Some should indeed be built,"

After pondering for a moment, Zhu Ziyang looked at Zhang Di and asked rhetorically while nodding in agreement.

"But I don't think everyone wants to build an armed merchant ship!"