After the autumn, with the sound of a cannon, after nearly a year of preparation, the first batch of 25 637 artillery guns in Xianguo left the factory, the caliber is based on the weight of the projectile, the first batch of three models were cast, ten six-pound guns, ten twelve-pound guns, and five eighteen-pound guns, with a total cost of more than 550,000 gold and silver treasures, and the main cost is not steel consumption, but the original coal and iron ore mining technology, which consumes a lot of manpower.

Of course, you get what you pay for, thanks to the abundant production of Xianguo steel, the blast furnace can be poured and formed at one time, and at the same time, measures such as late opening of the sand box, thermal insulation and cold, and basic heat treatment to eliminate stress have been taken, and the scrap rate is low, and the unit price is much lower than that of the Changsun artillery, but the range of the three gun types is higher than that of the Changsun national artillery.

On the seventh day of the first month of November, King Xian, Lu Gao, Gao Xun, and Jiao Muhua went to the military camp outside Yongxing City to secretly watch the artillery.

"Hehaha...... Okay, the widowed Xianguo can finally cast cannons, it's all the credit of Yongxing Hou! ”

Bai Liyan bowed slightly, and said respectfully:

"The king has won the award, and the minister alone cannot do it, if there is no king who is wise, the craftsman is attentive, and the money is sparse, the minister cannot cast a cannon to the king in a short time."

"With this magic cannon, my Xianguo will no longer have to send people under the fence in the future, okay......" King Xian sighed infinitely, and continued to ask: "Yongxing Hou, how much money does this cannon cost, can it be cast in large quantities to help my Xian army recover the lost territory?" ”

"King Qiyu, the cost of research, steel, labor, coal and civil power required for the six-pound cannon is about 15,000 yuan of alloy silver Tongbao, about 22,000 yuan of 12 jin cannon, and about 37,000 yuan of 18 jin cannon, and the total cost of this cannon is more than 550,000 yuan, and the cost is huge, and it will not be much less than silver money."

King Xian was also taken aback when he heard the news:

"It's so huge!"

At this time, Chang Shi Gaoxun said:

"King, the cost of casting this cannon has not been included in the profits, and the cost of research and development of two or three hundred thousand yuan, before Changsun Guo's five-kilogram projectile cannon, sold to other countries for 50,000 inches of silver, sold to our country was even more expensive than 150,000, and now a six-pound cannon only costs more than 15,000 yuan, which is quite cheap."

At this time, Bai Liyan took over and said:

"The king, the reason why the minister does not advocate immediately casting cannons is because the national strength of our Xianguo is weak, and a large number of cannons will cost a lot of money, this time the casting of 25 cannons, the cost of more than 550,000 gold and silver treasures, counting the 150,000 yuan of research and development costs, the profit that Qianfang just has is not enough, the treasury has also pasted more than 200,000 yuan, and Yongxing City has also taken out 50,000 yuan, so the minister still hopes that the king can wait for a few more years."

"Alas......" King Xian sighed, with a helpless look: "That's it, the Jin country has fifty cannons, and the widow gets twenty-five, and the widow is also satisfied, so let's stop it for the time being, and it's not too late to wait a few years to cast it." ”

"King Shengming!"

Since copper ore resources are much less than iron ore resources, the price of iron within the government is at least half or even less of the price of copper, and should not be upside down.

However, the reality is that the internal price of pig iron and steel is still slightly more expensive than copper, and external sales are definitely more expensive than copper. Moreover, there is currently less iron ore than copper ore, which also increases the rarity of steel.

Restricted by mining technology, the mining efficiency of iron ore and coal is very low, and many places still use copper tools to mine iron ore and coal mines, and use people to carry baskets and baskets from the bottom of the mine to the ground, and a large amount of cost is consumed on the rations and wages of miners.

At the same time, the import of coal and iron ore has also pushed up the cost, and the coal and iron ore imported from Zhiguo, Changsun, and Weiguo are at least 50% more expensive than those of Xianguo itself.

Yongxing City Railway has a large output and concentrated energy consumption, which naturally forms an industrial scale effect and lowers the cost, although the cost is much lower than that of Changsun Guo, but it is impossible to reduce the cost without limit.

To fundamentally solve the problem of inverted iron and copper prices, the root cause lies in technology and productivity, improve mining operations, transportation and mining equipment, accelerate agricultural improvement, lower grain prices, and improve collection efficiency, which is undoubtedly the most immediate measure.

At this time, Lu Gao looked a mile away, and had been thinking for a long time and said:

"Da Si Nong, I look at these twenty-five cannons, each of which has its own size, and the projectile is heavier than that of Changsun Guo, why is the cannon body smaller than that of Changsun Guo?"

General Lu asked very much. The artillery of the Changsun Kingdom is larger than the artillery of our Xianguo, but its range is not as good as that of our Xianguo. ”

"Oh, why is that?" Gao Xun asked.

"Because the steel of Xianguo is good and sufficient, and it is cast from a pot of molten iron, not only is there less waste, but the cannon wall is thinner than it, and the natural weight is also light, and the body is smaller. Although the projectile is heavier, the range is slightly longer than that of Changsun Guo. At present, lead bullets are still used, and if copper or pig iron shots are used, they can be farther away. ”

Changsun Guo's five-pound projectile iron cannon has a range of nearly one mile, and Yongxing City's six-gold projectile cannon has a range of more than one and a half miles. The eleven-pound cannon of Changsun Country has a range of one and a half kilograms, while the twelve kilograms of artillery in Yongxing City reach two miles.

In addition, Changsun Guo also cast seventeen catties of cannons and twenty-three catties of cannons, the body is very large, it seems to be mighty, but in fact, the increase in range is pitiful, the former is only more than two miles, and the latter is just over three miles.

Yongxing City's largest projectile is currently eighteen catties, which can easily fire the projectile three and a half miles away, and the weight of the cannon is one-third lighter than the Changsun National Iron Cannon.

In the final analysis, it is the eldest grandson who points to the wrong science and technology tree, purely takes the doctrine of thinking, and in the case of no understanding of the frontier of technology, he wants to take the doctrine and get the model of the iron cannon, and thinks that the development of technology must be based on the iron cannon, but in fact it is not the same thing at all.

Not to mention that the current price of iron and copper in the Central Plains is upside down, the price of iron is more expensive than the price of copper, and the appearance of artillery in the Bronze Age is a fundamental mistake.

According to the normal technical path, copper cannons should be used first, and iron cannons should be followed.

Because before the emergence of industrial steelmaking and early physical and chemical technology, the metallographic composition of iron could not obtain quantitative data by metallographic analysis and physicochemical analysis, and could only be made based on experience, so the performance of traditional copper cannons was actually better than that of pig iron cannons, iron cannons and semi-wrought iron cannons.

In the early days, due to the higher probability of exploding, the iron cannon could only blindly increase the wall thickness, which resulted in a heavier wall than the copper cannon.

Since Changsun Guo first came into contact with iron cannons, he took it for granted that iron cannons were the most authentic in the world, and they were imitated with iron materials, but in fact, if he honestly studied pure copper artillery, the range of the artillery should be longer.

Of course, the Jin Xuedi people are an exception, even if they use copper cannons, how can their smelting ability be far inferior to that of the Central Plains, and there are too many defects in artillery.

In addition, Bailiyan reformulated the artillery operation procedures and improved the artillery configuration, which greatly shortened the loading time and process.

The rate of fire of artillery using the powder pack technology should be less than four minutes per round, but the reality is affected by the differences in the operation and gunpowder composition of the guns used by the vassal states, and the cleaning of the gun chamber and the unsmooth operation take six to seven minutes, or even longer, from firing to loading and firing.

After the establishment of the artillery section of the armament battalion, the professional process was fully realized, which greatly shortened the artillery loading time to three to four minutes. If smokeless and residueless gunpowder is used, the loading time of six-, twelve-, and eighteen-pound breech guns can be shortened to three to two minutes.

When he was young, Bailiyan ordered the artillery team to load at the maximum firing range, and the eighteen-pound cannon easily hit three and a half miles away with a straight trajectory.

Lu Gao was shocked by the bombardment, he was very clear about the bombardment of Manibarça back then, dozens of artillery pieces with a range of only one mile were still so terrifying, not to mention the artillery in front of him. Seeing this, Lu Gao asked again:

"Dasi Nong, at present, countries are either buying or copying, and there are still a few cannons, but the kind of people who carry them on their shoulders use small cannons, and Yongxing City can make them."

"There is no such plan, but in the near future we can build more powerful firearms for human use, ten times more powerful. In addition, Yongxing City has produced a new type of gunpowder canister, which is extremely convenient to use. ”

Bai Liyan motioned to Jiang Jie, sent ten stringed wooden-handled grenades [Note 1] that had just been produced last month, and found Tian Peng to throw them eighty steps away, and the huge power made King Xian, Lu Gao, and Gao Xun stunned:

"Oh my boy, this thing is so powerful!"

King Xian was shocked, Lu Gao took one and looked through it carefully, reached out to untie the safety cover, and wanted to pull out the string under the handle, but was immediately stopped by Bailiyan:

"Beware, once this string is pulled open and smokes, it will explode like the one just now after ten strokes, which is very dangerous!"

Lu Gao didn't know why he was busy asking:

"Don't you need to start it with fire again, as it was back then?"

"Yes, as long as this string is pulled, white smoke or sound will explode after ten strokes, so it must be thrown immediately after the string, otherwise it will be very dangerous."

There is no secret to the string-fired wooden-handled grenade, but it took Bai Liyan two months to figure out the principle of firing.

In fact, just like rubbing matches against match skins, the low temperature and low ignition point of phosphorus are used to generate heat through friction, and then ignite matches, and the same is true for string ignition.

The structure is changed from a flat plane to a tube, and only a tube is made of lead skin, supplemented by phosphorus and glass powder, and the black powder is connected in series to delay the combustion of the fuse.

Due to the limited power of black powder, Bailiyan opened a nitric acid processing workshop to configure nitrocellulose.

Nitrocellulose is smokeless gunpowder, although the power is better than black powder, but the performance is not stable, sensitive to temperature, explosive, easy to decompose. Although nitrocellulose can be used to make safer and smokeless gunpowder, ethanol and ether, especially ether, are required.

The problem of small-dose configuration of ether in the laboratory is not big [Note 2], but the large-scale industrial production of ether still needs simple supporting chemicals and simple equipment.

Nitrocellulose is used with extreme care, as it is generally safe to have a purity of less than 12.5 percent, and Baili Yan fills the grenade with 5 percent nitrocellulose to enhance its power, while casting the projectile into a fragment shape to enhance its lethal power.

Although this kind of string firing grenade is, in a sense, technologically advanced, the reality is not optimistic.

In the past three years, Baili Yantuo Yuke has entered the Changsun Kingdom to find the giant ship that was pulled back from the sea nine years ago.

Since then, more than 14 "weird" guns, seven bayonets, more than 10 strips, two cannons, dozens of lead bullets, ignition grenades, incendiary grenades, and oversized leather boots with a size of at least 50 yards have been stolen from the warehouse of Changsun Guo, and two extremely detailed charts have been stolen, and even three telescopes have been stolen.

[Note 1] Although the technique of the wooden-handled string grenade was simple, it appeared much later than the flap impact oval detonator grenade, which was developed by Germany and put into use on the battlefield about before World War I.

[Note 2] The laboratory preparation process is not completely suitable for industrial-scale production, because of the lack of large-scale supporting equipment required to industrialize, scale, safety and process stability of the laboratory process.

At the same time, because the first discovered process path is not necessarily the cheapest, fastest and most trouble-free process technology path, there is a period of technological exploration and upgrading between the laboratory application and industrial production of technical products.

However, if there is a foreseen or known technical shortcut, this period of time can naturally be avoided, but the premise is that it still needs to match the equipment in other fields and the industrial base and talent base.