Under the design of Sun Yuanhua and his research team, these cannons well met the requirements of Chongzhen's standardization and weight reduction. The smallest 3-kilogram gun weighs only 1,125 kilograms, and the gun carriage weighs only 1,875 kilograms.

When fighting in the field, even in rugged mountainous areas where there are no roads, they can be carried up the mountain by manpower. In peacetime, two horses are arranged for towing, and one horse can be dragged in case of emergency.

The caliber of the gun is 85 mm, the clearance is one-tenth, the weight of the shell is 113 kg, the charge is 023 kg, the firing range of the gun at a 5-degree angle of fire is 480 meters, and the cost is 41 yuan per gun.

Although the power of this artillery is the smallest in the entire artillery system, it is light and cheap, and it is much more powerful than non-standard firearms such as the Tiger Squat Cannon used by the Ming army before.

2-3 trained gunners will be able to operate, and although the fastest firing rate is now 2 minutes per round, Sun Yuanhua believes that with more training, it will be possible to achieve 1 minute per round in the future.

At the same time, Tang Ruowang and others were also compiling firing tables, preparing to roughly fix the firing range and firing range of guns of different specifications for gunners to practice. As for those cannons that have deviations in the casting process and do not conform to the firing table, they will be supplied to merchant ships or exported as non-conforming products.

As for the auxiliary instruments for artillery firing, the muzzle quadrant brought by the missionaries was also changed to a more easily operated gun tail quadrant. It can be said that under this series of improvements in artillery casting and firing technology, the artillery has almost formed an independent combat unit, and it is no longer an informal army formation that used to arbitrarily draw manpower from soldiers to ignite.

The study of artillery casting and shooting skills not only greatly deepened the understanding of the performance of artillery among the commanders of the Ming army, but also enabled them to use the power of the cannon in their hands more accurately.

The most important thing is to break the Ming soldiers' deification and fear of artillery, and in the past, military attachés and literati blindly touted the divine power of artillery, and at every turn it was a cannon that eroded for dozens of miles, so that the Ming soldiers completely pinned their hopes on the artillery when fighting.

In the false propaganda of these literati, these Ming soldiers timidly recognized the image of the Jurchens as invincible in the field battle, but they foolishly believed that in the defense of the city, as long as the cannon general sounded, the Jurchens would suffer heavy casualties.

This kind of thinking not only made the Ming army lose the courage to fight with the enemy in the field, but also raised the power of the cannon infinitely. Therefore, once the power of the artillery is not as great as they imagined when defending the city, morale will naturally begin to decline.

Treating artillery as a sacred object, rather than a hand-made and used tool of war, also made the soldiers of the Ming army neglect the research of artillery shooting technology, and regarded the rigor and science required for artillery firing as a miracle on the battlefield to expect the blessing of the gods.

This kind of thinking is manifested in practice, that is, in the war, the random loading* and projectiles, the soldiers who are afraid of exploding the chamber greatly reduce the standard charge; And the brave soldiers desperately reloaded*, completely oblivious to the performance and range of the artillery itself.

As a result, the former's shells were not powerful enough to disappoint their own soldiers. The latter, on the other hand, often caused explosions and directly damaged their own defensive positions. No matter how you look at it, the power of the deified artillery will eventually make the Ming army itself suffer.

In the course of the research and reporting of artillery skills for more than half a year, although some literati and officials in the Ming Dynasty who were not familiar with martial arts still regarded artillery as a magic weapon of some kind of gods.

But for Sun Chengzong, Wang Zaijin, and other officials in charge of military affairs, they finally had a basic and true understanding of artillery. The cannon was nothing more than a tool that burned violently in a solid tube, thus compressing the air to do the work, propelling the movement of a projectile.

This so-called work is actually the same as a horse pulling a cart or a pulley lifting a heavy object, which is essentially no different, relying on power to make a certain object move.

After revealing this truth, officials like Sun Chengzong and Wang Zaijin naturally began to consider the number of casts and the way to use artillery from a practical point of view.

Wang Zaijin still maintained the idea of using castles and artillery to form defensive positions against the Jurchen army, so he was more concerned about the cannon series proposed by Sun Yuanhua.

Under the influence of Chongzhen, Sun Chengzong realized that the defensive tactics of the castle and artillery were obviously not enough to recover Liaodong, and the battle on the Fengzhen grassland finally changed his impression of the incompetence of the Ming army in the field.

Obviously, as long as sufficient logistics were provided, a complete military command system was established, and sufficient training was provided, the Ming army would still be able to defeat the Mongols in a field battle.

The victory on the Fengzhen grassland not only crushed the ambition of the Chahar Department to annex the right-wing Mongols, but also gave the Ming officials a trace of confidence in the Ming army.

If the Ming army could withstand the Jurchen attack in the field, then who would insist that the Jiancheng cannon must be built on the border to defend against the Jurchen attack. The cost is huge, and it may not be able to withstand the attack of the Jurchens. The most important thing is that the cannon tactics of the fortified city are obviously unlawful to recover Liaodong.

Therefore, the General Staff led by Sun Chengzong had already been established from the very beginning, believing that it was necessary to establish a castle defense line on the western Liaoning border to defend against the Jurchens. Slowly, it became that several key castles to support each other were established, and then several field troops were trained to rely on these castles to fight against the Jurchens.

For the Jurchens, who had allied themselves with the Horqin tribe of Mongolia and occupied the vast grasslands of eastern Liaodong, they did not lack good horses. The successive defeats of the Ming army in Liaodong not only allowed these Jurchens to seize a large amount of military supplies from the Ming army, but also intercepted the Han craftsmen in Liaodong.

Relying on the endless forest resources of Liaodong, the iron smelting industry of the Jurchens was not short of fuel, and the weapons and armor of Liaodong were more sophisticated than the shoddy weapons of the Ming army.

Therefore, in order to contend with the Jurchen cavalry in the field, in addition to strengthening the training of the Ming army, the easy-to-carry artillery obviously became a sharp weapon for the Ming army to resist the Jurchen Eight Banners.

With this in mind, Sun Chengzong obviously attaches more importance to the series of * guns. Therefore, when it was determined that the iron mold casting technology had been successful, but that the blast furnace ash cast iron had to be used to obtain better and safer artillery, the two immediately disagreed over the allocation of the artillery casting plan.

Wang Zaijin wanted to cast more cannons to replace the various miscellaneous firearms that the cities in western Liaoning now possessed, so as to improve the combat effectiveness of the Ming army in western Liaoxi and prevent the invasion of western Liaoxi by the Later Jin.

Sun Chengzong thought that more cheaper guns should be cast, and as long as an army capable of fighting with the Jurchens was trained, then there was no need to waste too many resources on the construction of Liaoxi castles. After all, the castle can't run on long feet to surround Shenyang City, and the Ming army can.

Zhu Youzhen didn't care much about the two ministers' opinions, and after listening to Sun Yuanhua's words of appreciation for these artillery, he suddenly asked Sun Yuanhua: "So what are the defects of the current artillery casting technology?" What is the pricing of each gun? How many guns can be produced per month? ”

Sun Yuanhua hesitated for a moment before replying: "There are still defects in the artillery, although the success rate of the iron mold cast cannon is higher than that of the mud mold cast cannon, and the inside and outside are relatively smooth, but it is still impossible to achieve a thorough smooth and tight inner diameter of the muzzle.

Therefore, the muzzle clearance can only be kept between one-tenth and one-twelfth, according to the theory of combustion, there are many gases that are wasted in vain, and there is no complete function of the shell, for this problem we are still continuing to study.

In addition, whether it is an iron mold or a clay mold, in the process of pouring molten iron, it is inevitable that the core pillar in the center will be disturbed, which makes the inner chamber and outer diameter of the gun not in a straight line after it is made, and there will always be a deviation between the landing point of the shell and the target being aimed.

Therefore, each gun needs to be manually adjusted by the gunner when firing, and if the gunner is replaced, it is not possible to directly grasp the shooting points of this cannon.

Of course, this deviation has a greater impact on accurate shooting, but it is insignificant in covered shooting. Therefore, the minister suggested that artillery should be used intensively, and try to make up for the error in shooting accuracy with quantity.

Although we have not yet been able to fully explore the performance of iron artillery, the copper cannon should basically be scrapped after firing 1,000 rounds, and the iron cannon should not exceed the number of shots of the copper cannon. Therefore, in terms of use, the durability of iron cannons is poor. However, the cost is much lower than that of the copper cannon.

The cost of each iron cannon is about one-fifth of that of the same type of copper cannon. In order to ensure the number of times the iron cannon was used and to avoid explosions, the ministers set the standard* reloading of the cannon at one-fifth of the weight of the shell, and the standard* reloading of the cannon at one-fourth of the weight of the cannon.

The ministers have already experimented, although the firing range is reduced, but this component of * is easier to recover after firing, and the frequency of fire is accelerated. Of course, if necessary, it is also possible to shoot with a double charge.

As for the pricing of artillery, * gun series: the cost of 3 catties of guns is 41 yuan each, and the selling price is 60 yuan; The cost of 6 catties of guns is 52 yuan, and the price is 78 yuan; The cost of 12 catties of guns is 104 yuan, and the price is 160 yuan.

Cannon series: The cost of 6 kg cannon is 74 yuan, the cost of the price gun is 140 yuan, the cost of the price gun is 280 yuan, and the price is 420 yuan.

The above artillery prices already include the gun trucks, and as for the production capacity of the Shijingshang cannon foundry, it can consume about 100-120 tons of pig iron per month. A set of iron molds can cast 2-3 cannons a day, and the manpower used is only 40 people, so it greatly saves time and labor compared with clay molds.

The minister wants to ask His Majesty for instructions, can this bronze cannon temporarily reduce some of the plans? And how should this exported artillery be priced? ”

Before Zhu Youzhen could speak, Wang Zaijin was already a little dissatisfied and said: "Shijingshan Cannon Foundry is the industry of the imperial court, and the imperial court has paid for the silver and artificial silver, how can you still make money from the imperial court at this price?" ”

When Sun Yuanhua didn't know how to answer Wang Zaijin's question, Zhu Youzhen had naturally relieved him and said: "What Wang Shangshu said is not right. Although the imperial court invested in the establishment of a cannon casting factory, after all, cannon casting is a technical job, whether it is the research and development process or the success rate of casting, it costs money.

If everything was allocated by the imperial court, the craftsmen and experts of the cannon foundry would probably have to waste a lot of materials but not be able to make a few qualified products, just like the previous arsenal. Isn't this a big loss because of a small thing? As far as the Ministry of War is concerned, as long as the procurement funds can be saved, and the quality of the weapons purchased meets the operational needs, I think it is better to let the cannon foundry run its own.

Although the iron cannon was successfully cast, it has not been tested in actual combat after all. I think the bronze cannons should continue to be cast, but the number can be reduced, and the number of iron cannons can be adjusted to 1:3 or 1:4. As for the price of artillery for export, multiply it by 5 according to the price supplied to the imperial court..."