At the Shanghai Gun Factory, workers are building steam engine-driven stamping equipment according to Xue Fengzuo's instructions. The equipment used by Xue Fengzuo and Mei Wending to make Mini bullets before www.biquge.info was a handmade punch made by the two of them.

After the smelting technology was improved by the two brothers Song Shihui and Song Shiyi, the bullet was made of an alloy of lead and tin, and after the bullet was made, it was coated with a mixture of graphite and paraffin wax on the surface, which was close to the problem of hanging lead.

The efficiency of the manual punch is not to mention, the technical level of the workers is still very high, different people operate the punch, because each person's strength is different, the feeling is different, and the error is also larger, so the manual punch makes Mini bullets, a manual punch can only produce about two hundred rounds of bullets per day, far from meeting the needs of a large number of rifled guns.

The use of a steam engine to drive the stamping equipment not only saves manpower, but also Xue Fengzuo added a pressure limiting valve to the steam engine, so that the speed of the steam engine can be stabilized, and coupled with the gear speed change, the mini bullet that needs to be stamped can be processed at a fixed speed and strength, so that the error is reduced to less than 0.05 mm.

The caliber of the Mini bullet is 0.2 millimeters smaller than the caliber of the barrel, and the tail of the bullet has a soft skirt, which will expand under the pressure of the expanding gas, just stuck the rifling, and seal the gas, which can ensure the high-speed rotation of the bullet.

After the equipment was installed, with Xue Fengzuo's order to start work, the workers put the bullets that needed to be stamped into the mold, and put the mold on a long mobile chute. Then someone opened the valve of the steam engine, and the high-pressure steam drove the steam engine and began to operate. The effect of the limited pressure valve is that the steam engine will not increase after reaching a certain speed.

"It's time to go!" Xue Fengzuo said.

The worker pushes the chute into the mold and pushes the mold to be processed onto the workbench. With the sound of machinery running and the ramming of stamping machines, the first bullet is processed. The worker then pushes the chute and sends the second die to the table, where the second bullet is finished as the press is running.

The worker in charge of testing took out the mold from the box, opened the mold and took out the bullet, measured it with a vernier caliper, and the qualified bullet was placed on a circular chute, and the unqualified bullet was thrown into the waste box. Someone slowly pushes the chute and pushes the qualified bullet in front of the wax applicator. Workers remove the bullet from the chute, apply a mixture of graphite and paraffin to the bullet, and then place the semi-finished bullet on the chute, and someone pushes the chute, pushing the chutes in front of the assembly workers.

Half-finished bullets are delivered to the assembler. The assembler removed the semi-finished bullet from the chute, took out the paper tube containing the gunpowder, and fixed the bullet to the paper tube, so that a paper shell Mini was declared complete. The finished bullets are placed on the chute and sent to the packers.

The packers are all women, many of them refugees from the north, who have found work here. The women put the finished bullets into the bullet box, which contains 10 rounds in a cartridge box.

Depending on the need, one musketeer could carry three to five cartridges.

"With this steam stamping plant, it will be possible to produce at least 2,000 rounds of ammunition per day." Xue Fengzuo said.

"This is assembly line production, and the production efficiency is indeed much higher! If the production rate is accelerated, it can produce 3,000 rounds per day. In a month, 100,000 rounds of ammunition will be made. If one musketeer was given less equipment and one person was equipped with twenty rounds of ammunition, the needs of five thousand musketeers would be satisfied. Wang Yu nodded.

In fact, twenty rounds of ammunition are enough for a musketeer, and firing five to six rounds at the opponent with a rifled rifle with Mini rounds is estimated to completely destroy the opponent.

"We will also speed up the production of a second production line." Xue Fengzuo said.

Just as Wang Yu was watching the production of Mini bullets with interest, someone hurriedly came to report: "Wu Jun has sent a letter, saying that there are a large number of refugees from the north going south!" ”

"Refugees? What's going on? Isn't it that all the refugees in the Yellow Flood Zone have been arranged? Wang Yu was taken aback.

"It's the new refugee! The Tartars robbed all the peasants in the area of Guangping in the north of Zhili, did not leave even a grain of grain for the peasants, burned down the peasants' houses, and drove them to the south! The man who came replied.

Wang Yuyou, who was beside Wang Yu, sneered: "The Tartars are deliberately creating refugees, wanting to drive the refugees down and come to eat us!" Hum! Tartar's wishful thinking! ”

"How many refugees are there, this domain can accept them all!" Wang Yu replied disdainfully.

Wang Yuyou said: "There is a problem, the Fengyang area is still in the hands of the Tartars, and the nearest road from Nanjing to Kaifeng has not yet been opened, whether we want to transport food to support the refugees, or bring the refugees back to the south, we need to detour to Wuchang." ”

Wang Yu nodded and said, "It seems that the top priority is to capture Fengyang as soon as possible!" After capturing Fengyang, the refugees can go from Kaifeng to Fengyang, and after arriving in Fengyang, they can take the train south. ”

"Summer offense? The climate is hot, which is not good for the attackers. Wang Yuyou frowned slightly.

"With this new type of bullet, we can attack in the summer!" Wang Yu said with a smile, "With the new type of bullet, the number of musketeers is not too large, five thousand musketeers, and five thousand sets of vine armor can still afford it." The gunners did not need armor, there were 5,000 musketeers, plus 2,000 gunners, plus 2,000 dragoons, which was enough to open the passage from Fengyang to Kaifeng. ”

Wang Yu's most elite dragoons will be partially equipped with breech-loading rifled guns. At the same time that Xue Fengzuo's steam stamping workshop began to work, the rear-loading rifled gun workshop of Dai Cang and Dai Zi and his son was also starting at the same time.

It's also quite interesting to say, the key equipment in the rear-loading rifled gun workshop created by Dai Cang and Dai Zi father and son, the steam forging equipment, was installed with the help of Xue Fengzuo, who has always opposed the rear-loading rifled gun. After all, Xue Fengzuo is a mechanical scientist, while Dai Cang and Dai Zi are just simple arms experts.

The barrel of the rear-loading gun is shorter, and the difficulty of manufacturing the barrel is lower than that of the Minnie bullet rifled gun, but the key position of the rear-loading gun is the chamber and bolt parts, and solving the problem of air leakage is the key. With the technology of this era, the problem of air leakage cannot be completely solved, so the power and range of a single bullet of the rear-loading gun are not as good as that of the mini-bullet rifled gun.

With the start of the rear-loading rifled gun workshop, the production of the double-barreled long gun originally used for dragoons has been discontinued, and it will be gradually replaced by rear-loading rifled guns.

At the same time as the completion of the Mini ammunition workshop, the rear-loading rifled gun workshop and the rear-loading paper cartridge workshop were also completed and put into production. It's just that the production speed of breech-loading rifled guns is full, and only ten can be produced per day at present, and it is estimated that in a month, when the Qiongzhou Army begins the Northern Expedition, it can only be equipped with 300 breech-loading rifled guns, all of which are equipped with cavalry.