This time, without waiting for the emperor to ask, Bi Maokang stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, this is made of cast steel smelted in Baiye City. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info because of the strong steel, the ministers did not thicken its inner wall at the same time, increased its caliber, under the test, the power really increased.

"Today, a mother cannon, equipped with eight sub-cannons, are all made of stainless steel, and not only does the projectile amount far exceed that of the west, but even the reloading speed is better than in the past. Although the total weight is nearly 800 catties, it is used in field battles, and two horses are enough to drag the march. The ministers thought that this cannon was no longer comparable to the Franc machine. Please give it a try. ”

Soon the group came to an open space, first two people led two horses, jointly dragging a cannon of the same type, walked around the field, perhaps because the field was frozen, the two horses dragged eight hundred pounds of artillery, and walked effortlessly.

After the horses pulled the cannon to the pre-set position, Liu Han and Sun Heding led a team of soldiers to straighten the cannon towards a high wall made of bricks and stones hundreds of meters away.

After all these actions were completed, Liu Han held the torch in his hand and looked at Bi Maokang and Sun Yuanhua in the distance and raised his hand to signal, Bi Maokang hurriedly asked Emperor Chongzhen, and when he saw Emperor Chongzhen nodding, he immediately shouted: "Ignite!" ”

When Liu Han heard this, he immediately aimed the torch at the fuse on the fire hole in front of the sub-cannon, and in an instant the fuse burned up with sparks, and in a moment, there was a sudden "boom" loud noise, and the muzzle of the cannon spewed out a ball of fire, and the brick wall in the distance suddenly "banged", and was shot through a large hole one foot square.

At this time, everyone was looking at the emperor, but Emperor Chongzhen turned his head and said to You Yangkun, who had been following him and was tall: "Go and take the steps and measure the steps, how many steps are there in total!" ”

You Yangkun immediately understood what the emperor meant, and immediately went to the position of the artillery, found the direction corresponding to the muzzle, followed the straight line, took a step, and walked towards the high wall that was broken through by the cannonball, measuring the distance between the two.

At this time, all the ministers standing beside the emperor also waited for the results of the measurement with solemn expressions, only Bi Maokang, Sun Yuanhua and other officials of the Armed Forces Academy had relaxed expressions and were quite comfortable.

You Yangkun is the son and nephew of You Shiwei and You Shilu, who is from the family of Yulin Weijiangmen, tall and burly, with big strides and a stride of about one meter.

After about a quarter of an hour, You Yangkun strode through that distance, and then quickly ran back, a few steps away from the emperor, knelt down on one knee and said, "Your Majesty, from the muzzle of the cannon to the bullet hole, a total of five hundred and ninety-one steps. ”

Emperor Chongzhen nodded after hearing this, and motioned You Yangkun to get up and join the column.

Five hundred and eighty-eight steps, that is, about five hundred and eighty-eight meters, considering You Yangkun's height of nearly one meter nine, his stride length is larger than that of ordinary people, so his five hundred and eighty-eight steps may be more than five hundred and eighty-eight meters.

And now the Chongzhen Emperor also paid special attention to the fact that this shelling was due to the close target and a high wall made of masonry, so the muzzle of the cannon was used to shoot flat, so the test should be the best killing distance, not the maximum killing distance.

Sure enough, Bi Maokang saw that after the emperor listened to the return of the military attaché in front of the imperial chamberlain, he was silent, thinking that the emperor was not satisfied with the range of the artillery, so he hurriedly bowed down and said: "Your Majesty, the distance between the muzzle of the cannon and the wall, the ministers measured in advance is six hundred steps, this is the best firing distance of this improved Franc machine, within six hundred steps, even if it is a one-and-a-half-foot-thick masonry wall, it can be pierced with one shot."

As for the maximum firing range of this artillery, the ministers and others have repeatedly tested that the five-kilogram iron projectile, fired at an angle of 45 degrees, has an effective range of up to 2,000 paces. However, if the projectile landing point is 2,000 steps away, its momentum has weakened, and its lethality has been sharply reduced. ”

Emperor Chongzhen listened, nodded, and said, "Very good!" It's already pretty good! ”

After saying this, Emperor Chongzhen led everyone and walked towards the gun carriage dozens of steps away.

When he arrived, he carefully looked at the gun again, and the two wheels on the gun carriage were very large, about four to five feet in diameter, which was converted into the unit of measurement of later generations, about one and a half meters.

Looking at the caliber of the sub-cannon, he understands where the shortcomings of this artillery are.

Although the caliber of the mother cannon and the sub-cannon have all been increased, the caliber of the sub-cannon is still smaller than the caliber of the mother gun.

For cast cannons, this is inevitable, otherwise the projectiles filled in the sub-cannon will not be able to fire out of the barrel of the mother cannon.

However, for the cannon that uses the bore pressure to push the projectile out, the caliber of the sub-cannon and the mother cannon is inconsistent, which will cause the projectile to have a sudden release gap in the bore pressure in the mother cannon after the sub-cannon is ignited and fired, which will affect the muzzle velocity of the projectile when it is fired out of the muzzle of the mother gun.

The muzzle velocity directly determines the range and power of the projectile.

Looking at the spherical projectiles of this artillery, each weighing five pounds, is about equal to six pounds in the Westerners' calculations.

In other words, on the basis of the No. 2 Franc cannon, the Armament Institute strengthened and improved this medium-sized cast steel gun, which was actually only equivalent to the six-pounder cannon in the mouths of later generations of Westerners.

This is twice as far as the god of war that Napoleon, the first emperor of the French Empire, said!

Napoleon's reference to the god of war was originally for a field artillery, and that cannon was the twelve-pounder gun named the Napoleonic cannon.

Twelve pounds, which is about five kilograms, that is, ten kilograms, is twice the size of the cannon in front of Emperor Chongzhen.

However, although Napoleon's twelve-pounder cannon is invincible and amazingly powerful, because of the bronze material and the thick cannon wall, the full weight of its cannon body is also amazing, exceeding 1,400 kilograms, that is, more than 2,800 catties, which is almost the same as the general fortress type and city defense cannon, such as the Hongyi cannon, so the mobility is relatively unsatisfactory.

In comparison, although the gun in front of him is a six-pounder gun, which is much less powerful than Napoleon's god of war, his advantage is also obvious, that is, it is very mobile and can easily follow the army in the field.

An artillery squad of ten people, plus one or two carts and three horses, can take good care of this artillery and give full play to its role.

And this gun, which was improved from the Franc machine, had another advantage that Napoleon's twelve-pounder could not match, that is, its rate of fire as a rear-loading gun.

A mother cannon, equipped with eight sub-cannons, is equivalent to firing eight times in quick succession, without stopping to clear the chamber or reload ammunition.

In the case of extremely low gun reloading speed at the end of the Ming Dynasty, this artillery is equivalent to making up for one of the biggest shortcomings.

Thinking of this, Emperor Chongzhen did not hesitate any longer, and said to the two ministers of military aircraft and the people around him: "I see that this artillery is lightweight, practical and powerful, and can be finalized and mass-produced, and equipped with the Shenji Battalion and the Guards as soon as possible. The Military Aircraft Department of the Divine Machinery Battalion and the Guards agreed on the required quantity, prepared a budget, and presented it to the Imperial Palace, which was first allocated to the Armament Institute by my internal funds, and the two artillery factories in Tongzhou and Baiyecheng stepped up the casting. ”

When Sun Chengzong, Li Banghua and others heard this, they bowed down and said, "The ministers obey the order!" ”

After saying this, Li Banghua continued: "Since Your Majesty has ordered the Armament Institute to finalize production, please also ask Your Majesty to name this artillery!" ”

As Li Banghua is the minister of military aircraft in charge of the Ministry of Industry and the Armament Institute, of course he has to make this remark.

After Li Banghua said this, Bi Maokang, Sun Yuanhua and others also looked at the emperor, because only when the emperor personally ordered the name, this artillery can be regarded as truly finalized.

For the current Emperor Chongzhen, although this artillery in front of him has both advantages and disadvantages, after all, it is the first artillery that has been developed and improved on the basis of the original after the establishment of the Armament Institute, and the total weight is 800 catties, the maximum firing range is 2,000 meters, the best killing distance is 600 meters, and the bullet weight is more than 5 catties, which is also very good.

Thinking of this, Emperor Chongzhen said: "I see, in the future, this type of improved Franc cannon will be named Chongzhen Type 1 Rear Loading Smoothbore Cannon." ”

Sun Chengzong, Li Banghua and the officials of the Armed Forces Institute bowed down to receive the decree together.

After looking at these new firearms supervised by the Armament Academy, and seeing that it was already noon, Li Banghua asked the emperor for approval, and then simply solved the lunch problem in the gun factory of the Baliqiao Armament Academy.

During this period, Emperor Chongzhen explained some problems in armament manufacturing to Bi Maokang, Sun Yuanhua, Liu Han, Sun Heding, Sun Hedou and others, and talked about the idea of using cast steel materials to cast small and medium-sized Hongyi cannons for field attacks, and asked them to arrange manpower to study and explore.

After thinking about it, Emperor Chongzhen still hoped that the Armament Institute would be able to cast the kind of large-caliber twelve-pounder cannon that Napoleon called the god of war.

That gun was a front-loading smoothbore gun, not a rear-loading sub-mother gun like the Franc machine, so it could only be improved and imitated from the Hongyi cannon.

As for the weight of Napoleon's twelve-pounder gun, now with the cast steel produced by Beye, one-half of the barrel thickness is enough for the same charge, so the wall of the twelve-pounder gun no longer needs to be so thick.

In this way, its weight will be greatly reduced, and its mobility will be enhanced, with great firepower, and then with great mobility, then it is really the god of war of this era.