After entering the backyard, it looks like there is a hole in the sky, the whole backyard looks inconspicuous from the outside, except for a few chimneys, it seems that there is nothing to pay attention to inside, but after entering, it is not small, there are several sheds inside, several furnaces are located in the shed, at this time two are still smoking, it seems that there is no rest here.

When Gao Huaiyuan walked into a separate stone room and saw a yellow bronze tube placed on the wooden frame, Gao Huaiyuan's heartbeat couldn't help but jump wildly.

He strode to the front of the wooden frame, raised his hand and removed the copper pipe from the wooden frame, and couldn't help but sweat a little in his palms with excitement.

When he held the copper pipe, he took a deep breath before he began to carefully observe the appearance of the copper pipe in his hand, only to see that the copper pipe was about two feet long, and the whole body was cast in bronze, because the casting time was relatively short, and after careful polishing by the craftsman, there was no patina rust on the surface, but it looked golden.

The copper pipe is open at one end, the other end is solid, and a small hole is drilled into the interior on a small raised platform at the tail, and the hole diameter is about two centimeters.

Speaking of this thing, we have to start from when Gao Huaiyuan was serving in front of the army, since he arrived in this era, he has been thinking about how to deal with the swarming Mongolian army, and wants to find another way to solve the problem of dealing with the Mongolian army.

But when he thought about it, in addition to relying on the strong city to use a large number of bows and crossbows to stop the attack of the Mongolian cavalry, the field use of the infantry of the Song army to deal with the Mongolian cavalry let him think about it and did not come up with any good way, this is not to despise the ability of the Song army, but after a series of battles, the Mongolian army has already formed an extremely fierce tactics, in addition to the Mongolian soldiers are brave and abnormal, for the slow movement of the infantry, they have a set of quite effective offensive methods, The mobility of the cavalry can be said to be brought into full play, so that the infantry with slow mobility ability, when encountering the Mongolian army in the field, can not fight and can't run, it can be said that thinking of the Mongolian army's tactics, it makes people desperate, unless you establish a large-scale cavalry that is enough to compete with the Mongolian army, otherwise, cold weapons duel, there is no chance of victory in the field at all.

Therefore, after thinking about it, Gao Huaiyuan could only think of solving this problem with the advantage of weapons, so he thought of * and artillery, and now all he could think of was to use the sharpness of firearms to deal with the Mongolian army that was pouring in like a tide!

The application of gunpowder in the Song Dynasty, especially after the Southern Song Dynasty, gradually began to mature, as mentioned above, whether it is the Southern Song Dynasty or the Jin State, and even the Mongols, have noticed the explosive performance of gunpowder, and gradually applied this explosiveness to the war, the war also appeared a large number of explosive firearms such as thunderbolts, thunderbolts, and even the prototype of the body weapon "Sudden *", so all kinds of aspects of the birth of artillery can be said to have matured, only someone needs to push this matter forward, It's a matter of course.

As a person of later generations, Gao Huaiyuan's principles of firearms and artillery are naturally hundreds of years ahead of the number of people in this era, although he is not in the industry of learning machinery or ordnance manufacturing, but the concept is enough to guide craftsmen to create usable artillery.

And the reason why Gao Huaiyuan thought of this was also inspired by a weapon, that is, a spear between cold weapons and * that appeared in the Song Dynasty, that is, the rain pear flower gun that everyone is very familiar with, this kind of thing he had seen once in front of the army, so he knew what was called the rain pear flower gun, it turned out that this gun was just two bamboo pipes filled with gunpowder tied to the ordinary spear, and before going into battle, ignite the gunpowder in the bamboo pipe, rush to the enemy, and use the flame sprayed and shot in the bamboo pipe. To burn the enemy at a distance, or to use the gunpowder doped with * to poison the enemy, and after the gunpowder is used up, use the tip of the gun to kill and wound the enemy, which is considered a relatively advanced personal melee weapon in modern times.

And in this era, it is said that there are really a lot of people who use this weapon, the most famous is Li Quan, the leader of the rebel army who rose up in Shandong to resist Jin, Gao Huaiyuan is very concerned about Li Quan, because this person he heard of it in his previous life, is a very complicated character, first raised troops to lead the Red Jacket Army to resist Jin, and then was recruited by the Southern Song Dynasty, took refuge in the Southern Song Dynasty, and finally for various reasons, he switched to the Mongols again, which played a vital role in the relationship between the Song, Jin, and Mongolian countries in Shandong, and I don't know how to be equal to him.

And Li Quan is said to have made a good marksmanship, and a pear flower gun in his hand made him a supernatural leader in Shandong and Shandong, and was recognized as "twenty years of pear flower gun, invincible in the world!" ”

And this pear flower gun can also be said to be a kind of ancestor of the body weapon, but it uses the eruption burns and poisonous smoke of gunpowder, rather than relying on the principle of gunpowder to promote the projectile launch.

After thinking about it, Gao Huaiyuan felt that the power he currently had at hand already had the strength to create artillery, so he drew the graphics of the artillery some time ago and handed it over to Xue Yan to lead the people to start trial production here.

And the copper pipe he is holding in his hand now is a test product that they have tried to make, but only considering the preliminary trial production, the size is relatively small, and it looks more like a single soldier gun without a gun handle.

The weight of this firearm is about 20 catties, and it is obviously a bit too heavy for a person to hold, and it is more troublesome to operate, but if it is smaller, it is not easy to use bronze casting, so it is a bit strange to say that it is not big, and it is not small to say that it is not small.

But Gao Huaiyuan doesn't care about these, after all, this is just a prototype of the principle, not something to be used in actual combat, the first thing he has to solve is the problem of whether there is or not, and to solve the problem of the manufacturing process, as long as the projectile can be fired, and it is enough to ensure that the chamber is not exploded.

Therefore, Gao Huaiyuan didn't care too much about the weight and shape of this firecracker, held it in his hand and looked at it carefully, and looked carefully at the chamber of the gun, and also put his fingers deep into the chamber to test whether it was smooth inside.

"Young Master! This thing is made of small ones, and no matter how small it is, it will not be easy to open holes! In addition, the small one has been carefully polished inside and out, but I don't know if the young master is satisfied! At this time, a person's voice came from behind Gao Huaiyuan.

Gao Huaiyuan turned his head to look at the copper pipe, and saw a middle-aged man with a flattering smile on his face talking to himself, and recognized that this person's name was Jin Tong, and he was also one of the prisoners of war of the Jin Army who he got back in front of the army.

This person has gradually felt at ease in Crouching Tiger Village in the past two years, and has been casting some copper tools for the gunpowder workshop some time ago, and the craftsmanship has been tested quite well, and the work is also very meticulous, so Gao Huaiyuan handed over this matter to him to do, and now Jin Tong is already the person in charge of the copper work, and it is managed by Zhou Botong.

"Jin Tong, you did a very good job, this is exactly what I want, you don't have to be too anxious about things now, I am very satisfied with being able to create such a thing, how many of these things have you cast now? How big are they? Gao Huaiyuan smiled approvingly at Jin Tong and asked.

Jin Tong listened to what Gao Huaiyuan said, and immediately relieved, and hurriedly bowed down and replied: "Back to the young master's words, the small one has never cast such a thing before, this thing is according to the young master's requirements, to achieve a straight center, the four walls must be absolutely uniform, there must be no pores and other defects inside, and the length of the pipe is also very long, it is not easy to cast, the small ones have tried to cast a lot of them these days, but they were all scrapped because they could not meet the requirements of the young master, and this copper pipe is the best one that the small one is casting at the moment, In addition, the small ones have been cast into two larger ones than this one, and they are being polished in another shed, and the young master can take a look at them later! In two or three days, it will be polished and handed over to the young master! ”

Gao Huaiyuan nodded, he also knew that he was not the material to do this business, he didn't know about the skills of casting, and he also knew that it was impossible to do it overnight, so he opened his mouth and said to Jin Tong: "This matter is not urgent, you can do this step is already very satisfied, after all, no one has ever made this kind of thing before, and my requirements are relatively high, it is really not easy to meet my requirements at once, you can take your time, and gradually explore a complete set of processes, to ensure that you do it in the future, The yield of the finished products should be as high as possible!

I don't know much about casting, but I also know that it is not easy to open a mold, each pipe needs a set of molds, if you want to do it, you might as well ponder it, make some tools out, especially about the inner chamber, you might as well cast a little smaller, and then use a drill pipe to ream, so that the boring hole will be more uniform and smooth, compared to your current manual grinding may be a little better, as for how to do it, I, a layman, will not make a mess for you, you and other brothers ponder and figure it out!

I'll take this one back first, and we'll now go see the other two that you're happy with! I'm anxious to see the other two! Hehe! Let's go! ”

Gao Huaiyuan stretched out his hand and handed the copper pipe to Li Ruohu, Li Ruohu carefully hugged it in his arms, not knowing what new thing Gao Huaiyuan was going to do, but they also saw that Gao Huaiyuan seemed to attach great importance to the manufacture of this kind of thing, and liked this straight copper pipe very much, so he was very careful, for fear of falling to the ground and breaking Gao Huaiyuan.

Gao Huaiyuan followed Jin Tongchao into another shed, and after entering, he saw three or four craftsmen grinding the two copper pipes with various things around the two copper pipes, doing their work very seriously, until Gao Huaiyuan walked into the shed to react, hurriedly put down the tools in his hand and stood up, and greeted Gao Huaiyuan one after another.

Gao Huaiyuan distributed red envelopes and greeted everyone at the same time, which made everyone relax, and everyone was happy with the red envelopes.

And Gao Huaiyuan quickly shifted his attention to the two copper pipes on the bench, and his heart suddenly became even more excited, compared to the firecracker just now, these two copper pipes have basically shown the prototype of a mature cannon, and the shape of the ancient cannon he envisioned is very close.

The whole copper cannon is conical, gradually thickened from the muzzle to the tail, until the tail part of the gun reaches the thickest, and the cannon body is also cast out of the cannon lug according to his requirements, so that it can be used on the gun carriage in the future, the whole body is still cast in bronze, one of the front ends is roughly about three inches in diameter, the inner bore diameter is about one inch a little more, and the other one is larger, the outer diameter of the front end reaches five inches, and the inner diameter is about two inches, which is already a medium-caliber gun, and the body length is about four feet, which seems a little short and thick, not only a bit like the style of the big bowl of fire guns in the early Yuan and Ming dynasties, but also a little like the appearance of modern artillery, the whole is a bit of a four-like appearance, but it can really be called a kind of artillery.

Gao Huaiyuan leaned down, and carefully read the two guns in front of him by the light, from the casting aspect, the casting process of these two guns is already quite good, at least there are no flaws such as sand holes or bubbles on the whole body, and after polishing, it looks muddy and round, quite a bit domineering.

Observing the light of the lantern handed over next to him, Gao Huaiyuan saw that the inner chamber had also been polished and smooth, and there was no roughness left when casting, but whether the wall of the chamber was straight in the depths was impossible to check, and it was dark inside, and nothing could be seen.

"I wonder what the young master is forged for such a thing?" Zhou Botong watched Gao Huaiyuan carefully examine the round bronze pipes in front of him back and forth, and couldn't help but be curious, and asked Gao Huaiyuan a question.

"I can't say it yet! Hehe! I'll let you know when I'm ready! Gao Huaiyuan said with a mysterious face.

Looking at Gao Huaiyuan's mysterious refusal to say the reason, everyone's appetite was lost high, in fact, from the beginning when Gao Huaiyuan issued drawings and ordered them to cast this kind of thing, everyone was suspicious, and they didn't know what this thing was used for, because this thing was neither like a bronze bell, nor was it a sacrificial ritual, and the quality requirements were so strict at the time of casting, so that these people made the second monk scratch their heads, and now Zhou Botong finally asked, but Gao Huaiyuan still refused to say, The gang became even more curious.

"Good! Very good! Jin Tong, the outer wall of these things does not have to be polished too smooth, you can save some effort, as long as there are no flaws such as sand holes and pores, the key is that there can be no dark injuries, because it will have to withstand considerable pressure, the focus is on the inner and wall, find a way to figure out that there can be no flaws inside, and the polishing must be smoother, these two things I see are basically okay, help me load the car and bring it back to Zhuangzi for a while, everyone has worked hard, everyone has a good rest and rest during the New Year, eat and drink for a few days, After the New Year, it is estimated that everyone will be busier!

In addition, I want to tell you a good news for these people, that is, I have sent people to the north, sneak into the territory of Jinguo, to find a way to find your family, I promised you this matter before, it is time to fulfill the promise, once I find your family, the people I arrange will find a way to transfer them to Daye County, the fastest three months, the slowest within half a year, I hope you wait for the good news!

But in the war years, many things are not easy to say, and you also know that if you can't find your relatives, please don't blame me, I will do my best to do this! ”

After listening to Gao Huaiyuan's words, the northerners in this group of craftsmen immediately showed joy on their faces, they didn't have much hope, thinking that Gao Huaiyuan would fulfill his promise and go to Jinjing to find their family members, after all, the two countries are still in a state of confrontation, it is not easy to do this, Gao Huaiyuan does not do it, everyone has nothing to say, and now the quality of their life here is quite good, although they miss their relatives, but no one wants to return to the territory of Jinguo, if you can't guarantee it, it is also a dead word to go back, was caught by the officials on the ground in the Jin country, and it was inevitable that he would be punished as a spy or a deserter.

What they didn't expect was that Gao Huaiyuan would send people to look for their relatives in the Golden Realm at such a time, and the price to be paid would be very large, and their group of people naturally knew it in their hearts, so the group of people immediately knelt down and kowtowed to Gao Huaiyuan with tears.

Gao Huaiyuan hurriedly helped these people up one by one, and said to them: "You don't have to thank me, anyone who enters my Crouching Tiger Village, I will treat you as your own relatives, your relatives are my relatives of Gao, the family does not speak two words, you are now treating me like this, Gao will never break his word and treat everyone badly, so no matter how much the price is paid, Gao will fulfill the contract and complete my promise!" Don't thank Gao for anything! ”

Gao Huaiyuan's words couldn't help but make everyone burst into tears again, when there are many rich people and no virtue today, but Gao Huaiyuan strictly abides by his promise, how to treat them like this, how not to make them feel grateful, so everyone once again shed tears to thank Gao Huaiyuan.

After Gao Huaiyuan was comforted for a while, everyone gradually calmed down, and Gao Huaiyuan was not in a hurry to go back to Crouching Tiger Village immediately, stayed in the iron work at night, took out good wine, and the craftsmen in the iron work drank bitterly, and drank until the second half of the night.