To say that the operation of this kind of front-loading artillery, most of the people have seen it in various film and television works, but in terms of actual operation, they can't pick out a few experienced people. There are more than 80 people in the entire military and police department, including veterans of the navy and air force, and there is not a single serious 800 people who have served in the artillery unit. Even the three people who claim to have practical experience in the North American Gang have only had two or three firing experiences in the activities of the National Gun Club.

However, it is also difficult to be fully prepared through the crowd, some people have long found the standard operating procedures of the 17th century pre-loading artillery from the large database, and now they can draw the scoop according to the gourd, and just follow the steps slowly.

Rao is like this, a large number of long and short wooden poles sent by the carpentry workshop still make the people present a little dizzy. These wooden poles are artillery loading tools made overnight in accordance with the requirements of the Military Police Department. There are brushes for extinguishing sparks in the chamber dipped in water, brushes for drying the water in the chamber, hooks for removing residual cartridges from the chamber, loading rods for filling gunpowder and shells, and long rods for ignition.

The four gunners first divided up their work, and then followed the operation steps, and simulated the drill several times to ensure that everyone remembered the work they were responsible for before they began to prepare for the official test firing. The other onlookers all went down to the bomb shelter trench first, only exposing the part above the shoulders to watch them operate.

"Let's shoot at a zero degree angle first. The flat firing range was determined before the angle could be adjusted. As the commander, Tom Wang was not sure, but fortunately he knew how the test procedure for the new smoothbore gun was conducted.

"Shooting angle zero!" Yan Chujie announced loudly. The recorder standing in the trench immediately wrote it down, and later the number of shots would be used to count the hit rate and calculate the shooting meter.

"Two packs of charge!" Yan Chujie continued to loudly inform the shooting parameters. This charge is calculated jointly by the Ministry of Metallurgy and the Ministry of Chemical Industry, and is the best charge on paper. But the actual effect has yet to be proven by test firing.

"Reload!"

Spherical cast-iron shells were stuffed through the muzzle, and then Morgan reached into the chamber with a loading rod, compacting the shells along with the powder pack.

"Ready to shoot!"

Tom Wang pierced the pouch with an iron cone through the ignition port, then filled the ignition port with gunpowder and filled the fire rope.

"Shoot!"

Qiao Zhiya, who was in charge of ignition, twisted the fire of the ignition rod head to the fire rope of the ignition port, only to see that the ignition port quickly spewed out a stream of sparks, and then heard a loud bang, the gun muzzle spewed out thick white smoke and firelight, and the gun body and the gun carriage suddenly retreated backwards, slowly stopped under the action of the small slope behind the gun emplacement, and then slid back a distance. (Baidu search update is the fastest and most stable)

The smoothbore cannon was ejected very quickly, and everyone only saw a black shadow falling to the ground hundreds of meters away, and then bounced several times in a row, and flew forward for dozens of meters before hitting the target mound and stopping.

"What a loud noise!" complained the ill-prepared traversers, plucking their buzzing ears.

Tao Donglai had already jumped out of the trench and took a telescope to check the landing of the shells: "I hit a mound of 400 meters and stopped, it seems that the effective range of this angle is within 400 meters." ”

After the first shot, the technician did another flaw detection test on the cannon to ensure that the cannon did not have hidden dangers such as internal cracks in the fire just now. The others were already excitedly running towards the place where the shells had landed. Everyone wanted to see for themselves how powerful this shell, which was less than three kilograms, could be.

The last bounce of the cannonball pulled out a long mark on the ground, Yan Chujie excitedly pointed to the thirty-meter-long bullet mark and said: "If this cannon enters the dense formation, it can directly plow a bloody path!"

The depth of the shell's final impact into the mound was more than a dozen centimeters, which shows the amazing lethality brought by its huge kinetic energy. This is only the smallest 6-pounder gun, and the larger 12-pounder, 24-pounder, and 32-pounder guns will be several times more powerful, and every time I think of this section, I am excited by the gang of bombers in the Military Police Department.

Next, the test artillery team adjusted different firing angles, fired more than a dozen shots, and finally determined that the effective range of this gun was about 1,000 meters. In fact, after more than 800 meters, the trajectory of the shell in the air and the final landing point will have a considerable deviation, which has nothing to do with the target position that was aimed at before.

This effective range is naturally incomparable with the artillery of later generations, but for the traversal, this range is completely sufficient. The narrowest part of the gorge leading to the open sea in the port of Shengli Harbor is only 400 meters, which is almost exactly the distance at which the hit rate of this small cannon is the highest, and the military police department believes that as long as two or three of these small cannons are erected on each side of the gorge, it will be enough to blockade the harbor and prevent foreign enemies from breaking in from the sea.

The same defense mechanism also applies to the defense of crossing the well-publicized Sanya Bay Gorge, where the width of the mouth of the sea is less than half that of Shengli Harbor, and the use of this kind of artillery to fire ships entering and exiting the gorge is completely a gun to the head, and the opponent cannot even have a chance to dodge.

Because the frequency of firing was too high, the barrel of the gun quickly overheated, and after more than ten shots, it had to temporarily stop to dissipate heat. However, the gun crew could not stop at all, and replaced the other gun with a gun carriage and continued the test. It wasn't until all the more than 30 shells in the rattan basket were fired out in one breath that the artillery crew fell to the ground panting.

"It's so tiring. Even Tom Wang, who has always been known for his tenacity, couldn't help but complain.

"Or ...... You have to do everything you can to load the cannon on the rear gun. Yan Chujie gasped and said, "This body is really intense, I underestimated this work before." ”

More than a dozen operating procedures before each launch are okay, although a little cumbersome but the body does not cost much, but after each launch, several people have to push the heavy gun carriage to reset the gun, whether aiming or adjusting the angle, all rely on manpower, and the two guns will be replaced from the gun carriage several times in the middle. These more than 30 rounds were beaten, and these four strong men were tired enough.

As a result of the test guns, the Mission unanimously agreed that the quality of the two guns was up to standard, met the design requirements, and could be directly used in actual combat. However, the current problem is that Yan Zòng lacks gunners, and does not even have the manpower to operate two guns at the same time for test firing. Even for this reason, there is currently no way to get the metallurgical workshop to start casting cannons in large quantities.

As a result, the Military Police Department had no choice but to temporarily put aside the idea of immediately forming an artillery unit, and for a period of time to come, it would continue to rely on these two guns as the basis, relying on continuous test firing to determine the firing schedule, and at the same time training more qualified gunners.

The next task of the metallurgical workshop was to improve the casting process on the basis of these two guns, and at the same time to begin to study the production process of large-caliber front-loading guns and more advanced rear-loading rifled guns. The executive committee also put forward a clear requirement that the relevant departments of the military industry should uphold the principle of weapon research and development of "equipment generation, production generation, and research and development generation" to maintain the sustainable development of weapons and equipment. Not only artillery, but also military projects such as musket weapons and warships that will be developed in the next step must be operated in the same way.

The metallurgical workshop complained about this arrangement quite loudly, the hydropower station is still some days away from completion, there is no power available at present, and those efficient metal processing machines can not be put into use for a long time, so almost all metal smelting and processing tasks at this stage are temporarily assigned to the metallurgical workshop. Not only do they have to build all kinds of iron farming tools and household utensils, but they also have to work on weapons research and development, and they are also responsible for assisting in the production of steam-powered prototypes jointly developed by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Energy. Liu Xingli has solemnly warned the executive committee that even if such a high-intensity production task arrangement does not exhaust people, it is easy to cause excessive fatigue and production accidents. Once an accident occurs in the metallurgical workshop, the consequence will definitely be either death or disability, and I am afraid that no one will be able to carry this black cauldron.

Metallurgical workshops are not the only ones who are ruthlessly oppressed, but also the Ministry of Chemical Industry and carpentry workshops. The Ministry of Chemical Industry is to continue to manufacture granular gunpowder for the firearms test site of the Military Police Department, even though the production sites and production facilities are not yet complete. The carpentry workshop was informed that they would make a batch of wooden targets in the near future for future test firing.

While everyone was so busy hitting the back of their heads that there was one department that seemed to be particularly idle.

Ren Liang sat under a tree by the Tiandu River, holding a bamboo fishing rod in his hand, fishing while staring at the sweaty laborers who were sweating on the barrage of the hydropower station nearby. Although the Military Police Department believes that the current labor camps have begun to have potential safety hazards because there are too few guards, Ren Liang does not think so. The management skills he had learned in his pre-crossing work were now being applied to the hard labor in the labor camps, and the results were very good.

After the 100 or so pirate captives entered the camp last month, Ren Liang had already broken them up and reorganized them, and a small number of Ming prisoners managed the pirate prisoners who accounted for the majority. After Luo Shengdong returned to Yacheng with a few henchmen, there was a certain power vacuum in the hard labor of the labor camp, whether it was for survival or consciously, some people who were deliberately suppressed by Luo Shengdong began to gradually show their personal ability, not only captured by the Ming army, but also among the pirates.

This group of pirates came from a variety of routes, including Chinese pirates from the coastal areas of the mainland, natives from the South China Sea, Borneo and other places, and a handful of Japanese ronin. Recently, Ren Liang has paid special attention to an inconspicuous little man named Takahashi Minami among this group of Japanese ronin.