Great Song Pirate

Chapter 362 A Blockbuster

Looking at the assembled cannon in front of him, Xu Yi knew that he had changed history again. The world's first body gun was not born in the hands of Song Dynasty Chen Gui, but was born in his hands, and directly from The bamboo tube became an out-and-out bronze cannon. He once again pushed history a big step forward. Touching this bronze cannon, Xu Yi felt a little confused. What will it look like.

Now that everything is ready, the only thing left is to test the cannon. Xu Yi is still worried, and decides to check the cannon again. He walked around the copper cannon for 10 minutes until he was sure that there were no trachoma or cracks on it. After doing things, I feel relieved a lot.

He leaned over the muzzle and looked inside again. The barrel was polished so smooth that it was like a bronze mirror. It can be seen how much effort Ren Bin put into this matter. This is not polishing the barrel!It's just a mirror!This is a bit too much.

After inspecting the cannon, Xu Yi asked about the weight of the cannon. Ren Bin replied: "The small one used 560 jin of bronze to cast this cannon. After polishing and drilling, 520 jin of bronze remained. I reckoned it, and it weighed three hundred catties, all of which are made of high-quality wood, which is very strong, and together they should weigh more than 800 catties!"

Xu Yi pondered for a while, 800 jin is not light, but if it is pulled by mules, it is not a problem, not to mention that he will only use the cannon on the boat for the time being, so it is not a problem if it is heavier. It is the first time to build a cannon, the key point It's safety, and weight is not an issue to consider, so I nodded and said yes.

Then Qin Huzi was asked to bring the solid iron eggs he had cast, and Qin Huzi had someone carry a basket with dozens of them in a short time. The iron egg is cast according to the diameter of the gun bore, and according to Xu Yi's request, it is slightly smaller than the gun bore, so that it can be easily loaded into the gun bore, and the entire projectile body has also been polished. It looks very cute, and now only Xu Yi knows how powerful these iron eggs are. In addition, he also asked Qin Huzi to get a lot of small peanut-sized iron beads, made a basket full of them, and sent them over.

Then Xu Yi called Li Bo again, and asked him to bring over several barrels of gunpowder and some lead wires that were carried on board the Pioneer, and call in all the personal guards, so that Li Bo knew what Xu Yi was going to do again. To be honest, he was really worried about Xu Yi. The last time he got that Katyusha on Dulong Island, Li Bo was not there. Later, when Qian Gui and Daniel talked about it, the two guys still had lingering fears. It seems that this time he is both gunpowder and cannon, which really makes him a little nervous. This lord has a serious tendency to destroy recently, so he should pay attention to it.

This time, Xu Yi only brought Qin Huzi, Lei Tong, and Ren Bin along for the gun test. The other one was Tang Youcheng, the carpenter who made the gun mount. The rest were not allowed to participate. He still wanted to bury this kind of thing now. , When it is really usable, it will be shown to everyone. At this time, it is still in the experimental stage. He only allows these craftsmen involved in the production to know. The purpose is to let them find out the problems from the test firing and make improvements.

A group of people drove off the mules and dragged two bronze cannons that had been assembled. The cannon bodies were tightly covered with canvas. After leaving the gate of the village, they walked eastward all the way, escorted by Xu Yi's personal guards. Then, the people along the way didn't know what their lord was up to, they just bowed and greeted Xu Yi from a distance.

After leaving the chicken cage village, they went around the bay, and after walking for more than ten miles, they came to a long and narrow mountain depression. There were no residents here, and most of the mountains were rocks, with few trees, and the view was relatively narrow. It's very wide. When Xu Yi visited the vicinity of Jilong Village last time, he had already taken a fancy to this place. He had already planned to use this place as his experimental field. Originally, he planned to simply pull the cannon outside I went to the small island on the island, but I thought that the island was too small. Once fired, the shells would definitely fall into the water. I couldn’t test the power, so I gave up the idea of ​​​​testing outside the island, but now His place is considered sparsely populated, and even if someone saw their artillery, they couldn't figure out what it was, so they finally chose this mountain depression to conduct the first test of the artillery.

The two bronze cannons were placed at a distance. Xu Yi asked Li Bo to send someone to guard the entrance of the valley, so that no one else could enter.

Don't look at what Xu Yi said, but it was the first time for him to have sex like this. He had only heard of it before, but he had no chance to try it. He was a little naive about how to operate it. Confused, he didn't know how much gunpowder explosion this kind of artillery could withstand. If he loaded too much, he was afraid that the chamber would explode. If he loaded too little, if he couldn't fire the shell, it would be a big joke!
I had no experience so I had to try it. Xu Yi gritted his teeth, got a small scale, and simply began to crouch temporarily, weighing out the gunpowder to seven taels, one catty, one catty two taels...weighed out the heaviest He bought two catties of gunpowder, and then carefully put the weighed gunpowder into the muzzle starting from seven taels, stored the gunpowder in the medicine room with the cleaning stick he had prepared, and pressed the gunpowder firmly. I was sweating secretly, for fear that if I used too much force, the gunpowder would explode, and his life would be lost.

After hoarding the gunpowder, he first took a solid iron bullet and stuffed it into the barrel, and then used a cleaning rod to send the iron bullet into the barrel. No one would do these things, only Xu Yi himself did it himself, and let a few of his men Watching from the sidelines is considered training!Fortunately, the batch of iron bullets that Qin Huzi obtained were of high quality and suitable size, and did not cause him any trouble. The solid iron bullets were obediently loaded into the barrel.

Finally, after a lead wire was installed on the fire door, the first loading work was officially completed. Since it was the first trial release, no one knew whether the copper cannon could withstand the huge explosive force of the gunpowder, so Xu Yi took it He lit a torch and made everyone run away. He came to test fire the first shot himself.

But Li Bo refused to agree, and insisted on competing with him to fire the first shot. Xu Yi said nothing, what a great thing this is!This is the first cannon in the world, and it was the first trial launch. How could this feat that will last forever in history be passed on to others?After arguing for a long time, Li Bo finally gave in, and Xu Yi drove him away and hid behind a pile of rocks. Everyone sweated nervously, for fear that something might go wrong, but Xu Yi had told them , This thing is very powerful when it is played, no one does not believe what Xu Yi said.

Xu Yi thought about it for a while, but he still felt uneasy, so he replaced the fire door of the artillery with a longer lead wire, and this time he carefully moved the torch in his hand. As soon as the lead wire touched the torch, he immediately It burned up.

Xu Yi turned around and ran with the torch on. At this time, even Li Bo admired Xu Yi's running ability, which was comparable to his speed when he used his lightness. Xu Yi plunged headlong behind the stone hidden by the crowd, stretching his head Looking in the direction of the cannon, I watched the lead wire sizzling all the way to the fire door, only to hear a loud bang, the cannon was launched very vigorously, the floating soil on the ground was shaken by the loud noise, and the cannon was covered with gunpowder smoke Diffuse, and then saw a cloud of smoke rising in the distance, needless to say, he knew that it must be the landing point of the shell, Xu Yi jumped up with a groaning voice, and rushed out with his buttocks dancing.

"Haha! It's done! Haha! The shells have been fired!" Xu Yi shouted triumphantly while running, but after running halfway, he stopped because he saw his beloved Tianzi when the gunpowder smoke dispersed. A tortoise turned over from the No. [-] cannon and fell upside down on the ground.

Li Bo and the others also rushed over. Under Xu Yi's command, they hurriedly lifted up the cannon and put it back in place. Fortunately, the cannon's mount was very strong and did not suffer any damage. The explosive force of the first shot turned it over. It seems that the design of this gun mount is not very good, at least there is a problem with its stability. It was enough for the gunners of the cannon to straighten the cannon.

But what Xu Yi wants now is not the stability of the artillery mount, what he cares about now is whether the artillery works. After the gun mount is straightened, Xu Yi, Qin Huzi, Ren Bin and others are going up and down around the gun After careful observation, except for some dirt on the body of the cannon, it was basically unscathed. When I touched it with my hand, it still felt a little warm. This is the temperature left by the cannon just now. Seeing After this result, Xu Yi was very satisfied, at least it showed that there was no problem with their cannon-making technology, so he visually checked the impact point of the shell just now, and found that the impact point of the first shell was more than two miles away. This range shows that the cannon has not done its best, and the ability of the cannon to shoot long distances has not been fully utilized, and the amount of gunpowder is obviously smaller.

So Xu Yi immediately called out to his subordinates to bring the cannon brushes, and directed them to insert the wool cannon brushes into the barrel of the gun, push and pull them back and forth, and wipe the barrel of the gun. He has never eaten pork, and he always knows how pigs run. He hadn't forgotten that black powder would leave a lot of residue after burning, if you don't wipe it off, who knows what will happen to the next shot.

After brushing the barrel of the gun, Xu Yi asked the guards to level the ground. There were wheels on the gun carriage. It was obvious that it turned over because the back was against something. Turned over.

After loading a catty of gunpowder, everyone began to test the cannon for the second time. After the experience just now, everyone knew that this copper cannon was very powerful. , this thing is really powerful, God knows why their lord has so many powerful things in his head, but everyone is also very happy, now the Fubo army has a good guy to use again!
According to the experience just now, after the filling was completed, Li Bo finally snatched the right to ignite this time. Xu Yi took the lead and ran behind the stone to hide, only showing half of his head to look outside. Li Bo followed Xu Yi's example and ignited the fuse. Then he ran, but this time the lead wire was obviously a little shorter. Before Li Bo jumped behind the rock, the cannon had already fired.

After a loud noise, Xu Yi didn't look at the cannon, but stared at the distant mountain depression, where there was an open stone beach. This time the landing point was farther than last time, reaching a distance of about three miles. After landing, he actually jumped up and flew forward for another distance, leaving two or three clouds of dust and smoke in the distance. Xu Yi laughed, solid bullets have the benefits of solid bullets!After landing, it didn't just plunge into the soil, but jumped forward. Wherever it passed along the way, humans and animals would never be spared, and the power was not small!
The crowd gathered around the cannon again. This time, because there was no obstacle behind the cannon, the recoil generated after firing the cannon pushed the cannon carriage backward for a distance of nearly ten feet, and finally stopped. The result made people happier than before. Under Xu Yi's command, everyone hurriedly pushed the cannon back and put it in the position just now. After another careful inspection, the result was satisfactory. Yes, there is still no crack on the cannon body, which shows that this cannon can definitely withstand the explosive force of a catty of gunpowder.

"Go ahead and try! Let's use one and a half catties this time to see how far we can shoot the iron bullet!" After trying two shots, Xu Yi's confidence soared, and he immediately directed everyone to start reloading with his hips on his hips. This time he doesn't have to do it himself, the guards under him are all smart ghosts, they know how to do it after seeing it once, although they are still far behind the regular artillery, but at least they already know that they need to wipe it first. The gun bore, after cleaning up the residue inside, reload gunpowder and shells.

Although only a small amount of gunpowder was loaded just now, the range of this artillery has far exceeded the ballista they used, and from the perspective of power, the power of the iron bullets of the artillery far exceeds the power of the ballista. As a result, everyone felt happy and encouraged, and there was another burst of busy work around the cannon.

Xu Yi also asked one of his subordinates to get a notebook to record the amount of charge each time, and also write down the distance and range of the rear seat. These are all original data, which are very important for the finalization of the artillery in the future. It's important, it's about human life, so don't be careless!

The third charge exceeded the weight of one catty and two taels, and directly filled a catty and a half of gunpowder. It was still Li Bo who did the knife himself, and everyone hid first. Long, lit it up and ran away. After he hid well, he heard the loud noise from the artillery for a long time. There was another burst of gunpowder smoke from the artillery, and the pungent smell of burning saltpeter wafted in the air, which made people feel like It was not very comfortable, but no one cared about this matter at the moment, and everyone looked towards the distance of the muzzle in unison. This time they could hardly see where the iron bullet landed. It was Xu Yi's telescope that helped them. After seeing clearly the landing point of the cannonball, based on his observation, the cannon pushed the projectile at least four miles away, or even farther. Xu Yi is already very satisfied with this result. At present, in this world, including Including the three-bow bed crossbow, there is really nothing that can send a three- to four-jin iron bullet to such a long distance. His bronze artillery has completely succeeded. In fact, he also knows that under the current situation, even if he The cannon he built had a range of only two miles, which was enough to make all cold weapons feel ashamed in front of it, but he still wanted to see how far his cannon could hit. This might be human instinct.

Unsatisfied Xu Yi and the others checked the cannon again. After seeing the cannon that was still intact, Xu Yi heaved a long sigh of relief. This Ren Bin really has a set. The first time he cast a cannon, he actually made such a tall one. Quality artillery, even he can't believe it, it's a bit ridiculous!This is already loaded with a catty and a half of gunpowder, and the artillery range has already reached four miles, and the gunpowder loading can be increased. This is comparable to the quality of the Napoleon bronze cannon of later generations.

Although Xu Yi really wanted to try the range of loading two catties of gunpowder, he still held back his crazy idea. In the end, he only loaded one catty of gunpowder into the cannon. He thought it should be the bronze cannon. It's the limit, if it blows up, he will really feel distressed for a long time.

The result of the fourth test shot finally opened the eyes of everyone, because the artillery that Xu Yi said at the beginning can easily push the iron bullet five miles away. It seems that Xu Yi did not fool them. The fourth launch The artillery finally lived up to everyone's expectations, and fired the projectile a full five miles away. Everyone with good eyesight could only see a cloud of dust rising in the distance, and the strong recoil pushed the four-wheeled artillery vehicle back a foot away. , just stopped.

After checking again, Xu Yi saw that the cannon body was still intact, so he was convinced of the quality of this cannon, and he was also deeply impressed by Ren Bin's casting skills. The ancient Chinese should not be underestimated!The technology they developed, even after hundreds of years, is not inferior to the Western casting technology, and this technology is still an immature technology, it has reached this point, I dare not think, if When the barrel of the artillery is changed to twenty times the caliber, how far can this artillery reach!Isn't this comparable to the red-clothed cannon of later generations?Xu Yi himself couldn't believe it.

Everyone looked at Xu Yi happily, but they didn't expect Xu Yi to be staring at the bronze cannon in a daze, so Li Bo called him cautiously: "My lord! My lord! Do you want to increase the dose? Let's try again." How about a shot? This thing is so enjoyable! Killing the enemy from a thousand steps away is invisible, and we have such a powerful guy in the future, I really can’t think of who we will be afraid of!"

"Oh?! No need, let's stop here today! A pound of gunpowder is already enough. If we go farther, we can't control the accuracy! It's good to shoot far! The key is to shoot accurately!" After Xu Yi heard Li Bo's words, he raised his hand to support Pao.

"Ah... I'm scalded to death...! It's so hot! This gun barrel is so hot!" Xu Yi suddenly jumped up with his arms folded.

(I didn’t let the gun go, I don’t know if I made a mistake, everyone please correct me!)

(End of this chapter)