Chongzhen Chat Group

Not long after, Liu Chengzhi, the eunuch in charge of the Military War Bureau, hurried in and greeted him with a happy face. Emperor Chongzhen knew without asking that something good must be coming.

Sure enough, after the ceremony, Liu Chengzhi said: "Your Majesty, the performance of the artillery made by the War Bureau has more than doubled!"

After the success of iron mold casting in the past, the casting speed was only increased, but the performance was not improved. The reason is that most of the iron mold cannons are white iron cannons.

If this kind of artillery is fired at a fast speed, the temperature will be too fast and it cannot cool down quickly. Therefore, it takes a long time to cool down every three shots, and its service life is limited. On the actual battlefield, this flaw is easily fatal.

But at this time, it was only used for the training of the new army's artillery battalion, so it didn't need to be so particular, and it was not used when it was almost used. It was just a matter of letting the war situation recover and use the new artillery. Compared with the previous clay mold casting cannon, the cost is within the affordable range for such usage.

However, the artillery battalion of the New Army must go to the battlefield, which also requires that the performance of the artillery must be improved. When Emperor Chongzhen inspected the war bureau before, he asked them to improve the performance of the artillery.

Emperor Chongzhen did not expect that in less than two months, the performance of the military battle situation had more than doubled. He couldn't help but be very excited. He immediately ordered the military battle situation to be set up and he wanted to see it in person.

Liu Chengzhi was naturally happy that he had achieved something, and he wished that the emperor could go to the scene to see it. After arriving at the military battle, he immediately and diligently led Emperor Chongzhen to the Cannon Building Hall.

Just like last time, there were many cannons placed in the courtyard of the Cannon Building Hall. Liu Chengzhi pointed to the artillery and introduced them one by one to Emperor Chongzhen.

There are both old and new artillery. Through comparison, Emperor Chongzhen had an intuitive impression. Only then can Liu Chengzhi introduce methods to improve performance. In fact, it is nothing more than a few aspects. One is the annealing treatment, which improves the quality of the artillery; the other is the improvement in molten iron to further improve its quality.

Emperor Chongzhen became excited after hearing this, so he walked into the cannon-casting hall to visit the site, but he found that there were many cannons inside, with various inclinations, and there were pools boiling water on the side, which Emperor Chongzhen could see. I was a little surprised and couldn't help but ask: "What is this for?"

"Under your Majesty's advice, this servant upholds the holy will and specially asked many craftsmen to think of more ideas and conduct more experiments." Liu Chengzhi introduced with a hint of amusement, "The artillery performance is not good because the iron mold cools too fast. This The cooling speeds inside and outside are different. After further thinking, the slave thought that the biggest problem should be that the inside of the gun barrel cooled too fast, so he thought of ways to slow down the cooling speed inside the gun barrel. But I don’t know how slow it should be. Think of ways to try one by one."

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he couldn't help but nodded, but he also knew that this summary of reasons was definitely not Liu Chengzhi's own idea. So, he stared at Liu Chengzhi and asked, "Did you come up with this yourself?"

As soon as the emperor asked this question, Liu Chengzhi did not dare to say anything nonsense, otherwise it would be the crime of deceiving the emperor. He immediately replied: "It was under the auspices of the slaves and the collective efforts of everyone that we came up with such a method!"

Emperor Chongzhen nodded and said: "Your leadership achievements cannot be undone no matter what. But you must remember which craftsman comes up with the method and report it to me. This will be the case in the future, whoever comes up with it. If the idea is feasible, whoever you put in charge will be responsible for it. In the end, if it is successful, he will have the credit, and you will also have the credit. Only in this way can we truly mobilize their enthusiasm and let them come up with more ideas. Among your leaders Only by doing this will your power be greater, and I can rest assured that you will always be in charge of such an important military situation, do you understand?"

These words made Liu Chengzhi sweat faintly on his forehead, and he couldn't help but nodded quickly and replied: "Your Majesty, I understand!"

When the craftsmen not far away heard these conversations, they all looked at each other, their faces full of surprise.

In fact, it is not just this time, even in the future, no matter how advanced and developed civilization and technology are, as long as it is a human society, there will be such a situation where leaders take the credit of their subordinates.

How could Emperor Chongzhen not know this? He was in a good mood at this time, so he mentioned a few things and warned Liu Chengzhi in advance, which was considered a warning.

After he asked again, Li Junfeng, the head craftsman, came over to see the driver. He was the one who came up with this idea. After listening to his explanation, Emperor Chongzhen understood the principle he had in mind.

A rough explanation is: Li Junfeng believes that after the inner layer of the barrel is cooled and fixed, when the outer layer gradually cools, due to thermal expansion and contraction, when the outer layer of the barrel cools, it will hoop the inner layer, creating an inward stress. Of course, there is a problem with the cooling rate. If the ideal state is achieved, the performance of the artillery can be improved a lot.

The method he came up with was based on this idea, which was to change the inner mold to be hollow, and then add hot water of various temperatures to allow the inner wall of the gun bore to cool at various rates, thereby finding the most appropriate one. The cooling rate allows the artillery to achieve optimal performance. At present, this idea has just begun to be implemented, and no results have been produced yet.

Emperor Chongzhen kept nodding his head as he listened. This theory sounded good at first, and it should be a good experimental method to be used to guide practice. Thinking this, he immediately praised: "Not bad, it's worth trying!"

He didn't know that Li Junfeng's method was very similar to a famous method in another dimension. In 1860, Major Thomas Rodman of the U.S. Army invented the hollow casting process, that is, Casting the cannon around the core and then cooling it with running water is a method of hardening the inside of the cannon bore, which is referred to as the Rodman method of casting.

Of course, this cannon casting method cannot be realized if it is based on the clay mold cannon casting method. Only after the emergence of iron-cast cannons could such a natural development be possible.

Compared to Rodman in that plane, the war situation at this time can be said to be rich and wealthy, with sufficient manpower and material resources to carry out various experiments at the same time. And relatively speaking, the rich experience accumulated by many craftsmen in cannon casting is not comparable to Rodman's.

Emperor Chongzhen praised Li Junfeng again and asked other craftsmen to learn from him and use their brains to think more. He has reason to believe that as long as the creative enthusiasm of Ming craftsmen is aroused, there will be unexpected gains. Chinese people are never stupid!

After returning from the inspection of the Military War Bureau, Emperor Chongzhen immediately issued an order to the new military division general Cao Huachun, telling him the good news and preparing to re-equip the artillery battalion of the new army and conduct a new round of training.

After finishing all this, Emperor Chongzhen turned his attention to Guihua City.

Thanks to Tianwaitian007 for the reward!

I took cold medicine when I got home from get off work the day before yesterday, but I couldn't code all night. I went to attend the annual meeting yesterday and got home very late, so I had to read at least one chapter early. I just coded this chapter this morning, so I updated it a little late. .