The artillery workshop is now busy, and everyone is serving an iron guy two meters high and half a meter in the middle of the ground. This is the iron fan who makes artillery. This is the first time Ma Cheng saw it, and he was very curious and walked up to him to watch it in detail.

When Song Yingxing saw Ma Cheng’s curiosity, he shouted from the side: “Zhonghe, come back soon, it will be cast in a while!”

When Ma Cheng heard Song Yingxing say this, he quickly left the iron guy, walked to Song Yingxing and said, "Teacher, this is the first time I have seen a cast cannon!"

Song Yingxing rolled his eyes when he heard Ma Cheng say this and said, "Zhonghe, I don't know where you copied the drawings from. When I talk about the mathematics of the mechanism, I can be regarded as the number one person in the Ming Dynasty, but you have never seen these drawings!"

"Haha, haven't the disciple told the teacher that they all learned from the missionary of the Folangji. As for whether it is right or not, I don't know!"

Ma Cheng was sloppy here, and Song Yingxing knew that Ma Cheng was not telling the truth. Song Yingxing was not an official like the Qing Dynasty who was not concerned about the world. The officials of the Ming Dynasty were closely connected with those missionaries. Although Song Yingxing did not join the church like Xu Guangqi, he still had contact with missionaries. Those blond and green-eyed foreigners did not have the ability of Ma Cheng.

Song Yingxing knew that Ma Cheng would definitely not tell the truth to him, so he snorted and sat on the chair. The dogs of the Ministry of War Campaign and Supervision Department were obviously better than Ma Cheng. A seventh-rank chief officer saw Song Yingxing sitting down and quickly stepped forward to serve tea. Ma Cheng secretly scolded the dog in his heart.

This is also impossible. Song Yingxing came from the imperial examination and stayed in the officialdom all his life. From the lowest-level eighth-rank teacher to the fifth-rank magistrate, most of the officials in the Ministry of Works were Song Yingxing's descendants. With Song Yingxing's attainments in the agency, those officials in the Ministry of Works were naturally respectful.

But Ma Cheng is different. He doesn't know a big word, but he is still from Qiu Ba. Although I was the chief assistant, Ma Shiying's infamy is incomparable to Song Yingxing's reputation. Naturally, these officials of the Ministry of Works look down on Ma Cheng.

The highest position in the workshop is Ma Cheng, and the lowest position is Song Yingxing. The lowest position is Song Yingxing now has a seat, while the highest position is Ma Cheng. Xu Zhenye couldn't stand it by the side and quickly shouted: "What are you doing? You are not going to get a chair for the military master to sit!"

Ma Cheng was very grateful when he heard Xu Zhenye say this. It was nothing to sit or not, as long as he really couldn't get off the Taiwan Strait just now. After hearing Xu Zhenye say this, Ma Cheng quickly said, "No need! No need! There is a seat for disciples in front of the teacher!" After Ma Cheng said that, he stood behind Song Yingxing and began to watch the casting cannons.

The preliminary work has been prepared almost the same. The next step is to put the iron guy in the pit, then sift fine sand around it to fix the iron sphere. After all the work is ready, the craftsman started casting at the prompt of Song Yingxing, and slowly poured the newly-baked steel water in the adjacent steelmaking workshop into the six holes in the iron sphere.

After filling the iron, the water began to be introduced into the inner space. For a moment, the entire artillery workshop was filled with fog, just like a fairyland on earth. When the iron water was almost cooled, take out the iron space as a whole, and then remove the iron space from the outside to the inside.

After all the iron balls were removed, a dark and steaming big guy appeared in front of Ma Cheng. If later military enthusiasts came to the scene, they would definitely find that the big guy in front of him was the pinnacle of the smoothbore cannon, Napoleon cannon.

The Napoleon cannon is a smoothbore cannon named after the French emperor. It is an effective weapon with fierce firepower and extremely simple manufacturing and use. The original cannon is made of bronze. Although the Napoleon cannon has superior performance, it does not mean that it has no defects. Since the bronze cannon cabin is quite thick, the entire cannon is very heavy, which makes its mobility very poor.

However, the cannon cast by Ma Cheng with steel does not have the disadvantage of a bronze cannon. Due to material problems, the weight of this cannon is much lighter than that of a bronze cannon of the same caliber. However, the cannon also has its disadvantage, that is, its service life is not as good as that of a bronze cannon.

Ma Cheng came to the front of the cannon to watch in detail. The big guy had not completely cooled down and his whole body was still emitting temperature. Ma Cheng wanted to reach out and touch it, but was stopped by Song Yingxing.

"Zhonghe, don't touch it. Now his temperature is very high, and he still needs to cool down slowly!"

Ma Cheng quickly shrank his hand and asked, "Teacher, why can't you cool it with water?"

"Now the temperature inside and outside of this iron cannon is different. If you pour water outside and cool it, cracks will appear inside, which will easily explode."

Ma Cheng didn't expect that Song Yingxing knew how to stay away from the cold and cold, so he asked quickly: "The teacher is indeed a talented person, and he understands the principle of cold and cold unevenness!"

Song Yingxing nodded when he heard Ma Cheng say this and said, "There is uneven hot and cold? This is a good term. I have tried it a few days ago. After casting, I immediately cooled it with water, and then I knew there were cracks on the cannon body."

After hearing what Song Yingxing said, Ma Cheng realized that these guys had already done experiments a few days ago. He probably failed and didn't tell him. Today, he was very sure that he would notify him to watch it.

Just as Ma Cheng and Song Yingxing were chatting, the temperature of the cannon slowly dropped. Ma Cheng could get close to watch carefully this time.

This cannon is different from the previous Ming army artillery. The Ming army's cannon has five to six reinforcement ribs on the cannon body due to material problems, which is used to prevent the blasting of the chamber. This cannon is very similar to the red cannon imitated by the Ming army, but the caliber ratio is larger, that is, the cannon body is longer.

Ma Cheng imitated this Napoleon gun with a length of 1.6 meters and a diameter of 9 cm, which has reached 17 times the caliber, which is similar to the m1841 6-pound field gun.

A craftsman next to him brought a boom and hung the cannon on the ground. The data obtained was 734 kilograms. One kilogram in the Ming Dynasty was equivalent to more than 590 grams, and these more than 700 kilograms were more than 300 kilograms in later generations, which was already lighter than the 6-pound bronze cannon.

Song Yingxing frowned when he saw this weight. He knew that the red cannons in the Ming Dynasty all started with a thousand kilograms, and the heaviest general of Shenwu was tens of thousands of kilograms. Even the big-style Bolang machine cannon with a range of only more than one hundred steps also had eight or nine hundred kilograms. This kind of small cannon was only seven hundred kilograms. It seems that the range should not be very long.

This cannon was completely completed according to the drawings provided by Ma Cheng, so Song Yingxing was very worried and asked worriedly: "Ma Cheng, this kind of small cannon is so light that it is probably only a range of 200 steps."

Ma Cheng laughed: "Teacher, don't worry about this anymore. Test the ejaculation later!"

The cannon truck made for this cannon has been prepared. After the craftsmen have finished repairing the cannon, they will place the cannon on the cannon. A field cannon has been officially completed.

Ma Cheng's weapons were in Beicheng. Because he could not test artillery in the city, Ma Cheng had no choice but to find a few mules to drag the artillery to the Nancheng Grand Cyberspace, where he could test the new artillery.

A total of fifteen miles from North City to South City. If it is a red barbarian cannon of thousands of pounds, it will be troublesome. It is impossible to transfer the position once in a few days. However, because this cannon is light in weight and has a new type of cannon, two mules can drag the cannon and move from North City to South City within an hour.

The large campus outside the south city covers a vast area, and most of them are open space and farmland except for Ma Cheng's military camp. Ma Cheng chose a place with a flat ground and a wide view, and prepared to test artillery here. When passing by his military camp, Ma Cheng called all the main generals under him to see what real field artillery is.

When they arrived at the place, several craftsmen began to tinker with cannons. According to the provisions of the Ming army's thousand-jin Folang machine cannon, they needed to load 8 taels and six cents of gunpowder. These craftsmen thought about it and thought that the cannon was 700 kilograms. In order to ensure that the chamber was not exploded, they only loaded six taels of medicine for the first time.

The craftsman put the gunpowder bag and shells into the gunbore in turn, inserted it into the gunbore with fire tongs and pierced the gunpowder cannon, then poured gunpowder into the fire hole, and then ignited and fired under Ma Cheng's instructions.

Because the charge amount was insufficient, this test shot only took about 500 steps, which was similar to the thousand-pound red cannon. After hearing the distance, Ma Cheng frowned and asked, "How much gunpowder have you used?"

The craftsmen quickly replied: "Sir, the villain just used six taels of gunpowder!"

"Double it, use one pound and two pounds this time!" The gunpowder used in this cannon was a new type of gunpowder developed by Ma Cheng, and its power was far greater than that of the Ming Dynasty gunpowder. Song Yingxing quickly said when he heard Ma Cheng say this: "No, you can only use one pound at most. This is a test gun. If you explode the chamber, it will be troublesome!"

When Ma Cheng heard that the teacher had no choice but to nod and let the two craftsmen take a shot as the teacher arranged.

After receiving Ma Cheng's instructions, the two craftsmen started loading the medicine again tremblingly, and this time they filled a pound of gunpowder. One of the craftsmen said: "Brother, this time it depends on luck. You and my brother will die together!" The 5,000-pound red barbarian cannon in the Ming Dynasty only had two kilograms of medicine. This small cannon is now filled with one kilogram. These two craftsmen are ready to be blown to death.

When they were ready, a craftsman closed his eyes and lit the gunpowder with a torch. He felt a loud bang in his ears. After a while, he opened his eyes and realized that he had nothing to do.

The shooting distance of the artillery this time was 700 steps, which was about one kilometer in the future. The range of the Red Cannon with tens of thousands of kilograms in the Ming Dynasty was only three miles. Now the shooting distance of such a small cannon with a total of 700 kilograms was comparable to that of the Red Cannon with tens of thousands of kilograms. All the officials present were stunned for a moment.

Song Yingxing and others were civil servants, but they were shocked by the shooting distance of the artillery, but they did not understand the specific meaning. The officers who followed Ma Cheng to watch the lively are experts. If such powerful and light artillery were equipped with a large amount of equipment, they would not be afraid of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty in field battles.
Chapter completed!