In the fortress, craftsmen worked enthusiastically under the leadership of Li Laoer. Under the guidance of Li Laoer, six blacksmiths cast a three-eyed gun of high quality, and then installed wooden poles on the three-eyed gun.

At the same time, Li Laoer transformed the gunpowder himself and improved the gunpowder into granular gunpowder. He soaked the gunpowder with water and glue, rolled the wet gunpowder into strips, and then cut it into particles. Finally, he used a sieve to screen it to ensure that each gunpowder particle size is similar, so that the granular gunpowder was made.

However, pelleted gunpowder is not as easy to ignite as powdered gunpowder, so powdered gunpowder is also needed to act as a induced medicine. Now the problem is again. If the three-eyed gun cavalry riding on a horse uses induced medicine, the induced medicine will be easily blown away by the wind. To solve this problem, Li Laoer wrapped the powdered gunpowder on paper, made a induced medicine tube and inserted it directly into the fire door of the three-eyed gun. In this way, igniting the induced medicine tube can complete the launch of the three-eyed gun without causing the induced medicine to be blown away by the wind.

While building the three-eyed gun and improving gunpowder, Li Laoer first made a group of carpenters under his command, and a group of carpenters were making wooden poles for horse lances.

The cut jujube wood was cut into even thickness by the carpenter, and repeatedly soaked the jujube with oil. This was just the first step, soaking it no longer deformed or cracked, and the first step was completed. This process took nearly a year, and after a year, the jujube bar was taken out and dried in the shade for several months.

The time for making the horse lance is extremely long and it takes several years to wait. At present, what Li Laoer is most concerned about is casting the three-eyed gun. The three-eyed gun is casting very fast. In just three days, he and six craftsmen have already cast thirty high-quality three-eyed guns.

Among the six blacksmiths under Li Laoer, there was an old craftsman named Wu Yufeng. He was originally a craftsman in the Datong government. Because the Ming Dynasty craftsmen were also a low-ranking family and had a low status, the whole family of craftsmen had to participate in production, and they were inherited from generation to generation. The sons of craftsmen were not allowed to participate in the imperial examinations. The labor of shift craftsmen was free of charge and had to be controlled and exploited by hand officials. The income of craftsmen was already extremely low and they were exploited by officials. Therefore, craftsmen often slacked off or fled. Often tens of thousands of craftsmen fled within a year.

Wu Yufeng's family was a craftsman. He fled to the west with his family. He originally planned to join Tumote's tribe to be a shepherd slave, but was robbed here by Li Laoer and his gang on the way.

When Li Laoer heard that Wu Yufeng was a craftsman, he treated him as a treasure and raised him.

Wu Yufeng is about forty-five and six years old, and has a very strong figure. His pair of strong and powerful arms are bulging with blue veins and dark skin. He looks like a simple working people.

"Although the three-eyed guns created by the young master are of high quality, the three-eyed guns are too close to the range and are extremely inconvenient to use. If they can build bird guns, wouldn't they be much more powerful than the three-eyed gun?" Wu Yufeng said as he looked at the newly cast three-eyed gun.

"Although bird guns are good, they take a lot of time. They can only forge one in a month, and they consume a lot of iron, forty kilograms of pig iron, and in the end they only refined seven or eight kilograms of fine iron, which is quite expensive. So I will make plans for building bird guns in the future." Li Laoer replied.

"The young master might as well build one or two large bird guns. Although the young master has a poison gun that is more powerful than the Lumi gun, it's a pity that the loading speed is too slow. The projectiles have to be hit with an iron hammer, and they can only shoot one person at a time. The small one knows how to build a large gun that can load one or two bullets with a range of more than a hundred steps. One bullet can knock five or six people over! If you load a shotgun, one gun can shoot more than ten people at close range. The loading speed is similar to that of the bird gun, and the method of use is almost the same as that of the bird gun. It only requires a fork stick to stand on the ground, otherwise you cannot fire with your hand." Wu Yufeng suggested.

"One or two bullets? This is simply a small cannon. How many hours does such a large gun cost and how much pig iron?" Li Laoer was worried about the problem of time and materials. There was no way, after all, he was poor now.

"A large gun costs about 60 kilograms of pig iron, but the blast furnace of the young master is of high quality and can reduce the consumption of pig iron. It is about 40 to 50 kilograms of pig iron. The forged large gun weighs about 20 kilograms. It takes a craftsman twenty days to build a large gun." Wu Yufeng replied.

"Forty to fifty kilograms of pig iron will take twenty days. If you can do this, it will be a blessing for Wu Jiangtou to help Li build two large guns!" Li Laoer bowed to Wu Yufeng.

After all, this large musket is a kind of musket. The craftsmanship of the gun barrel cannot be as rough as a three-eyed gun, so Wu Yufeng adopted the method of creating a combination of casting and forging.

The craftsmen first made an elongated mold, poured the molten iron into the mold, made a gun tube, and then inserted the gun tube into an iron core fixed to the frame, and repeatedly forged it with an iron hammer. This was just forging the inner tube. After forging the inner tube of the musket, an outer tube was cast outside to form a double-layer structure. Finally, a manual boring machine was used to polish the inner wall of the gun tube, so that the gun tube of the large fuse gun was made.

Then, various parts were created, copper was used to make the parts, poured into the mold, and triggers, claw hooks, snake rods were created. Wu Yufeng took out a little steel from the remaining fallen steel in the iron-smelting blast furnace to create an elastic steel plate to act as a spring.

The springs made of this degenerate steel are still slightly less elastic and cannot be used to build flintlock rifles, but the springs used as clamps are enough.

After twenty days of hard work, Wu Yufeng and another craftsman finally built two large muskets.

Li Laoer saw that these two large muskets were six feet long, and there was a snake rod holding a fuse-clamping rod on the barrel close to the stock. As long as the trigger was pulled, the snake rod could press the fuse into the medicine pool and ignite the lead-in medicine. After the trigger was loosened, the elastic steel sheet was loosened and the snake rod was reset. There was also a four-foot-long fork stick in front of these two large muskets. When used, put the musket on this wooden stick with an iron fork.

"Wu Jiangtou, I have an idea to change this fork stick into a two-foot-high three-legged iron rack, so that the musket can be mounted more steadily, and you can lie on the ground and shoot, so that you can also get the shield protected." Li Laoer said, pointing to the fork stick in front of the large musket.

Wu Yufeng and another blacksmith were fighting for a morning and then built two triple iron racks.

Li Laoer placed the triangular iron frame on the ground, then took out a bamboo tube, grabbed the musket and stood up. The musket tip was facing the sky, poured the particulate gunpowder in the bamboo tube into the gun tube, and then stuffed a projectile the size of a pigeon egg into the musket to compact it with a strip. Then he put the musket on the tripod, opened the cover plate of the medicine induction pool, took out another bamboo tube, poured the medicine induction pool, and then covered the cover plate, then clamped the fuse on the snake pole, and then lit the fuse.

After completing this series of actions, Li Laoer picked up a large musket, aimed at a piece of wooden target a hundred steps away, and gently pulled the trigger.
Chapter completed!