Li Guodong inspected the artillery and artillery truck that had just fired the shells, mainly to check if there were any problems with the bearing shells and journals. After some inspection, everything was fine. After a long-distance traction test of the artillery truck was carried out, and four horses were towing the ammunition truck full of sandbags. Li Guodong personally drove the car. At this time, the weight of the ammunition truck was full of ammunition, and the wartime state of five people was the same as that of the horse. He set off from 10:00 in the morning and walked until Shenshi in the afternoon. After walking all day, the horse pulled the artillery truck and walked for 120 miles.

During the long-distance traction test, the bearings rotated smoothly, and the vehicle operated with labor, and no problems were found. However, after arriving at the destination at night, Li Guodong found that there seemed to be some problems with the axle.

"After all, the axles are made of wood, and we cannot use good wood to make the axles, as the cost is too high." A craftsman replied.

The best wood is very expensive and not only is it not easy to obtain, but it also takes a long time to process it before it can be used. Li Guodong thought about it and suggested: "The axle is a key part of the vehicle. It bears the weight of the vehicle and also needs to be rotated. Can you put a layer of iron on the outside of the axle?"

After craftsmen wrapped a layer of iron sheet outside the axle, the axle became more durable. As for why not use iron pipes as an axle? It is because the durability of a simple iron pipe may not be as good as wood, and the iron pipe is prone to bend and deformed and has a shorter use time. If a whole cast iron axle is used, the weight will increase a lot, so I used the method of wrapping iron sheet outside the wood.

The cannon truck after the axle was improved, and after five days of long journey testing, there was no problem.

The rotational parts of sliding bearings, bearing shells, journals and axles will inevitably wear after a long time of use, but these are inevitable problems. Even the most advanced needle roller bearings and combined bearings in later generations have wear problems. The bearing has a certain life, and it will be replaced when it is time to use. The service life of sliding bearings exceeds that of rolling bearings. In the past life, Li Guodong's own bicycles have been used for a long time, and the balls of the bearings have become smaller, and some steel columns have been broken, so the bearings will be scrapped. The life of sliding bearings is relatively long, but even if a large amount of butter is injected as lubricant, it will be worn out sooner or later and will eventually be scrapped.

Li Guodong also improved the frame part of the bearing. The expensive spring steel sheet can only be used to make flintlock rifles and it is impossible to make a frame. He replaced it with cooked iron. Of course, he could not make a soft-connected spring shock-absorbing structure. It could only be a rigid connection like later bicycles. The bearings were installed on a frame made of cooked iron and rough steel. Fried iron and rough steel actually had a certain degree of elasticity. In addition, the cattle and sheepskin wrapped on the outside of the wheels, so that the shock-absorbing performance of the vehicle can be almost the same as that of later bicycles.

With a new blast furnace that can directly train a mature iron, the steps to build low-carbon steel are much simpler. The original steel needs to be tempered for thousands of times before it can be refined into steel. Now, the blacksmiths in the blacksmith shop can turn the mature iron into rough steel after three to four forgings. Within a day, each blacksmith can create more than a dozen thick steel bars, which has improved the efficiency a lot.

Those rough steels can be used as generals of vehicles and can create armor.

After the New Year of the Ninth Year of Chongzhen, Li Guodong's craftsmen had built 1,048 bearings, which could build 262 new gun trucks and ammunition trucks.

With bearings and new artillery vehicles, the twelve-pound field can also move with the cavalry. The twelve-pound field cannon tow with five to six horses is not slower than the cavalry at all, making this heavy artillery that is no less powerful than the Red Barbarian cannons, and can keep up with the cavalry.

While building a new type of cannon car, the cannons were also cast at the same time. So far, Li Guodong already had twelve twelve-pound field bronze cannons, eighteen six-pound field bronze cannons, six twelve-pound grenade copper cannons, twelve three-pound iron cannons, and also cast a batch of 100-pound Folang machine cannons and nine-headed bird fire guns. In addition, the blacksmiths also built two hundred flintlock guns and two thousand bird guns.

"Is this the pearls that Wang Quan brought back from the south?" When Li Guodong was idle, he went to see a batch of pearls that Wang Quan sent.

The pearls raised in Tawau City have been harvested, and the quality of river pearls is naturally not as good as sea pearls. Even so, the large number of pearls raised can still be sold for a lot of silver. Some of the best-quality pearls with relatively good quality and large sizes have been sold by Wang Quan for silver, and they can be sold for more than 100,000 taels of silver.

The remaining pearls handed to Li Guodong were all pearls with smaller grains.

Looking at the box of pink and soybean-sized pearls, Li Guodong suddenly thought of a solution: if these pearls are sold separately, they will not be sold much silver, and they will probably only be sold for 20,000 taels of silver. It is better to make pearls into pearl crowns or pearl robes, so that they can be sold at a good price.

Li Guodong's wife He Xiuying took the sisters to make these pearls into more than ten pearl crowns and six pearl dresses, and one of them was specially made for a little girl.

After the Chinese New Year, Li Guodong brought two big and one small and three pearl crowns and one pearl dress to visit Wang Kun.

After the box containing the pearl robes and pearl crowns opened, Wang Kun looked straight. His lips squirmed for a long time before he spoke: "Li Junmen, is this gift too expensive?"

"Eunuch Wang, this pearl robe is for you. I hope that the three pearl crowns will be handed over to the great princes and grandpas in the capital." Li Guodong explained.

"No problem, no problem!" Wang Kun agreed with a smile.

On the 14th day of the first lunar month, the filial piety sent by Wang Kun into the palace came to Wang Chengen.

Wang Chengen opened a mouthful of exquisite sandalwood box and saw two large and small three bead crowns inside. He picked up the bead crown and saw that these bead crowns were made of pearls of the same size and gold thread. They were exquisitely crafted, and each pearl was exactly the same size. Not to mention anything else, it would be rare to say that these hundreds of pearls of the same size were held in his hand and emitted a brilliant light under the candlelight.

"Good thing! Wang Kun is really filial!" Wang Chengen said with a smile.

Suddenly, Wang Chengen thought that every time Wang Kun paid the best items he gave was given by Li Guodong, he thought that these three pearl crowns must have given by Li Guodong.

"Two pearl crowns are given to the emperor, the big one must be given to Empress Zhou, and the small one must be given to His Highness the princess." Wang Chengen made up his mind.

"Zhuguan? Haha!" Chongzhen smiled. Empress Zhou, who was the mother of the world, followed him. She had not lived a good life, but suffered a lot. The patches on Chongzhen's dragon robe were all repaired by Empress Zhou himself.
Chapter completed!