Daming pirates

Yu Xiaotian gave Heitou two months. When he went to sea, he replenished his ship with enough supplies, and also equipped the war team with two squatting tiger cannons to strengthen their firepower on land.

strength.

Not two days after seeing off the blackheads, Yu Xiaotian received two pieces of good news one after another. One was that Zhao Mazi's fleet, which he sent to Foshan, Guangdong, returned to Nanri Island before the festival, and they were

The trip south to Guangdong was quite smooth. Although we encountered two pirates trying to hijack the ship on the way, they all gave up and retreated when they saw that they were all in the same fleet.

The few shipments of goods they brought were successfully sold in Guangdong. After finding the Feng family, they purchased more than 20,000 kilograms of refined iron from the Feng family in one batch. The Feng family was very satisfied with the business and the price they offered was relatively good.

He was fair and told them that as long as Sea Wolf still wanted pig iron, they could continue to look for the Feng family. I dare not say how much they wanted, but there would be no big problem if they could at least provide them with half a million kilograms of refined iron a year.

In this way, the iron shortage problem on Nanri Island has been greatly alleviated, and there is no longer a shortage of raw materials for cannon casting, including other projects that use iron.

In addition to pig iron, they also purchased thousands of kilograms of wrought iron, which greatly met their needs.

The second good news was brought to Yu Xiaotian by Blacksmith Zhang. Blacksmith Zhang had been concentrating on making blunderbuss tubes since he arrived at Nanri Island.

This blacksmith Zhang can be said to be an iron fanatic, and he likes to delve into things like blacksmithing. In addition, Yu Xiaotian also told him some about the process of making blunderbuss tubes from time to time.

Blacksmith Zhang began to explore based on the ready-made samples and the process of making the gun barrel that Yu Xiaotian told him, and Yu Xiaotian also let him play with it.

At first, the quality of the gun tubes he made was not good, but with his continuous efforts and the continuous transformation and production of some new tooling for making gun tubes, the craftsmanship became more and more refined. A year ago, he finally succeeded.

A usable blunderbuss tube was built and loaded with gunpowder for testing.

When Yu Xiaotian heard the news, he was so happy that he almost fainted. He has now solved the problem of artillery, and the next step is to wait for large-scale casting. Now that someone has helped him solve the problem of muskets, then he will

It really can basically achieve self-sufficiency in weapons.

So he immediately ran to the ironworks to see the first usable gun tube that Blacksmith Zhang had made for him.

This gun tube is more than four feet long, about one meter and three meters, and weighs three and a half kilograms. The inner diameter of the gun tube is about fifteen millimeters. It was built according to Yu Xiaotian's idea. The outside of the gun tube is hexagonal.

At the end of the blunderbuss tube, there is a screw to close the end of the blunderbuss tube. There is a small hole on the right side of the tail of the blunderbuss tube, which is the fuse door of the blunderbuss tube.

Yu Xiaotian took the blunderbuss tube and observed it carefully. The entire blunderbuss tube was made very straight. After unscrewing the screws at the back, he looked at the inner bore of the blunderbuss tube and saw that the inner bore was drilled very smoothly.

This gun tube is quite well made overall. It is also made according to the method mentioned by Yu Xiaotian. First, the rough iron is repeatedly hammered into fine iron, and then it is beaten into iron sheets, and the iron sheets are rolled into a piece of iron.

On the stick, tap and forge to catch the joint, and then do it again

A thick iron pipe, the outside of this iron pipe, is heated and forged into one piece. After completion, use a drill to drill the barrel smooth and straight, then tap on the back, install screws to seal the tail, and open a fire

Door, this blunderbuss tube is completed.

However, it is easier said than done. This requires the craftsmen who make the blunderbuss to be very skilled, and it also takes more than ten days to make a lot of special tooling to create a qualified blunderbuss tube.

If the craftsmanship is not good, the scrap rate of the gun tube is very high. If you can make one out of three, it is considered good.

Blacksmith Zhang also continued to explore and gradually learned this craft. This is also related to his good foundation in blacksmithing skills. Otherwise, it is estimated that he will still have to explore for half a year, and he may not be able to create a qualified gun tube.

.

In Zhang Tiejiang's opinion, Yu Xiaotian was able to build such a qualified blunderbuss tube this time, and Yu Xiaotian also contributed a lot. Many of the things he told him were very useful, which allowed him to avoid detours and explore on his own, and he could directly follow the instructions.

Only by following the path pointed out by Yu Xiaotian and gradually experimenting could he produce such a usable blunderbuss so quickly.

Don't look at Yu Xiaotian who doesn't have the skill of blacksmithing. Even if you give him good materials and ask him to make a knife, he may not be able to make it. But the important thing is that he knows a lot of things and can sometimes push a technology forward.

, in fact, all that is needed is an idea. Once you have the idea, it is not very difficult to implement it technically. Of course, as long as it does not greatly exceed the technical level at the time, it is possible to implement it.

It was from Yu Xiaotian that Blacksmith Zhang learned a lot about gun-making. He naturally avoided many detours during trial production, which enabled him to achieve success in a relatively short period of time. In addition, Blacksmith Zhang knew a lot about gun-making.

No one has ever mentioned it. In fact, he was born into a craftsman family. His ancestors were craftsmen, and their ancestors knew how to make three-eyed blunderbuss. In fact, Blacksmith Zhang himself had some skills related to making fire blunderbuss.

Later, for some reason, Tiejiang Zhang left his nationality without authorization and settled in Donghai Village anonymously. Tiejiang Zhang has never mentioned this matter to anyone.

With these foundations, Zhang Tiejiang had a unique and natural advantage when he was groping for making a gun barrel. This was why he was able to make a successful design in a short period of time with only some theoretical knowledge and a few ready-made samples.

The reason why we successfully created the blunderbuss tube.

After Yu Xiaotian inspected this blunderbuss tube, no problems were found. Moreover, Blacksmith Zhang had used this blunderbuss tube for test firing several times, and no problems such as explosion or cracks were found in the blunderbuss tube. Therefore, this blunderbuss tube is very practical.

Safety is no problem.

However, this barrel is still just a barrel, and other parts have not yet been assembled to form a practical matchlock gun. Therefore, during test firing, it can only be fixed on a wooden frame with U-shaped iron nails.

On the table, aim at a wooden rake in the distance and conduct a firing test to test the safety and shooting accuracy of the gun tube.

Yu Xiaotian went to watch the bullet hole landing points of the wooden target again. Because it was fixed on the table for aiming and firing, it avoided human influence on the accuracy. The landing points of several projectiles on the wooden target were very dense, basically

Concentrated in the white bullseye area about the size of the mouth of a bowl, only the first two shots landed outside the bullseye because they were not aimed. After subsequent adjustments, the impact point of the projectiles became much more accurate.

"When testing, how far is the target from the muzzle?" Yu Xiaotian turned to Blacksmith Zhang and asked.

Zhang Tiejiang quickly replied: "When we go back to the big boss, the younger one just started to test fire. He didn't dare to set the target too far away. He placed it thirty steps away!"

Yu Xiaotian observed the wooden target. This wooden target was a thick wooden board temporarily found by Blacksmith Zhang. It was about an inch thick. Several test rounds of muskets had directly penetrated this wooden target, indicating that this wooden target was

The shooting power of the blunderbuss tube is quite good. At least when shooting at unprotected targets, it can basically guarantee a very sufficient kinetic energy from thirty steps away to ensure the lethality against living targets.

So Yu Xiaotian nodded and said: "Yes, but thirty steps is a bit close. Let's try again. Place the target at a distance of fifty steps and seventy steps and try again for accuracy and power!"

So in the afternoon, the shooting range became busy again, and the sound of muskets began to be heard again from time to time. According to Yu Xiaotian's request, the wooden targets were placed fifty and seventy steps away, and the musket tubes were still fixed on

Aim and launch from a wooden platform.

The result of the test is that at a distance of fifty steps, the accuracy and power of this bludgeon tube can still be guaranteed. The distribution of the bludgeon's impact points has only expanded a bit, but it is still within an acceptable range. The impact points are concentrated around the size of the washbasin.

Although not all of the one-inch-thick wooden boards were penetrated, most of the muskets still effectively penetrated the thick wooden boards. This means that within fifty steps, the projectiles fired from this barrel can still kill people alive.

Cause fatal damage to the target.

But after seventy steps, the accuracy of firing the blunderbuss tube began to decrease significantly. On the large desktop target used as the target, the impact point of the blunderbuss bullets actually began to miss the target, and the power of the projectiles also dropped sharply.

The projectiles were also concentrated on the lower part of the target and could no longer effectively penetrate the board.

Therefore, the effective range of such a blunderbuss tube is about fifty steps. After more than 50 steps, the kinetic energy of the blunderbuss bullet begins to be consumed seriously, so that the power and accuracy of the fired blunderbuss bullet cannot be guaranteed. It basically takes a long time to hit the target.

It depends on God to take care of it, and if the target is protected by armor, there is no guarantee of effective killing of the target.

Such an effective range is not even as good as that of a bird gun. The bird gun is said to be able to shoot at a distance of seventy steps. However, the bullets fired from this gun tube cannot guarantee the shooting accuracy and power at a distance of seventy steps.

Yu Xiaotian was a little disappointed, but after thinking about it, he was relieved again. The blunderbuss he asked Blacksmith Zhang to make was different from the bird blunderbuss of this era.

The most important thing is that he requested that the caliber of the gun tube be increased to 15 mm, which exceeded the common caliber of about 8 mm to 12 mm for bird guns in this era. The mass of the projectile also increased greatly, but for the convenience of use, the gun tube

It cannot be made too long, which also reduces the ratio of the caliber to the length of the gun tube. In addition, in order to ensure the safety of the gun tube, the amount of powder is not increased much. This results in the effective range being smaller than that of bird guns with a smaller caliber.

It is understandable to lower it a bit.

Although the effective range and accuracy of this kind of blunderbuss are lower than that of bird blunderbuss, its power is actually much greater than that of bird blunderbuss. Especially within the effective range, the power of this kind of fire blunderbuss with increased caliber is much higher.

It is much more powerful than the common bird cannons. Although the penetration may not necessarily increase much, because the mass of the projectile has increased a lot, the kinetic energy that can be transferred to the target has increased a lot. Within fifty steps, as long as the target is hit,

Regardless of whether a person wears armor or not, even if the armor does not penetrate their body, the energy they carry can basically guarantee that a living target can be knocked down with one shot, or at least make it lose its combat effectiveness. There is no problem.

(Unfortunately! I started to have a fever for the third time today! It seems that there is something wrong with my body! It’s just a small cold that hasn’t improved in a week. Last night, the fever was over 38 degrees! I’m going to have a water transfusion today. I wonder if I can get better in the afternoon.

Update one more chapter! If it doesn’t work, I will ask the brothers for a day off!)