Daming pirates

After hearing this, Blacksmith Lei was startled. He counted on his fingers and said in surprise: "Master, is the new cannon you are talking about too heavy? If this cannon is cast, it will be a cannon."

The body must weigh at least one thousand kilograms, and if you add the gun mount, it will weigh at least fifteen hundred kilograms. I'm afraid we won't be able to use it on the ship!"

Yu Xiaotian rolled his eyes and said: "I know this better than you. We really don't have much use on these ships now, but that doesn't mean we won't use it in the future! I want to take this cannon and put it in the fort on the shore. It's important.

It doesn’t hurt to have some! Anyway, you can do it for me as soon as possible. If you can’t do it, you can bring it up and I’ll find someone else to do it for you!”

Lei Blacksmith was so frightened that he shrank his neck, quickly bowed and agreed repeatedly, turned his head and glanced at Li Gouzi with a hint of resentment, as if he was blaming Li Gouzi for harming him this time.

Nowadays, because of the method of casting iron cannons, his craftsmanship is no longer so valuable. After mastering the method of casting cannons, many people can take his place and take charge of this cannon production. Now Yu Xiaotian

The monthly salary offered to him as a cannon steward is twelve taels of silver a month, which is quite a high wage on land.

If Yu Xiaotian is not happy and takes him down, he can only be an ordinary craftsman, and his salary is only two taels of silver a month. Although for craftsmen, such wages are already very high, but compared to

He currently gets a monthly salary of ten taels of silver, which is much less.

Now that he gets his salary every month, he can comfortably go to the island's brothel and find a beautiful bitch to sleep with for many days, which is enough for him to visit the casino when he has nothing to do and live a comfortable life.

Even if he doesn't admit it, he still has a lot of face. If Yu Xiaotian takes it away, his good days will be over, so it's no wonder he's not nervous.

Not seeing the new cannon made Yu Xiaotian very unhappy, and the artillery operator was not interested in continuing the inspection, so he turned around and went straight to the gunpowder workshop in Houshan Col.

Now the gunpowder workshop is also the most important workshop of Sea Wolf. It is the basis to ensure that Sea Wolf firearms will not run out of food, so it is very valued by Xiaotian.

However, gunpowder workshops are no more dangerous than ordinary workshops, so they are not placed in the workshop area, but in a mountain col that is far away from human settlements. If an accident occurs, the loss can be smaller.

Moreover, the raw material warehouse for gunpowder production and the finished gunpowder warehouse are also separated from the workshop. A single accident could destroy the entire gunpowder reserve, causing Sea Wolf to immediately stop.

The number of workers in the gunpowder workshop has now increased to thirty or forty. The division of labor is more refined than when it was first founded on Treasure Island, and the tools are also better. For this reason, Yu Xiaotian did not hesitate to spend a large amount of silver and copper.

Copper and silver tools were made for gunpowder workshops to prevent sparks from colliding with iron or stone tools when crushing raw materials, causing explosions or fires.

However, the increase in production requires the guarantee of raw materials. Sulfur can be obtained relatively easily, but the supply of saltpeter has always been a problem. Sea Wolf has never been able to find a stable supply channel of saltpeter.

What is known so far is that the Spanish have sufficient saltpeter resources in their hands, because the Spanish occupied the colony of Chile, and Chile is the region with the largest saltpeter reserves in the world. Historically, it has accounted for 70% of the world's saltpeter production, so Spain

The most indispensable thing on hand is saltpeter.

However, so far, Sea Wolves have not established contact with the Spanish and can only be purchased through other channels. Not only is the cost high, but the quantity cannot be satisfied and guaranteed.

So years ago, Yu Xiaotian had asked Maoshengyuan to come forward and send a ship to carry the goods to Manila for trading. He asked Maoshengyuan to send personnel to Manila to negotiate with the Spanish. Maoshengyuan could provide them with all kinds of things they needed.

goods, but the Spanish are required to provide Maoshengyuan with a sufficient supply of saltpeter, even through barter.

You must know that the Ming Dynasty is now the largest money-sucking country in the world. Westerners love Chinese porcelain, silk, tea and other handicrafts very much, so they have to continuously purchase them from the Ming Dynasty.

But there are not many things they can sell to the Ming Dynasty. Glass is probably one kind, and the other ones are some spices and other things produced in the colonies they control. The rest can be sold to the Chinese.

There really isn't much left.

As a result, the Ming Dynasty basically always had an export surplus, and Western countries could only use large amounts of cash to purchase Chinese goods.

Now that Yu Xiaotian has agreed to barter in exchange for saltpeter from the Spaniards, it is great news for the Spaniards. In this way, they will no longer have to use white money to purchase it.

The goods were ready, and Yu Xiaotian could basically solve the demand for saltpeter.

However, so far, this matter has not been completed, so Yu Xiaotian made two preparations beforehand. On the one hand, he sent Mao Shengyuan to contact the Spanish and negotiate for the purchase of saltpeter.

On the other hand, for the sake of safety, he decided to purchase large quantities of nitrate soil from the north. Because it is rainy in the south, it is not easy to obtain soil nitrate through the nitrate accumulation method. However, the climate in the north is arid and saline-alkali land can easily produce nitrate.

Yes, the best time to collect soil salt is in spring, and it is very cheap.

So Yu Xiaotian asked some merchants to go to the north to find a way to help him purchase this kind of soil saltpeter in large quantities. After bringing it back, he would boil the saltpeter on Nanri Island to purify the saltpeter soil with a relatively high purity, which would be used to alleviate the problem.

Demand for saltpeter.

Years later, two businessmen actually purchased a large amount of saltpeter from Shandong in the north in the spring. They loaded four ships with it and took it to Nanri Island. Today, gunpowder workshops use this saltpeter to purify and produce saltpeter.

gunpowder.

The quality of this kind of saltpeter purified by the method of boiling down saltpeter with soil is average, and it is slightly less powerful than the gunpowder prepared from pure saltpeter.

But this is also a helpless method. He currently cannot purify better saltpeter, so he can only use this method to solve it temporarily. Gunpowder is slightly less powerful and can be used. In the future, after the problem of saltpeter supply is solved, this method can be used.

Stop and use as a reserve.

The workers in the gunpowder workshop are busy in the workshop. They are no better than other places and can only work during the day. In order to prevent accidents at night, lighting production is not allowed here, so the whole day, the place must operate at full speed to satisfy the sea wolf.

needs.

Some workers are responsible for boiling the saltpeter and purifying the saltpeter, some are responsible for crushing the saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, and some workers are constantly sifting through sieves to sift out fine enough raw materials for preparation.

Gunpowder is prepared with saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal powder in different proportions according to different needs. Some primers do not need to be made into granular gunpowder and can be stored directly.

However, gunpowder as propellant and blasting powder needs to be made into granular gunpowder to give full play to the power of the gunpowder. At the same time, it is ensured that the gunpowder components will not be stratified due to different specific gravity during transportation, causing the ratio to be imbalanced and reducing the cost.

power.

All these processes have basically matured after a long period of exploration and production testing, so the quality of the gunpowder produced by the gunpowder workshop is now relatively stable, and its power can be guaranteed.

Yu Xiaotian simply asked about the production volume of gunpowder, the reserves of raw materials, and the reserves of finished gunpowder. When Li Gouzi told Yu Xiaotian that they had currently stored more than 5,000 kilograms of various gunpowders, Yu Xiaotian

Xiaotian shook his head to express his dissatisfaction.

More than five thousand kilograms is a little more than two tons at best. Although the number is not small, if there is a big war, this reserve is simply not enough. Therefore, he requested to continue to expand the gunpowder workshop, increase the output of gunpowder, and ensure that the gunpowder will be used.

The reserve capacity must be increased to at least 20,000 kilograms to be basically sufficient.

Li Gouzi nodded in agreement while writing down this matter, but his expression had become not so good, and he looked like he was in terrible pain.

(On the twenty-third day of low-grade fever, I felt a little better after I woke up this morning. I will try to update another chapter in the afternoon! As long as I live, I will not stop coding!)