Daming pirates

Originally, Yu Xiaotian expected that if Mr. Chu Cai learned the news, he would come to investigate and investigate around the end of January. However, when the time came to the end of January, there was no news of Mr. Chu Cai's large-scale invasion.

This surprised him a little.

The training is still in progress. After nearly twenty days of training and joint training, Seawolf's fleet has become more cooperative. After live-fire training, the accuracy of various artillery and muskets has also been improved to a certain extent.

The morale at the top and bottom is very high, and the Sea Wolf tribe is gearing up from top to bottom, just waiting for Chu Cai to come over and seek misfortune.

It can be said that the personnel and equipment preparing for the war have been adjusted to their best condition so far. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement, looking at the surroundings now, there are really only a few opponents who can compete with his fleet.

There are not many left.

In addition, in terms of material reserves, Sea Wolf has also secretly purchased a large amount of food from various places during the period before and after the New Year, and has stored a considerable amount of dried fish, salted meat and other dry goods, which can at least ensure that they can survive for two months.

If they are replenished from outside, they will not have any shortage of food.

Various forts and fortifications are also being reinforced secretly, and some new watchtowers and forts have been built, making the defensive firepower configuration of the Wolf's Cave and Commercial Warehouse areas of Nanyue Island more reasonable, let alone a rabble like Mr. Chu Cai.

Attack, even if the imperial court sends 18,000 regular troops to attack, Yu Xiaotian thinks it will be difficult for them to get an advantage from him under such circumstances!

In addition, the various workshops under the Ordnance Office in the workshop area were also operating at full capacity during this period. After one or two months of artillery production, they were provided with nearly forty six-pound cannons.

, in addition ten twelve-pound short cannon and two twelve-pound long cannon were cast.

In addition to most of these artillery being added to the ship, the twelve-pounder long guns were placed in the two forts at the dock, and several twelve-pounder short guns were also deployed in other places to strengthen the defense there.

ability.

In addition to being busy casting cannons, the artillery company was also responsible for providing various projectiles to Sea Wolf. The artillery company set up a special artillery field and opened an iron furnace to cast various types of cannonballs with some crude iron.

Because most of Seawolf's artillery has adopted the standard imitation six-pounder and twelve-pounder cannons, the iron mold casting method has truly unified the caliber of the gun bores, and the manufacturing of artillery shells has become much more convenient. Other places are now casting

Cannons still use the method of casting cannons from clay molds. After each cannon is cast, the caliber of the cannon will have some error, sometimes even a large error, and the caliber of each cannon cannot be truly unified.

This also caused the production of artillery shells to encounter many problems. The artillery shells they cast must be smaller than the caliber of the cannon bore, and the caliber of the cannon bores may be large or small. Once the artillery shells are cast large, some cannons cannot fit in at all, and sometimes they are forced to

Some officers and soldiers or users temporarily sharpen their guns and use the file to make the shells smaller. When such a scene appears on the battlefield, it is both ridiculous and sad, making people dumbfounded.

Therefore, when the craftsmen were casting cannon shells, they had to cast the cannon shells according to the smallest caliber cannon, so that the cannonballs could be stuffed into all the cannon bores as much as possible.

Then we ran into trouble again. Some of the larger-caliber cannons had too large a tolerance on the shells. After the shells were loaded into the breech, they rolled directly into the breech. After firing, there was a large gap between the breech and the shells, resulting in a large amount of gunpowder.

The gas after deflagration leaks from these gaps, seriously affecting the power and range of the artillery shells, and even affecting the accuracy of the artillery. This is one of the reasons why cannons in this era are often inaccurate.

But Seawolves basically don’t have this problem now, because their iron mold casting method ensures that the caliber tolerance of each cannon is very small, and the caliber of the cannons is basically unified, so they save a lot of trouble when casting cannon shells.

, artillery craftsmen who cast cannonballs only need to cast the cannonballs more accurately. The cannonballs only need to be slightly smaller than the caliber of the cannon bore, and all cannons of the same caliber can be loaded and used.

In this way, the connection between the cannonball and the inner wall of the barrel will be relatively tight, there will be fewer gaps, and the deflation of gunpowder will no longer be so serious. In addition, the cannonball will be wrapped with a layer of thin linen, which will make the connection between the cannonball and the barrel even better.

It is tighter to ensure the power and range of the artillery, and the firing accuracy is naturally higher.

In addition, Seawolves use fixed-charge powder bags for filling. The amount of powder in the powder bags is strictly weighed and then wrapped. The error in each gunpowder filling is very small, which further ensures the accuracy of their artillery shooting.

Similarly, Sea Wolf's muskets are produced using a unified caliber and standard. The projectiles are cast from lead or tin, and they also use fixed ammunition. The accuracy is naturally higher than the ordinary muskets used by others.

In order to ensure the uniformity and accuracy of ammunition, Yu Xiaotian, including the projectiles used on muskets, were all manufactured in a unified manner. The unified and fixed gunpowder was packaged together and distributed to musketeers in a unified way, instead of being distributed to each person like Western musketeers.

Bring a pliers for making projectiles, a small crucible with a long handle and some broken lead or tin, and let them make projectiles for their own muskets between battles. This not only saves the musketeers a lot of trouble, but also ensures the safety of the projectiles.

of manufacturing precision and quality.

After the twelve-pounder cannon was made, Yu Xiaotian began to let the artillery manufacturer trial-produce some new artillery shells. In addition to the grape bullets that had been put into use, the artillery manufacturer's bullet casting yard also made the first shells a year ago.

Batch chain bombs.

As the name suggests, the chain bullet is a cannonball with a chain. It is composed of two semicircular cannonballs. The two cannonballs together form a ball, like an ordinary solid bullet, but the cannonball is hollow, and there is a link between the two cannonballs.

After the cannonball is fired from the barrel, the two shells will separate due to centrifugal force, and the iron chain will be tightened and fly around in the air.

This kind of chain bomb is often used in naval battles. It is mainly used to attack the mast of enemy ships. It relies on the huge kinetic energy of the chain bomb to cut off the opponent's mast and cause the opponent to lose power. If it hits the opponent's sail, it will also

Can cause huge damage to the opponent's sails, easily

If it tears out a big hole, or in worse cases, the entire sail may be torn off. Even if it hits the sail rope on the opponent's sail, it can cause huge trouble to the opponent. For a while, you want to repair it on the battlefield.

Good rigging, it will probably not be easy to raise the sail again.

Even if it is placed on a land battlefield, the chain bomb is still a powerful weapon. Against dense infantry, it will hit a large area. It is really like the scythe of death. Anyone who the chain bullet passes will be killed.

The chain can be cut off, and it is also a very good artillery shell for dealing with cavalry. The structure of the chain bullet is destined to have a larger killing area than ordinary solid bullets. Whether it is a person or a horse, it will be torn into pieces if it encounters this thing.

Therefore, it is also an indispensable special ammunition for old artillery.

Therefore, Yu Xiaotian asked the artillery casting field to trial-produce this kind of chain ammunition very early. However, due to the immature manufacturing process of the iron chain, when the trial-produced chain ammunition was tested, the link strength of the iron chain was often insufficient, causing the projectile to fly.

After getting out, the chain link will break, the cannonball will become unstable, lose its accuracy, and lose its power.

So the craftsmen at the bullet casting field had to think of ways to improve the process. They used hammer welding to forge the openings of the iron chains to enhance the strength of the iron chains. This solved the problem of the strength of the chain bullets and produced a batch of qualified bullets.

The chain ammunition was delivered to various ministries for trial use.

However, due to the complex process, the production cost of chain bombs is dozens of times higher than that of ordinary solid bullets, and the production speed is also very slow. Even if this chain bomb is put into production, it cannot be mass-produced. Even if it is distributed on each ship

Chain bombs are not equipped in large quantities and can only be used at critical times, which is somewhat of a pity.

As for the gunsmiths, they rushed to produce nearly 80 flintlock long guns in the two months before and after the year before and after the year. In addition, they also rushed to make nearly 100 double-barreled short muskets. Basically, most of the long guns were equipped with

It was given to the war barracks, and a small amount of equipment was given to the ships of the fleet, but the short guns were basically equipped to the ships.

When the first batch of finalized double-barreled short guns were built and delivered to a small number of people for trial use, those who were lucky enough to get such double-barreled short guns spoke highly of them. They all thought that this thing was definitely a weapon for close combat, especially

This thing can play a great role in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy on the ship.

The double-barreled short gun is short and compact and can be carried around. It is as easy to carry as a saber. Because the barrel is short, it is relatively easy to load ammunition. Although the accuracy is poor and the power is insufficient at long distances, within twenty steps, the accuracy and power can still be guaranteed.

, if a boarding battle

At that time, if the Sea Wolf tribe can suddenly take out a bunch of these things and fire them at the enemy in front of them, they can knock over the enemies on the side of the other side's ship in a row, and the next battle to seize the side of the ship will be easy.

If there are more, the losses of one's own members can be greatly reduced.

Yu Xiaotian also felt that this evaluation was very reasonable. He specially concentrated a group of short muskets on one ship and conducted a simulated drill of boarding battle. He placed some human-shaped targets on the side of the other ship and the two ships approached.

While there, use a short musket to suddenly shoot at the humanoid target on another boat.

After subsequent inspection, more than 60% of the more than ten humanoid targets placed were hit by bullets. You must know that very few pirates wear armor, and their personal protection can be said to be very low. Once they are hit by projectiles fired from short muskets at close range, the personnel will be very vulnerable.

Death means injury, even if it is not used

Solid bullets and short blunderbuss are only loaded with large-grain iron sand shotguns. They can also beat the enemy full of blood and completely lose their combat effectiveness. Even when used in close combat, the effect is even better than a single solid bullet. Sometimes it may be

Guns injure two or more enemies.

So in the past few months, Yu Xiaotian ordered the gun maker to detach some craftsmen and start mass production of these double-barreled flintlock short guns. He also allowed the gun maker to appropriately reduce the production of some long guns, but he had to ensure the production of short guns first.

Because so far, their activities are mainly at sea, and their fights with enemies are mostly concentrated at sea. Since this kind of thing is very suitable for use on ships, it is necessary to mass-produce it to ensure the needs on the ship first, and if this kind of thing is

If a large amount of equipment is put on a merchant ship, it will play a great role in ensuring the safety of the merchant ship.

(Thanks again to Brother Ying Zhiwu for the reward! I will try my best to keep updated! Thank you!)