The Eagle of Eastern Europe

In winter, farmers are idle. This year has passed. (Thinking of beauty, how can I be idle)

Many farmers come to Constanta, Tulcea, Mangalia and other places to find work and earn some money to support their families.

Lord Dobroga also has many construction projects, and buildings such as docks, city walls, churches, etc. are all under construction or expansion. In addition, the army has been recruited, and a total of 7,000 farmers have been summoned for training. Their families are also farming and weaving in Constanta, which has also invisibly boosted the prosperity of Constanta.

Most of the newly recruited soldiers are serfs and mountain people. Although they have little knowledge, they are relatively simple and obedient. They are simple at heart, and Xiao Jiujiu, who is not a city dweller in his heart, is the easiest to be fooled. As long as these people are well trained and fooled, they will definitely be a powerful military force.

At the same time in Constanta, Peter also repaired several coastal defense guns. Forts are generally built of stone and are highly resistant to iron ball shells. But ships are different. Today's ships, until the mid-19th century, all had wooden hulls. The anti-strike ability of iron ball artillery shells is very limited. If the wooden warships and the coastal defense guns in the stone fort were to bombard each other, they would definitely suffer losses. Moreover, coastal defense guns can be made very large, heavy and powerful. The artillery on wooden ships is often subject to great restrictions and cannot be made too heavy. Otherwise, if the boat is equipped with a cannon, the recoil of the cannon may overturn the wooden boat.

Wallachia does not have the ability to make cannons, and there are no cannon-making craftsmen. It is still the end of the 14th century, and cannon-casting craftsmen are definitely among the top talents in Europe. Even in those big countries, craftsmen who can cast cannons are also high-end talents. Peter had difficulty recruiting cannon-smiths. Therefore, he had no choice but to buy guns.

After inquiring, Peter learned that the level of cannon casting in the Holy Roman Empire was very average and could only cast small bronze cannons for land warfare. This is because the Holy Roman Empire was a land-based country. Moreover, the southern region of the empire was close to the Alps, and the artillery needed to be portable and able to cross the Alps. Therefore, the artillery cannot be made very large. The artillery required for coastal defense forts must be heavy artillery. Therefore, the artillery of the Shinra Empire obviously did not meet the requirements.

However, because they had not yet entered the age of navigation, Europeans did not pay much attention to the power of naval guns. Therefore, it is reasonable for this kind of low-power bronze cannon to become popular. The development of European artillery technology began around the 16th century. Due to the needs of naval warfare, heavy artillery such as the "Hongyi Cannon" was developed.

Moreover, bronze artillery cannot be made with a large caliber at all. Because bronze has a major flaw - it easily softens when overheated.

Bronze cannons with smaller calibers are fine, but larger caliber ones are different. Artillery with large caliber has high chamber pressure. When the barrel overheats, the walls soften. Although bronze is not as soft as pure copper when it is superheated, it does soften after all. The chamber pressure of small-caliber guns is okay. Because of the high chamber pressure of large-caliber guns, it is easy to deform the inner wall of the barrel when fired under overheating conditions. In this case, the artillery will be useless.

Therefore, bronze cannons cannot be cast too large, only small and medium-sized ones. If you want to cast heavy cannons, you can only choose to cast cannons from iron. Moreover, the cost of cast iron cannons is much lower than that of bronze cannons. After all, before the development of large Swedish copper mines and the Dutch's acquisition of Japanese copper, European copper prices were still very expensive. The cost of casting heavy cannons with a large amount of copper is absolutely high.

Originally, Peter thought the artillery had to be slowed down, but the men who went to the Golden Horde brought back good news.

From the 13th to the 14th century, trade between Europe and China was mainly conducted through the Golden Horde. Therefore, the Mongolian rulers paid special attention to the development of commerce. Batu Khan and Belgo Khan built the cities of Batu Salai and Belgo Salai on the Volga River, and later built the city of Uvik, and built Salechi at the mouth of the Zaya Heihe River (Ural River). Kecheng.

As a bridge for trade between the East and the West, the Golden Horde naturally had a group of craftsmen traveling from north to south. One of the craftsmen from the Hezhong area actually made a cannon out of iron.

The emergence of cast iron cannons had to wait until the mid-15th century. After cast iron blocks were produced in Dijon, France, this technology gradually spread to the outside world, and later spread to Weald in Sussex, across the sea from France. So the cannon-casters in Weald, Sussex, began to try to use cast iron to cast cannons. Because cast iron is much cheaper than bronze.

This Samarkand craftsman named Shafqat devoted himself to the construction of cast iron cannons, but they all failed. After finally building one, it exploded. In order to develop this heavy front-loaded cast iron cannon, he almost spent all his wealth. He even considered giving up completely, but people from the Dobroga region heard about him and approached him asking if he would like to meet their lord.

He thought that instead of waiting like this, it would be better to take the initiative. Maybe this lord had a long-term vision.

He was right, Peter was a long-sighted person. After hearing his works and experiences, Peter's thought was: "Talent, we must not let it go!"

So he immediately decided to hire the craftsman and offered him a salary of 1 British shilling per day (the daily income of ordinary people was 3 pence).

As for the problem of bombing, Peter also has a solution. The explosion of the cast iron cannon is caused by the fact that the pig iron used to cast the cannon has too many impurities, such as sulfur and phosphorus, which makes the cannon barrel brittle. Moreover, the carbon content of pig iron is too high. Although its strength is high, its toughness is insufficient, so it is not suitable for casting cannons. What is really suitable for cannon casting is actually wrought iron and medium-low carbon steel.

Although he is not an expert on how to make steel, he has learned a lot of theories from many time-travel novels. For example, he knew that an important secret that made the British's early iron cannons less likely to explode was the use of reverberatory furnaces to refining pig iron.

The so-called reverberatory furnace is a relatively closed furnace (including an air inlet and an air outlet). After putting pig iron and scrap iron into the furnace, the heat in the furnace cannot escape due to the relatively closed space. After reaching the furnace top and walls, it is reflected back and concentrated on refining the iron materials. After several hours of refining, some slag-forming agents are added (the simplest slag-forming agent is quicklime, which can be used to remove sulfur and phosphorus). Then, after cleaning up the waste residue (due to density issues, the waste residue usually floats on the molten iron, just fish it out), and you will get wrought iron or steel (the carbon content needs to be controlled).

The famous open-hearth steelmaking furnace is actually just a regenerator added to the reverberatory furnace.

The British Empire fully mastered the reverberatory furnace refining technology in the 18th century, which also made the iron cannons cast by the British high-quality and not easy to explode. Because the French did not understand this technology, until the early 19th century, naval guns were still very easy to explode. It was not until the mid-19th century that France and other European powers initially learned about the reverberatory furnace refining technology. But then, the open-hearth furnace appeared, and mankind entered the era of open-hearth steelmaking. The artillery has also entered the era of forged cannons from cast cannons.

Although Peter is not a graduate in the steel industry, he can direct people to do it. As for this reverberatory furnace, the structure is very simple. He could instruct the craftsmen to make one and then make high-quality wrought iron and steel. Then, it is definitely much better to use wrought iron or medium-low carbon steel to cast the cannon, and it is not easy to explode the barrel.

As for gunpowder, Peter also had a solution. He remembered a simple method that the old man in the village had said before: find an open space, clean out stones and other impurities, then dig a series of holes or simply use a cellar, and then pour water and lime into it to maintain the temperature. In this way, the soil becomes a nitrate field after a period of "heat preservation".

Pour the collected urine from people and livestock into it, and after about ten months, the soil in the pit will be rich in nitrate. This nitrate-rich nitrate soil is dug out, then mixed with plant ash and filtered. Then just boil the saltwater to get high-quality saltpeter.

With saltpeter, making gunpowder can be more convenient. At this time, the gunpowder formula used by various European countries was: 50% saltpeter, 25% sulfur, and 25% charcoal. It was relatively easy to explode and was an explosive firearm formula. Moreover, the gunpowder produced in this way is still in powder form, and many situations will occur when using such gunpowder. For example, powdered black powder is easily squeezed together when it is stressed in the barrel, so that when ignited, it will not be completely burned due to lack of oxygen, which reduces the power of the gunpowder.

Another disadvantage of powdered gunpowder is that it is susceptible to moisture. This is because Europeans at that time often sprinkled a lot of lime powder into the nitrate fields in order to increase the production of potassium nitrate. Although this operation could increase the production of potassium nitrate, it also greatly increased the calcium nitrate contained in it, and calcium nitrate This substance is extremely hygroscopic, making the nitrate easy to deliquesce, making gunpowder unable to be used normally unless it is exposed to sunlight before use.

In addition, the transportation of powdered gunpowder is inconvenient because during the bumpy transportation of powdered gunpowder, sulfur powder, charcoal powder and saltpeter powder with different weights will be separated from each other. Among them, saltpeter powder with the highest density will live in the gunpowder barrel. The lightest charcoal powder will be on the surface of the gunpowder barrel, which will inevitably reduce the power of the gunpowder, or even make it impossible to ignite at all! Before use, all the gunpowder must be poured out and mixed again. However, there is still time to operate when the war is not urgent. Once an emergency war occurs, it cannot be obtained quickly.

Therefore, in order to maximize the power of gunpowder, the production of granulated gunpowder must begin.

In fact, making granular gunpowder is quite simple. Just add flour to compact it, add water, and then crush it. And Peter's gunpowder formula is close to the ideal ratio (75% nitrate, 12% sulfur, 13% charcoal).