The Rise of the European Emperor

After the court meeting, Zhengde took his dog legs to play in the leopard room again. Zhengde is actually very smart, but he just indulged himself too much, so he did so many ridiculous things, which resulted in a bad reputation.

The Qingliu ministers such as Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing seemed to be relieved. But the second assistant Jiang Mian frowned and said to Liang Chu:

"Brother Uncle Hou, although His Majesty has canceled the plan of the shipbuilding team to go to the West, but repairing the forts along the coast of Daming is also a waste of money!"

Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing smiled at each other and explained:

"Respect, Wang Xuanzhi has already written to me to explain this point. He said that since the ghosts and pirates have already set their sights on the southeast coast, they will come again sooner or later. Therefore, whether we want to or not, we must protect the important coastal towns. especially in Guangzhou and the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang."

"The repair of the fort is already the least expensive and the most effective and safest method. Although the cost is huge, but this money has to be spent..."

Jiang Mian sighed and said:

"Brother Shuhou is right. As the saying goes, 'Don't be afraid of being stolen by thieves, but be afraid of being missed by thieves'! Now that villain Frangji has already set his sights on Daming, and there is already a threat of Japanese pirates. , we have to repair some forts. However, copper cannons are used, which is too expensive. How about letting the craftsmen try casting 'Pinglu cannons' with iron?"

"You know, the price of iron is much cheaper than that of copper. Copper costs hundreds of coins per catty, while iron costs only a few cents per catty. If you can use iron to cast cannons, even if they are several times heavier, it will be very cost-effective!"

Liang Chu paused, and said:

"Respect, you have a good idea. Otherwise, I'll ask the Ministry of Industry to work hard to try it out. However, ordinary pig iron is probably difficult to use to cast cannons, so as not to blow up the chamber and hurt people. Therefore, the old man thinks that casting cannons also has to be done. Use high-quality iron materials. But the high-quality Fujian iron is only a dozen yuan a catty, which is indeed much cheaper than using copper-cast cannons. However, the old man seems to have heard that iron-cast cannons are much more difficult than copper-cast cannons... ..."

"No matter how difficult it is, you have to try!" Jiang Mian resolutely said.

"You know, with so many towns along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, the number of artillery needed is astonishing. If you can successfully use cast iron cannons, the imperial court will be able to save most of the money!"

Sansuke Mao Ji cupped his hands and said:

"Brother Jing, high opinion, if it can be changed to iron cannon, it will indeed save a lot of money!"

In this way, the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty began to try to cast iron cannons. Later, it really worked out. Of course, not so soon...

In fact, in the original history, after the people of the Ming Dynasty learned how to cast Frang cannons, they also felt that the cost of casting copper cannons was too high. Later, they came up with the technology of casting Flang cannons with iron. At that time, Foshan, which was close to Macau, where the Portuguese lived, was a famous iron-smelting center in ancient China, and there were many powerful blacksmiths.

Then, the Portuguese were envious when they saw that Ming could use cheap iron to cast cannons. Therefore, the Bucarao Cannon Factory in Macau directly hired a powerful blacksmith from Foshan to use iron to cast cannons in Macau, and passed the technology of iron cannons back to Europe...

Marin speculated that the reason why England suddenly developed the Hongyi cannon in the late 16th century may also be related to the transfer of Portuguese iron cannon technology back to Europe. After all, Portugal has always been England's traditional ally, and it is normal for the English to obtain cannon casting technology from the Portuguese. Coupled with England's rich coal and iron resources and advanced cannon casting technology, the iron red cannon was soon produced, which shocked the world...

Of course, this is just Marin's guess. It is also possible that England developed the iron casting technology on its own. After all, England was originally a big iron-producing country, but it was seriously short of copper. Therefore, it is normal to be forced to concentrate on studying iron cannons in desperation...

The English were also lucky. England's coal happened to be low in sulfur and its iron ore was of high quality. Unlike the Lorraine iron ore that the French acquired later, it is a famous ordinary iron ore with high sulfur and phosphorus content in Europe...

With high-quality iron ore and coal, the quality of British iron guns turned out to be very good, but this is just a coincidence...

Of course, later the British came up with a reverberatory furnace,

The secondary refining of wrought iron improved the steel quality of the cannon.

The French have always been at a disadvantage in the maritime hegemony. In addition to the mistakes in decision-making, the lack of high-quality iron ore is also a very important reason. After all, the iron ore in Lorraine that the French snatched back from Germany has always been the largest iron ore in Europe with high sulfur and phosphorus content, and it has been a big pit in France...

Similar to the good luck of the British in the early days, the people of the Ming Dynasty obviously did not understand the problem of sulfur and phosphorus at this time. However, the Fujian Railway and Guangzhou Railway in the south, because they mainly use charcoal to smelt iron, and the quality of local iron ore is better, Fujian Railway and Guangzhou Railway have always been synonymous with the top iron materials in Ming Dynasty...

Therefore, even though they don’t know what the sulfur and phosphorus content is, the Ming Dynasty relied on Fujian Railway and Guangzhou Railway with low sulfur and phosphorus content to cast a lot of artillery for use in wars.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty did not use iron-cast cannons for a day or two, but from the beginning of the dynasty, pig iron was used to make three-eyed guns and bowl-mouthed guns.

However, whether it is a three-eyed gun or a bowl-mouthed gun, they are all iron guns with short barrels, and the manufacturing technology is relatively simple. After all, the longer the artillery, the harder it is to make.

Frankly speaking, the three-eyed blunderbuss is just a tube for fireworks on the top of a wooden stick. Because of the crude benzene, after firing three bullets, the musketeers of the Ming army used the three-eyed blunderbuss as a hammer and smashed it directly at the enemy...

In this way, the three-eyed blunderbuss with three bulky iron pipe tips can actually be swung up after firing bullets, and it can be used as a hammer to smash the enemy. Moreover, the effect of smashing people is very good. This is a bit like the lobster soldiers of later generations, concentrating their strength to shoot a volley, and then charge with bayonets. However, the early Ming army did not charge with bayonets, but directly waved the "hammer" to smash it after a round...

But it is still a bit difficult to cast the cannon into a long tube. The biggest difficulty lies in how to grasp the cooling speed of the molten iron, and the molten iron is easy to oxidize and become brittle during the cooling process. In particular, when pouring the molten iron, do not pour the molten iron slowly or in batches to avoid major problems inside the barrel. Therefore, when Beihaigong casts iron cannons, it often pours molten iron quickly first, then inserts the cannon core, and then cools it.

Because copper is not easy to oxidize, you can pour copper water into the mold slowly without affecting the quality.

Therefore, if you want to use iron cast guns, you must pay attention to issues such as oxidation and cooling speed. However, these things cannot be studied in a day or two. Therefore, it will take some time for the Ming court to study and use iron to cast 12-pound cannons and Frang machine guns in order to save costs. Fortunately, because of their rich experience in making three-eyed guns and bowl-mouthed guns, people in the Ming Dynasty would avoid many detours. At least, it is easier than the Portuguese who have never used iron to cast cannons...

However, this is definitely not good news for Marin. If he knew that the people of the Ming Dynasty had begun to study casting 12-pound cannons and Franc cannons with iron, they would definitely try their best to stop them.

Without him, Marin is afraid that the technology of cast iron cannons will be brought back to Europe, lowering the threshold of artillery equipment. After all, if other countries can also afford a large number of artillery, Marin's firepower advantage will disappear.

However, he can't stop the general trend, at most he can delay it. Moreover, Marin does not need to stop it all the time. As long as the North Sea country has a firm foothold in the sea and has a strong enough fleet to protect its own interests, there is no question of confidentiality.

Besides, as long as England is annexed, the remaining competitors, France has no high-quality iron ore, Spain and Portugal are seriously short of iron ore, and it is difficult for them to challenge the North Sea State's maritime hegemony. Originally, in history, several maritime powers in Europe, including the United Kingdom, created a powerful maritime empire because of its rich and high-quality domestic coal and iron resources. However, Spain and Portugal want to make iron cannons, but they must have enough coal and iron in the country. Unfortunately, both coal and iron ore in Spain and Portugal are relatively scarce. So, when the Industrial Revolution started, the two former maritime powers fell behind...