Warlord: King of All Clans

Leo admired this old blacksmith who had a strong desire to survive. "Yes, you are the senior blacksmith of Hewan."

Old John was very excited to receive Leo's personal recognition and bowed repeatedly.

Flynn, the head of Adonis's family, was captured and sent to Frovald to be punished.

His family property was divided up among the four major banners of Leo, Rigolav, Arnold and Rudolf, leaving only a hollowed-out ancestral property in his name.

Leo packed up all the craftsmen and took them back to the river bend, leaving only a group of farmers for Adonis.

As the city's bannerman, the craftsmen under Adonis's command were a full level higher in skill than the original craftsmen at Hewan, and there were several high-level blacksmiths.

Compared with the junior blacksmith who can only make a dozen kitchen knives and hoes, and the intermediate blacksmith who can make steel swords and iron helmets, the senior blacksmith can forge high-precision steel parts with his bare hands, and make complex metal parts in steel plate armor and large weapons.

Moreover, the Adonis family's artisan system is more diverse, with coppersmiths, tinsmiths, and bell makers all providing fresh blood to the industrial system of Hewan.

Old John, who came to the river bend as a trophy, found that he had not become a slave, but still retained his civilian status.

And because of his status as a senior blacksmith, he was immediately given the highest level of resettlement housing - a three-bedroom, two-living-room brick house in Hewan Town, which was large enough for his family of five to live in.

In addition, Valeri also allocated him five gold coins as resettlement fee, which was enough to purchase any daily necessities and supplies so that he would have no worries.

Although he was respected in the Adonis family, he was never treated so well!

As the chief blacksmith of the Adonis Square Flag family, Old John's skills are not exaggerated. Not only can he forge knight's plate armor by himself, but he can also use the high-quality iron plates from the river bend to hammer out a wrought iron barrel with an error of less than one millimeter.

He is just an ordinary person, unlike Master Morse, who can use a high-precision magic alchemy table to melt high-quality steel into molten steel and directly shape it into a steel pipe.

Therefore, they could only hammer the barrel into a square shape. Because they were afraid that the lord would dislike it, they even gave it exquisite corner lines.

He also made the wooden buttstock and flintlock, which meant he was responsible for the production of the entire flintlock rifle.

The high-level blacksmith in the magical Middle Ages can do more than just forging iron.

The barrel of this flintlock is thick and heavy, with a caliber of more than two centimeters, enough to fit a finger.

Leo was still worried and asked, "Is the explosion rate high?"

"A barrel this thick won't explode at all." Valeri patted his chest and said, "The barrel has been tested for several days. It has not exploded even after being fired ten times in a row with double the charge. Only with triple the charge will there be a very small chance of explosion."

He said with some embarrassment, "But at present, only Old John can make such a barrel."

Leo said: "But what I want is mass production."

Seeing the two adults' eager eyes fixed on him, Old John hastily assured, "This skill is not difficult. Give me three months, and I can guarantee to train ten apprentices. I can make as many as you want."

"Of course, he can't be a novice apprentice. He must have been a blacksmith for more than five years, preferably a mid-level blacksmith."

Leo smiled bitterly. It was obvious that Old John thought the flintlock he wanted was just the lord's personal weapon.

For people in the era of small workshops, ten apprentices working together on a product was considered mass production.

But ten apprentices were not enough to meet his requirements.

If flintlock rifles could be mass-produced, Hewan's active troops could be directly eliminated and all personnel upgraded to line infantry.

Unfortunately, it seems too early now.

It takes Old John half a month to make a qualified gun barrel. Together with the processing of other parts, it takes a month to make a flintlock.

Even if we can train ten qualified gunsmiths in a short period of time, the monthly output will only be eleven guns. It will take a long time to put them into large-scale production.

But there was no use being impatient, Leo could only wait patiently.

Either wait until the number of hand-made gunsmiths increases, or wait until precision boring machines appear.

After two expansions by the Gladstone family and the Adonis family, the artisan group in River Bay has reached a size of two thousand people, accounting for 20% of the town's population.

Among them, there are as many as a hundred excellent blacksmiths and several times more apprentices, but it is impossible to capture all of them to make gun barrels.

As for the latter, Leo has also commissioned Master Morse to develop the mother machine.

But Leo commissioned not just this one, but dozens of industrial crystals that he could recall.

There are even bolt-action rifles and copper-jacketed bullets!

Any project, from basic principles to the final product, takes a long time.

Leo had no choice but to use a mid-level wizard as a whole scientific research team.

It’s all Freya’s fault for not helping!

You ate three of my fruits, but you still wouldn’t let me rub my hands for a heavy machine gun!

Carrying the latest flintlock rifle, Leo said to Valeri: "Ten apprentices are too few. I want to have fifty qualified gunsmiths before the beginning of next spring!"

Valeri was more familiar with the blacksmiths than Leo. He frowned and said, "Then we need to recruit at least a hundred blacksmiths for training, and they must be the best ones."

"You are the supervisor, you decide." Leo fully delegated his authority. "In the meantime, start researching rifling and pointed lead bullets, and try to come out with the gunsmith."

"OK."

This was what Leo had told Valeri a long time ago, but before the muskets were available, there was no way to talk about rifling and pointed bullet technology. Now that the flintlock rifles were available, the remaining technologies naturally began to fall into line.

With Leo's ideas, Valeri knew the answer in advance.

You don't even need to lead people to study relevant knowledge. You just need to lead your craftsmen to keep trying and making mistakes, and get closer to the correct answer.

If there are really difficult problems, go to the knowledgeable wizard Morse for guidance and ask him to solve the problems.

Almost all of Hewan’s inventions and creations were carried out in this crude and brainless manner.

"Next, it's shooting time!"

With enough ammunition, Leo carried his big gun and went to the shooting range.

Under the guidance of the tester, Leo correctly filled the paper bag with a certain amount of ammunition into the chamber from the muzzle, and then raised the gun to shoot.

There was a deafening roar, the air was filled with smoke, and there was no movement at the target a hundred meters away.

Missed!

Leo moved closer to twenty meters and reloaded and fired again.

No.

When approaching twenty meters, it missed.

It was not until the lead bullet was forty meters away from the target that it successfully hit the wooden target.

A big hole was pierced through the half-foot thick wooden board.

This is the power of a heavy lead bullet weighing nearly 50 grams, which is enough to penetrate a knight's plate armor or directly penetrate a human body.

However, the effective range of the smoothbore gun is really impressive. The round lead bullet tumbles and deforms after leaving the barrel, and its trajectory will be free after a distance of more than 50 meters.

But Leo was prepared. He took out a paper bag of ammunition, tore open the granular gunpowder and poured it all in. Then he grabbed a handful of pea-sized lead bullets and poured them into the barrel before loading the heavy lead bullets.

One shot and the target was gone.

If the hits are not enough, use shotgun!