The herringbone steam hammer looks like a steel giant.

In front of this huge steel, a car was lifting a hot iron ingot and sending it in. Under the huge pressure, the iron ingot weighing several tons continued to change its shape. Faced with such magical power, even as an engineer, Sun Muran felt extremely shocked.

This shock came from the admiration of power. Seeing the red iron ingot becoming denser under the forging of the hammer head, Sun Muran's eyes became more and more fanatical.

This is exactly the giant hammer he needs!

In fact, there is also a steam hammer in the Jinling Arsenal, but its tonnage is only 10 tons. According to Sun Muran's calculations, 10 tons of steam hammer cannot meet his needs, so he went to the Jinling Iron Factory, the largest iron plant in the Ming Dynasty.

However, to his surprise, the production task of this steam hammer had been scheduled for half a month, so he could only wait here.

This wait took half a month, but in the past half month, he was not idle. In addition to busy transporting the blanks of parts that needed to be processed from the Jinling Arsenal to the iron plant, he also met a few new friends. Wang Qi from the iron plant and Zhang Ying from the shipyard, they were all engineers like him. Zhang Ying also came to "fight" the big car hammer.

"The cannon I designed is inseparable from this steam hammer. In the past, our cannons were all cast, and we had the best casting technology in the world."

Zhang Ying did not doubt Sun Muran's words. This was a well-known time. Although the Ming Dynasty's artillery casting technology originated from Europe, the Ming Dynasty can now cast the best cannons in the world. When the European cannons were still at 24 pounds, the Ming Dynasty could cast heavy cannons that fired 100 kilograms of shells. Even in the cannon arsenal, there were even more powerful cannons. Those cannons could razed a house to the ground with just one shot.

"But I can say for sure that the cannon is out of date. The new cannon I designed has a different barrel than the ordinary cannon. He was not cast, but forged with a steam hammer!"

"forging?"

Zhang Ying looked at the piles of iron billets like hills on the side. The iron billets were brought by Sun Muran from the Jinling Arsenal.

"The forged gun barrel is denser and can withstand higher chamber pressure. This is not a way to increase the power of the artillery. However, the cost of forging is much higher than that of casting."

As a forging workshop engineer, Wang Qi naturally knew more about steel forging. As soon as Sun Muran finished speaking, he guessed the other party’s thoughts.

"The cost has indeed increased a lot, but compared to power, it is acceptable to increase some costs! After all, the power is there, it can fire heavier shells, load more launching drugs, have greater power and longer range. I dare say that as soon as it is released, it will definitely eliminate all artillery! After all, what is the most important index of artillery? It is power, and it is range."

Even laymen understand this truth. What did the Ming Navy rely on to roam the sea? Didn’t it just rely on those "bombardment cannons" like wine bottles? Those cannons fire at a light 50 kilograms of shells, at a weight of 100 kilograms, or even 150 kilograms. The power of that kind of shell can even reach the point of killing one blow. In the vassal states, bombardment cannons are the killer weapon for the princes to guard the royal city, and even created a battle example of killing hundreds of people with one gun. In addition, its range of more than ten miles, bombardment cannons is simply an invincible existence. More importantly, foreigners cannot imitate it, because the internal-mode cooling casting method involves many extremely complex knowledge, and cannot be cast by an ordinary craftsman in accordance with the law.

But even so, the artillery experts of the Ming Dynasty still did not stop their pace, and they were still pursuing more powerful artillery.

"In the past, our guns were cast. Even if our casting method was very advanced, the strength of cast iron was not as strong as wrought iron. Our coastal defense guns and heavy mortar guns, because they are rifled guns, are generally composed of steel bundle gun sleeves with inner tubes and gun tails, to avoid blasting..."

Riveted cannon!

It is not a new technology for the Ming Dynasty. After all, as early as Liaodong, the Ming Dynasty had already manufactured a front-mounted rifled cannon because the danger of blowing the chamber is higher than that of ordinary artillery, even if the iron artillery casing is added to the tail of the cannon, because the chamber is often blown, which makes it not very popular among artillery. So it is only used in a few coastal defense fortresses.

Sun Muran said, telling the various shortcomings of those rifled guns.

"Since we can use the cannon cover to increase the body of the gun at the tail, why can't the inner tube be changed to wrought iron? In fact, we also have wrought iron cannons, such as the Jiujin Mountain Howitzer, which has always used wrought iron. Of course, its cost has increased a lot, but the advantages of wrought iron cannons are very obvious. It is light in weight and has high chamber pressure. Although Jiannu, pseudo-Tang and others have imitated our Jiujin Mountain Turrets, they all use cast body tubes, and their range has been reduced by no less than 30%. What causes the performance gap between them is because its body is wrought iron!"

The seemingly inconspicuous Jiujin Mountain Dried is a more advanced existence than the Jiujin field howitzer. The manufacturing of this advanced industrial product requires large-scale industrial equipment such as iron stirrers, heating furnaces, and water hammers to make materials and lathes to cut parts. Even with the industrial technology level of the Ming Dynasty, such artillery can only be produced in the two factories with the highest and best equipment in the Ming Dynasty. There is no such equipment anywhere except the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, these equipment requires large factories with complete facilities and skilled technicians to support it.

This is also why the wrought iron pipe has not been further applied, not only because of its high cost, but more importantly, technology, which has higher requirements for technology!

"Since we can use wrought iron to make nine-jin mountain howitzer barrels, why can't we build the inner tubes of bombardment guns? Of course, it's not enough to just use ordinary wrought iron. In recent years, I have been studying new raw materials. I designed a special steel, which is made of mixed and melted with steel and cooked iron. First, it is cast into a cylindrical gun billet, then cut off the scum at both ends, and then put the entire gun billet on the large steam hammer repeatedly hammered it into shape. The large steam hammer of Jinling Iron Factory is famous all over the world, which is why I came here. After the hammering process, the inner tube is formed, and then the surface is polished, and then the barrel is drilled out. Because when the artillery is fired, the launching medicine package in the medicine room is violently burning Yao.

, it will produce a higher chamber pressure. In order to ensure the strength of the artillery barrel, outside the inner tube, it will be bound to the layers of gun sleeves. The larger the mouth of the artillery, the larger the launching medicine used, and the thicker the outer shell. The processing of this kind of gun sleeve is similar to the gun barrel, but it is shorter. Its inner diameter is slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the inner tube. When installed, it can be heated with high temperature first, and heat expansion and contraction. It can be put on the inner tube. After cooling, it will naturally be tightened tightly. The cannon I designed is forged layer by layer, adopting a multi-layer composite gun body structure. The entire cannon consists of a large and small double pipe, and the inner tube is carved with rifles and fires 100 kilograms of conical shells."

While being proud, Sun Muran said proudly.

"By calculating, its range should exceed 20 miles, which is definitely the farthest artillery in the world. Now this is just the beginning. In the future, it can still build heavy artillery that fires 200 kilograms, even 300 kilograms or even 500 kilograms of shells. The range will be far beyond the imagination of the world. By then, even the most sturdy ridges will be difficult to block its attack!"

A 500-pound shell!

How big is that shell?

In the shock of Zhang Ying and Wang Qi, Sun Muran said seriously.

"Now we are fighting in Türkiye. Last time, the Turks bombed the walls of Constantinople with giant cannons. This time, we Chinese can also bombard the walls with our giant cannons, even..."

Looking at Zhang Ying, Sun Muran said.

"What would it look like if you put such a giant cannon on the iron ship you built?"

It must be an invincible existence on the sea! There is no doubt about this. At this moment, Zhang Ying's breathing became a little rapid.

By then, the sea of ​​the world will definitely be the sea of ​​the Ming Dynasty!
Chapter completed!