Chapter 358: Butcher Chen, who is not like a butcher
"This is the thousand-jin heavy cannon we just trial-produced. It weighs one thousand three hundred kilograms and can fire solid shells weighing seven kilograms. The muzzle is three inches and two minutes thick, and the gun is six feet and three inches long. According to our previous calculations, its
The standard effective range should be able to reach one mile, and if a large elevation angle is used, the maximum range can even reach more than eight miles." Zhou Kesong, a doctor in the Ordnance Department under the Ministry of Industry, personally explained to Li Xuan the heavy cannon that had just been trial-produced.
Li Xuan silently calculated while listening. If this data is converted into later units, it would be that the whole gun weighs 730 kilograms, the solid projectile fired weighs a little more than 4 kilograms, the caliber is 100 millimeters, and the gun is two meters long.
meters, the standard limited range is 460 meters, and the maximum range is approximately 3,600 meters.
This kind of artillery, like the previous 800-jin artillery and even the 500-jin artillery, has a barrel length of twenty times the caliber. It is a typical long-barreled cannon in the front-loading artillery era.
Li Xuan is not an expert on modern weapons. He doesn't know whether this data is advanced or inferior among the many artillery in modern times. However, he knows that the effective range of 460 meters is enough to make this artillery a powerful weapon.
It is the artillery with the longest effective range and the greatest power among the Tang Xin Army.
And more importantly, the main enemy of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Army, does not have many such heavy artillery. If it can mass-produce such robes weighing 1,300 kilograms, it will be enough to make the New Army of the Tang Dynasty better in future wars.
occupies a huge tactical advantage.
At least the large number of bowl-mouth cannons and even Fran cannons equipped in the Ming army will not be the opponent of this kind of heavy cannon. Of course, this does not mean that the army does not have heavy cannons in hand. They also have some of what they call
General artillery and heavy artillery are mostly deployed in the northern frontier army, or in the hands of the navy, and deployed in important seaports along the coast.
It's unlikely that you'll find too many of these killer weapons in this ghostly place in the southwest.
After hearing this, Li Xuan did not hesitate too much and quickly asked them to prepare for the test launch. No matter how nice the data on paper is, it is not as real as seeing it with his own eyes.
Moreover, the design on paper is very good, but there are many mistakes during live ammunition testing. Who knows whether this heavy artillery is just what it looks like.
After Li Xuan's order was issued, a group of craftsmen in the artillery workshop directed several capable veteran artillerymen temporarily transferred from the artillery battalion to load and prepare for live ammunition firing.
"In order to avoid accidents, our test firing will gradually increase the range from near to far!" Perhaps he was afraid that Li Xuan would later accuse their artillery of not firing far at first, so Zhou Kesong explained in advance.
Li Xuan nodded slightly, expressing his understanding of Zhou Kesong's approach.
After all, this is the first time this gun has been tested, and no one knows what problems may arise, so it is natural to be more cautious. It is impossible to say that the maximum charge is used for the maximum range test at the beginning of the test. In that case, if it explodes
If it is loaded, it would not only be embarrassing, but also likely to cause casualties.
"This gun looks so big!" Chen Tufu, who has become the deputy commander of the artillery battalion, murmured in the crowd: "If it is true as those blacksmiths said, it can shoot such heavy projectiles.
And if the range is heavier than the 800-pound cannon, we can build a few more, and when the time comes, we will be able to hit the city wall accurately every time!"
Butcher Chen is now the same as other officers, wearing a standard military uniform, long leather boots, and a new officer's command knife that was recently equipped by the new army of the Tang Dynasty.
The enlarged version of the butcher's knife that never left his body was also missing. Instead, like other senior officers, he hung a new officer's command knife newly equipped by the New Army of the Tang Dynasty on his waist.
If they didn't know his past, outsiders wouldn't be able to tell that he used to be a pig butcher.
Butcher Chen's words made Xie Ziwei next to him deeply agree. He nodded quickly and said: "If this kind of artillery can be built, it will add a sharp weapon to our artillery battalion! In the future, when our artillery battalion is fully equipped with artillery, we will add those infantry
The battalion artillery in the regiment, in this battle, can easily fire hundreds of artillery, no matter how many Ming troops come, they will be destroyed!"
"That's right, our artillery battalion will definitely become the mainstay of our Tang Dynasty in the future. I, Old Chen, know that there is a future in this artillery force!" Butcher Chen said while laughing: "Old Chen, I wanted to come here.
When you were working as an artilleryman, you were still unwilling, thinking that a big old man like me couldn't be an artilleryman. If I, Old Chen, hadn't had the nerve to beg Your Majesty, I really wouldn't have been able to be an artilleryman!"
When Xie Ziwei heard this, he was a little embarrassed. At first, he really didn't want to let Chen Tufu do this artillery, especially when Chen Tufu had a higher military rank than him. But after he got here, he could only give him
He took action. To be honest, at that time, he was really worried that Butcher Chen would tell him what to do because of his status as the founding father and his military rank.
But later on, he discovered that although Butcher Chen had a rough appearance and looked like a rough man with muscles but no brains, he actually had a delicate heart beneath his rough appearance.
When he first joined the artillery team, Chen Tufu completely put away his previous arrogance in the Sword and Shield team, but kept his status very low. In many matters of the artillery team, he was completely dominated by Xie Ziwei. At the same time,
I am not ashamed to ask. Regarding many questions about artillery, I not only ask Xie Ziwei, but even ordinary artillerymen.
At the same time, he shamelessly went to attend classes at the martial arts school, and secretly gave it to Yang Xiucai, thanking the old man and the others for teaching him how to read and write.
Many people don't understand his behavior. With Chen Tufu's status, as long as he is not stubborn and insists on becoming an artilleryman, he will be at least a deputy regiment commander and concurrently the infantry battalion commander.
.
But he insisted on changing his career to become an artilleryman. He was in his forties, and he went to the martial arts school with young people in their teens and twenties, and even pestered Yang Xiucai, Ma Wei, Old Man Xie and others to teach him how to read.
Recognize words.
It wouldn't matter if he had a talent for reading, but he didn't have it yet. After a few months, he still couldn't write a complete letter, and he didn't even know many common words.
But what is surprising is that Chen Tufu relied on rote memorization and learned a lot of professional terms related to artillery. Moreover, artillery operations need to calculate range, angle, etc., so the arithmetic requirements for artillery officers are
It is relatively high, but after several months of learning, Butcher Chen has made some progress in this arithmetic, and is already able to independently calculate many parameters required for artillery firing.
These changes of Butcher Chen were naturally seen by many people. Some people did not understand and thought that Butcher Chen was seeking the distant future at the expense of the near. However, some people thought that Butcher Chen's attitude was worth learning.
And Li Xuan also saw this positive attitude of Chen Butcher. It didn't matter that he didn't have the talent for reading, and it didn't matter that he had difficulties in learning artillery. The key was that Chen Butcher was willing to learn, and he learned it with hard work.
Compared with Chen Tufu's attitude, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren, and Wang Shanxu are obviously much worse off. As senior generals in the army, they are still illiterate. Although they say they can learn it, they still can't read.
Their blood is just superficial, just for Li Xuan to see.
Therefore, unlike several others who were suppressed by Li Xuan, Chen Tufu smoothly became the deputy battalion commander of the artillery battalion, and also served as the captain of the third artillery team.
And in Li Xuan's mind, when the artillery force expands into two artillery battalions in the future, this Chen Butcher will become the battalion commander of the second artillery battalion.
Maybe Chen Tufu's authority is not as great as Fang Dongquan's in the short term, but in the long run, Chen Tufu can gradually improve with the expansion of the Tang Dynasty's new army and artillery force. However, Fang Dongquan, Huang Xueren and Wang Shanxu, Li Xuan, etc.
I don't intend to let them climb to high positions.
With their abilities, serving as the commander of an infantry battalion is basically the limit. Going one step higher to become the commander of an infantry regiment is actually incompetent. Going on to become a brigade commander or even a division commander is harmful to people.
He handed over an army of four to five thousand or even tens of thousands of troops to Fang Dongquan and Huang Xueren and others to command. Li Xuan had to worry every day that their entire army would be annihilated.
Chen Tufu and Xie Ziwei were discussing how to use the power of these heavy artillery pieces after they were mass-produced and added to the artillery battalion.
The other generals are also happily looking forward to the fact that these heavy artillery can join the combat order of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty. Although they are all infantry generals, these artillery are more and stronger, and they can also provide them with more support. This pair of infantry will
That's a good thing to say.
But while the military generals and generals were waiting with great anticipation for the test firing of this heavy-lift gun, several officials in the cabinet, especially those in the tax department, looked a little helpless.
The more and bigger the artillery is built, the more military expenditures it means!
Although the New Army of the Tang Dynasty currently does not have a model for purchasing ordnance, the Ministry of Industry directly produces it and delivers it to the military. This is a very typical planned production model.
However, the Ministry of Industry's production of muskets, artillery and other ordnance requires raw materials and manpower. The raw materials need to be purchased, and the workers need to be paid. Even the prisoners of war who do not need to be paid need to be fed.
In addition, Xingquan Mansion currently does not produce many raw materials itself, or it does produce them but the output is too small. As a result, the Tang Dynasty needs to purchase a large amount of external raw materials for production, and the prices of externally purchased raw materials are extremely expensive.
Those merchants who risked confiscating their families and annihilating their families to transport strategic materials and trade with the Tang Dynasty would not have taken the risk if they had not doubled their profits.
The price of raw materials is so expensive, which means that weapons made from these expensive raw materials will not be that cheap.
With the current financial resources of the Tang Dynasty, there is simply no way to equip too many such heavy artillery!