Affected by the high cost of purchased raw materials, the ordnance produced in the Tang Dynasty is now relatively expensive.
Even though the Ministry of Industry has now adopted assembly line production, the yield rate has improved, and the production efficiency has also improved a lot, the cost of various ordnance for the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is still high.
The cost of a musket, if converted into silver, is about five taels of silver, which is much higher than the price of blunderbuss made in the Ming Dynasty in history.
Even if it is a cold weapon, such as the most common knife, the sword workshop of the Ministry of Industry produces a waist knife distributed to ordinary soldiers. The price is about one tael of silver. Of course, this kind of waist knife also has quality assurance, and it is not a full-scale weapon.
An iron knife is a waist knife whose blade is mostly made of iron but whose blade is covered with steel.
As for the new and better-quality command waist knives distributed to officers, the price is even higher, costing almost four taels of silver each.
The price of armor is even higher. To make a new pair of cotton armor will cost more than twenty taels of silver. Even if it is modified with armor captured from the Ming army, it will still cost several taels of silver.
As for artillery, the price is even more ridiculous. You must know that the artillery of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty is all made of bronze, and copper was currency in ancient times.
In other words, the New Army of the Tang Dynasty directly used money to cast artillery. Coupled with the difficulty of casting, the cost has always been high. If converted into silver, the original and labor costs of this kind of 1,300 kilograms of artillery alone would be
Up to more than three hundred taels.
Therefore, the muskets, artillery and even swords and spears used by the new army of the Tang Dynasty were actually not cheap. If the same weapons and the same quality were mass-produced by craftsmen organized by the Ming Dynasty, the price could be reduced a lot.
It's just that in the Tang Dynasty, these ordnance were produced by themselves and then delivered directly to the army, and there was no financial connection between the military and the Ministry of Industry. Therefore, many people were not too concerned about the high prices of many weapons of the New Army of the Tang Dynasty.
It feels like the military generals don’t even know the value of their own weapons.
However, as the tax department in charge of money in the Tang Dynasty, they were extremely sensitive to the cost of ordnance. When listening to the surrounding military generals looking forward to the need for more artillery in the future, Yang Xiucai, who had been promoted to minister of the tax department,
I was complaining about this in my heart. These warriors really don't know how expensive firewood and rice are. They open up dozens of artillery guns and don't care about how much money it costs to equip these weapons.
The casting cost of this artillery is only one aspect. In order for the artillery to exert its combat effectiveness, it also needs ammunition. The artillery shells are fine, just a piece of iron. But the gunpowder is more expensive.
What's even more troublesome is that such a 1,300-pound artillery piece requires at least ten or even twelve horses to pull the artillery itself, the gun mount and ammunition, in addition to a dozen more
Artillery and an approximately equal number of musketeers provided protection.
An artillery unit with only six of these 1,300-pound artillery pieces would need at least more than a hundred soldiers and seventy or eighty horses to maintain operations.
Judging from the expenditures of various arms in the Tang Dynasty, the resources spent by an artillery team were enough to arm three elite cavalry teams or eight infantry teams.
This artilleryman is a big money eater!
However, although Yang Xiucai had these thoughts in his heart, he did not say them out. Now the Tang Dynasty was facing great military pressure. All departments of the Tang Dynasty were operating to support the expansion of the army and war. Naturally, his tax department also did not
exception.
The huge expenditures required by the new army of the Tang Dynasty had to be supported by his tax department. The pressure on military expenditures was not ordinary!
If the tax department he is in charge of cannot raise enough money to support the army's expansion and operations, then he will no longer be the tax minister, and your majesty will replace him without hesitation.
Although he was forced to join the bandit den of the Tang Dynasty at the beginning, now that they have become thieves, and his name has been included in various documents, reports and even memorials from the Ming Dynasty, he is called the "Pseudo-Tang Dynasty"
The head of the tax department is "one of the chief thieves of the fake Tang Dynasty". He has lost all his escape routes. What he can do now is to hope that the Tang Dynasty can sustain it, and he is getting better and better in the Tang Dynasty.
It would be best to be able to earn the title of bachelor like Liu Bagou and the others.
Li Xuan was naturally not in the mood to care about the thoughts of the civil and military officials behind him at this time. He was only focusing on the test firing of this artillery.
After the craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry and the veteran artillerymen temporarily transferred from the artillery battalion made relevant preparations, Zhou Kesong, a doctor in the Ministry of Industry, said to Li Xuan: "Your Majesty, you are ready. Can you start testing the artillery?"
Li Xuan nodded slightly: "Let's start!"
After Li Xuan nodded, the artillerymen dozens of meters ahead started loading according to the standard process. These artillerymen were all experienced artillerymen who operated 800-pound artillery. The loading process was naturally very skilled. The entire loading process was completed in one go.
No problems occurred at all.
After the loading was completed, the temporary gun commander gave the order to fire.!
boom!!
A huge sound of cannons suddenly rang out in the test firing range of the artillery workshop. At the same time as the rumble of the cannons, a cloud of white smoke also rose from the muzzle, but no one paid attention to the rumbles of cannons and the smoke.
He fixed his gaze on a huge thick wooden board two hundred meters away.
In the first test firing, a reduced charge was used to shoot at a target 200 meters away.
Because it was operated by veteran artillerymen and the craftsmen who were most familiar with this artillery personally calculated the parameters and charge, the hit rate of this first shot was quite impressive.
It directly hit a thick wooden board that was only a few meters long, directly punching a big hole in the fast thick wooden board. After penetrating the wooden board, the medicine ball shell did not stop, but continued to bounce forward and plow out on the ground.
A large crater was created, which shows how powerful it is.
"good!"
"Yes, it is really powerful!"
The first artillery test was successful. Many people screamed, especially the military generals, who were even more excited. They had seen too many artillery shots, including the 500-jin and 800-jin artillery shots.
Yes, but its power is incomparable to the artillery in front of me.
Later, the artillery underwent three more test firings, one with a range of 400 meters and two with a range of 460 meters. The hit rate of these two test firings was also quite impressive. The 400 meter test firing
An accurate hit was obtained. Although the test shot at 460 meters did not hit the wooden board that was only three meters wide, the test shot that did not hit was only a few meters away from the target.
This kind of hit rate can be called accurate. You must know that this is an artillery, not a musket. It is not a problem at all if it is off by a few meters.
After effective range shooting, the artillery also underwent a range test at a large elevation angle and successfully achieved a range of 3,600 meters.
After more than ten test firings, almost everything that should be tested was tested, and the shooting parameters obtained all met the design requirements.
Li Xuan was very satisfied with the test results of this cannon. Since he was satisfied, Li Xuan naturally needed to consider how to equip and use these heavy cannons.