After the court meeting, Zhengde took his doggymen to the leopard room to play. Zhengde was actually very smart, but he was too indulging himself, so he did so many ridiculous things, which led to poor reputation.
Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing and other Qingliu ministers seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. However, the second assistant Jiang Mian frowned and said to Liang Chu:
"Brother Shuhou, although His Majesty has given up his plan to voyage to the West, the overhaul of the artillery is also costing national treasury!"
Liang Chu and Yang Yiqing looked at each other and explained:
"Respect, Wang Xuanzhi has written to me to explain this. He said that since the ghosts and pirates have set their sights on the southeast coast, they will come again sooner or later. Therefore, whether we are willing or not, we must protect important coastal towns, especially the coastal areas of Guangzhou and Jiangsu and Zhejiang."
"Building a fort is the least expensive and most effective method. Although it costs a lot, this money has to be spent..."
Jiang Mian sighed and said:
"Brother Shuhou is right. As the saying goes, "I'm not afraid of thieves stealing, but I'm afraid of thieves thinking about it." Now the evil thieves of the Folangji have already set their sights on the Ming Dynasty. In addition, there are already threats from Japanese pirates. It's impossible to say that some artillery batteries have to be built in important cities along the southeast coast. However, they all use copper cannons, which is too expensive. Otherwise, let the craftsmen try to cast the 'Pinglu cannons' with iron?"
"You know, the price of iron is much cheaper than copper. Copper is hundreds of cents per pound, while iron is only a few cents per pound. If you can use iron cast cannons, even if it weighs several times, it will be extremely cost-effective!"
Liang Chu paused and said:
"Respect, you have a good idea. Otherwise, I told the Ministry of Works to put some time to try it out. However, ordinary cast iron is unlikely to be used to cast cannons, so as not to be injured. Therefore, I thought that casting cannons also requires high-quality iron. But the best Fujian iron is only a dozen cents a pound, which is indeed much cheaper than using copper cannons. However, I seem to have heard that using iron cannons is much more difficult than using copper cannons..."
"No matter how difficult it is, you have to try it!" Jiang Mian cut off the railway.
"You know, there are so many important towns along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, and the number of artillery required is extremely amazing. If you can successfully use iron-cast cannons, the court will save most of the money!"
Sanfu Mao Jize bowed:
"Brother Jingzhi Gaojian, if he could change it to an iron cannon, he would indeed save a lot of money!"
In this way, the Ministry of Works of the Ming Dynasty began to try to cast iron cannons. Later, it really came up. Of course, it wasn't that fast...
In fact, in history, after learning to cast the Folang machine cannon, the Ming Dynasty felt that the cost of casting the copper cannon was too high. Later, they developed the technology of casting the Folang machine cannon with iron. At that time, Foshan, which was close to the Portuguese, was a famous iron smelting center in ancient China, and there were many powerful blacksmiths.
Then, the Portuguese saw that the Ming Dynasty could actually use cheap iron to cast cannons, and they were also envious. So, the Bugalao Illegal Factory in Macau directly hired powerful blacksmiths from Foshan to cast cannons in Macau, and passed the technology of iron cannons back to Europe...
Marin speculated that the reason why England suddenly created the red cannon in the late 16th century may also be related to the introduction of Portugal's iron casting artillery back to Europe. After all, Portugal has always been a traditional ally of England, and the English have normal technology for casting artillery from the Portuguese. In addition, England has rich coal and iron resources and developed casting artillery technology, so it quickly created the iron red cannon, which is awe-inspiring world...
Of course, this is just Marin's guess. It is also possible that England developed the iron casting cannon technology on its own. After all, England was originally a major iron-producing country, but it was seriously lacking in copper. Therefore, it is normal to concentrate on studying iron cannons in desperation...
The English were also lucky. The coal in England happened to have low sulfur content and high iron ore quality. Unlike the Lorraine iron ore that the French later found, it is a well-known ordinary iron ore with high sulfur and phosphorus content in Europe...
With high-quality iron ore and coal, the quality of British iron cannons is actually very good, but this is just a coincidence...
Of course, the British later created a reflector and refine the cooked iron twice, which improved the steel quality of the cast cannon.
The French were at a disadvantage in maritime competition. In addition to decision-making mistakes, the lack of high-quality iron ore was also an important reason. After all, the iron ore of Lorraine that the French snatched back from Germany has always been a large iron ore with high sulfur and phosphorus content in Europe, and it has made France very difficult...
It was similar to the good luck of the British in the early days. The Ming Dynasty obviously did not understand the problem of sulfur and phosphorus at this time. However, the Fujian Iron and Guangzhou Iron in the south were mainly made of charcoal and the local iron ore quality was good. Fujian Iron and Guangzhou Iron have always been synonymous with the top iron materials in the Ming Dynasty...
Therefore, although I don’t know what sulfur and phosphorus content are, the Ming Dynasty relied on Fujian and Guangzhou Iron, which had low sulfur and phosphorus content, and cast a lot of artillery for war.
In fact, it has been a day or two for the Ming Dynasty to cast iron cannons, but since the beginning of the dynasty, it has used pig iron to build three-eyed guns and bowl-mouth guns.
However, whether it is a three-eyed gun or a bowl-mouth gun, they are all short-body iron cannons, and the manufacturing technology is relatively simple. After all, the longer the cannon, the more difficult it is to build.
To be honest, the three-eyed gun is a barrel with fireworks on the top of the wooden stick. Because of the rough benzene, after three rounds of bullets, the Ming army musketeers directly used the three-eyed gun as an iron hammer and directly smashed the enemy...
In this way, the three-eyed gun with three bulky iron pipes can actually be swung after firing the bullets and smashed the enemy as an iron hammer. Moreover, the effect of smashing people is very good. This is a bit like the lobster soldiers in later generations who concentrate their strength to shoot at a salvo, and then charge with a bayonet. The early Ming army did not charge with a bayonet, but after a round, they directly waved the "hammer" to smash...
However, it is still a bit difficult to cast the cannon into a long tube. The biggest difficulty lies in how to grasp the speed of iron cooling, and the iron can easily oxidize and become brittle during the cooling process. Especially, when pouring the iron, do not pour it slowly and batchwise to avoid major problems inside the cannon body. Therefore, when casting iron cannons in Beihai, they often pour the iron into the iron quickly, then stuff it into the cannon core, and then cool it down.
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 cast cannons with iron, you must pay attention to issues such as oxidation and cooling speed. However, these things cannot be studied in one or two days. Therefore, if the Ming Dynasty wants to save costs, it will take some time to study them with iron. Fortunately, because of the rich experience of making three-eyed guns and bowl-mouth guns, the Ming Dynasty people would take fewer detours. At least, it is easier than the Portuguese who have never used iron to cast cannons...
However, this was definitely not good news for Marin. If he knew that the Ming Dynasty began to study casting 12-pound cannons and Flang machine cannons with iron, he would definitely try his best to stop them.
Nothing else, Marin was afraid that the technology of iron casting cannons would be transmitted back to Europe and lower the threshold for artillery equipment. After all, if other countries can also afford a large number of artillery, Marin's firepower advantage would disappear.
However, he could not stop the general trend, and at most he would delay it. Moreover, Marin did not need to stop him all the time. As long as the Beihai Kingdom gained a firm foothold at sea and had a strong enough fleet to protect its own interests, there would be no matter of confidentiality.
Chapter completed!