The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 273 I Need Range to Ensure the Truth

At this moment, the processing level of the Ming Dynasty is actually quite high.

Especially after Wanli applied water wheels to processing.

Under the tireless rotation of the waterwheel, many time-consuming and labor-intensive processing processes become easy and simple.

However, some processing processes cannot rely solely on water wheels.

For example, the processing of the inner wall of the gun barrel.

This is the most critical and difficult process in manufacturing artillery, because the size requirements of the inner wall of the barrel are very strict. It cannot be too big or too small. If it is too big, it will leak and affect the range. If it is too small, the shell will be stuck, and the risk of explosion is very high.

It can be said that the processing level of the inner wall of the gun barrel represents the highest processing level in the Ming Dynasty at present.

After Wanli came to the workshop where the inner wall of the gun barrel was processed, he couldn't help but nodded slightly.

In fact, it’s not that Yongnianbo Wang Wei and others don’t know how to find a solution, it’s just that their knowledge limits their imagination.

They came up with many ways to process the inner wall of the gun barrel.

For example, the processing tables are made of iron pillars and thick iron plates, and the entire table surface is polished to be as smooth as a mirror.

As for why.

That's because in those days, when processing the inner wall of a gun barrel, one could only move the gun barrel, but not the drill bit and reamer connected to the waterwheel.

In other words, they had to push the barrel toward the waterwheel to process it.

You can't just push it randomly. There are strict requirements on the size of the inner wall of the barrel. Even the slightest mistake will not work.

Therefore, they polished the processing table to be extremely smooth and flat, and also made a special pulley to fix the gun barrel. The pulley was stuck between two square rails, and the contact areas between the square rails and the pulley were also polished to be extremely smooth.

At this time, an old craftsman was directing two young men to push the pulley back and forth to move the gun barrel towards the waterwheel.

What is fixed on the rotating shaft of the waterwheel is not a drill bit or reamer, but a smooth round wooden pillar.

The log pillar seemed to be slightly smaller than the inner wall of the barrel, so there was no problem in pushing it back and forth to get the rotating log pillar into the barrel.

The old craftsman was watching carefully, and after each look he would order people to push it back and stuff thin copper sheets into the middle of the pulley.

He pushed it back and forth like this many times until he thought there was no problem. Then he replaced it with a larger log and stuffed it in to try it out.

The round wooden pillar at the back seems to be only slightly smaller than the inner wall of the gun barrel, and you can even hear a friction sound after it is inserted.

This proved that it still didn't work, so the old craftsman ordered someone to push it back and take a closer look at the places where the inner wall of the barrel was worn, and then stuffed a thin piece of copper sheet into the middle of the pulley, and then ordered someone to push it forward and try again.

He was actually looking for the center, that is, to make the gun barrel and the rotating axis of the water wheel concentric.

Now that the barrel has been forged, there is not much room for processing. If the center is not aligned or slightly off, it will be finished. Some surfaces will be scraped off a lot, and some surfaces cannot be processed. Such a barrel will definitely be unqualified.

This is much easier once you find the center.

The old craftsman directly pulled out the pin on the waterwheel's rotating shaft, pulled out the round wooden pillar, replaced it with a steel drill bit, and stuffed the back into the tightly fitting square hole. Then he inserted the cylindrical pin back, shook it carefully, and felt that there was no problem. Then he ordered someone to slowly push the gun barrel over.

He picked up a copper kettle and kept pouring diesel between the barrel and the drill bit.

Anyway, they have more diesel than they can use up, and it is much better than water for cooling and lubrication.

After the drill bit has drilled through, it is replaced with a reamer to roughly smooth the inner wall of the barrel. Then it is replaced with a grinding rod and ground carefully again. The inner wall of the barrel becomes as smooth as a mirror.

However, this is just one direction.

The aperture of their current gun barrels is not the same at the front and back, and the aperture of the rear section where the shells are loaded is even larger.

This is quite simple.

They simply push the cart out from between the two rails, turn it around, push it back in, put on another log post mold to see if the center has changed, and then they can continue processing.

Wanli watched for more than half an hour without saying a word. Only after the barrel was finished did he ask, "What's the problem here?"

Yongnianbo Wang Wei explained in detail: "Your Majesty, the problem here is the thick iron plate and the force of pushing back and forth.

There is no problem putting a gun barrel weighing one or two hundred pounds on this thick iron plate. However, if you put a gun barrel weighing more than five hundred pounds, it will probably deform the iron plate.

There is also the issue of the force required to push it back and forth. Now that we have added diesel to the chute, it is a little easier to push. If it were the previous rapeseed oil, it would probably be difficult to push a 200-pound gun barrel.

If you don't control the force well, push too fast, or move it halfway without stopping, the barrel will be broken."

Oh, those are the two questions. Wanli pondered, "You could just cast this kind of table out of tempered steel. After all, only the top needs to be polished and smooth, and the rest doesn't need to be processed. Just make the top thicker, two inches, three inches, four inches, five inches is fine."

Well, this is another big guy weighing at least a thousand pounds.

Yongnian Earl Wang Wei nodded repeatedly and said, "Your Majesty is wise. I understand."

As for the strength of this push.

Wanli pondered again, "You know how to make gears. You can make the gears thicker, add a rotating handle to them, and mount them on the pulley. Then, install one or two racks on the table that are flush with the steel rails. That way, as long as you turn the gears, the pulley will move with it, and the force will be easy to control."

rack?

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei was bewildered and asked, "Your Majesty, what is a rack?"

This one.

Wanli thought for a moment, then pointed at the smooth steel track: "A rack is actually similar to a steel track, except that it has a row of teeth on it, the same size as the teeth on a gear."

Oh.

Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei nodded in understanding and said, "Your Majesty is wise. I understand."

Just understand.

Wanli asked again: "Any other questions?"

Yongnianbo Wang Wei pondered, "Actually, the problem with machining the outer wall of the gun barrel is similar to the problem here. Once the problem here is solved, there will be no problem there either. It should be fine now."

Now that you have no problem, I will make some requests.

Wanli thought for a moment, then gave detailed instructions: "Hurry up and make more of these 200-jin cannons. We can also equip some for the border cities. We need to make at least 300 pieces a month.

Also, a cannon weighing over 500 kilograms, with a five-foot-long barrel, has a shell of the same thickness as this cannon, but the shell casing for loading the ammunition needs to be lengthened. As for how much longer it should be, that's up to you to consider. In short, the more gunpowder filled in it, the better.

As for the 1,000-jin cannon, we should first make the barrel six feet long and the shell four inches thick, and try to load as much gunpowder as possible to see how far the shell can be fired.

The gun barrel is five or six feet long, so how big a platform would be needed?
Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei thought about it carefully and then asked, "Your Majesty, why do we have to make the barrel longer? If we make it wider, we can load more gunpowder."

This is hard to explain.

Wanli thought about it and said simply: "You will understand if you try it more. The range of the artillery shell is not only related to the amount of gunpowder loaded, but also to the length of the barrel.

As for the exact relationship, it's up to you to experiment. Whether you can shoot farther by loading more gunpowder or extending the barrel as much as possible, you can try it more."

This time I have to try to make a five or six foot long gun barrel and a bunch of shells.

If you let me choose, I would definitely choose to load more gunpowder. It is too troublesome to lengthen the barrel.

Yongnian Earl Wang Wei thought about it carefully, then asked cautiously, "Your Majesty, I'm so bold as to ask you why we must fire the shells farther. Wouldn't it be less accurate the farther they are fired?"

I need range to ensure that truth is on the side of Ming.

Wanli said solemnly: "Don't worry about this. It doesn't matter if one cannon can't fire accurately. We can fire in a platoon. If ten can't fire accurately, we can fire in a platoon. If twenty can't fire accurately, we can fire in a platoon.

If one row of artillery still can't fire accurately, we can line up several rows and fire a barrage of shells. Thirty, forty, fifty, or even a hundred guns can fire at the same time, covering a large area. I don't believe we can't cover a huge ship."

Oh My God.

What you said makes sense.

Question: Aren’t shells free?

If you shoot like this, hundreds or even thousands of taels of silver will be lost in one volley.

He can't do anything about this. Even if the Emperor fires tens of thousands of taels in one volley, he can't do anything about it.

Yongnianbo Wang Wei thought about it carefully, then asked cautiously: "Your Majesty, how far is the range of this shot?"

Wanli estimated, "You must at least be able to ensure that the range of a 500-jin cannon is more than five miles. As for the maximum range, let's try to exceed ten miles."

It shouldn't be difficult to reach this distance of five miles, but is ten miles possible?
Upon hearing this, Yongnian Earl Wang Wei's face became solemn.

If His Majesty says we have to exceed ten miles, then we have to do everything we can to exceed ten miles.

I don’t know how much manpower and materials will be consumed.

(End of this chapter)