Global colonization began with Ming Dynasty pirates.

Iron mold casting of cannons, as the name suggests, means casting cannons using iron molds. Clay mold casting uses molds made of clay, which can only be used once and require the mold to be made again each time, which is time-consuming and laborious.

However, iron molds can be used for multiple purposes, which saves a lot of mold-making time. Moreover, the inner wall of an iron mold is much smoother than that of a clay mold, so the cannon body is extremely smooth after it is made, and no additional polishing is required.

More importantly, this effectively ensures the consistency of the cannon caliber produced.

But as Li Neng said, cannons made by the iron mold casting method are too fragile and are prone to cracking.

Li Hao certainly knew this, and his previous life's science and engineering education made him even clearer about the reasons for this situation than the other party.

Because iron molds conduct heat quickly, the castings solidify rapidly, resulting in cannons made entirely of white cast iron. White cast iron is brittle and prone to cracking during firing, potentially even exploding. Given the already poor quality (high sulfur content) iron ore in the Ming Dynasty, using iron molds to cast cannons only exacerbated the problem, making the cannons even more unusable. Clay molds, on the other hand, did not have this issue.

Lin Hao mentioned this because two people in history used the method of casting cannons with iron molds on a large scale and achieved great success.

The first was Gong Zhenlin during the Daoguang era of the Qing Dynasty. In order to deal with the British attacks, he adopted the iron mold casting method on a large scale and succeeded. He also described the process in detail in his book "Illustrated Explanation of Iron Mold Casting for Cannons".

However, the key to its success lay in the fact that it was casting coastal defense cannons, which allowed them to increase the weight of the cannons without restraint, ensuring that even white cast iron would not explode. This resulted in cannons of that era weighing tens of thousands of kilograms.

Another method is the internal water-cooled iron mold casting method invented by Rodman during the American Civil War. This method successfully forged qualified iron cannons by cooling the inside of the mold with flowing water, which pre-hardened the inside of the cannon barrel.

However, this method requires very high technical skills, and Dongluo Island obviously does not currently have the capability to do so.

Lin Hao only mentioned it casually, not expecting the other party to make it happen. Casting cannons with iron molds was indeed possible, but clearly not now.

So Lin Hao turned his head and asked, "What if I don't use iron to make the cannon, but instead use copper?"

"Huh? Copper!" Li Neng was stunned for a moment, and stammered, "Young Master, using copper to make cannons is too expensive, this..."

It should be noted that the Ming Dynasty was short of copper, and the price of copper was several times that of iron. Although copper cannons were of better quality and lighter, they were rarely made in the Ming Dynasty, as that would be too extravagant.

"Don't worry about that. My Lin family isn't short of money. I'm just asking you, how long will it take to make a bronze cannon?" Lin Hao waved his hand to interrupt the other party and asked directly.

"Well... the casting of bronze cannons is much easier. I can make a batch in 10 days at most," Li Neng said blankly.

"That's good. You can stay here and forge cannons for me. I require them to be cast entirely in bronze, and the shape should be the same as these two cannons. You don't need to copy the other miscellaneous cannons."

Although the two captured cannons were of the Western Galon cannon type, Lin Hao estimated that they were at most equivalent to five-pound cannons, which was far inferior to the twenty-four-pound or even thirty-two-pound cannons on Western ships.

But Lin Hao didn't care. He wouldn't fight the Westerners in the short term. When the time came, he would naturally upgrade to the corresponding equipment to deal with them.

His current opponents are equally poorly equipped pirates and merchants. These cannons are sufficient for his needs. Even if he were to build larger ones, Lin Hao would not dare to load them onto his own ships.

The overall structure of the Fujian ship largely relied on the transverse bulkheads of the watertight compartments for support.

This is a huge advantage in terms of cost, as it can greatly reduce the requirements for keel and hull plate thickness.

However, this also resulted in a relatively weak ability to support artillery. According to Lin Hao's estimation, the ships he currently has can only be equipped with 8-pound cannons at best.

Lin Hao will only put the larger cannons on the ship after the newly designed warships are completed.

Even if all nine existing Chinese-style Fujian ships were equipped with these cannons weighing less than a thousand catties, they would be enough to suppress the pirates of this era with firepower.

Lin Hao then assigned all the blacksmiths to Lin Qiang's work, ordering them to focus on casting cannons.

Although Lin Qiang's blacksmithing skills were only so-so, he had followed the Lin family for more than ten years and was extremely loyal. Moreover, he had been forced to learn several hundred characters, so he was fully capable of managing these people.

As for copper, the Lin family currently has no shortage of it.

It is important to know that the Lin family's most frequent business dealings are with Japan, which is the largest copper-producing base in East Asia.

Lin Hao, who had long been thinking about doing something big, would naturally stockpile these crucial supplies.

On Dongluo Island, everything is lacking except copper.

Lin Hao naturally wouldn't let these copper coins sit idle in the warehouse. As for the cannons they produced being several times more expensive than iron cannons, Lin Hao said he didn't care.

As long as the performance is good, any amount of money is worthwhile. After all, they are all cannons weighing around 500 jin. Even if you build a hundred of them, it will only weigh 50,000 jin. It sounds like a lot, right? In reality, it's less than 5,000 taels of silver, not even enough for Lin Hao to give out a round of rewards.

As long as money can be converted into strength, it's all worth it, and the copper that Lin Hao purchased from Japan will only have a lower cost.

Zheng Zhilong, who later dominated the entire Ming Dynasty's coastal areas and earned over ten million taels of silver annually, was so busy saving that he surrendered to the Qing army as soon as they arrived. He took the silver to Beijing, where he was slaughtered like a pig, and the silver benefited the foreign invaders for nothing.

Therefore, for Lin Hao, gold and silver are just numbers. Even if he completely replicates Zheng Zhilong's path and relies entirely on protection fees, he can still earn tens of millions of taels of silver in the future.

What does ten million taels of silver mean? It's several times the normal tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty. The Liaodong military pay that caused the Ming Dynasty great suffering in its later years was only a few million taels per year.

Therefore, he will never have to worry about money, no matter what. Otherwise, he wouldn't be a qualified pirate.

Lin Hao currently has only one problem: how to subdue all the countless forces at sea so that he can monopolize the largest share of the profits.

Along this route, pirates, Dutch, Spanish, the imperial navy, Japanese pirates, and even the natives of Southeast Asia will all be his enemies.

Only by defeating these people can he obtain this tens of millions of silver dollars and then focus all his efforts on heading north to deal with the strongest military group in East Asia at this time—the Jurchens.

After arranging the cannon-making, Lin Hao left. He had too many things to do every day, with countless matters waiting for him to make decisions.

He was eager to establish the entire organizational system, because only in this way could the efficiency of the entire organization be improved, instead of him spinning around like a top.