Valley Emperor

Vol 2 Chapter 358: Butcher Chen not like a butcher

"This is the 1000-jin heavy gun we just trial-produced. It weighs 1,300 jin and can fire a solid shell weighing 7 jin. The muzzle is 3 inches thick and 2 inches long, and the cannon is 6 feet 3 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 member of the Ordnance Division under the Ministry of Works, personally explained to Li Xuan the heavy artillery that had just been trial-produced.

While listening, Li Xuan also calculated by default. If this data is converted into units of later generations, it is about 730 kilograms in weight for the entire cannon, and the solid bullets fired weigh a little more than 4 kilograms, with a caliber of 100 millimeters and a length of two Meters, the standard limited range is 460 meters, and the maximum range is about 3600 meters.

This kind of artillery, like the previous 800 jin artillery and even the 500 jin artillery, has a barrel length of 20 times the caliber. It is a typical long-barreled cannon in the era of front-mounted artillery.

Li Xuan is not an expert in modern weapons either. He doesn't know whether this data is considered advanced or poor among many modern artillery, but he knows that the effective range of 460 meters is enough to make this artillery a big gun. Tang Xinjun has the longest effective range and the most powerful artillery.

And more importantly, the main enemy of the new army of the Tang Dynasty, the Ming army will not have too many such heavy artillery. has a huge tactical advantage.

At least the Wankou guns and even the Fran cannons that were heavily equipped in the Ming army would not be the opponents of this kind of cannon. Of course, this is not because the Ming army has no heavy guns in their hands. They also have some of them that they call it. The heavy artillery of the general artillery, but most of them are deployed in the northern frontier army, or in the hands of the navy, in the important seaports along the coast.

In this ghostly place in the southwest, it is unlikely to find too many such big killers.

After listening to Li Xuan, he didn't linger too much. He quickly asked them to prepare for a test launch. No matter how good the data on paper was, it was not as real as seeing it with his own eyes.

And the data on paper is well designed, but there are a lot of things that came out of the basket during the live ammunition test. Who knows if this heavy artillery is just a show.

After Li Xuan's order was issued, a group of craftsmen from the artillery workshop commanded a few capable old artillerymen temporarily transferred from the artillery battalion to reload and prepare for live ammunition.

"In order to avoid accidents, our test shots will gradually increase the range from near to far!" Perhaps because he was afraid to wait for Li Xuan to accuse their artillery of not shooting far at first, Zhou Kesong explained in advance.

Li Xuan nodded slightly, expressing his understanding of Zhou Kesong's approach.

After all, this is the first time the gun has been tested, and no one knows what problems will occur, so naturally, it is necessary to be cautious. It is impossible to test the maximum charge and the maximum range at the beginning of the test. In that case, if the chamber explodes Well, that would not only be a shame, but there may be casualties.

"This cannon looks really big!" Butcher Chen, who had become the deputy battalion commander of the artillery battalion, muttered in a low voice in the crowd: "If it's really like those blacksmiths, it can hit such a heavy projectile, and If the range is still heavier than the 800-pound cannon, you can build a few more guns, and it will definitely be a hit if you pull it out to blast the city wall!"

Butcher Chen is now the same as the other officers, wearing a standard school officer uniform, long leather boots, and hanging a new officer's command knife that was recently equipped by the Datang New Army.

The enlarged version of the pig-killing knife that never left his body also disappeared, but like the other senior officers, he hung a new-style officer command knife just equipped by the Datang New Army on his waist.

If you don't know his past, outsiders can't tell that he killed pigs before.

Butcher Chen's words made Xie Ziwei, who was next to him, take it seriously, and nodded quickly: "If this kind of artillery can be built, my artillery battalion will have a good weapon! In the future, when our artillery battalion is full of artillery, plus those steps. The battalion artillery in the corps, this is a battle, it is easy to fire a hundred artillery, no matter how many Ming troops come, they will be finished!"

"That's right, our artillery battalion will definitely become the mainstay of our Tang Dynasty in the future. I know, old Chen, that this artillery has a future!" Butcher Chen laughed as he continued, "I wanted to do it at the time, Old Chen. When you were an artilleryman, you didn’t want it, thinking that I, the old man, couldn’t be an artilleryman, if it wasn’t for me, old Chen, who had the cheek to beg His Majesty, this artilleryman really wouldn’t be able to be!”

Xie Ziwei was also a little embarrassed when he heard this. At first, he really didn't want to let Butcher Chen do the artillery, especially at that time, Butcher Chen had a higher rank than him, but when he came to him, he could only give it to him. He started fighting. To be honest, at that time, he was really worried that Butcher Chen would use his military rank to point fingers at him because he was the founding old man.

But after a while, he found out that this Butcher Chen, although he was rude and rude, looked like a rude man with muscles and no brains, but beneath his rude appearance, he had an exquisite heart.

When he first arrived in the artillery team, Butcher Chen completely put away his arrogance when he was in the sword and shield team, and put his identity and attitude very low. In many matters of the artillery team, Xie Ziwei was the main player, and at the same time Don't be ashamed to ask, for the many questions about artillery, not only to ask Xie Ziwei, but even to ask those ordinary artillerymen.

At the same time, he shamelessly went to attend Wutang's class, and privately gave it to Yang Xiucai, thanking the old man and the others for teaching him to read and write.

Many people do not understand his behavior. As Butcher Chen, as long as he is not stubborn and insists on becoming an artilleryman, at least he is a deputy regiment commander who also serves as an infantry battalion commander. .

But he insisted on changing careers and becoming an artilleryman. He was in his forties, and he went to the martial arts hall with young people in their teens and twenties, and even pestered Yang Xiucai, Ma Wei, Old Man Xie and others to teach him to read. Recognition.

It would be fine if he had the talent to read, but he didn't 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 Butcher Chen relied on rote memorization, and he gave a lot of technical terms related to artillery, and artillery operations need to calculate the range, angle, etc., so the calculation requirements for artillery officers are compared. Gao, but after Butcher Chen had been working for a few months, this was a small achievement, and he was already able to calculate many parameters required for artillery shooting.

These changes of Butcher Chen are naturally seen by many people. Some people don't understand it and think that Butcher Chen is looking for distance, but some people think that Butcher Chen's attitude is worth learning.

And Li Xuan also saw Butcher Chen's positive attitude. It doesn't matter if he doesn't have a talent for reading, and it doesn't matter if the artillery is difficult. The key is that Butcher Chen is willing and hardworking.

Compared with Butcher Chen's attitude, Fang Dongquan, Huang Ren, and Wang Danxu are obviously much worse. As senior generals in the army, they still don't know big characters so far. The blood is just superficial, just for Li Xuan to see.

Therefore, unlike the others who were suppressed by Li Xuan, Butcher Chen became the deputy battalion commander of the artillery battalion and also served as the team officer of the third artillery battalion.

And in Li Xuan's mind, when the artillery unit is expanded into two artillery battalions in the future, this Butcher Chen will become the battalion commander of the second artillery battalion.

Perhaps in a short period of time, Butcher Chen's powers are not as powerful as Fang Dongquan and the others, but in the long run, Butcher Chen can gradually improve with the expansion of the Tang Dynasty's new army and the expansion of artillery units, but Fang Dongquan, Huang Ren, Wang Danxu, Li Xuan But they don't intend to let them climb to the top.

With their abilities, being the battalion commander of an infantry battalion is basically the limit. To become the commander of an infantry regiment one step higher is actually incompetent. Continuing to become a brigade commander or even a division commander is harmful to others. I have to give Fang Dongquan and Huang Ren the command of four or five thousand or even tens of thousands of troops~www.wuxiaspot.com~ Li Xuan has to worry every day that they will be wiped out.

Butcher Chen and Xie Ziwei were discussing the large-scale manufacture of these heavy artillery pieces and how to use the power of these heavy artillery pieces after joining the artillery battalion.

The other generals are also excitedly looking forward to the fact that these heavy artillery pieces can join the battle sequence of the new Tang army. Although they are all infantry generals, the more artillery pieces and the stronger they are, they can also give them more support. But a good thing.

But while the generals of the military were looking forward to the test firing of the heavy artillery, several officials in the cabinet, especially those in the tax department, looked a little helpless.

The more and bigger the artillery is made, the more military spending it is!

Although the Datang New Army does not currently purchase ordnance, the Ministry of Industry directly produces and delivers it to the military, which is a very typical planned production model.

However, the Ministry of Industry needs raw materials and manpower to produce various weapons such as muskets and artillery. The raw materials need to be purchased, and the workers also need to pay wages. Even those prisoners of war who do not need to pay wages need to be given food for them.

In addition, at present, many raw materials are not produced in Xingquan Mansion itself, or there are production but the output is too small. As a result, the Datang Dynasty requires a large amount of purchased raw materials for production, and the prices of purchased raw materials are extremely expensive.

Those businessmen who risked looting their families and exterminating their families to transport strategic materials and trade with the Tang Dynasty would not take this risk at all if they did not double their profits.

The price of raw materials is so expensive, which means that weapons made from these expensive raw materials will not be cheap there.

With the current financial resources of the Tang Dynasty, it is simply impossible to equip too many such heavy artillery! ()

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