Guo Shao received a report that the military weapon surveillance cast an iron cannon, which has been successfully tested and launched.

He went to Beiyuan Fire Equipment House in person to watch it, and asked Zan Jurun to accompany him. When he arrived at the place, Guo Shao saw several short and thick cannons, all over the body, and six iron rings were wrapped around the cannon barrel. They looked very strange, completely different from the cannon he remembered. The thing in front of him did not look like a cannon, but like a long oil barrel!

Zan Jurun said: "We have cast two types of cannons under the order. This one is the largest, weighing 500 kilograms! The diameter of the muzzle is nine inches and six minutes (about 320 mm), and the cannon is four feet long..."

Guo Shao nodded and signaled that he was listening carefully, thinking that the caliber and length ratio were only four to one, no wonder it looked like a bucket. There was also a base at the bottom of the "bucket", which was to fix the wooden base of the cannon body, so it looked very strange and did not look like a cannon.

Zan Jurun continued: "It can fire more than 100 kilograms of stone bullets, with a range of 600 steps!"

"It should be a muzzle shot upward?" Guo Shao asked immediately. Because of such a thick and short caliber, such a large stone, it is impossible to shoot too far. Not far from the hole, it will definitely hit the ground directly.

Sure enough, Zan Jurun said: "It can only be done, and fire it like a stone throwing cart. However, I think this cannon is far better than a stone throwing cart. It has a longer range and a heavier and more powerful stone bullets. Moreover, casting iron cannons costs less than making stone throwing carts, and it is not easy to break; stone throwing carts are easy to be damaged. The only thing that the gunpowder cannon is that it is very slow to load."

Guo Shao ordered the experiment. The craftsmen came up to fill the filling and poured the gunpowder into it with a dustpan. Then a big man put it in with a round stone, filling the soil and tightening the gap. Guo Shao sat down next to the wooden table in the distance, and wrote and painted while observing. According to Zan Jurun's description, he calculated the spherical volume of the stone bullet according to the volume formula... Then the density of the stone was about three times that of the water. Guo Shao quickly estimated that the weight of the stone was indeed about one hundred kilograms!

The craftsmen put a lead with a paper wrapped red medicine through the small hole at the bottom of the cannon and shouted, "Report to your Majesty, I am about to ignite the fire!"

Guo Shao put down his brush and blocked his ears with his fingers. After a while, a man lit the lead with a torch and quickly ignited it in. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and the brushes on the wooden table were shocked and jumped. Then he saw flames spewing out of the muzzle, thick white smoke rising, and a stone flew into the air with a visible trajectory. After a while, it landed on the grass in the distance.

Guo Shao looked into the distance and saw a brick-covered earthen wall that was a target. Everyone fired several more guns one after another, and one of them hit the city wall. The sound of stones hitting a long distance away. At this time, Guo Shao turned over and ran to the landing site with the group to watch. The three large pits on the grass were all smashed by stone guns, and the earthen wall in front was hit by a stone. Although it was impossible to collapse, the female wall and bricks on it were smashed to pieces!

The scene in front of him immediately made Guo Shao think that this thing can be used to attack cities, which is better than a stone throwing cart.

...Then Guo Shao watched another test of a small cannon. The casting looks similar to the cannon just now, but it was smaller, weighing only more than fifty pounds, just like an iron barrel, with a thin wall and a horn of iron rings.

This kind of cannon shatters, loading dozens of gravels at one time to carry out area attacks.

However, the effect of the shotgun is a bit unsatisfactory, and it can only cover an area outside twenty steps, with a coverage width of less than ten steps; it will be no lethality any further, because the gravel flying out of the large-caliber muzzle is inconsistent in the direction, and some fly upwards, and some hit the ground near it. A little farther away, there are not many stones that can happen to be at the right height. It is precisely because of this that gravel can form an area strike. If they are all in one direction, the coverage is narrower.

Guo Shao estimated that if the front was a cavalry, because in order to prevent collisions, the cavalry were relatively sparse in order to prevent collisions, and they could hit two or three cavalry in one shot, but the close-range killing of dense infantry may be greater.

The shotgun is much worse than Guo Shao imagined, and it feels not very practical; perhaps the reason why the artillery made by the military weapon surveillance is not as good as Qi Jiguang's Tiger Cannon... But it is reasonable to think about it. If the shotgun's damage is far and wide, then what value does the fire-gun volley have?

So Guo Shao personally named the cannon that shot big stones "Dragon Soul Cannon", but did not name the cannon that shot small stones.

...

Guo Shao spent a lot of effort, and the actual function of the firearms he made was mostly not as good as cold weapons. Only the Dragon Roar Cannon was the most useful and could replace the stone throwing cart to attack the city.

But he still did not give up the firearm. The bronze gun cast by the military weapon supervisor had an effective range of 40 steps and a strong range of 20 steps. When entering practical production, the firing method was similar to a cannon. A small hole was drilled behind it, the lead wire was placed into the hole, and then ignited open flame. Then some iron rings with iron spikes were added to the barrel; a handle was cast behind... Imagine that the lead bullet could be used as a mace!

Fire_gun has completely deviated from Guo Shao's original intention and looks increasingly weird, but he has no choice, because with his current performance, this is more practical.

However, he felt that the bronze gun needed to be improved, which was the ignition method. It can be imagined how inconvenient it would be for one person to take a torch to point the lead wire. If the torch is extinguished, it would become a complete mace!

What Guo Shao thought of was the ignition method of the coercion gun. He had given up on the flintlock method for the time being because the part was too difficult to make, and he couldn't remember what it was in structure, so he couldn't figure it out for a while.

The craftsmen in the firearm shop cannot create such things in a short time because they have never seen them. Guo Shao designed his own mechanism in the iron shop of the Zuen Hall. The principle to be realized is very simple: he should use a mechanism to press the ignited fuse into the gunpowder; and then fire it.

But it was just such a simple thing. Guo Shao had not figured it out for several evenings and found many problems... For example, if you want to press the fuse into the barrel, the ignition hole will be larger, affecting the airtightness and further reducing the performance of the fire-gun; and the fuse will be exposed near the gunpowder, which is easy to get out of fire because the gunpowder is just a little bit; ordinary hemp ropes or cloth ropes burn too fast...

Also, this firing mechanism is not complicated, but if it is put behind the barrel, it will easily be damaged if it is used as a mace; it is not easy to be used.
Chapter completed!