Zhou Xian held a flintlock rifle in his hand and pulled the trigger. The wooden target twenty-five meters fell down, and a burst of cheers broke out around him. He handed the flintlock rifle to Bai Hu, "General Bai, should you try it too?"

Bai Huo looked up and down, shook his head and said, "It can only reach thirty feet at a distance, less than half of the range of the bow and arrow. I still prefer to use bow and arrow."

Zhou Xianxiao said: "It takes at least several years for a skilled archer in the army to train a skilled archer except for some very talented ones. It only takes three months for a fire soldier to get a musket to master it. Moreover, the archer pulls more than a dozen times in a row, and the arms of the archer start to be sore. The fire soldier is different. As long as there is sufficient gunpowder, it can be continuously fired. Although the range of the flintlock rifle is not as good as that of the bow and arrow, it can be continuously improved, and one day its range will surpass that of the bow and arrow. This is a trend, and perhaps there will be no archers in the future."

Bai Hu looked down at the flintlock rifle in his hand, thinking about something.

Zhou Xian turned his head to Yu Baiyi and said, "Guard Yu, how many such flintlock rifles are there in the army now?"

Yu Baiyi bowed and said, "We have equipped 4,000 fire soldiers and can produce 1,200 poles every month from now on."

Zhou Xian nodded, turned his head and looked back for a while and said, "Why didn't you see Zhao Yu?"

Yu Baiyi said: "Previously, Zhao Jianguan successfully developed the General's cannon and successfully fired it. Today is the day when the first batch of new cannons were cast and left the factory. He was supervising the back mountain and did not come."

Zhou Xian suddenly smiled, "Is that so? Let's go and have a look together."

In the artillery factory, hundreds of craftsmen were busy busy. Some were surrounded by the blast furnace, naked, adding coal and fire, and constantly scooping the upper layer of iron slags out of the oven to try to extract the purity of the iron. Some were next to the abrasive tools to carefully apply the paint made of fine rice husk ash and fine sand mud on the inside of the mud mold. Some tightened the applied mud mold and heated it, and then installed an iron mold to fix the mud mold outside the mud mold.

Each of them is in their own position, but they are busy but very orderly.

When the eight mud molds were equipped, Zhao Yu gave the order and poured hot iron into the seam, stirring up a vast white hot steam. After about a cup of tea, the craftsman stepped forward, removed the outer mold, and took off the mud mold. While the gun body was still red and hot, he used an axe and a chisel to remove the burrs and remove all the mud cores to obtain a complete finished product.

Zhao Yu checked the outer port, inner port, and several key points. After reading it, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and asked the craftsman to install iron wheels on the cannon and push it to the vent to cool down.

When Zhou Xian brought a group of generals over, he saw several craftsmen pushing cannons. Looking at the brand new cannons, he couldn't help but go forward and touch the cannon god.

The craftsman next to him quickly reminded: "General, hot."

But Zhou Xian had already touched it, and immediately retracted his hand due to the heat, and smiled and said, "It's really hot."

The craftsman quickly took out a porcelain bottle from his arms and presented it to Zhou Xian with both hands, saying, "General, this cannon has just been poured and has not completely cooled down. You have to apply it for three consecutive days, otherwise it will bubble."

Xia Shu quickly took the porcelain bottle and applied it to Zhou Xian. Zhou Xian picked up the porcelain bottle in his other hand and smelled it. There was a faint fragrance, similar to some kind of oil. He turned to the craftsman and said, "Thank you. Where is Zhao Yu! Are you here?"

The craftsman said, "Inside, Xiaomin called Zhao Guan to come out."

Zhou Xian waved his hand and said, "No, I'll go in and find him in person."

Zhao Yu was bragging there by someone, and when he saw Zhou Xian, he was stunned for a moment, then laughed, stepped forward and hugged Zhou Xian and said, "Brother Zhou, are you finally back?"

The soldiers next to him were surprised, especially the white man, and his face was even more incredible.

When Zhao Yu saw everyone, he realized his misconduct. He quickly let go of his hand and respectfully clasped his fists and said to Zhou Xian: "Zhao Yu, the supervisor of Laizhou Artillery Factory, paid homage to the commander-in-chief."

Zhou Xian smiled faintly and said, "Brother Zhao, you have become so polite. How long are these new guns fired? Can they compare with the artillery from the Qing Dynasty?"

Zhao Yu smiled and said, "Don't worry! It's only far and not near. The model cannon I tested for the first time was almost the same as the range of the Manlu cannon you transported back. Now I have improved some aspects and guaranteed not to lose to them. If I hadn't waited until it was completely cooled, I could demonstrate it to you now."

Zhou Xian patted his shoulder, "Well, that's good. The entire army will be launched in the past few days. Before that, how many new cannons can you prepare for me?"

Zhao Yu frowned and said, "So fast? There are probably only the eight priests in front of him. The difficulty in smelting fine iron has been exhausted. It will take at least half a month from selection to reforging it into cannons. Some time ago, a large amount of iron was used to make those new flintlock rifles, which has resulted in no spare material at all."

Zhou Xian sighed softly, "That's a pity. I originally planned to let Liu Zeqing taste the power of the new cannons! However, these eight new cannons, paired with the original old cannons and the small tiger cannons in the army, should be enough. Brother Zhao, thank you."

Zhao Yu smiled and waved his hand, lowered his voice and said, "You gave me such a big house, how can I be worthy of you if I don't get it out as soon as possible. In fact, it's not just my credit this time." As he said that, he pointed to the people behind him and said, "These are all my newly accepted students, and they have also put a lot of efforts in this."

Zhou Xian looked at the people behind him, all of whom were very young. It seemed that Zhao Yu had really trained many newcomers during this period. He smiled and turned to Yu Baiyi and said, "Yu Shoujie, take 10,000 taels of silver from the treasury and handed it to Zhao Guan, so that he could freely distribute silver rewards according to his merits. In addition, each person would be given three months of extra wages to the artisans in the artillery factory."

Yu Baiyi bowed and said, "I understand."

Everyone cheered and thanked Zhou Xian.

Zhou Xian waved his hand to stop their shouting and said, "Whether the benefits of weapons determine the number of soldiers in front of them is the number of soldiers in the front line. I thank you for your behalf. At the same time, I can guarantee that as long as the new firearms you developed are verified and available on the battlefield, you will get the reward you deserve, and this silver is what you deserve. I hope that in the future you will gather your mind to develop more and better firearms, and these firearms will also be followed by your name. This great general cannon will be named Zhao Yu cannon. Each new cannon will have four big characters engraved on it, produced by Zhao Yu. In the future, each new firearm will be put into use, and the name of the developer will be engraved with the developer's name so that the soldiers will know who developed these weapons."
Chapter completed!