Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 115

After breakfast, the loud sound of reading came from the school: "One plus one equals two, one plus two equals three, one plus three equals four..." What I read this morning was the addition and subtraction formula.Of course Yang Menglong will not stay in the school to supervise these little brats. He has a lot of things to do.

Yang Menglong first went to the craftsman camp to check.Now, due to its large scale and too many businesses, the carpenter camp has been divided into two major departments, the carpenter department and the blacksmith department. Maybe it will be subdivided into departments such as the bricklayer department and the potter department in the future.The carpenters are very busy. People from all over the country and eight miles are looking for them to order water trucks. The orders are full. I really wish there were 24 hours a day!The water truck orders that flew in from all directions like a snowflake brought huge profits to the guard, and they could also get a lot of dividends from it, so they were naturally full of enthusiasm.The blacksmith department is not bad either. Yang Menglong cleared out all the scrap copper and rotten iron in the armory of the guards and returned them to the furnace to make steel, so that even the equipment that he didn't like in the army was collected and returned to the furnace. He wanted to build a new equipment Excellent troops.Don't dare to say that it is armed to the teeth, at least it must be equipped with a knife that cuts iron like mud?Use those big knives that can't even cut down banana trees to kill the enemy?joke!

When he entered the blacksmith workshop, he saw that the blacksmiths had already started working. Shovels of coke were shoveled into the furnace. The apprentices were naked and pulled the blower huffing and puffing, burning the fire brightly. Mix the ore and manganese ore in proportion, then put the crucible into the furnace to smelt pots of bright red molten steel.Forging weapons for an army of more than 1000 people is not an easy job. The blacksmiths work in two shifts, and the sound of forging continues day and night. Pots of molten steel are constantly poured into the molds, and are cooled into pieces of dark, cold, high-quality steel. , the blacksmith swung his powerful arms, the sound of the blacksmith was like big beads falling on a jade plate, and the pieces of steel gradually took on the shape of swords under their hammering.It is said that there are three difficulties in the world. When sailing, you can make iron and sell tofu. Needless to say, sailing will cause the ship to be destroyed if you are not careful. Blacksmithing is not that easy. It requires high heat and strength, especially when making weapons. The hammer must be lowered accurately and the quenching timing must be mastered. Only in this way can excellent weapons be made.Several experienced knife forging masters are making Mo Dao, and a dozen other masters whose craftsmanship has not yet reached this level are responsible for making horizontal knives. As for their apprentices, they are clinking with the blades of the dog-leg knives and the blades. The embryos on the spear heads couldn't get through, so a few people moved the prepared knife embryos to their side. Beside them were piles of pre-made knife handles and gun shafts.A spear is first sharpened and sharpened, while a knife is first fitted with a handle and then sharpened.The gun handle is made of slender and straight wood with a certain elasticity, one foot or two long, polished very smooth, and looks very majestic after being attached to the gun head, while the handle of the knife is made of hard wood that is not prone to moths and is cut by hand. It is polished very smoothly, and circles of threads are deliberately carved out. This is a good thing. With these threads, even if your hands are full of soap suds, it will not slip easily.The center of the knife handle is drilled through, and the knife base is put in and filled with molten resin. An iron piece is installed at the bottom of the handle to connect it to the knife base. Then the small section of the knife base that protrudes from the handle of the knife base is flattened. .The tool for grinding the front edge is a foot-operated grinder. Two people work in groups. One person pedals the grinder until it whirls, and the other puts the blade blade on it and grinds it until sparks fly.It is worth noting that there is a piece of hard-fired clay placed behind the grinding wheel. Every time the grinding wheel turns, a little bit of clay is scraped off it. This clay plays a similar role to diamond sand and can sharpen the knife. .Yang Menglong saw that two knife masters were working together to grind a heavy Mo knife on the grinder. Their expressions were focused and their movements were delicate, as if what they were holding in their hands was not a knife embryo, but a piece of value. Liancheng's beautiful jade, a piece of exquisite glass that breaks at the touch of a touch.Originally, they didn't need to do things like polishing the Kaifeng, but the Mo Dao was too precious. They didn't feel comfortable leaving it to their disciples, so they insisted on going into battle in person. Looking at their focused looks, you could tell that they were very careful in crafting each weapon. A Mo Dao.

As for the polished weapons, they don't need to worry about them. Han Peng sent people to guard outside for a long time, and every time a batch of weapons was made, they were immediately loaded into a cart and transported to the barracks, and he refused to waste a minute.

"We have built two hundred horizontal knives, two hundred machetes, four hundred long spears, and thirty mo knives." Li Lin said, "We have more and more people and more and more technologies. The more sophisticated you are, the more weapons you need for more than 1000 people will be manufactured in two months at most!"

Yang Menglong casually picked up a sharpened dogleg knife and weighed it. This dogleg knife is 42 centimeters long. It is made of jujube wood, with a thick back and thin blade. , very sharp.He waved it a few times, feeling very smooth, and said, "Yes, all of them are fine products, you have worked hard."

Li Lin said: "How dare we not do what our lord personally told us to do? But having said that, at least half of the credit for making this knife is due to your lord."

Yang Menglong was stunned: "Me?"

Li Lin said: "Of course! If your lord hadn't invented an excellent method of steel training and produced such good steel, no matter how good our blacksmith skills are, it would be useless!"

A blacksmith with a bushy beard waved a hammer and hammered the knife blank, and exclaimed loudly: "Isn't it? I, Xu, have been ironing iron for most of my life, and I have never seen such a good steel. I can’t wait to sleep with a piece of steel in my arms!”

Yang Menglong twitched the corner of his mouth, is it that exaggerated?However, considering that the total annual steel output of the whole country is only tens of thousands of tons, and the quality is also terrible, which is incomparable with manganese steel and high-carbon steel, he can understand why this old man would like to hug Steel fell asleep.He said: "What is this? After the blast furnace is built, I will show you what scale operation is! At that time, we will be able to smelt dozens of tons of steel in one furnace... er, tens of thousands of catties of steel. There are so many that your scalp will tingle when you see it!"

Blacksmith Xu laughed loudly: "If there is such a day, my old Xu will not go back to Hebei, and stay here to forge iron for the rest of his life!" The fierce and sharp lines of the knife gradually became clear.

Yang Menglong put the scimitar back to its original place and asked Li Lin, "By the way, how is the crossbow doing?"

Li Lin shook his head uneasily: "Responding to my lord's words, there is still no progress. As you know, weapons like crossbows are rarely used anymore. We don't even know how to do them. We can only explore slowly. Still haven't figured it out yet."

Yang Menglong frowned: "Is it so difficult?"

Li Lin said: "It is very difficult. A good worker who has learned to make crossbows read the drawings and concluded that we cannot make this kind of crossbow. The crossbow we made based on the gourd can shoot 270 steps. Thank God!”

Yang Menglong waved his hand and said: "If the difficulty of the range of 340 steps is too high, let's lower the standard first, design according to the range of 240 steps, and continue to improve after it is manufactured, and increase the range to 270 steps." Think silently , One step is 270 meters, 400 steps, more than [-] meters, this range is quite against the sky, farther than the range of the matchlock gun, enough.

Li Lin breathed a sigh of relief and said, "If we follow the 270 steps, we can barely build it."

Yang Menglong said: "Don't be anxious, take your time, just do it with your heart, don't rush... By the way, can you find all the materials needed to make the crossbow?"

Li Lin said: "Whether it is making a bow or a crossbow, the materials are all the same: mulberry or mulberry wood, beef tendon, isinglass, oil knee, horn, etc. However, the crossbow is much more complicated than the bow and requires There are just more metal parts. We have the best steel and skilled blacksmiths. Those parts can be made. You can also find mulberry or mulberry wood. The difficult thing is things like beef tendons and horns. Few people kill cows. , so this kind of supplies are hard to find!”

Yang Menglong also had a great headache. Cows are an indispensable partner in farming. Without cattle, agricultural production will definitely suffer a big setback. Therefore, cattle have become the lifeblood of farmers. Killing cattle to obtain tendons and horns to make crossbows?You have a good idea, but you will go to jail if you kill a cow without permission!With so few cattle, where can he find enough horns and tendons?

"Is it okay to use tendons from livestock like pigs or sheep?" He asked tentatively.

Li Lin hesitated for a moment, then said, "Using tendons from pigs or sheep is also fine, but the tendons of these livestock are much thinner than beef tendons..."

Yang Menglong said: "Let's make it thinner. Twisting two wires together should be able to support a beef tendon. If it doesn't work, use steel wire instead. In short, I can't make so many beef tendons for you. Think of a way... By the way, is there any progress in the development of muskets?"

Li Lin made a gesture of invitation to the side: "We are no strangers to firecrackers. As long as there is enough iron, it is not difficult to make a powerful blunderbuss...Look, the craftsman is drilling the barrel."

No, dozens of craftsmen are trying their best to drill solid cylindrical steel pipes with drill bits. Looking at their gnashing of teeth, Yang Menglong feels a bit strenuous.Several craftsmen are processing several drilled barrels, smoothing the inner wall, and preparing to install them on the gun body.Looking at the laborious looks of the craftsmen, Yang Menglong suddenly felt that maybe it was a mistake for him to plan to equip a large number of electric guns. According to their drilling method, it would take a year of the monkey to drill a barrel. Two or three hundred electric guns, They won't be able to make it in a year or two!

(End of this chapter)