After finishing the work of muskets, the next thing is the matter of artillery. Dengzhou's firearm technology was far behind the Ming Dynasty. In addition to being a little worse than the Portuguese in Macau, it can be said that it is already very mature.

The production of muskets is not difficult and does not cost much, so the craftsmen are mainly responsible for this aspect, but the technical difficulty of artillery is much higher. In the past, the general in charge of the cannon was Xilao of the Portuguese Gongsha. However, when he first attacked Dengzhou, this guy resisted to death, causing considerable losses to Li Jiucheng's troops and was directly killed by Li Jiucheng.

In addition to him, a group of Portuguese died under Li Jiucheng's men, but another group of Portuguese, who were the 6 Ruohan, had disappeared, and might have escaped from somewhere in the chaos.

But this doesn't matter. Anyway, the cannon casting craftsmen have learned everything they should learn. Even if there is nothing they have not learned well, they can't wait until they have stabilized and spend some money to invite some Portuguese to teach.

There were many Westerners who came to East Asia. Among them, except for the missionaries who came to the Ming Dynasty for missionary purposes, which was particularly great for them and worked tirelessly, the others came to the Ming Dynasty for nothing more than just one thing - silver.

As long as they give enough money, they will not refuse to use it for themselves. If they are unwilling, they will give less money.

Kong Youde came to the artillery workshop, and the manager here was Ding Wen. Like Zhang Lide, they were all loyal and reliable people.

After seeing Kong Youde's instructions, he called a few skilled artisans over. The person he was Li Zhongcheng, who was nearly fifty years old.

After the few people came over, they all saluted Kong Youde, and then Li Zhongcheng said, "I wonder if you have anything to ask me?"

Kong Youde looked at the few people and saw that their spirits were better than those who made bird guns. Thinking about it, Sun Yuanhua liked firearms, but compared to firearms, he still liked cannons more.

Because he knew the power of artillery, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and others bought four red cannons, and the court allocated funds to buy twenty-six naval cannons that the Portuguese caught from the sunken British warship. Sun Yuanhua wrote to Chongzhen, saying that there were eighteen gates in Beijing, and the rest should be transferred outside the pass to deal with the Tartars.

Later, Chongzhen agreed to his request. Except for one cannon that exploded during the test, he took the other eleven to Shanhaiguan and then transported it to Ningyuan City.

At that time, Nurhaci led 60,000 Tartars to attack Ningyuan City. Sun Yuanhua led a group of skilled gunners to control the eleven red-clothed cannons and bombarded the top of Ningyuan City, killing Jiannu in large numbers. Ningyuan City was finally able to defend it. These eleven red-clothed cannons made an indelible contribution.

Although most of the credit was divided by Yuandudu, Sun Yuanhua has loved cannons even more since then. Over the past year, nearly thirty cannons in red have been cast. Except for some of them, the rest are shipped to Laizhou City and Shuicheng.

Kong Youde said, "Li Zhongcheng, I heard that you are an expert in the cannon casting industry. Tell me about this, you should tell me, "I don't know much about the cannon casting. I don't know much about this."

Although he is from modern times, he is completely a layman in casting cannons, even a relatively simple front-mounted smoothbore cannon like a red-clothed cannon.

Li Zhongcheng said, "Sir, we are responsible for the casting of red-clothed cannons, and we are good at this. This red-clothed cannon was created by Hongmaoyi. Although we are skilled, we are still somewhat lacking in the manufacturing process.

The red-clothed cannon generally weighs 3,000 to 4,000 kilograms, the cannon body is nine to ten feet long, and the projectile weighs ten to eleven kilograms. Two kilograms of gunpowder are required for each shot.

The workshop where the villain is in charge can cast three red-clothed cannons every month, but for some reason, since June last year, Sun Junmen has stopped letting us continue to cast red-clothed cannons. It is said that it consumes too much silver, and the number of red-clothed cannons is enough."

Kong Youde was also a little surprised. Sun Yuanhua had been serving as the governor of Denglai for a year and a half, and had only created less than thirty schools. He thought it was because of the slowness, but he didn't expect it was because of the financial problems.

"Ding Wen, how much silver is needed if you don't cast a cannon?"

The manager Ding Wen took out a account book and said, "Sir, the accounts found by the subordinates, as well as the information received from other channels, are sorted out.

The amount of money for casting cannons allocated by the court was 5,000 taels of silver for each red-clothed cannon, but at Sun Junmen, there were only about 3,000 taels left. According to the rules of the officialdom, Sun Junmen took out 100 taels and transferred the rest. But in the end, the actual amount used to cast cannons was almost 2,000 taels."

Kong Youde was not surprised by this. The officialdom in the late Ming Dynasty was like this. No matter what money it was used for, as long as it was allocated, someone would intercept it. Even Sun Yuanhua could not be spared, because everyone did this. If you don’t do this, it would be unsociable and everyone would isolate you.

After looking through the account book, Kong Youde was still a little surprised, "The funds under the imperial court were 5,000 taels per cannon, but the actual use of this was still as high as 2,000 taels. Why is this?"

Ding Wen was not clear about this problem, so he glanced at Li Zhongcheng and said, "Sir, the reason why casting cannons in red clothes is so expensive is mainly because of the materials?"

Kong Youde asked in confusion: "Materials question? Do you mean that materials are very expensive?"

Li Zhongcheng said, "Sir, you don't know that the material used for casting cannons is copper. The copper used for casting a red cannon is almost 1,000 taels of silver, and many other materials, so it is so expensive."

Kong Youde also knew that these cannons were made of copper, so he didn't care much. The copper in later generations was just a slightly more expensive metal, but now it is the Ming Dynasty.

Since the pre-Qin period, copper, as a rare metal, was the main material for making money. At that time, copper utensils were generally only used among kings and princes. Although there were more and more copper later, it was mainly used in currency.

Now is the late Ming Dynasty. Since the Longqing switch, a large amount of trade with Western countries, and a large amount of silver produced in the Americas flowed into the Ming Dynasty, causing silver reserves to rise steadily, but the reserves of copper coins remained basically unchanged. During the Hongwu period, one tael of silver could be exchanged for 1,500 or even 2,000 copper coins, but now they can only exchange for about 600 copper coins.

There are three or four thousand kilograms of cannons. If you use them all to cast copper coins, you can almost cast 500,000 or 600,000 pieces. If you exchange these many copper coins for silver, it would be almost one thousand taels.

The cost of materials alone is so high, plus labor costs, it is not surprising that the cost of casting a red cannon is so high.

It can be said that this cannon was completely made with money, and it was money in the real sense. You can use it as money after dismantling this cannon.
Chapter completed!