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"Where is Defang? Call him to my calligraphy and speak!"

After returning to the mansion in Anningfang, Chen Huaiqing immediately instructed his family to call his eldest son back from the newspaper in "Luofu".

"Sir, I wonder what instructions do you have to call the child to come?" As soon as Chen Defang walked into the study, she saw Chen Huaiqing, who was laughing at the ear of tears, walking around the room excitedly.

"Happy events, happy events, great events!" Chen Huaiqing patted his hands and laughed, "The matter of Princess Shangsheng Kingdom in Dexing is full of clues. The official has already promised it in person today, and there will be no more accidents." He turned his head to look at his son, "Defang, thank you for your hard work, and go to Sichuan immediately."

"Sir, do you want the child to report the good news to my second brother?"

"Announcement of good news is just one thing. It is important to call Dexing back quickly... The other end of Sichuan has been finished, and he should come back. This marriage with the Tian family is more important than anything! No! Wrong! It's all important!"

Chen Huaiqing's words were full of impatient words, and he wished Chen Dexing would immediately put on his wings and return from the Sichuan general.

"By the way, after arriving in Sichuan, you can talk to Dexing and let him take a closer look... Now that he has negotiated peace with the Tartars, the military ministers are not as popular as ever. Many censors have already taken the opportunity and are preparing to impeach the first and second commanders and become famous!" Chen Huaiqing's tone suddenly became solemn. Now a censor has already submitted a memorial to impeach Chen Dexing and used a naval warship to smuggle Chen Dexing with a naval warship! Although the emperor has not inquired, this matter is always a bit strange... Chen Dexing was always a person sent by Jia Sidao, so how could the censor be so unhappy?

"Anyway, now is a critical period, so you must be cautious... As long as you marry the princess, you can make money, but now you must not be able to catch the handle! Otherwise, this kind of wealth and honor may be lost."

...

"From the beginning, we should not pin our hopes on the Han civil servants! These Han civil servants are useless except for writing a few nonsense articles! If we want to get rid of Chen Dexing, we still need our true god warriors!"

The person who spoke was a ferocious big food merchant with a big beard with a chaotic face. His skin was dark and he could tell at a glance that he was often rushing on the sea.

Those who listened to him were the rich man Pu Shougeng of Quanzhou and Liu Xiaoyuan, the envoy of Jiangnan in Great Mongolia. They were both dressed as Han scholars, sitting in a high pavilion overlooking the West Lake, holding their knees and listening quietly.

"What we need now is just an opportunity. As long as Chen Dexing's Pili Navy goes to sea, my fleet can attack. No one on the sea is our opponent of the cannibalism! Our spinners are the overlords of the ocean! Their Han sailing ships are not our opponents at all, and their sailors are also not as good as the warriors of the true gods!"

Pu Shougen nodded in agreement: "Zhaofu, this Yousuf is the best bow of our Pu family. The fleet he led is the most powerful in the entire Nanfan and Tianzhu sea. Whether it is the pirates, the Sanfoqi, and Zhuluo (one of the Indian countries) naval forces, they are not opponents, let alone the weak Han naval forces?"

As mentioned above, Pujia Maritime Merchant has force - the sea in this era is not a place where peace and business can be carried out, it all depends on one sword and one shot! Pujia Maritime Merchant Group can monopolize the import of spices from the Song Dynasty and become the most powerful maritime merchant group. Of course, it has strong maritime military force! Whoever dares to compete with them for business is really a knife-blade!

The combat focus of the Southern Song navy has always been the Yangtze River, Huai River and Han River. Although there is some force on the coast, it is really not worth mentioning compared to the Pu family, which has 2,000 sea ships.

In addition, the Pu family, which had six generations on the sea, also had a great friendship with all the pirate leaders in the coastal areas of Nanyang and China. As long as they were willing to spend money, they could attract thousands or tens of thousands of pirates! If they were not afraid of the military force of the Southern Song Dynasty on the land, they would have long since seized the wealthy Quanzhou and turned it into their own territory - similar things. Arab merchants have done very little in Nanyang and East Africa!

So of course these Arab merchants will not treat the Pili Navy, which has not yet truly entered the ocean, as a wise man!

Liu Xiaoyuan sneered: "What if he didn't go out to sea? His Pili Navy is just a navy in the Yangtze River! And with his contribution, he will soon become the lord of one state and one government. How will he go out to sea then?" He frowned and stared at Pu Shougeng and said: "Brother Haiyun, this Chen Dexing doesn't need you to deal with for the time being... Please arrange a famous scholar for me, and I will go to Lin'an to have acquaintance with Shilin in person. At that time, there will always be a way to avenge the Khan's arrows!"

...

Some people want Chen Dexing to go back to Lin'an to get married quickly, while others try to kill him. The undercurrents surrounding the rising star of the Song Dynasty. Chen Dexing himself, who is far away in Sichuan, has no idea at all.

After all, for him, it is enough to know the general trend of history and the truth of the regime coming out of the gun. What he needs to do now is to train troops well and hold the troops as firmly as possible.

Also, you have to arrange your backyard early.

In a newly built weapon workshop on Guangyang Island, Chen Dexing once again changed into coarse cloth clothes and brought several carpenters and blacksmiths to make things there. Huang Zhishen, Qita and Taoist Liu, who had just arrived from Yangzhou, and Taoist Ren and Monk Liu, who had been following Chen Dexing to fight in Sichuan, were also gathered here. They had neat uniforms and shiny combat boots. They surrounded Chen Dexing, who had just finished their work, and carefully looked at two strange weapons.

Both weapons have a round and thick wooden barrel with thick walls, which are spliced ​​together by two semicircular wooden pillars. Then, several iron rings are used to tightly hang the two semicircular wooden pillars together - just like a large wooden barrel. The difference is that this "wooden barrel" is a bit slender, and the hollow part in the middle of the "wooden barrel" is very small, with a diameter of only one and a half inches, which is in sharp contrast with the thick "bucket wall". A small hole is opened at the bottom of the "wooden barrel". The "wooden barrel" is mounted on the wheel base of a stone generator, and from a distance it looks like a smoothbore cannon!

In fact, this is a smoothbore cannon! But it is not bronze or cast iron, but a wooden cannon!

Several gunners were sweating profusely filling the wooden cannon with gunpowder and cast iron cannonballs. Wang Lufei and Wang Shuifei, among the Qionghualou brothers, were also among them. They were both the first generation of cannon generals in the Pili Navy and are now the instructors of the military academy, but this is the first time they fiddled with this wooden cannon.

"Brother, I've done it as you told me." The gun team commanded by Wang Shuifei first completed the loading, and then Wang Lufei's gun team also completed the task.

"Lu Fei, Shui Fei, pull the two wooden cannons away and then set them off, use the lead to ignite them, and after ignite, everyone retreats behind the bunker!"

Chen Dexing issued an order loudly. The practical value of this wooden cannon is of course limited. This thing is too dangerous to use. If you are not careful, it will become a bomb that will explode your own people! So Chen Dexing did not intend to use the wooden cannon to make do with it. He built these two wooden cannons just for experiments... This is a necessary step in developing a bronze cannon.

Just like the stone-casting machine and three-layer pulp-mounted warships before, Chen Dexing's cannon development work also starts with the model. The wooden cannon is a model of the bronze cannon - Chen Dexing doesn't understand bronze casting, so he can only leave it to professional copper smiths to take charge. The technology of casting cannons is a bit similar to the technology of casting big bells. As long as you are willing to spend money and time to develop, you can still make it. Chen Dexing didn't have time and money to mess with these things before, but now it's time.

Wang Lufei and Wang Shuifei commanded the two cannons to a few dozen steps away, a temporarily opened shooting range. Two cannons each faced a huge wooden target thirty steps away. The two brothers took out the fire slits and lit the leads almost at the same time. Then they saw a group of people running quickly into a simple anti-cannon bunker more than ten steps away - a top cover made of log sandbags on a trench.

Chen Dexing and a few people around him squatted behind a sturdy rammed earth wall outside the workshop, holding his head regardless of his image. He heard two loud rumbling sounds, and everyone was shocked. Then two wooden cannons retreated backwards, and flames spewed out of the muzzle!

After two muffled sounds of the "pit", the two large wooden targets were splashed with wood chips. The power of the shells made the wooden strips fly around, and two holes with four or five inches in diameter suddenly appeared on the wooden target!

"It's done! Brother, the two wooden cannons are intact! It seems that they can still be used!"

Wang Lufei's excited roar came, but Chen Dexing just nodded slightly.

"Brother, it seems that this wooden cannon is available and the cost is low. Do you want it..."

Taoist Ren said softly.

Chen Dexing shook his head. The wooden cannon has a certain practicality. However, the ability of wood to withstand chamber pressure is not as good as metal. When using wooden cannons barely, they can only use the method of reducing charges to exchange for safety factors. This result will result in the effective killing distance of the wooden cannons is not as good as that of the bow and arrow, and it is even worse than the bed crossbow. It is better to use the three-bow bed crossbow to pull the wooden cannon on the battlefield.

"Blacksmith," Chen Dexing turned around and called out Zita's nickname, "How about it, can such cannons be cast in bronze?"

"No problem!" Zita thought for a moment, "It's just a little more expensive... If you want to build a cannon with a diameter of one and a half inches, it will probably cost hundreds of kilograms of copper, which is hundreds of stagnant coins!"

"Where is one and a half inches enough?" Chen Dexing smiled, "It will cost at least three inches and four inches. It would be even better if we could cast five or six inches of cannons. When we arrive at sea, our warships will have to rely on this cannon to defeat the enemy!" (To be continued...)

Third:
Chapter completed!