54. A barrel with a crazy explosion in output.

Yang Fan fixed his gaze on the blast furnace, watching the master craftsmen continuously stir the molten iron. Success or failure hinged upon this single moment.

Fu Laoliu stared wide-eyed at the color of the liquid iron at the furnace mouth.

"Increase the blast!" he bellowed downward.

Twenty apprentices stood bare-chested, wearing only loincloths, their muscles bulging as they exerted themselves to push the rectangular bellows.

Chanting in rhythm, they pushed the bellows back and forth.

"Heh, ho! Heh, ho!"

"Put your backs into it! Heh, ho!"

"Step forward! Heh, ho!"

Lead: Bend your waist and push right in!
Chorus: Heh, ho—heh, ho!

Lead: Lift your waist right back up!
Chorus: Heh, ho—heh, ho!

Lead: Watch your footing down below!
Chorus: Heh, ho—heh, ho!

Lead: Crouch down as you pull back, you know!
Chorus: Heh, ho—heh, ho!

Fu Laoliu saw that the fire's intensity at the furnace opening was still insufficient. Drawing upon his experience as a veteran craftsman, he realized that removing the phosphorus, as the master had instructed, had raised the melting point of the iron, making it harder to smelt.

Under the old methods, the molten iron could have been tapped long ago; but now, the slag formation that the master spoke of had not yet fully occurred.

Yet this could not defeat the veteran craftsman Fu Laoliu. If the temperature was not high enough, they simply had to increase the air blast.

With a loud roar, he shouted, "Did none of you eat today? Put some muscle into it! Use the strength you'd use to mount your women!"

Following Fu Laoliu's curses, the style of the chant shifted as well.

Lead: Bend your waist and strike away!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Grab that little braid and play!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Oh, it looks so fine and gay!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Don't get lost or start to stray!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Stand against the wind this way!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Prove you're heroes of the fray!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: Who dares let his steps delay?
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

Lead: You're a damn disgrace today!
Chorus: He-yo—he-yo—he-yo!

As the air blast intensified, the mouth of the furnace immediately began to churn violently.

Patches of black impurities floated to the surface. Yang Fan stood on the wooden scaffolding watching, feeling it looked rather like the froth that rises when eating hot pot.

If a slaughtered sheep is not bled properly, foam will rise when you scald the slices of meat.

Iron ore was no different; high impurity content meant a massive amount of slag.

"Brothers, slag is forming!" veteran craftsman Bai Laosan shouted at the top of his lungs.

A wave of excitement rippled through the craftsmen.

The master truly is a divine being!

There really were these filthy impurities hidden within the iron.

No wonder iron made previously for gun barrels kept bursting.

"Clear the slag!" Fu Laoliu roared.

The craftsmen immediately used iron shovels to push the slag toward the slag discharge port.

As the slag continuously floated to the surface, it was steadily skimmed away.

This continued until no more slag appeared.

"Master, we can pour the molten iron now!" Fu Laoliu shouted loudly.

"Pour the molten iron!" Yang Fan commanded in a strong voice.

Pig iron is hard and brittle, suitable only for casting rather than forging.

If one wished to forge it, it had to be resmelted into wrought iron.

Fatty Wu had specifically explained that the kind of gun barrel Yang Fan was casting had sufficient hardness and strength, but lacked toughness; the powder charge could not be too large. If loaded like a matchlock musket, it would still burst.

A hand-gonne was just a hand-gonne—it held a small powder charge and had a short range, having long since been superseded by matchlocks. Yang Fan dared not equip his forces with matchlocks on a large scale, nor was there sufficient time, so he had no choice but to make do with this imperfect method.

The effective range of a hand-gonne was only thirty-five to six meters, whereas a matchlock had an effective range of at least eighty meters, and could still inflict casualties at a hundred and fifty meters against unarmored targets, provided one could actually hit them at such a distance.

Fatty Wu had merely helped Yang Fan realize the creation of a single-barrel multi-shot hand-gonne.

Furthermore, he had detailed the shortcomings of the hand-gonne: under actual combat conditions, one should not load more than five rounds. The foremost projectiles were too close to the muzzle, meaning their travel distance within the barrel was too short for the gunpowder to burn fully. The resulting firepower was inadequate. At a distance of thirty-five meters, facing a cavalry charge, the time available to fire was precious, and managing to get off five shots was already quite good.

After all, if a shot lacked stopping power, wasting an opportunity to fire was a poor trade-off.

The molten iron began to be poured into the molds.

Soon, the five molds were baked to a glowing red.

After a short wait, the gun barrels took form.

Fu Laoliu began directing the apprentices to dismantle the molds.

Clamping the glowing red gun barrels with iron tongs, they plunged them into an oil vat.

With a booming roar, the oil vat boiled over and burst into flames.

On this side, the molds were prepared for the next round of casting.

By nightfall, a large batch of newly cast gun barrels had been produced.

Yang Fan picked up one of these newly cast barrels; air bubbles and cracks should now be virtually non-existent.

According to the data provided by Fatty Wu, he remeasured the gunpowder and prepared to begin test-firing.

Single-round loading test-fire: successful.
Double-round loading test-fire: successful.
Triple-round loading test-fire: successful.

Yang Fan let out a breath of relief. Last time, it was at the third round that the barrel had burst.

Five-round loading test-fire: successful.
Seven-round loading test-fire: successful.
Nine-round loading test-fire: successful.

Yang Fan was overjoyed; this proved that the nine-stage repeating gun was a success. The preceding charges had not prematurely ignited the gunpowder behind them. They had all fired in sequence, though the shots fired first had lesser force while the later ones grew increasingly powerful—the exact opposite of the enemies closing in on a battlefield.

Next, destructive testing commenced, which involved incrementally increasing the single-round powder charge to see at how many times the normal amount the barrel would burst. This data would henceforth serve as the safe operational standard for this product.

Double-charge, single bullet fired: safe.
Triple-charge, fired: safe.
Quadruple-charge, fired: safe.
Quintuple-charge: barrel burst.

Subsequently, testing continued across fifty more gun barrels.

A final conclusion was reached.

A powder charge within three times the standard amount was entirely safe.

When operations ceased for the night, Yang Fan calculated that if they ran three shifts without stopping, a single mold could produce one hundred hand-gonne barrels.

In a single day and night, five hundred barrels could be manufactured.

Although the effective range of such barrels was still shorter than that of a bow and arrow, even when loaded with five rounds, their firepower far surpassed archery. Within twenty meters, piercing triple-layer armor posed zero problem. A man running twenty meters while wearing forty jin of armor would allow more than enough time to fire off five shots.

Inevitably, one of the bullets would drop him.

This contraption required no learning. Anyone could use it—did they know how to light a match? Did they know how to load?

A qualified archer required over three years of training, and crafting a single bow also took three years; both the training of archers and their equipment were extremely expensive.

Iron, once produced on a massive scale, became so cheap it made one doubt reality.

Yang Fan issued an order to commence full-scale production with three shifts, aiming to manufacture ten thousand pieces first.

Let his militia practice relentlessly; if a gun broke, they could simply melt it down and recast it—it didn't cost much anyway.

It merely consumed a bit of labor and charcoal.

Gunpowder could be formulated in-house, especially since he held the status of a hundred-man commander.

Whatever he couldn't use himself, he could sell for a profit.

The government permitted militia forces to use such weapons.

Although private possession of hand-gonnes among the common populace was technically prohibited by law, restrictions had long since been relaxed and largely ignored.

Selling them to merchant caravans or the like was also a decent option, as they were exceptionally useful for merchants dealing with unarmored Mongols on the grasslands or bandits blocking the roads.

He also had steel saws here; if a barrel was sawed into two sections, it could be used as a cavalry carbine, and if sawed into three sections, it could be fashioned into a hand pistol.

However, doing so would require fitting them with wooden stocks and grips.

Otherwise, one's hands would surely be roasted well-done.

Ever since Song Yingxing heard the sounds of the courtyard's barrels bursting all night long the day before yesterday, he had heard no further explosions. In his heart, he assumed Yang Fan had abandoned this impractical notion, and so he returned to burying himself in the research of his Red-Coated Grand Cannon.

Outside the city at Xinglonggang, the great banners were raised once more, and recruitment began anew.

"Listen up, everyone! This time we are recruiting one hundred and fifty carpenters. Those skilled in carpentry, line up over here for testing. On-the-spot evaluation! Monthly wages: one hundred pure copper coins."

Over the past few days, Yang Fan had drawn away nearly twenty thousand people—including recruits, laborers, and their dependents—yet the scale of the refugee population only continued to grow.

Word that work was easy to find in Zunhua had spread throughout all of Beizhili.

Even more refugees were surging toward this place.