King of German Mercenaries

The old Johnson family soon took a boat to Texel Island. At the same time, old Johnson brought on board many of the tools of his gunsmith's workshop in Wilder. Among them, there are dozens of air-dried cast gun clay molds.

After the old Johnson family arrived on Texel Island, Marin arranged for them to set up a cannon-casting workshop by a small river south of Den Burg. Even, in order to facilitate the use of hydraulic machinery by Old Johnson, Marin also specially recruited male laborers from the whole island, and built a dam in the upper reaches of this small river to raise the water level, so as to facilitate the use of hydraulic machinery in Old Johnson's cannon casting workshop.

However, the old Johnson told Marin that the 12-pounder he was currently casting was still very easy to blow up. It's just, that's not very likely. Moreover, the qualification rate of casting heavy artillery and artillery is less than 20%. The remaining 80% are waste.

Marlin is well aware of this. Heavy artillery casting is a problem. This problem, until the American Civil War, was solved by an officer named Rodman, which is the so-called "Rodman casting method".

However, although Marin knew it well, he didn't want to tell old Johnson this way. Because old Johnson was a British subject. If Henry VII thinks of him one day, with an edict, old Johnson may return to China. And according to the contract, Marin can't stop him yet.

To this end, Marin intends to keep it a secret for now. Then, in the serf families on the island, he selected a group of bright young people and let them enter the cannon-casting workshop to learn how to cast cannons with old Johnson. Marin's plan was to let them try the "Rodman Cannon Casting Method" after they learned to cast cannons.

As for the problem that the 12-pound cast iron gun that old Johnson said is still easy to blow up, Marin thought about it for a few days, and finally came up with a solution...

The reason why old Johnson's cast iron guns are still easy to blow up is obviously a material problem, and has nothing to do with the casting technology. And the source of the material for his cannon is naturally the cast iron blocks produced in Sussex. In order to satisfy the old Johnson casting gun, Marin has sent a ship to Sussex, England to import a large number of cast iron blocks.

These cast iron blocks are all pig iron, not suitable for casting guns. But Marin has a way to process these cast iron blocks into wrought iron blocks...

The specific method is to put these pig iron blocks imported from the United Kingdom into a reverberatory furnace for refining. Then, cast the refined wrought iron into iron ingots to obtain wrought iron ingots. The appearance of the wrought iron block and the pig iron block was not very different, and old Johnson could not see it. And old Johnson cast cannons with refined wrought iron blocks, and the quality must be greatly improved. Moreover, old Johnson will not understand the mystery of it...

So Marin recruited a few young blacksmiths who knew how to strike iron among the serfs on the island, and asked them to be responsible for refining the pig iron imported from Britain into mature iron.

To this end, Marin sent people to buy refractory materials, built several simple "turkey" reverberatory furnaces, and used coal produced by Hoffman Manor as fuel to refine pig iron.

The reverberatory furnaces of these turtles are actually large crucible furnaces. According to Marin's instructions, the surrounding furnace walls have been thickened to prevent heat loss. In addition, the crucible furnace has special inlet and outlet holes to supply oxygen for refining. In order to increase the oxygen supply, the air inlet is also equipped with a special hydraulic blower. In order to make slag and remove sulfur and phosphorus, Marin also sent a ship to Amsterdam to buy a slag-making agent - quicklime.

This is different from the Pudlin stirring method popular in England in the 18th century, but rather a combination of the Pudring stirring method and the Hunzmann crucible method. The reason why the low-cost Pudlin method is not used is because the temperature of the stirring method is low, only 1400 degrees, and the quality of the steel produced is only better than that of pig iron, not comparable to that of open hearth steel. However, this also has some drawbacks. The main thing is that it costs a lot of fuel.

However, since it is for casting important artillery, even if it costs more, Marin can still afford it. After all, the quality of the artillery is important for the security of Texel. For civilian use, ordinary pig iron is sufficient.

The use of high-quality, high-cost wrought iron and medium-low carbon steel is not a crime.

In this way, under the guidance of Marin, a half-level "brick house", several local serf and blacksmiths in Texel began to use relatively primitive crucible reverberatory furnaces, and began to carry out secondary refining of pig iron ingots imported from the United Kingdom. . In order to obtain high-quality steel, Marin extended the original refining time of 6 to 8 hours to 10 hours. Despite the fuel consumption, Marin didn't care. Because, this is the steel used for casting guns, and it is not allowed to be careless.

...

While worrying about the issue of casting guns, Marin suddenly remembered that he should pay attention to the issue of shipbuilding.

The era of great voyages has begun. When Da Gama leads the fleet to India next year, the European voyage trade will officially kick off.

Marin, in any case, is reluctant to miss such a historic moment. So he began to build ships and teams for the voyage.

To this end, Marin personally went to the Frisian fishing village and selected 80 young Frisian fishermen who were willing to be sailors.

However, these fishermen were apparently not trained to become qualified sailors. The experienced sailors who know how to sail the ocean are mainly concentrated in Portugal and Spain.

However, many of Spain's sailing talents were not cultivated by themselves, but imported from outside. For example, Columbus, who discovered America for Spain, was actually a man from Genoa (Harmony) in Italy.

Only Portugal, because of Prince Enrique, has cultivated a large number of seafaring talents and sailors, and is a real seafaring power.

As for Venice, another more powerful sailing power, because it only operates in the Mediterranean Sea, it is not good at ocean sailing. Because the Mediterranean Sea is relatively calm, and there are no storms at all. It is completely different from sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, and there is no comparison.

So, after thinking about it, Marin decided to send someone to Portugal to hire experienced captains and sailors with high salaries to train these young Frisian fishermen and make them truly qualified sailing talents.

Of course, it is not enough to have sailors and captains, but also ships. To this end, Marin decided to send people to Spain and Portugal to buy two larger Clark sailing ships.

How big is the boat? Marin decided to refer to Da Gama's flagship voyage to India, the "San Gabriel".

"San Gabriel" is 27 meters long, 8.5 meters wide, 2.3 meters draught, 178 tons displacement, and 20 Fran cannons. This is the data of later generations. Although Marin has not seen the flagship of Da Gama when he leaves in July next year, he has long been familiar with these data.

So Marin wrote down the data of the "San Gabriel" and handed it over to his men, intending to let them go to Spain and Portugal to buy two similar ships. By the time the sailors and captains were trained, it was almost time for Da Gama to set off. At that time, Marin intends to have his two ships follow Da Gama's fleet and pick ready-made peaches...

Marin knew, however, that neither the Clark nor the Caravel was an ocean-going sailboat. Caravels are too small to sail in shallow waters. The Wadden Sea is quite suitable for the use of Caravel sailboats, but ocean sailing is not as good as Clark sailboats.

However, Clark's sailboat is too wide, with a lot of head-on resistance, it can't get up fast, and it is easy to run aground. The flagship of Columbus's discovery of America, the Clark sailing ship "Santa Maria", ran aground on the island of Haiti.

When it comes to the best sailing ship in the big voyage, it is naturally the legendary Galen ship...

Speaking of which, the later developed clippers are faster. However, because the clipper is too thin, it is not suitable for installing artillery, which is a big disadvantage.

You know, in the era of great sailing, there were a lot of pirates. A ship without artillery defense is very dangerous. Therefore, in general, the Galen ship is better, not only can it have self-protection ability, but also has a large cargo capacity.

In Marin's mind, there are data and models of the legendary American warship "Constitution". Because, on his birthday in his previous life, one of his classmates who was a sailing fan once gave him a model ship of the "Constitution". Marin placed it in the room and watched it every day, and was basically familiar with the shape of the Constitution.

Marin was going to build the Galen, so a shipyard was needed. When it comes to the shipbuilding industry, Venice is the most developed. However, Venetian man-made galleys, only suitable for sailing in the Mediterranean. To build ocean-going ships, you have to look at Portugal. Although Spain is stronger, it does not pay as much attention to sailing as Portugal. Therefore, at this stage, Portugal is the strongest in building ocean-going ships.

So, Marin decided to send people to Portugal to recruit a group of shipbuilders, and to build a shipyard in Terhorenche to build Clark ships and Caravel sailboats first. When the time is right, build the Galen.

To this end, Marin contacted Jewish merchants again and asked them to go to Portugal to help recruit skilled shipbuilders. The reason for looking for Jews is that Jews are the best at doing business and buying people, and their footprints are all over most of Europe except Spain, which is heavily anti-Semitic. Moreover, Marin was seriously lacking in talent and had to turn to the Jews for help. So, for the recruitment of captains, sailors, and shipbuilders, Marin had to turn to Jewish merchants and pay a lot of commissions...

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