The Eagle of Eastern Europe

Chapter 268 The power brought by the improvement of artillery technology

Peter gathered his troops and set off, and he also met General Voick who was holding Ancyra. He praised his bravery and performance in Ancyra, and ordered him to lead troops to fight Bosnia. A team of 20,000 people set out from Nis and headed to the west.

However, as soon as Peter's army entered Bosnia, King Stefan Ostoya sent people directly to the camp to surrender. Because he is a king and a puppet. He was pushed to the throne by the Bosnian nobles and has no power at all. Instead of being a puppet, he would be more comfortable being a lord or a duke or something under Rome.

"Did he really say that?"

"His Majesty the King has said that he would like to become a vassal under the Emperor."

This saved a lot of effort. I originally thought it would be a long war, but I didn't expect the king to surrender first. Although he was just a puppet, he was useful.

Peter began to advance towards Jajce. They entered the Bosnia area. The local fortresses could not withstand the opponent's trebuchets and artillery, so they surrendered one after another. Some were determined to fight to the end and besieged them directly.

The Republic of Ragusa also followed Rome's wishes and declared war on Bosnia and Croatia. This city-state already relied entirely on trade between Rome. Most of the people even converted to Orthodox Christianity. Their army was small, so they provided some money and food to participate in the war in name. The Principality of Ukraine was exempt from participating in the war because it was busy with development. The Cossack Emirate provided a group of Cossack soldiers to Rome, while keeping an eye on Poland and Lithuania to prevent them from spoiling the situation.

Affected by the war, trade in the Eastern Mediterranean has also declined, especially trade in Egypt and the Levant. Now Venice and Rome are killing each other's merchant ships, resulting in them having to fly the flags of other countries or take land settlements. The volume of trade Cut in half directly.

Mircea directly issued permission for plundering. No matter whether it was his own country or another country, regardless of belief, region, or language, as long as he successfully robbed Venetian and Genoese merchant ships, he would be rewarded heavily.

This was another heavy blow to maritime trade, but it also affected the Knights Hospitallers of Rhode Island. Most of the trade on their island was carried out by Venetians, but now it was suddenly interrupted. The leader of the Knights, Nairak They wanted to remain neutral, but the damage to their interests caused the knights below to quit. They all had their own businesses on the island, and now they would have no way of making money if they stopped.

There are many people like them. These people always want to stop the war between the two countries so that they can continue to do business. But they could not shake the will of the supreme ruler. Mircea was determined to defeat the anti-Romanian alliance, even if he spent the last coin of the treasury.

Among several armies, Peter had arrived at Jajce, and the king planned to open the door and surrender. However, the nobles who had pushed him up took direct control of the city defense and announced that they would never surrender.

This was what Peter expected, so he immediately surrounded the place and set up catapults and artillery to attack.

Peter spent no less than 150,000 gold coins on firearms projects over the years, and finally the artillery technology was improved again. Prior to this, the artillery production used the clay mold method, that is, before making the cannon, a clay mold must be made. The clay mold includes a cylindrical core and an outer mold. The core and the outer mold are combined before casting. Then after processes such as flushing, grinding, and drilling the fire door, a cannon is completed.

The limitations of this method are getting bigger and bigger, especially in casting cannons, the shortcomings are obvious.

Before making cannon, a clay mold must be made. The clay mold includes a cylindrical core and an outer mold. The core and outer mold are combined before casting.

Then after processes such as flushing, grinding, and drilling the fire door, a cannon is completed.

However, making a usable clay mold takes quite a long time.

Because the clay mold needs to wait for it to dry naturally before casting, the larger the mold, the longer it will take.

It can take as little as one month or more. If the weather is bad, it is normal for several months.

Therefore, it often takes several months or even half a year to cast a cannon.

But even if it is cast, the defective rate is very high.

Because the outer mold and core are made of clay and have poor air permeability, it is difficult to truly dry out the inside. It is often dry on the outside and wet on the inside.

During casting, this moisture will evaporate to form moisture, causing a large number of honeycomb-shaped holes to appear in the barrel of the artillery, which will greatly increase the risk of the barrel exploding when the artillery is fired. This is a defective product.

With desperate funding, Roman artillery craftsmen found a new cannon casting process, which was the sand casting method.

The sand mold cannon casting method was invented by the British on the basis of the clay mold cannon casting method at the end of the 18th century, about four hundred years later.

This method requires casting a solid barrel first and preparing a barrel model.

This model can be made of wood and can be used repeatedly.

In addition, a cross-section mold of the gun barrel is also needed. Place the wooden gun barrel on the mold. The lower half of the gun barrel will be embedded in the mold, and the upper half will be exposed. Tree

Take a hollow iron square frame of the same size and place it flatly on the cross-section mold. Of course, this square frame can also be made of wood, but it must be strong.

Smear some quartz powder on the wooden barrel to prevent it from adhering to the sand, then fill it with the screened fine sand, compact it firmly, and then scrape the top sand flat.

Turn the whole set of molds over so that the cross-section mold is on top. Carefully remove the cross-section mold and the other half of the wooden cannonball will be revealed.

Apply quartz powder, cover it with a hollow square frame of the same size, fill it with sand and compact it firmly.

A hole is punched in the top of the compacted sand mold. This hole is the inlet for pouring the liquid metal.

Carefully open the mold and take out the wooden barrel so that you can see half of the barrel pattern on the two parts of the sand mold.

Then carefully make a slot next to the gun barrel model and connect it to the hole just drilled, so that the metal liquid poured from the hole can flow into the gun barrel model along the slot.

Close the mold, pour in the metallic liquid, open the mold after cooling, and remove the sand to get a solid barrel.

Using this method, the qualification rate of artillery is greatly improved, the cost is reduced and the artillery ownership rate is increased. The current Roman New Army can put 300 artillery pieces into the battlefield at one time. If this technology tree is not in reality, it will be punished beyond the times.

A large number of stone bullets came from all directions. Their power caused heavy losses to the defenders, and it seemed that the city wall could not hold on for long. At night, the imprisoned king sent someone to secretly open the door to let the Roman army in, but was discovered and executed by the defenders. The king was also forced to move to the monastery for custody. Rome continued to besiege Yaice, and the war had only been going on for a month and a half.

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