Chapter 119: Improving the Iron Cannon
Normal recruitment: farmers/2 units of food, civilians/5 units of food, samurai/10 units of food.

兵种招募：足轻/3单位粮食，旗本/10单位粮食，武士/1金+10单位粮食，剑士/1金+10单位粮食，忍者/1金+10单位粮食。

Special recruitment: Onmyoji/100 luck points + 100 gold, Miko/100 luck points + 100 gold.

Except for two special arms, the recruitment prices of other arms seem okay.

But this is just the basic version. If you want better soldiers, you have to spend luck points and gold to upgrade them.

For example, to upgrade the three types of soldiers, namely the samurai, swordsman and ninja, it costs 100 luck points plus 10 gold to upgrade from the primary level to the intermediate level, and 300 luck points plus 100 taels of gold to upgrade to the advanced level.

Yan Xu's eyelids jumped when he saw it, because this could not be bought separately, it had to be upgraded step by step, that is to say, 1 gold 10 units of food + 100 luck points 10 gold + 300 luck points 100 gold, which was the price of high-level soldiers.

As special types of soldiers, Onmyoji and Miko are expensive to recruit, and even more expensive to upgrade.

Upgrading to intermediate level requires 300 luck points + 300 gold, and upgrading to advanced level requires 500 luck points + 500 gold.

Although Yan Xu always said that money comes easily, this is not the way to spend it. The added figures made his hands tremble a little.

After a day of careful study, Yan Xu finally came up with a cost-effective solution.

The Iron Cannon Ashigaru costs 5 luck points + 5 units of food.

Large tube ashigaru, requires 5 luck points + 5 units of food.

The Iron Cannon Flagship requires 10 luck points + 10 units of food.

Banner cavalry requires 10 luck points + 10 units of food.

Judging from the price, the inexpensive and high-quality Ashigaru will obviously continue to serve as the main force of the army, while the Hatamoto will mainly serve as an elite force to break the deadlock.

As for the samurai, swordsmen and ninjas, the former are officers and the latter are bodyguards and assassins, each of them has their own duties, so there is no need for too many of them, and he cannot afford too many.

However, these are just expectations. We will have to wait and see how things turn out, and then make adjustments step by step.

Yan Xu still remembers that during his first battle, he didn't even understand how to line up his soldiers, so how could he dare to talk about war on paper?

So Yan Xu quickly focused his attention on the arquebusiers to see if they could take on the heavy responsibility.

As an upgraded version of the Ashigaru, the Iron Cannon Ashigaru not only continues to maintain low costs, but can also use the short iron cannon produced in Japan, also known as the matchlock gun.

But this did not improve the combat effectiveness much, because the effective range of this Japanese-produced cannon was only 50 meters and the maximum range was 200 meters.

Moreover, apart from the fact that it has greater lethality than bows and arrows within the effective range, it has almost no advantages, which is outrageous.

In theory, archery consumes too much physical energy and is not as durable as a cannon. Especially when one is on the defensive, this advantage can be fully utilized.

The problem is that the quality of Japan's domestically produced cannons cannot withstand continuous shooting, and the hit rate is not good either.

This is not a matter of practice makes perfect, but rather the trajectory is simply not under control.

Also, because the metal was not of good quality, flintlocks could not be manufactured and only matchlocks could be used.

Not to mention how troublesome it is to use a matchlock, the fact that it is easily affected by the weather reduces its value even more.

Therefore, although Japan had cannons, not many daimyos chose to equip them because they were far less cost-effective than archers.

But Yan Xu can find ways to make improvements, such as purchasing steel pipes and other materials from the modern world.

Yan Xu wanted to buy better guns directly from the world of the late Qing Dynasty to equip his soldiers, but there were several problems that he couldn't solve. First, he had to spend 100 luck points to buy guns in the world of the late Qing Dynasty, and then use the modern world as a transit station, and spend another 100 luck points to transport them to the world of Japan, which would cost 200 luck points for a round trip.

That would be fine, but he is the only one who can go to the world of the late Qing Dynasty. Unless he has storage space equipment, his transportation capacity is limited, and the consumption of a war is obviously not something that can be replenished by him making a few trips back and forth.

Secondly, dozens or hundreds of guns would be fine, but if there were too many, Yan Xu didn’t know what would happen, not to mention that the ammunition would be controlled by others.

After thinking for a long time, Yan Xu couldn't make up his mind for the time being. He decided to produce it himself first, and then try to improve it. If that doesn't work, he will find a way to buy it.

Ordinary craftsmen cannot make guns, and they must be from a military family to become gunsmiths.

Samurai does not mean being born in a samurai family, but rather means being from a well-off family and having received basic education. Therefore, even as a craftsman, he or she is better and even knows how to improve the craft.

The gunsmith who had completed his job change began to hammer on the gun barrel, while Yan Xu watched on the side.

The barrel is the most important and complicated part of a musket. It needs to be repeatedly hammered with an iron rod wrapped around wrought iron sheets. Not only is it time-consuming and laborious, the strength of the barrel is also limited and it is prone to overheating.

Another method is to drill a hole and forcibly drill a gun barrel into the iron rod.

Either method is difficult to process, and it also limits the length of the barrel, because the longer the barrel is, the more difficult it is to process.

The muskets made in this way are truly useless.

Unless the soldiers used are fearless and rush forward to point their guns at the enemy's heads and shoot.

Even so, it takes a process to complete the firing because the fuse must first be used to ignite the powder pool and then the gunpowder loaded in the barrel must be ignited.

Therefore, as long as the opponent is not standing there stupidly, the chance of being killed is higher than the chance of killing the enemy.

Otherwise, those daimyō are not fools and would not use good things.

The arquebus became truly popular in Japan, and even samurai were vying to use it, because it was improved with the development of technology.

Looking at the iron cannon with so many problems, Yan Xu, who was in a headache, immediately returned to the modern world and asked Master Jiang to make improvements.

Master Jiang was stunned by the handmade matchlock rifle, but he didn't think much about it.

I heard that it was required by the crew and that as long as the gunpowder pool could be ignited, the barrel was purely decorative, so they started to make improvements.

Then Yan Xu took the improved flintlock rifle back to the Japanese world and asked the gunsmith to transform it into a usable musket.

The result was successful, because all the gunsmith lacked were steel pipes and spring sheets, not to mention that the entire gun had been optimized by Master Jiang, making it even more advanced than the flintlock rifles that were popular in Japan later.

Originally, Yan Xu was a little worried about whether the technology of this gun would spread and have a bad influence on future generations. But then he thought that he was going to unify Japan and become the father of everyone here, so he didn't need to consider these things. His mind became clear and he became more motivated.

Next, Yan Xu ordered a batch of flintlock props, fire extinguisher cylinders and oxygen cylinder cylinders from the hardware factory in the name of the crew.

The fireworks factory received a huge order, and the factory director was so busy that he didn't even have time to smoke.

In the next month, Yan Xu continued to prepare for the unification war of the sub-island. In addition to purchasing more old grain, he also transported more expired compressed biscuits and pet canned food as military rations.

Various other preparations made the atmosphere in the entire territory tense.

However, time passed too quickly, and before he could finish his preparations, Yan Xu entered the world of the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China for the second time.

There is no way. Any war cannot be started just like that, not to mention that this time he is aiming to unify the secondary island. It is easy to start a war, but it is not so easy to stop it. We must be fully prepared.

(End of this chapter)