Border Town's western boundary, the Redwater River.

The accumulated snow made it difficult for the carriage to move an inch. The group spent half a day transporting the first field gun to the outside of the town.

"What's this time?" Carter had become somewhat accustomed to the new things the Prince kept coming up with. "An enlarged musket?"

"More or less." Roland directed his men to remove the hooks, then personally adjusted the angle of the gun carriage to flatten the gun barrel, bracing the support against the snow.

The principle of cannons and muskets is exactly the same, so it is very appropriate to say that it is an enlarged version of the musket. This cannon fires twelve-pound solid iron balls, with both the shells and huoyào loaded from the front. Roland, referring to mature designs in history, instructed the carpenters to build a set of wooden carriages for it. In order to improve durability, the parts that rubbed against the ground more and were subjected to greater force during firing were edged with iron.

To manufacture the carriage and wheels, Roland spent almost as much time as he did drilling the barrel. Three carpenters worked for a week to complete the task, especially the pair of wheels more than half a person's height. The carpenters first planed out four equal lengths of square wood, soaked them, and then baked them with fire to bend them. The ends were beveled to create mortise joints, and the outer edges of the hubs were covered with iron sheets and hammered. This whole process took four days.

Therefore, in Roland's eyes, this handmade, limited-edition twelve-pound field gun radiated a dazzling light. When it was dragged out for a test firing, the accompanying lineup was very large – Chief Knight Carter and militia commander Iron Axe went without saying, the entire guard and knight apprentices were on the scene, and the militia also dispatched twenty people to clear the area and guard the perimeter. In addition, he also brought Nightingale and Lightning for the first time. Thanks to Nana Wawa, the militia's prejudice against the witch community was reduced to a minimum, and Nana Wawa herself became the person in the team with the second highest prestige after the Prince.

"Let's follow the procedure, starting with cleaning the barrel." Although Roland was very clear about the structure of the cannon, he was completely blank when it came to the specific operation. He racked his brains to recall various cannon-operating scenes from medieval movies, trying to sort out a set of procedures, as for the actual effect, God only knew.

Lightning enthusiastically pulled out a mop-style cleaning rod from under the gun carriage and poked it into the muzzle—unlike the contracts of other witches, Lightning proposed that as long as she could personally operate various novel inventions, she would be willing to work for Roland, without paying any salary. Faced with this money-saving condition, Roland naturally agreed. Anyway, when it came to confidential projects, he could study them secretly. He had many ideas and inventions waiting to be realized in his mind, and just taking out a few of them would be enough for her to toss around for a while.

After fiddling with it a few times, the mop didn't bring out any debris, but according to the procedure, she had to clean it a second time. She switched to another mop and swiped it a few more times, and the barrel cleaning was completed.

"Do you all understand?" Roland asked the knights and militiamen who were watching. This test firing was also a drill. Now that the output of muskets had increased significantly, the militia would inevitably evolve into regular infantry, and wooden guns would be replaced by muskets and cannons. This required a lot of shooting training to be able to skillfully operate these two hot weapons on the battlefield.

Seeing everyone nod, he let Lightning proceed to the next step.

The little girl took out a bag of paper-wrapped huoyào, stuffed it into the barrel, and poked it to the bottom with a wooden rod. Then she put in the cannonball and tightened it again. She took out a drill bit and inserted it from the primer hole at the rear of the barrel, breaking through the medicine bag, and then inserted the fuse. In this way, the firing preparation was completed.

To prevent accidents, everyone retreated thirty steps away and hid behind cover. Lightning brought the torch close to the fuse. The end of the fuse sparked, and in the blink of an eye, it had burrowed into the barrel.

Then there was a loud bang—

The airflow ejected from the muzzle at high speed stirred up the accumulated snow, and a layer of snow mist rose from the ground. The theoretical effective range of a twelve-pound cannon can reach more than a kilometer. Even without rifling, the trajectory of the cannonball in the front section is still like a straight line. Placed about a hundred meters away, the armor target made a "dang" sound and was hit head-on by the twelve-pound iron ball, and the whole thing flew up. The iron ball continued its momentum, bouncing continuously on the snow, stirring up a column of snow.

When the smoke cleared, Carter and Iron Axe ran to the target as soon as possible. They saw that the front of the armor had been completely dented, the front deck was attached to the rear deck, and a palm-sized hole was in the center of the armor. Obviously, the cannonball flew forward for about a hundred meters after penetrating the target. Even when rolling on the ground, it contained amazing power.

"What a terrible penetrating power!" Carter exclaimed. He could already imagine the tragic scene when the enemy gathered together and was penetrated by several cannonballs through the team.

"Three Gods above," Iron Axe was starting to believe that Roland was the messenger of the Mother Earth. Who else but a divine envoy could harness the power of fire to such an extent? He had repeatedly studied those huoyào particles. As long as they were crushed into powder, spread out and lit, they were an ordinary flammable material. Fire is the surging anger of the Mother Earth, and also her most powerful weapon—thinking of the endless orange fire erupting from the caves in the far south, he felt an urge to worship the Prince.

Roland was not surprised by this result. The twelve-pound field gun can be called a classic generation, especially the Napoleon gun that shined in the American Civil War, which fully proved the truth that big caliber is beautiful.

Next, he used different amounts of propellant to test the strength of the barrel. Although he knew it might lead to damage to the cannon, this was a necessary test.

When he added up to three charges of propellant, the muzzle of the cannon started to lift and the carriage shifted, but the barrel still did not show obvious deformation. It seemed that the steel-cast barrel performed very well in terms of strength. Roland finally determined the standard charge to be 1.2 times the experimental charge. The rest was to select gunners and practice repeatedly.

"Your Highness, this weapon is indeed powerful, but it is too heavy. As long as it encounters a mud pit, it will be unable to move." Carter immediately saw the shortcomings of the new weapon. "And each round of firing requires cleaning the barrel, loading the propellant, and loading the shells. In addition, huoyào and shells are much heavier than muskets, I'm afraid that just one cannon will require five to six people to operate."

"Indeed, but everything is worth it. As long as we equip two or three cannons, the Duke... no, I mean the evil beasts, the giant turtle kind, will no longer be able to break through the city walls." Roland coughed twice, secretly saying it was close. As for the shortcoming that the twelve-pound cannon was too heavy, he planned to solve it through shipping. If a steam engine wants to be converted into a steamship, even the most primitive paddle steamer is a complex and huge mechanical system.

Instead of modifying it himself, it would be better to directly purchase a two-masted sailing ship and rely on Wendy's ability to control the wind to quickly transport the militia and cannons behind the Duke's troops to form an attack with the frontal troops, so as to encircle and annihilate the Duke of the Fortress's vital forces.