Iron Dynasty

The sound of rapid footsteps came from outside the imperial study.

After a while, Chen Qi's figure appeared, he walked up to Xiao Ming, bowed, and called out Your Majesty.

First Song Changping, and now you, Chen Qi. The two of you have always been to the Three Treasures Palace without incident. Let me guess, you must have made some progress in artillery.

Chen Qi's face was a little tired, but his eyes flashed with excitement, he said: Your Majesty, it is true, after years of accumulation and research, now the artillery factory has finally succeeded in producing the first piece of artillery. A rifled breech gun.

Really? Today is really a good day. First there are metal bullets, and now there are breech guns. It's really a double happiness.

The smile on Xiao Ming's face grew stronger.

In fact, Chen Qi has been doing research on rifled guns for a long time, but the development of firearms is too fast, which makes Chen Qi constantly change the original design, until the Han-style rifle is finalized, which makes him suddenly feel that all the problems he faced before are solved at once. Rifled breech guns also came into being.

Of course, Xiao Ming knew about Chen Qi's research, but he didn't care about him except throwing some materials to him. In the past, he didn't want to care because he knew that the industrial base at that time could not make a qualified breech gun, but now all the conditions Obviously already there, all the fruits of nature will come naturally.

But to talk about the breech gun, in fact, this kind of artillery appeared very early. The Fran machine used by the soldiers of the contemporary Ming Dynasty is a typical breech gun.

The structure of this kind of artillery is divided into two parts, one is the barrel and the other is the rear-mounted sub-gun, as if a complete artillery was cut into two sections. , align the sub-gun and barrel to fire.

In this way, you only need to replace the sub-gun after each launch.

According to historical records, this kind of artillery is a kind of artillery popular in Europe from the late 15th century to the early 16th century.

Now metal bullets are really just a natural extension of the Fran-style rear loader.

In this era, the West also had this type of artillery. The Dutch had described this artillery to him in detail and sold it to him, but he was rejected.

The reason is very simple, from the modern age, he doesn't like this kind of rear-mounted structure at all, and it turns out that his decision is right, because within a few years, Qingzhou produced the breech artillery of the nineteenth century level.

Hey, Your Majesty, this time the officer did not lag behind. Instead, he made full use of the previous technical accumulation. The three technologies of rifling, breech block, and pulling fire are all complete. This kind of artillery is better than the previous field artillery in terms of range and accuracy. The speed has been greatly improved. Chen Qi said excitedly.

Xiao Ming nodded with satisfaction. The rifling technology comes from the rifling technology of the musket, and the pulling fire tube comes from the pulling fire technology of the grenade. Only the design and manufacture of this breech block is a brand new process.

It can be said that the evolution of artillery is a by-product of industrial development.

In this case, I will take the generals of the Military Machinery Department to see your masterpiece. As the saying goes, hearing is worse than seeing, and now he is a little itchy.

Moreover, the development of weapons in the nineteenth century basically set the tone for later generations, and the subsequent development is only partial improvement. Therefore, if the Han-style rifle and this type of artillery are officially installed, it will mean that the army of the Great Yu Kingdom has truly modernized .

After all, the three of them left the imperial study together, and when passing by the outer palace, he asked Qian Dafu to call Niu Ben and Luo Quan.

The group arrived at the military workshop under the protection of the imperial guards.

Your Majesty, this is our metal bullet production line. Song Changping said proudly.

Xiao Ming looked at the factory building that Song Changping pointed to. At this time, the machinery in the factory building made a roar of metal slamming during the operation of the workers. The workers were sending boxes of separated shell casings and bullets to the factory next door.

Some workers are assembling primers, propellants, warheads, and casings in this factory.

Your Majesty, the production speed of this metal bullet is really much slower. It's like shitting sheep. Niu Ben frowned. The conical bullet used in the front chamber gun used the casting method, and lead water was used. Pour it on the dense mold, and it can be made in large quantities at one time.

Now comparing the two, he felt the difference, According to the statistics of our previous battles, after the trenches appeared, it took an average of 2,600 rounds of bullets to kill an enemy. This is because they are not familiar with our firearms. Come on, Your Majesty, at this rate of production, I would think it would be better to use the old cardboard bullets.

Luo Quan nodded when he heard the words, Yes, paper shell bullets are enough, this kind of metal bullet is so troublesome to produce, it is estimated that the price is expensive, and it is more than enough to deal with Korea or Japan.

Xiao Ming smiled when he heard the words. The two of them said that for him, they were qualified generals. Blindly touting weapons and ignoring the cost performance would not be qualified generals.

Judging from the current situation, there is indeed no urgent need to use such high-cost bullets in the current Dayu country. It is enough to use paper-shell bullets for Han-style rifles.

Just as the Western countries actually had rifled guns for a long time, but they did not mass produce equipment, they still used rifled rifles for a long time, until they were beaten by rifled guns in the war before they came to their senses.

For Xiao Ming, he naturally understands this truth, but the Great Yu country has its own national conditions, and the huge territory and long border line make him have to deploy a large number of troops to guard.

Goryeo and Japan cannot settle down completely for a while, and they have to garrison the army. In this way, the number of soldiers he can use for overseas colonization will be reduced, and he cannot limit the number of violent soldiers, because he needs population migration. to the Kanto, and even Siberia to consolidate the occupied lands.

In the future, after driving out the Golden Horde on the grasslands, it will also be a headache to control the grasslands.

In all these cases, he could only rely on the difference in weapons to make up for the lack of troops. It was with this advantage that Europe was able to control a large area of ​​colonies with a small number of troops.

After explaining his thoughts to the two of them, Xiao Ming continued: Now Europe is full of grass and trees due to the rise of the Great Yu Kingdom, and its weapons must be spared no effort to catch up with us, so it is necessary to maintain the generation gap. But as you said, metal bullets and shells are expensive and slow to produce, but we can hoard them and use them when necessary.

Niu Ben and Luo Quan looked at each other and nodded. Sometimes they still couldn't keep up with the emperor's thinking.