Anti-Qing: I'm actually an honest person

Chapter 119 Show Your Muscles

I have to say that Vauban is really a genius. The bastion improved by him, at least before the era of rifling, was almost an absolute defense.

Wu Sangui and the others are veteran generals in the army, and they are very knowledgeable. After spending half a day walking around the entire bastion, they have confirmed that this city is indestructible.

Even if they don't rebel, Liu Dapao can fight against the Manchus with this city alone. Even if they are given an army of [-], they will never be able to capture this city until the ammunition, food and grass in the city are exhausted. .

However, Chenghai County is built on three sides and the other is close to the sea, so the supply of food, grass and ammunition can come from the sea continuously.

In other words, if you want to break through Chenghai County, you can only win at sea, and the only navy south of the Yangtze River in the Qing Dynasty is in the hands of Liu Dapao.

Thinking of this, the eyes of Wu Sangui and the others fell on Luyter, who had been following them with an interpreter.

Luyter looked at the Vauban-style castle in front of him, which was built with the help of their Dutch experts, and was very, very satisfied. In fact, in Europe, there was a legend that no one could capture the Vauban-style castle except Vauban himself. Of course, he can also see that the lifeblood of this city lies in the sea, and it is impossible for the army to break through this city.

For a while, the four of them couldn't help reevaluating Liu Dapao's strength.

The offense may be insufficient, but with this bastion alone, they have more than enough defense.

"Since this bastion needs so many firearms to be able to defend it... Chief Liu's guns and cannons seem to be very rich?"

Liu Dapao smiled and said, "Everyone, this way please, now I will take you to visit my weapons factory. I have always believed that the era of cold weapons is over, so there are neither swords nor armor in my factory." , producing only two weapons, guns, and cannons."

"What is the approximate production capacity?"

"Currently it's just a trial production stage. After it's officially put into production, it can produce more than 100 guns every day. Of course, if you can get further support from Amsterdam as you said, General Luyter, I think it should be possible to further expand production. .”

"The Orange faction is currently controlling the arsenal very tightly, but I think it is not a big problem to secretly move about half of the equipment and senior workers to Chaozhou, but we have to pay them higher salaries To lure them, your production capacity should be doubled again."

"Oh, that would be wonderful."

"But Liu, your gun looks...it seems to be shorter than the gun we use."

Wu Sangui and others also saw the problem: "This gun, this cannon, seems to be shorter and thinner than those in the army."

"But it's more powerful. Let's just talk about this gun. I call it the Fuming Gun. The flintlock is loaded in the rear. The bayonet inserted in the front barrel can be used as a short spear. This is a bullet. You are welcome to try it."

(In fact, it is the Remington rifle, the mainstream weapon in Europe during the Napoleon period, which was probably less than 100 years ahead of Europe and more than 200 years ahead of the Qing Dynasty)
"Huh? This bullet?"

"Paper-wrapped gunpowder, it's just a little cleverness, blending gunpowder into granules can effectively prevent moisture and increase the power of gunpowder, and then through accurate weighing, weigh the best loading amount for firing, wrap it in paper, and use your mouth when loading the gunpowder Just bite open the paper bag and fill it directly, which not only greatly saves the soldiers’ reloading time, but also greatly reduces the risk of bombing.”

Seeing this, Lao Le couldn't help exclaiming: "It's such an amazing invention. I never thought that Liu, you are not only the godfather of business, but also a great scientist. Can you tell me how to make this grain of gunpowder?"

"It's nothing complicated. Just mix eggs and flour with gunpowder in a certain proportion and stir it. If you use this method to make gunpowder, you can even reduce the proportion of sulfur in gunpowder. It's not impossible to replace sulfur with other things."

Wu Sangui couldn't help feeling: "It's such an amazing invention, the chief rudder actually shared such magical skills with us so selflessly?"

"Are you all comrades who oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty? If your strength increases, my hope for the restoration of the Ming Dynasty will increase."

"The mind of the chief rudder is really admirable."

"You're welcome."

Liu Dapao didn't mind at all that the method of making granulated gunpowder was made public. Firstly, the method was too simple. Adding eggs to flour would not be able to prevent people from looking into it.

But more importantly, the flour and eggs are actually based on high-purity fire nitrate. It’s hard to say in Europe, but the purity of the Qing Dynasty’s fire nitrate is not very pure. If you add a little Pile up flour and eggs, whether it can be burned at that time is a problem.

The method of purifying Huo Nitrate was in the hands of Zhu Shuo and his army of deaf-mute people, and Liu Dapao really regarded it as his lifeline.

Bang bang, bang, bang.

With Wu Sangui and others' test guns, Liu Dapao naturally gained a lot of flattery. The anti-Qing Fuming gun he made has a shooting power that surpasses that of a duck gun, and it also has the convenience, reload speed and Lighter in weight, equipped with a bayonet on the muzzle, it can be used directly as a short spear, which is simply a big killer on the battlefield.

"Can this gun penetrate the standard armor of the Eight Banners soldiers?"

"Looking at the distance, piercing armor within [-] paces is like piercing paper, but it's hard to say beyond [-] paces."

"This is really a magic weapon. If there are ten thousand such sharp guns, why is Wu afraid of the Eight Banners? Brother Liu, you have to supply me with some of these guns no matter what."

Hearing the words, Geng Jingzhong hurriedly said: "King Pingxi's words are wrong. Reversing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty is not your business alone. Besides, you are far away in Yunnan. How can this gun be transported to you? Brother Liu, give it to me, no matter what You have to give it to me first."

Lao Le even touched his chin and said, "Liu, this factory should belong to West Pacific Company and not to you personally. As a shareholder representative of the company, I ask you to give priority to changing our company's interior. ..."

Liu Dapao laughed and said, "Lao Le, don't make trouble. I'll talk to you later. There are better things for you to keep."

He turned his head and asked the four feudal clans: "Don't you all ask the price?"

Wu Sangui heard the words and said: "Brother Liu, tell me, I will never bargain!"

Geng Jingzhong even said: "No matter how much King Pingxi pays, I am willing to add [-]% to his offer."

Liu Dapao smiled and said: "Then I would like to thank you for your trust, but you have also heard what Lao Le said just now. After this gun is produced, I must give priority to reequipping myself and his navy. The old-fashioned weapons that have been loaded can be half sold and half given to you. These new guns can be sold for about half of them for the time being, about forty or fifty guns per day.

But talking about money is meaningless. After the rise, everyone is a colleague of the same temple. Since my Chaozhou is the new capital of the central government, I naturally want to support you front-line generals. Why don’t you raise money?Let's see how the battle is going, if good steel is used on the blade, whoever fights fiercely with the Qing court, these guns will support whoever, just give me some iron or something so that I don't cut off the raw materials for production. "

"For nothing... for nothing?"

"Yes, free gift"

"Brother Liu's mind, I admire it."

"Where, where."

Liu Dapao really didn't intend to make money from them on the guns, and he sincerely planned to sell them at a loss or even give them the guns. After all, this gun must and can only be loaded with his own high-purity gunpowder.

Whether it is fine water and high-purity gunpowder, the production cost must be high, it must be as high as I said, I only promised that the gun is free, but I never said that the gunpowder is free.

And as long as the preparation method of stacking and making nitrate is strictly controlled, then, the more new guns the four feudal clans replace with new guns, the more they will be restricted by themselves.

It's good to change all the clothes, when the time comes, I will break the gunpowder, hehe.

After finishing speaking, he patted Lao Le on the shoulder and said, "Don't snatch the gun from them. How useful are guns for naval battles? I've tinkered with some new guns, let's see?"

Lao Le's eyeballs lit up: "Okay, this cannon is much more useful than a gun at sea."

"Come on, the cannon manufacturing workshop is here. It is faster than guns. It is almost ready to be put into production now. About two batches of cannons can be produced in a month, and each batch can be more than a dozen. Compared with traditional artillery, it is also thicker. Thinner and lighter, but with some improvements in power and range."

"However, this is not the most important thing. What's more important is that I differentiated the artillery, improved their shape, and divided them into two completely different types and uses of cannon and howitzer."

"Of course, Lao Le, as far as I know, you already have cannons in Europe, but there is no strict classification yet. The purpose and method of use of these two types of artillery are completely different."

"Our traditional artillery is more close to howitzers. Whether it is a tiger squatting gun, a French machine gun or a red cannon, they are almost all fired at an elevation angle. What we are after is the weight and range of the shell. On this basis, the cannon body has been slightly changed, but the change is not too big, I call this cannon, it is called the Thunder God Cannon, come, master, push that, the red cannon, and demonstrate it for comparison."

After two bombardments.

"Look, the range of the Thunder God Cannon is almost a hundred steps longer than that of the Red Clothes Cannon. The bullets are also larger and more destructive. It's a small improvement."

Sun Yanling praised: "The improved Thor cannon is much lighter than the red cannon, and it should be enough to use even in field battles."

Liu Dapao said with a smile: "This cannon is really not designed for field battles. Well, I named this cannon Myojin, which will completely replace the Furang cannon. It is also a field cannon I prepared. It's a pity It’s just that the output can’t increase, otherwise it’s not much more difficult to deal with the Eight Banners with this thing than killing pigs and sheep.”

"Oh? This thing is so amazing? This Myojin Cannon... has such a long barrel, it looks like a large firecracker."

"Yes, the design of the cannon is relatively more complicated than that of the howitzer. It has three sections. It is precisely because of the design of the three-section barrel that the bottom is thicker and the top is narrower. The overall strength of the barrel is lower than that of the traditional Francois machine gun. , the caliber is smaller, the power of the shells is also smaller, and even to be honest, cleaning the barrel is slower, and if it is not cleaned well, it is easy to blow up the chamber. One advantage, I think, more than offsets all its disadvantages."

"What advantage?"

"The biggest difference between a cannon and a howitzer is that the work done outside the ballistic is changed to work done inside the ballistic. In a simple understanding, it can be fired directly like a firecracker. It is designed for flat shooting."

"Howitzers shoot at an elevation angle, and the killing method is to use the kinetic energy of the shell falling from a high altitude to kill people. If the soil is soft, it may smash a hole or use a clod to collapse people. If the soil is hard, it may bounce up to attack the enemy. The army caused further damage, but to be honest, such damage is still limited after all, and a single shot can kill a dozen or twenty people."

"The Myojin Cannon is about the same weight as the Frang Machine Cannon. It can be pulled by any horse with a special cannon cart. The range is far inferior to the Frang Machine Cannon. The limit range is more than two miles. However Because it is a flat shot, from the direction of the muzzle forward, within one mile, wherever the shell passes, people and horses will be destroyed. If the enemy army is not prepared in advance and is in a state of complete confusion, this cannon will kill hundreds of people. Everyone is possible, you should know what kind of concept this is.”

When everyone heard the words, they were all dumbfounded.

This is a weapon that truly changes the way of warfare.

If this thing becomes popular, there may not be many formations handed down from the ancestors left. When marching in battle again, we must increase the width of the formation as much as possible and reduce the thickness of the formation. , after all, a dozen of this thing is a string. In extreme cases, use this thing to form a long snake formation. If the angle is right, one shot may end the battle.

Of course, the Raytheon Cannon replaced the ecological niche of the Red Clothes Cannon, and the Mingshen Cannon replaced the ecological niche of the Frang Machine Cannon. Originally, there was a Tiger Crouching Cannon among the mainstream equipment of the Qing Army, which was a real small cannon. The flower bombs have a very short range. There is actually a substitute for this piece of Liu Cannon, and that is the grenade.

But Liu Dapao doesn’t plan to sell the grenade. It’s filled with sweet gunpowder. Sugar is a scarce resource these days, and I don’t even have enough of it. The grenade is actually a sharp weapon for attacking the bastion. Bang-style castles are not afraid of artillery, but they are really afraid of grenades.

"Liu...Brother Liu, can this gun also support us?"

"Of course, it's the same as guns. Whoever fights fiercely with the Qing soldiers will give priority to supporting them. Of course, there are some things that everyone knows, so I won't say them. I hope everyone... work together, but here I put a bottom line. , there can only be one Great Ming in this world, and there can only be one Emperor Ming. If anyone dares to move the mind of setting up a new king, I invite you to discuss it with me. I, Liu Dapao, swear on the ancestral tablet that I will definitely fight with him It's the end of the mountain."

(End of this chapter)