Wild North America 1846

Chapter 132 New Development of Grape Valley
After the two parties reached an agreement, the criminals in custody were secretly transferred, and Baron Granville-Gower arranged for the ship to be transported away. The relevant diplomatic secret mails were sent out immediately, and the efficiency was astonishingly high.

three weeks later
Nov. 1847, 9

The Oregon Treaty was signed between the Oceanic Kingdom and the British Special Representative. The British and Tang parties divided the Oregon State with the 49° north latitude line as the boundary (note; Vancouver Island belongs to the Datang Kingdom), the north belongs to the United Kingdom, and the south belongs to the Datang Kingdom.

Datang Kingdom paid US$170 million for this as compensation for the British Hudson’s Bay Company’s establishment of settlements in the Oregon area and other colonial losses.

This one was a unanimous decision after discussions between the British Prime Minister William Lamb and the Foreign Secretary Sir Henry John Temple, and it looked better.

The British want face, and the Tang Kingdom wants benefits.

Datang Kingdom’s $170 million is not in vain. In addition to getting Vancouver Island, which the United States has never received in history, it will also receive additional British aid to build two shipyards, San Francisco and Los Angeles Pier, and excavate a large copper mine. and all equipment for smelting, as well as the assistance of related administrative, legal and municipal professionals.

Its value has exceeded the 170 million US dollars exceeded by the Datang Kingdom, which is equal to compensation in disguise.

The 1.5 cavalry equipment promised by the United Kingdom has been shipped to the Tang Kingdom. On this basis, some other materials have been added, such as some surplus tents, blankets, field cooking utensils, kettles, shovels, and a large number of them that have been stored for nearly 20 years. Black gunpowder and so on are considered gifts.

For the rich and powerful British, these materials in the warehouse are drizzle!
On the second day after the signing of the treaty, the Tang Kingdom publicly hanged nearly 2 white prisoners. Although the official did not make a clear statement, the masses spread the gossip, saying that it was the execution of those white prisoners who rebelled.

Taking into account the feelings of some white groups in the country, it was not specifically explained, and the sentence was executed in a low-key manner.

The government kept a low profile, but the public couldn't hold back their inner excitement, especially the Chinese community.

This move was very gratifying, and the Chinese people rushed to tell each other, beating gongs and drums to vent their joy.It greatly deterred a small group of people with strange thoughts and stabilized the social situation.

grape valley

After a year and a half, Grape Valley has changed a lot.

Shanhaiguan, which used to be dominated by wooden fences, has now been replaced by a tall and solid city wall. The two gilt characters of "Shanhai" are engraved on the big stone slab, which looks dignified.

Entering through the wide city gate is a stone-paved road that winds along the river and mountains to the distance.

A large number of houses are built along both sides of the road, which have a distinctive style of Chinese pavilions and pavilions. The double eaves and bucket arches are unique and look like a beautiful landscape painting.

these two years

Chinese gold diggers made a fortune by the American River, built houses, married wives and took concubines, and there were one or two or more large carriages parked at the door of each house, showing a wealthy life.

A beautiful white woman can be bought for three or four thousand dollars.

With the influx of Chinese immigrants, many factories and iron mines have been put into operation one after another, and the population of Grape Valley has grown rapidly, reaching 2.7 people, and its growth momentum remains unabated.

In Erdaowan Village and Sandaowan Village, a large number of wine shops, handicraft workshops and brothels can be seen along the street, and the passing carriages often cause congestion, which is a prosperous scene.

There are many factories in Sidaowan Village, the most conspicuous is the huge reinforced concrete mushroom-shaped factory building of Colt Weapons Company, decorated with lattice patterns, which is the most abstract modern architectural work and a landmark building in the entire Grape Valley.

Accompanied by Mr. Samuel Colt, the director and general manager of the company, Richard inspected the pistol production workshop and the rifle production workshop along the spacious factory building, and finally came to the artillery production workshop.

The artillery production equipment in the workshop was aided by the UK, and 76 engineers and technicians from the UK helped Chinese workers familiarize themselves with the production equipment and taught them production experience.

The three caliber guns produced in the artillery workshop are the British Whitworth 12-pound field gun, the 20-pound field gun and the 40-pound fort defense gun.

The British Whitworth gun is a relatively advanced rifled gun in the world today. In the early 40s, Italy developed a rifled gun, and Sir Joseph Whitworth of the United Kingdom developed a new 12-pound gun. This is the British Army Standard Whitworth gun, and developed a variety of calibers.

"Your Majesty, to put it bluntly, the British artillery produced by our company can blast those arrogant Yankees into scum, and let them know what firepower is."

After Samuel Colt was awarded the honorary title of Knight of the King, he naturally brought himself into the role of a subject of the Tang Kingdom and was proud of it.

Recently, Li Cha has entrusted 64 knights of the king, including important officials from both the military and political circles. The entitlement standard for officers is above a major officer, and officials and businessmen who have made important contributions in the political and economic circles.

Only those who have the title of King's Honorary Knight can be enshrined as nobles in the future. Compared with an ordinary American nationality, it is not difficult to choose between the two.

Among the white immigrants in North America, there is a persistent and obsessive pursuit of the title of nobility in their bones. Unfortunately, in democratic countries such as the United States and Mexico, it will never be possible.

There is only one monarch in the entire North American continent who is qualified to confer nobility, and that is King Richard of the Tang Kingdom, he is the Grand Duke of California who was conferred by the honorable Queen Victoria of England, His Majesty the King of the Tang Kingdom.

As the traditional top nobleman in Europe, there are two types of dukes, namely grand dukes and dukes.

The grand duke family is more noble and powerful, and can inherit the grand duchy or create a new grand duchy, and the kingship is generally recognized.

The grand duke's son is a prince and his daughter is a princess.

For example, the Kingdom of Bavaria in Prussia, the Kingdom of Hesse, the Kingdom of Hamburg, as well as the Duchy of Luxembourg, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Kingdom of Datang, etc., are all grand duchies.

As the monarch of a country, the Grand Duke has the right to entrust the nobles below the earl, which is the dream of countless people.

Dukes do not have such rights, and it is impossible to establish a country. Dukes in Britain, France, Tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary, etc. are only members of the top nobles.

The inheritance of the duke family is the same as that of other European nobles. The eldest son inherits the title and fiefdom. Before he inherits the title, he can be honored as "the noble lord so-and-so".

Behind Li Cha stood a tall, thin middle-aged white man, about 40 years old, he was Lieutenant Colonel Harry Frazier, the former commander of the Tennessee Cavalry of the U.S. Army, the U.S. military officer who was so cautious that Li Cha was troublesome , is also one of the newly entrusted King's Knights.

There is no doubt that he is a traitor to America.

But Richard prefers to call him an Irishman with a bright heart. Yes, Harry Frazier is a white Irishman.

With his hands behind his back, Richard looked at the rows of unfinished gun barrels with satisfaction, and turned around and asked, "Harry, from the professional perspective of the army, what are the advantages of the Whitworth 12-pound gun?"

Harry Frazier bowed to pay respects with a humble expression, stepped forward and pointed to the position of the barrel and said;

"Your Majesty;

The Italians introduced a hexagonal rotating rifling design into the artillery barrel, coupled with ammunition with a hexagonal section, the shells obtain rotational force when they exit the chamber, making the shells move more smoothly, shoot more accurately, and have a relatively longer range.

The British Whitworth 12-pounder, 20-pounder field guns and 40-pounder fort guns inherited this advantage and gave us a great advantage in battle.

Just take the British Whitworth 12-pounder field gun as an example;

It adopts very advanced breech loading technology, and the gun's chamber pressure is increased, which can accurately bombard targets within a distance of 1600 yards (about 1463 meters), and the maximum effective range reaches 4500 yards.

In actual combat

The French Napoleon 12-pound smoothbore artillery equipped by the U.S. military has an accurate bombardment distance of about 700 yards to 1100 yards, which is far behind, and the impact points are scattered, and the precise bombardment capability is limited. It belongs to the artillery equipment level at the end of the 18th century.

into the mid-19th century
Along with the advancement of artillery technology, there is also gun technology.

In the 19s, the technology of breech-loading rifles and barrel rifling began to be used. Taking the more advanced Springfield rifle as an example, the effective shooting distance of this gun is 40 yards (about 500 meters), and the actual warhead is 460 yards ( About 1000 meters) distance still has considerable lethality.

In actual combat, the Napoleon 12-pound field artillery loaded in the front of the U.S. military is very vulnerable to the platoon fire of the enemy's offensive infantry, and it will die after a few rounds of artillery.

Everyone knows
Musketeers have a natural fear of the black hole muzzle. When possible, they will involuntarily focus their guns on the artillery. The temporary artillery positions built in the field environment cannot provide reliable protection for the artillery.

Therefore, improving the performance of field artillery and making shells fly farther, more accurately, more deadly, and more lethal has become an important performance indicator of advanced artillery.

During the battle, the artillery with more advanced performance can kill the enemy musketeers at a longer distance, and there are more opportunities for several rounds of shelling, while the advanced breech loading technology can protect the artillery to a greater extent, becoming the last weapon to crush a camel. A bale of straw.

Based on the above, Weichen believes that the superiority of artillery technology will win us the final victory and make an indelible contribution. "

"Clap clap clap..."

Li Cha smiled and clapped first, nodded approvingly and said, "Okay, okay, very good, very thorough, especially the sentence "win us the final victory", very well said."

His Majesty's praise made Lieutenant Colonel Harry Frazier blush, and he bowed humbly.

Li Cha didn't care about his embarrassment. After all, the soldiers were not as thick-skinned as the politicians, but they were much more ruthless.

If Lieutenant Colonel Harry Frazier had not resolutely carried out the task of slaughtering young white men in Minneapolis, he would not have been able to gain Richard's trust, let alone the glory of the King's Knight.

No pain, no gain!

Richard asked questions as he walked, while Samuel Colt answered every question, walking all the way forward.

"In the current production, can Chinese workers operate independently?"

"Your Majesty, these Chinese workers are the most intelligent and hardworking workers I have ever seen. Now they are able to operate independently on the revolver and rifle production lines, producing products that are not inferior to experienced gunsmiths."

"Oh, not bad, is it an exaggeration?"

"It's true. I'm very satisfied with these hardworking Chinese workers. It's just that on the artillery production line, due to relatively high technical requirements, most of them are still operated by British technicians. This has to be done slowly."

"Didn't they send you a batch of literate youngsters at the end of last year? Have you passed the language barrier now?"

"Basic communication is fine, but they lack physics. The basic knowledge of chemistry and geometry needs to be taught slowly. I estimate that it will take at least four or five years to have some basic knowledge."

"Take your time. There are a large number of teenagers up to the age of 16 among the recent Chinese immigrants. I have instructed the relevant departments to set up schools to focus on teaching basic knowledge of language, geography, mathematics, physics and chemistry, and to accumulate reserve talents for factories."

"Your Majesty is wise."

"Hehehe... These things have to be done sooner or later. It is better to do it sooner than later. The missed lessons must be made up." Li Cha smiled, and then asked again; "The current production of guns is enough. Heavy machine guns and artillery are the focus of the next step, and by the way, there are also copper cased ammunition."

"The output of heavy machine guns is not bad now, 30 guns per month can basically meet the requirements, the output of artillery is relatively low, only about 6-8 guns per month, and it is possible to increase to the level of more than 12 guns per month after proficiency. The main reason is that the rifling process is difficult to master and the scrap rate is high, so there is no rush.”

"How much does each gun cost?"

"Due to the high scrap rate of new hands, the cost remains high for the time being. To manufacture a British-made Whitworth 12-pounder field gun costs about 640 pounds. However, it only costs 300 pounds to import such a gun. Big."

"Pay the tuition fee! It's understandable. No matter what, you still need to have the ability to produce independent artillery. After you have a thorough understanding of the technology, you can develop new products and possibly export them to Europe or other countries. This is a good deal."

"Your Majesty has insight into thousands of miles, and humble ministers and others feel ashamed."

"Hahaha...Mr. Samuel, don't be humble. I think your standardized industrial process is very creative. You can find more engineers to improve it. Don't be afraid to spend more money on this aspect. Sharpen your knife and cut it by mistake. Woodworker."

"Thank you, Your Majesty, for your understanding. I am about to do this, and I really need some excellent helpers to improve some of the transactional work. This will free me up to improve the weapon design, and the breech-loading rifle you mentioned, which is in my opinion There are many interesting ideas in my mind, but I have never had the opportunity to implement them.”

"This must be supported! You are responsible for recruiting experts. The more the better, we are not afraid of having too many talents, so don't worry about the financial treatment. Colt Arms will never treat experts badly."

Richard himself is the largest controlling shareholder of the Colt Arms Company, so if he speaks, the funds will be secured.

The weapons industry is related to the safety of the Tang Kingdom, no matter how much money is spent, it is worth it.

(End of this chapter)