Wild North America 1846

Chapter 175 The Imagination of the Artillery Revolution

Mid-May 1849

Just after the Lunar New Year, just in time for the beginning of spring, California has ushered in an overwhelming spring snow, mountains and rivers are frozen, and thousands of miles of snow drifts.

The large-scale snowfall lasted intermittently for two days, and the green spring that had just bloomed was strangled in the seedling state.

early sunny after snow
A group of dozens of riders galloped on the snow-covered road from Chang'an Xinshi Town to Fangcaodi, with the king's flag fluttering, and the Yong knights were all majestic and heroic. They were all cuirassiers of the Royal Guards. The next is still very sturdy and imposing.

The horseshoes splashed the remaining snow and ground it into mud.

Breathing the cold air of early spring, the officers and soldiers of the elite cuirassier regiment had red noses, but they still maintained a strict formation, and their steel armor and leather shoes were polished brightly, which represented the glory of the royal family.

Li Cha was riding a pure-blooded white Suffolk heavy horse. His figure was as vigorous as a dragon. Surrounded by a group of personal guard officers, Li Cha rode the horse. His deep eyes were already looking at Fangcaodi Town in the distance.

When the king of the Tang Kingdom travels, there is at least a squadron of personal guard cavalry, and at most there is a squadron of personal guard cavalry to guard him. There is no such thing as the Qing dynasty, where the emperor went on patrol with tens of thousands of grand formations. All the etiquette is simple, and there is no step Chariots, dragon chariots, canopies, flag poles and so on.

After all, it is only a small country with more than a million people, so there is no need to engage in such vain things.

Li Cha doesn't like the red tape of the Eastern Dynasty, it must be the feudal dross that will be abandoned by the trend of the times, and it has no meaning except to promote the vanity of the emperor and completely separate from the people.

The horse galloped all the way, and the snowflakes splashed by the horse's hooves were like fog.

The buildings lined up in Fangcaodi Township appear in front of you, and its scope has expanded a lot compared to a few years ago. It extends to the distance along the 4-5 storey tall European-style buildings on both sides of the avenue, and is almost connected to Grape Valley.

Due to government restrictions, no buildings are allowed to be built at the mouth of the grape valley, so a large square with an area of ​​one million square meters has been formed outside the mouth of the valley.

Municipal buildings are all built around the square, there are churches, Taoist temples, temples, and more urban shops and residential buildings, so dense that you can't see the edge at a glance.

After years of construction, Shanhaiguan has been continuously raised and built. Above the pass is a three-story Chinese palace-style building, which is majestic and tall, just like the gate of Beiping City.

The city gate was also built into a three-arched system, with a tall main city hole in the middle, which is planned to pass trains in the future, and two small city gate holes on both sides for pedestrians and carriages.

After passing the main city cave of Shanhaiguan, continuing to go inside is a broad road. The snow on the road has been swept to the side of the road. All kinds of carriages carrying people and goods are all driving on the right, and there is an endless stream of traffic.

More than 10 guard cavalry rode their horses in front, presenting a line of geese, shouting loudly to order everyone to retreat.

The golden royal coat of arms on their back flags has indicated their identity.The carriages dodged one after another along the way, and the passers-by stood respectfully along the street with their hands down, looking excitedly at the majestic figure of His Majesty passing by on horseback, with uncontrollable admiration.

The unobstructed Grape Valley Avenue extends inward. On one side is a broad running river, and on the other side are high and low buildings on the hills, stretching into the distance.

three years

Grape Valley has taken on the majestic appearance of a modern urban agglomeration, reflecting the overall construction of the Tang Kingdom. The high-rise apartments, gas street lamps, well-dressed Chinese and wives and children in the town all reflect the vitality of the kingdom's economic development. .

Galloping for about half an hour, I saw a postmodernist mushroom-shaped building in the distance, which is the world-famous Colt Arms Company. This big mushroom was designed by Earl Samuel Colt himself. And presided over the construction of the main factory building, the internal area is very broad.

got here
The group of people slowed down a little, and they saw Earl Samuel Colt leading the senior management of the weapon company to greet them from a distance.

"My minister welcomes His Majesty, and wishes His Majesty the Holy Body to be healthy."

"Excuse me, my lord."

Li Cha got off his horse in the square in front of the Colt Arms Company, handed the reins of the horse to the guard officer beside him, and said to Samuel Colt kindly; "Let's go, we don't need to stand here to blow the cold wind , go inside and watch and talk.”

"Being respectful is worse than obeying orders, Your Majesty please."

Earl Samuel Colt turned sideways and made a gesture of invitation. After Richard strode over, he followed closely, always maintaining a respectful posture of being one step behind.

After several years of rapid expansion, Colt Arms has developed into one of the world's leading military equipment companies.

With more than 7600 workers, it can manufacture the best-selling Colt 1846 cavalry revolver, Colt 1848 lever-action repeating rifle, storm heavy machine gun, British license 6 pounds, 12 pounds, 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 40 pounds Pound and 60-pound series caliber field artillery, deck guns and shore guns, new copper-cased bullets, Colt double-barreled shotguns, Colt Mini rifles and other equipment, received a large number of orders from European countries, including France and Prussia, these European army powers.

Among them, the Ottoman Empire alone ordered 3 Colt 1848 lever-type repeating rifles, 1.2 Colt 1846 cavalry-style revolvers, 550 million rounds of new copper-cased bullets and a large number of army weapons and equipment. The popularity is evident.

The power of these new weapons and equipment of the Tang Kingdom is an iron-clad fact that has been verified by the Yankee's outstanding record.

European powers are all masters with their eyes above the top, and they will not easily value the industrial capabilities of North American countries.

Without the unlucky Yankee as the background board, it is impossible for these old European powers to place large orders obediently.

Earl Samuel Colt is indeed very capable and talented in weapon design and production. The workshop designed by him is spacious, bright and very modern.

Not only that, Earl Colt and his engineers personally designed weapons production equipment and bullet production equipment, and realized industrialized production of uniform specifications, which is of great industrial revolutionary significance.

The entire weapons company can develop to the scale it is today and is famous all over the world. Earl Colt can be said to have made great contributions to the military victory of the Tang Kingdom.

After inspecting around, looking at the busy workers in the spacious workshop, Li Cha asked with a smile; "Your Excellency, you are not busy making money every day, but you are delaying technology research and development, right?"

"Qizou Your Majesty, I really feel that I don't have enough skills!" Earl Samuel Colt looked distressed.

He is now in the distress of happiness, holding an order contract for tens of thousands of long and short guns from Europe. The weapon company has repeatedly expanded rapidly, and is still facing the dilemma of insufficient manpower, insufficient equipment, and insufficient production capacity.

Seeing that the Colt Arms Company is about to develop into a world-class military factory with tens of thousands of people, various management and production problems are complicated. Even a genius like Samuel Colt feels overwhelmed and difficult to deal with. , let alone spare time to research and develop new weapons.

Li Cha shook his head in disappointment, and said earnestly;

"Your Excellency, you can't do everything alone, you must let go when the time is right, and let some other talented people help you manage the company and manage production.

Only in this way can we get away from trivial company affairs and engage in the most meaningful weapons research and development.

Similarly, in the research and development of weapons, there is no need to do everything by yourself. As long as you grasp the research and development direction and determine the correct scientific research route, some technical work can be completely handed over to the engineer team.

The Colt Arms Company has developed to the present level. It needs to learn to let go and learn to delegate power. It only needs to grasp the financial power and personnel power.

According to the equity change agreement promised at the beginning, part of the Colt equity held by the royal family can be partially resold to you. This is a reward for the Earl's hard work, and it is also an expectation.

It is expected to make the cake of the weapons company bigger. You must know that Colt Weapons has only made achievements in the field of long and short firearms. In fact, the biggest cake is artillery.

A large-caliber coastal defense gun costs thousands or even tens of thousands of Tang Yuan, and the British first-class sailing battleship is equipped with more than 200 guns. How much is it worth?
This is the largest weapons market, don't be blinded by one leaf!

If Colt Arms wants to really do it, it has to get involved in the field of artillery research and development, improve the process, improve the design, as long as it manufactures artillery with excellent performance, is it afraid that there will be no buyers?Are you afraid that Colt Arms will not make money? "

The king's words made Earl Samuel Colt's eyes brighten. He was originally a very smart person, but he was temporarily dazzled by interests and couldn't see the longer term.

The awakening in Li Cha's words made his head clear up.

Immediately, Earl Samuel Colt realized something, and looked at His Majesty the King with surprise and joy, full of enthusiasm and expectation.

Most of Colt Arms' best-selling new products are the whims of His Majesty the King, and Mr Colt is responsible for realizing them.

This company was originally owned by the royal family with an absolute controlling stake. The king can be regarded as an idea for his own weapons company, and he will take the bulk of the profits. No one thinks there is anything wrong with it.

In weapon design and innovation, creativity is the most difficult part, but it is not difficult to realize it.

Especially in the Colt Arms Company, which has a group of world-leading weapon designers led by Samuel Kert, it has strong research and development capabilities from idea to realization, lever-type burst rifles, heavy machine guns, all-metal fixed Loading bullets and all that.

Of course, Li Cha didn't need to be tricky, he came here for the leapfrog development of artillery, revealed some world-leading ideas, and also for the development of the Tang Kingdom's armaments, and by the way, he also made some money.

So, under Earl Samuel Colt's earnest and fiery eyes, Richard walked with his hands behind his back and said;

"Artillery technology in today's world has not changed for decades, from the time of Napoleon to the present, it is still stuck in a rut.

From the Battle of the Red Rock Valley, it can be seen that the power of the artillery is seriously behind the new storm-type heavy machine gun, and it is not satisfactory in terms of lethality, deterrence, range and explosion effect.

According to the general staff headquarters of the Tang Kingdom, there are roughly four shortcomings, which are also important improvement directions for artillery in the future.

The first is that the artillery range is too short and the shooting accuracy is too poor.

The main 6-pound and 12-pound field artillery have a range of 600 meters to 1500 meters. They have a small coverage and poor accuracy, and can only be used for probabilistic shooting.

The direction of improvement and improvement should be to strengthen the sealing of the breech breech, increase the power of gunpowder, and improve the shooting accuracy. If necessary, the design of the rifled gun should be considered to fundamentally change the long-standing problem of poor shooting accuracy.

Second, the old front-loading method of the artillery is no longer suitable for the current battlefield environment.

Whether it is a heavy machine gun or a rifled Mini rifle, the range can threaten the artillery 800~1 km away, and the artillery loading shells under the enemy's muzzle is tantamount to death.

The direction of improvement and improvement should be breech loading, which has been discussed in related papers in France and Italy.

If nothing else
It won't be long before we see improvements in European artillery, but I hope Colt Arms makes a difference in this area, rather than waiting for the Europeans to take the lead again.

Third, the type of shells.

Today's shells are still solid shells and shot shells, oh... By the way, the navies of Britain, France and other countries also have a chain bomb, which is specially used to attack the masts and sails of sailing warships.

to be frank

The impact effect of the solid ammunition mainly used by this kind of artillery is very poor, and it is more of a spiritual comfort. The killing effect on the enemy is far less than that of the storm-type heavy machine gun and the lever rifle salvo.

in this regard
The direction of improvement should be shells that can explode on the ground. Can we put fuzes on the shells?As long as it hits the ground, it will detonate, forming dozens or even hundreds of steel fragments, and the killing power will inevitably increase greatly.

from a technical point of view

This kind of impact fuze belongs to the field of mechanization and chemical engineering. As long as the design is delicate enough, it can completely replace unreliable shotgun shells or solid bullets with too little power, thus becoming the mainstream product of artillery shells.

Regarding the experiment in this area, I hope the company can conduct it in secret, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kingdom will cooperate with the blockade of news and implement a secret research and development plan.

Fourth, the power of explosives.

I suggest that Colt Arms Company set up a special laboratory and hire senior chemists to form a research and development team for in-depth research and development.

A reliable and powerful explosive, the demand in today's world is calculated in tens of thousands of tons, which can fully support a giant chemical enterprise, and the future prospect is extremely bright.

Monsieur Earl, do you think so? "

Mr. Samuel Colt was stunned at this time, and he was stunned for a moment before he came back to his senses. His heart was already wrapped in great excitement. Can he imagine what a glorious prospect this kind of future is?

Is it difficult to achieve?
The answer is yes; it is indeed difficult, but not untouchable.

Earl Samuel Colter was already excited and incoherent, and said;
"You speak very well, Your Majesty, what a great prophet you are!

Hmm... In the name of Celt Arms Company, I will invite top engineers and chemists from all over the world to set up 4 research and development teams to tackle the scientific and technological problems you mentioned one by one.

I myself will be the chief designer of the new artillery, and I am committed to launching a revolutionary artillery, which will surely become the flagship product of Colt Arms Company and sell well all over the world.

Oh... by the way, there is also a new type of gunpowder.

Great, that's really great...we've found where the future is headed. "

Facing Earl Samuel Colt's fiery eyes that glowed with excitement, Richard just smiled noblely, with a kind of indifference to hide his merit and fame.

What's so exciting about this little thing?

In the future, Colt Arms Company will develop into the world's largest military enterprise or a future chemical giant will be born. Royal Capital will still be the largest shareholder and beneficiary.
Li Cha didn't come here in such a cold and snowy day to pretend to be coercive. Let me remind you at a critical moment. You can not only reap an uncountable huge amount of money in return, but also gain the admiration of a genius weapon designer. This is a win-win situation!
(End of this chapter)