open sea

Chapter 958
"Three, two, one, let go!"

Accompanied by the arms of the Beiyang officer holding the command flag and raising his hand on the beach, 24 new rockets of the Ming Empire rose into the sky on the iron-covered launcher amidst the scattered gunpowder smoke, rushing into the distance with violent tail flames and screams .

On the watchtower built against the cliff on the other side of the coast, Chen Mu took in everything with his binoculars. He said to Bai Yuanjie beside him, "The ballistic trajectory is straighter than I imagined, and the spread is not too big."

At this moment, a large piece of door plank erected 750 steps away has been burned by the rocket into a sea of ​​flames. Some door planks were broken and nailed to it by the rocket, and shattered into sawdust when they exploded. He was directly knocked to the ground, more rockets failed to nail the door panels, and the scattered kerosene adhered to the sand and emitted raging black smoke that Chen Mu liked.

As Bai Yuanjie said, the range of the rocket is not as far as that of Zhao Shizhen's original Shenwei mechanism arrow, but the effect is amazing.

The most eye-catching thing is that their dispersal range has greatly improved compared with the Shenwei arrows used by Master Lu. At a range of 750 steps, 24 thick rockets are scattered between [-] or [-] steps, which is already extremely high accuracy. up.

The fire oil in the distance is still burning, and the heavy footsteps of juniper helmet and armor can be heard from under the watchtower.

Du Heizi brought a standard Vulcan arrow to Chen Mu. The body of the arrow was completely black, and it looked like a smaller caliber cannon.

Chen Mu didn't go to pick up the rocket, but asked Juniper to put it on the stone pier under the watchtower, because Bai Yuanjie had already told him the parameters of the Vulcan arrow, and one of these rockets weighed [-] catties.

The most interesting thing is that the Vulcan Arrow is a split type, which can be roughly divided into three sections. Needless to say, the pusher of the propulsion department, as the middle and front explosives of the warhead, there are [-] three-coin cast iron pellets used to cause damage. But it still has the front end.

Very scheming front end.

The tip of the cylindrical rocket is conical, and a seven-inch-long and one-inch-thick iron spike grows from the top of the cone, which is used to nail the rocket into the target when it hits the target, but this is not what the rocket looks like when it is launched. On the jacket of the cone-shaped arrow is a medium-through pottery cone-shaped pot, which contains a catty of kerosene.

Chen Mu felt that the reason why the Vulcan Arrow had a short range was because he wanted everything. He wanted to kill the personnel with a warhead weighing more than four catties, and he wanted to set fire to the ship and bring spikes and kerosene that weighed more than two catties. How could it be so heavy? Hit far?
But this structure is very useful, because the nail is very long, the rocket is very heavy, the fuel tank will not fall off during flight, and after hitting the target, it will be broken by the impact when the spike penetrates half an inch, and then the explosive will explode. While driving, ignite the kerosene.

One round of salvo from a ship can consume nearly a thousand catties of gunpowder.

If this is based on the price of Ming Dynasty, the cost of a round of gunpowder salvo is nearly 27 taels of silver.

"The cost is very reasonable."

Faced with such a cost, Chen Mu gave such an evaluation. He said to Bai Yuanjie: "Using 100 taels of silver to paralyze an enemy warship and clean up all the sailors on the upper deck is very appropriate."

Within [-] steps of the walking range, it means that when you hit a big ship at sea, you basically put one at a time, and the two jade-faced rakshasas shoot out in salvo. It is impossible to burn the enemy ship, but paralyzing the enemy ship will make it lose its maneuverability and combat ability. enough.

How do you say that?

If you are poor, you will operate tactically, if you are rich, you will be bombarded by Lao Tzu.

"It's fine if you're satisfied. If you want me to say yes, it's just a kind of farming. It's better to let others do it when formulating those tactics and codes of conduct. Your Beiyang minister should farm in Tianjin and make your Tianjin industrial base well. There is no need for war." Don't worry about it."

Bai Yuanjie nodded as he spoke: "Why don't you persuade the emperor that Mr. Bai will take care of the affairs of Dadongyang for you. You can go back to live in Hucheng, and take Beiyang close and control Dongyang remotely."

This is just Lao Bai's fantasy. In fact, a few months later, he will return to Daming with more than 200 remaining ships, and then he will sit in Beiyang in Tianjin to guard Chen Mu's increasingly prosperous industrial base.

Chen Mu twitched the corner of his mouth, go back?
He is not going back.

Going back must be a troublesome thing, so there is no such thing as being comfortable overseas.

He simply put aside the topic and said: "So, the gunpowder gap in Yazhou is 65 catties, no, at least two rounds of firing capacity must be prepared on board the ship to be used, plus the common use of guns and guns, at least 200 million catties must be stockpiled. The gunpowder on it will do."

Sai Lugong's ability to change the topic is very profound, and what he said made Bai Yuanjie look sideways: "What are you doing to prepare so much gunpowder? You gather the rockets sent by the imperial court together, and fifty Rakshasa boats are always ready at once." The rockets fired are enough to fight a battle, so you don’t need to prepare so many rockets, and it won’t work if you can’t use them up for a long time.”

Chen Mu was happy, nodded and said, "That's right."

Of course he didn't intend to stockpile so much gunpowder, but he still said relaxedly: "The situation here is complicated. Brother Bai, you didn't know it when you first came here. Mangchong's saltpeter production is very high. So I sent Chang Sheng four thousand catties of nitrate, all of which were as big as rocks."

"This is still a shortage of manpower. I just started digging, and the output will be more in the future." Chen Mu smiled and asked Juniper to call the banner army back to the city, and said to Bai Yuanjie: "Store nitrate, and we can make medicine within a month if necessary." Come on, let alone make gunpowder directly, we can sell it if it is not used up.”

"There's Fei Laoer over in Dadongyang, who spends all day thinking about beating up his neighbors. The market price of our gunpowder is two or three and nine cents per hundred catties. It's not too much to sell him for one hundred and a half taels per hundred catties."

As Chen Mu said, he took out a silver coin from Juniper's waist and handed it to Bai Yuanjie, saying, "Here, that's it. The Spanish money was made in the Ming Dynasty. He entrusted us to make it. The silver they dug from Peru was first passed in the Dongyang Military Mansion. a hand."

"This year, 17 jin of silver will be minted, or 2703 taels. According to the contract, 40 taels will be returned to Daming. This is the service fee for minting coins. The remaining 800 taels will be used to mint money for him."

"Coin nine silver and one copper, mint 460 silver coins for him, Daming will get another 23 taels."

"So now he doesn't need to give us money when he does business with us." Chen Mu said this with a straight face, and said: "As long as he wants anything, I will send it to him immediately. Anyway, all his money is with me. I can just deduct it myself, and I will never let him suffer.”

Bai Yuanjie was unable to complain anymore.

Originally, he thought that he said that among the old brothers who counted money the most vigorously, this could at least find some comfort for his life value during the wasted years in the Nanyang Military Mansion, but he didn't expect that the Dongyang Military Mansion was even more powerful.

Even taxes are not mentioned, and they are directly minted for other countries.

Lao Bai hadn't thought about how to respond to Chen Mu's self-satisfaction, so he saw horseshoes flying dust from the official road towards the port, and Juniper had already led two personal guards to protect them in front of them.

After the rider rolled off the saddle from far to near, he saw a Mongolian rider dressed in full armor, prostrated himself on the ground and clasped his fists after a few steps. There's a war going on in the east."

Chen Mu and Bai Yuanjie looked at each other, and he saw the heat and longing in Lao Bai's eyes.

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)