Europa Universalis 1867: Start by inheriting an armory

As residual heat rose from the dark red cannon barrel, Armstrong, leaning against the machine tool's iron frame, fell into a long silence.

The workers and the foreman standing nearby dared not move an inch, not even daring to breathe heavily.

Suddenly, Armstrong moved.

He unbuttoned his coat, and the dark gray tuxedo jacket slipped off his shoulders and fell to the ground.

Sir Armstrong strode over to the cannon barrel, took out his high-powered magnifying glass from his pocket, held it up to his eyes, and examined the surface of the barrel inch by inch.

He was like a fervent spectator trying to expose a magician's trick, convinced that behind those seemingly impossible things there must be an invisible thread or a hand hidden in a sleeve.

But he found nothing.

There was no curling, no dents, and certainly no seams.

There was nothing about it that he could say was problematic or flawed.

Its surface is smooth and flat, but no one has polished it because it was squeezed out by hundreds of atmospheres of pressure, a perfect crystal whole.

Armstrong put the magnifying glass back in his pocket and rested his hands on the edge of the metal frame.

He turned to look at the wrought iron bar winding machine that was still running idly in the corner of the workshop, the hammer of the forging press suspended in mid-air, and the surface of the cooling pool was completely still.

Something flashed through his mind: perhaps those wrought iron bars that were hammered into cannon barrels, or the days and nights of welding, grinding, inspecting, scrapping, and starting over in high temperatures.

But those days are over.

He sighed heavily, as if his chest had been pierced from the inside, and he needed to gather his strength again just to stand up.

"This is absolutely perfect," he said.

This is both admirable and disheartening. A technology that an inventor nearing sixty years old has spent half his life honing has been rendered obsolete and scrap metal by a younger generation decades younger than himself.

Richard walked over to him, and the two stood side by side, looking at the cannon barrel that was still gradually cooling down.

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"Can we continue?" he asked.

Armstrong raised his head and forced a smile.

"No, Mr. Brian," he said, "let's try this barrel."

This request was not unexpected; Richard knew Armstrong was a skeptical pragmatist who wouldn't listen to anyone's boasting and only believed in data.

As long as that cannon fires farther and more powerfully, there's no need for any words to persuade him.

"Let's give it a try," Richard replied with a smile. "Turn it into a gun barrel, take it to the firing range... and double the propellant."

Armstrong raised an eyebrow, looked Richard over again, and then nodded solemnly.

"Okay." He turned around and raised his voice, "We'll do it your way."

The workers immediately sprang into action.

They lifted the cannon barrel off the receiving rollers, fixed it on the processing table, and began to draw lines on the barrel wall, cut both ends flat, and bore threads at the breech. The sound of machining metal echoed throughout the workshop.

A few hours later, the gun barrel was assembled onto a half-finished Armstrong breech-loading gun.

The gun carriage and breechblock were original, as was the firing mechanism; only the new chromium-nickel alloy barrel that had been installed gleamed with a cold, bright silver light under the dim workshop lights.

The test firing range was located on a vacant wasteland behind the factory, surrounded by low earthen walls with barbed wire.

The workers placed two cannons side by side on the firing position: one was Richard's new cannon, and the other was a traditional seven-inch wrought iron bar cannon.

The assistant measured the muzzle diameter of the two cannons with calipers, wrote the numbers down in his notebook, stepped back a few paces, and nodded to Armstrong.

The workers first loaded the traditional wrought iron cannons with explosives.

The projectile is pushed in first, then the propellant charge is inserted into the breech, the breechblock is locked, and finally the fuse is inserted.

The assistant adjusted the maximum angle of incidence, and everyone retreated behind cover.

"Release!" Armstrong commanded.

The gunner pulls the firing cord.

boom!

A dull roar echoed across the field. The muzzle swayed slightly the moment the shell left the barrel, and the shell traced a low arc before disappearing from sight.

A few seconds later, the echo of an explosion came from afar.

Workers at the observation point waved flags and recorded data.

Armstrong raised his monoculars and quickly estimated the location of the impact point, which was about four kilometers away.

He was all too familiar with this result. He had been firing the same cannon and the same explosive charge for over a decade, and he could guess the approximate location of the impact point before the shell even hit the ground.

"Next door," he said.

The workers doubled the propellant charge for Richard's new cannon. As the propellant pack was being stuffed into the breech, the worker's hands trembled slightly; he had never stuffed so much gunpowder into a seven-inch cannon before.

He stepped back a few paces, as if afraid the breech would break open, adjusted the same angle of incidence, and returned to the bunker.

"put."

The gunner pulls the firing cord.

boom!

This time, the sound wasn't the deep, muffled thud of a traditional iron cannon, but a crisp, high-frequency metallic crackle.

This is because high-density alloys like chromium-nickel steel transmit shock waves extremely quickly. The energy of the gunpowder explosion is transferred from the bottom of the barrel to the muzzle within milliseconds and is not absorbed by the deformation and cracks in the material.

However, the people at the observation point four kilometers away did not see the point of impact.

They only heard the sound of shells whizzing overhead, followed by the echo of an explosion from behind a distant hill.

Armstrong frowned because he hadn't seen where the shell had landed and assumed the cannon had misfired.

He raised the binoculars and looked into the distance.

Then he opened his eyes wide.

He saw the dust kicked up by the explosion slowly dissipate in the air behind the hill, like a gray iris.

His hand gripped the binoculars tighter, and he murmured incredulously, "Eight kilometers...no, nine kilometers?"

Richard walked up to him and asked, "So, are you satisfied with my cannon barrel?"

Armstrong wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and swallowed.

"It's not enough for a cannon to just shoot far," he said. "It also has to be accurate."

"Of course, we'll follow the rules of your venue." Richard nodded.

Armstrong waved to his assistant.

The assistant recalculated the angle of incidence, raised the muzzle, and aimed it at the distant target at the range six kilometers away.

It was an armor plate that had never been penetrated and was used to test the limits of range.

The wrought iron surface is hardened, so that a shell from a traditional seven-inch cannon can only leave a shallow dent and knock off a layer of paint.

The workers loaded the explosives again, and everyone retreated behind the bunker, holding their breath.

"put."

The cannons roared again, and shells streaked across the sky.

A few seconds later, an even louder explosion came from six kilometers away.

Armstrong, trembling, held the binoculars up to his eyes, and the armor plate, considered the limit of Armstrong's cannon, was completely pierced.

The shell entered from the front and exited from the back, leaving a neatly shaped round hole.

The shockwave warped the frame around the armor plate, even breaking the chains that held it in place, which then dragged on the ground.

Armstrong dropped his binoculars from his hands and hung them on his belt. He strode over to the cannon, almost lying on the ground, and brought his head close to the breech, probing the barrel with the reflector in his hand.

The inner wall of the breech was completely undamaged. Under the torment of double the explosive charge, it fired a shell with twice the range of a conventional shot, penetrating armor plates that had never been penetrated before, while remaining completely unharmed.

Armstrong got up from the ground and brushed the dust off his knees.

The somber grayness on his face had vanished, replaced by undisguised fervor, surprising Richard with the incredible transformation a person's face could undergo.

He ran a few steps to Richard, grabbed his hand, and was afraid he would run away.

"This cannon can't stay here for even a minute longer," Armstrong said in a low voice.

He turned and yelled at the bewildered foreman in the distance, "Call the guards! Get the canvas! Hurry up!"

The manager was taken aback, then turned and ran towards the factory area.

Soon, several uniformed guards ran over, dragging heavy canvases, and covered every inch of the cannon barrel from top to bottom.

Armstrong stepped aside and waved to Richard: "Please, Mr. Brian, we have a lot to talk about."