After coming out of the Silver Prayer Tower, Ouyang Shuo turned around and left Royal City, heading towards the Southern District.
The Southern District was the military zone after the expansion.
The Seventh Research Institute was located there.
It had been a month since the Black Snake Guards found the Ming Dynasty Firearms Manufacturing Technical Manual from the Emperor Palace. He wondered how Liu Mo and the others were doing with the manual.
After returning to Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo naturally had to inspect it.
Firearms represented the highest level of technology in the future and the main direction of attack.
There were two main types of firearms in the Ming Dynasty. The first type was the hand-held firearms and muskets. Their size and caliber were relatively small. Usually, the barrels were filled with lead and iron bullets, and their range was only tens of steps to 200 steps.
Converted to meters, the furthest they could go was 200 to 300 meters.
Among the firearms, the more representative ones included the three-eyed gun, chain gun, crutch gun, thunderbolt gun, five thunders divine armament, Lu Mi gun, and so on.
Among them, one had to mention the crutch gun.
The crutch gun was a continuous firing musket with a crank. It was 375 centimeters long and used a loading method similar to the Franco machine. It could fire three times in a row and had a range of 150 meters. In the Ming Dynasty, it was known as the "Victorious Franco machine".
It could be said that the crutch gun was the closest to the firearms of the West.
The second type was the cannons that were mounted on a stand. Most of the barrels were filled with stone, lead, iron, and so on. They were commonly known as "solid bullets". A small number of them were filled with explosive pellets. Their range was usually a few hundred steps to two to three miles. They were mainly used to defend strongholds and siege cities. They were also used in field battles, water battles, and sea battles.
Hong Xiuquan had previously focused on the second type of cannons.
The cannons of Tianjing City had all been transported to Shanhai City for the Seventh Research Institute to study.
The more representative cannons of the Ming Dynasty included the Crouching Tiger Cannon, Franco machine, and the Hongyi Cannon.
Among them, the Hongyi Cannon was known as the General Cannon. It was manufactured at the end of the Ming Dynasty with the introduction of Western technology. It had barrel ears and a sighting device that could adjust the range. The cannon had a long lifespan. The large cannon weighed 16 tons and could reach a range of 19 kilometers.
Other than firearms and cannons, there was another type of firearm, which was the rocket. It included cluster rockets, fire crows, fire dragons, and so on.
The Divine Fire Crow was a crow filled with gunpowder. The gunpowder was connected to the gunpowder in the gunpowder barrel of the rocket.
When it was launched, the gunpowder line of the rocket was first ignited, causing the rocket to fly towards the enemy, and then the gunpowder inside the crow's body would be detonated, killing and burning the enemy's men and horses. It was a powerful weapon for breaking formations and sieging cities.
Fire Dragon Out of Water, as the name suggested, was a sharp weapon in water battles.
It was a multi-stage rocket from the Ming Dynasty. The first stage of the rocket was tied to a paper paste tube, and the second stage of the rocket was attached to the dragon's mouth. After it was launched, it would increase the range of the rocket to hit the enemy's ships. It was used for attacks on water, and the range could reach up to 15 kilometers.
It seemed that the firearms of the Ming Dynasty were extremely developed and very comprehensive. They could all be used in actual combat. However, compared to the West at the same time, they were much weaker.
First, let's talk about guns.
The Three-eyed Blunderbuss was the mainstream blunderbuss of the Ming Dynasty. However, its true killing range was less than ten meters. It was only strong within a distance of two feet. Furthermore, it was not accurate at all. It could only be used as a club for hand-to-hand combat if it missed its target.
As for the Guizi Blunderbuss mentioned earlier, it was a gun imported from the West during the Ming Dynasty. Unfortunately, it was limited by the level of technology at that time, and basically could not be imitated.
Even if the imitation was successful, its safety and power would be greatly reduced.
First and foremost, it was the materials.
Take metallurgy for example. The Chinese used pig iron and wrought iron very little, and the barrel of the gun had to be forged with wrought iron or steel. This made it extremely difficult for the Chinese, and in the end, they had no choice but to give up.
This problem had long been solved in Shanhai City.
Before Ouyang Shuo left Shanhai City, he had already started to arrange for the steel industry. Up until now, the ten steel mills that he had planned had all been completed and put into operation.
Every month, the finance department spent a huge amount of gold coins to purchase millions of tons of iron ore and coal, which was enough to support the production needs of the steel mills.
As for the cannons.
Due to the tragedy of metallurgy, the so-called Crouching Tiger Cannon's barrel was incomparably thick. It could only shoot a stone ball the size of a billiard ball 100 meters away. There was no way to adjust the distance, and it didn't even have a wheel.
The divine weapon, Franc, was a small cannon used on the small merchant ships of the West. It was called "a toy for sailors without actual combat ability", but it became an amazing firearm in the Ming Dynasty.
For the Ming Dynasty, the Franc was a super high-tech product that surpassed the technological capabilities of the country. Without the guidance of foreigners, they couldn't even produce it.
Moreover, the domestic Franc often exploded, and the number of people killed by the explosion far exceeded the number of enemies killed by the explosion.
It could be said to be a complete and utter tragedy.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, western technology was imported, and the imitation of the Red Barbarian Cannon was the strongest firearm in the entire Ming Dynasty. In essence, there was no difference between the Red Barbarian Cannon and the Franc, except that it was longer and bigger.
On the other hand, the standard of casting large cannons in the Ming Dynasty was very low, and the quality was terrible. The large cannons that were cast were often cracked waste. Therefore, they had to ask foreigners for help before they could gradually cast the cannons successfully. However, the quality was still poor, so the cannon's barrel was extremely thick. The Red Barbarian Cannon cast in the Ming Dynasty was more than two meters long. At that time, it was considered a huge cannon, and it was said to have a range of ten li, but in reality, it was only about one li.
In comparison, the super mobile cannon cast by the Mongolian Mengwuer Dynasty was three meters tall, 20 meters long, weighed 50 tons, and had a range of more than 20 kilometers.
Between the two, there was no comparison at all.
Therefore, after Ouyang Shuo obtained the "Ming Dynasty Firearm Manufacturing Technical Manual", he didn't even think about manufacturing the various firearms in the manual one by one.
Although it wasn't difficult for the current Shanhai City to achieve this goal, it wasn't difficult at all.
What Ouyang Shuo wanted was to use the "Ming Dynasty Firearm Manufacturing Technical Manual" as a blueprint, and combine it with Shanhai City's current scientific research capabilities to upgrade and modify firearms.
His first goal was to develop a firearm that could catch up with the West's average standard, and a new cannon that matched it.
That was all.
As for other firearms, rockets, and the like, Ouyang Shuo really didn't have the mood to think about them.
Only by doing this, Ouyang Shuo could lead the China region in the future war, and not repeat the humiliating tragedies of history because of the huge gap in weapons and equipment.
In order to achieve this, Shanhai City had to build a set of relatively complete industrial system. Building a steel factory was only the most basic step in the industrial system.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
