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May 26th, Foshan.
No one in the Liberation Army dared to look down on the British anymore, especially the powerful naval cannons of the British. The Liberation Army, who had suffered before, dared not look down on them anymore. Therefore, after the recovery of Guangzhou, the Viceroy's Office did not move back to Guangzhou. Instead, it was set up in Foshan.
When the subordinates sent by Lin Fengxiang passed through the war-torn Jiangxi and arrived at the city, they were moved by the lively atmosphere of the city. Foshan was not as grand as Tianjing City, but it was livelier than Tianjing City. Tianjing City had entered the fifth year of wartime military rule. The city, which looked like a large military camp, was heavily guarded, and the entire city was filled with a strong murderous aura of war.
Although it was also a wartime "capital", after a series of wars and killings, Foshan did not seem deserted. The shops in the market were open, and business was still going on. The docks were also full of ships from all over the world. If not for the armed police stationed at various important places and the patrolling police, the whole of Foshan would seem to have nothing to do with the war.
The subordinates sent by Lin Fengxiang were quite touched, but they did not expect that not only was Foshan not far from the war, but even more people who were involved in the war were rushing to the city. The reason why Lin Fengxiang sent people to ask for help was not to buy the products needed during peacetime. The purpose of manufacturing and using cannons was to carry out more effective killings, not to use them for farming.
The subordinates Vézé sent to receive Lin Fengxiang arrived at noon the next day. After listening to the other party's intentions, Vézé only asked one question, "We can only transport these cannons to Ganzhou. I wonder how far Prime Minister Lin can go?"
Lin Fengxiang's subordinate said, "Reporting to Your Highness Prince Qi, Prime Minister Lin said that if Prince Qi is willing to sell us the cannons, we will do our best to protect the cannons even if we have to send troops to attack Jiangxi."
Hearing this, Vézé nodded slightly. "Since that's the case, let's discuss it first."
Seeing that Vézé made it sound so simple, Lin Fengxiang's subordinates hurriedly shouted, "Prince Of Qi, no matter how much the cannon costs, we will pay for it. I only hope that the Prince Of Qi can save the Heavenly State! "
Vézé didn't say anything and continued walking without looking back. Recently, Vézé had been so busy that he had no time to waste on words. To be able to spare some time to meet with Lin Fengxiang's envoy was already giving him a lot of face. After the security department finished checking the envoy, they brought him to the reception office of the military academy. After listening to the messenger's mission, Vézé returned to his most important task.
The Chemical Engineering Department of the military academy occupied a large area, and there were many laboratories within it. Recently, one of the most important tasks in the laboratory was to sort out the periodic table of the elements. Other than the lanthanide and actinide series, Vézé could memorize all the contents of the table. This was one of the basic courses in high school. During class, the teacher would say, "Memorize the periodic table", and everyone would start to memorize it after class.
After transmigrating, Vézé sometimes wondered if the Chinese education system's emphasis on "solid basic skills" was a little doomsday. This kind of solid basic skills might be useful after the apocalypse, at least in the situation where the basic equipment was destroyed, when the basics were rebuilt, the power of the basic skills would be displayed. Anyway, the knowledge that Vézé learned was not unusable in 1852.
For example, with the spectroscope, one could measure the spectrum of the elements. After repeated experiments, one could determine the unique spectrum of the elements, which naturally proved the existence of the elements. As long as the majority of the technicians admitted the existence of the elements and established their own worldview based on the idea that the world was made up of elements, the rest of the technological development would be relatively easier. The majority of the engineering students were not very religious, and they were more likely to accept the concept of socialism. A large part of the reason was that in the process of learning knowledge, they naturally established a materialistic worldview. Whether God existed or not, this was still an unknown world. But atoms did exist, and they could be manipulated and used by humans.
Of course, science was one of the long-term goals of Vézé's development. In reality, there were more pressing needs in life. With the periodic table of the elements, spectrum, and a series of research and development, the research department of the military office began to try to establish a periodic table of the elements. The next step was to purify the elements. Small laboratories were currently doing this work. In this era, the scientific community of the European powers was almost doing the same thing.
Experiments required a large amount of ore, and the entire base was providing the collected ore to the laboratories. With this huge amount of ore as a foundation, the "great luck" finally happened. Among the ores provided by Gui County, there was a high-purity trihydrate ore. Vézé was not a prospector, so he didn't know that Gui County belonged to the later Guigang City. He also didn't know that Gui County had the largest reserves of trihydrate ore in China. Trihydrate ore was a type of aluminum hydroxide ore, and its purity was very high. It was very suitable for smelting aluminum. The reserves in Guigang City were as high as 200 million tons.
After heating, it turned into a gray powder. The spectrum analysis showed that it was an oxide, and according to the molecular weight calculation, Vézé could roughly infer that it was aluminum. This made him very excited.
In the entire monetary system of the military office, auxiliary coins were the most important product. Vézé wanted to use paper instead of copper coins. The copper, lead, and other metals in copper coins were very important to the metal processing industry, and copper coins were also very important to people's daily lives. Seeing so many metals being used like this, Vézé was very unhappy.
Now there was aluminum ore, and according to the prospectors, it was a large-scale high-purity aluminum ore. This was tantamount to opening up a perfect source of auxiliary coins. The hardness of aluminum was naturally a high-tech product in this era. It was difficult to imitate, and it was much more convenient than copper coins.
Not only was electrolytic aluminum taught in high school textbooks, but even the basic production equipment and essentials were also available. Therefore, this project became the focus of the recent period. After basic materials such as generators, graphite, ice crystals, aluminum fluoride, calcium fluoride, magnesium fluoride, and other basic materials were settled, the laboratory began small-scale production.
However, industry would inevitably bring about the consequences of pollution. Wei Ze was deeply aware of the power of industrial pollution. After producing aluminum on a small scale, the entire experimental area of the restored Viceroy's Office proposed whether or not they could drive this laboratory to the wilderness. The pollution from electrolytic aluminum was too serious.
This time, Vézé came here to first observe the electrolytic aluminum experiment, and secondly, to discuss with the researchers about moving the laboratory. The waste gas from electrolytic aluminum contained hydrofluoric acid and fluoride. These substances were very toxic, and were not suitable to set up a factory in the city.
The personal safety of the laboratory personnel also needed to be put on the agenda. After an afternoon of discussion, the plan to build a new aluminum base was confirmed. This base would be set up in a sparsely populated place with abundant water resources, and a small hydropower station could be built.
Also participating in the discussion were people from the physics department and electricity department. The hydropower station was theoretically easy to solve, but the magnetic part of the generator was not. The magnetic part directly affected the efficiency of power generation. How to design this part was a new big problem. Industrial production was not just for show. A large number of designs were completed through experimentation. The design of electricity also required a large number of copper materials. To solve the problem of copper materials, the fastest way was to recycle copper coins and smelt them.
Faced with the question of "which came first, the egg or the chicken?", Wei Ze, the engineering dog, led the group of people who were rapidly evolving into engineering dogs to discuss repeatedly. In the end, they came up with a plan of "try to satisfy the immediate needs as much as possible, and develop while we modify."
Once they had a plan, they began to discuss it. At first, they were still considering which parts needed to be modified, but soon the discussion changed to which parts didn't need to be modified. When all the participants found that all the technologies needed to be modified, "make do" became the final conclusion.
After the discussion, it was already night time. The next discussion was the problem of selling artillery to the Taiping Rebellion. This kind of matter didn't need to be discussed with the Standing Committee, they only needed to discuss with the General Staff Headquarters. The General Staff Headquarters was located near the military academy, so it was easy to gather personnel.
"Do you want to sell artillery to the Taiping Rebellion?" Vézé asked.
"Will they pay?" The General Staff Headquarters immediately asked after the case of buying the living hat technology and modifying the fire hat gun technology.
"They will pay," Vézé answered.
"Why wouldn't they sell it if they pay?" Hu Chenghe answered immediately. The other General Staff Headquarters also nodded.
"Then what kind of artillery will we sell to them?" Vézé continued to raise the next question.
"Do you even need to ask? All the artillery we bought from the French will be sold to Lin Fengxiang, "Hu Chenghe said straightforwardly.
"Isn't this a little inappropriate? Will those artillery reach the end of their service life? "Lei Hu asked anxiously. The French 12-pounder mountain howitzer was made of bronze, which was very durable. However, the durability was relative, and the bronze artillery had its own lifespan too. After Vézé bought the 12-pounder mountain howitzer, the usage rate was very high. From training to actual combat, each cannon had about 150 shots.
The others in the General Staff Headquarters felt that Lei Hu's suggestion was very reasonable. No matter what, everyone had fought in the Taiping Rebellion and had worked with Lin Fengxiang many times. More importantly, the officers in the Liberation Army were very sensitive about artillery exploding. The Liberation Army had eliminated other artillery early on because the lifespan of those iron cannons was very bad, and there would be accidents from time to time. When an accident happened, the painstakingly trained artillerymen would suffer unnecessary losses. It wasn't that they felt sorry for Lin Fengxiang, but after such a long period of training, they couldn't accept the fact that the cannon had exploded.
Seeing everyone's reaction, Hu Chenghe asked, "Other than the 12-pounder, we don't have any other artillery. Are we going to sell the three-inch cannon to Lin Fengxiang? "
This question made it even more difficult for everyone. The new three-inch cannon was forged and had a hole dug in the center, so its body was very strong. The gun carriage was modeled after the British gun carriage. Not only did the French 12-pounder mountain howitzer use this kind of gun carriage, but the British artillery captured in the Battle of Foshan also used this kind of gun carriage. Using this kind of gun carriage, the artillerymen could easily keep up with the marching speed of the infantry. This was one of the fundamental reasons why the Liberation Army's field troops could march fast and have strong fighting power.
When they attacked Ganzhou, the top of the city wall was already the Qing Army's hell, and it was also one of the famous "shooting ranges" for the Liberation Army artillery. According to the records brought back by Lei Hu, just eight cannons firing three times in rapid succession had taken care of more than 200 Xiang Army soldiers on the 80-meter long wall. The 200 Xiang Army soldiers were either dead or seriously injured, and had completely lost their fighting power.
Selling such a good thing to the Taiping army was not easy for everyone to accept. By now, everyone in the General Staff Headquarters had realized that on the road to unifying China, the Taiping army would become the enemy. It was not a matter of if it would happen, but when it would happen. If they gave too much to the Taiping army now, it would inevitably be suspected of aiding the enemy.
Seeing everyone's awkward expression, Hu Chenghe continued, "We rely on modern military knowledge to fight wars. The artillerymen train repeatedly and learn constantly. If we sell the three-inch cannon to the Taiping army, it will be a waste of the three-inch cannon. Besides, what is the precision of our artillery shells and what materials are used? Can the Taiping army make such artillery shells? "
The three-inch cannon had the characteristics of fierce firepower and good accuracy. A large part of the reason was that the artillery shells had been modified. The howitzers in this era used cylindrical shells. The Liberation Army also cut the front end of the cylindrical shell, and the warhead was streamlined. This not only increased the speed of the artillery shell, but also improved the stability of the artillery shell. In the test, the new three-inch cannon fired 12 shells in a row, and the landing point was no more than two meters apart.
Everyone knew the strength of the Taiping army's artillerymen. Such an excellent cannon could not be used to its full potential in the hands of the Taiping army. From artillery training to the manufacturing of artillery shells, even the Liberation Army could only listen to Vézé's arrangements with the advanced design concepts of the three-inch cannon, let alone the military level of the Taiping army.
Looking at everyone's expression, Hu Chenghe continued to explain his point of view, "There is another problem. If the Qing Army seized this kind of artillery shell, they will copy it."
This question was quite novel, and many people were a little surprised. Wei Changrong said, "If the British had this ability, I would believe it. Does the Manchu Qing have this ability? "
Lei Hu, who originally supported selling the three-inch cannon to the Taiping army, stood on Hu Chenghe's side this time. He said, "The Qing Army is smarter than we thought. I attacked Ganzhou and seized a large number of weapons and supplies from the Xiang Army. The Xiang Army's weapons have now made the leap from matchlock to flintlock guns. When interrogating the Xiang Army prisoners, we learned that the Xiang Army has set up a munitions factory and can produce their own flintlocks. Moreover, the Xiang Army has imported a lot of artillery. With the production technology of mercury fulminate, the Xiang Army has even copied the foreign fire-tubes … "
This was also the first time Vézé heard this news, and he frowned slightly. Perhaps it was because of the description in the history books. Li Hongzhang was a completely westernized westernization, and Zuo Zongtang was an open-minded person who did not oppose the introduction of westernization. Vézé's impression of Ceng Guofan was that he was an executioner who had no interest in western technology. He did not expect that according to the information he had collected, Ceng Guofan not only imported a large number of guns and cannons, but also imported technology and copied it.
The generals of the Liberation Army did not have the same feeling as Vézé. After listening to Lei Hu's introduction, Wei Changrong nodded and said, "Why don't we vote on whether to sell them the twelve-pound cannon or the three-inch cannon?"
The result of the vote was that everyone was in favor of selling the twelve-pound cannon to Lin Fengxiang. It was not a problem to sell some of the cannons to the Taiping Rebellion, as they were always short of silver. But even if they agreed to sell the cannons, everyone thought that there was no need to sell the bombs to Lin Fengxiang.
Seeing this result, Vézé suddenly thought of a saying, "People will eventually become egoists."
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