Chapter 75

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The powerful weapon frightened his own people. The four chiefs of the General Staff looked at the gun in Vézé's hand with awe. Vézé juggled the gun in his hand and tossed it up and down. The four chiefs wanted to stop him, as if the weapon in Vézé's hand was a fragile and fragile object.

Vézé said to the four of them seriously, "The matter of this gun ends here. Everyone must obey my order to keep quiet. If the news of this gun gets out, I will definitely not let it go. "

"Uncle, why don't we continue to make such a good gun?" Wei Changrong asked immediately.

Vézé could completely understand Wei Changrong's thoughts. He replied, "The problem now is whether or not it can be made. We don't have the conditions to make it on a large scale. Besides, there are too many problems with this gun. It's still far from being able to use it smoothly. "

Before Wei Changrong could question him again, Vézé threw the gun in his hand to Wei Changrong. Although the action was sudden, Wei Changrong easily caught the gun in his hand. With the real thing in hand, he played with the empty gun, aimed it, and carried it on his shoulder. Soon, Wei Changrong's face revealed a look of regret.

The other three also gave it a try, and everyone's expressions were similar to Wei Changrong's. The gun was powerful, but there were too many problems in other areas. First of all, the center of gravity was not reasonable. The official muskets had thicker metal barrels at the back, and thinner metal barrels at the front. The center of gravity was placed at the back, and it felt more comfortable. The weight of the barrel of the gun that Vézé made was about the same. Moreover, there was a bayonet installed at the muzzle. It felt heavy at the front and light at the back, and it was very uncomfortable.

This was only the most obvious problem. In Vézé's opinion, other than its great power, there were many problems with the gun.

The four of them understood why Vézé wanted to stop promoting the gun for now. Vézé did not care if they were willing or not. He handed the gun to Chen Zhe. "The technical department has made detailed records of the entire process. When we conquer the big cities, we can redesign this gun. By then, we'll put in the effort to design this gun so that it's easy to use. "

"What a pity!" Wei Changrong sighed.

"What's there to feel pity about?" Wei Ze laughed, "Before the next war, let's learn how to make flintlock pistols, at least learn how to make flintlock pistols. It won't be long. Qing Yao will be here soon. "

The task of learning how to transform a matchlock into a flintlock was handed over to the team that made the Migne rifles. The flintlock had too many advantages over the matchlock. The difficulty of transforming a matchlock into a flintlock was relatively low. At the very least, there was no need to forge a new barrel. All they needed to do was to change the firing mechanism from gunpowder to flint. In this day and age, flintlock muskets were also handmade. With this successful experience, it would be difficult to modify the gun, but there was no need to redesign the structure of the gun.

Other than the technical problem of modifying a gun into a flintlock, Vézé also made a request to the military department, which was to modify the wooden frame of the gun. When the Manchurian Qing muskets were designed, they did not consider the problem of bayonet warfare. Vézé requested to redesign the wooden frame so that bayonets could be installed. For the most elite troops, they could be trained into the role of musketeers and bayonets. Even if there were no flintlocks, as long as the wooden frame was modified, the gun could be modified into a handgun for assassination.

In this era, elite infantrymen could shoot from afar with rifles and fight with bayonets in close combat. This basic ability was still the mainstream of infantrymen 90 years later, in 1942. Vézé was determined to walk down this correct path.

In such a short period of time, Vézé had pushed back so many research topics. The military department's team in charge of firearms was under immense pressure. Vézé did not force them to immediately produce a perfect result. He let the firearms research team fumble about, and Vézé himself transferred to the cannon forging team. The blacksmiths had finished installing the equipment with the military department's assistance, and their progress was now at a crucial stage.

Wang Qixiu, who inherited the title of "Wang Dachui", was considered a capable person. After receiving Vézé's cannon blueprint, he and Vézé's military department worked together to cast a relatively fine mold. To cast a cannon with molten iron, a mold was needed. Naturally, the more precise the mold, the better. Even if it was a cannon with a barrel ratio of 5 times, the straighter the barrel, the better. How to make a perfectly straight cylinder? For ordinary craftsmen, this was a big problem. For Vézé, it was much easier with relatively fine stationery. The circle was fixed at a fixed angle, and the same circle was drawn on many pieces of paper. These circles were then carefully cut out and stacked together. A thin bamboo strip was used to fix the position. This was the most basic cylinder.

A layer of wax was applied to the outside of the paper cylinder, and the cylinder was wrapped in plaster. After the plaster had solidified, the paper cylinder was pulled out. Wax oil was poured into the plaster mold, and when the wax oil solidified, the plaster on the outside was broken, and a better cylinder was obtained. With this cylinder, he could carry out several molds of different materials. Although the precision would decrease after each inverting, this was the best method.

Vézé had already exhausted his abilities. Even if the precision decreased, he could only accept this fact. China's cannon forging standards were lagging behind these days, and the interior of the cannon barrels were uneven. The cannonballs fired by such cannons were like the Manchu Qing's administrative ability, and could only be described as "unreliable".

If you want to build reliable cannons, casting is not the best way to do it during the second industrial revolution, which will soon begin. The best way was to use a hydraulic press to forge a steel column, and then use a machine to drill a hole in the steel column. After the metal was processed by the hydraulic press, the internal structure of the metal would become very uniform and dense. Annealing and other stress-relieving processes would greatly improve the quality and lifespan of the cannon barrel.

Of course, this involved very complicated crystallography problems, including how to promote crystallization and how to relieve stress. Vézé was not a professional in this field, and he had only read relevant articles about it. He did not know the specific operation, so he could not contribute much practical technology.

With Vézé's approval, the cannon forge began to operate. The furnace for smelting iron had already been put into use, and the intense heat generated by the burning of coal made people feel like they were in a sea of fire. Although it was the dog days of August, all the participating craftsmen and soldiers from the military department were wearing extremely thick clothes, and their outer coats were wet with water. They tried their best to evaporate the water to bring out some heat.

This fiery smelting environment was the gap between agricultural countries and industrial countries. Industrial countries could develop heavy industries and produce large amounts of machinery to solve production problems that could not be done by human bodies alone. Through continuous technological accumulation and research, the production capacity of industrial countries was constantly increasing. However, agricultural countries could not cross this threshold on their own, and their technological ability was ultimately limited to a small production scale. Even China, an ancient civilization that had led the world for thousands of years and had a deep accumulation of resources, fell behind the industrial development of the West.

In Yongxing's cannon forge, Vézé did not add too much to the site, mainly using pulley cranes. The pulley was made of iron, and the iron chains that pulled it, the coarse gears, and the matching chains were all made by Vézé without regard for the cost of manpower.

Cannon forging was, in a sense, a heavy industry, and a heavy industry was a gold-swallowing monster. Even if cannons were forged, there was no way to directly improve the standard of living of the people. Only by using cannons to attack cities and seize arable land, or by directly robbing gold, silver, and food, could one say that the curve worked.

Whether or not a heavy industry could be built to win the war was a matter of two things. However, if one wanted to build a heavy industry, one had to immediately invest in it with real money. As the saying went, "You say I'm a stinking capitalist who drinks the blood of workers?! Before I f * cking drink other people's blood, I'll drink my own blood first! "

Of the things that Vézé robbed from Manchu Qing, except for the guns and other weapons that could not be moved, all the other metal objects were put into production. This part of the expenditure did not include the wages paid to the craftsmen. This kind of expenditure did not include another hidden cost, which was the knowledge that Vézé himself mastered, which was taught to Vézé by the education system of the new China for decades. Behind every drop of knowledge was the accumulation of countless blood, sweat, and tears of the workers of the new China.

In the new China, it was impossible to use such inferior technology to manufacture inferior cannons. Vézé did not have any experience, so he could only rely on the craftsmen of this era to complete this task. If the craftsmen failed, then all the things that Vézé had risked his life to accumulate would be for naught.

That was why Wei Ze was prepared to visit the Cannon Forging Field more often. He wasn't here to supervise the Cannon Forging Field, but to do his best to support the Cannon Forging Field. At this time, a high and mighty attitude and concealment would only have side effects. Not only Vézé, but the military hospital had also moved to the vicinity of the cannon forge, where it was extremely easy to get injured. Sometimes, a life could be lost just by a little delay in treatment.

When Wang Qixiu saw Vézé enter the cannon forge, she immediately pulled a tall and thin young man in front of Vézé. "Lord Wei, this is the brother I mentioned before, Wang Qinian. So he's already here from Guiyang! "

Hearing this, Vézé was overjoyed. He did not have much confidence in himself, nor did he have much confidence in the craftsmen who had not participated in the cannon forging. Wang Qinian had personally participated in the cannon forging, and such an experienced craftsman was the rarest of talents.

Before Vézé could speak, Wang Qinian's face was gloomy. He cupped his hands towards Vézé and said, "Lord Wei, I heard that you have a doctor here. My brother is sick. If you can save his life, I'll focus on forging cannons for you! "