Carrying AK into Ming Dynasty

Chapter 868 Invincible Is Always Lonely
A battleship equipped with one hundred cannons is enough to meet the standard of a first-class battleship. The three decks are still fully covered with metal. The Ming Dynasty's new warship has been secretly developed, but it has never been made public in front of the public.

Moreover, the artillery of the new battleship is also a new type of artillery, that is, the rear-mounted howitzer. At the same time, the battleship is also equipped with fifty mortars for close-range indiscriminate scattering.

The new diesel-powered warships are not only greatly improved in terms of battery life, but also have a much faster speed than the previous steam-powered warships. At least the most advanced warships of the Dutch coachmen can't outperform Ming's new warships.

What's more, no matter how powerful the Dutch warships are, they are nothing but sail warships. No matter how many sails they have and no matter how advanced their technology is, they will not go very fast against the wind.

And what about the new diesel-powered ironclad ships, Headwind?This problem does not exist.

It is conceivable that when this huge iron lump came out of the sea, it was enough to shock the world.

If you really want to talk about shortcomings, the only shortcomings in the current situation are that the development is too slow and the cost is too high.

The first new ironclad ship was named by Liu Hongjian as the Sun Never Sets. At first, Zhu Cihong and the cabinet officials did not understand the meaning of the sun never sets.

In their only cognition, the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, how can it never set?
Liu Hongjian kept silent about this and did not explain much. The world is too big and there are too many people in Ming Dynasty. He didn't have the heart to explain the truth of everything to everyone.

In the end, Liu Hongjian was driven into a hurry, and he said bluntly that if he really wanted to know, he should go to the Engineering College to sit in on it!

In order to speed up the construction progress, Mo Huan of Tianjin Treasure Shipyard stopped the construction of all other warships in Treasure Shipyard, and dispatched the best craftsmen to the construction dock of the huge new warship.

Tianjin Treasure Shipyard has no less than 5000 craftsmen of various types, and with high salaries, all the best craftsmen in Ming Dynasty are employed.

They were divided into two teams and worked day and night for research and experimentation. It took half a year to develop the first warship and complete the trial voyage, which shows the hardships.

This is the background of a great power, and the superiority of imperialism is also here. If it is not as good as later generations, no matter how strong the national power is, it will be difficult to concentrate on military industry in this way.

It is impossible for the country to stop research in other fields to build a warship, because the people are smart enough, and they will not allow it. The country must consider the aspirations of the people.

But it doesn’t matter in Ming Dynasty, the people are very contented, it’s enough to have enough to eat and not be bullied, they don’t even care about the strength of the country, at least for now they don’t have the awareness.

The completion of the new warships also officially ended the era of the Daming navy winning by quantity.

In the past, in sea battles and water battles, the Chinese nation always won by the number of people and the number of warships. Even in Zheng Zhilong's era five years ago, the Zheng family still relied on the huge number of warships to support the Nanyang trade.

Thousands of warships were often used to fight against the ten or twenty warships of the Dutch. At the peak of the Zheng family, there were more than [-] warships, and most of the so-called warships were just single-sail wooden boats.

Fighting against the Dutch all depends on the large number of people and ships, so that the artillery on the Dutch warships can't beat the wooden boats rushing like moths to the flames. The two failures of the Dutch were caused by the dark boats caused by self-immolation.

The new era lies in the fact that there are not many warships, and this is the case with Ming's new warships. Its surface armor is enough to withstand the solid bullets fired by the largest caliber guns of Dutch warships.

But there was only one battleship. For Zhu Cihong and the cabinet ministers who had no experience in naval battles, they believed that one battleship was too few to gain an advantage in naval battles.

In fact, there is another reason why Zhu Cihong disagreed with the Beiyang Navy's participation in the battle, that is, this battleship was Liu Hongjian's painstaking effort, and the naval battle with the Dutch was destined to be written into the history books.

As the helmsman and witness, how could An Guo County King Liu Hongjian not participate in this unparalleled decisive battle?

"Can we still send support to Dongpu?" Zhu Cihong asked after a moment of silence.

The navy cannot move, so what about the troop carrier?Is it okay to take over the Ming soldiers from Japan?
"Your Majesty, the entire sea outside Dongying has been blocked by the Dutch, and...the route to Vladivostok cannot go..." said Li Banghua, Chief Assistant of the Cabinet and Secretary of the Ministry of War.

The [-] Ming soldiers in Dongying were all elites selected from the imperial guards and the Beiyang Navy. No one knew better than Li Banghua the difficulty of training elite soldiers.

"Can you just sit back and ignore it? Is this what you are capable of?" Zhu Cihong asked, already very dissatisfied in his words.

At this time, he missed the time when Liu Hongjian was around very much. Whenever there was a major event, as long as Liu Hongjian was present, this guy would definitely solve all the problems with his legs crossed.

Why did he ever make him feel so sad?
"I think you can send a small group of warships to harass the open sea. These warships will not fight hard with the Dutch. You only need to restrain the main force of the Dutch so that they cannot attack Dongpu with all their strength." Li Banghua had already made up his mind, calmly road.

"Okay, let's do this! In addition, Jin Yiwei must always pay attention to the news of the Dutch and Dongpu.

Also, spread this news to Luocha as soon as possible, so that the Prince of Anguo knows it well. "Zhu Cihong said again.

Speaking of the bottom of his heart, Zhu Cihong was still a little worried about the Dutch, and even a little apprehensive. After all, he hadn't fought many battles.

Passing the news here to Liu Hongjian is also to let him understand the actual situation here, so that he can decide whether to come back as soon as possible.

If Liu Hongjian knew about this, it would be another mockery. Besides a stronger navy, what else does the shitty Dutchman have?
If they were really awesome, wouldn't they only dare to make noise outside Daming?If you have the ability to really fight on land, it's a mule or a horse, pull it out!
But if the Dutchman knew Liu Hongjian's heartfelt feelings, he would probably laugh wildly. I mean what I say, and I will fight a naval battle if I say so. If you have the ability, you can pull out Ming's navy, and we will fight at sea!

"My minister complied. I got the news the day before yesterday that the next batch of supplies to the Near East has arrived in Beihai. If this batch of supplies can be delivered to the King of Anguo on time, the pressure on the frontline will be greatly relieved." Li Banghua whispered.

In addition to the necessary food and ammunition, this batch of supplements also includes the rear-loading clip-type rifled gun that was successfully developed half a year ago but has not been mass-produced.

At the beginning, due to the immature technology and the shortage of steel production, the eagerness to build howitzers ran aground.

Now the Anguo County King on the front line is no longer urging the rear to provide more howitzers, but urging shells.

More than 100 howitzers are enough for front-line use, and the rear-loading rifled guns with the same complex technology have also been mass-produced immediately.

The clip-type rear-loading gun used metal bullets for the first time. The bullets were made of brass, and the style was no different from the common tapered bullets in later generations.

The reason why there was no mass production for the time being was because Liu Hongjian requested that the breech-loading gun should be provided with magazines. The magazines are not magazines, so it is not difficult to make, but it is rare that the structure of the breech-loading musket needs to be modified.

Because what Liu Hongjian wanted was a portable musket with a bolt, which was also Liu Hongjian's ultimate vision for the Great Ming musket. Just pull the bolt to take out the shell and automatically press the next bullet into the chamber.

Don't underestimate this progress. After the First World War, every technological innovation in muskets was built on the bloody battlefield.

The Daming Musket was able to finally successfully develop the clip-type rear-loading gun because it had undergone many iterations of technological updates and experienced countless battles before it gradually matured.

From the initial matchlock gun to the front-loading quick-fire gun, then to the front-loading rifle, paper shell bullets, and then to the rear-loading rifle, primer, and metal-cased bullets, it took four years for Ming Dynasty.

From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the First World War, it took Europeans 200 years to complete the ultimate evolution of muskets.

The rear-loading bolt-action rifle will also end an era, the era of the large square formation of muskets, and the queuing and shooting tactics, more than 100 years in advance.

In the initial stage of musket development, Liu Hongjian has been drawing this blueprint. The Ming soldiers no longer have to shout slogans and line up to design, but the soldiers dug trenches and lay down in the trenches to design freely and quickly.

It would be even better if a scope was added to the musket.

The bolt-action musket greatly speeds up the reloading speed of the musket. In the past, it took a musket to fire a shot and then reload, and the bolt-action musket could finish a magazine with six bullets.

The rear-loading rifled gun is 33 inches long, of which the barrel is [-] inches long. The whole gun weighs about nine catties with a clip, and uses quarter-inch caliber bullets (about eight millimeters).

It also uses a wooden butt, a steel barrel, and a small round iron bolt protruding above the rear of the barrel. Just pull the bolt to press the bullet from the clip into the barrel.

If you know guns, you can see that the appearance of this gun is very similar to the [-]-style rifle of later generations, which is also the official rifle.

The first batch of bolt-action muskets produced was only [-] pieces. The reason was still limited to bullets. With the current industrial level of Ming Dynasty, the mechanized mass production of bullets was not yet possible.

All the bullets and cannonballs are all manually made by Ming craftsmen one by one, which requires extremely high danger and professionalism of the craftsmen.

The shells are alright, the bullets are so small, and the accuracy must be ensured as much as possible. Even if tens of thousands of craftsmen in the Ordnance Institute were mobilized to produce grenades and metal shell casings, the five thousand rods could be bolted in a limited time. The rifle was equipped with more than 20 rounds of ammunition.

If these more than 20 rounds of bullets are averaged to each gun, a gun is equipped with more than 40 rounds of bullets.

"Well, I've played with that bolt gun before, it's really a good thing, Liu Qing will definitely like it." Zhu Cihong said gratified.

After the last imperial conquest, Zhu Cihong became very interested in firearms, and Liu Hongjian did not object to Zhu Cihong's playing with guns. He even played with grenades a few times.

On the wall next to Zhu Cihong's Qianqing Palace Longtao, there is just such a bolt-action rifle, numbered zero and one.

In his words, this thing has a sense of security. If someone dares to commit murder in Qianqing Palace, he can kill the villain with a single shot.

Of course the words were a joke, and only Pang Hai and Wang Erxi, the supervisor of ceremonies, listened to them. Wang Erxi felt that Zhu Cihong was talking more and more towards the king of Anguo County in private, and Pang Pang Hai felt that the emperor had turned bad.

"Your Majesty, guns are not for casual use, they are too dangerous, you must pay attention to the dragon's body!" Second Assistant Han Yu reminded.

The other elders of the cabinet were also startled. Li Banghua, Minister of the Ministry of War and Zhang Tianlu, Minister of the Ministry of War, looked at each other, and decided to find out who gave the gun to Zhu Cihong immediately after returning.

"I allocated 60 taels of silver to you from internal funds, and immediately expanded the production line of bolt-action rifles. The shackles of bolt-action rifles are bullets, and the shackles of bullets are metal shells and primers.

I think that although the metal shells are fresh, can’t our pouring technology be able to produce them? As for grinding, ordinary workers can grind them as long as they have mastered the vernier calipers, so I must increase the production capacity as soon as possible.

I will give you one year to equip all 120 million soldiers of Ming Dynasty with this bolt-action rifle!

How, can it be done? "Zhu Cihong didn't take Han Yu's reminder seriously, but looked at Wang Jiayan, Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, and Zhang Tianlu, Shangshu of the Ministry of Households.

Wang Jiayan and Zhang Tianlu stared at each other in a daze, what is 60 taels of silver enough for? Throwing it into the armory station won’t even make a splash, not to mention that the armory station is directly under your Zhu Cihong, and it is closed to our Ministry of Industry. What's the matter with the Ministry of Finance?
It's just that the two hesitated for a while and still handed over the order.

Well, after all, isn't it still a question of money?
All the expenses of the Ordnance Institute can be used from the Ministry of Households, and all the ores, metals, and equipment needed can be drawn from the inventory of the Ministry of Industry. To put it bluntly, the Ordnance Institute can issue IOUs.

The Ordnance Institute can issue IOUs to the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Industry, but who can the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Industry ask for IOUs?The emperor?
Ha ha, sorry, you go worry about it yourself.

Anyway, the research and development progress of various projects of the Ordnance Institute cannot be stopped, nor can the universities, middle schools, and Mengxue schools supervised by Ming Dynasty, and the main asphalt and cement concrete official roads supervised by various provinces and prefectures cannot be stopped.

After two years of being the emperor, Zhu Cihong understood a truth, what are ministers used for?

Of course, it is used to solve problems. If the problem is not difficult enough, how can it be used to show the ability of ministers?
So there is no need to worry about everything, just push it to the ministers. If the minister fails to do it, he will be replaced by another minister, and the minister who has the ability will be promoted.

As for him, he only needs to be in charge of Dongchang and Jinyiwei, and see which officials are dishonest, which officials have dirty hands, which officials stand in the latrine without shitting, that's enough.

He holds the army in his left hand and the inspector in his right. This is the method Liu Hongjian entrusted to him. Now it seems that it is really good.

Even Zhu Cihong was a little swollen, he felt that his ability to handle government affairs had surpassed his father, and he really wanted to find someone to pour out the excitement and joy in his heart.

But after thinking about it, he only thought of Liu Hongjian, the king of Anguo County, alas, invincible is always lonely, Zhu Cihong thought so.

After setting the tone of Dongying, the meeting was dissolved as scheduled. Except for Zhu Cihong, who was in a slump, the rest of the ministers frowned tightly.

The first year of Taishun was spent in full swing and without any danger.

Five days later, New Year's Eve was ushered in the capital, with lights and festoons everywhere, and the common people went out of their homes to watch fireworks and firecrackers in the ancient capital.

And among the thousands of lights, the Junwang Mansion on the top of Xishan Mountain is the quietest one...

……

　Thank you book friends for the 100 taels rewarded by lighting up the lamp and looking at the ax while drunk.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)