Kai Fu Han

Chapter 142 Brainstorming

July [-], Xinghan League Headquarters.

Jiang Xue from the Taxation Department stood in the middle of the lobby and reported to the ministers and directors attending the meeting a summary of the summer tax collection work.

After the discussion on summer tax work was completed, Liu Xinqi spoke:
"After the last defense of Penglai, I never had time to sit down and have a chat with everyone. While everyone is here this time and the people are so neatly organized, we will have a long meeting today to discuss the future development of our Xinghan Alliance."

Liu Xinqi saw that everyone's attention was focused on him and continued:
"Then let's discuss something simple first. In recent battles, have you found any deficiencies or have any suggestions regarding our Xinghan League's combat personnel, combat methods, command, weapons, armor, etc., all aspects that may affect combat effectiveness? You can bring it up and speak freely."

After finishing speaking, seeing that no one started to raise his head, he nodded to Liu Xinang, the director of the Division of Infantry:

"Let the Director of Bu Division give you a start."

Liu Xin'ang has always been in charge of the army and must have made many discoveries, so Liu Xinqi ordered him.

"Then I'll throw some ideas into the mix." Liu Xin'ang said modestly.

"In recent battles, I have released that our crossbows will give our infantry a very large advantage in battle. We should continue to enhance our advantages in this area."

"I have some suggestions for crossbows. First, every time you shoot the ten arrows in the quiver, you have to stop and load them. Loading one arrow is of little use, and loading ten arrows is very time-consuming. In the ever-changing environment on the battlefield, time is of the essence. I suggest making an quiver that can be quickly loaded and unloaded. After shooting ten arrows in one quiver, you only need to replace an quiver full of arrows and you can shoot again. "

"Second, the tail feathers of the current crossbow arrows are too small. When the distance is too far, the arrows still roll, causing the arrows to lose their lethality. They can only effectively kill within 70 meters at most. In fact, the arrows are still very effective at 70 meters away. It is powerful. As long as the problem of arrow tumbling can be solved, it should be able to greatly extend the effective killing distance of the crossbow. I suggest increasing the tail feathers of the crossbow to increase the stability of the arrow."

After saying these two points, Liu Xinang stopped.

"Director of the Engineering Department, can you tell us whether these two suggestions can be implemented?" Liu Xinqi asked.

When Liu Zhimu heard his name being called, he thought about it and said:
"These two points have been tried before by the engineering department. Let me talk about the first point first. Making an arrow case that can be quickly disassembled will greatly increase the probability of the crossbow getting stuck. If the crossbow gets stuck on the battlefield, the crossbow archer will basically We lost the opportunity to exert our combat power in this battle, so we didn’t use it in the end. However, the processing accuracy of the workshop has been greatly improved recently, and research should be able to reduce lag. We can try this."

"The second point is that arrow tail feathers are made of bird feathers. Enlarging the tail feathers will cause the arrows stored in the quiver to become entangled with each other, affecting the loading of the arrow. The current tail feather size is what we have tried many times and determined that the entanglement will have the least impact. Effective range increases to maximum appropriate size."

"Then try to implement the first suggestion." Liu Xinqi replied.

Quickly changing arrow magazines can be regarded as a technical reserve for future musket magazines, and it is meaningful to spend manpower and material resources on research.The second suggestion is a bit outdated. Crossbows will inevitably be eliminated by muskets, and researching arrows is a waste of resources.

"continue."

The commander of the first infantry battalion stood up, bowed his hands to Liu Xinqi, and then said:
"At present, in addition to the leather armor and a small amount of iron armor that were previously captured and originally owned by the Dengzhou Battalion, the infantry armor of our Xinghan League's infantry battalion is mostly rattan armor and cloth armor, of which rattan armor only accounts for a small part. These two types Armor and vine armor are afraid of fire. If the enemy shoots rockets, we will suffer heavy losses. Cloth armor has little defense, and it is basically impossible to defend against a stone bow within thirty steps. Moreover, it does not use spear stabs, and its defense against knife cuts is also very low. weak."

"I recommend increasing the armor defense of infantry battalion soldiers."

This suggestion was very general, and it was immediately clear that it would be a huge expense. Just when everyone thought that this suggestion would be shelved, Liu Xinqi said: "Very good, the life of every soldier is precious. Problems that can be solved with money are It should be resolved before the war, and any method that can increase survivability should be implemented with all our strength."

"In the past ten days, I have been at Baishiwan Kiln Factory to inform everyone of good news."

"Our steel-making blast furnace was completed. On July [-], the first batch of steel was produced. The quality of the steel is very good. It is basically equivalent to hundreds of steel-making steel. It has stronger hardness and good toughness."

The first batch of steel produced by Xinghan League now uses the steel filling method, also called the Tuan Steel method.It uses pig iron and wrought iron as raw materials, refines the raw materials in a blast furnace to above the melting point, and then combines them into steel.

The carbon content of pig iron is more than [-]%, while the carbon content of wrought iron is very small, which can be called pure iron.

After the two kinds of iron are tempered together, the carbon content in the iron will be maintained between [-]% and [-]%, and the iron will be tempered into steel.

However, the current technology is not mature, the raw materials are complex, and the quality is unstable, resulting in the quality of the steel produced fluctuating.

This is all due to the inability to control the carbon content in iron.

Although there are still various defects and shortcomings, it is still steel, with low carbon content, high plasticity, high carbon content and high hardness. Xinghan League is lacking everything now, and it will be useful as long as it is trained.

Blast furnaces can make steel, and naturally they can make iron.

"Starting from July 200th, our Xinghan League has finally mastered the blast furnace steelmaking (iron) and steel filling methods. As long as there are sufficient raw materials, the monthly steel production will reach more than [-] million kilograms. It is expected to be completed within two months. All officers and soldiers can be replaced with steel armor."

The current blast furnace in Xinghan League can only be regarded as an earthen blast furnace in future generations, because the volume of the small blast furnace is more than [-] cubic meters, and the furnace wall is made of steel.

Xinghanmeng's current blast furnace has a capacity of only 25 cubic meters.

"So much? Then we will have inexhaustible steel in the future." Luo Cheng admired.

"Yes, first replace the armor, then the soldiers' weapons, and then sell cheap steel agricultural tools to the people of our Xinghan League, which will greatly improve their work efficiency." Liu Xinqi replied.

After speaking, Liu Xinqi asked everyone to continue.

Hearing that the infantry battalion commander's excessive suggestions could be implemented, the director of the Naval Division Gao Yuan stood up and said:
"The current combat method of the Xinghan Alliance Navy is mainly to attack and seize ships with gangs. Even if rockets are used to burn the sails of enemy ships, a ship-seizing battle is still required, and rockets can easily burn the entire enemy ship."

"Jumping into a gang to seize the ship in close combat will result in a lot of casualties in every water battle. The sword has no eyesight. No matter how good the martial arts and training are, it is inevitable to be injured. I suggest whether we can increase the long-range combat capability of the navy's warships. Abilities, such as adding giant crossbows to the ship, or setting up trebuchets, ballistae, etc. on the ship.”

(End of this chapter)