The wind blows from the South Sea

Chapter 126 A big fat piece of meat
Marshal Feng Guohui stayed at the Marshal's Mansion in Tieshan Town in the evening. This mansion covers an area of ​​about 3.6 acres and is located by the beautiful Hulu River.

The Hulu River is a wider river when it passes through Tieshan Town, with a surface width of more than 230 meters. The violent and sloping river appears much calmer in this section, and it passes slowly around the city.

The large chimneys of the downstream steel plants spewed black smoke day and night, which did not change the air environment of Tieshan Town too much. At night, the wind blowing through the valley still seemed peaceful and fresh.

In the lobby of the mansion

Several burning candles illuminated the Tang Dynasty brilliantly, and several rifles were placed on the table. Feng Guohui was surrounded by some soldiers and engineers from the gun factory, and their eyes were focused on these rifles.

Feng Guohui pointed at these rifles and said;
“The rifles you see are all improved Migne rifles, including the Republic IX type and the British Enfield type.

Their common characteristics

That is, the barrel of the gun is rifled, and lead mine bullets can be used for shooting. The power and range are greatly improved.

Take the Nine Styles of Legal Republic as an example;
全枪重4．8公斤．口径17．8毫米．每发子弹重32．4克．杀伤距离可达918米，550米内可以保证精确命中。

At 15 yards, the Migne rifle could penetrate two two-thirds-inch-thick poplar boards spaced 20 inches apart.

He frowned and thought about it for a moment, then said;
"Reporting to the commander, the common people think that pulling out the rifling is not difficult in terms of craftsmanship.

Even a group of trained workers and masters can solve practical technical problems better than scholars.

In order to process rifling, it is necessary to design corresponding processing fixtures, process lathes, and use a hand crank to pull out the rifling manually.

In 1846, the French Chasseurs used the Minie rifle in combat for the first time in Africa. It was also used to a small extent in the Crimean War, proving that it was an advanced firearm.

I call this process cold drawing, and it is not technically difficult.

Zheng Anli's original major was construction engineering. He was proficient in English, French and German. He was quite accomplished in Western painting and was a typical technical talent.

Spiral milling cutters can be imported or self-developed. Although self-refined is a little more troublesome, it can be done.

Give me two weeks to design the lathe and processing fixture. With the cooperation of the casting workshop, it will take at most one and a half months to produce qualified rifling processing equipment. "

Everyone's eyes turned to Zheng Anli. He was a descendant of the Zheng family in Semarang. He had studied in England. He was a knowledgeable engineer and the newly hired chief engineer of the Nanyang Weapons Factory.

Let a group of scholars here, most of whom can only quote scriptures, talk about ancient scriptures, and solve practical technical difficulties can only scratch their heads.

In advance, a high-strength alloy steel spiral milling cutter needs to be processed according to the diameter of the gun bore and the required size of the rifling. This is the key to processing the rifling.

Feng Guohui's eyes showed a look of relief. Talents are indeed rare, especially these erudite talents who have returned from studying abroad and integrated Chinese and Western knowledge. They are the most needed help for the development of industry.

Both French and British Migne rifles have three spiral riflings. We follow the old practice and also adopt the three spiral rifling scheme.

my request
That is, all the standard firearms produced in the arsenal were transformed into new rifles using Minie bullets and equipped with the entire army.

Feng Guohui said directly;
"This is very good. I have ordered Engineer Zheng Anli to take the lead in setting up a technical research team to be responsible for the research and development and production of the new Minie rifle.

After fixing the seamless steel pipe, you only need to rotate and pull it out.

It’s not that these talented people are all embroidered pillows, but they are unprofessional.

This rifle is very powerful and has great firepower.

The so-called difficult thing is not difficult for those who can't do it, but it's not difficult for those who can do it.

The only difficulty is to pull out the rifling in the seamless steel tube. Can this be done? "

In actual combat, it was found that the Miné rifle can penetrate a person with one shot and then penetrate anyone within 15 meters of its trajectory.

No more than 10 technical personnel can be recruited to join. The steel plant must cooperate unconditionally. Give people as much as you want, give money as much as you want, and develop and produce special processing equipment as soon as possible.

weapons factory
The processing of original weapon parts and the batch processing of wooden gun stocks cannot be slacked off.

This is an important matter in military preparations. Anyone who delays the production node will be severely punished by military law. You must not make mistakes. "

"We will obey the commander's orders and we will never slack off." The rest of the people responded with solemn expressions.

Feng Guohui told him again;

“In any case, by the end of March, the weapons factory must have the production capacity of three thousand Minie rifles per month.

By the end of June, we must have the production capacity to produce 20 six-pound and nine-pound field steel hoop guns per month to supply the needs of frontline wars.

Mr. Zheng, do you have the confidence to complete it? "

"When I get back to the Marshal, Zheng dares to guarantee with his head that he will only exceed the quota ahead of schedule and will never hold back the Marshal."

"Hahaha... Okay, I will give you a big reward if you finish the job." Feng Guohui burst out laughing, looking extremely satisfied.

The comprehensive replacement of new Minie rifles is a major operation that Feng Guohui has been planning for a long time, and no news has been exposed before.

It's just right if you get it straight away, it won't work if it's earlier. This was done to give the white colonial army of the Dutch East Indies a big surprise.

When these white troops were still fighting with old-fashioned smoothbore flintlock rifles, they suddenly discovered that the opposite army had completely replaced them with new Minie rifles. What kind of despair would they have looked like?

This is an absolute crushing of infantry weapons, what a big fool.

You must know that the entire East Indies and Nanyang region do not have advanced weapons manufacturing capabilities (note, except for the Nanyang Army). Even the Kingdom of the Netherlands cannot produce them and can only turn to the European powers of Britain and France for help.

The Migne rifle was used on a small scale during the Crimean War that broke out in 1854.

To date
The main forces of the British and French armies are using old smoothbore rifles, not because of the poor performance of the Migne rifle, but because the equipment base of old smoothbore rifles is too large and cannot be replaced in a short time.

There are dozens or even millions of rifles in stock, so why don’t we just use them if we don’t need them?
Such confusion also exists in the British Royal Navy. The extremely powerful British Royal Navy has hundreds of sailing battleships and is a powerful force across the seven seas.

But when iron ships appeared, this powerful sailing fleet became a liability.

from 20 years ago

The British Royal Navy has never built any more expensive sailing battleships. Instead, it has been quietly studying steel battleships and developed one experimental ship type after another.

For example, adding steam engines and propellers to sailing warships, covering the sailing warships with a layer of iron armor, adding side impellers, etc., and also developing fully iron-clad experimental steam destroyers...

France has developed a high-speed steam torpedo boat to explore the direction of future naval warfare technology and equipment. These are all cutting-edge topics.

After this important matter was decided, everyone left one after another.

Feng Guohui walked towards the study, where a large hand-drawn map of the East Indies hung in the study, showing every detail under the candlelight.

He stared at the map, and the situation in the entire East Indies and Southeast Asia became clear to him.

on the island of Java

The respective control areas of the Nanyang Army and the Dutch Governor-General are clearly marked by a red line in Central Java, which seems to be clear at a glance.

The Nanyang Army occupies about 13.8% of the entire square kilometers of the island, and has a population of about %, roughly million.

The Dutch Government House is mainly located in the populous West Java region, with a total population of more than 410% under its jurisdiction. The total population exceeds million, which is twice that of the Nanyang Army.

In terms of strength, the Dutch Government House has a clear advantage.

Its biggest shortcoming is that the population of white colonists is small, with a total of about 170,000 or 80,000, and they have little industrial production capacity. They are a group of domineering white estate owners and farmers.

In Feng Guohui's view, they are a group of arrogant and arrogant idiots.

He shifted his gaze and looked up. The extremely vast Brahman Islands came into view like a huge apple. He looked at this land and pondered for a long time.

The Brahman Islands, also known as the Kalimantan Islands, have a total area of ​​about 73.6 square kilometers. They are the third largest island in the world and a typical island with a tropical rainforest climate.

The island's power is now divided into three. The northern part of the island is the Kingdom of Malaya and Brunei under the jurisdiction of the British Straits Settlements Governor's Palace, presenting a narrow strip.

The total area is about one-sixth of the island, and the area under its jurisdiction is mostly the northern plains and hilly areas suitable for human life.

In the northwest corner of the island is the Chinese-dominated Lan Fang Kingdom, which is composed of cities inhabited by Chinese and many affiliated indigenous tribes.
The great commander of Lanfang State is Liu Asheng, a man who is hard to describe, at least Feng Guohui does not like him.

Liu Asheng colluded with the Dutch colonists overtly and covertly, and used external forces to suppress the powerful rise of the Dagang Company in Lanfang. This means that "the outside world must be settled inside first."

Lanfang Kingdom was eventually destroyed in the hands of Liu Asheng. After being invaded by the Dutch colonists, it had neither domestic help nor foreign aid, and its independent history ended miserably.

Of course, this was more than 20 years later.

The remaining parts of Kalimantan are under the jurisdiction of the Governor-General of the Netherlands East Indies, occupying four-fifths of the island, but the population is small and the degree of development is extremely low.

Basically, they are limited to plain and hilly areas within 100 kilometers of the coast.

Most of the interior is lush virgin rainforest with almost no human presence.

Feng Guohui still has many ideas about Kalimantan Island, mainly Lan Fangguo.

He coveted the Chinese social group in Lan Fang Country, which totaled more than 780,000 people, almost four times the number of Chinese groups under the current Nanyang Army.

If he is taken under his command, his strength will immediately increase several times.

As for the great leader Liu Asheng, he didn't pay attention at all. He was just a follower, so what did he count?

Lan Fangguo was just a big piece of fat in Feng Guohui's eyes. He suppressed his salivating eyes and turned his eyes away.

At this stage
It's not the right time to pay attention to Lan Fangguo. Now he has to hide his minions, hide his greedy desires, and solve the current troubles.

He believed that in a few years, Lan Fangguo's big piece of fat would finally fall into his pocket.

(End of this chapter)