Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 233: The Bian Family Offers the Tongan Warship
Chen Gu naturally knew that the Bian family had a large Tongan warship, after all, it was Chen Gu who gave it to them.

The Huaxia tribe needed warships, but it was impossible for Chen Gu to directly ask the Bian family to return the Tongan warship. After all, they had traded the entire Buddhist treasure for the warship.

Now it seems that the deal at that time was actually very cost-effective. Without Fobao as a base, Chen Gu would not have been able to develop so quickly.

Chen Gu personally boarded the modified Tongan warship and mainly made some replacements to the cannons on it.

All the original front-loading cannons were replaced with rear-loading submachine guns.

After Wu Hua's continuous improvements, today's submachine gun is closer to the style of a rifle, but it is just an enlarged version.

The improved cluster gun not only has a faster loading speed, but also greatly improves the shooting accuracy and range of the cluster gun under the condition of the same weight.

The original thousand-jin cannon could only fire at a distance of two to three thousand meters, but the improved breech-loading submachine gun can fire at a distance of nearly ten thousand meters. Moreover, although they are both solid shells, the power of the pointed shells is not comparable to that of the round shells.

According to Wu Hua's estimation, using pointed shells, even a large Tong'an warship with a five-inch thick hull can be penetrated with one shot even from 20 miles away. And with the accuracy of the improved sub-cannon, it is possible to hit a large ship even from 10,000 meters away.

After all, the target of the big ship is big enough.

The ten original front-loading thousand-jin cannons on the Tongan warship have now all been converted into rear-loading submachine guns, and twenty small 100-jin cannons have also been installed to attack close-range targets.

There are three types of cannonballs: pointed solid shells with a shooting distance of 500 meters, which can also penetrate five-inch thick wooden boards, which means that they are equally lethal to any warships of this era.

The second type is a hollow shell filled with explosives. After being fired, it will explode secondary, using shrapnel and the steel balls inside to injure people. The attack distance is about 300 meters.

The third type of artillery shell has no warhead. The shell is filled with explosives and hundreds of tiny lead bullets. Hundreds of lead bullets are fired at once. Although the attack distance is only about 100 meters, it has unimaginable destructive power on the army.

It is even possible to destroy an entire enemy ship with one shot. Of course, that is only in theory.

It is somewhat of a waste to use this kind of shells on warships, so Chen Gu plans to ask Luzhou to produce more of these 100-jin small cannons for use on land battlefields.

It only weighs a hundred pounds and can be pushed around on a wheelbarrow. At that time, a piece of iron and wooden baffle can be installed in front of the wheelbarrow to ensure the safety of the gunner.

Just thinking that the imperial court also had the technology of mother-and-child artillery, Chen Gu couldn't help but sigh. Jiaqing would definitely use the mother-and-child artillery technology. I'm afraid that the battlefield in the future would not be as simple as attacking Sichuan.

"Give the warship to Yunhua and tell him not to use the warship against the enemy unless it is necessary. Our temporary strategy still requires us to develop internal affairs for a period of time. We do not have the ability to conquer too much territories." Chen Gu said.

Now, in the four directions of Sichuan, east, west, south and north, Shaanxi in the north is for defense, the plateau in the west is for defence, Hubei in the east is for confrontation, and only Guizhou in the south is a place for attack.

After all, although Guizhou has a large territory, there are not many towns and people, and most of the places are ruled by local chieftains, so there are not many places that need to be ruled, and the internal pressure on the Huaxia Department is not great.

After taking Guizhou, they will only continue to attack Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. As for whether to continue to attack Guangdong, Hunan, and Jiangxi, or to go through Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangnan, we will have to wait and see.

Chen Gu was quite satisfied that the Bian family could take the initiative to contribute the Tong'an warship. After knowing their purpose, Chen Gu nodded and said, "If you want to build a ship, go ahead, but it is limited to merchant ships. Cold weapons on the ship are free, but gunpowder weapons, whether they are muskets, cannons, bombs, or detonators, must be reported."

As for rifles and submachine guns, Chen Gu did not say anything because these two things were prohibited. After Chen Gu issued the ban, both the Han and Bian families handed over the relevant craftsmen.

As for whether they left behind the relevant manufacturing process, Chen Gu didn't care. It didn't matter if they left behind the manufacturing process, as long as you didn't manufacture it. If you dared to manufacture it at will, Chen Gu would not be polite.

How can we allow the country's most important weapon to be controlled by private individuals?

The Tongan warship left Chongqing that day, and Yunhua received it the next day.

After Yunhua and his men arrived in Yichang, they pushed the battle line to Jingzhou Prefecture and engaged the imperial army in Jingzhou City. The imperial court was now on the defensive, while Yunhua was on the attacking side.

The two armies were in a stalemate, and support from Chongqing continued to arrive, whether it was troops or supplies, basically some were transported to Yichang every day.

If Yunhua wanted to, he could take Jingzhou City in a very short time, but the strategic layout of the Huaxia Department in Hubei was a confrontation, so Yunhua left Jingzhou alone.

Although he failed to capture Jingzhou City, Yunhua had almost eliminated all the forces outside the city.

All the landlords' estates were taken over, and ordinary people who were willing to go to Yichang moved there to fill the vacancies left by the military families who had left Yichang. Those who were unwilling to leave were given fields, land and houses, and simplified versions of various Chinese tribes were established.

As for officials, they were elected by the local people of Jingzhou themselves.

Every time reinforcements from the imperial court arrived, they would be beaten by Yunhua before entering the city.

After more than a month, the imperial court no longer wanted to send reinforcements to Jingzhou.

But Jingzhou is the western gateway of Hubei. If it is occupied by Yunhua, the whole Hubei will be full of loopholes. Yunhua can occupy Jingzhou and use Jingzhou as a fulcrum to attack everywhere. At that time, the court will only become more difficult.

So even though everyone knew that Jingzhou could no longer be defended, they had to defend it and continuously send in supplies and troops.

Before, Yunhua could only look at the supplies in the Yangtze River with envy. Because he had no warships to snatch those supplies, he could only fire a few shots from a distance to cause some damage to the other side.

But now it is different. With this large Tongan warship, Yunhua can lead his troops to attack, not only killing more enemy troops, but also seizing the enemy's transportation supplies.

After all, a large Tong'an warship itself is already the top combat force of this era, not to mention that it is a Tong'an warship modified by the Huaxia Department.

Yunhua gained a lot in the first attack. The enemy's three troop transport ships all sank into the river, and more than half of the soldiers on board were killed or wounded, while the two material transport ships were looted by Yunhua.

(End of this chapter)