Hidden Dragon in Qing Dynasty

Ryukyu Na Ba was already one of the cities with the highest spying coverage in East Asia, and she was definitely number one. All the powerful fighters and spies from all over the world, including the Great Qing, were stationed here.

Don't just look at how much money the CIA had, coupled with the fact that he had a talented spymaster like Wang Huaiyuan, it was impossible to achieve perfection.

The logic was very simple. With a thousand days as a thief, how could there be a thousand days as a defense against a thief? There were simply too many powers who wanted to find out more about the Ryukyu. And since the Ryukyu was an open country with a large number of important merchants, the free flow of people and funds would definitely cause a torrent of information to flood in.

In reality, this kind of situation was also the result of Xiao Letian and Wang Huaiyuan deliberately allowing them to do so. In fact, the appearance of the big spies from many nations in the Ryukyu s had already made them known, but the CIA did not interfere with their actions.

As long as the core secrets of the Prime Minister's Manor were not leaked, even if some insignificant information were to be exposed, it would rarely be possible for a killing order to be issued.

Not only that, the CIA had also used its capital and local advantage to poach some spies on both sides and had even consciously released some intelligence for them to sell.

Slowly, a very important information exchange market in East Asia began to appear in the Ryukyu. Sometimes, even if there was important information that did not involve the Ryukyu, there would still be people who would bring it here to trade.

This was because many spies knew clearly that as long as you followed the unwritten rules of the Chinese CIA, the trade you made would be protected by the unwritten rules.

Xiao Letian's plan was to make Na Ba the Casablanca of East Asia, the port of Sai in the Pacific Ocean …

What Xiao Letian needed to do was to let the main road of this river pass through his eyelids. Not only could he obtain a lot of information using the geographical advantage, he could even turn this river into an estate.

This was a dark business, and it was also a very profitable business.

With his indulgence, the Zhiyuan Warship's performance this time around had become a show for top-notch spies. The subordinates who Wang Huaiyuan released were all stunned, they never thought that their European counterparts would be this skilled.

The newest type of camera was one third smaller than the one used by CIA, and it was also twice as clear. The best sketch talent, a charcoal pen could clearly print the outline of a battleship a thousand meters away onto a piece of paper in 10 seconds, without any disorder.

What caused people to be even more shocked was the military attainments of the military officials. Some things could be easily guessed at just by looking at them.

It was obvious that the Zhiyuan Warship's main cannon was already wrapped in canvas, but they could still see the parameters such as the size of the two cannons. They could even conclude that the Zhiyuan Warship would not be able to fire the two cannons at the same time.

There was also the wind tunnel next to the Zhiyuan Warship's pipe, so no one would know what it was for, but when these military officials saw two or three people bump into each other, they could already guess that it was the strong ventilation hole for the boiler crew.

At that time, they already knew that the Zhiyuan Warship had already used the most advanced air pressure increasing technique. In other words, they were forcefully blowing fresh air into the boiler to increase its firepower.

Among them, the British spy was the most outstanding. The CIA officials who were in charge of monitoring the British people were only able to see the pens of a few British military officials flying above the paper, as a string of cursive script and data flowed out.

The foundation left behind by a hundred year strong navy could not be compared with that of an ordinary nation. Just the few military officials sent to East Asia were able to deduce so many attributes of Zhiyuan Warship in such a short time, let alone whether there was any error in it or not, just from this train of thought, this agile brain was already terrifying enough.

Just by thinking about the parameters of the main cannon's diameter, they had already pushed Xiao Letian's navy line of thought to the back.

"200 mm and above for the main cannon. According to the length of the cannon barrel, the diameter is close to 25! What did Xiao Letian want to do? "It's clear that we're going to get a high-quality navy. We're going to use quality to pressure them …"

"The main cannon technology right now is already heaven-defying if you can have 15 times the diameter. Every bit of increase from 15 times the diameter isn't a small amount of money. It might even be double of what you pay!"

The two British military officials were busy writing and talking. They never thought that one of the sedan bearers hired by the Ryukyu was a CIA spy who was proficient in English. They had recorded every single word that they had said in their heart.

The British military attaché was talking about an important piece of data on artillery, and the average person knew what the caliber was. That was, the diameter of the barrel, whether it was an English pound or a metric millimeter, followed a single principle, and the greater the power, the more powerful it was.

And what was the double diameter? This was actually a cannon data that had only been discovered after the appearance of the rifled cannon. The diameter of the barrel was the ratio of the diameter of the barrel to the length of the barrel.

A rifled cannon. You divide the length of its barrel by the diameter of the barrel, and the resulting number is a whole number. That number is double the diameter.

For example, 50 x 160 howitzers. These two sets of data already tell you some of the basic parameters of the cannon, 160 is 160 mm diameter, and 50 times diameter can calculate the length of the barrel.

50 times 160 mm equals 8,000 mm, or eight meters. From this figure, you can tell that this is a very large cannon.

The larger the diameter, the longer the barrel. The advantage of having a long barrel was that it could allow the cannonball to spin in the barrel for a while longer, allowing the cannonball to get the spinning acceleration from the rifled gun.

In theory, the longer the barrel, the straighter the trajectory was, and the more stable the projectile was. This was also an important factor for the Zhiyuan Warship to be able to one-on-one with the rest in Ikek.

Although you have more cannons and more shots, they're not as accurate as mine! I'll be pregnant with just one shot, and with one shot, I'll be pregnant with another, and I won't miss a single shot! Let's see if you're afraid or not! I asked you if you were scared.

However, cannons with large diameters also had flaws. First, the cannon barrel had been cut for a long time, which would consume a portion of power. This would result in the armor piercing effect being reduced at a very long distance.

There was also the issue of the rifling problem. This was truly a disease of the rifled cannon. The continuous wear and tear of the cannon and the rifling. As the rifling became thinner, it naturally caused the lifespan of the barrel to decrease and the accuracy of the barrel to decrease.

The last important factor was the cost. This type of artillery was too expensive. If the cannon was of the same caliber, the length would increase by one meter, which would create countless difficulties for the casting process and the rifling manufacturing process.

The two British officers speculated that the cost of the Zhiyuan Warship's main cannon was one hundred thousand, unfortunately, the two of them guessed wrongly, the cost of each of the Zhiyuan Warship's main cannons had already exceeded 150 thousand, the cost was said to be so high that Bismark was stunned for a long time.

Just one cannon, the two British military officials had already guessed the strategy that Xiao Letian was going to use to build the navy. The Ryukyu Navy should be a deterrent force that follows a small but sophisticated strategy... What he is after is absolute superiority in East Asia or the Western Pacific... "

"According to this line of thinking regarding the development of the navy, Xiao Letian would never be able to compete for global supremacy, that's without a doubt!"