"Three, two, one, put!"

With the arms of the Beiyang officers holding the command flag on the beach and raising their hands, twenty-four new rockets of the Ming Empire soared into the air on the iron-clad launch rack in the scattered gunsmoke, dragging violent tail flames and screams into the distance.

On the sentry tower built by the cliff on the other side of the coast, Chen Mu took in everything with a telescope, and said to Bai Yuanjie beside him: "The trajectory is straighter than I imagined, and the spread is not too big." ”

At this moment, a large piece of door panels erected seven hundred and fifty steps away has been burned into a sea of fire by rockets, some of the door panels were broken and nailed to them by rockets, and when they exploded, they were shattered into sawdust, and some door panels were directly knocked to the ground because they could not bear the weight of the rocket's fall, and more rockets failed to nail the door panels, and the scattered fire oil attached to the sand and emitted the raging black smoke that Chen Mu liked.

As Bai Yuanjie said, the range of the rocket is not as far as Zhao Shizhen's original Shenwei Machine, but the effect is amazing.

The most striking thing is that their dispersion range is greatly improved from the Shenwei arrows used by the Lu Division, and at a range of seven hundred and fifty paces, twenty-four thick rockets are scattered between forty or fifty paces, which is already extremely accurate.

In the distance, the oil was still burning, and the heavy footsteps of juniper's helmet could be heard under the lookout.

Du Heizi brought Chen Mu a standard Vulcan arrow, the body of the arrow was black, and it looked like a cannon with a smaller caliber.

Chen Mu didn't get his hands on this rocket, but just asked Juniper to put it on the stone pier under the lookout, because Bai Yuanjie had already told him the parameters of the Vulcan Arrow, and one of these things weighed eighteen catties.

The most interesting thing is that the Vulcan arrow is split, which can be roughly divided into three sections, needless to say, the push of the propulsion department, as the middle and front end of the warhead, there are 15 three-coin cast iron pellets used to cause damage, but it also has the front end.

Very scheming at the forefront.

The tip of the cylindrical rocket is cone-shaped, and the top of the cone gives birth to an iron spur that is seven inches long and one inch thick, which is used to nail the rocket into it when it hits the target, but this is not what the rocket looks like when it is launched.

Chen Mu felt that the reason why the Vulcan Arrow had a short range was because he wanted everything, not only to kill and injure people with more than four catties of warheads, but also to set fire to the ship with more than two catties of nails and fire oil, where could it hit far if it was so heavy?

But this construction is very useful, because the nail is very long, the rocket is very heavy, the fuel tank does not fall off when flying, and only after hitting the target will the nail be shattered by the impact when it pierces half an inch, and then the explosive powder will be ignited at the same time.

A salvo from a ship can consume nearly a thousand catties of gunpowder.

If this is at the price of the Ming Dynasty, the cost of a round of gunpowder salvo is nearly twenty-seven taels of silver.

"The cost is very suitable."

Chen Mu gave such an evaluation in the face of such a cost, and he said to Bai Yuanjie: "It is very appropriate to paralyze an enemy warship with one hundred taels of silver and clean up all the marine soldiers on the upper deck. ”

Within a walking radius of fifty steps, it means that the two jade-faced rakshasas shoot out in unison, just trying to burn the enemy ship can't do it, but it is enough to paralyze the enemy ship and make it lose its mobility and combat ability.

What do you mean by that?

If you are poor, you will operate tactically, and if you reach it, you will give Lao Tzu a bang.

"If you are satisfied, if you want me to say yes, it is a kind of field, formulate those tactics and drill codes or let others do it, you Beiyang important ministers should farm in Tianjin, do a good job in your Tianjin industrial base, and don't have to worry about the war at all."

Bai Yuanjie said and nodded: "Otherwise, if you persuade the emperor, Bai will take care of the affairs of the Great Oriental Ocean, and you will go back to Hucheng to live, close to the Beiyang, and remotely control the Oriental Ocean." ”

This was just Lao Bai's fantasy, in fact, in a few months, he would return to Daming with the remaining more than 1,200 ships, and then sit in Tianjin Beiyang to guard the growing industrial base for Chen Mu.

Chen Mu tugged at the corners of his mouth, go back?

He didn't go back.

It must be a hassle to go back, where is there to be comfortable overseas.

He simply put aside the topic and said: "In this way, the gunpowder gap in Asia is 650,000 catties, no, at least the ships to be used must be prepared for two rounds of firing, plus the guns are commonly used, at least two million catties of gunpowder must be stored." ”

Sai Donkey's ability to change the topic was very profound, and the words he said made Bai Yuanjie look sideways: "What are you doing with so much gunpowder, you put together the rockets sent by the imperial court, there are fifty Rakshasa ships standing with one salvo of rockets is enough to fight a battle, you don't need to prepare so much, it won't be easy to use for a long time." ”

Chen Mu was happy in his heart, nodded and said, "That's right." ”

Of course, he didn't plan to stock up on so much gunpowder, but he still said lightly: "This situation is complicated, Brother Bai, you just came here and didn't know that the production of saltpeter is very high, and the two bows that arrived in Hong Kong last month sent four thousand catties of nitrate to Chang Sheng, all of which were as large as stones." ”

"This is still a shortage of manpower, just started digging, and the output will be more in the future." Chen Mu smiled and asked Juniper to call the banner army to collect troops and return to the city, and said to Bai Yuanjie: "With nitrate, if there is a need, you can make medicine in the same month, not to mention that even if you make gunpowder directly, we can sell it if we can't use it up." ”

"There is a Fei Lao Er over there in Dadongyang, who thinks about beating his neighbor all day long, our gunpowder is 100 catties 2 taels and 3 cents and 9 cents at the market price, and it is not too much to sell him 100 catties and 100 and a half taels."

Chen Mu said and took out a silver coin from Juniper's waist and handed it to Bai Yuanjie, saying, "Well, that's it, the Ming Spanish money, he entrusted us to do it, and the silver they dug from Peru was first handed over to the Oriental Military Mansion." ”

"This year, 170,000 catties of silver were minted, or 2,732,000 taels, and according to the contract, the first 409,800 taels belonged to the Ming Dynasty, which was the labor fee for minting the coinage, and the remaining 2,322,200 taels were used to mint money for him."

"Nine silver and one bronze were minted, and four million six hundred and forty-four thousand four hundred silver coins were minted for him, and the Ming Dynasty received another two hundred and thirty-two thousand two hundred and twenty taels."

"So now he doesn't have to give money to do business with us." Chen Mu said this with an upright face, and said: "As long as he wants something, I will send it to him immediately, anyway, his money is all here, I can deduct it myself, and I will never let him suffer." ”

Bai Yuanjie was no longer able to complain.

Originally, he thought that he said that the old brother counted the most money, and this could finally find a little comfort for him in the wasted years of the Nanyang Military Mansion, but he didn't expect the Oriental Military Mansion to be even more powerful.

Don't even mention taxes, and directly give other countries a cut of coinage.

Lao Bai didn't think of how to respond to Chen Mu's complacency, so he saw the horse's hooves flying dust from the official road in the direction of the port, and Juniper had already led two guards to draw knives and protect more than half of them in front of them.

When the rider rolled the saddle and dismounted from far and near, he saw a Mongolian rider dressed in full armor and dust, bowing to the ground and clenching his fists after a few steps, and said in a non-standard official language: "Report to the marshal, Jincheng is urgent, there is a war in the east." ”

Chen Mu and Bai Yuanjie glanced at each other, and he saw the heat and longing bursting out of Lao Bai's eyes.