A battleship equipped with 100 guns is enough to meet the standard of a first-class battleship, and the three-deck is still fully metal-covered.

Moreover, the guns of the new warships are also new guns, that is, rear-loading howitzers, and the battleships are also equipped with fifty mortars for indiscriminate scattering at close range.

The diesel-powered new battleship is not only greatly reminded in terms of endurance, but also much faster than the previous steam power, at least the most advanced battleship of the Dutch coachman can not outrun the new warship of the Ming Dynasty.

What's more, no matter how awesome the Dutch battleships are, they are just sail warships, and no matter how many sails they have and how high their skills are, they will not be much faster in the case of headwinds.

And what about the new diesel-powered ironclads, headwinds? This problem does not exist.

It is conceivable that when this huge iron lump opens out of the sea, it is enough to shock the world.

If you really want to talk about the shortcomings, the only shortcomings in the current situation are that the research and development is too slow and the cost is too high.

The first new ironclad ship was gradually named the Sun Never Sets by Liu Hong, and at first Zhu Cihong and cabinet officials did not understand the meaning of the sun never sets.

In their only understanding, how can the sun not set when the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening?

Liu Hongjian didn't explain much about this, the world is too big, there are too many Ming people, and he doesn't have the heart to explain the truth of all things to everyone.

In the end, Liu Hong was gradually forced to be anxious, and bluntly said that if you really want to know, go to the School of Engineering to audit!

In order to speed up the construction progress, Mo Huan of Tianjin Bao Shipyard stopped the construction of all other warships in the Bao Shipyard and sent the best craftsmen to the construction dock of the huge new warship.

Tianjin Bao Shipyard has no less than 5,000 craftsmen of all kinds, and under the high salary, the best craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty are employed.

They were divided into two shifts and worked day and night to study and test, and it took half a year to develop the first battleship and complete its sea trials.

The essence of a great power is here, and the superiority of imperialism is also here, but even if the national strength of future generations is strong, it will be difficult to concentrate so much on the military industry.

It is impossible for the state to stop the research of other aspects to build a warship, because the people are already smart enough, and they will not allow it, and the state must consider the voice of the people.

But in Daming, the people are very content, it is enough to be able to eat and not be bullied, they don't even care about the strength of the country, at least for the time being, they don't have this awareness.

The completion of the new warship also officially ended the era of the Daming Naval Division winning by quantity.

In the past, in naval and water wars, the Chinese nation always won by the number of people and the number of warships, even in the era of Zheng Zhilong five years ago, the Zheng family still relied on the huge number of warships to support the trade in the South Seas.

Thousands of warships were often sent to fight the Dutch's one or twenty search warships, and at the peak of the Zheng family, there were more than three thousand warships, and most of the so-called warships were just single-sail wooden boats.

The war with the Dutch was all about the number of men and ships, so much so that the guns on the Dutch battleships could not finish the wooden ships that rushed like moths to the flames, and the two defeats of the Dutch were caused by the self-immolation of the small boats under the pressure of the black.

The new era lies in the fact that there are not many warships, but in the fine, the new warships of the Ming Dynasty are like this, and its surface armor is enough to withstand the solid bullets fired by the largest caliber guns of the Dutch warships.

However, there was only one warship, and for Zhu Cihong, who had little experience in naval warfare, and the cabinet ministers, they believed that one warship was too small to gain an advantage in naval warfare.

In fact, there is another reason why Zhu Cihong did not agree with the Beiyang Naval Division to fight, that is, this battleship was Liu Hongji's painstaking efforts, and the naval battle with the Dutch was destined to be written into the history books.

As the helmsman and witness, how could Liu Hongchuan, the king of Anguo County, not participate in this epic battle?

"Can you still send reinforcements to Dongying?" Zhu Cihong was silent for a moment and said.

The sailors can't move, so what about the troop carriers? It's okay to take over the Ming soldiers on Dongying?

"Your Majesty, the entire Dongying Sea has been blocked by the Dutch, besides...... The route of Vladivostok cannot be taken either......" said Li Banghua, the first assistant of the cabinet and the secretary of the military department.

The three thousand Ming soldiers on the Dongying Territory are all elites selected from the Praetorian Guard and the Beiyang Naval Division, and no one knows the difficulties of cultivating elite soldiers better than Li Banghua.

"Can we just sit idly by? Is this what you are capable of? Zhu Cihong asked, already very dissatisfied between his words.

At this time, he missed Liu Hongjian very much, whenever he encountered a major event, as long as Liu Hongjian was present, this guy must be hanging Erlang's legs to solve all the problems.

Why did he ever make him so sad?

"The minister thought that he could send a small group of warships to the open sea to harass them, and these warships would not fight hard with the Dutch, but only need to contain the main force of the Dutch so that they could not attack Dongying with all their might." Li Banghua had already made up his mind in his heart and said calmly.

"Okay, that's it! In addition, Jin Yiwei must always pay attention to the news of the Dutch and Dongying.

Also, spread the news to Rakshasa as soon as possible, so that the king of Anguo County also knows it in his heart. Zhu Cihong said again.

Speaking of the bottom of his heart, Zhu Cihong is still a little worried about the Dutch, and even a little worried, after all, he has not fought much.

Passing the news here to Liu Hongjian is also to let him understand the actual situation here, so that he can weigh whether to rush back as soon as possible.

If Liu Hong gradually knows about this matter, I'm afraid it will be a mockery, what else does the Dutch in the dog day have besides the strong navy?

If they are really awesome, do they only dare to shout in the sea off the coast of Daming? If you have the ability to really fight on land, it is a mule or a horse, pull it out and slip!

But if the Dutch knew Liu Hongji's heart, he would probably laugh wildly, Lao Tzu is a man of words, and if he says that he will fight a naval battle, if he has the ability, you can pull out the sailors of the Ming Dynasty, and we will fight at sea!

"Wechen obeyed the order, and the day before yesterday I got the news that the next batch of supplies destined for the Near East has arrived in Beihai, and if this batch of supplies can be delivered to the hands of the king of Anguo on time, the pressure on the front line will be reduced a lot." Li Banghua whispered.

In addition to the necessary food and ammunition, this batch of supplements also includes rear-loading clip-mounted rifled muskets that were successfully developed half a year ago but were not mass-produced.

At first, due to the lack of maturity of the technology and the shortage of steel production, it was stranded in a hurry to build howitzers.

Now the king of Anguo on the front line is no longer urging the rear to provide more howitzers, but to urge artillery shells.

More than a hundred howitzers were enough for the front line, and the rear-loading rifled muskets with the same complex process were immediately mass-produced.

For the first time, a cartridge-type rearloading gun used a metal cartridge case, which was made of brass, and the style was no different from the conical bullet that was common in later generations.

The reason why there was no mass production for the time being was because Liu Honggradually required the rear-loading musket to provide a magazine, and the magazine was not a magazine, which was not difficult to do, and it was rare to modify the structure of the rear-loading musket.

Because Liu Hongjian wanted a portable musket with a bolt, this was also Liu Hongchuan's ultimate idea for the Daming musket, as long as the bolt was pulled, the cartridge case could be taken out and the next bullet automatically pressed into the chamber.

Don't underestimate this progress, after the First World War, every technological innovation on the musket was built on a bloody battlefield.

The Daming musket was able to finally develop a cartridge-type rear-loading gun, which was also a technical update and iteration many times, and went through countless battles before gradually maturing.

From the original arquebus to the front-loading rifle, then to the front-loading rifled gun, paper shell bullets, and then to the rear-loading rifled gun, primer, metal shell bullets, it took four years for the Ming Dynasty.

From the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution to the First World War, it took Europeans two hundred years to complete the ultimate evolution of muskets.

The breech-loading bolt-action rifled gun will also end an era, the era of the large phalanx of muskets, and the tactic of queuing to shoot, and it is more than a hundred years in advance.

In the initial stage of developing the musket, Liu Hongjian has been drawing this blueprint, and the Ming soldiers no longer have to shout slogans to line up for design, but the soldiers dig trenches and lie down in the trenches freely and quickly design.

It would be even better if you added a scope to the musket.

The bolt-activated musket greatly accelerated the reloading speed of the musket, and in the past, the bolt-activated musket could shoot six rounds in one magazine.

The breech-loading bolt-driven rifled musket is 33 inches long, of which the barrel is 18 inches long, and the whole gun weighs about 9 pounds with a magazine, and uses a quarter-inch caliber bullet (about 8 millimeters).

The same wooden butt was used, with a steel barrel and a small circular iron bolt protruding above the rear of the chamber, which could press the bullet from the magazine into the chamber by simply pulling the bolt.

If you know the gun at a glance, you can see that the appearance of this gun is very similar to the 88 type rifle of later generations, that is, the formal rifle.

The number of bolt-activated muskets produced in the first batch is not large, only 5,000, the reason is still limited to bullets, and the current industrial level of the Ming Dynasty is not able to carry out mechanized mass production of bullets.

All bullets and shells are all hand-made by Ming craftsmen one by one, which requires a high degree of danger and professionalism for craftsmen.

Even if tens of thousands of craftsmen in the ordnance institute were mobilized to produce grenades and metal cartridge cases, the 5,000 bolt-action rifles were equipped with more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition in a limited time.

Average these more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition to each gun, and one gun is equipped with more than 40 rounds of ammunition.

"Well, I've played with that musket, it's really a good thing, Liu Qing will definitely like it." Zhu Cihong said with relief.

After the last royal expedition, Zhu Cihong had a great interest in firearms, and Liu Hongjian did not object to Zhu Cihong playing with guns, and this guy even played with grenades a few times.

On the wall next to Zhu Cihong's Qianqing Palace Dragon Collapse, there is such a bolt-action rifle, and the number is still zero zero one.

In his words, this thing has a sense of security, if someone dares to commit murder in the Qianqing Palace, he can kill the gangster with a single shot.

Of course, the words are a joke, and the ceremonial supervisor Da Hai and Wang Erxi listened to it, Wang Erxi felt that Zhu Cihong was talking more and more to the king of Anguo County in private, and Da Da Hai felt that the emperor had become bad.

"Your Majesty, the gun is not played casually, it is too dangerous, you want to pay attention to the dragon body!" Second assistant Han Yu reminded.

The rest of the cabinet elders were also frightened, and Li Banghua, the first assistant of the cabinet and the secretary of the military department, and Zhang Tianlu, the secretary of the household department, glanced at each other, and decided to track down who handed over the gun to Zhu Cihong as soon as they went back.

"I will give you 600,000 taels of silver from the internal treasury, and immediately expand the production line of bolt-action rifles, the shackles of bolt-action rifles are bullets, and the shackles of bullets are metal cartridge cases and primers.

As for grinding, ordinary workers can polish as long as they master the vernier caliper, so we must increase the production capacity as soon as possible.

I will give you a year, and the 1.2 million soldiers of the Ming Dynasty will be equipped with this bolt-action rifle!

How, can it be done? Zhu Cihong didn't take Han Yu's reminder seriously, but looked at Wang Jiayan, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, and Zhang Tianlu, the secretary of the Ministry of Households.

Wang Jiayan and Zhang Tianlu stared at each other with big eyes, they were a little dazed, what are 600,000 taels of silver enough for, they can't even make a splash when they are thrown into the ordnance station, not to mention that the ordnance station is directly under you Zhu Cihong, what does it matter to the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Households?

It's just that the two hesitated for a moment and still gave up the order.

Alas, isn't it a matter of money after all?

All the expenses of the Ordnance Institute can be used from the Ministry of Households, and all the ores, metals, and equipment needed can be withdrawn from the inventory of the Ministry of Industry.

The Ordnance Institute can issue IOUs to the Ministry of Household and the Ministry of Industry, so who will the Ministry of Household and the Ministry of Industry go to make IOUs? The Emperor?

Hehe, I'm sorry, you can worry about it yourself.

Anyway, the research and development progress of various projects of the Ordnance Institute cannot be stopped, and the universities, middle schools, and Meng Xuexue schools supervised by various parts of the Ming Dynasty cannot be stopped, and the asphalt and cement concrete official roads of the main roads supervised by various provinces and prefectures cannot be stopped.

Zhu Cihong has been the emperor for two years, and he understands a reason, what are ministers used for?

Of course, it is used to solve problems, but if the problems are not difficult enough, how can they show the ability of the ministers?

Therefore, there is no need to worry so much about everything, just push it directly to the ministers, and if this minister can't do it, he will change another one, and whichever minister has the ability will be promoted.

As for him, he only needs to take charge of Dongchang and Jinyiwei, and see which official is not honest, which official is not clean, and which official does not while standing in the pit, and so on.

Holding the army in his left hand and supervising in his right hand, this is the method that Liu Hong gradually handed over to him, and now it seems that it is really good.

Even Zhu Cihong was a little inflated, he felt that his ability to handle government affairs had surpassed his father's, and he really wanted to find someone to pour out the excitement and joy in his heart.

But after thinking about it, he only thought of Liu Hongchuan, the king of Anguo County, alas, invincible is always lonely, Zhu Cihong thought.

After setting the tone of Dongying, the meeting was dissolved as scheduled, except for Zhu Cihong, who was interested in Xing Shan, the rest of the ministers frowned tightly.

The first year of Taishun was in full swing and then there was no danger.

Five days later, the capital ushered in Chinese New Year's Eve, and the lights were everywhere, and the people went out of their homes to watch fireworks in the ancient capital.

And among the thousands of lights, the county king's mansion on the top of Xishan Mountain is the quietest one......

……