Li Zhi walked in the machine tool factory, looked at the newly produced planer and milling machine, and nodded. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

A planer is a linear motion machine tool that uses a planer to plane the plane, groove or forming surface of a workpiece. This machine tool has high machining accuracy and is suitable for machining a small number of high-precision workpieces.

On the other hand, a milling machine is a machine that uses a high-speed rotating cutter head to process planes, grooves, curved surfaces, gears, etc., and has high efficiency.

With the successive equipment of various machine tools, the industrial level of Fanjiazhuang has reached the level of the early nineteenth century. This is key for the mass production of steam locomotives. Otherwise, without all kinds of machine tools, if you polish it by hand, the manufacturing cycle of steam locomotives will be very long, and the cost will be very high.

However, Li Zhi came to the machine tool factory today to inspect not for the steam locomotive, but to see if the machine tool factory could make a breech-loading rifle.

"Han Jinxin, you said that the Jiangbei Army has begun to equip new rifles in batches?"

Han Jinxin nodded, and arched his hand and said: "Grandpa Guo, the informant reported that the Jiangbei Army has requisitioned and transferred firecracker craftsmen from several provinces near Jiangxi to bury themselves in building new rifles. According to the informant's observations at the training ground, the new rifle can hit 200 meters and three shots a minute. ”

Li Zhi groaned and said, "Two hundred meters, isn't this the same as our standard rifle without a scope." ”

Han Jinxin said: "That's right, Grandpa Guo. ”

Li Zhi took a breath and secretly said that the secret of this Mini rifle may have been discovered by people of this era. The trick of the Mini rifle is too simple, and the key to it all is a hollow bullet design at the tail. This secret was kept for ten years before it was grasped by other forces, which already made Li Zhi feel very relieved.

However, since other forces have begun to equip themselves with Mini rifles, Li Zhi has to upgrade his armaments and continue to maintain a technological lead.

This is a matter of urgency. The Jiangbei Army was more than twice as numerous as the Tiger Army, and if the Tiger Army's technical level could not surpass the Jiangbei Army, it might be defeated by the Jiangbei Army.

If the Tiger Ben army is defeated, the prosperity of one town and four provinces will disappear. Lee Sik's career will be a complete failure.

Li Zhi shuttled back and forth between the various machine tools, watching the workers busily build the components of the steam locomotive.

Today, Fanjiazhuang's machine tool factory has entered a stage of independent evolution. Without Li Zhi's guidance, the craftsmen in the machine tool factory can continuously improve the accuracy of the machine tool according to the actual needs of production. The current precision control has reached the level of a quarter of a millimeter.

This accuracy was enough for the first generation of steam locomotives, but for rear-loading rifles, this level was still a little worse.

In Li Zhi's memory, when the rear-loading rifle appeared in the mid-nineteenth century, the machining accuracy of machine tools in Europe had reached the level of one-tenth of a millimeter. A breech-loading rifle often has fifty or sixty components, and it is assembled by a large number of gadgets. However, after the final assembly of a rifle, the bolt is required to be highly airtight, which is a great test of machining accuracy.

The most famous early breech-loading rifle was undoubtedly the Dresser needle pistol. This rifle came to prominence in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, helping Prussia defeat Austria, which was using Mini rifles. But in fact, back in the twenties of the XIX century, several breech-loading rifles were introduced in Europe.

The premature babies of these rear-loading rifles were unsuspecting, precisely because the airtightness was too poor, resulting in a much lower range and accuracy than the front-loading guns, and had no real combat value.

If Li Zhi wants to produce a rear-loading gun, he must also wait for the machine tool factory to upgrade the machine and improve the accuracy.

Moreover, the rear-loading gun used a primer, which involved the production of mercury thunderate, which was also a problem. Mercury thunderate is not only extremely unstable, easily explosive in the production process, but also very toxic. The safe production of mercury thunderate is by no means a simple matter.

After taking a turn in the machine tool factory, Li Zhi realized that it would take time to build a rear-loading gun.

However, it does not mean that without a rear-loading gun, it will not be able to overwhelm the Jiangbei Army technically. As an industrial designer, Li Zhi has other ways. He took Han Jinxin into the foundry in Fanjiazhuang again.

The foundry technology under Li Zhi's command is also constantly improving. Originally, it took several days to cast a copper cannon with an iron core, and it took a lot of time to find the center of the casting by hand and adjust the position of the iron core and the copper liquid. But now, this proofreading is done by specially designed machines, and production speeds are greatly increased.

Advances in technology have made it possible to cast new bullets on a large scale. What used to take a lot of time to find the right job can now be done in batches with the help of machines.

As soon as Li Zhi walked into the foundry, he saw that the shelves at the door were full of freshly baked steel-core lead bullets.

Li Zhi picked up a steel-core lead bullet from the shelf and looked at it, and found that the steel core in the middle of the bullet was very hard. This steel core uses the best crucible steel from Fanjiazhuang and is used for armor piercing. Then a layer of lead is cast on the outside of the steel core, which is softer to ensure that the bullet is twisted and rifled in the chamber and rotates.

Li Zhi handed a steel core bullet to Han Jinxin and looked at it.

Han Jinxin said: "Grandpa Guo, this new bullet seems to be harder than lead bullet. ”

Li Zhi said with a smile: "This new bullet should be able to penetrate the double heavy armor of the Jiangbei Army." Let's go to the shooting range. ”

Li Zhi asked a worker to carry a box of steel-core bullets and walked to the shooting range outside Fanjiazhuang City.

At the shooting range, Li Zhi asked people to set up a heavy-armored scarecrow wrapped in heavy cotton armor and iron scale armor, and he stood at a distance of 200 meters and used new bullets to shoot.

With a crisp "pop", Li Zhi fired a bullet from 200 meters away, and the scarecrow 200 meters away fell in response.

Li Zhi asked the scarecrow to be sent over, and sure enough, he saw two holes in the armor on the scarecrow.

Han Jinxin said in surprise: "Grandpa Guo's divine martial arts! This new bullet is really sharp. In this way, we will be able to kill the heavy armored soldiers of the Jiangbei Army from a long distance! ”

Li Zhi nodded, and asked the soldiers to set the target farther, to two hundred and fifty meters.

"Snap" a shot, and there are two more holes in the armor on the scarecrow.

Li Zhi moved the scarecrow farther and shot at three hundred meters.

In the end, Li Zhi discovered that this steel-core bullet could penetrate two layers of armor at a distance of 300 meters. If it's farther away, you won't be able to penetrate it.

Li Zhi grabbed his rifle and said, "The soldiers of the Jiangbei Army can only attack us at a distance of 200 meters, but our soldiers can shoot the Jiangbei Army at a distance of 300 meters. Coupled with the fact that we use smokeless gunpowder, the soldiers do not need to clean the chambers, and the rate of fire is higher than that of the Jiangbei Army. We are a generation ahead of the Jiangbei Army in technology. ”