A train with a long whistle, slowly into the Shanghai Railway Station, this train is a special train, taking the Qing Dynasty's first mission to Western countries, with Prince Gong Yixun, Alcohol County Wang Yifang as the main and deputy leader of the envoy group of 400 people, can be called the largest envoy in the history of the Qing Dynasty. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The mission not only had a large number of children of the clan, but also the major government offices of the Beijing Division, the six departments - the Ministry of Officials, Households, Rites, Soldiers, Criminal Justice, and the Ministry of Industry, and the offices of the six departments and the six departments - Dali Temple, Taichang Temple, Guanglu Temple, Taifu Temple, Honglu Temple, Guozijian, Qintianjian, Hanlin Yuan, Tai Hospital, Li Fan Yuan and other offices, all sent representatives. In addition, the Eight Banners stationed in Beijing, the Eight Banners New Army, and the Beiyang Naval Division also sent many military attaches to follow the mission.

Such a large-scale mission visit was not only because Xianfeng attached great importance to this visit, but also because he did not want the imperial court to pay money, and Yuan Qi covered all the expenses of the mission.

On the platform, Prince Hui Mianyu led Shanghai's large and small civil and military officials and local famous gentry and businessmen to quietly watch the train slowly entering the station, next to their huge lineup, is a sparse number of consuls from various countries in Shanghai, for the first time sent by the Qing Dynasty to send a large number of envoys, the consuls of various countries attach great importance to it, so they all come to greet it.

In addition, there are reporters from various newspapers, large and small, and even in Shanghai, the slightly bulky camera that is a novelty has gathered more than a dozen cameras on the platform, and Yuan Qi has spared no effort in the propaganda of the envoys.

Farther away, there were many people who came to see the excitement, but they were all stopped by the armed military and police, and they could not get close, so they could only watch from afar.

"When you arrive in Shanghai, you all have to check your appearance carefully." Lang Baojun, the right attendant of the Ministry of Rites, said loudly: "The consuls of various countries in Shanghai have come to the station to welcome, everyone should pay attention to the etiquette ....... ”

This is to Shanghai, many officials who take the train for the first time feel like a dream, Beijing to Shanghai is a full 3,000 miles, less than three days to arrive safely, to put in the past, no matter how fast it will take a month, this gap is really too big!

Prince Gong Yixun is also the first time to take the train, the first time to come to Shanghai, however, his mood is very complicated, he doesn't know, he should be in what attitude to face Yi Zhicontent, the original storage dispute, if Yi Zhixin entered Beijing to join the military aircraft, he will not be the prince, but the Son of Heaven! For the king and the minister, there is no difference between the world!

After a slight flicker, the train had stopped, and Wang Yicheng glanced at Yixun, who seemed to be a little distracted, and reminded softly: "Sixth, it's here." ”

Yixun came back to his senses, glanced out the window, then got up and took off his official hat and put it on, walked to the door calmly, on the platform, when he saw Yixun appear at the door of the carriage, Prince Hui Mianyu took the lead in kneeling down and said: "Slaves (ministers) and others respectfully ask for Sheng'an." ”

"St. Bow." After receiving the salute on behalf of the sky, Yixun hurriedly stepped forward to help Mianyu up, "Uncle Huang, please get up." Then he said, "Excuse me." The officials who were waiting got up, he glanced at it, and saw that there was no easy contentment, and he couldn't help but be secretly surprised, easy to be contented to be so big?

Mianyu was shrewd, and hurriedly said lightly: "Yi Guocheng is not in Shanghai, but in Guangzhou. As he spoke, he reminded: "The consuls of the consulates of various countries in Shanghai are here, and the sixth child has to say hello to them." ”

Yi Xun led everyone to greet the consuls of various countries, and Mian Yue couldn't help but sigh secretly, where will Yi Zhicontent come to openly greet Qin Cha now, he, a general who controls more than ten provinces, came to Shanghai, and Yi Zhixin has never greeted him.

Yi Zhifen is not in Guangzhou, but in Haizhou Zhili Prefecture, Ganyu County, Jiangsu, Yuan Qi built a military port on Xiaogushan Island here - Lianyungang, the name of the port is naturally named after Yi Zhifen.

This military port is not large, it was established as a supply base, there are very few warships on weekdays, only a few warships come to berth occasionally, even so, it is also classified as a military management area, and even local fishing boats are not allowed to dock in the nearby waters, let alone merchant ships, however, this place is remote, and there are very few merchant ships to moor.

Yuanqi chose to build a port here because of its remoteness, which was more of a large shooting range than a supply base, and was often tested by steam gunboats loaded with new artillery.

"Boom" A dull cannon sound like thunder broke the calm of the sea, Yi Zhizhi raised the telescope, and the shell fell into the water near the target ship, making a huge explosion and hitting a column of water.

Soon, the guns on the steam gunboat fired again, and they didn't hit, seeing this situation, the officer Zhao Donghai next to Yi Zhishu had a somewhat unpleasant face, such a large target ship, actually missed two guns in a row under calm conditions, this is still the best gunner.

Yi Zhicontent but didn't take it seriously, although it was a rifled artillery, but the sighting device on the gun was too rough in these years, the gunner was completely based on experience, even if it was a one-shot hit, it was mostly blind, and it was not bad to be able to hit a place not far from the target ship.

What he cares about is the shelling speed of the rear-loading artillery, this test-fired gun is the latest steel-cast breech-mounted rifled gun developed by Yuanqi, and the shell fired is an integral metal-shelled conical shell, using the latest development of smokeless gunpowder and a new type of fuze - the firing fuze, also called the touch fuse, the shell detonates when it touches the object.

Don't underestimate this fuse, after Yi Zhizu put forward the idea of a touch fuze, the R&D team of the Yuanqi Military Factory still used five years to develop a detonator before successfully developing this touch fuse that satisfied Yi Zhifen.

Of course, this is a world of difference between the touch fuse and the previous delay fuse, which not only increases the rate of fire but also greatly increases the hit rate and explosion rate of the shell, which greatly improves the lethality of the shell! Moreover, not only for artillery shells, but also for grenades, touch grenades are already being developed.

"Bang!" The third shell finally hit the target ship, making a huge explosion sound, just looking through the telescope, you can see that the power of the explosion is very considerable, Yi Zhifu nodded slightly, and said, "What is the speed of the shelling now?" ”

"Back to the principal." Zhao Donghai hurriedly said: "Full-speed artillery bombardment can reach eight to ten rounds per minute, which is at least five to ten times faster than the front-loading gun, but the barrel of the cannon is a little unbearable for rapid shelling." ”

Hearing this, a R&D personnel hurriedly said: "The strength, hardness and toughness of the steel cast cannon barrel have not been further developed, and the steel used is also smelted from iron ore transported from Annan, which is currently the best steel." ”

Iron and steel is the basis for the development of industry, for steelmaking, easy to know content has always been the most important, but the current steelmaking technology is very backward, converter steelmaking technology has not yet come out, and converter steelmaking is just a term for him.

Although he has no steelmaking skills, he may be the most authoritative in the world in his understanding of steel, because he knows the definition of steel - steel is a solid melt of carbon, silicon, manganese and other elements in iron. The elements in steel can be roughly divided into two categories, one is carbon, silicon, manganese and other beneficial elements used to improve the properties of the class.

The other category is sulfur, phosphorus, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and other harmful elements, which are either originally present in iron ore or enter steel from the atmosphere during steelmaking, and the presence of these harmful elements will deteriorate the performance of steel.

Steelmaking is to remove such harmful elements in steel through chemical reactions, save or improve the beneficial elements, of course, various beneficial elements also have different changes in the performance of steel, such as low carbon steel, high carbon steel, low manganese steel, medium manganese steel, high manganese steel, ultra-high manganese steel, high silicon steel, the performance is different.

Limited to steelmaking technology, he could only instruct metallurgical technicians to try to use iron ore from various places to smelt and make various comparisons, so as to derive better steel.

He knows that the iron ore of the Qing Dynasty is high in harmful elements such as sulfur and phosphorus, while the iron ore in Annan should be high in beneficial elements such as silicon and manganese, and low in sulfur and phosphorus, so that the quality of all smelted steel will be better.

After a little muttering, Yi Zhizhi said: "There is no end to smelting technology, steel for guns, railways, shipbuilding, machines, steel for various precision machine tool parts, steel for springs, all need steel with different properties, now it is not even a start, don't easily say the best, there is never the best, only better!" ”

Listening to this, a group of R&D personnel have different expressions, no one dares to speak, although this Yuanqi shopkeeper is a layman, but, his knowledge is unparalleled, these words, even professional metallurgical technicians can't say it, but obviously, this is really reasonable!

After a period of silence, someone whispered: "The current steel production is too low...... and it is too waste.......ful to use it to make guns." ”

"No waste!" Yi Zhicontent said without thinking: "There will soon be a big breakthrough in steelmaking technology, there will be a big leap in steel production, and we must accumulate as much experience as possible for the various properties of steel, once the steelmaking technology breakthroughs, Yuanqi can take the advantage!" ”

"Really?" The R&D personnel are overjoyed, and their biggest problem now is that the output of steel is too low, and even the test steel cannot be satisfied.

"Nature is true." Yi Zhi's content said in a firm tone, he not only paid close attention to the steelmaking technology of Britain, France, the United States and other countries, but also organized a large number of manpower and material resources to study steelmaking technology, he believed that the breakthrough of steelmaking technology is not far away, even if Yuanqi does not break through here, Europe should also break through soon, steel casting afterloading rifled guns are not only developed by Yuanqi, Europe has also developed, and increasing steel production has been a very urgent need for all countries in the world.

Shanghai, Zhenhai Road, Rongyuan.

Twenty-five or sixteen-year-old Wang Yicheng arranged the wrinkled shirt and vest in front of a dressing mirror, and then put on a long tweed coat, and put the braid on the top of his head, and covered with a high-topped silk top hat, a handsome English gentleman appeared in the mirror, he was the fifth son of Daoguang, at the age of sixteen, that is, when Daoguang was about to become a prince, he passed him to the prince Miankai, and was named the king of the county.

Although he is very arrogant, not good at reading, vulgar words and deeds, but he is exquisite, knowing that this is Daoguang's protection of him, afraid that he will be involved in the whirlpool of contention, Xianfeng ascended the throne, he was quite tolerant to him, and ordered him to walk in the inner court, however, he still does not change his casual habits, frequent rudeness, and has been repeatedly punished, in March last year, he was demoted to Baylor, dismissed from all positions, returned to the study to study, and Yi Xun is really a pair of difficult brothers, in the first month of this year, he was able to reinstate the king of the county, Xianfeng summoned, let him go abroad with Yi Xun to investigate.

Seeing him looking left and right in the mirror, Yixun strolled over and quipped: "Shave your beard, put a pipe, and use a cane, and you'll be able to get rid of a fake foreign devil." ”

Yi Cheng didn't care at all, and said, "Don't say it, this outfit looks quite energetic." ”

"Isn't it uncomfortable?"

Yi Cheng smiled: "It's really uncomfortable. ”

Yixun turned his head, "How many days have we been in Shanghai?" It's been five days, why hasn't Yi Guocheng shown up? ”

"He's not in a hurry, what are you anxious about?" Yi Yi touched his beard, thinking about whether to shave it off, with a casual expression, "There are a lot of people in Shanghai, and everyone has not been idle these days, and they are familiar with Western etiquette and customs, which should have been arranged a long time ago." As he spoke, he suddenly said, "I'm dressed up like this, I go to Paramount nightclub at night, can I invite Western women to a bar?" ”

Co-authoring such a toss is to go to a nightclub? Yi Xun was speechless, "Fifth brother can speak foreign language?" ”

"You can't just bring a translator."

Yixun suddenly felt that his head was big, and hurriedly said: "The fifth uncle has repeatedly warned that Western women are coquettish, and nine times out of ten they have flower willow disease, so they must not be contaminated with ........" ”

Before he finished speaking, an attendant reported at the door: "Second master, Master Yi is here to visit." ”

"This guy really doesn't talk about it, and he comes here as soon as he talks about it." Yi Cheng said and walked out, "It's rare for him to come to visit and greet him." ”

Yixun looked at him dressed nondescriptly, frowned, and said, "That's it?" ”

"I don't want to toss." Yi Cheng didn't look back.

Yi Zhixiang didn't wait for the courtesy, he had already slowly entered the courtyard, and looked up to see the two brothers Yi Cheng and Yi Xun dressed in Western style coming out, and couldn't help but smile, "It seems that the emperor chose the fifth master to envoy to the West, and he really knows how to make good use of ......." Laughing, he walked up to him and said in a relaxed tone: "I just rushed back to Shanghai, but I couldn't meet the five masters and six masters from afar, and I still looked at Haihan." ”

Yi Zhishu was dressed in a long shirt, no hat, short hair, very energetic, he stood in front of the two of them, with a smile on his face, a kind and calm attitude, Yi Xun was stunned for a moment, and said: "The braid is cut?" ”

"It's been cut early." Yi Zhizhi said casually: "The officers and men of the Nanyang Navy have cut their braids, and I, the admiral, cannot be an exception." ”

Yi Cheng said heartlessly: "This short hair looks like it's also spiritual." ”