The whole vehicle of guns, ammunition and other hot weapons from the East Gun Factory was transported out, the expansion speed of the Ming Army, so that the East Gun Factory has been a little insufficient, even if the full horsepower production, there is still some supply, so the current Ming Army is still a semi-firearms army. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

In response to this situation, Nanyang invested in Foshan, Fuzhou and Changsha to build new arsenals. According to Wang Xinyu's plan, after taking Wuchang, the Hanyang Industrial Zone should be established on the opposite bank, and a large steel plant and gun factory should be built in Hanyang by taking advantage of the convenience of the Yangtze River route.

At the current industrial level, rifled guns are still very cost-effective, front-loading rifled guns are too slow to load, and shells are expensive; The technology of rear-loading rifled guns is too complex, the production of artillery is too slow, and the shells are very expensive, which are not suitable for mass production.

However, the technical level of smoothbore guns has improved, and the practical hydraulic machinery and equipment have smoothed and polished the gun chamber, so that the smoothness of the gun chamber has been improved, and the hit rate has been increased to the peak of the smoothbore gun.

In fact, when human history developed to the Napoleonic era, the hit rate of advanced smoothbore guns was already very high. The heavier the shell, the higher the hit rate at long distances, and the maximum firing range of the twelve-pounder field gun can reach six miles, and it can already be fired from a distance of one mile and accurately hit the opponent's gun position.

With the improvement of smelting technology, the thickness of the barrel wall became thinner, and the weight of the gun was reduced.

In addition to cannons of various calibers of various sizes, howitzers are also developing rapidly. The howitzer is a kind of curved artillery, the shell flies out in a parabolic shape, the effective range is about one mile, mainly fires howitzers and grenades, and is a weapon used to kill infantry and cavalry. A grenade is actually a flowering shell fired from a howitzer.

At present, a swarm of fire vans has also begun to be mass-produced, this weapon is the nemesis of the cavalry, more than 100 fire vans and thousands of rockets in a salvo, can cover a radius of several miles of targets, and the reloading speed of rockets is fast. In addition to a swarm of fire vans, there are also single-barreled fire vans, which are loaded and launched one by one.

Of course, the shortcomings of the rocket are also obvious, the accuracy is poor, the ability to attack the fortification is poor, the dispersion area is large, and the cost of propellant is too large, if it were not for Wang Xinyu to have sulfur from the Japanese trade and saltpeter from the South Seas, he really can't afford to use this weapon, and twenty fire vans will drop more than 6,000 catties of gunpowder in a salvo, which is much greater than the consumption of artillery.

The best way to increase the power is naturally to produce sulfur and nitric acid in large quantities, and the new gunpowder and explosives made from sulfur and nitric acid are more violent and powerful, which means that the sulfur and saltpeter consumed are much smaller than the original at the same power.

The violence of explosives is the same energy, the shorter the burning time, the faster the explosion speed, the greater the power, that is, the higher the violence.

Wang Xinyu took Fang Yizhi and others to ride horses along the mountain railway line under construction to the sulfur acid plant site.

Passing along the construction site of the railway line, I saw a large number of prisoners under the supervision of the Ming army, and they were working intensively. From the gun factory by the sea to the sulfur acid factory in the mountains, the road used to be mountainous terrain. Song Yingxing has completed the survey of the railway line, site selection work, and the construction team only needs to carry out the construction according to the address selected by Song Yingxing.

Most of these captives were the original Xiangyong prisoners, and after being captured, they were incorporated into the railway army. Although they were prisoners, and they were railway soldiers who were engaged in engineering construction, their establishment was the same as that of the regular army, and there were also such establishments as towns, brigades, battalions, divisions, bureaus, banners, shi, and corps, and the officers were commanders, commanders, adjutant generals, staff generals, guerrillas, garrisons, thousand generals, generals, chiefs, and army commanders, and they were exactly the same as those of the regular army.

Originally, these Xiangyong had no military uniforms when they were in the Qing army, and they were wearing the clothes of ordinary people, and the Qing court issued a uniform similar to a horse coat, with almost no armor, and it was a very poorly equipped army.

After being captured by the Ming army and incorporated into the railway soldiers, the Ming army issued four sets of red military uniforms, two sets of summer clothes and two sets of winter clothes to one of them, and the military uniforms were also the big red military uniforms of the regular army of the Ming army, which were sewn with coarse cloth and were worn on the body and the same as the regular army, but there was no armor outside, and they were dressed in a dark blue uniform.

The reason why I use dark blue is because it is resistant to dirt.

The ordinary soldiers of the railroad corps were not equipped with weapons, only shovels and pickaxes for work, and the officers and convoys were armed, armed with steel knives and firearms, and wore wooden armor in summer and cotton armor in winter.

Song Shiyi, who is in charge of the project, told Wang Xinyu: "The progress of the project has exceeded the original plan, and by the middle of next year, the railway can be opened to traffic." It would be best if the steam locomotive could be put into service by then. If not, you can only lay planks on the sleepers so that the mules and horses can walk. ”

The railway soldiers were holding shovels and pickaxes, and they were working along the site where Song Yingxing had surveyed and selected the line. Teams of railroad soldiers adapted from the original Xiangyong sweated like rain, struggling to dig through the dirt and carve a path along the slopes of the river valley. The excavated earth and stones were carried away by wheelbarrows.

When encountering too large stones, there will naturally be a demolition team of railway soldiers to blow up the stones and transport them away.

Ahead, a raised hill blocks the way through which the railway line passes. If the railway is detoured, the turning radius is too small, and the construction is on the cliff by the river, is it not small; If you want to cross the river, you need to build a bridge, and the cost of detouring is high, so in this location, Song Yingxing designed a tunnel at that time.

Railroad soldiers were digging for dirt, and truckloads of broken stone were being carried out of the tunnels. According to Song Shiyi, who supervised the construction of the railway, the blasting had just been carried out, and a large stone blocking the road in the tunnel was blown up, after which the railway soldiers went in and used a wheelbarrow to transport the broken stones away.

"Lord Song, there are stones in front of you! We can't keep digging! "An officer came to report.

Song Shiyi said: "Let's go, go in and have a look!" ”

Walking into the tunnel, I saw a horse lantern hanging inside, and there were wooden stakes standing in the dug tunnel, which stood up to the top, and there were people working on it, laying stones on the tunnel walls and smearing them with cement. As soon as the cement is dry, the tunnel becomes very strong. In the depths of the tunnel, quite a few railroad soldiers are digging.

There was another boulder blocking the way, and the railroad soldiers had no tools at hand to dig up the stone.

"Here, make a few holes and blow them up with gunpowder." Song Shiyi said.

Several members of the demolition team came up, and under their supervision, the railroad soldiers took hammers and chisels and hammered them on the stones, making holes one by one. Then someone stuffed the gunpowder wrapped in layers of thick paper into the hole and connected the fuse. (To be continued.) )