In the Nanwang Mansion of Nanjing, the news that Wu Sangui was seriously ill had already been sent here by the agents of the Heaven and Earth Society hidden in the capital. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

"Wu Sangui is seriously ill, and it seems that there are not many days to live. When Wu Sangui's old thief dies, there will definitely be civil strife in Jingshi. Yongli is another faint monarch, and he can't control the situation at all. Once there is civil strife in the north, we can take the opportunity to establish King Lu as emperor, and then send troops to the north to quell the rebellion. Yao Qisheng shook his fan and said with a heartfelt smile.

Wu Sangui died not long after, and it was already doomed that Yongli, who rejected Wang Yu's proposal to come to Nanjing to register, would not end well. Now Wang Yu's power is all over the world, and Yongli is afraid of him. If Wang Yu dies one day, then Yongli's son will definitely destroy his nine clans, and Wang Yu's heat will not end well. Since Yongli refused to come to Nanjing to register and was unwilling to be controlled by Wang Yu, the emperor could no longer let him go.

Although Wang Yu insisted that he would not be the emperor, this Cao Cao was decided, he was a minister all his life, but it was impossible for future generations to always be loyal ministers to the end, and those who should ascend the throne still had to ascend the throne. Once Wang Yu's son ascends the throne, the descendants of Yao Qisheng and others will inevitably be knighted.

Wang Yuyou said: "Since Wu Sangui is seriously ill, we should speed up the withdrawal of troops, let all the north of the Huai River out, and send more grain and silver to the north to let them relax their vigilance." In addition, we should appropriately strengthen the strength of the Western Expeditionary Army, and at the same time we should declare war overseas, so that Yongli and Wu Yingqi will let down their vigilance, and they will think that we want to stay in the south and be loyal to the north. Once the pressure from outside is gone, they will inevitably have civil strife. ”

"Further concessions to the north?" Wang Yu asked.

"Yes!" Wang Yuyou nodded and said, "Let's make further concessions and let them know that we don't have any internal ambitions, so that they will completely relax their vigilance." Otherwise they will join forces against us, and they themselves will not have infighting. Although we have enough strength to go on the Northern Expedition, the commander can't bear to see the Han people fall into war again. Allowing them to fight among themselves and kill each other can also avoid a war between the North and the South and reduce the killings. ”

"This feudal clan will send an envoy to the capital to show them our goodwill." Wang Yu nodded and said.

"Don't worry, Wu Sangui, the old fox, still has a breath, and when he kicks his legs, it's too late to send an envoy to the north. If he sent someone now, Wu Sangui would not believe it, but would be suspicious. Wang Yuyou said.

Wang Yu said: "For the use of troops abroad, this domain has thought of a place, and while we are marching westward, we are also ready to send troops to the South Seas. The first one to be won is Manila! ”

"The Big Buddha Lang Jiren also helped us in the past, but now he wants to snatch their territory, isn't it a bit immoral?" Yao Yi frowned slightly.

Wang Yu sneered: "The Big Buddha Lang Machine Man helps us, but only for their own interests, in order to obtain high-quality goods from us and monopolize the supply of goods for the trade between the East and the West!" When they were in Manila, they didn't kill us Han Chinese! In the past, we were weak, and we couldn't settle this account with them. Now that we have the strength, we have to settle these accounts with them slowly. Compared with the little Franc machine, the big Franc machine man has not helped us as much as the little Franc machine, and the little Franc machine man has also sent troops to help us deal with the Tartars. ”

On the wharf of the Shanghai shipyard, two ironclad ships that had shelled the Dagukou Fort in Tianjin and had made great contributions in the bombardment of the Korean Baqi Fort on Ganghwa Island were docked at the wharf for large-scale refit.

The power of the steam engine previously installed on the ironclad ship was too low, with only a few hundred horsepower, so that the speed of this ironclad was only five knots. Now the ironclad ship is replacing the steam engine, and it will be replaced with two 1,000-horsepower steam engines, so that the maximum speed of this ironclad ship can reach 14 knots.

In the shipyard of the shipyard, a new ironclad ship is also under construction, which will have a displacement of an astonishing 4,000 tons, with two twin 203 mm rear-loading rifled guns as the main gun and four 152 mm rifled guns as a secondary gun. This ironclad ship canceled the lower artillery deck, and instead installed four quadruple 40 mm caliber hand-cranked bangbang guns on the upper deck, that is, a hand-cranked machine gun improved on the basis of the double-barreled fast gun developed by Xue Fengzuo.

In addition to the gun emplacements to be installed, the ironclad ship also had reserved weapons positions, four hand-cranked six-barreled 30-mm machine gun emplacements, and a four-tube torpedo tube in the bow.

Although the hand-cranked machine gun and torpedo have not yet come out, at the request of Wang Yu, the position of the machine gun and torpedo tube was reserved in advance, and when these two new weapons came out, they could be installed on the ironclad ship.

Whether it is a four-barreled hand-cranked 40-mm cannon or a six-barreled hand-cranked 30-mm cannon, the cost of using flowering shells is extremely high, and the fired shells are still solid shells. No matter in future naval battles, these two types of machine guns can easily penetrate the planks of wooden sail battleships, can cause great damage to the personnel of enemy ships, and can even be used to penetrate the waterline part, causing the opponent's ships to sink into the water.

The torpedo is a new type of weapon, and under the guidance of Wang Yu, the torpedo developed by the Shanghai Gun Factory will be a kind of steam gas torpedo, which means that the birth of the torpedo will directly skip the compressed air torpedo and reach the stage of steam gas torpedo.

In real history, the torpedo used in the First Sino-Japanese War was a compressed air torpedo, which had a speed of only about seven knots, a range of only two or three hundred meters, and a maximum range of barely six hundred meters.

The steam gas torpedo is much more powerful, this thermodynamic torpedo can reach a speed of more than 40 knots, and the range can exceed 2,000 meters. It is certain that none of the battleships of this era could withstand a single hit of such a torpedo, and only one could send a huge ship to the bottom of the sea.

In addition to refitting the old ironclad ships and building new ironclad ships, the metal cartridge production workshop in the Shanghai Gun Factory has been fully installed, and the mass production of metal cartridge shells has begun. This workshop can produce 200,000 rounds of ammunition per month, which can provide battlefield consumption for 2,000 soldiers.

However, Wang Yu was not satisfied with this, the monthly output of 200,000 rounds of ammunition was still too low, and once the machine gun was put into use, this output would not be enough at all. As a result, a second bullet production plant is also under construction.

Old-fashioned rifles are being phased out, and after the birth of metal cartridge shells, it is possible to gradually eliminate all front-loading guns and replace them with rear-loading rifles. With the development of technology, there will also be cartridge-type bolt-action rifles.