Building larger warships requires larger artillery.
In fact, Nanhua's arsenal has begun manufacturing large artillery for a long time. Even half a year ago, the 11-inch Dahlgren gun was cast. However, this front-line smoothbore gun with a body weight of 15,700 pounds is only a specialized
foreign trade goods - in addition to 10 inland river "mosquito cannon boats", the Taiping Army ordered as many as 30 at one time for use in forts in Nanjing and other places.
At the end of 1863, under the scorching sun of midsummer, at the Nanhua Bay Fort, on a steel sliding gun mount, a huge cannon with a dark and shiny barrel pointed directly at the sea.
Staring at this 10-inch cannon with a multi-layer sheath, Zhu Xianhai looked a little proud.
"Okay, from now on, Nanhua Arsenal will be called...Klut Arsenal!"
The reason why it is called Krupp and Wubo is because the gun body of this gun uses the Krupp-style multi-layer tube-type gun body, but unlike the famous Krupp cannon, it does not use a horizontal cannon.
Instead of sliding block breech block, it uses a screw-type breech bolt.
This mushroom-head threaded breech block invented by French officer Du Turtle has excellent airtightness. It has an interrupted screw locking mechanism at the rear, an annular oil-immersed asbestos pad that seals the breech, and a circular movable "nose" at the front.
"Cone". When firing, under the action of gunpowder pressure, the steel nose is driven backward, compressing the asbestos pad, squeezing it, causing it to expand outward to seal the breech. This solves the problem of air leakage in the breech.
"let's start!"
Following the order, the gunner of the 110-pound Armstrong gun and the gunner of the ten-inch giant gun got busy at the same time. When the gunner of the Armstrong gun used a hammer to smash the bolt on the breech of the gun, he then tried his best to twist the screw and bolt of the Armstrong gun.
The 10-inch gunner simply lifts a handle mounted vertically on the right side of the breech. When he lifts the handle, it operates a cam that forces the breech to rotate counterclockwise, unlocking the interrupted threads. The gunner then uses the same handle to turn the entire breech
Pulling it back, the separator bolt was pulled to the left, revealing the black hole in the breech.
"My lord, this gun is amazing. The Armstrong gun requires more than ten turns of screws to remove the bolt, but it only takes half a turn to open the bolt, and then it can be rotated until it does not interfere with the installation.
The position of the bullet... You see, the Albanian gun has not started loading yet."
Ding Wentao pointed to the 10-inch cannon and said with some excitement.
"Last time, if we had used such a huge cannon, the Argentinians would have had no chance of escaping. They could fire at least two shells a minute! It's a pity that we only have such a good cannon now."
Neither the Albanian guns nor the new artillery had a retraction mechanism. They were all sliding gun mounts. Although they were a bit primitive, until the 1890s, neither naval guns nor shore guns had retraction mechanisms.
"It's a pity. You know, all the countries in the world are still using muzzle-loading cannons? I heard that the British ordered the re-development of muzzle-loading cannons because the Armstrong cannon is easy to explode. After all, breech-loading cannons are used all over the world.
Yes, we are the only one."
Faced with the problem of the Armstrong cannon being prone to explosion, the British were very smart and believed that the problem was caused by the breech-loaded cannon, so they directly reversed course and manufactured a large number of front-loaded Armstrong cannons. More than ten years later, they even produced
A 450mm caliber 100-ton Armstrong heavy gun.
British people!
It was not until 1880 that the Armstrong gun was improved through the introduction of the threaded breech block technology created in France, making rapid loading possible, and the British army once again equipped the breech-loading gun with the army.
This kind of history is going in reverse... Good!
With a "boom", accompanied by the deafening roar of the ten-inch cannon, the 500-pound shell roared out of the muzzle. Ten seconds later, a huge water column exploded on the sea eight or nine kilometers away.
Looking at the water columns rising from the sea, Zhu Xianhai couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief. From now on, he no longer has to worry about threats from the sea!
With such a huge cannon, all warships nowadays, even ironclads, are useless in front of it.
"Well, let's notify the arsenal and let the 10-inch shore gun be finalized..."
After thinking about it, Zhu Xianhai said.
"Let's call it Type 1864 10-inch breech-loaded rifle. In the future, the arsenal will be renamed "Krut Arsenal"."
Although Krupp has no uncle!
As soon as Zhu Xianhai finished speaking, someone immediately stood up and started flattering him.
"Oh, Marshal, this name sounds auspicious, and it means barbarians. Not only are these guns specially designed to suppress barbarians, but the guns we will use in the future are all specially designed to suppress barbarians. I have this in Great Nanhua."
A divine weapon, why worry about not being able to become a king in South America..."
It's not Fang Zhanbo who flattered him. Now that boy is leading Nanhua's "new home construction" and he has no time to follow his master and flatter him at any time.
Liu Baoyuan, the flatterer, was also born in Zuo Zongtang's shogunate. Although he was from a donation, he was still quite talented. It must be said that Zuo Zongtang's unexpected capture not only gave Zhu Xianhai a capable minister, but also made him
Many of the captured staff were quite talented, otherwise they would not have joined his shogunate. Among his shogunate was Lin Zexu's son Lin Congyi. What was a pity was that the boy was away preparing food and fodder for him at the time.
.
It's a pity that it's not.
"Come, please name the Lord and take a photo!"
In the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty, flattery was the basic rule. Although he failed to become an official, Liu Baoyuan was also a good player and even learned to use more modern methods of flattery.
For example, photography is one of them.
The wooden-cased glass dry plate camera carried by the photographer was even a "domestic product" - it was copied from the dry plate camera Zhu Xianhai bought from the system mall. In 1871, the British doctor Maddux successfully developed it
A few years later, through the improvement of others, the photosensitivity speed of silver bromide was improved by heating gelatin bromide, which greatly shortened the exposure time of the glass dry plate and only took a fraction of a second to complete.
Exposure. Moreover, the method of manufacturing glass dry plates using this technology is also very suitable for industrial production.
Although this kind of dry plate cameras and glass dry plates have just begun to be imitated, Nanhua has established the "Phoenix Camera Company" and invested in research and development to manufacture glass dry plates and dry plate cameras.
Although it is under development, Liu Baoyuan is keenly aware of the benefits of the "Phoenix Camera". Every time he follows his lord, he will take a few photos. According to him, future generations will remember his lord's heroic appearance.
Of course, Zhu Xianhai also enjoyed this quite a lot. After taking a photo with the cannons when traveling to later generations, "Here we go," he pointed at the gunners and said.
"Come, everyone, let's take a photo together!"
Hundreds of officers and soldiers on the fort were overjoyed when they heard this. They crowded around the gun mount and took a group photo with the Krupp 10-inch cannon as the background.
Of course, in the end, Zhu Xianhai did not forget to instruct the photographer to give each of the officers and soldiers taking a photo a photo - even if the extremely cumbersome wet plate photography is used, an unlimited number of permanent photos can be printed on albumen photo paper.
In response, the officers and soldiers immediately shouted "Long live".
After all, taking pictures is an extremely luxurious thing, not to mention taking pictures with the emperor.
