Chapter 574: The Possibility of Technology Diffusion
Fortunately, the boy he brought was quite smart. After fawning over the waiter and elder sister for a while, he managed to learn a little bit.
Not to mention that Zhang Sanxu was later received by Chief Executive Zheng Xiangdong, submitted his credentials, and discussed the import of firearms and artillery with Commercial Affairs Commissioner Chen Liuxiang. At this time, Fang Xiaoyue, as the Deputy Industrial Affairs Commissioner, and the Deputy Minister of Industry were meeting with Military Affairs
Commissioner and Minister of Military Affairs Sun Xuebin were consulted by the Senate.
"Sun Yuanlao, please evaluate, if our country sells Thunder 1646 rifles and 6-pound and 12-pound Napoleon cannons to the Zhaowu regime of Nanming, how much it will increase the military strength of the Zhaowu regime of Nanming, and whether it will be able to withstand the Qing army in the future.
An attack? How much of a threat will it pose to our country?”
As a member of the National Security Affairs Committee, veteran Niu Hongxi was the first to raise his own questions.
Sun Xuebin, on the other hand, had already been prepared, and then elaborated his views on the above issues based on the existing military strength of the Zhaowu regime in the Southern Ming Dynasty.
To put it simply, if the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty could establish a modern army with 10,000 people, equipped with Thunder 1646 rifles, and equipped with 100 Napoleon cannons, it would be able to counterattack the Qing army's attack.
At the same time, such a number of troops is not enough to pose much of a threat to Xinghai Kingdom.
After all, this is just an army, and if the Napoleon cannon is transported on a ship, its bombardment effect will actually be far inferior to its performance on land.
On this point, Fang Xiaoyue also pointed out his opinion from the technical side.
There is no need to worry about how much of a threat the Thunderbolt 1646 will pose to the Xinghai Kingdom after being sold to the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty.
This aspect can be controlled.
For example, the range of the Thunderbolt 1646 can be controlled by sawing the barrel shorter and reducing the amount of gunpowder.
After all, the Thunderbolt 1646 is an integrated bullet that combines the warhead and gunpowder. Although when filling, the back of the paper shell needs to be torn open to facilitate the flint to ignite the gunpowder.
But if Nanming does not use the integrated bullets sold by Xinghai Kingdom, not only will the rate of fire drop a lot, but the range will also be lower.
Because the integrated bullet takes into account the issue of sealing, and if the Nanming Zhaowu regime made its own bullets, it would be impossible to achieve sealing due to its technical strength.
As for artillery, you can do the same thing.
Moreover, the advantage of selling the Thunderbolt 1646 rifle and Napoleon cannon to the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty is that it can maintain the production line of the arsenal and prevent the good production line from being scrapped due to long-term shutdown.
But when talking about this, Fang Xiaoyue raised a question to the Senate, that is, whether to develop new rifles and artillery in a short time.
If new rifles and artillery are not developed, the next technological focus of the Ministry of Industry will shift to printing, food processing, water, electricity, gas, matches, pharmaceuticals, papermaking, wood, etc.
After all, the elders' requirements for living standards are also increasing day by day, and it is too difficult to maintain the commercial prosperity of Xinghai Kingdom by relying only on glassware, soap, and salt.
Especially as time continues to pass and as the material from the future generations brought by time travel continues to be consumed, the elders are still a little scared.
Once these later generations of materials are exhausted and Xinghai Kingdom fails to establish a corresponding industrial system, among other things, the living standards of the people and the industrial level will rapidly decline.
In other words, what will the industrial system be like when all materials are exhausted in later generations? Then there will be no hope of further improving the industrial system in a short period of time.
After all, in later generations, the industrial system was a huge modern engineering system.
Think about it, there are only two countries in the entire plane that have a full system of industry, and the number of workers in these two countries is over hundreds of millions!
This shows how difficult it will be to establish a full-system industry.
Judging from the current strength of the Transcendence Group, after all materials are exhausted in later generations, any industrial shortcomings will take decades or even hundreds of years to make up for and correct.
Apart from anything else, when the existing copy paper and printing paper are used up, it is unlikely that the existing paper will be used as copy paper in the future. If it is not smooth enough, it will consume too much toner cartridges.
Also, what should I do if the existing generator breaks down?
That's a big deal.
Without generators, the existing industrial system will collapse directly.
Machine tools cannot be used, electric furnaces used to process some special alloys cannot be used, chemical workshops cannot be used, etc.
Therefore, the questions raised by Fang Xiaoyue are also quite realistic.
Does the military industry still need to improve?
If it is not needed, our Ministry of Industry will turn to it.
Well, to be honest, only Fang Xiaoyue dared to say such a thing.
In the time-travel history before Fang Xiaoyue arrived, those time-travel technicians wasted so much time just on military research that they were unable to fight against the Qing army later.
As Fang Xiaoyue raised this question, many elders immediately started talking among themselves.
This is indeed a very real problem.
Should we research new firearms and artillery, upgrade the existing Thunderbolt 1646, and sell it to the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty, or should we produce new Thunderbolt 1646 rifles, process them, and sell them to the Zhaowu regime of the Southern Ming Dynasty.
Well, in fact, in this issue, more veterans are inclined to develop new firearms and artillery upgrades, especially the veteran officers under the Ministry of Military Affairs who strongly demand to upgrade to the more advanced Mauser G98!
Some veterans are worried that the speed of upgrading will be too fast, resulting in the uncontrollable proliferation of technology.
This kind of thing happens often in later generations, especially in some industries that are not very technological.
But Fang Xiaoyue dismissed such scruples: "The diffusion of technology is possible. For example, as time goes by, our soap, glassware and other technologies may be stolen and produced in the form of workshops. But
This kind of technology diffusion will not affect our own technology improvement and production, and we are now moving towards industrial assembly line operations. Workshop-style production cannot compete with us in terms of cost. Not to mention the Thunder 1646 rifle
It is possible to imitate the Napoleon cannon, but firearms and artillery after the Mauser G98 are impossible to imitate until the indigenous people can develop mercury fulminate and nitrocellulose."
Fang Xiaoyue's words caused a great response among the elders who were not very knowledgeable about technology.
After all, after what he said, these elders' minds were decided. In the subsequent voting session, they voted for the replacement of firearms and artillery.
Of course, this does not mean that Fang Xiaoyue must put down the research on other industrial technologies.