There was a loud "boom", as if a thunder exploded from the ground. It shocked the eardrums and made the ears ring. Lin Meng couldn't see the iron bullets spraying from the crossbow mouth. He could only see the fire from the crossbow mouth forming an outward jet.
At the same time as the heavy crossbow body retreated violently, white smoke filled with the pungent smell of sulfur rose from the crossbow mouth, covering a large area...
Lin Fu, Gao Zongting, Wu Qi, Ge Cunxin and others all used the scopes to observe the shooting area. Lin Mengde did not expect that the movement during the launch would be so earth-shattering. He was surprised for a moment. When he picked up the scopes to observe the area where the missiles fell, Iron
The bomb had already splashed into a huge wave that was more than ten feet high in that sea area——
The target ship was about 11 to 20 feet away from the waves. As the waves rose and fell, you could clearly see the waves splashing onto the deck of the target ship.
Although the shooting accuracy can only be regarded as unsatisfactory, the earth-shattering noise when it was fired and the flying waves caused by the falling bullet showed that its threat was definitely not comparable to that of the traditional scorpion crossbow and bed crossbow. Lin Mengde asked Lin Fu in surprise:
"Such a sharp weapon is very useful in attacking a city. Why not equip it on horse infantry first? Mount it on a cart, drag it with mules and horses, and go out in front of the formation. It can be said to be invincible when used in field battles!"
Although Lin Mengde was good at paying bills, he had spent time with generals over the years and had been immersed in military affairs for a long time. Although he was not as good as Gao Zongting, Wu Qi, Ge Cunxin and others, he was definitely not as good as a layman, and he could ask key questions.
point.
Lin Fu was thoughtful, while Gao Zongting answered Lin Mengde's question: "The several types of fire-fighting crossbows trial-produced by the Ordnance Supervisor weigh more than three thousand kilograms. Although they can shoot distant objects four miles away and can attack cities, they are
For use in field battles, a crossbow needs to be equipped with fifteen soldiers and four horses. The fire crossbow with a range of less than 1,000 kilograms has a range of about two to three miles, and can shoot iron bullets with less than 12 kilograms. Even if the crossbowman is more skilled, one stick of incense will
At that time, only three solid bullets could be fired. Therefore, the time of one round was enough for the enemy cavalry to rush to the front of the formation. Considering that the longer the range and the larger the charge, the possibility of the chamber exploding would increase, which is not appropriate. At least.
At this time, the Fuhuo Crossbow is still inferior to the intensive use of bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows in battle formations..."
Huaidong used bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows in infantry battles. The tactics of scorpion crossbows have been perfected. In siege battles, the use of heavy sling crossbows can completely suppress the enemy. Therefore, the motivation for tactical innovation is not strong. Especially in ambush.
The early technology of crossbows was far from perfect, and the military naturally did not advocate that the army be too eager to equip the crossbows.
The range of the Fuhuo Crossbow is only one or two times higher than that of the traditional bed crossbow and scorpion crossbow. However, at sea, the enemy has no way of using cavalry to quickly attack the battle formation like in infantry battles. The Fuhuo Crossbow is even more powerful when equipped on warships.
for superiority.
More importantly, the scorpion crossbow is a projectile weapon and can only be placed on the deck. The deck space of sea ships is always limited, and there is no way to install too many scorpion crossbows. Although the bed crossbow can be placed in the cabin, it
After being placed in the cabin below the deck, due to the shooting angle problem, it can only attack more enemy ships, but the attack power of the bed crossbow is very limited in its destructive power against enemy ships——
Although Lin Fu has always wanted to upgrade naval warfare tactics, due to limitations of war equipment, naval warfare is still based on traditional near-side combat. Even relying on the strength of the hull, brutal collision has become the most important tactic of the Huaidong Navy.
As long as the fire-volting crossbow that can be placed in the cabin can hit the target, it can have considerable destructive power on enemy ships; in theory, it can also increase the number of crossbows equipped on a Lin Zhengjun-class battleship to one hundred
With more than one frame, the warship's long-range strike density suddenly increases by ten times, and the strike range increases by two times——
In comparison, the accuracy of the Fire Crossbow is worse than that of the Scorpion Crossbow and the Bed Crossbow, which is already an insignificant shortcoming.
Precisely because the accuracy of the Fuhuo Crossbow is only unsatisfactory, a warship needs to be equipped with more intensive war crossbows. Within one mile of the nearside, there are forty or fifty Fuhuo Crossbows on one side of the cabin at the same time.
When launched, the enemy ship will have to be very lucky to avoid it.
The Fuhuo Crossbow has improved the combat capabilities of battleships beyond the times. It is a super weapon that can eliminate near-side naval warfare tactics. Although the Fuhuo Crossbow still has various shortcomings that need to be overcome, as long as the advantages of the Fuhuo Crossbow are recognized, the military will
None of the generals in the department advocated that the naval division should give priority to equipping the new fire-fighting crossbows, which could increase the combat power of the Huaidong Navy to the point where the Donghu people would despair.
There were twelve bottles of Fuhuo Crossbow squatting there on the crossbow field. The huge crossbow body also made Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others gasp when they saw the true appearance of the Fuhuo Crossbow.
It is far away, so it is impossible to accurately estimate the specific size at the moment, but squatting in the middle of the crossbow field, with the crossbow directly facing the sea, it is definitely much larger than the traditional scorpion crossbow and bed crossbow.
At present, a heavy-duty bed crossbow together with the frame only weighs a little more than one thousand kilograms. At this time, the heaviest fire-fighting crossbow developed by the Ordnance Supervisor weighs more than three thousand kilograms in just the crossbow shot. In terms of weight alone, it can beat the two.
It won’t be a crossbow of the same level.
Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu were also full of curiosity. With the test firings one after another, they kept asking Gao Zongting, Ge Cunxin and the Ordnance Supervisor officials responsible for supervising the production and testing of the Fuhuo Crossbow...
***************
Forced to squeeze out 200,000 silver dollars from his pocket, Lin Mengde couldn't come to Haizhou in vain, so he naturally took advantage of this opportunity to take a good look at Haizhou. Before that, in order to build Haizhou into a
The Northern Army's logistics support base, the Privy Council, has invested a large amount of resources in Haizhou.
It happened to catch up with the first snow in Xu Si, and the road back to Jiangning was temporarily blocked by snow. Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu followed Lin Fu across the sea and boarded the East-West Connecting Island to see the military defense of Haizhou. In particular, the cost of a new warship under design
As high as 500,000 silver dollars, as an appropriator, how can you blindly follow the opinions of the military department without seeing the firing of the Fuhuo Crossbow with your own eyes?
Although there is also a test site in Jiangning, the test of the large-scale fire-volting crossbow is still in an absolutely confidential stage. In order to hide it from the enemy's spies, the tests of the large-scale fire-volting crossbow are all conducted on isolated islands. Yingyou Island's
The experimental crossbow field was built just two years ago.
Lin Mengde wanted to see how the Fuhuo Crossbow was firing, so he could only take a boat trip to the island.
****************
Dongxilian Island, also known as Eagle Island, got its name from the west cliff of the island, which looks like an eagle flapping its wings. It is actually divided into two independent islands, located in the sea east of Haizhou City. Standing in the south of Haizhou City
On Houyuntai Mountain, facing each other across the sea, Yingyou Island lies in a long strip in the clear sea waves.
Yingyou Island is nearly 20 miles long from east to west and about four miles wide from north to south. It is like a natural barrier outside Haizhou Port - there is a ferry on the east island, where more than a hundred fishermen lived in the early years, and it is hidden among the green hills; the west island
There are also several fishing villages, with strange peaks four to five feet high rising out of the sea. They stand like gates against the cliffs of Yuntai Mountain behind the shore, locking the Haizhou Port on the inside.
In addition to fishing villages and Wuzhuang, there were also monasteries, tide-watching pavilions, and sea-prevention beacon towers built on the island in the early years.
From the second year of Yongxing, the Huaidong Army took over the defense of Haizhou and began to build a water fortress, defense fortification and ordnance supervision test site on Yingyou Island. After the military department correctly determined the Eastern Front strategy, the defense construction of Yingyou Island
As a top priority, the sea area on the east side of the island was even designated as a military restricted area, and fishing boats and commercial ships were prohibited from approaching.
The experimental crossbow field is built on the east side of the Antler Rock in the northwest corner of Yingyou Island. Although the Antler Rock is only about 20 feet high, standing on it, you can see the firing conditions of the experimental crossbow field below and avoid being affected by the crossbow field.
Accidents that may occur on the mountain are affected, so the crossbow viewing platform is located on Lujiao Rock.
The Fuhuo Crossbow practice was personally presided over by Yang Shi, the deputy commander of the Jinghai Division. Lin Fu, Lin Mengde, Gao Zongting and others sat on the crossbow viewing platform at Lujiaoyan. Surrounded by guards, soldiers stood holding knives and halberds, hunting with flags.
The sea breeze makes a rustling sound...
Since the Fuhuo Crossbow is of great significance to the innovation of naval warfare tactics beyond the times, the design, testing and launch of the Fuhuo Crossbow and new warships are also one of the most core military affairs at present.
Lin Fudian asked Yang Shi, the deputy commander of the Jinghai Division, to personally seize the fire crossbow on land. The emphasis on the exercises on the warship and the design of the new warship was evident.
Lin Fu knew as much about the Fuhuo Crossbow as the craftsman in charge of the rehearsal. However, during the rehearsal, he had no time to explain to Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu the various abnormalities during shooting. Instead, he repeatedly used his vision to observe the crossbow site and its landing.
The situation in the bomb area was constantly recorded on the white paper beside me.
Facing the intensive inquiries from Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others, the craftsman of the Ordnance Supervisor could still deal with it calmly. However, in addition to Lin Fu's supreme status as the supreme commander, he himself was a new learner and a first-level master of new craftsmanship.
As a character, the pressure he put on the officials at the filming site was naturally unmatched by Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others.
Lin Fu holds the title of Bachelor of Chongxueguan. Perhaps in the eyes of outsiders, Lin Fu wants to plate himself with gold, but in the eyes of tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen under the jurisdiction of Huaidong, including Chongxue
Not even the many bachelors in the academy would think that Lin Fu did not have this qualification——
Although it was necessary to ensure that the rehearsal would not be interrupted by accidents and the firing speed was strictly controlled, 200 iron bullets were quickly fired, and only three iron bullets hit the Qianshi target ship four miles away.
Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others didn't know whether this hit rate was good or bad, but seeing Lin Fu sitting behind a long desk calculating numbers, it was unclear whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied with this performance. For a while,
The atmosphere was a bit stagnant.
Under the cold sea breeze, Shi Fengtai, an industrial official who had been a minor official in Jiangning's Ministry of Industry in his early years, had sweat dripping from his forehead.
"Yang Shi, come here," Lin Fu summoned Yang Shi and Shi Fengtai, the construction officer assigned by the Ordnance Supervisor to Yingyou Island, and others, and said, "One hit with fifty bullets or one hit with one hundred bullets is used to describe the ambushes.
The accuracy of crossbow shooting is very unreasonable. When a fire crossbow is manufactured at a crossbow field, the shooting accuracy should be relatively consistent. However, during actual test firing, even two to three hundred rounds may not be able to hit the target ship.
Does it mean that the accuracy of this Fuhuo Crossbow is far inferior to others? Without the concept of accuracy, how can the Ordnance Supervisor explain the performance of the Fuhuo Crossbow to the military department?"
"..." Faced with Lin Fu's question, Shi Fengtai answered bravely, "What the Lord said is indeed a problem. It was also discussed in the Ordnance Prison, but there was no good solution." He knew that such an answer would definitely not be able to win over Lin Fu.
I am satisfied, but I can only answer this. It will take some years of accumulation for the new learning to form a system. At present, all kinds of work are still based on the traditional scope of craftsmanship and the rich experience of various craftsmen and craftsmen.
Lin Fu had no intention of questioning Shi Fengtai, and beckoned him to come closer, pushed the paper on the case in front of Shi Fengtai, and said: "Two hundred rounds were fired just now, all targeting the target ship, and three rounds hit the target;
Within ten feet of the target ship, twenty-six bombs were dropped; within twenty feet, one hundred and seven bombs were dropped, and the rest were twenty feet away. The one furthest away from the target ship was one hundred feet away, and three bombs were dropped.
..." At this point, Lin Fu paused for a moment, "I'm giving you this data, do you know what I'm going to tell you?"
"Master, are you going to talk about "The Art of Speculation" performed by Scholar Song?" Shi Fengtai asked anxiously.
"Yes," Lin Fu smiled and said, "Based on your answer, you are indeed qualified to assist Yang Shi in presiding over this crossbow field. I am not dissatisfied with your work, but you cannot relax because of this.
and shooting accuracy. I will not ask you to hit the target ship with any number of bullets. There is no way to determine this. There are too many interference factors during the actual shooting, but with the target ship in mind, ten feet and twenty feet
The proportion of bullets falling within ten feet can be clearly set as a standard; you must do this work immediately to improve it..."
"My lord is wise, not..."
What Shi Fengtai was going to say, Lin Fu waved his hand and said with a smile: "Don't say any flattery. If I want you to do the actual work, you go down first to arrange the next rehearsal..."
In the past, even the most skilled craftsmen only had a vague concept of the shooting accuracy of war crossbows and could not accurately describe it. Therefore, during experiments, they could only be described based on experience, lacking an accurate and clear standard.
Without a precise and clear standard, any technological progress can only rely on the slow accumulation of experience; and once the standard is established, the level of different crossbow fields will be clear at a glance. How to improve the technology by comparing it with the standard?
Only then will there be a clearer direction.
Shi Fengshi and Yang Shi first went down to the crossbow field to arrange the second batch of shooting exercises. When Lin Fu saw Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu was a little confused. Only then did he have time to explain to them with a smile: "The Art of Prediction translated by Song Shixian,
It is also a gambling technique. Two people throw dice against each other. If one person throws a little bit, the second person has a high probability of beating him, but how big is this possibility? Have you ever calculated it carefully? "
"This..." Lin Mengde was born as a merchant, and his knowledge may not be extraordinary, but his experience in handling practical affairs is very good. When Lin Fu mentioned the new learning issue, he didn't understand and just smiled sarcastically.
Liu Shidu, who was born as a Jinshi, frowned and thought carefully. He could not say in front of Lin Fu, "The Book of Conjecture involves gambling, and non-Confucian scholars can take advantage of it." However, he knew about the book "The Book of Conjecture" but had not read it carefully.
, Lin Fu's simple question, he could roughly guess the answer, but he was not sure that it was correct, so he simply hid his ignorance and said: "I am ignorant and ignorant..."
"The issues discussed in "Speculation Technique" are basically similar. The discussion of gambling is just an introduction, but the application is far less than that. Nowadays, Heishuiyang and Nanyang Shipping Company also use this technique to calculate shipwrecks and insurance premiums.
It is worth reading carefully; I have a pamphlet on my desk, which is written by Song Shixian, and I will give it to you, Mr. Liu, when I get back." Lin Fu said to Liu Shidu.
"Thank you, Lord, for the book. I will definitely study it carefully," Liu Shidu replied respectfully.
Liu Shidu was nearly sixty years old. When Lin Fu first entered Chongzhou, he was the prefect of Hailing and was actually Lin Fu's immediate boss. Unlike others, Liu Shidu had a gentle temperament and a very tolerant demeanor.
Even when Lin Fu's status was inferior to his own, he admired the new policies implemented by Lin Fu and was the first to promote them in Hailing Mansion.
Therefore, after Lin Fu rose to prominence, he also respected Liu Shidu greatly; among the old Jianghuai officials, Liu Shidu was the most reused, followed by Wu Meijiu, who was aware of the affairs of the Weiyang Mansion.
Of course, Liu Shidu had witnessed Lin Fu's amazing rise from Jianghuai all the time, so he had a deep impression of Lin Fu's ability to govern politics and the army. Once he accepted the New Deal thinking promoted by Lin Fu, Liu Shidu naturally gave up his interest in Yuan Yue.
Loyalty, he surrendered to Lin Fu's subordinates without any hesitation, both physically and mentally.
Lin Fu added: "I just mentioned that Shi Fengtai thought of speculation. Duke Jingxuan sent Shi Fengtai to Haizhou, and he was right. If you have the opportunity, you should put more burdens on his shoulders. There is only one
Song Shixian only has one Jiang Yue, which is still far from enough..."
Everyone laughed. People like Song Shixian and Jiang Yue were talented and amazing. It was a luxury to have one person for a hundred years. It was not enough for Lin Fude and Zhao Shuhan, who had already surrendered in Jeju, to develop new learning.
Too greedy.
Speculation is actually the prototype of probability theory.
In his early days in Jiangning and Chongzhou, Lin Fu promoted miscellaneous craftsmanship, mainly sorting out and summarizing the traditional craftsmanship in the Central Plains. In the later period, especially after the Haidong trade route opened and the Nanyang sea route continued to extend westward, the focus of work on new learning became
Focus on translation and absorb advanced craftsmanship and theories from areas outside the Central Plains.
It's not that Lin Fu is greedy, but when traditional craftsmanship and miscellaneous knowledge accumulate to a certain level, quantitative changes will inevitably lead to qualitative changes, causing the explosive development of new learning, causing master-level figures to emerge one after another, and the starry sky will be particularly bright as a result.
None of them were familiar with the art of speculation, so Lin Fu put it down and discussed the Fuhuo Nu with Gao Zongting, Ge Cunxin, Lin Mengde, and Liu Shidu. They wanted to use everyone's practical experience to study the shortcomings and improvements of the Fuhuo Nu.
method.
***************
The Fuhuo Crossbow was the artillery that Lin Fu was familiar with in later generations.
The ancients often used saltpeter as the main ingredient when making alchemy. However, when saltpeter is used to make elixir, it will explode easily. Many alchemists from ancient times to the present have racked their brains and mixed other refining substances into it to suppress the flammability and explosiveness of saltpeter. This is called "
Subdue the fire".
Therefore, in the eyes of later generations, gunpowder was called Fuhuo Dan in the world - but there was no concept of "cannon" at that time. Only the word "crossbow" best suited its image of shooting. Since the new war weapons use Fuhuo Dan
It is a natural thing to use explosives to fire iron bullets, so it is natural to name it "Fire Crossbow" - Lin Fu also named it "gunpowder" and "artillery" in an inconvenient and abrupt way.
Because two emperors of the previous Chen Dynasty died suddenly after eating elixirs, the subsequent emperors of the Chen Dynasty all hated alchemy and launched a vigorous campaign to ban alchemy. The emperor of Yue Dynasty also classified alchemy as an evil.
The technique is strictly prohibited.
Although the alchemists three or four hundred years ago realized that the fire-sulphide and fire-sulfide they were making at that time had the ability to explode and produce smoke, they stopped there. For three to four hundred years, gunpowder
The development and application of gunpowder have not made any substantial progress. After three to four hundred years of ban, people at that time were already quite unfamiliar with gunpowder.
When he first woke up on the ship, Lin Fu even thought that this was a world without gunpowder at all.
Lin Fu developed miscellaneous studies in Jiangning and never tabooed heretical magic. It was only then that Song Shixian presented the "Fuhuo Prescriptions" he had collected and sorted out. There were a total of twenty-six kinds of Fuhuo Prescriptions that survived in the world. After testing, their performance was comparable to that of later generations.
There are five types of Fuhuo Dan that are similar to gunpowder.
Lin Fu knew that charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur were the traditional black powder formulas, but the current formula of Fuhuo Dan remained the same, with saltpeter as the main ingredient, and auxiliary ingredients including sulfur, bellflower, chicken blood vine, etc., with varying degrees of power.
Each one is different, and all are flammable and explosive.
The final recipe actually adopted was a mixture of bitter paste, saltpeter, and sulfur powder.
Bitter ointment is a light yellow ointment extracted from the bottom oil of smoldering coal kilns. Because it tastes bitter in the mouth, the alchemists of the former Chen Dynasty called it bitter ointment.
After the improvement of this fire-subduing pill, the explosive power was much greater than the black gunpowder in Lin Fu's impression, and it was beyond the scope of Lin Fu's understanding of black gunpowder.
If it were not for the threat of exploding the barrel, this fire-subduing pill could easily increase the range of the early artillery to more than four miles.
In the later period, Lin Fu simply handed over all the development of gunpowder to Song Shixian and others. He only gave Song Shixian and others a generally clear development direction.
With a generally clear development direction, and a large amount of resources and manpower continuously invested over the years to continuously improve the prescriptions and preparation methods, Huaidong's gunpowder technology has become relatively mature in the past two or three years.
Although gunpowder can be used to blow up mountains to clear roads and blast open city walls, when directly blowing up city walls, you still have to dig holes under the enemy city to bury a large number of barrels of gunpowder and detonate them - however, if it can be fired directly under the enemy city,
Digging holes and tunnels would be worse than directly digging down the enemy city, and there is no need to use gunpowder.
In addition, although the improvement of gunpowder can still be satisfactory, the source of saltpeter is a headache.
Before alchemy was banned, several saltpeter caves developed by alchemists were all in the deep mountains of Jiangxi. The Chen Dynasty banned elixirs, and these caves were dug and buried by the government. It was after the Battle of Shanglao that
Only then did Lin Fu have the opportunity to dig out these buried saltpeter caves again to extract saltpeter, thus solving the problem of the source of saltpeter.
The technology of gunpowder and the source of saltpeter are not problems, and the widespread use of artillery can become a reality. The development of artillery has also been carried out secretly by the Ordnance Supervisor for several years.
The manufacture of artillery is actually based on traditional craftsmanship.
However, the new learning inheritance and research system established by Lin Fu is incomparable to the traditional craftsmanship inheritance passed down from father to son, master and apprentice.
In the traditional inheritance of craftsmanship, there is a problem of ancestor worship, which restricts the inheritors from improving the craftsmanship; from father to son, from master to apprentice, the spread of craftsmanship is very limited; secondly, the traditional craftsmen, craftsmen,
Although he is classified as a lowly family, his education level is very low; in addition, the master-to-disciple tradition has the disadvantage of "teaching the apprentice to starve the master to death". Therefore, many key skills will not be passed on to the apprentice until the master is about to die.
Often due to accidents, many craftsmanship skills are lost - these severely limit the development of traditional craftsmanship. It may take several generations for a craftsmanship to have the possibility of improvement and breakthrough.
In Huaidong, Lin Fu first split the traditional Ministry of Industry into directors and supervisors of engineering, ordnance, shipbuilding, metallurgy, industry and mining, and machine manufacturing. In terms of administrative status, they were closely related to branches, tax administration, postal administration, and postal administration.
Civil affairs, education, prefects and other superintendents are all on the same level. The Chongxue Museum is also established, allowing those who have outstanding achievements in miscellaneous studies and craftsmanship to obtain an extraordinary political status, which actually makes new industries and new academic systems within the Privy Council.
, has become the largest force, rather than the Ministry of Industry, which ranks at the bottom of the six ministries in the traditional sense.
Furthermore, Lin Fu completely abolished the craftsman household system and after taking over the Jiangning Ministry of Industry, he further integrated tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen into the jurisdiction of various departments, forming Chongxue Guan such as Song Shixian, Ge Siyu, Jiang Yue, etc.
A huge system headed by bachelors.
When traditional craftsmanship cannot meet Huaidong's needs, Huaidong's practices are completely different from tradition.
For example, when the friction problem of four-wheeled carriages became increasingly serious and needed to be solved, the Ordnance Supervisor clearly put forward this request. Headed by Jiang Yue, he organized a group of people to repeatedly research, design, and test, so within a year
Small roller bearings were introduced at that time. The initially manufactured small roller bearings had very limited frictional damage to the carriage axle wheels. A group of people have been following up on the research and improvement work of the Ordnance Supervision.
During the development process of bearings, a large number of cooperation requirements were put forward for other military craftsmen departments in Huaidong, pushing other departments to follow suit. In the past three years, the factories under the Machinery Manufacturing Department have developed and produced third-generation bearings.
For the first time, the concept of lubricating oil was introduced, which made the kiln bottom oil and Borneo oil for smoldering coal more widely used.
Without a new system, we don’t know how many years and generations it will take for bearing technology to emerge spontaneously in the traditional craftsmanship field of “passing on from master to apprentice”.
The same is true for the research and development of gunpowder and artillery technology.
Focusing on the development of gunpowder and artillery, Huaidong gathered a large number of outstanding talents headed by Song Shixian, Shi Fengtai and others. Among them were experienced craftsmen, some with extremely high knowledge in their own right, and Song Shixian, Shi Fengtai and others who were from the imperial examination.
The new learning attracted scholars, who concentrated their energy on the research and development of gunpowder and artillery, supplemented by the newly formed new learning system. The research and development efficiency of three to five years may be worth the hundreds of years of experience accumulated by traditional craftsmen.
The Ordnance Supervisor only has half a room filled with test data and information on artillery material selection, casting, structure and other aspects. These are the initial accumulation of artillery technology in Huaidong in the past few years.
The R&D system of modern disciplines is incomparable to traditional craftsmanship, but the resources required to invest are also extremely staggering. The R&D system of modern disciplines must also be supported by strong financial resources from emerging industries.
In order to break the tradition, Lin Fu rewarded new learning and the spread and development of new craftsmanship with rewards. In the past ten years, the rewards issued in the name of the inner government alone have accumulated up to 1.2 million silver dollars.
The government-run iron yard under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council will produce 50 million kilograms of iron this year. In addition to the tax of one million silver dollars levied by the Privy Council, it can also retain profits of millions of silver dollars, a considerable part of which will be consumed in the iron yard next year.
Development and transformation of new technologies.
A twelve-pound cast-iron bullet currently costs two silver dollars to make to standard. Including gunpowder, the cost of a test shot is five silver dollars.
The artillery has not yet been put into actual combat. In the test firing alone, tens of thousands of cast iron bullets were fired, and hundreds of thousands of kilograms of gunpowder were consumed. Not to mention the consumption of cast gun materials over the years and the up to 20 deaths caused by gunpowder detonation and chamber explosion accidents.
One craftsman, one hundred and twenty-seven crossbowmen casualties - these consumption of resources and manpower were by no means something Huaidong could bear in its early days, and it has only gradually increased investment in recent years.
Of course, artillery technology is gradually improving, but the development of artillery has also put increasingly stringent requirements on the casting, ironmaking, shipbuilding, machinery manufacturing and other departments, prompting them to follow suit; and the test firing of artillery has also cultivated talents for the navy and army.
The first batch of qualified gunners arrived.
Lin Fu can see the rapid development of new technologies on the basis of traditional craftsmanship, and can see that new learning is increasingly taking shape on the basis of traditional craftsmanship.
Before waking up on the Weiyang ship, Lin Fu, who had just won the imperial examination, had a cowardly temperament. Even though he was rare and knowledgeable among the imperial examinations in the world, his understanding of the world was still within the scope of a traditional scholar.
This also limited Lin Fu's initial understanding of the world. In the past ten years, Lin Fu advocated and developed miscellaneous studies. For him, it was also a matter of continuous learning without deepening his understanding of the world. He realized that although the world was still
He did not produce the scientific system of later generations that he was familiar with, but the accumulation of traditional craftsmanship and miscellaneous knowledge had actually reached the ceiling. In many cases, he only acted as a catalyst.
It is precisely because of the accumulation of traditional craftsmanship to such a level that Lin Fu catalyzed the development of new learning and new craftsmanship, which made it so smooth and smooth. Some of the new concepts he proposed were introduced to figures such as Song Shixian, Jiang Yue, and Zhao Shuhan.
Understanding, acceptance, and talent are rooted in the foundation of tradition through these figures, making the outline of the prototype of the new learning system increasingly clear and visible.
In the late spring and early summer, Lin Fu raised the issue of re-analyzing Confucianism. After several months of discussions with masters of miscellaneous studies such as Zhao Shuhan, Jiang Yue, Ge Siyu, Song Shixian, Zuo Chengmu, Hu Wenmu and other Confucian masters, he initially proposed a new approach.
It is a flexible method of grafting traditional Confucianism onto traditional Confucianism, but it has also caused fierce debates in various aspects.
This kind of debate would not stop for three to five years, and Lin Fu didn't care about it; but it also found an outlet for the traditional gentry, which could actually weaken the power of the traditional gentry, so Lin Fu did not deliberately suppress the debate.
Rather, we should try our best to create conditions so that the voice of new learning becomes louder and louder.
The most obvious benefit of the debate between the old and the new is that the sales volume of the Post controlled by the Xuanzheng Secretary has increased sharply, from the initial issue of every ten days, with eight pages per issue, to the current issue of every five days, with eight pages per issue.
Large pages. The content published by the Post has also become more and more abundant; the content published has also expanded from the announcement of government orders to current affairs minutes, commentaries, debates between old and new learning, the promotion of new learning, and comprehensive reviews of overseas countries' expositions.
Through the postal system, the distribution of the Post has penetrated into every county under the jurisdiction of Jiangning. Even the most distant counties can see the latest Post within three days. Although the price of each Post is
, as high as a dime of silver dollars, with a print run of 30,000 copies per issue, still in short supply.
Although when the Propaganda Department and the Postal and Communications Department made calculations, one post was only counted as four silver dollars, and the excess was counted as revenue from postal services in various places to cover the costs of issuance and sales.
Even so, publishing the Post has become a considerable income today. With seventy issues of the Post a year and a print run of 30,000 copies, the net profit is almost 30,000 silver dollars.
Although the benefits of the post cannot be compared with the lucrative maritime trade, Lin's net profit per year was only about 30,000 silver dollars when he controlled Shanglinli and the surrounding large areas; however, Lin Fu had no intention of letting go.
Report ban.
*****************
The fire-fighting crossbow drill in the morning was for land shooting, and the afternoon drill was for warship shooting at sea.
Large warships above the Jinhai level are not yet equipped with fire-fighting crossbows, but Chongzhou Shipyard has long manufactured a number of new Jiyun-class warships. The new warships are equipped with fire-fighting crossbows and are currently mainly used for sea trials.
At this time, these new warships currently exist as the Jinghai Division's special brigade, directly led by deputy commander Yang Shi. While participating in the Fuhuo Crossbow test, the Jinghai Division must also gradually adapt to and accumulate new naval warfare capabilities.
tactics.
There is a huge difference between artillery firing on land and firing on sea ships. Without the accumulation of corresponding tactics and technology, it is obviously unrealistic to build new warships above the Jinhai level at once.
The basic construction cost of a Jinhai-class iron-framed warship is 40,000 silver dollars; and the initial construction cost of a new Jinhai-class warship is 200,000 silver dollars, or even higher, which is not too difficult to imagine.
The new Jinhai-class warships need to be able to deploy more ambushes, and one or two levels of cabins need to be added below the deck; because the cabins need to be equipped with ambushes and slide rails, the strength and fire resistance of the internal structure must be improved.
Higher requirements must be put forward; dozens or even dozens of fire crossbows are fired on the sides. In order to prevent the huge backlash from causing the warship to capsize, more stringent requirements will be placed on the balance of the warship.
Requirements - without the accumulation of early experience, it will be difficult to develop qualified new large warships.
Lin Fu asked Yang Shi to take direct charge of the design and development of new warships as a military general, instead of letting the Shipbuilding Department take charge independently. This was his intention - without the experience accumulation of the Navy, relying solely on the Shipbuilding Department to build ships behind closed doors, it was
It is impossible to build a new type of warship.
Lin Fu, Gao Zongting, Lin Mengde and others took Lin Fu's boat, the Lin Zhengjun, out to sea to watch the maritime launch - the results of the maritime launch were even more unsatisfactory. Although one hundred bombs hit one, Lin Fu proposed before Wu
According to the new standard, the accuracy of sea test firing is actually three times worse.
After the sea launch ended and they returned to Yingyou Island, Lin Fu presided over the summary of the launch and said: "Although the shooting accuracy of the Fuhuo Crossbow is still not satisfactory, and it may not be completely satisfactory for a long time in the future, but,
We must also see that the dense configuration of fire-fighting crossbows has advantages in range strikes and attacks on enemy land targets that traditional war weapons cannot match..."
"... When the scorpion crossbow shoots at a target 500 steps away, it can only hit 23 out of 10 times; if the range of the scorpion crossbow can be increased to 1,500 steps, the shooting accuracy will also be reduced to 1 out of 100 shots.
The extremely low level of the Second Middle School; when attacking independent, low-value single targets, such low shooting accuracy is indeed intolerable," Lin Fu said, "But when attacking in a range, the enemy troops are densely deployed.
, the Fuhuo Crossbow shoots cast-iron bullets into the enemy's range, and the lethality will be terrifying. Almost ten bullets can kill three to five people. A dense volley of fire may defeat the enemy's dense battle formation.
——This can greatly reflect the battlefield value of the Fuhuo Crossbow. If the cost and use factors were not taken into consideration, the role of the Fuhuo Crossbow in the battle formation would be unmatched by the scorpion crossbow, bed crossbow and stone throwing crossbow.
, so the staff department also has to arrange for the horse infantry to participate in the test firing of the Fuhuo Crossbow to adapt to the new tactics..."
"...In addition, when attacking high-value targets such as enemy warships or city walls, the low shooting accuracy is tolerable, and it is even worth deploying more intensive fire crossbows to increase the hit rate. We deploy in front of the enemy city regardless of cost.
This is the reason for the hundreds of heavy-duty slingshots. Since the fire crossbow has a shooting distance of two to three miles, the safety of your own ship must be ensured first, and the enemy ship will not have the opportunity to fight close to the side. Even if it uses a thousand cast iron
It is absolutely worth it to destroy or sink an enemy ship only with missiles. When formulating a battle plan, the staff department not only strengthens the morale factor, but also does not underestimate the enemy. Excluding other factors, the warships of the two armies fight close to each other, and our army
The probability of sinking the enemy's ship and the enemy's sinking our ship are equal. In other words, the probability of victory is 50:50. But when new warships are put into the battlefield, the probability of victory will increase.
80%, 90%; this is just a simple battlefield scenario of two ships confronting each other. Both armies enter the battlefield in formation mode. The advantages of the new warships will be further expanded. How high will this possibility increase?
Da, I suggest that the generals on the staff should also read "The Art of Speculation"; the battlefield can be said to be a bloody casino, and the outcome is sometimes just a hair's breadth away. To be a seasoned gambler who always wins but never loses, it is also necessary to
Someone with some knowledge..."
"...Having said so much, the General Staff and the Privy Council must devote considerable energy and resources to the improvement of the Fire Crossbow and the adaptation of new tactics in the near future. As for whether to put it into actual combat on a small scale, I don't think so.
It's not too late to wait a year. Strategically, our purpose is to attract Yanhu's attention to the east and induce them to invest a lot of resources in building a sea-locking defense line, so that they can prepare for war in Yanji and the hinterland of Liangliao.
will be significantly weakened accordingly. We will eventually tear apart Yanhu's sea-locking defense line, but we must tear it apart violently and completely without giving them a chance to react and adjust. To achieve the purpose of this campaign, everyone must have
More patience.”
Yanhu has imitated the counterweighted trebuchet crossbow. It built large crossbow platforms on Huangcheng Island and Miaoshan Island, deployed heavy trebuchet crossbows and a large number of scorpion crossbows and bed crossbows to block the direct landing of the Huaidong Navy.
Seize the beachhead and narrow water mouth of the island. To use traditional tactics to storm Huangcheng Island, Miaoshan Island, Jinghai Division and Denghai Division will require great sacrifices, and there may not be more than half a chance of success.
Huangcheng Island, Miaoshan Island, Jinzhou Tieshan Village and Dengzhou Daoyu Village jointly organized Yanhu to block the sea-locking defense line at the Bohai Port. If this defense line cannot be torn apart, the Jinghai Navy will not be able to enter the Bohai Sea on a large scale.
However, small-scale warships forcefully break through and enter, but the threat to Yanhu's Yanji and the hinterland of the two Liaos is very limited, and the danger is greatly increased, so the gains often outweigh the losses.
Under this circumstance, the development and actual combat work of the Fire Crossbow and new warships has become particularly important.
If Yan Hu invested three million taels worth of resources on the sea defense line, as long as it could ensure a strategic advantage, Huaidong would be completely worth investing double or even more resources on the Fire Crossbow and new warships.
Yanhu's sea-locking defense line, the enemy's island defense fortifications that invested a huge amount of resources to build and almost hugged the coastline, will be the best hunting targets for Huaidong's new warships and fire crossbows in the future.