The successful development of wooden delay fuses has given the army and navy a great stimulus. Whether it is Lieutenant General Lei Wan of the Army or Lieutenant General Bao Yifen of the Navy, they are all clamoring to equip them as soon as possible.
The new artillery shells made the Tang army and navy truly powerful!
Li Xuan was very pleased with the performance of the army and navy. Generals who pursue technological progress and more powerful weapons are good generals.
If a general comes and says that using grenades to fight is unjust, too cruel, or does not conform to the military traditions of the Tang Dynasty, Li Xuan will guarantee to kill him.
However, it is still unrealistic for the army and navy to equip new howitzer shells in a short period of time.
Because the current new howitzer shells are still in the early stage of testing, and although the live ammunition test was successful, many problems were still exposed, especially the inability to accurately determine the detonation time, which is very serious, Bi Zifei said
We will continue to improve in the future.
A large number of tests will still be needed in the later stage to finalize the model. At the same time, the three major weapons companies will also organize relevant arsenals to carry out equipment transformation and construction of production lines, which will not be rushed for a while.
However, large-scale equipment is more difficult, and small-scale trial production is not a problem. However, these artillery shells produced in small batches in advance are not available to either the army or the navy.
Because there is a Guardsman in front of them!
The special nature of the Guards allows them to have priority equipment rights for all new ordnance!
Especially some ordnance equipment or supplies that are in short supply are basically given priority to the Guards. After the Guards are equipped, it will be the turn of the Army and Navy.
The previous nine-pound artillery was like this, the plate armor was like this, and the flintlock gun was still like this!
Of course, the Guards, who were the first to equip these new weapons, have also assumed the task of conducting large-scale testing of new weapons to some extent. The R&D institutions will conduct research based on the many defects reported after this large-scale equipment.
Improve one by one.
After returning from the Royal Institute of Technology, Li Xuan was in a good mood. On the way, he also discussed the issue of iron-hulled battleships with Bao Yifen.
Li Xuan said this at the beginning. Now that new grenades have come out, in subsequent naval battles, our naval guns can directly blow the enemy's wooden warship into pieces by launching grenades. But conversely, if the enemy is also equipped with
If it's grenades, then wouldn't your own wooden warships also face the same threat?
In order to deal with this threat, it is necessary to improve the defensive performance of warships!
And to improve defense performance, what's better than steel?
Bao Yifen was shocked at first by Li Xuan's idea, because since ancient times, ships have been built with wood and warships with steel? This sounds a bit unreliable.
How heavy is steel? If it were built into a warship, would it still be able to float on the water? Would it sink as soon as it hit the water?
Although Bao Yifen also has certain scientific knowledge and knows the buoyancy of water, steel is too heavy. Can a ship made of steel float?
In addition, there are several problems, that is, if the warship made of steel is so heavy, it may be very difficult to push it with the sail!
Then there is a more critical issue, which is cost.
Steel is not cheap these days. Let alone steel, even ordinary iron is not cheap. If a ship is built with steel, how much does it cost to build?
Li Xuan ignored Bao Yifen's many concerns and said on the spot: "Although these problems exist objectively, they are not insurmountable. You can just cover the wooden hull of the warship with a layer of steel.
It’s not like we’re asking you to build an entire warship out of steel, but just to cover it with a layer of steel, which can effectively improve the protection capabilities, especially the protection capabilities against grenades, and also control the cost and weight!”
Hearing what Li Xuan said, Bao Yifen also suddenly imagined the appearance of such a warship. This was a warship wrapped in steel armor. It was indifferent to the bombardment of various enemy shells and fired calmly.
, the fired grenade hit the enemy's wooden warship, and then exploded, blowing the enemy's warship to pieces!
Thinking of this scene, he couldn't help but get excited!
Then he said loudly: "Your Majesty is wise, the steel battleship proposed by your Majesty will definitely be able to kill all directions. Our Datang Navy will be powerful all over the world in just a short time!"
After hearing this, Li Xuan nodded slightly. If the steel warships could not kill all the sail warships, then the generals of the Tang Navy could commit collective suicide.
Bao Yi went back excitedly, preparing to discuss various matters regarding steel battleships with the generals within the navy, and he was also planning to ask the Shipbuilding Department of the Ministry of Ship Administration to start the preliminary design of steel battleships.
Li Xuan didn't expect to see any steel battleships quickly. Even experimental battleships would probably take many years to see. As for large-scale equipment, he didn't know when.
In Li Xuan's idea, the combination of grenades, steel hulls, and steam engines will form the core of the future Datang fleet. Only one or two of them will have huge strategic advantages, but they are still lacking.
Some.
At the same time, considering that the main enemies of the Tang Navy now, apart from the pirates, should be the Portuguese, and in the future, the Spanish, British and Dutch should also be added.
As for the broken ships of the East Asian natives, they have not been taken seriously by the Tang Navy, whether before, now, or in the future. Their threat to the Tang Navy is not even as big as those pirates!
There are a lot of pirates these days. Even after the severe crackdowns by the Tang Dynasty Navy in recent years, many pirates have been annihilated, but this is only limited to the coastal waters of the Tang Dynasty.
But have the pirates disappeared?
not at all!
Some of those pirates went to Fusang and the coast of Korea, and more of them went to the Nanyang waters.
And these pirates who escaped are still alive and well, because despite the rise of the Tang Dynasty and foreign trade, maritime trade in East Asian waters is becoming more and more prosperous day by day!
On various routes in East Asia, except for the coast of Datang and the waters near Malacca, pirates are basically active in other sea areas, and the composition of these pirates is becoming more and more complex.
In the past, when talking about pirates in East Asia, we basically talked about Japanese pirates. As for Japanese pirates, they were basically Fusang people and people from the Chinese coastal areas. It can even be said that Chinese people were the main component of East Asian pirates before.
But now, the pirates in East Asia can no longer be said to be Japanese pirates. The composition of pirates now is quite complicated. There are still a large number of Chinese people who take risks, and there are also Fusang people, even Koreans and even Nanyang natives.
Even some Indians, Arabs and even European pirates heard about the prosperity of maritime trade in East Asia and came over to make money!
This has also made piracy activities rampant in the South China Sea!
The Tang Navy and the Portuguese fleet had a headache every day to protect the safety of the route.
The Tang Dynasty Navy was pretty good. The main force of the Datang Navy was basically concentrated along the mainland coast and in the Ryukyu waters. Pirates would not miss these two waters to make money.
But the Portuguese had quite a headache, because pirates were now widely active in the Southeast Asia, and the numerous islands in the Southeast Asia gave the pirates many natural hiding places, and they often played hide-and-seek with the Portuguese encirclement and suppression fleet.
This also forces merchant ships to move together and basically follow fixed routes, and they dare not go to other sea areas easily.
At the same time, this also gave rise to the increasing sales of the 680 series of merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty. Domestic shipowners have purchased this series of armed merchant ships. Even businessmen from other countries are seeking to obtain this ship type.
.
The 680 Merchant Ship, as an innovative flagship product of Datang's shipbuilding industry, has the characteristics of fast speed, maneuverability and high firepower. Although its overall tonnage is slightly less than the Spanish Galen ship, its cargo capacity is smaller.
But in the context of rampant piracy, it is more cost-effective to transport less goods than to be robbed midway!
Being able to reach your destination safely is the core element of maritime trade in this era!
Nowadays, the powerful shipyards of the Tang Dynasty have basically begun to give up building old-fashioned Fu ships, and have begun to build 680 series merchant ships.
Moreover, the tonnage is no longer limited to 680 tons, and the design details in various aspects are also different. Instead, various shipyards have launched different tonnages. The small ones may only have two or three hundred tons, while the medium ones have four
Five hundred tons, and the larger ones are seven or eight hundred tons.
Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard, which owns many technical patents for this ship type and is a subsidiary of the Royal Assets Department, does not hide it and basically opens the door to technology licensing.
As long as the domestic shipyards give money or other things in exchange, they will license the technology, regardless of whether it is a shipyard affiliated with the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises or a private shipyard.
However, the technical authorization was only limited to the areas controlled by the Tang Dynasty. In foreign countries, people did not need technical authorization at all and just copied it directly. This made Dingsheng Shipyard quite angry.
The person in charge has on more than one occasion condemned the Portuguese shipyards in Malacca for privately imitating the 680 series merchant ships without obtaining technical authorization from their Dingsheng Shipyard.
Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also protested against the Portuguese on this matter. As a result, the Portuguese directly said: Patent? What is that and can it be eaten?
Well done, except for the Tang Dynasty, other countries do not have a complete patent system at all these days!
Faced with such a country that had no patent awareness at all, the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were quite helpless. Later, they simply asked the Guangzhou court to send a court summons to the Portuguese shipyard in Malacca, saying that you had violated the Tang Dynasty Patent Law.
, and was sued in court. You must arrive at the Datang Guangzhou Court within the specified time limit to respond!
The Portuguese will definitely not ignore this court summons!
As a result, the Guangzhou Prefectural Court directly issued a huge fine and sent it to Malacca. Needless to say, the Portuguese had to be very clever to admit that the fine amounted to 500,000 taels of silver, which created the Tang Dynasty.
Dynasty’s precedent for fining foreign companies!
However, this was also within the expectations of the Guangzhou Court. Immediately afterwards, the matter was brought to the forefront. Soon after, the Central Court issued an injunction on the matter: prohibiting the people of the Tang Dynasty and anyone registered in the Tang Dynasty.
Companies purchase non-domestic ships!
Smart people must have seen that this move is actually about trade protection!