Emperor Zhengde in the Forbidden City was having a hard time, and Li Xuan in the Zhaoqing Palace was also having a hard time, but the reason was not because of the uncertainty of the situation, but because of the weather.
After entering June, Zhaoqing, located in Guangdong, becomes extremely hot!
As a person who misses summer in winter and winter in summer, Li Xuan especially hates summer at this moment!
And every time at this time, he particularly misses the air conditioner in his previous life!
Missing the heating in the previous life in winter and the air conditioning in the summer have become the norm for Li Xuan every year.
I miss you, but I still have to live this winter and summer!
In order to cope with the scorching heat in summer, the south cannot store a large amount of ice in ice cellars in advance like the north, so Li Xuan had to find another way to spend the summer.
The solution is very traditional and simple. Make ice directly with saltpeter, and then use ice cubes to cool down. Of course, this cost will be very high. It is much more expensive than directly using ice cellars to store ice cubes in the north. But as the Eternal Saint King,
, the whole world is my Li Xuan, naturally there can be no problems with this small cost.
However, even though ice cubes were placed in the office to cool down, the indoor temperature still made Li Xuan feel a little uncomfortable.
Even reading the memorial made him feel sleepy. He stood up irritably, and then began to think about it. He didn't know when Datang's technological capabilities would be able to build an air conditioner. Ten years? Unlikely, twenty years?
That’s enough, thirty years?
Alas, it has been so long ago that I still don’t think about these problems. I estimate that I will have to rely on ice cubes to survive the summer for most of my life!
Compared with something lofty like an air conditioner, a cannon battleship is more practical and realistic.
The memorial in hand is the one submitted by the Ministry of Industry regarding the production of large-caliber artillery.
Because the Navy strongly requires large-caliber naval guns, it doesn't matter even if the quantity is smaller and the price is higher, even if the performance is poorer and the weight is heavier, it is acceptable.
Anyway, the navy only wants large-caliber naval guns. As long as they are available, they will accept them because they are expensive, heavy, poor in performance and small in quantity.
The Navy itself said so. Although the Ministry of Industry was still thinking about the mass production plan, the Navy's requirements could not be ignored, so a large number of skilled craftsmen were mobilized to try to hand-make large-caliber ships.
gun.
So a large-caliber naval gun prototype was built. This time it was not a fourteen-pound cannon, but a twenty-four-pound cannon (32 pounds), and this artillery was actually a nine-pound cannon.
A simple enlarged version of the cannon.
It is worth noting that the fourteen-pound cannon previously manufactured by the Ministry of Industry of the Tang Dynasty was a direct copy of the fourteen-pound naval gun of Folangjiren, and its barrel diameter was larger than the previous nine-pound cannon.
It has reached twenty-five times, while the nine-pound artillery used by the army and navy in the past has a barrel diameter of only twenty-two times.
After a simple enlargement of the twenty-four-pound artillery, the barrel diameter is also twenty-two times, and this barrel diameter is actually not too small for the twenty-four-pound artillery.
After enlarging the bullet weight to 24 kilograms, the length and caliber of the gun barrel have increased a lot. It cannot be directly machined as in the past, and can only be made by hand one by one.
The weight of the final prototype gun reached an astonishing 2,200 kilograms. In the test a few days ago, under a certain elevation angle, its maximum range reached an astonishing 6,000 meters. However, engineers from the Ministry of Industry made it clear that
Although this artillery can shoot so far, there is basically no need to expect any hit rate at this maximum range. Even on land, after detailed training and aiming by engineers, the effective range can only reach 1,800 meters.
However, this effective range is only limited to land. If it is mounted on a battleship and fired on a bumpy battleship, this effective range has no reference value.
By then, the effective range should be the same as the nine-pound and fourteen-pound cannons equipped before. The combat distance at sea can only be less than 500 meters, and the optimal combat distance should be less than 300 meters. Well,
The closer the better. If you can fire close to the enemy warship within a hundred meters, the hit rate can be maximized.
But this suggestion was directly rejected by the Navy!
In this era when fireship tactics and boarding battles were still very popular, captains were eager to distance themselves and take advantage of the range of artillery to attack the enemy.
Of course, with the continuous development of artillery technology, fireship tactics and boarding battles will gradually withdraw from the stage of war. At that time, in order to ensure the hit rate and power, the captains will give up long-distance battles and approach as close as three hundred meters.
The battle took place within a short distance.
In order to improve the medium and long-range hit rate of artillery, this is a more difficult task than building a large-caliber naval gun, and it will not be rushed for a while.
Then the Ministry of Industry reported that the output of this kind of 24-pound artillery will be very low. It will not be able to produce one gun in a month. At least the Ministry of Industry itself estimates that in the next year, seven or eight guns can be produced.
What an amazing thing.
Therefore, the Ministry of Industry made another suggestion to the Navy. The output of these 24-pound artillery is too low, and the combat distance is similar to that of nine-pound and fourteen-pound artillery. Otherwise, you can simply use a large number of nine-pound and fourteen-pound cannons.
Forget about the kilogram of artillery.
As many nine-pound artillery pieces as you want, our Ministry of Industry will be able to produce them for you. Well, the premise is that you pay military expenses!
Although the fourteen-pound cannon is also produced by hand, the output is much larger than that of the twenty-four-pound cannon, so we can barely supply more.
It can be seen from the suggestions of the Ministry of Industry that in fact they themselves are very opposed to wasting a lot of manpower and material resources, and then they can only build a few large-caliber naval guns. What is built in this way is not used for war at all.
Weapons, but handicrafts, have no meaning.
But the navy doesn’t want to!
They said that these twenty-four kilograms of artillery were a little too small. Seven or eight guns a year were not many, but they were okay. Anyway, our navy was planning to install this kind of artillery on battleships, and the first battleship was the earliest.
It will take three or four years before they can be put into service. In these three or four years, if you stock up on twenty or thirty ships, you can barely equip two battleships by then.
The Navy has said so, and the Ministry of Industry can only sigh!
Later, I was very aggressive and simply said, since your navy is willing to wait, it is not afraid of the high price. Let alone this 24-pound cannon, we can also produce even a 48-pound cannon, and the price is not expensive.
It’s only doubled, and we can only produce two or three doors a year. Do you want it?
But after the Ministry of Industry's venting remarks reached the Navy, Bao Yifen came directly to the door!
Why not? Our navy wants it!
As long as your Ministry of Industry can produce it, if there is one, we will have one, even if there is only one!
Price doesn’t matter!
My navy has built battleships worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, but I am afraid that you would dare to ask for the value of a mere artillery piece, which is worth several thousand taels or even tens of thousands of taels!
As a result, the people in the Ministry of Industry were very angry!
Then he directly turned his back and said that there are only so many craftsmen who can be mobilized to make cannons by hand. They can make cannons of 14 kilograms, 24 kilograms, and 48 kilograms, but there are only so many people.
Don't expect them to make a 14-pound one if it weighs forty-eight pounds. What kind of artillery is needed? It's up to your navy to consider it yourself.
In fact, now Li Xuan also feels that the people in the navy are a little obsessed. It is probably the truth he said some time ago that stimulated them within the range of the cannon. The two of them are stuck in the cannon doctrine and cannot shake themselves. They insist on
Think that big caliber is justice!
In the end, Li Xuan intervened. It is better not to continue to build these 48-pound artillery pieces. Just one or two of them are useless. Even the 24-pound artillery pieces should not be made too many. It is not worthwhile. We can produce one in a year.
That's about it in six or seven years.
However, the production of 14-pound artillery can be increased. The production of this kind of artillery is relatively easy and the cost is easy to control. It is not only the main naval gun on the Lianzhou-class cruiser, but also the navy is preparing to use it on the Wuzhou-class frigate.
It is equipped with a small amount, and even the Army has plans to prepare a small amount of equipment.
And if the army wants this artillery, it is naturally preparing to use it as a heavy siege artillery!
Although the current fourteen-pound artillery still cannot be mass-produced using mechanical equipment for large-scale industrial production, after such a long period of exploration, even manual production can use certain mechanical equipment, so the output can be achieved in one month.
So how many doors?
At the same time, the nine-pound artillery and the five-pound artillery are large-scale equipment, whether it is the army or the navy!
Because the five-pound cannon is the iron-cast artillery that the Tang Dynasty can mass-produce at present, and the nine-jin cannon is the bronze artillery that the Tang Dynasty can mass-produce at present.
The output of these two types of artillery is very large. As for the seven-pound artillery that was used more in the early days, it has gradually disappeared from the equipment sequence of the Tang Dynasty kings.
Because the Tang Dynasty no longer produces artillery of this caliber, and most of the seven-pound artillery produced in the early period have reached the limit of their barrel life, the Imperial Army of the Tang Dynasty has been fighting for many years, and the artillery is used very frequently.
In large-scale battles, it is normal for an artillery piece to fire hundreds of shells, and even two to three hundred shells is possible.
Therefore, many early artillery pieces were either scrapped or close to scrapping after fighting in many fierce battles!
Not only the seven-pound bronze cannons, but most of the early five-pound bronze cannons have actually reached the end of their service life. Although these bronze artillery pieces that have reached the end of their service life can no longer be used, they will not be thrown away directly, but will be recycled and then
It became raw material and was used to cast the nine-pound bronze cannon.
The Navy took this opportunity to adjust the artillery configuration on the current two classes of battleships, namely the Lianzhou-class cruiser and the Wuzhou-class frigate.