Liu Pei suppressed his excitement and said: "Even if this is the case, it is enough to show the great power of this artillery!" Very good, must be loaded! ”

This can't be blamed on Liu Pei's excitement. Because Liu Pei felt that in the near future, he would start a complete war with Zheng Zhilong! Both sides must decide to live and die! So the appearance of this kind of artillery is simply timely rain!

Liu Pei continued: "It seems that there is another new variety in the model room of the Academy of Sciences!" By the way, is it easy to make such a gun? ”

Bao Dezhi said: "It is not much more difficult than other artillery. It's just that the weight is too big. And I have already asked the foundry to cast this artillery with all its might. It is estimated that in a month and a half, the Second Fleet will have at least one on each ship. If you're lucky, you might be able to get two. ”

Liu Pei slapped excitedly and said, "Great! With this kind of cannon, we will be more sure of beating Zheng Zhilong! ”

Bao Dezhi said: "It seems that the marshal likes this kind of cannon at this time? ”

Liu Pei smiled and said, "Of course I like it!" Who wouldn't love such power? ”

Bao Dezhi smiled slightly, and told the history that he had not told Liu Pei a few days ago. It turned out that large-caliber short artillery did not rise in a short period of time. Because the captains at that time didn't like this kind of cannon as much as Liu Pei. They all thought it was ugly and unworthy of their own boat.

In 1790, the Plymouth-based Artillery Board reported to the Navy that most captains were reluctant to install the monster on their warships. So the top brass of the Navy spent a lot of time convincing the captains.

At the same time, Middleton was also vigorously promoting the guns. His opinion was that a battleship equipped with door guns would also have the strength to be put into battle with the main fleet after being equipped with a sufficient number of large-caliber short guns.

So the navy used a 44-gun fourth-class battleship equipped with 44 guns to test the effectiveness of the artillery. When the Rainbow used a large-caliber short gun to engage the French cruiser Herb, the British boarding crew eventually captured the French cruiser under strong firepower!

This silenced the screaming captains completely! Then he continued to shout for the need to be armed with large-caliber short guns. By 1801, it was clear that the large-caliber cannon had become an important weapon for warships! On some of the newer ships, there are special bulwarks in the bow and aft to protect the guns and their gunners.

Later, in the Royal Navy, large-caliber short guns became diverse. Most of the 74-gun battleships of the period 1808-1816 carried 10 2-pounder guns on the aft deck, two 32-pounder guns in the bow and six 18-pounder guns in the aft. A 50-gun battleship carried half of the 6-pounder guns in the aft tower and two 18-pounder guns in the bow and aft decks. One of the most famous battleships--- the Victory actually carried two 64-pounder cannons on deck!

In fact, the world's first cannon that could actually fire flowering shells was a cannonball filled with explosives inside, and the cannon with a straight trajectory was not invented by France until 1823. That is, the very famous bombardment gun, a naval gun designed to fire blasting shells, 2.8448 meters long, with a caliber of 22 centimeters (about 13 times the caliber, strictly speaking, it is not an exaggeration to say a howitzer), firing a shell with a wooden butt filled with black explosives, a spherical flowering shell weighing 59 pounds, and a barrel weighing about 7400 pounds (at least 3.6 tons), which is what the artillery world calls a bombardment.

During the Sinop naval battle between Russia and Turkey, the battleships of the Russian fleet were equipped with a total of 76 such large-caliber bombardment guns, which smashed the Turkish wooden battleships to slag... Since then, the explosive bomb has completely eliminated the wooden sail battleship, which is also the last elegy for the wooden sail battleship that has been rampant on the sea for centuries.

The power of the blasting bombs was brought to full play during the battle, after which the ships were forced to move to armor to withstand the bombardment of the blasting shells. During the Civil War, the spherical blasting projectile was powerless in the face of the armored steel plate, because the hollow structure of the blasting projectile of the same caliber had low strength, small mass, weak armor-piercing ability, and even often hit the steel plate and shattered, on the contrary, sometimes the solid bullet could play a very good role.

After listening to this, Liu Pei said: "Mr. Bao, this is how unkind you are!" If you told me the other day about the power of this cannon, how could I not like him? ”

Bao Dezhi shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's good to let the big handsome see is believing." Besides, don't those captains also like it when they see its true abilities? ”

Liu Pei nodded with emotion and said, "Yes!" Seeing is believing! In that case, I will inform the Second Fleet to return to port in turn to rest. When the time comes, the Academy of Sciences, in cooperation with the shipyards, must equip them with this kind of artillery. ”

Bao Dezhi naturally nodded and agreed. At this time, Liu Pei suddenly pulled Bao Dezhi and walked a few steps, avoiding the others and whispered: "Mr. Bao, do you know what I thought of through this flowering bomb?" ”

Bao Dezhi said in a low voice: "You don't think of grenades, do you?" ”

Liu Pei laughed and said, "That's right! It's a grenade! I forgot about such a powerful weapon, I simply shouldn't have been! ”

Bao Dezhi smiled and shook his head and said, "It's useless even if you think about it!" Don't think about it at this stage. ”

Liu Pei said in surprise: "Why? Isn't it easy to make a grenade? Just put gunpowder in an iron shell! At most, we can change the hair to an open flame to ignite it! ”

Bao Dezhi said: "How can things be as simple as you think? The problem now is that the existing gunpowder simply cannot reach enough power! The grenade is so small that it can't blow up the shell, and the grenade that can blow up the shell is slightly smaller than the flowering bomb, where can it be used? ”

Liu Pei was dumbfounded when she heard this! He muttered, "How can this be? I thought I had a great idea! ”

Bao Dezhi said: "This is not to blame the handsome! In fact, the Ming Dynasty already had a prototype of a grenade, but it was only used for defending the city, and the volume was the size of a human head, and it was very difficult to use. ”

Liu Pei listened and asked with interest: "What about the grenades of the West?" ”

Bao Dezhi said: "The grenades of the early West were not very good! However, they have already treated the Grenadier as a separate class and formed an independent army. However, at that time, the volume and weight of grenades were no different from flowering bullets, so soldiers with high height and strength were selected among the infantry to throw. But because the grenade was too heavy, it couldn't be thrown far. Therefore, the soldiers at that time almost always threw grenades at the enemy face to face, so the title of grenadier was used as an honorary title in recognition of the bravery of soldiers in European armies! For example, in the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars, the Guards Grenadier was one of the oldest units in Napoleon's cavalry regiment, and it was undefeated. They are battle-hardened veterans and tall and handsome knights. Coupled with his outstanding military exploits, he is known as the "gods"! It is the most elite and brave unit of the French army! ”

Liu Pei nodded and said, "It turns out that there is still this history!" In this way, I can't equip the soldiers with grenades anytime soon? ”

Bao Dezhi nodded and said, "It's not just a short time, but it takes a long time." The preliminary estimate is at least four or five years! ”

Liu Pei said in surprise: "How could it take so long?" Technically, isn't the craft of a grenade very simple? ”

Bao Dezhi shook his head and smiled bitterly and said, "I knew that Da Shuai had this kind of thought!" I still say that scientific progress is a problem of the system, and good things are not said to be available! Just talking about grenades, don't even think about using clay pots, that thing will shatter when it hits the ground, and you can only watch it as fireworks! If we want to reach the level of modern grenades with iron shells, first of all, our chemical industry must be established systematically! We can make a small amount of new gunpowder in the laboratory, but we can't produce it industrially. Industrial production requires a lot of containers that are resistant to acid and alkali and high pressure. This, in turn, involves steel smelting. Steel smelting, on the other hand, involves formulation and mining. We have the formula, but when the ore is mined, we have to analyze the elements in the ore. We need to know what things in the ore need to be removed, what is the pH and other data, which in turn needs to improve our own elemental analysis capabilities! In general, not to mention modern industry, we are far from the level of modern industry! For a long time, we were walking the spiral staircase. It looks like it's a long way, but it's not really that high! But one step is missing! ”