The successful research and development of the wooden delayed fuze has given great stimulation to the army and navy, whether it is Vice Admiral Lei Wan of the army or Vice Admiral Bao Yifen of the navy, they are all clamoring to equip this new type of artillery shell as soon as possible, so that the Datang Army and Navy can truly become a big bomb!

And Li Xuan is still very pleased with this performance of the army and navy, and such a general is a good general in the pursuit of technological progress and more powerful weapons.

If it was a general who said that fighting with grenades was not benevolent enough, too cruel, or did not conform to the military tradition of the Tang Dynasty, Li Xuan promised to kill him.

However, it is still unrealistic for the army and navy to be equipped with new howitzer shells in a short period of time.

Because the current new howitzer shell is still in the stage of preliminary testing, and although the live ammunition test has been successful, it still exposes many problems, especially the inability to accurately determine the detonation time, which is very serious, Bi Zifei said that the follow-up will continue to improve.

At the same time, the three major weapons companies must also organize relevant arsenals to carry out equipment transformation and the construction of production lines.

However, large-scale equipment is more difficult, and small-scale trial production is not a problem, but these artillery shells produced in small batches in advance, whether it is the army or the navy, cannot get them.

Because there's a Guard ahead of them!

The peculiarities of the Guards give them priority equipment access to all new types of ordnance!

In particular, some of the ordnance equipment or materials that are in short supply are basically given priority to the Guards, and after the Guards are equipped, it will be the turn of the Army and Navy.

This was the case with the previous nine-pound artillery, the plate armor was like this, and the flintlock pistol was still like this!

Of course, the Guards, who were the first to equip these new weapons, to a certain extent, also took on the task of conducting large-scale tests of the new weapons, and the R&D institutions will improve them one by one according to the many shortcomings that have been fed back after this large-scale equipment.

After returning from the Royal Institute of Technology, Li Xuan was in a pretty good mood, and on the way, he also discussed with Bao Yifen about the iron-hulled battleship.

Li Xuan said so at the beginning, since the new grenade has come out, in the subsequent naval battle, our army's naval artillery can directly blow up the enemy's wooden battleship to pieces by firing grenades, but on the other hand, if the enemy is also equipped with grenades, then won't their own wooden battleships also face the same threat.

To solve this threat, it is necessary to increase the defensive performance of the warship!

And what could be better than steel to improve defensive performance?

Bao Yifen was quite shocked at first about Li Xuan's idea, because since ancient times, ships have been built of wood, and warships have been built with steel? That sounds a little unreliable.

How much steel weighs, if this battleship is built, can it still float on the water? Will it sink as soon as the water starts?

Although Bao Yifen also has a certain amount of scientific knowledge and knows the buoyancy of water, the steel is too heavy, can the hull made of steel float?

In addition, there are a few problems, that is, if the battleship made of steel is so heavy, it will be very difficult to push the sails!

And then there's the more critical issue, which is the cost.

Steel is not cheap in these years, let alone steel, even if it is ordinary iron, the price is not cheap, if a ship is built with steel, how much does it cost to build?

Li Xuan didn't care about Bao Yifen's many worries, and said on the spot: "Although these problems objectively exist, they are not impossible to solve, you can only wrap a layer of steel in the wooden hull shell of the battleship, and not let you build a whole battleship with steel, just a layer of steel, which can effectively improve the protection ability, especially the protection of grenades, and also control the cost and weight!" ”

Hearing Li Xuan say this, Bao Yifen also suddenly appeared in his mind the appearance of such a battleship, this is a battleship wrapped in steel armor, indifferent in the face of the enemy's various shell bombardment, calmly opened fire, the grenade hit the enemy's wooden battleship, and then exploded, blowing up the enemy's battleship to pieces!

Thinking of this scene, he just couldn't help but get excited!

Then he said loudly: "Your Majesty Shengming, this kind of steel battleship proposed by Your Majesty will definitely be able to kill the Quartet, and my Tang Navy will be powerful in the four seas just around the corner!" ”

Li Xuan nodded slightly after hearing this, if the steel battleships couldn't kill a single sail battleship, then the generals of the Tang Navy could commit suicide collectively.

Bao Yi rushed back excitedly, preparing to discuss various matters of the steel battleship with the generals within the navy, and was preparing to let the shipbuilding section of the Shipbuilding Department of the Ship Administration Department start the preliminary design of the steel battleship.

Li Xuan didn't expect to be able to see any steel battleships quickly, even if it was an experimental battleship, it was estimated that it would be many years before it could be seen, and as for the large-scale equipment, I don't know when it will be.

In Li Xuan's conception, the combination of grenades, steel hulls, and steam engines is the core and main force of the future Datang fleet, and only one or two of them, although they also have huge strategic advantages, they are always lacking.

At the same time, considering that the main enemies of the Tang Navy now, in addition to those pirates, should be the Portuguese, and in the later period, the Spaniards, the British and the Dutch should be added.

As for the wrecked ships of the East Asian natives, whether they were in the past, or at present, or in the future, they have not been taken into account by the Tang Navy, and their threat to the Tang Navy is not even as big as those pirates!

There are a lot of pirates in these years, even after the severe crackdown of the Datang Navy in recent years, many pirates have been annihilated, but this is only limited to the coastal waters of Datang.

But have the pirates disappeared?

Not really!

Some of the pirates made it to the coast of Fuso and Korea, and some of them went to the South Seas.

And these pirates who ran out are still alive and well, because although the Tang Dynasty rose and traded with foreign countries, the maritime trade in the East Asian seas is becoming more and more prosperous day by day!

In all routes in East Asia, except for the coastal areas 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 it came to pirates in East Asia, they basically talked about the Japanese pirates, and the Japanese were basically Fusang people and Chinese coastal people, and it can even be said that the Chinese people were the main components of the East Asian pirates before.

But now, the pirates in East Asia can no longer be said to be all pirates, the current pirate composition is quite complex, there are still a considerable number of desperate Chinese, Fusang people, even Koreans and even Nanyang natives, and even some Indians, Arabs and even European pirates, have heard of the prosperity of East Asian maritime trade, and have come to make money!

This also makes piracy in the South China Sea quite rampant!

Let the Datang Navy and the Portuguese fleet have a headache every day to protect the safety of the route.

The Datang Navy is not bad here, the main force of the Datang Navy is basically concentrated in the coastal areas of the mainland and the Ryukyu waters, and the pirates will not go to these two sea areas to make money without a long eye.

But the Portuguese are quite a headache, because the current pirates are widely active in the South Seas, and there are many islands in the South Seas, giving the pirates many natural hiding places, and the Portuguese encirclement and suppression fleets often play hide and seek.

This also forces the merchant ships to act in groups, and they basically take a fixed route, and other seas are not easy to go.

At the same time, this is also the birth of the Tang Dynasty 680 series of merchant ships sales are increasing, domestic shipowners have purchased this series of armed merchant ships, even merchants from other countries, are also seeking to obtain this ship type.

680 Merchant Ship, as an innovative fist product of Datang Shipbuilding, has the characteristics of fast speed, flexible maneuverability and high firepower, although the tonnage is less than that of Spain's Galen ship.

But in the context of rampant piracy, it is better to transport a little less cargo than to be robbed halfway!

Being able to reach your destination safely is the core element of seafaring trade in this era!

Nowadays, the powerful shipyards of the Tang Dynasty have basically begun to give up the construction of old-fashioned Fu ships, and have begun to build 680 series of merchant ships

Moreover, the tonnage is no longer limited to 680 tons, and the design details in all aspects are also different, but each shipyard has launched different tonnage, the small one may only be two or three hundred tons, and the medium one has four or five hundred tons, and the large one has seven or eight hundred tons.

As a subsidiary of the Royal Assets Division of this ship type, Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard, which owns many technical patents for this ship type, is also not hidden, and is basically open for technical licensing.

As long as the domestic shipyards give money or other things in exchange, then they will carry out technical authorization, regardless of whether it is a shipyard under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises or a private shipyard.

However, the situation of technology authorization is only limited to the area controlled by the Tang Dynasty, and in foreign countries, people do not need technology authorization at all, and they directly imitate it, which makes Dingsheng Shipyard quite angry.

On more than occasional occasions, the person in charge condemned several Portuguese shipyards in Malacca for copying the 680 series of merchant ships without obtaining technical authorization from their Peak shipyard.

Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also protested against the Portuguese on this matter, and the Portuguese came straight to the point: Patents? What is that, can you eat it?

Well, in addition to the Tang Dynasty, other countries have not had a perfect patent system at all!

In the face of such a country without the slightest sense of patents, the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were also quite helpless, and then simply asked the court in Guangzhou to send a court summons to the Portuguese shipyard in Malacca, saying that you have violated the Datang Patent Law and have been sued in court, so you must arrive at the Datang Guangzhou Court within the time limit to respond to the lawsuit!

The Portuguese must not be able to bird this court summons!

As a result, the Guangzhou Provincial Court directly issued a huge fine and sent it to Malacca, but needless to say, the Portuguese will admit that the fine amount reached 500,000 taels of silver, creating a precedent for the Tang Dynasty to fine foreign enterprises!

However, this was also expected by the Guangzhou court, and immediately after, the matter was stabbed, and soon after, the Central Supreme Court issued an injunction on this matter: prohibiting the people of the Tang Dynasty and any company registered in the Tang Dynasty from purchasing non-domestic ships!

And smart people must have seen it, this hand is actually playing trade protection!