Emperor Zhengde in the Forbidden City was not happy, and Li Xuan in the Zhaoqing Palace was also not happy, but the reason was not because of the uncertain situation, but because of the weather.

After entering June, Zhaoqing, located in Guangdong, is becoming 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 especially misses the air conditioner in his previous life!

In winter, I miss the heating in my previous life, and in summer, I miss the air conditioning in my previous life, which has become the norm for Li Xuan every year.

But nostalgia is nostalgia, but this winter and summer still have to be lived!

In order to solve the scorching summer heat, and at the same time, the south could not store a large amount of ice in advance through the ice cellar in winter like the north, so Li Xuan could only find another way to spend the summer.

The solution is very traditional and very simple, directly use saltpeter to make ice, and then use ice cubes to cool down, of course, such a cost will be very high, much higher than the cost of storing ice in the north directly with ice cellars, but as an eternal saint, Li Xuan, who is all over the world, naturally cannot have any problems with this small cost.

However, even if ice cubes were placed in the office to cool down, the temperature in the room still made Li Xuan feel a little uncomfortable.

He even felt sleepy when he watched the twists and turns, and he stood up irritable, and then began to think, I don't know when Datang's scientific and technological ability will be able to build an air conditioner, ten years? Unlikely, twenty years? Enough to choke, thirty years?

Alas, it's been too long, I still don't think about these problems, and I guess I have to rely on ice cubes for most of my life to spend the summer!

Compared with such a tall thing as air conditioning, it is more practical and realistic for artillery warships to come.

And this excerpt in his hand is the excerpt submitted by the Ministry of Industry on the production of large-caliber artillery.

Because the Navy strongly demanded to get large-caliber naval guns, it didn't matter if the number was smaller and the price was higher, even if the performance was worse and the weight was heavier, it was acceptable.

Anyway, as long as the navy has large-caliber naval guns, as long as there are them, they will admit that the price is high, the weight is large, the performance is poor, and the number is small.

The Navy itself said so, and although the Ministry of Industry was still concerned about the mass production plan, the Navy's requirements could not be ignored, so a large number of skilled craftsmen were dispatched to try to make large-caliber naval guns by hand.

So a large-caliber naval gun prototype was created, and this time it was not a fourteen-pound cannon, but a twenty-four-pound cannon (32 pounds), and this gun was actually a simple enlarged version of the nine-pound cannon.

It is worth noting that the 14-kilogram artillery manufactured by the Tang Dynasty Ministry of Industry before, because it was a direct copy of the 14-kilogram naval gun of the Franc machine, had a larger diameter than the previous nine-kilogram artillery, reaching 25 times, while the previous nine-kilogram artillery used by the army and navy was only 22 times the diameter of the barrel.

After a simple enlargement of the 24-pound artillery, the diameter of the body tube is also 22 times, and this body tube diameter is actually not small for a 24-pound artillery.

After enlarged to a bullet weight of 24 catties, the length and caliber of the barrel have increased a lot, and it cannot be directly processed with a large number of previous ones, so it can only be built by hand one by one.

The weight of the final prototype gun is an astonishing 2,200 kilograms, and in the test a few days ago, with a certain elevation angle, its maximum firing range reached an astonishing 6,000 meters, but the engineers of the Ministry of Engineering made it clear that although this artillery can shoot so far, this maximum range basically does not need to count on any hit rate, even on land, after the detailed adjustment and aiming of the engineers, the effective firing range can only reach 1,800 meters.

However, this effective range is only limited to land, and if it is carried on a battleship and fired on a bumpy battleship, this effective range has no reference value.

At that time, this effective firing range should be the same as those nine-pound and fourteen-pound guns previously equipped, and the combat distance at sea can only be less than 500 meters, and the best engagement distance should be less than 300 meters.

But this proposal was directly rejected by the Navy!

In an era when fireship tactics and broadside combat were still very popular, captains were eager to distance themselves and use the range advantage of their guns to strike the enemy.

Of course, with the continuous development of artillery technology, fireship tactics and broadside battles will gradually withdraw from the stage of warfare, and at that time, in order to ensure the accuracy and power, the captains will give up long-distance engagements and engage at distances within 300 meters.

If you want to increase the hit rate of artillery at medium and long distances, this is a more difficult thing than building large-caliber naval guns, and you will not be in a hurry for a while.

Then the Ministry of Industry reported that the output of this kind of 24-pound artillery will be very low, and it will not be able to produce one piece in a month, at least the Ministry of Industry itself estimates that in the next year, it is a very remarkable thing to be able to produce seven or eight guns.

Therefore, the Ministry of Industry has made a suggestion to the navy again, the output of these 24 catties of artillery is too low, and the combat distance is about the same as that of 9 catties and 14 catties of artillery, or you can simply use a large number of 9 catties and 14 catties of artillery.

Nine catties of artillery, how much you want, our Ministry of Industry can produce for you, well, the premise is to give military expenses!

Although the fourteen-pound artillery was also produced by hand, the output was much more than that of the twenty-four-pound artillery, and it was barely able to supply more.

It can also be seen from the suggestion of the Ministry of Industry that in fact, they themselves are very reluctant to waste a lot of manpower and material resources, and then they can only build so many large-caliber naval guns, and what they produce in this way is not a weapon for war at all, but a handicraft, which has no meaning.

But the Navy doesn't want to!

They said that if there are fewer than 24 catties of artillery, there will be less than seven or eight guns a year, but it will be okay, anyway, this kind of artillery is ready for our navy to be installed on battleships, and the first battleship will not be able to serve until three or four years at the earliest.

Everyone in the navy said so, and the Ministry of Industry could only sigh!

Later, he was also ruthless, and simply said directly, since your navy is willing to wait, and you are not afraid of the high price, let alone the twenty-four pound cannon, even if it is a forty-eight pound cannon, we can make it, and the price is not expensive, it is just a few times over, and it can only produce so two or three in a year, do you want it?

But after the Ministry of Industry's similar venting rhetoric 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, we will have one door, even if there is only one!

Price is not a thing!

Lao Tzu's navy has built hundreds of thousands of taels of silver battleships, and I am afraid that you will only ask for the value of a single artillery, thousands of taels or tens of thousands of taels of silver!

As a result, the popularity of the Ministry of Industry is choking enough!

Then he turned his face directly and said, there are only so many craftsmen who can be drawn out to make artillery, they can make 14 catties of artillery, they can also make 24 catties of artillery, and 48 catties can also be made, but there are so many manpower, don't expect them to make 14 catties if they make 48 catties, what artillery do you want, your navy will consider it yourself.

In fact, now Li Xuan also feels that those people in the navy are a little crazy, it is estimated that the truth he said some time ago stimulated them within the range of the cannon, and the two of them are deeply trapped in the giant artillery doctrine, and they insist that a large caliber is justice!

In the end, Li Xuan intervened, don't continue to do these forty-eight pounds of artillery, just one or two of them will not be used, and even don't do too much of twenty-four pound artillery, it can't be done, and it will be about the same for six or seven years a year.

However, the fourteen-pound artillery can increase the output, the production of this kind of artillery is quite easy, and the cost is easy to control, and it is not only the main naval gun on the Lianzhou-class cruiser, but also the navy is also preparing to equip a small amount on the Wuzhou-class frigate, and even the army has plans to prepare a small amount of equipment.

And the army wants this artillery, which is naturally prepared to be used as a siege heavy artillery!

Although the current fourteen-pound artillery is still unable to use machinery and equipment for large-scale industrial mass production, after such a long time of exploration, even manual production can use a certain amount of machinery and equipment, so the output is still so many a month.

At the same time, nine-pound artillery and five-pound artillery, whether it is the army or the navy, are large-scale equipment!

Because the five-jin artillery is the iron-cast artillery that the Tang Dynasty can mass-produce at present, and the nine-catty artillery is the bronze artillery that the Tang Dynasty is currently mass-produced.

The output of these two types of artillery is very large, as for the seven-kilogram artillery that was used more in the early days, it has gradually disappeared in the equipment sequence of the Tang Dynasty.

Because the Tang Dynasty no longer produces artillery of this caliber, and most of the seven-pound artillery produced in the early days, its body life is also to the limit, the Tang Dynasty division has been fighting year after year, and the use of artillery is very frequent, in a large-scale battle, it is normal for a cannon to shoot hundreds of shells, and even two or three hundred shells are possible.

So many early artillery pieces, after many fierce battles, were either scrapped or close to being scrapped!

Not only the seven-pound bronze run, but the vast majority of the early five-pound bronze cannons have actually reached their service life, although these bronze cannons that have reached the service life cannot be used anymore, they will not be thrown away directly, but will be recycled and then become raw materials for casting nine-pound bronze cannons.

The navy took advantage of this opportunity to adjust the artillery configuration of the current two-class capital ships, that is, the Lianzhou-class cruisers and Wuzhou-class frigates.