Hearing Lu Hu's report, Li Zhi, who was sitting on the throne, turned pale. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Lu Hu looked at Li Zhi's face, his voice became quieter and quieter, and finally it had become self-talking, and even Li Zhi couldn't hear what he was talking about.

Li Zhi frowned and shouted, "Lu Hu, be louder!" ”

Lu Hu was taken aback by Li Zhi's words, and arched his hand and said, "Lord Wang, the hull of the European fleet is too thick, and our cannons can't break through the thick hull, while their cannons can penetrate my armor... In this way, our ironclads will not be able to defeat the combined fleet of the Redfur and the British. ”

Li Zhi stood up in exasperation and took a few steps back and forth on the high platform in front of the throne.

The original stalemate between Huai'an and the Jiangbei Army had already annoyed Li Zhi. Li Zhi was rushing back to Fanjiazhuang these days to think of countermeasures, hoping to come up with new weapons to break through the trench defenses of the Jiangbei Army, but he didn't expect the Dutch and the British to jump out again.

Li Zhi didn't expect that he would take the initiative to attack the Jiangbei Army and actually lead to the Anglo-Dutch combined fleet. He was just fighting a civil war, but he attracted almost forty European battleships.

Li Zhi did not develop much in the navy in recent years, because the three northeastern provinces and Henan were all vast and sparsely populated, and the territory was underpopulated and had a surplus of land, so there was no need and impulse to expand overseas. Moreover, the navy is extremely expensive, and at present, Li Zhi has 50 steamships and 12 ironclad ships, and the annual consumption of silver taels is about 1.5 million taels.

Without special necessity, Li Zhi was reluctant to expand the size of the navy.

However, although Li Zhi was not looking for trouble, things found Li Zhi.

Just like Germany, which expanded rapidly in World War I and World War II, caused a worldwide group of fights, because of Li Zhi's rapid expansion in recent years, he has become a public enemy of various nearby forces. At the same time, the enemies have realized that they are not opponents at all, and they are increasingly starting to huddle. As soon as the war began, forces from all sides came up to beat Li Zhi.

Lu Hu's face was already a little pale, and he stammered: "Lord Wang... Lord, the Dutchman's plan is very vicious... If our fleet is unable to break through the combined fleet of the Europeans, the 20,000 Tiger Army and the 5,000 Osaka garrison in Osaka will have to surrender at Kaejo. At that time, there will only be 80,000 of the Tiger Ben army in one town and six provinces. At that time, more than 100,000 shogunate troops will wave their troops north to attack Korea, and I am afraid that we will not have any extra troops and horses to stop us. ”

"When the time comes, the north and the south will be in trouble, and it is possible that the entire territory of Korea will be occupied by the Japanese..."

"Lu Hu! Don't panic! Li Zhi stopped, took a breath and said, "A group of shameless crumbs think that they can defeat us by holding together, and the widows will definitely let their fleet come and go!" ”

Lu Hu breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Li Zhi was full of confidence.

For Lu Hu, as long as the prince has confidence, he is not afraid of anything. Lu Hu said happily: "The prince is wise, as long as the prince is here, the British, the red hairs and the widows, these small crumbs, will definitely be wiped out under the divine power of the prince!" ”

Li Zhi looked at Lu Hu and said, "Lu Hu, you come with me to the artillery factory to have a look." ”

Li Zhi left the palace with Lu Hu and rode to the Fanjiazhuang Arsenal. After entering the arsenal, Li Zhi went straight to the artillery factory and found Cao Yu, the head of the artillery factory, in the factory.

Cao Yu was a gunsmith captured by Li Zhi in the seventh year of Chongzhen's extermination of the bandits. Over the years, he followed Li Zhi not only to obtain a legal status, but also to rise all the way and become the head of an artillery factory that is getting bigger and bigger.

The artillery factory, also known as the advanced foundry factory, is now not large, with forty-eight foundry workshops and about 1,000 people, which can produce forty-eight guns at the same time. For all kinds of factories in Fanjiazhuang, which often employ thousands of people, this scale is small. But for the other forces of this era, the scale of this artillery factory can be considered large.

Cao Yu produced iron-core copper cannons that exceeded the artillery level of this era, and the products began to be sold to the new army in Beijing, making a lot of profits.

Most of the time, however, the artillery production lines of the foundry were idle. Because the more powerful the cannon, the heavier the weight and is not suitable for the army. At the same time, the navy did not need it - before a powerful enemy appeared on the sea, Li Zhi did not need to spend a lot of brass to cast expensive heavy artillery.

Most of the foundry craftsmen in the advanced foundry factory are doing the same thing as the first and second ordinary foundries in Fanjiazhuang - casting waterwheels, water pipes and other civilian products.

Therefore, the main work of Cao Yu and other senior craftsmen over the years has also begun to trial produce new cannons. Li Zhi even asked Cao Yu and others to experiment with casting steel cannons with the water-cooled method of internal molds, and they have also gained some valuable experience.

However, Li Zhi came to the factory this time to see the front-loading rifled gun.

Like the Mini rifle, the front-loading rifled gun was a short-lived product in the history of human warfare. His first combat unit was during the American Civil War. But because in a long time after the appearance of front-loading rifled guns, rear-loading rifled guns dominated the battlefield, so this kind of artillery did not have a heavy place in the history of warfare.

Even many people don't know that there is such a gun as a front-loading rifled gun, and when it comes to rifled guns, many people's first reaction is a rear-loading gun.

However, the accuracy requirements of the breech-loading rifled gun are higher than those of the rear-loading rifle, and with Li Zhi's current machine tool level, it is not yet possible to manufacture qualified rear-loading guns. For the current Li Zhi, the front-loading rifled gun is a simple, rough and easy-to-use product, and it is also a powerful enough product.

Cao Yu took Li Zhi and Lu Hu through the workshop of the foundry factory and walked to the warehouse.

The storehouse was very large, with all kinds of artillery, from small to large, all covered with black cloth. Lu Hu saw in a warehouse that more than a dozen large artillery pieces were also under the cover of black cloth, and it was obvious that the current artillery factory could produce large-caliber smoothbore guns.

However, those large-caliber smoothbore guns had extremely high requirements for the recoil bearing capacity of the ship's hull, which was not Li Zhi's goal. Li Zhi walked to the innermost warehouse, walked to a door of twenty-four pounds, and lifted the black cloth covering it.

A rifled cannon engraved with rifling in the barrel appeared in front of Lu Hu.

Unlike ordinary guns, the tail of this cannon is very stout, and it does not thin linearly from the tail to the muzzle, but at a rate of geometric multiples. This gives the cannon a very rounded look.

Lu Hu leaned over to the muzzle of the cannon and looked at it, and exclaimed: "Lord Wang, this cannon is engraved with rifling, is it more capable of armor piercing?" ”

Li Zhi smiled and waved his hand at Cao Yu.

Cao Yu walked to another warehouse and took out a conical cannon weighing more than 20 catties and ejected it.

The front of the shell is made of steel and has a pointed warhead, which looks extremely impactful. The fuse of the shell is on the side, and like the round flowering shell, the fuse is ignited by a propellant. The tail of the shell was a lead butt, stuck in the tail of the steel warhead.

Lu Hu looked at the tail of the shell and found that the lead butt on the tail had a depression like the Mini bullet. Obviously, the reason why this shell can engage with rifling is the same as that of Mini shells.

Li Zhi said: "Push one door out, go to the school field to see how strong the armor-piercing ability of this new cannon is, can it penetrate the red-haired battleship?" ”