Kuhn, the governor of Batavia of the Dutch East India Company, stood on the Batavia training ground, his face full of surprise. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Gunsmith Basten test-firing his new rifle. The skilled gunsmith made a flintlock rifle out of fine steel, and then shot it with a hollow conical bullet that he learned from Li Zhi, striking a terrifying rate of fire of three rounds a minute on the training ground.

It is no secret in this era that flintlock pistols have matured in Europe after more than a hundred years of development, and many European countries are equipped in batches in the army. Basten, as an experienced gunsmith, was naturally able to make flintlock guns.

It's just that the cost of flintlock pistols is higher, the steel requirements for springs are high, and it takes a lot of money to reequip troops on a large scale. And the officers of some units were accustomed to arquebuses and refused to accept such a novelty as flintlock pistols. So in the popularization of flintlock pistols, there were some regressions from time to time.

At this time, Europe was in the midst of a golden age, slaughtering indigenous people all over the world and colonizing continents. The arquebus was powerful enough for Westerners to bully natives everywhere at will.

But in East Asia, the Dutch met Li Zhi. Li Zhi's new weapon knocked the Dutch to the ground. On the battlefields of East Asia, the arquebus was undoubtedly an uncompetitive weapon. The Dutch understood that they would have to innovate in their weapons in order to compete with Li Zhi, who had risen to power in Tianjin.

Basten, the gunsmith, was a skilled gunner, he fired ten rounds from a distance of three hundred "ells", and the final result came out, he hit eight shots.

The Governor of Batavia stood in the midst of a crowd of officers, his face full of surprise.

I didn't expect that a small initiative of my own, handing over the bullets of the Ming people to the rifle gunsmith for study, and such a significant result was achieved. Getting the secret of the Ming rifle is a huge bonus, which can increase the rate of fire of the Dutch rifle to three shots a minute.

The rifle fired three shots a minute, which was an incredible rate of fire.

At present, the main battle weapons in Europe are all smoothbore guns. Although the rifle has a long range, the rate of fire of one shot in three minutes will rush to the enemy after one shot, and it is even inferior to a smoothbore gun in actual combat. If the Dutch can be equipped with a large number of rifles that shoot three times a minute, they can directly raise the combat effectiveness of the Dutch army by a notch.

This will give the Dutch an unbeatable advantage. The Spanish royal family, which has its eye on the Netherlands, will no longer dare to challenge the dignity of the newly low-lying state of the Netherlands.

If this technique is used well, it will also give wings to the global colonization of the Dutch. How will the Indians of North America, the blacks of Africa, and the Malays of Indonesia tremble in the face of rifles that can shoot three times a minute?

Even for Kuhn's Dutch East India Company, the leap brought about by this new weapon was qualitatively transformative.

The Dutch East India Company was a vast colonial commercial institution with a vast commercial and trade monopoly that stretched as far west as Persia, India, and Ceylon, as far east as the Maluku Spice Islands, and as north as China and Japan. In fact, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company was in Batavia, and Kuhn, the governor of Batavia, was the executive officer of the East India Company.

In these years, the development of the Dutch East India Company in the Far East did not go well. After the rise of Li Zhi, the Dutch lost Formosa, that is, Taiwan. After losing the stronghold of Formosa, the Dutch no longer found a large amount of access to Chinese raw silk, which was a huge loss of trade income in the Far East.

And the fundamental reason for losing to Li Zhi was because of Li Zhi's new rifle.

The Dutch originally thought that Li Zhi's new rifle was a highly complex new firearm, but under the research of gunsmith Basten, they discovered that the secret of this new rifle turned out to be so simple.

With the same weapons as Li Zhi, when facing Li Zhi again, the Dutch will no longer be at a disadvantage.

On the training ground, witnessing the magic of this new rifle, the Dutch officers in Batavia let out a single exclamation.

Because of the new rifle in Basten's hands, Kuhn felt that his authority as a new governor had been greatly enhanced.

"Send the new rifle back to the Netherlands so that all soldiers in the United Provinces of the Netherlands can use it." Kuhn exclaimed: "Of course, it is the needs of the Far East that are more urgent. If we want to challenge Li Zhi, we must have first-class weapons. Starting this month, all the gunsmiths in Batavia began to produce this new flintlock rifle. ”

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On December 28, in the Qinzheng Yuan of the Tianjin Guogong Mansion, Li Zhishen was lazy.

The Chinese New Year is coming soon, and it's snowing heavily. Heavy snow piled up on the roof of the palace of the Imperial Palace, at least a foot thick, covering the entire complex in a snow-white patch. It was a rare heavy snowfall, and it was still falling all day, and the world was covered with white snowflakes.

When it snows, the temperature is not very low, and the room of the Kenshoin is equipped with a stove to warm the room. In such an environment, Li Zhi felt a little slack. He looked at the official documents on the table, and wanted to deal with them quickly, and then went back to the backyard to tease his little daughter.

The youngest daughter is one year old, she can't walk yet, and she likes to crawl all over the room. This daughter has a pair of big eyes like Cui He, and she looks very cute. Li Zhi likes to hold her in his arms and teach her to say Dad.

Li Zhi smiled, sat back in his chair, and was about to start working on the papers, when he saw a guard running in in a panic. There was snow all over the guards' heads and shoulders, and they didn't even have time to wipe the snow away in a panic.

"Grandpa Guo! Something happened to Grandpa Guo! ”

Li Zhi frowned and asked, "What's the matter?" ”

The guard glanced up at Li Zhi and said, "A large factory building in Iron and Steel Town was crushed by the snow, and the roof fell down. ”

Li Zhi was stunned and asked, "Stoned to death?" ”

"More than 30 workers were stoned to death, and a steelmaking converter was also smashed!"

Li Zhi looked out the window, looked at the palace of the Guogong Mansion standing still in the snow, and knocked his hand on the table with a snap. Although the snow was heavy, it was far from crushing the roofs of buildings. Obviously, there is a problem with the quality of this new plant, and it is definitely the builder who cut corners in it and built the tofu slag project.

More than 30 lives were taken at once.

Li Zhi felt that the organizational discipline he was proud of was being corroded by something.

Withdrawing his gaze, Li Zhi already had an angry look on his face: "Prepare the horse!" Check it out! ”

The guards ran down and quickly pulled Li Zhi's treading out of the wind. Li Zhi put on his cloak and rode with twenty guards to the east of Steel Town.

By the time we arrived at the collapsed factory, the scene was already chaotic.