On the school grounds, the soldiers erected a hardwood hull up to 40 centimeters thick in front of an earthen wall. www.biquge.info In order to simulate the defense of European warships, this hardwood hull is made of Burmese teak, which is very hard.

With a wave of his hand, a twenty-four-pounder rifled gun moved out and aimed at the target seven hundred meters away.

Rifled guns are not only able to use conical shells, but also the conical shells rotate forward in the air, and the trajectory is more stable than that of round smoothbore guns, so the accuracy of hitting is much higher than that of smoothbore guns. For a target four meters long and wide at a distance of seven hundred meters, the rifled gun was aimed without pressure.

The gunner turned the screw to adjust the muzzle and aimed it at the target. Only a loud bang was heard, and the cannon jerked back, spitting out a huge spark at the muzzle.

A huge cannonball shot out, slicing through the air like lightning and hitting the teak hull in front of the wooden wall with a thud.

The flowering shell was not loaded with gunpowder from the war department, so it did not explode after penetrating the earthen wall.

The crowd rode up to the target to watch the armor-piercing effect of the shells.

The forty-centimeter teak hull had been completely pierced, and a large circular hole one meter wide had been knocked out in the middle. In fact, the penetration of this shell was much more than the level of penetrating the hull of forty centimeters. The shell pierced directly into the earthen wall behind the hull, and its head sank into the earthen wall for nearly half a meter, almost penetrating the earthen wall.

Everyone was very happy to talk about the cannonballs.

Obviously, with such a cannon, the armor of the battleships of the Europeans was not a problem. Even from a distance of one or two miles, Li Zhi's naval guns could penetrate the forty-centimeter-thick hull without any suspense.

One can imagine the scene of a cone-shaped flowering projectile weighing more than twenty pounds exploding inside the battleship.

Lu Hu looked at the conical cannonballs on the earthen wall, his eyes lit up. He looked left and right around the shell, but he was afraid that the shell would be too hot to touch it.

Li Zhi's gloomy mood these days was also swept away by this conical cannonball. He turned to Cao Yu and asked, "How much is this rifled cannon currently in stock?" How much can be produced per month? ”

Cao Yu said: "Back to the prince, there are currently one hundred and ten artillery pieces in stock in the warehouse, which can be pulled out and used immediately." If it was not enough, the artillery factory went all out to produce this rifled gun, which could produce more than 200 units a month. ”

Rifled guns are different from smoothbore guns, which only need to be cast in a mold to be formed, and then boring and other steps are completed, but rifled guns still need to be rifled. Although Li Zhi's current machine tools are widely driven by steam engines, and the efficiency is dozens of times that of other forces in this era, it still takes several days to draw rifling for rifled guns.

Li Zhi nodded and said, "Three months of full production, and after three months, we will gather six hundred armed forty ironclad ships." ”

Cao Yu sang loudly and agreed.

Lu Hu was stunned and said, "Lord Wang, we only have twelve ironclad ships. ”

Li Zhi smiled and said, "We only have twelve ironclad ships now, but in two months we will have forty ironclad ships. And our ships are not only ironclad ships, but also steelclad ships! ”

Lu Hu was confused, but he didn't dare to ask more.

Li Zhi didn't explain to Lu Hu, but turned around to find the head of the machine tool factory behind the crowd and laid out the task.

"Our steamships, like ironclads, are five-hundred-ton ships. We're going to put twenty-eight unarmored steamers in steel armor. Chief, I ordered the machine tool factory to immediately begin collecting the specifications and drawings of the armor parts of the ironclad ship, and in the past few months it has been working hard to produce the riveted components of the ironclad ship, and to serve the refit at full capacity. ”

After thinking about it, Li Zhi said again: "When the keel of the steamship was designed, it was not as strong as the twelve ironclad ships, and the carrying capacity was limited. Nowadays our steel is of good quality, and the protection of two centimeters of steel armor and one inch of iron armor is about the same. ”

The head of the machine tool factory agreed.

In fact, Li Zhi's navy has not developed for many years, and its scale has lagged far behind other industries in Fanjiazhuang. For today's Fanjiazhuang Machine Tool Factory, it is a piece of cake to produce these 28 sets of two-centimeter-thick steel armor for a 500-ton "small boat".

The director of the machine tool factory pondered that this matter would not take two months.

Li Zhi turned to look at Gao Ligong, the ambassador of the Overseas Department behind the crowd, and waved him over: "Gao Ligong, you are responsible for contacting shipwrights in various places, mobilizing all the craftsmen who can be mobilized in six provinces and one town, loading the components produced by the machine tool factory onto the ship as soon as possible, and converting the steamer into a steam steel armored ship." ”

Gao Ligong originally made great contributions to Li Zhi's contact with shipyards in various places. But with the expansion of Li Zhi's career in recent years, he no longer has any particularly outstanding achievements. A few years ago, Li Zhi gave him a garrison official title, and he was never promoted.

This Gao Ligong is a person who is keen on fame and fortune, where is he willing to not advance in a garrison position? After listening to Li Zhi's words, he secretly said that he could play to his strengths again now, and he couldn't help but blush, and hurriedly replied excitedly: "Don't worry, the prince is very familiar with the shipwrights and blacksmiths in Shandong and Tianjin, as long as the machine tool factory can produce enough parts, I guarantee that all the parts can be loaded on the ship within a month." ”

Li Zhi nodded and looked in the direction of Japan to the east.

In the early days of World War II, the Japanese navy was superstitious about the strength of its ships on paper and believed that it could challenge the United States. At that time, the famous Japanese general Isoroku Yamamoto warned Japan that if Japan challenged the United States, it would inevitably suffer a great defeat. However, the Japanese military eventually felt that it was strong and provoked the Japan-US Pacific War.

At one point, Japan relied on a sneak attack strategy and inflicted heavy damage on the American fleet.

However, after the start of the war, the terrible industrial system of the United States immediately switched from civilian to military, producing all kinds of ships like dumplings. From Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 to Japan's surrender in August 1945, in just four years, the United States produced 147 aircraft carriers of various types. In the end, the United States defeated Japan without any suspense.

The current contest between the Anglo-Dutch coalition and Li Zhi is like the war between Japan and the United States in later generations. It seems that the strength of the Anglo-Dutch combined fleet is stronger than that of Li Zhi. But what Hongyi and Yingyi don't understand is that Li Zhi is not unable to build a huge navy, but there is no need to build a huge navy.

After more than ten years of leapfrog development, the industrial foundation of one town and six provinces is not something that Hongyi can imagine. The Dutch and the British were not challenging Li Zhi, but a complete industrial system composed of roaring steam engines, red-hot steel-making furnaces, and various lathes, boring machines, and milling machines, and they were challenging an industrial power that surpassed this era.

Osaka Castle could hold out for six months, but Li Zhi believed that in just three months, his large machine factory would be able to produce a large navy far beyond the enemy's combat power.