The situation in Shanghai is becoming clearer. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The Daming Chamber of Commerce took the initiative to help the legation collect all kinds of intelligence, they made a fortune in this war, and actively cooperated with the government, hoping that the government could help them keep the victory in the next changes.

These Ming merchants, among whom there are also many adventurers, some of them even stayed in the city at the last moment of the Taiping army's attack on Shanghai, and even stayed in the city to buy the properties sold by others, until the moment before the attack, they withdrew from the city of Shanghai, first ran to the French Concession, also to buy assets, and then ran to the British Concession, but also to take advantage of the chaos to make a fortune.

They are now the most unpopular group of people in the concession, because the British in order to defend the concession, from all walks of life, British and American businessmen have donated money and materials, and the rich Chinese businessmen who stayed here have also donated generously, but the Ming businessmen are the only ones who do not pull out a dime. They seem to be as neutral in this war, as their hypocritical government.

Not only did they not donate money to fight the war, but they were making war money, how could such people be welcomed, but no one could do anything about them, and even had to rely on them, because at this time the British found that this group of people could still talk to the Taiping Army at this time, and they needed a channel with the Taiping Army.

Therefore, in the days when the war stopped, the Ming merchants traveled to and from the vicinity of Shanghai, on the one hand, at the request of the British to help them collect intelligence, and at the same time try to persuade the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to cease the war, on the other hand, they continued to look like wolves for opportunities to make a fortune.

The Taiping army of 200,000 troops gathered in the counties of Shanghai, need a large number of supplies, these are big business, the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty can start from Ningbo, transport the materials to Nanhui to the Taiping army, whether it is rice or cloth, the Taiping army is not refused, at this time they have just plundered the surrounding counties, and they have silver in their hands.

In addition to having an accident with the Taiping Army, they can also do business with the locals, most of the people in the city have fled to the countryside, the rich have brought a lot of gold and silver, but there is a lack of medical care and less clothing, the war is together, the price of everything has risen, these people are trapped in the countryside, the usual transportation and logistics are cut off, other things can be saved, but food and salt can not be saved, at this time are good markets.

Of course, only a few Ming businessmen can do this kind of business, they have a good relationship with foreigners, and they have a good relationship with the Taiping Army, both sides can eat all, that is, they can smoothly pass through the Huangpu River controlled by foreigners, and they can get the Taiping Army's road, but it is a bit risky to earn this kind of money, and the uncle of the Taiping Army may see the wealth and come to kill people and goods, so the high profits cannot be said to be black-hearted, and they are really high-risk in exchange.

As the merchants of the Ming Dynasty traveled everywhere to make a fortune, all kinds of news were also collected by them.

At least one piece of Zhu Jinglun's intelligence was corrected, that is, Li Xiucheng did not sink the British ironclad ship, but a shell accidentally hit the tail rudder of the Warrior ironclad ship, damaged the warship's power plant, and then engaged in an artillery battle with the anchored ironclad ship, and finally the British did not want to be the target of the army artillery in vain and abandoned the ship.

This information Zhu Jinglun immediately transferred to the arsenal, because Daming also has such an ironclad ship, purchased from the British, and it has just been completed and delivered at the beginning of this year, and the main purpose of buying this ship is to imitate, or to learn from, after all, the shipyard under the Daming Arsenal has a large number of world-class technical consultants, especially a titan like Elks, who should be said to have their own design capabilities.

But the design of the hull is still done well by the British, so Daming plans to design a new ship, simply order one of their most advanced warships from the United Kingdom first, and pull it back for reference, and at the same time, Daming's designers here also design at the same time, and evaluate it when the time comes.

After receiving the information, the arsenal immediately inspected the British warship and really found a design flaw in the ship, the two sides of the Warrior were covered with 54 meters of armor, and the engine room in the key parts was the most tightly protected, which can be said to be indestructible. However, the alternate steering gear is in a very dangerous state of defense, and if a shell hits here, there is a high risk that the tail rudder will be ineffective.

Historically, the British, on the Black Prince, the sister of the Warrior, corrected this design flaw by increasing the length of the armor plates.

This news is equivalent to a suggestion for improvement to the designers of the Daming Arsenal.

At the same time, more and more news came to them, that is, the armor designed by the British was of good quality, and the armor of the British warship was not a monolithic plate as ordinary people thought, but a composite plate.

First of all, on the outside of the 14 mm hull side iron plate, a row of 254 mm hemp chestnut horns is placed horizontally, and a row of 203 mm hemp chestnut horns is placed longitudinally on the outside of the hull to make a liner plate. Next, a layer of wrought iron armor was layered on top of each piece of wrought iron armor 366 centimeters long and 91 centimeters wide.

This kind of armor, with a wooden lining, in addition to the iron hull, forms a three-layer protection, not to mention, the steel armor is hard, and the wooden liner is soft, which can form a kind of buffering effect, and finally it is borne by the whole ship through the iron hull, so the ability to resist strikes is very strong.

Li Xiucheng's huge cannon and a large number of infantry guns left countless bullet marks on the hull, but the real damage, only three cracks, did not even need to be repaired, it can be said that basically did not affect the combat effectiveness, only the superstructure was seriously damaged, and two of the two chimneys and three masts were broken.

This shows that the armor design of the British is reliable, and it is also consistent with Zhu Jinglun's memory, in the naval battles of the ironclad cannon era, there are really very few capital ships that were really sunk by cannons, and only the Japanese have completed this kind of killing in history, which is to annihilate the Russian fleet in the Russo-Japanese naval battle, but at that time, the Russian fleet was mainly chased by people who escaped, and before that, even for the Beiyang Fleet, Japan failed to sink the main force of the Beiyang Fleet, Zhenyuan and Dingyuan, and later in the Weihai Weijun Port, it was sunk by bombardment with a fortress on the shore. In the largest naval battle of World War I, the Battle of Jutland between Britain and Germany, neither Britain nor Germany was able to sink each other's main battleships. The same was true during World War II, when battleships were mainly sunk by aircraft carriers.

This shows that the armor of the capital ship such as the battleship is actually difficult to be damaged by artillery, at least before World War II, the shield was stronger than the spear, and it is estimated that before the appearance of tungsten core armor-piercing shells, it was really difficult to sink the ironclad giant ship with rough skin and thick flesh in frontal combat.

News from the front kept coming, and Li Xiucheng fell into a bitter battle in the public concession, not only was it not as easy as the occupation of the French concession, but he suffered heavy losses, and once again sent a request to Daming to purchase new weapons.

Zhu Jinglun saw the situation and understood, obviously Li Xiucheng had enough of the loss of the British Armstrong cannons, and he asked to buy a batch of rifled guns from Daming.

Wu Chongyao didn't dare to call the shots in this matter, Zhu Jinglun had said it before, stay neutral. And if they sell weapons to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they will really make the British lively. So after he reported Chen Zhiting, he immediately came to ask Zhu Jinglun.

Before Zhu Jinglun said whether to sell it or not, he first asked: "You ask Li Xiucheng, whether the ironclad ship he captured is for sale?" ”