The temporary person in charge of this newly built arsenal is Xu Xiangguang. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

Originally, Feng Yunshan was going to build a machine factory in Wushi Town, which was biased towards a machine factory for the production of weapons. But later, Feng Yunshan changed his mind and built a large machine factory next to the East Lake wharf in Guangzhou, so that the equipment in and out was on the Pearl River estuary, which was much easier to transport.

Wushi Town does not have such conditions, but it is very suitable for the arsenal. Wushi Town has the first steel plant of Nanyang Company, which can provide steel for the arsenal, very close, Wushi Town is located on the side of the Beijiang River, and the transportation of weapons is also convenient, and the railway has begun to be built again, the most important thing is that Wushi Town is located in a remote area, which avoids the spy detection of hostile forces.

Therefore, Feng Yunshan finally decided to build the first arsenal of the Holy Kingdom in Wushi Town. This arsenal was directly subordinate to the Holy King's Mansion and was under the responsibility of the Logistics Department of the General Staff of the Capture Army. Therefore, Xu Xiangguang, as the deputy director, was transferred to the past.

Some of the equipment of the arsenal was removed from Prussia, and the two Prussian soldier factory experts who were responsible for the installation were fooled by Xu Xiangguang into becoming the nationality of the Holy State and became the first batch of foreign experts to be hired.

It is precisely because of this that the arsenal was built so quickly. However, at present, the arsenal is still only a preliminary prototype, only a gunpowder factory, a primer factory, a musket factory, a foundry, a bullet and shell factory, and the core machine factory.

The entire arsenal is on the edge of Wushi Town, and it has stretched into the mountains next to it. However, as an arsenal, there is no need for a large area of flat land, but there are a few machines that need water, which are located by the river near the Beijiang River.

There were about 3,000 people in the arsenal, all of whom Xu Xiangguang had transferred from the army to be injured or not very fit for the battlefield, and handed them over to two Prussian experts for training and management.

After the equipment was assembled, Xu Xiangguang led nearly 3,000 people, under the command of two Prussian experts, to debug the machines one by one and the branch factories one by one.

Each branch is equipped with a complete set of machinery and equipment.

Needless to say, there is a gunpowder factory in Guiyang, but it is all handicraft workshops.

And now, as the basic branch of the first arsenal in the Holy Kingdom, there are many more single factories and sites, and workers than Guiyang's, and most importantly, it is no longer a purely manual workshop.

The scale is nearly ten times larger than the original, and it is no longer suitable to be used as a workshop. The gunpowder factory has a total of five sets of foreign medicine mills, a total of five sets of new powder milling facilities, the original nitrate, sulfur, charcoal and other raw materials are also all used equipment for large-scale manufacturing, expand manufacturing capacity, increase the output of gunpowder, now, the daily output of black powder can reach up to nearly 800 kilograms.

The original Yongzhou and Guiyang produced nitrate and sulfur were insufficient, and the freight of buying nitrate and sulfur from the West was too expensive, so Xu Xiangguang preferred to buy it from the Manchu Qing Dynasty at a high price.

In addition, Xu Xiangguang also circled 100 acres of land opposite the Beijiang River in Wushi Town, and built ten new gunpowder warehouses to store the gunpowder produced. Xu Xiangguang said that he had asked the General Staff of the Capture Army to send troops to guard it.

The primer factory is not the kind of primer behind the butt of the copper bullet in later generations, but only a paper-wrapped primer, which is specially used in the bullets of the Dresser M1841 needle pistol. To put it bluntly, it is to produce primer accessories for the bullet and shell factory in the back.

Thunder garlic mercury is not to worry. The Holy King had already developed mercury thunderate on his own. Concentrated nitric acid has long been stored in Guiyang, and it is produced with concentrated sulfuric acid. Mercury and alcohol are also available in quantities, but the cost is a bit high, almost the same as purchasing directly from Prussia, but they can finally produce it themselves.

Special mention should be made of the Musket Factory. This is also the main equipment and drawings of the arsenal that Feng Yunshan bought from Prussia.

Perhaps Prussia wanted to form an alliance with the Holy State, so it not only sent the drawings of the flintlock smoothbore gun of the MLE1816 model of Charvail and the two types of the MLE1842-fired smoothbore gun directly to Feng Yunshan, but also packaged the drawings and technical specifications of the more advanced Dresser M1841 needle pistol developed by them and sold them to the Holy Kingdom in the arsenal equipment.

Therefore, Xu Xiangguang was overjoyed to report the good news to Feng Yunshan, under his Zhang Luo organization, of course, Feng Yunshan knew that it must be mainly due to the two experts of the Pulu Soldier Factory who "took refuge" in the Holy Country, and the musket factory was successfully put into production.

Two batches of muskets were produced, one was a flintlock smoothbore of the MLE1816 model of Charville, with a total of 10 shots. The other batch is the Dresser M1841 needle pistol, with a total of 5 shots. After testing, although it was less accurate than the musket bought from foreigners, it was not much worse. Moreover, after the verification of two experts, it is not the problem of machinery and equipment, but the workers who operate the machine to produce gun parts, and the skills are not yet proficient.

According to Xu Xiangguang's estimates, the musket factory can produce 20 Charvail smoothbore muskets and 8 Dresser M1841 needle guns a day. To be honest, Xu Xiangguang seems to be very satisfied with this output, but Feng Yunshan is a little depressed, this output seems to be a little low, however, this is only the early stage, after a while, the workers are skilled, and the machine factory can also produce all kinds of machines, besides. No, increase the number of workers, increase the number of machines, in a word, if the output is not enough, Lao Tzu will throw money at you!

However, seeing the next page of the report, Feng Yunshan quickly looked forward to it.

Xu Xiangguang told Feng Yunshan that the cost of manufacturing an M1841 needle pistol was 15 taels of silver, while the Charville smoothbore musket was about 12 taels of silver each.

It's a lot cheaper than buying it yourself. The production cost is almost half of the purchase price, and it seems that it is really do-it-yourself, with plenty of food and clothing.

According to this output, the annual output of foreign guns in the musket factory is just over 10,000. In fact, it's not very low. At the very least, the batch of 10,000 Dresser M1841 needle-starting muskets and 300 30-pound retractable front-loading smoothbore guns sold by Prussia to itself were all produced in two or three years.

The next step, Feng Yunshan thought that after the US Commissioner Marshali introduced his arms dealer friend to him, and after buying the Sharps rifle, he would let the musket factory analyze and imitate this Sharps gun model, and then mention it himself, it would be best to directly develop the Mauser rifle, which would be a big killer in more than ten years.

Foundries and machine factories are dedicated to the production of components and accessories for various types of weapons. The butts, triggers, and head-butts of muskets are all cast from models, and the same is true for machine shops, which process iron embryos into the required parts.

The mechanical metalworkers in the musket factory then trim and process it into a finished product, which is then assembled.

The Bullet and Shell Factory, like the Musket Factory, is actually just an assembly factory.

The shells from the foundry were filled with gunpowder, fuses and slag, and when they were sealed, they became shells. Different shells have different reloading requirements. And the same goes for bullets. The Bullet Factory produced four types of ammunition, corresponding to the four types of rifles used in the captives: the Dresser M1841 needle pistol, the Charlville MLE1816 flintlock rifle, the MLE1842-fire musket, and the Brown Bess breech flintlock pistol.

According to Xu Xiangguang's report, the bullet and artillery shell factory can produce about 100,000 rounds of various types of ammunition and 5,000 shells every month.

After receiving the news that the arsenal was completed and put into operation, Feng Yunshan finally breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't until today, that he had the ability to make weapons and ammunition, and he felt a little capable of self-preservation.

However, this arsenal could not be detected by the spies of the Manchu and Taiping armies for the time being, and it had to be strictly guarded.

So, Feng Yunshan called Hu Damei, the minister of the Ministry of Police, and asked her to set up a special police force to guard the periphery of the arsenal day and night, strictly check the people entering and leaving, and prevent foreign spies. At the same time, he also ordered Xu Xiangguang to strengthen the management of the arsenal and the gunpowder magazine, and everyone must have a special work card, and ordinary workers are strictly forbidden to go out in normal times, and to cut off spies from infiltrating from the inside.

The entire arsenal, but there is no artillery factory. It's not that Xu Xiangguang missed it, but Feng Yunshan has other plans.

Originally, the Prussian Krupp was forcibly brought to Liangguang to make the famous Krupp artillery as in history, and now that the steel mill has been put into operation, it is time to build an artillery factory.

Feng Yunshan did not want to put the entire artillery factory in the arsenal anymore, but set up a special artillery factory separately, which was placed in the First Iron and Steel Plant, and was still directly controlled by Krupp.

Feng Yunshan is looking forward to whether he can drum up the world-famous Krupp cannon as he did in history. (To be continued.) )