"Outside the number, outside the number, our righteous army marched into Henan to save the people from fire and water, and Long Mao fled without a fight......"

In the early morning on the streets of Hanyang, the newsboys shouted loudly, and their mouths were war-related news, although they were also "insurgents", but in Hubei Province and Hunan and Guangdong Provinces, not only did the officials and gentry not have the slightest good impression of the Taiping Army, but even the people were full of bad feelings, especially in the three towns of Wuhan, the people will never forget the evil deeds of plundering the population of the city and burning all the houses inside and outside the city when Changmao left the city. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The resentment of the Taiping was also reflected in the newspapers, which also referred to them as "Long Hair", and even then, it was a "polite" appellation, and many officials in the Governor's Office often referred to them as "thieves" or "cowards" in private.

Amid the shouts of the newsboys, pedestrians stopped to buy newspapers and circulate them. The people here are concerned about this war and the situation ahead. The victory at the front was a relief for them, and although they had confidence in the rebels, there was always some apprehension until the winner was decided.

"War ......"

Listening to the newsboy's shout, Gatlin pondered the two words in his mind.

Two years ago, he came to Wuchang as a mechanical engineer to sell his invention of rice planting machinery, which did not have much market in the United States, for the simple reason that Americans did not rely on rice as a staple food.

In fact, he didn't know about China at all, after the "Zero Ding Yang Naval Battle", all the newspapers in the United States were talking about the Chinese in this naval battle, and by chance, Gatlin saw that the newspapers mentioned that "hundreds of millions of Chinese are rice as their staple food", and it was this news that contributed to his coming to China.

Gatling thought that the Chinese market was more profitable, but he was a little disappointed that after he came to China, he found that the Chinese here did not have much interest in rice planting machines at all, which means that Gatlin, who had no money to buy a return ticket, he was in trouble.

At this time, his rice planting machine attracted the attention of Xu Shushan, the general manager of the Hanyang Arsenal, and after the demonstration, although the performance of the machine was somewhat unsatisfactory, his talent in machinery was still appreciated by Xu Shushan, so it was logical that he became one of the engineers of the Hanyang Arsenal, mainly engaged in the design of agricultural machinery.

The Hanyang Arsenal is not just an arsenal, in a way it can be called the mother factory of China's machine industry, after its establishment, it not only produces weapons, but also all kinds of machines, just like the Yangtze River Power Company, which produced steam engines and boilers, which was originally born in the workshop of the Hanyang Arsenal, and the Changfeng Textile Machinery Factory, as well. The reason for this is that there are not enough engineers and machines in the country, and the Hanyang Arsenal is a large factory with various types of machinery and engineers hired from various countries, with the financial and material support of the Governor's Office. Based on the production needs of the arsenal itself, with their help, the factory gradually became the current "machine factory", but soon its glory will be replaced by the "general machinery factory" under construction. However, at least in the short term, no factory can replace the supremacy of the Hanyang Arsenal in the machine industry.

In the last two years, he has designed a variety of food crop machines. Horse-drawn agricultural machines such as seeders and harvesters, although not popularized, have given people a glimpse of the future of agriculture - the future in which machines replace human labor.

Although he has a salary of more than 120 yuan a month, which is quite a good salary even in the United States, he is not satisfied with such a "meager" salary for Gatlin, but he says that the machines he invented are rarely put into production, which means that his invention has no "commercial potential".

Because of this, Gatlin has been looking for a suitable project, and finally, by chance, when Gatlin heard from Xu Shushan that the army needed weapons with a faster rate of fire, he had a hunch that there was a lot of commercial potential in it, after all, China's current war can bring a huge market, and the demand of the market means a huge commercial potential, and commercial potential means wealth. He immediately began to design this new weapon with his own mechanical experience.

Over the past 10 months, he has completed the design of the weapon, drawing on the operating principles of the Ager gun and the multi-barreled layout of the Lipley machine gun, and just two months earlier, Gatling had patented the design - just last year, the Directory had established a patent office, and its patent was called Individual Patent No. 101. Although this design may still look very crude, it is the basic design concept of this new weapon.

"I must ask Mr. Xu to take a look......"

Gatlin muttered to himself.

As an engineer in the arsenal, he is well aware of the influence of General Manager Xu's office on weapons research and development, and as long as he can get his support, then the army will definitely purchase this new type of weapon in the future.

It is not easy to get his support. After all, almost every month at the Hanyang Arsenal, a "new type of weapon" is launched, but very few of them are approved for production.

Although he knew that his support would not be easy, Gatling was confident in his results, knowing that no one had ever developed a weapon of its kind in the past, and that it would even change everything.

Thinking like this, Gatlin came to the front of the affairs building of the Hanyang Arsenal, and then went directly to the third floor to the outside of Xu Shushan's office, he took a deep breath, and then said to a secretary outside the door.

"Hello, I want to see Mr. Xu."

"You're saying you've researched a weapon?"

Looking at Gatling with some surprise, Xu Shulin put down the pen in his hand, this is the latest invention of the arsenal, although it is still in experimental production, but as the general office, he first got one of the rods, this is a new product that combines the water storage pen and the fountain nib, it is the use of the principle of capillary, add a hard rubber to the ink bladder and the nib, drill a hair-thick channel on it, put a small amount of air in the ink bladder, so that the internal air pressure is balanced with the outside, so that only the pressure on the nib, the ink can flow out. It solves the problem that ink does not leak from the nib, and also solves the problem of constantly dipping ink while writing.

It is extremely convenient to use, and because of this, almost as soon as it was manufactured, Liu Shushan approved the establishment of a "fountain pen company" to produce fountain pens. Of course, like the bicycle, it was directly invested by his sister - the fountain pen, like the bicycle, was the private invention of the owner.

And now he was surprised because Gatlin was an engineer he had hired himself, and his talent for machinery was more in all kinds of agricultural machinery than in weapons.

"Yes, General Manager Xu, this new type of weapon I invented, the bullets he fired in one minute are equivalent to a salvo of a company at the same time!"

Facing the surprise of President Xu's office, Gatlin hurriedly said.

"Oh! Equivalent to a salvo of a company at the same time? I'm really interested when you say that! ”

Putting the cap of the pen on the lid and pinning it inside the clothes, Xu Shushan looked at Gatling and said.

"We'll go over now, okay?"

About half an hour later, in the test range of the arsenal, Xu Shushan looked curiously at the "gun" on the gun carriage in front of him, which looked like a cannon far more than a gun.

"General, it is different from ordinary guns, it is not loaded through the muzzle, nor is it fired with a hammer, it is operated by a manual handle, using 6 rotating barrels, each barrel is equipped with its own bolt, and the forward and backward movement of the bolt is achieved by the cam parts......"

While introducing the gun, Gatlin carefully loaded the bullets he had designed into the funnel-shaped gravity feeder, the bullets he had invented were a nuisance and the biggest problem. Noticing that Xu Shushan was looking at the bullet, he explained,

"This bullet is a paper shell, and it is fired with a steel sleeve on the outside as a chamber, and the steel sleeve has a fire cap at the bottom, and the fire cap is equipped with a seat pin, and in front of the seat pin is a primer, well, this is a bullet with a self-contained firing pin, and the bolt hammer is fired only as a striking part. During firing, the steel sleeve is supported by a cylindrical part of the bolt, which also houses the hammer. The ammunition feeding system uses a funnel-shaped gravity feeder ......"

Bullets are too complicated!

Xu Shushan thought so in his heart, he immediately thought of the metal bullet case that has matured technology, but now the metal bullet case is still a secret to the outside world, even in the arsenal, and even the Han-style rifle is claimed to be an "imitation" of the "Dreiser firing gun", all for the sake of secrecy.

"Can you shoot now?"

Xu Shushan asked with a smile, in fact, his heart was now full of curiosity about this "cannon", and he had even secretly made a decision in his heart, if it was really equivalent to a company as Gatling said, he would allow it to use a new type of metal cartridge bullet for testing.

"Of course, that's all it takes to ......"

As the words fell, Gatling turned the handle behind the gun, and when he first turned, he did not hear the gun, and it was not until the upper barrel turned to the bottom that the silence of the shooting range was broken.

After this gunshot, Xu Shushan was stunned. He looked at the weapon in front of him, mostly made of brass, almost dumbfounded, as it spat out bullets.

Bullets were spitting out incessantly, to be exact.

"This ...... This ......"

At this moment, he didn't even know what to say, there was only one thought in his mind - how could this be possible! It wasn't until he emptied the funnel, and after a while, Xu Shushan came back to his senses, and he looked at the "door" gun in surprise. It took a while before he spoke.

"Gatling, you must be wrong...... He's better than a company. ”

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The world's first full-fledged multi-barreled machine gun finally appeared, six years ahead of schedule...... Well, it's a golden finger! Every one of your subscriptions, recommendations, and favorites is a great support for Iron Blood! Thank you for your support! Iron and Blood Grand Novel Group: 150536833, welcome book friends to join and discuss the plot together! (To be continued.) )