There are lakes all over the outside of Wuchang, and it can be said that there is far more water than the ground, and in fact, it is also dense in the south of the Yangtze River. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

On the training ground outside the city of the rebels, with a few cannon shots, the lake in the distance exploded to put a column of water. After the first round of shelling, the entire artillery position was completely enveloped in white gunpowder smoke, so that the gunners could not see the target in front of them at all. However, despite this, the gunner still fired dozens of shots again with the previously set angle of fire.

Their task was simple, just shoot the shells out and hit them in the lake.

“…… 35、36……”

In just ten minutes, 60 shells were fired from three guns, and every time the shells landed in the lake and exploded into the water. Somebody will record those numbers.

“…… We went back and forth to check it, and it turned out that the spring of the firing pin in the letter tube was too soft, which reduced the impact of the firing pin. In response to this problem, it has been re-modified, so that the firing rate has increased, from 65% in the past, to more than 80% now, but on the other hand, after the spring of the firing pin in the letter tube is stiffened, the firing rate on the water surface has dropped to about 50%, so now the next step, the most important work is to find the balance point. ”

When Xu Shushan explained the firing rate of the shells, Zhu Yifeng just nodded, now the firing fuse is just beginning, and the fuse produced by the arsenal is just a few simple sketches drawn by him, and it has not yet formed a science. Everything is in the process of exploring, and it is extremely difficult to have an 80% fire rate.

"Is the mortar made?"

Sometimes many inventions start with a whimsical idea.

That is, those unexpected ideas will unexpectedly lead to some unexpected inventions. Just like the mortars mentioned by Zhu Yifeng, to be precise, improvised artillery made of steel pipes.

However, it is borrowed from the mortars of later generations, compared to the mortars of later generations, he is even a little too simple, and the cannon barrel is made of ordinary boiler steel pipes, and the length is only one meter. In fact, it was after seeing the boiler steel pipes in the arsenal that day that Zhu Yifeng had a whim, thinking of the mortars of later generations and the lack of artillery of the righteous army now.

That's why the idea of a mortar was proposed, in fact, there were mortars in this era a long time ago, that is, mortars, but now this idea is more advanced.

When the two mortars were displayed in Zhu Yifeng, it seemed that he was not much different from the mortars of later generations, but a closer look could show that it was actually very simple.

Neither a mortar sight of later generations, nor a complex bipod, its structure looks very simple. But it also determines that it is very easy to produce.

"Han Du, I really didn't expect him to be so easy to produce, one steel pipe can make three cannon barrels, add a base at the other end of the barrel, there is a fixed firing pin in the base, plus a bipod, and an angle sight, that's it,"

Xu Shushan's tone was full of praise.

"Its shells weigh a full eight pounds, and although they are not rifled, they are not much less accurate than the 9-pounder guns, and more importantly, they use yellow explosives, which are by no means more powerful than the 9-pounder guns and 12-pounder guns. And its rate of fire was much higher than that of field guns, and even more than those of rear-loading guns. ”

That's the most important thing, if he still uses the black powder of the past. Then its power is not worth mentioning at all, like a 12-pound grenade, when it explodes, it can only produce a dozen fragments, that is, the grenade of the rebels, although the shell is carefully designed with grooves, it has only a dozen fragments, and if you are unlucky, sometimes there are only three or four fragments.

But the grenade with yellow explosives is different, when it explodes, it can produce hundreds of pieces, hundreds of fragments, even fragments of masonry that are blown up, and can penetrate the human body like iron pieces. However, yellow explosives have always been the biggest secret of the rebels, and only a very few people know the secret of yellow explosives, and this is the killer weapon of the rebels.

"The key to mortars is to use high-explosive high-explosive shells, black powder can not form effective fragments, so it is necessary to use howitzers, kinetic energy projectiles that are ready to place projectiles, and the latter is only suitable for field artillery, so mortars in this case, they are not as popular as field guns, because the power of black powder is too small, the lethality is too small, and it is not suitable for hitting people......"

Zhu Yifeng said to Xu Shushan as he spoke.

"Let's shoot a few shots first!"

With an order. The cannonball roared forward over the grass, and as soon as it touched the ground, it immediately flashed firelight, emitting a huge roar Gunsmoke and mud rushed into the air, looking at the scene in front of him, Zhu Yifeng immediately ordered loudly.

"One more!"

The gunner fired a second shell regardless of the smoke at the muzzle, and with the sound of the explosion, Zhu Yifeng gave another order.

"A few more shots, ten shots per gun!"

However, although the order was given, when the fifth shell was fired, Zhu Yifeng saw that the gunner on the gun position began to scrub the barrel with the cannon.

"Han Du, this is to clean up the gunpowder residue in the gun chamber, if you don't clean up the residue in time, the shell is very likely to not be stuffed into the gun chamber, even if it does, it will not be able to hit because of the impact is not enough, and then you will have to risk pouring the shell outward......"

Xu Shushan hurriedly explained, after all, before, he had said that the rate of fire was its biggest advantage.

This is the inevitability of the era of black powder, after all, there are too many residues of black powder, but despite this, Zhu Yifeng is still extremely satisfied with it, compared to the actual rate of fire is two or three rifled guns a minute, the rate of fire of the mortar is extremely fast, and five shells only took more than ten seconds.

After the tenth shell was fired, Zhu Yifeng looked at the gun emplacement that was swallowed up by the smoke of gunpowder. The smoke from the gun emplacements obscured the gunner's view and reminded him that it was not realistic to try to solve the enemy with a dense rain of mortar fires, and that the smoke of gunpowder was a big problem.

Despite the shortcomings of mortars using black powder, Zhu Yifeng still made the decision to produce mortars, after all, mortars are the easiest and fastest way to solve the lack of firepower.

When returning to the city by carriage, Zhu Yifeng's mind once again appeared that the gun position was shrouded in smoke, and the smoke of gunpowder affected the gunner's aiming and shooting, and in the end, they were completely "blind fighting" there according to the angle set before, and it may be possible at the shooting range, but on the battlefield, the shells are likely to be empty, which will cause a waste of shells.

"It seems that if you want to solve the problem of mortars, you have to find a way to create smokeless gunpowder first......"

How do you make smokeless gunpowder?

It seems that nitrocellulose is used, and it seems that what is added to nitrocellulose? What is it? ********？

When he thought of ********, Zhu Yifeng's eyes suddenly lit up, his body immediately re-realized, his fingers tapped his knees from time to time, and his brows were furrowed and he thought about another question.

After the end of the "Battle of Lingdingyang", on the one hand, the countries were surprised by the amazing performance of the rebel fleet, but they, especially the British, still obtained the news of the use of new artillery and shells by the rebels in the naval battle through various channels, although they had learned through the naval battle that the rebels used more accurate rifled guns, but what they were really curious about was the cannonballs, to be precise, the charges in the shells.

Even that Midile told him many times that Britain was willing to spend a lot of money to buy the gunpowder patents of the Rebels, and of course the gunpowder he was referring to was the "new gunpowder" used by the fleet in Lingdingyang.

Any new weapon, after demonstrating its power, will surely attract the attention of all parties, how long can picric acid explosives be hidden? This has always been a problem, and even a hidden danger.

Historically, picric acid explosives really attracted the attention of the world, when Japan used them to destroy the Russian fleet, and the Japanese artillery used them to ravage the Russian infantry on land, and then the new type of high explosives was quickly accepted and popularized all over the world. Before that, no one even noticed that the Japanese Navy had "ravaged" the Beiyang Fleet, which used Black Powder shells.

Countries are both conservative and radical in the application of new technologies, just as now, when the British noticed that in the Battle of the Zero Ding Ocean, the Rebel fleet destroyed the American Far East Fleet with new shells, they immediately showed their due acumen in the middle of the war.

The British, who were at war, would certainly do everything possible to obtain this explosive in order to defeat the Russians, but for themselves who wanted to establish their superiority in force over the West with the new explosives, it was obviously impossible to take the initiative to expose the "secret of picric acid" to them, and even in order to hide this secret, the 500 tons of picric acid purchased from Britain a few months ago were purchased in the name of other countries and then transferred back to China.

But how can the British demand be rejected outright when the help of the British is needed? And if the request made from the front was rejected, would the British have bought shells at a high price? It only takes a shell to disassemble and analyze it to reveal its secrets, but what to do when the time comes?

It is precisely because of this that in the past period of time, Zhu Yifeng has been entangled in whether to "transfer explosives technology" to Britain, but now, when he thinks of ******** because of smokeless gunpowder, he immediately recalls the history related to it. Although it was invented eight years ago ********, it is a highly explosive liquid explosive, but it is extremely unsafe to use. A few years later, the Nobel father and son of Sweden carried out a lot of research work on the ********, subdued the ******** with the "warm method", and built a factory for production in 1862. But soon after the explosives were put into production, an explosion occurred at the factory, and Nobel's father was seriously injured and his brother was killed. It then took several years for it to really surrender to the ********, but it was the inconspicuous "diatomaceous earth" that really brought the ******** to the market, because the ******** would be adsorbed by the diatomaceous earth, thus becoming a safe and reliable explosive, and it may be the best choice to use one secret to cover up another......

"If you give this explosives to the British......"

You can't just give it for nothing, before giving it to them, you must change something first...... (To be continued.) )