(Ask for a commuter pass in advance.) Pen fun Pavilion www.biquge.infoAugust 15 should be a double monthly pass, if you have a monthly pass in your hand, you may wish to keep it for "Iron and Blood Ambition", and then vote, one top two! Every one of your readings, recommendations, and collections is a great support for "Iron and Blood Ambition"! It's not easy to get a new book, so please support it, thank you! "Iron and Blood" Novel Group: 150536833, welcome book friends to join and discuss the plot together! ）

The towering chimney spews black soot, the steam engine workshop spews out some white steam from time to time, in the roar of the steam engine, a sky axis is driven by the transmission belt, roaring, in the Western-style workshop, the transmission of the cow belt, connected with the sky axis, rotating rapidly, and driving dozens of machine tools, dozens of workers in front of the machine tool are concentrating on work, one by one parts are manufactured.

This is the arsenal of the rebels in Wuchang, to some extent, this should be the first modern arsenal in East Asia, although its scale is not large, but it is gradually getting rid of the primitive, began to adopt modern production technology - at the end of the workshop, the barrel is being chambered into shape on the chambered bed driven by a steam engine.

As far as the manufacture of artillery is concerned, as early as the beginning of the year in Huangzhou, the rebels had cast artillery with the Karon cannon as the prototype, but at that time it used an ordinary iron furnace, and the white iron was turned out, so it could only use the nuclear casting method of casting cannons, the so-called nuclear casting method, which was to put a neutron at the position of the gun chamber and form the cannon chamber in the casting process.

It was not until the engineers hired from Hong Kong arrived in Wuchang that they built a molten iron reverberatory furnace under the guidance of Hanks's engineer to refine gray cast iron, saying that the cannon made by the nuclear casting method was of low strength and should be cast by the actual casting method. The so-called solid casting method is to cast a solid cylinder, and then use a drill knife to open a hole to form a gun chamber. This is also the method of making artillery that has been common in European countries since the 18th century, and it is a method that is tending to be phased out. After all, at this time in Europe, rifled guns made of wrought iron had already appeared.

However, for the Rebels, this "backward" method allowed the Rebels to obtain a large number of cheap artillery pieces in a short period of time, but this small factory may have provided the Rebels with dozens of artillery pieces and a large number of muskets in the past few months. But in a way, the factory is more like a school, a training school, where workers and technicians are trained.

For Shen Ruohua and the more than 20 teenagers from Wenshan Yishu engineering major around him, they were able to study here, turn the records in the book into practical experience - observe the melting of pig iron, the color of the molten iron at the injection hole, the shade of gray at the fracture opening, check the condition of the casting bubbles, compare them with the records in the book, find out the causes, find solutions, and improve the process......

It was also during this process that the cannon casting in the factories matured, and even the muskets that were manufactured became more sophisticated. However, for Shen Ruohua, who is only eighteen years old, he does not stop there, just like in the past, he has been studying the rifles used by the rebels.

Now the rifles used by the rebels, there are only two kinds of rifles, one is a smoothbore, and the other is a rifled gun modified from it, the appearance of the two is almost identical, and the difference between the two is of course to look at the ruler, a musket without a ruler is not necessarily a smoothbore gun, but a musket with a ruler must be a rifled gun, and the rifled rifles produced by the factory have a very obvious ruler.

"Although our rifles are now rifled and the accuracy of the Mineer rounds is greatly improved, the shooting performance of the .75-inch rifle does not seem to be ideal......"

Again, Shen Ruohua took out a bunch of data and said his thoughts there.

"When using a smoothbore gun, heavier bullets can maintain flight stability and improve accuracy, but now it has reached the era of rifled guns, the caliber is too large, resulting in excessive bullets, which not only affects the speed of the bullet, but also affects the stability of the gun when shooting, and increases the burden on soldiers when carrying ammunition, I think, perhaps, we should consider making smaller caliber rifled guns!"

"Smaller caliber? You are not afraid that Mr. Wink will clean you up, you must know that there are only a few drilling machines in the entire factory, and only about 20 barrels can be made a day! ”

After Shen Ruohua, who was not waiting, finished speaking, Zhao Pengcheng retorted on the side.

After the 3,000-pound steam hammer was put into use, the forging workshop began to use imported raw materials to forge barrel blanks, and the tube blanks made of wrought iron were corrected, drilled, corrected, polished, and rifled to make barrels, but due to insufficient equipment, the output has been very limited.

Now the rifle made in the factory is actually divided into two kinds, one is a rifled barrel drilled with wrought iron, which is used to equip the rebels, and a wrought iron rolled barrel, compared with the former, the latter is faster to manufacture, but the barrel strength is relatively poor, and it has long been eliminated by European factories, but because of its lower cost and can be forged manually, it is now the main output of the arsenal - of course, it is mainly used for "foreign trade" and sold to the Taiping Army at a high price.

In fact, although the output of the arsenal is not large, the trade with the Taiping army ensures that the factory is financed, and the funds required by the arsenal are all obtained from the trade of selling artillery and muskets. It is precisely for this reason that the arsenal now has to ensure the supply of the rebels on the one hand, and foreign trade production on the other hand. In this case, Shen Ruohua's idea of creating a new rifle naturally found it difficult to get approved.

"I always have to try, I think the small-caliber rifled gun must be more accurate and the range must be longer!"

Faced with the stubbornness of his classmates, Zhao Pengcheng said with a smile.

"Then you really have to wait, or you see, let Xu Zhilin intercede for you, he is now a celebrity in our class, even the Metropolitan Governor knows him, and he will also give him a bonus of three thousand taels of silver! Obediently, that's three thousand taels! ”

Xu Zhilin in Zhao Pengcheng's mouth is a classmate in their class, and the reason why he was able to get that huge sum of money was entirely because of one of his inventions - pulling fire pipes.

In fact, in the eyes of all the students, Xu Zhilin did not invent anything at all, his "inventions" were ready-made, the grenade was already manufactured by the arsenal, and as for the ignition tube, it was used in the artillery, and the factory just realized its own production last month. But Xu Zhilin combined the two and turned them into a new type of grenade.

Originally, the hand grenade made by the arsenal was invented by the Grand Duke, and it used a match head as a flotin, although it seemed convenient, it only needed to lightly stroke the cloth to ignite. However, it was still a little inconvenient to use, but Xu Zhilin got inspiration from the drawing ignition tube used in artillery, and after improving the drawing ignition tube, he successfully applied it to the grenade and replaced the match ignition head.

Compared with the invention of the Grand Duke, Xu Zhilin's invention is more practical, unscrew the iron cap at the tail of the grenade, and the fire rope tied with porcelain beads will fall naturally, and when used, you only need to pull hard, and then shake it off, and the grenade will explode after 3-5 seconds.

It was this seemingly inconspicuous little "invention" that made Xu Zhilin a "celebrity" in the engineering class, and even a celebrity in the entire Wenshan Yishu, because everyone knew that he got a bonus of three thousand taels, and even the grenade was named "Zhilin-style grenade".

It is precisely because of Xu Zhilin's success that a new wave has been set off in this "engineering class" that is "just training a group of craftsmen" in the eyes of outsiders -- a wave of invention and research.

"Three thousand taels?"

Shaking his head, compared to Zhao Pengcheng's jealousy of the three thousand taels of silver, Shen Ruohua saw it very lightly, if he said that he was not envious, it would be false, but compared to those silver, he still had more lofty ideals, or ambitions.

"Silver, how much can be earned, just like the foreign craftsmen in the factory, there are at least fifty taels of silver a month, three thousand taels of silver, look at a lot, but in fact, don't say, when we really enter the factory, it is not impossible to earn six or seven taels of silver a month in the future, but, are you willing to be a craftsman?"

Shen Ruohua's rhetorical question made Zhao Pengcheng dumb for a moment.

"In Wenshan Yishu, who are the people in our engineering class? It's nothing more than being older and relatively good at arithmetic, but what if we were a few years younger? We can learn foreign languages, and then go abroad to study in foreign countries, and go to the university that Mr. Wenke said, the university...... Well, I'm afraid it's even higher than Guozijian, and Mr. Wen Ke didn't go to college! ”

For the university, Shen Ruohua never knew that there was such a school in the world in the past, just like he never knew that there was still the West in the world, but in Wenshan Yishu, when he was learning English, through those learning wall charts, he knew that in addition to steamships, there were trains in the West, and after learning about the West, he naturally had a longing for the West, so he had the idea of wanting to go to the West and take a look, and he also had the idea of going to the West to study at a university.

However, his age limits this possibility, in fact, in Wenshan Yishu, for those over 18 years old, there are only three choices, one is to enter the engineering class, while learning foreign languages, while learning basic engineering knowledge, and the other is to enter the newly established military academy, study military, and the other is to learn law from foreigners in the legal class, and enter the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion in the future.

Although they seem to have a bright future, compared to those younger juniors, they have lost the opportunity to stay abroad, at least at the moment.

But Xu Zhilin's success made Shen Ruohua see an opportunity - after receiving the bonus, Xu Zhilin personally asked the Metropolitan Governor to use the bonus to study abroad, but his request was not only satisfied, but also the expenses for studying abroad were also borne by the Governor's Office, as long as Xu Zhilin passed the English test, he could go to the UK to study.

Here's a chance!

This at least made Shen Ruohua see hope, see the hope of staying abroad, he knows that sooner or later in the future, a foreign engineer like Wen Ke will definitely be replaced by an engineer like Xu Zhilin who has studied abroad, but in Wuchang, he has no chance to become an engineer like Wen Ke, and staying abroad is the best choice.

"You just dream!"

Zhao Pengcheng retorted unceremoniously, and Shen Ruohua was not angry at his friend's rebuttal, but said with longing.

"Hey, you say, they're almost supposed to go to the West now, right?" (To be continued.) )