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Hanyang Arsenal, both in terms of scale and investment, is undoubtedly the largest arsenal in this era, covering an area of thousands of acres of arsenal is located on the bank of the Yangtze River, the factory itself has a wharf, all kinds of production raw materials and machines can be directly landed through the wharf. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The area of this arsenal planned and directed by Zhu Yifeng is extremely large, with a live firing range for artificial mountain bags, an ordnance military academy, a machinery warehouse, a cylinder factory, an iron-making plant, and various lathe workshops. The Western-style infrastructure is also impressive, and even foreigners in the Shanghai Concession know the prestige of this factory in Wuchang.

But whether it is in the Manchu Qing Dynasty or the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it is not known!

The man-made mountain pack's live-fire range is a testing ground inside the factory. The guns produced by the factory are tested here. In the early morning after a loud bang, the dock was covered in gunsmoke, and everywhere on the pier were pieces of cast iron, which were bombed artillery.

"Failed again!"

Xu Shushan, who came out of the sandbag bunker, said in a disappointed tone.

Since no artillery engineer was hired, he was now responsible for the imitation and modification of the factory's artillery in the arsenal. Although the equipment purchased from the UK was not put into service, the arsenal began casting artillery long ago. After becoming the director of the factory, the factory was given the task of 24-, 32-, and 68-pounder guns to strengthen the coastal defense around the Pearl River estuary in Guangzhou.

The casting of the cannon did not go well, and despite the factory's experience in casting 12-pounder guns, it had trouble casting heavy guns, which were already the third 68-pounder guns to be blown up.

"Cast five into two, the cost will soon catch up with the imports, and the army will definitely not be satisfied if it goes on like this!"

Xu Shushan muttered in his mouth, his brows furrowed.

"Maybe we can think of something else!"

René Abel explained that he and Xu Shushan were classmates and had been Xu Shushan's assistant since coming to China.

"Anything else, Abel, do you have any good ideas?"

"Don't want large-caliber artillery in order to strengthen the battery, increase the range of the battery, can we do something about this."

Abel looked at Xu Shushan and said.

"When I was in school, I used to read that a few years ago the Italians invented a cannon with a groove in the chamber of the cannon, which fired a long explosive bomb with a cone-headed column."

"Rifled guns?"

"Yes, the spiral rifling rotates the projectile, stabilizes the flight, increases the power and accuracy of the artillery, increases the range of the artillery. It can be said that compared with the old artillery, it not only hits more accurately, but also hits farther. ”

"You mean we make rifled guns?"

"If the 12-pound shell is changed to a cone-headed cylindrical long explosive projectile, then its weight will definitely exceed 24 pounds!"

I see!

Abel replied so that Xu Shushan understood his thoughts.

"In that case, let's do it!"

However, after questioning other technicians in the factory, Xu Shushan knew why no rifled guns were used, because there were explosions in tests in various countries, which led to a large number of artillery casualties.

In fact, the principle of rifled guns is not complicated, but rifling is carved into the barrel, which improves stability. However, due to the lack of rigidity of the casting material, it is very easy to explode accidents. The rifled guns made in this factory have all had an explosion accident, and because of this, the rifled guns have not been available.

Despite this, the danger of rifled guns did not make Xu Shushan flinch, but made him excited.

"That's what I need for this dangerous cannon!"

Xu Shushan immediately organized people in the factory and began to study rifled guns. It was not a pat on the head decision, but rooted in the philosophy he believed in – that any progress always requires risk. Exploding the bore means that the power of the cannon is huge, which of course has a certain danger. And Xu Shushan also told others his thoughts: "The progress of technology can eliminate the existing dangers and maximize their power." ”

Because there is a relationship between the old guns in the factory, the manufacture of rifled guns is the same as the manufacture of rifled guns, which are first modified with old guns. It took only a few days to convert the two smoothbore guns to the rifled gun test site, and the preparations for the test firing proceeded in an orderly manner, and when all the loading operations were completed, the gunners quickly dispersed to the rear.

Xu Shushan was the only one left next to the cannon.

In order to avoid secondary damage caused by the barrel explosion, a volunteer gunner is generally arranged to operate the gun, which is a common practice for various countries to conduct weapons tests.

As an apprentice at the Ordnance School, Qian Lei volunteered to sign up as a volunteer gunner, as for why he did this extremely dangerous thing, whether it was because he was born with an active personality, or because he was driven by his curiosity to like new things, or even he himself couldn't tell why.

He leaned over the hollow behind the cannon, holding an ignition rod with a burning oilcloth tied to the head of the rod, and slowly approached the hole in the end of the cannon and lit the fuse that was more than half a foot long behind the fire door.

In tens of seconds, with a loud "boom" and a roar of the cannon, the field artillery mount retreated sharply, the shell was very beautifully cut out of the barrel, and the long solid bullet of the cone-headed column shot out a cloud of earth smoke in the artificial mountain bag.

Then Qian Lei came to the next cannon, and as he did just now, he lit the fuse behind the fire door with the tarpaulin on the fire pole, and then he immediately turned around and ran back. Just as he was about to rush to the cover, he only felt a wave of air behind him, rushing over, he only remembered this, and when he regained consciousness and slowly got up, he found that the cannon had disappeared.

There was a large pit where the cannon had been placed, and the smashed gun carriage was scattered all over the ground. The cannon flew into an incredible distance, the chamber cracked, and the cast iron inside the crack was exposed, and the wind blew it like broken paper.

"Qian Lei! Are you okay! ”

Xu Shushan was the first to arrive at the scene, and he asked with concern while checking the situation.

"It's blown up."

"Hmm."

Ding Fujie looked quite calm, with a mischievous smile on his face, and said calmly:

"It's not because of the colleagues who made the artillery, it's all my fault."

Ding Fujie was the technician in charge of the cannon charge, and in order to obtain better test data, the second cannon was filled with more gunpowder than the first gun, so it caused the explosion.

"That's why."

Qian Lei couldn't help but gasp after hearing this, and a cold sweat broke out on his back, and he almost lost his life because of it.

But no matter what accident happened, the merit was finally completed, and the test firing of the cannon was successful. But it is a pity that each shot can not be fully loaded with gunpowder, which can be said to be a fatal flaw of rifled guns, although it is more accurate, but because the fire can not be full of gunpowder, plus the shells are much heavier, so the range is reduced compared to the past.

"Maybe it can be put into production, just limit the ******! No matter how you say it, he has a longer range than the caron cannon! ”

Abel persuaded him that in his opinion this shortcoming was acceptable.

"You see it's very accurate, and an ordinary twelve-pounder gun can hit a house 1,500 meters away at most. And rifled guns can hit the gate 2000 meters away, and I believe that this is exactly what the army needs! ”

"It's definitely not going to work! He is capable of reaching 2000, and the accuracy is very high, but the power is definitely insufficient, and the British third-class ships can withstand the close-range bombardment of the 68-pounder Caron gun! ”

Xu Shushan shook her head and did not agree with Abel's statement.

"The army doesn't just want heavy artillery, they need range, as far as possible, only then can they accurately attack the enemy's warships with rifled guns from a distance of several kilometers, instead of having the enemy's warships shell them from a distance with 24-pounder or 32-pounder guns!"

Further efforts are needed, Xu Shushan has never been a perfectionist, but when he was in France, he had repeatedly read the materials related to the Sino-British war written by the British, and in those materials it was mentioned more than once that the Chinese artillery could not penetrate the British warships, and the shells would be bounced off by the hard hull. This is clearly not what he wants to see, and it is also not what the army wants to see.

The reason why the army demanded the manufacture of 24-, 32-, and 68-pounder heavy cannons instead of carons was precisely because of their great power to penetrate foreign warships in time of war.

Blown up!

It's almost inevitable, why is it blown up?

Xu Shushan, who lives in the arsenal, holds a pencil in his hand, and he looks at a piece of broken wrought iron on the table! In order to enhance the strength of the cannon body and avoid exploding, he did not use a cast iron cannon, but switched to a wrought iron cannon with higher compressive strength.

"Doesn't it mean that artillery can't use rifles?"

Of course, Xu Shushan didn't believe it, but the bloody facts reminded him that rifled guns were very dangerous.

"The 117mm caliber bore is capable of holding iron shells weighing up to 5.44 kg, propelled by a 1.13 kg ****** ......"

Because the arsenal has always used the French metric unit, Xu Shushan did not feel any inconvenience in the unit of measurement, and wrote down a few numbers on the paper as she spoke.

“117mm，5.44kg、1.13kg……”

After writing down these three numbers, he jotted down another number on a piece of paper,

“14.5kg！”

This is the weight of the cone-headed cylindrical projectile fired by the rifled gun, although the caliber of the two is the same, but because the shell used by the rifled gun is a cone-headed cylindrical elongated projectile, its weight is naturally heavier, even close to 32 pounds.

"Although the ****** has not increased, its chamber pressure has increased, so there has been a bore explosion!"

Chambering pressure!

That's right, it's chamber pressure!

In the depths of Xu Shushan's sunken eye sockets, a glimmer of spiritual light flashed. He shouted excitedly.

"I know what needs to be done! That's right, that's it! ”

Then Xu Shushan, who was excited, seemed to have figured out something, because he picked up a newspaper next to him because of the running out of drawing paper at hand, and didn't look at the train pattern on the newspaper and the news of the Guangzhou Railway, but directly drew a simple sketch on the newspaper.

"yes, that's it, right...... That's it......"

With his mouth in his mouth, all that was left in his eyes was the simple pattern, and as for the picture of the train in the newspaper, he didn't even look at it. (To be continued.) )