In the 1014 factory in Tangshan, Hebei Province, in the production workshop that has been renovated, a strange vehicle that has not appeared in the world is undergoing final commissioning work. This strange chariot has a row of wheels, and instead of inflatable wheels wrapped in rubber, they are covered with a chain-like track.

Invented by a previously unknown farmer who used machinery to plough the land and found that the equipment would always sink into the mud, the new farmer, who had gone to school and had a lot of money at home, found a solution by replacing the wheels with a track belt to reduce pressure and increase off-road performance.

Luckily, he achieved his design goals and kept his design alive in the dust of history. Soon his invention was noticed by a manufacturer of agricultural vehicles, and he began to produce tracked tractor equipment on a small scale. Of course, this time was in 1826, when Wang Jue and Zhu Mu had not yet graduated from school, so these designs were only circulated in agricultural machinery vehicles.

When Wang Jue discovered this particular wheel by chance, he realized that the technology was ripe to produce a heavier vehicle. So he managed to invite William? Arsene Wenger, began to design this particular weapon in Tangshan.

"I never imagined that I could make a 10-ton behemoth on land." An engineer looked at his masterpiece and boasted to his colleagues with some shock: "This thing can drive at a speed of 32 kilometers per hour on bumpy roads, it's a monster." ”

This thing can be said to be unprecedented, no country has ever appeared similar weapons and equipment, and this thing has shown its good application prospects at the beginning of its birth - it can provide good service for soldiers with steel plates, and the speed of movement can be comparable to that of war horses, and the firepower is even more terrifying to the point of making people's hairs stand on end.

It can be expected that once this weapon appears on the battlefield, it will be enough to subvert the existing cavalry and infantry combat mode and lead the war in a direction more favorable to the attacking side. Once the cavalry is given more powerful shock and more firepower, what will the war become?

"I don't think I would be surprised if one day people told me that the cavalry had been completely replaced by this thing." An officer in charge of assessing the weapon's new capabilities on the spot, after only one glance, could no longer take his eyes off the thing: "This is what I want!" Seriously, it's worth whatever you spend! ”

"What's it called? We can't always call it by its production codename, can we? Is it called the No. 1014 Factory No. 1 Project B prototype? An eyed engineer whispered to his leader, who was responsible for designing the turret rotation system for this weapon, but until now, he had not known what the steel monster he had helped to build was called.

"His Majesty the Emperor gave him a name, and under his onslaught, the enemy's fortress and defense line were turned into a smooth road; Cities and trenches must be conquered...... Tank, what a name! Good name! Hearing the questions of his employees, the educated engineer praised his masterpiece and answered the other party's questions proudly.

"Tanks?" The young engineer was stunned for a moment, then nodded in admiration, and the people around him were also busy pointing at the big guy, and their hearts began to hang with the roar of the gasoline engine in this tank.

At the beginning, in order to increase the cross-country performance of the tank itself, some plans proposed to use larger and higher overhead tracks, but later due to reliability and other problems, it was finally abandoned.

At first, a 50 mm gun was fixed on the nose of the vehicle, but this was eventually cancelled due to aiming difficulties. The fixed body gun was eventually replaced by a rotatable turret, and it has to be said that the wise Chinese actually relied on drawings and experiments to select the most suitable form of tank layout for modern warfare, which is definitely a great legend in the history of design.

In fact, the main reason why the designers of the Ming Empire gave up the design ideas of many guns, gave up the design of tall and heavy heavy tanks, and even finally abandoned the overhead tracks, was Wang Jue's dedication to the use of tanks: he stubbornly believed that the tank was a strengthened version of the traditional cavalry, and the offensive speed and more prominent firepower were its main performance indicators.

Therefore, the development of heavy large tanks was postponed indefinitely, and light fast tanks became the development direction of Chinese tanks. This tank No. 1 was armed with a 30 mm gun and had an 8 mm machine gun. The layout is similar to that of the German No. 2 tank of World War II, except that it is slightly larger and slightly heavier in armor.

This No. 1 tank can use its own fuel to advance 250 kilometers to the depth of the enemy, which is larger than many cars at the time, and if you carry an external fuel tank, the journey can reach a terrifying 400 kilometers, which is also because of the vast territory of the Ming Empire, and the reason why the tank needs to have a large depth of maneuverability.

What makes Wang Jue even more satisfied is that because the Nanjing Radio Equipment Factory has recently made a breakthrough in small radio equipment, this No. 1 tank is equipped with radio contact equipment, which can realize the command and control of each tank on the battlefield. This is definitely the dream of all cavalry commanders, and it also marks the absence of any technical gaps in command for the large-scale use of tanks.

This is definitely a masterpiece of human invention and creation in the past ten years. A series of developments such as electric motors, gasoline engine technology, shock absorption technology, and metal precision machining technology were finally intertwined at this moment, forming a leap forward and pushing the direction of the development of the war to another fast lane.

"I heard that the new army of our Ming Empire wants to purchase this kind of 'tank', and there are quite a few of them?" A production worker standing in the distance whispered to the foreman in charge of production next to him.

The foreman seemed to be very well-informed, glanced at his subordinates, stretched out a slap and shook and replied: "Well, I heard that a lot of production is going to be produced, but the production order from above is that if the military inspection is passed this time, our factory will produce at least this number - 500 vehicles!" ”