By the time Luo Jian knew, the fleet organized by the Chamber of Commerce had already gone to sea.

For this time the Chamber of Commerce organized a fleet to go to sea on its own, Luo Jian had an ominous premonition.

These merchants only saw the huge profits of the sea trade, and all kinds of huge risks were ignored by them.

It's just that now Luo Jian can't take care of these, Yangzhou Ocean Trading Company has been officially established, including more than 20 people selected from Zheng Chenggong's team, and the company has more than 130 employees.

Many businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have invested in the shares, and some have used their own merchant ships to buy shares, and there are hundreds of large and small shareholders, and there are also 12 shareholders who have invested more than 100,000 taels of silver.

At the first general meeting of shareholders of the Ocean Shipping Company, the unanimous demand of these shareholders was to build a steam merchant ship for sea voyages.

Luo Jian was very happy about this request of the shareholders' meeting, this time the Guazhou Shipyard had a list of the next twenty steam ships, the tonnage of this kind of merchant ship was about 30 tons, and the cost was generally about 20,000 silver, mainly in the steam engine.

This kind of shareholders' meeting is still attended by Liu Lan, although Luo Jian also participated, but as a government official.

Of course, Liu Lan also voted in favor of the decision of the shareholders' meeting.

The cost of the "Wei Qing" is 120,000 taels of silver, mainly expensive in artillery and steam engines, and the British "Sea King" in the same period, Luo Jian has been converted, about 1230,000 taels of silver, the "Sea King" is mainly because the labor cost is too high, and its decoration is extremely gorgeous, which costs a lot.

With the current shipbuilding capacity of the Guazhou shipyard, these merchant ships are not a problem, but the production speed of the steam engine is slightly slower, and if you work overtime, you can barely keep up with the speed of shipbuilding.

The first voyage of the ocean company was not used, or could it only be used by the previous sailing ships.

The involvement of private capital is more efficient than that of government organizations, and in five or six days, the merchant fleet bound for Southeast Asia will be at sea.

Zheng Chenggong has been organizing the "Weiqing," "Anqing," and "Fengyang" to conduct training in coastal waters for some time now, with the aim of enabling the three ships to better coordinate operations.

"Anqing" and "Fengyang" were named by Shi Kefa, and he felt that national heroes could only be used to name large warships like "Weiqing", and these small warships could be named after local place names, and Luo Jian could only follow him.

"Anqing" and "Fengyang" are faster and more agile than "Wei Qing", which benefits from their smaller hulls, and Zheng Chenggong is very satisfied with their flexible maneuverability.

The third time a merchant ship went to sea was escorted by the "Weiqing", "Anqing" and "Fengyang" and four gunboats that had not yet been eliminated.

As soon as the merchant ship departed, Luo Jian, Shi Kefa and the others began to get busy again.

It was Luo Jian's idea to get busy this time, and Luo Jian had been calculating the composition of the Yangzhou army during this time.

At present, the production process of Yangzhou Type 1 rifle has been greatly accelerated, the second production line has also been completed, and now the first division has been completely reloaded, and it is estimated that the second division will be able to change its equipment in two months.

However, the mobility of the Yangzhou army has always been a problem for Luo Jian, and if the Manchu cavalry troops do not collide with each other, it is impossible for the Yangzhou army to completely annihilate them.

This gave Luo Jian the idea of forming a fast cavalry division, and he talked about this idea with Shi Kefa, and Shi Kefa also agreed.

At present, each of the six divisions in Yangzhou has a part of cavalry, more like Li Chengdong's second division has more than 1,500 cavalry, and less like Li Benshen's third division, only two or three hundred cavalry, these cavalry are scattered in each division, and the role they can play is really limited, which makes Luo Jian have the idea of using them intensively.

It's just that how hard the cavalry trained was always incomparable with the Manchus and Mongols who grew up on horses, and they could only find ways in equipment.

Before the official order was issued, Luo Jian still rushed to Guazhou and found Liu Weimin, Chen Zilong and others to discuss together, after the cavalry division was formed, it must have new equipment, and riding rifles is indispensable.

At present, the Yangzhou type 1 rifle is still front-loaded, and the cavalry cannot be used on the horse at all, so Luo Jian brought them in for the purpose of developing a cavalry rifle.

The cavalry rifle does not require such a long range as the rifle used by the infantry, the key is the continuity of fire, after a bullet is fired, the cavalry on the opposite side has already arrived in front of you, if you can't shoot continuously, it still won't work.

Everyone discussed for a long time, and finally Xiao Liu came up with a solution, that is, to imitate the revolver, the bullet is still made of paper shell, but it is made into a monolithic bullet, so that the firepower can be guaranteed.

It's just that the weight of this rifle is not light, most of the cavalry can only shoot with one hand, and the weight is too heavy, and the shooting accuracy will inevitably be greatly reduced.

In order to produce this new type of cavalry rifle, Song Yingxing led people to transform some machine tools, which also laid a good foundation for the production of rear-loading rifles in the future.

The position of the commander of the cavalry division has become a hot position for everyone, and everyone knows that the cavalry division will be a strategic force in the Yangzhou army in the future, and Li Chengdong first proposed that he wanted to be the commander of this cavalry division.

But the second division is still inseparable from Li Chengdong, Luo Jian's comprehensive consideration, or let the cavalry captain of the first division, Lou Ting, serve as the commander of the cavalry division, after the people are selected, everyone gave up the competition, and the Yangzhou army is still doing a very good job in the current order and ban.

The garrison of the cavalry division was selected outside Xuyi City, where supplies were convenient, and the distance of maneuver in all directions was about the same, basically in the middle of the area under the jurisdiction of Yangzhou.

The cavalry of each division began to concentrate in Xuyi, which also aroused everyone's general concern in the entire Yangzhou area, and the news soon reached the ears of Duoduo.

Duoduo was very dissatisfied with the Yangzhou army's concentration of cavalry, and the Yangzhou army, Duoduo's understanding was that the firepower was strong, but its mobility was poor, and now Yangzhou concentrated the cavalry to use, and the confidence in the Manchu and Mongol cavalry made Duoduo not surprised.

News finally came from Guazhou that the first cavalry rifle had been manufactured, and Luo Jian and Shi Kefa hurried to Guazhou after hearing the news.

Luo Jian held the cavalry rifle in his hand, this cavalry rifle was produced by imitating the Type 53 cavalry rifle, although it was a semi-automatic rifle, its magazine could also hold five rounds, and there was no problem with the continuity of firepower.

The body of the gun is about one meter long, the total weight of the whole gun is close to four kilograms, the caliber is 7.62 mm, holding this cavalry rifle, Luo Jian feels that the difference between the semi-automatic rifle he has seen before is not very big, at first Luo Jian also wanted the cavalry to carry a Yangzhou type of rifle, used to block the Manchu cavalry, now it seems that with this kind of riding rifle, and then carry the Yangzhou type of type, there is no need at all.

But Luo Jian's dream was soon shattered.

"Grab a few bullets, let's try the gun?" Luo Jian said happily.

After a long time, Liu Weimin took out a few bullets, and said while handing them to Luo Jian: "Chief, there are only a few bullets in total. ”

"What's going on? The guns have been built, and the bullets are still stumping you? Luo Jian asked suspiciously.

"Chief, it's not difficult to produce guns, our machine tools can meet the needs, but it's too difficult to produce this bullet, and we can't make it now." Xiao Liu couldn't put it down when he saw Luo Jian holding a riding rifle, and said with some regret next to him.

"Xinghua, bullets look inconspicuous, why is it so difficult to build? We've tried everything, but we still can't mass-produce it. If not, the cavalry division should first use the Yangzhou type, the production technology of this rifle is relatively mature. Song Yingxing saw that Luo Jian was deep in thought, and said beside him.

Hearing Song Yingxing say this, Luo Jian didn't have the heart to test the gun, handed the rifle back to Xiao Liu, and then said: "You should take these bullets to study, I ignored this problem, I didn't expect the production of bullets to be so difficult." ”

There is no information about these things in Luo Jian's computer, so he can only rely on Song Yingxing, Chen Zilong and others to continue to explore, and Chen Zilong also asked Wang Qiang for dozens of bullets for research.

"Xinghua, I think Song Lao is reasonable, although this rifle is excellent, but it is better than a saber without bullets, I think it will be settled, let's use the Yangzhou style first, but in the future, the technology will progress, and we can mass-produce bullets, let's change the outfit again, what do you think?" Shi Kefa also said.

Luo Jian pondered for a long time, and said helplessly: "Now it can only be like this, Brother Mao, you should first produce some of this riding rifle in small quantities.

When Luo Jian went back and checked some information from the computer, he realized that the production of bullets was much more difficult than that of guns. In Luo Jian's time and space, there were still many big countries that couldn't even produce bullets.

The seemingly simple bullet actually has extremely high requirements for the level of craftsmanship, and even the propellant must be made very uniform, otherwise not only will it not be accurate, but the damage to the gun will also be great, and the cartridge case is the most difficult part to produce, and its strength needs to be guaranteed, and the accuracy requirements are also very high.

The information he inquired poured a basin of cold water on Luo Jiandou's head, and he had been fantasizing about waiting for Xiao Liu to get the new zha medicine out and produce a rear-loading rifle, but now it seems that it is impossible in a short time.

Although the new cavalry rifle could not be used, the cavalry division still had to be established, and the Yangzhou rifle was still used, but it was unlikely that the cavalry at this time would fight the Manchu cavalry on horseback, and could only be used to quickly maneuver troops.

Luo Jian, who calmed down, stopped fantasizing about the great leap in military technology and turned to the quantitative production of existing equipment, at present, the first division has all been reequipped, and the second division is about to be reequipped, and the second division needs a lot of time for training, and the first and second divisions have become a top priority.

Yangzhou's water transportation is now extremely developed, and the change of defense of the first and second divisions was carried out through the canal, and it took half a month before and after this large-scale move-style change of defense.

PS: I'm sorry everyone, I didn't pay attention to a word in the last paragraph when I uploaded it yesterday, and it was harmonized as a result!