Breech-loading rifled rifles are nothing new in this era, as early as a few decades ago, there were rear-loading rifles equipped with armies on a small scale, and in the forties Germany was equipped with rear-loading rifles on a large scale, and Norway was also equipped with rear-loading rifles.

But their breech-loading rifles did not attract the attention of other countries, and in the fifties Prussia had already lifted the ban on the secrecy of breech-loading rifles and tried to sell them on the international arms market, but the Germans found that there were no other countries to buy their breech-loading rifles at all.

The main reason why the German breech-loading rifle did not attract the attention of other countries was that the early breech-loading rifle, that is, the German Dresser 1841 rifle, had serious air leakage, and its long firing pin was very easy to break, and there were many failures.

Moreover, more critically, the Dresser 1841 rifle of the Germans did not stand the test of a large-scale war.

The air leakage problem of early rear-loading rifles also plagued the 1858 Linde rifle of the Chinese Empire.

However, the Chinese Empire took a trick to obtain a preliminary solution to the air leakage, that is, to install a rubber pad, although after many shots, the rubber pad must be replaced in time, otherwise it will still leak, but it is much better than always leaking.

At the same time, the length of the firing pin of the 1858 Linde rifle was greatly shortened, which effectively reduced the probability of the firing pin being broken and reduced the failure rate of the firearm.

These two technical improvements were also important reasons why the 1858 Linde rifle was mass-produced and entered service with the Reich, completely replacing the Mini rifle.

And in 1858 during the resistance to the Anglo-French forces, this rifle played an almost decisive role!

The consequence of this was that Britain and France accelerated the development of rear-loading rifles and their modifications into the city. So much so that today in 1861, the British army was already armed with tens of thousands of modified Enfield rifles. That is, Enfield 1859, and carried out the first combat use on the Burma battlefield. And achieved good practical results.

The Sino-British and French War in 1858 made the 1858 Linde rifle gain a certain reputation, so much so that after the outbreak of the Civil War between the North and the South of the United States this year, the Northern Government Army of the United States took the lead in purchasing the 1858 Linde rifle of the Chinese Empire.

In line with the basic arms race mentality that the enemy has what I have, and even more, the US Southern Federal Government Army is not to be outdone. In one go, tens of thousands of units were ordered.

Later, after the Northern Union of the United States discovered that the Southern government army had also ordered some of the 1858 Linde rifles, it once sent a protest to the Imperial Foreign Ministry.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire naturally ignored their protests, and replied as follows: The Empire has always maintained a neutral attitude towards the American Civil War and has absolutely not taken sides.

At the same time, the empire has an indisputable right to free trade!

That's what that means. Whether it's the Southern Union or the Northern government, as long as you pay for it, then we will sell it!

At the same time, it was not only the Reich that sold ordnance to both the North and the South at the same time, but also Britain, France, and even Prussia, and it was almost impossible for the northern government of the United States to prevent other countries from exporting ordnance to the Southern Union.

In this case, the northern government of the United States simply placed a new order directly with the Empire, which included a total of 50,000 Lind rifles of the 1858 model. 100 front-loading rifled guns of 12-pounder caliber and 30 breech-loading rifled guns of 150 mm and 120 mm were purchased.

At the same time, it was requested to be supplied as soon as possible, and a higher purchase price was offered, on the basis of fifteen pounds per 1858 Linde rifle. The price was raised by £0.5, i.e. fifteen pounds six shillings per 1858 Linde rifle.

In the face of this order, the imperial side will naturally not be polite. Since the beginning of this year, the New York branch of the Shanghai Textile Company, which has gradually transformed into an arms dealer, has directly received orders, and then sent orders to the three major domestic arms companies. Including the Royal Arms Company, the Northern Arms Company, and the Huguang Arms Company to initiate specific purchase orders.

The United States and the North and the South procured and equipped the 1858 Linde rifle on a large scale, which led to the Second Battle of Manassas. There have been cases in which both sides are armed with the same weapons.

The Northern Army and the Southern Army that participated in the war, their main forces were equipped with 1858 Linde rifles, and a small number of troops used 1856 Linde rifles and 1853 Enfield rifles, two almost identical Mini rifles, and in terms of artillery, they were also half a pound and eight taels, with a small number of front-loading rifled guns imported from the Chinese Empire, and a large number of their original twelve-pound and six-pounder front-loading smoothbore guns, that is, the famous Napoleonic guns in history.

Not only are the weapons and equipment of the two sides similar, but the tactics used are also traditional line tactics.

This directly led to the fact that the two sides were still in a neat and dense formation when using rear-loading rifles, and then marched to about two or three hundred meters to shoot.

The result was undoubtedly a jaw drop in the jaws of all the exhibitors!

In just 40 minutes, only 3,000 of the 20,000 people on both sides participated in the battle, and they were still in a situation where they collapsed.

In this short decisive battle, the artillerymen on both sides had not even had time to fire a few shells, but the entire battlefield seemed to have turned into a Shura hell.

The scale of the forces involved in this battle was far inferior to that of the first Battle of Manasses, but the casualties were far from comparable to those of the former.

Tactically and strategically, the battle was a battle for both the North and the South, with only one winner, the 1858 Linde rifle.

If the previous battle of Shanghai between the Chinese Empire and the Anglo-French forces only made the 1858 Linde rifle famous, causing the British and French to pay attention to the breech-loading rifle, developing the breech-loading rifle several years ahead of schedule and modifying the existing Mini rifle.

Then the Second Battle of Manasses brought the 1858 Linde rifle to the pinnacle of fame.

Its impact was far greater than the impact of the Mini rifle in the American Civil War.

The most direct result of this battle was that it directly led to the United States Civil War, and the North and South invariably stopped large-scale battles in the eastern region. And set off a wave of breech-loading rifles, and at the same time countless soldiers talked about the color change of breech-loading rifles.

Many American soldiers even called the 1858 Lind rifle the Scythe of Death. Because when the soldiers fired a volley in a dense line with the 1858 Linde rifle, the enemy on the opposite side was like straw cut by a sickle. Falling in rows and rows.

This also forced the generals of the North and South of the United States to conduct more in-depth research on rear-loading rifles, such as how to better use the dense firepower of this rifle, how to avoid the fire of enemy rear-loading rifles, etc.

All these have brought about very big changes in contemporary military concepts.

However, for the Chinese Empire, the military concept has not changed much, because the Chinese army has already begun to study and reform in this area, and the new formation and skirmisher tactics are specially implemented for rear-loading rifles.

The greatest impact of the Second Battle of Manasses on the Empire was that the emissaries from both the North and the South quickly found the Chinese Empire, and then brandished cashier's checks to demand the purchase of more 1858 Linde rifles.

This led to the peak of the empire's ordnance exports at the end of 1861, after the northern government of the United States purchased a total of 60,000 1858 Linde rifles in the first and second batches. An order was placed for a whole hundred thousand Linde rifles of the 1858 model in one fell swoop.

At the same time, it is actively seeking to obtain the relevant technical license for the 1858 Linde so that he can produce the rifle himself.

Of course, even if they haven't been able to obtain the patent authorization of the empire now, they have already started the imitation work, and are carrying out the final technical research related to it, and it is best to obtain patent authorization.

It's similar on the side of the North and South Federations. A second order was placed with the Reich, which was larger than the order from the North, with an order of up to 150,000 Linde rifles of the 1858 model.

It is also hoped that patents and technical support will be obtained so that they can copy the gun themselves!

In the face of huge orders from the Americans. The three major domestic arms companies are happy and sad.

Because they don't have enough capacity to digest these huge orders!

After about half a year of expansion and production, the monthly output of the 1858 Linde rifle of the three major domestic arms companies has climbed to 25,000 units.

But even with a huge production capacity, they have more orders!

The domestic military alone has five or six hundred thousand units. The capacity that can be diverted for export sales is actually quite limited.

There are less than 10,000 units per month, compared to three batches of 110,000 units from the North and South of the United States. This has already squeezed out nearly half of their production capacity, which has directly led to delays in their supply to the military.

Even if you don't count the two orders from the United States that have a total of 200,000 rifles. The total number of orders they have now has enough to keep them in full production for three years.

In any case, foreign trade orders are a big piece of fat for the three major arms companies, and the profits are several times higher than those of the domestic military, so they would rather cut their supplies to the domestic military than refuse orders from the United States.

Faced with this situation, Pan Lixuan, the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department, personally came forward to ask for a request to delay the supply, and the military said that it could accept it to a limited extent.

The Finance Department also paid a certain price in order to allow the military to accept the request for delayed supply, such as promising to further reduce the purchase price of the rifle in the future, and also promising to come up with a detailed solution for mass production of metal bullets next year, and strive to get a large number of metal bullets for the military in 1863.

Metal bullets are the most important technological innovation of the army in the past two or three years, and the military has long wanted to let metal bullets replace the current paper shell bullets, but when metal bullets can be put into large-scale service does not depend on the military, but on the three major weapons companies.

Although the Royal Arms Corporation has successfully experimented with metal bullets, the current manufacturing difficulties are still high, resulting in very high costs, and the manufacturing process is very complex, and the capacity for mass production will be very limited, which has led to the fact that today's metal bullets cannot be used on a large scale.

Although the military has done its best to support the three major weapons companies, and has provided many R&D contracts to the three major arms companies, sometimes it is not necessary to give money to make the technology develop rapidly.

If you want to make metal bullets go into service quickly, you have to support the three major weapons companies themselves.

It is not so easy to get the three major weapons companies to invest resources in the development of metal bullets and build related production lines, which requires a lot of resources.

In addition to the promise to speed up the development of metal bullets and the construction of production lines, the purchase price of the 1858 Linde rifle was reduced, and the military agreed to the request for a delay in the supply.

It is also related to the improvement of the 1858 Linde rifle!

In October 1861, the Royal Arms Research and Development Department officially submitted an improved version of the rifle to the military for testing.

And the military was very interested in this improved Linde rifle! (To be continued.) )