What is most lacking in Yunnan now? Not muskets or revolvers, but artillery, and the most lacking thing is artillery.

With artillery, as long as the shells are slightly improved, Yang Meng is not afraid of anything, the Qing court, the powers, as long as they master the advanced artillery casting skills, there is no gap with the great powers in artillery, whoever dares to come to Yunnan to blow up the thorns, Yang Meng, who comes vertically, can let him go back horizontally.

"Good! Good!! Good!!! Howard, if you put you in charge of the cannon makers, can you get them to teach them all the time? ”

After all, Ge Shiyang is not a professional cannon casting technician, and with the dozen or so Milican technicians provided by Colt, this cannon casting work is a matter of course.

Yang Meng is not concerned about how good these technicians are, what he is most concerned about is how much knowledge these technicians can teach, otherwise with these dozen birdmen, they will be tired to death, how many cannons can be cast in a year?

"Absolutely! They had signed a contract with Mr. Colt to train qualified cannon smiths for the Colt Arsenal in the Qing Dynasty, and if they couldn't do this, they would be taken to court even if they returned to Millican. ”

Hearing Howard's words, Yang Meng was in a good mood, Renlei was good, Colt was even better, and he took the right step. Colt faced the Milican military, and with Colt's relationship, coupled with Milican's current moderate foreign strategy, his Yunnan Province had a solid backing for the development of military science and technology.

Through Millican, and then with the European countries to exchange what they have, shipbuilding skills, gun-making skills, cannon-making skills, plus their own stomach things, as long as Yunnan has a suitable mechanic. He has mastered the techniques of the great powers. That won't take a few years. In terms of army equipment, Yunnan will be on a par with the great powers.

As for the navy, Yang Meng was still a little unsure in his heart, the navy was not like the army, with the right guns, there was not much gap. The navy is definitely a skill class, and Yang Meng is extremely unfamiliar. The navy of Yunnan and the navy of the Yang family are not very difficult to build, but if they want to dominate the sea, or be able to guard the coastal defense of the Qing Dynasty, this requires continuous exploration.

The road is already there, how to go, what can be done, Yang Meng himself is not clear, and silently sorted out the limited naval knowledge in his stomach. Yang Meng only had some impressions of river gunboats and speedboats, and other ships. In addition to a general shape, the specific data parameters are not something that Yang Meng could touch before.

The burden on Yunnan's body is not light, but fortunately, there is already a Colt revolver, if this is made, with the addition of some artillery, Yang Meng is confident that he will forge a melee strong army, which is also one of the best for the great powers.

But now all this is still just a fantasy, what the result is, it depends on the result of making guns, there is still a big gap between the Qing Dynasty and Millican in terms of technology, and the most important point is that it is still people!

The people who trained in the early days, whether they can learn the skills of Howard and others, is the most critical step to succeed, looking at whether they can learn it, it is not a joke, and the technical barriers are also a very mysterious thing, the quality of Yunnan craftsmen is much worse than that of Millikan, from a handicraft to a technician in the industrial age, I don't know if it can be smooth sailing.

With joy and melancholy, a fleet of dozens of boats docked near the pier at the end of the West Valley. Dozens of professional gun-making craftsmen and more than a dozen professional cannon casting technicians are also a huge help for Ge Shiyang in Xishan.

After meeting Howard, Ge Shiyang was also very excited, he finally had a colleague with the same skin color and hair color, and he also had suitable people in arms, which he was not very good at.

After looking at the actual situation in Xishan, Howard and a group of Millican mechanics came up with a statement that made Yang Meng a little disappointed, although Xishan was in good condition, it was not suitable for building a large arsenal.

To build an arsenal that produces 1,000 guns a month, the territory of Xishan is still sufficient, and if the scale is larger, the territory of Xishan will be a little tight.

Before the gun was built, the choice of venue was difficult, and Yang Meng's brows furrowed.

But think about it, just one Xishan Iron Works, subordinate to the coal yard, mine, charcoal factory, pig iron factory, iron foundry, steel mill, ink factory, ink making method to build buildings and flues, is also very occupied, plus the sword factory, has been Ge Shiyang to do the test site, the West Valley is indeed a little insufficient.

"Master Ge, will Jiang Shu come back first?"

Jiang Shuxian, this old guy, seems to have a place to use again, and his map of the watersheds of various waterways in Yunnan has not yet been presented to him!

"Your Excellency, Mr. Jiang has returned, and he is sorting out the diagram of Yunnan's waterways."

"Hmmm! Call him over. Don't be busy unloading the machinery on the ship, let's see if there is a suitable site! ”

Casting cannons and making guns are inseparable from steel, and if you want to choose another site, I don't know if there is a suitable boundary near Xishan?

In order to find out the various waterways in Yunnan, he has almost become a water ghost several times in the past year, if it weren't for the idea of leaving his name in history, he would have been buried in the river long ago.

"Third Master...... Whew......"

In the end, when he was old, Jiang Shuxian only shouted out the third master, and he couldn't breathe.

"Don't worry, slow down! Think about whether there is a large valley near this West Mountain, or a more open place, preferably near the edge of Dianchi Lake, where you can enter and exit from the waterway. ”

"I didn't ...... No! ”

As soon as Yang Meng's words fell, Jiang Shu first gave the answer, the valley near Xishan is the flattest, and it is not easy to find such a piece of land in other parts of Xishan.

"The river that communicates with Dianchi Lake is also nearby, the river is wide, and the land has to be 1,800 acres, and we have to build a big factory."

Making guns and casting cannons is a long-term business, and some things Yang Meng has to be ahead of his time, otherwise it is a trivial matter to change the venue back and forth, mainly because of the delay in time.

"Is it good to be good?"

Taking advantage of the gap between Yang Meng's words, Jiang Shu first took a breath and asked tentatively.

"Yiliang? Think about it. Do you also think about whether there is a more suitable site? ”

Yiliang is a nice place. But Yang Meng still needs to think about it carefully. The layout of their own in Yunnan is not small, Xishan Iron Plant is just one of the pilots, the situation in Yunnan will become bigger and bigger in the future, Yiliang is a large agricultural county, although there are some mineral resources, but the current mining volume, is still too small, the arsenal is built in Yiliang. It is likely that it will be shipped to the trouble later on.

Lin Zexu has been abolished, through the Yongchang incident, he can also further control Yunnan, after the next governor arrives, he can try to empty him, when Yunnan is a country within a country, what do you want to do is not a word?

To build a large-scale smelting area, the mining and metallurgy in Yunnan is too messy and scattered, and a copper mine and a smelter are not only expensive. Efficiency can't be improved.

Centralized coal storage, coking, and smelting can not only improve efficiency. In addition, the smelting factories are gathered together, and the benefits of the ink and smoke removal method can be further improved.

Then build various industrial zones with the smelting area as the center, so that some idle people can also gather together, which is conducive to the Yang family's control of Yunnan.

"Lao Jiang, do you think you can choose one or several places to link the coal, iron, copper, lead, tin and other mining kilns in Yunnan?

This territory must be large, thousands of acres and tens of thousands of acres can be completed, it is best not to occupy farmland, and waterway transportation must be convenient.

Well! In this way, in the near future, in addition to the compilation of the waterway map, you must also put this into it, which is also an extremely important task, and your children and grandchildren at home should also work hard in these aspects, and the third master who has learned well will give them a good future. ”

Jiang Shuxian can also be regarded as an old man under Yang Meng's hands, he can still adapt to the third master's out-of-the-box thinking, while listening to the third master's thoughts, Jiang Shuxian's brain is also spinning rapidly.

With his profound geographical skills, Jiang Shuxian can especially understand what Yang Meng said, a map of Yunnan, constantly circling in his mind, a sentence of Yunnan shape hidden in his heart, but not Jiang Shuxian's empty vernacular.

"Third master, just choose Yiliang, the boundary you said, Kunming is very suitable, as for the mines in other places, I have to plan carefully.

The third master said that the method is good, but there are countless mineral deposits in Yunnan, and it is not easy to use a few places to connect these mines together, Lao Jiang has just pondered it, at least a dozen places can connect these mines together, and Kunming can be used as a center.

Therefore, it is very suitable for this arsenal to be selected in Yiliang, where there is a lot of farmland destroyed by flash floods in recent years, tens of thousands of acres are there, and the location of this arsenal can be selected there, but the nearby bald mountains are a trouble, and there will be flash floods and mudslides in the rainy season, which still needs to be guarded against. ”

With a talent like Jiang Shuxian around him, Yang Meng undoubtedly saved a lot of energy, bald mountains, mountain floods, mudslides, this can be managed, afforestation, for the benefit of future generations, this is a good thing with one stone!

"Good! You immediately take it to choose a suitable site, the third master will use it immediately, and then find Master Ge, let him find some proficient in agriculture, see what to plant, can quickly make the bald mountain green. ”

Solving the problem of the location of the arsenal, Yang Meng took Howard and others to visit the sword factory in Xishan, it seems that this big blade is about to be discontinued, and his best blacksmith is in this sword factory, taking care of one end and the other!

Seeing the Xishan Sword Factory, thousands of people are in full swing, Howard was also a little shocked, in his cognition, the Qing Kingdom in the East is an extremely prosperous and extremely backward country, such a large-scale factory, the place where it should appear, is not here, but Millican.

The Colt Arsenal also has only a few hundred workers, and this General Yang's subordinates, there are thousands of iron-making technicians alone, and it seems that it is only a matter of time before the Colt Oriental Branch surpasses the mainland.

Howard was undoubtedly an insider, and he soon noticed the difference, although there were thousands of people striking iron at the same time, and there were less than a thousand of them, who might be called mechanics, and most of the others were apprentices.

Despite this, this sword factory is highly industrialized, and only rough blades are built here, and there must be more people working in places he can't see.

Howard's conjecture was soon confirmed, and the next place Yang Meng took him to visit was the knife sharpening shed, in each shed, there were more than a dozen manual machines in each shed, and a group of three or five people were polishing the knife embryos that had just been transported from the place where the iron was struck.

After that, it was the place of weighing and assembly, and the place of secondary charcoal burning and quenching involved the formula, and Yang Meng automatically ignored it.

"General Yang, your factory is too spectacular, why do you only produce cold weapons?"

"Huh...... Helpless! There is no suitable technique, and a musket like Brown Bes, even if it is produced, will soon be eliminated, and the sword is considered an auxiliary on the battlefield, and I think the production of swords is far stronger than the production of muskets that are about to be eliminated.

In the future, the production of firearms will be entrusted to Mr. Howard, these craftsmen will all be your students, thousands of people! ”

There must be brave men under the heavy reward, and foreigner Yang Meng has seen a lot, whether it is a foreigner or a person, he can't escape the shackles of fame and fortune. (To be continued......)