"Boom" with a loud sound, wanting to start a thunderbolt from the flat ground, shaking the eardrums and tinnitus, Lin Mengde couldn't see the iron bullet spraying from the crossbow mouth, only to see the crossbow mouth fire forming a jet gushing outward, while the heavy crossbow body violently retreated, the crossbow mouth also rose white smoke full of sulfur stimulation, covering a large area......

Lin Bin, Gao Zongting, Wu Qi, Ge Cunxin and others all used binoculars to observe the shooting area, Lin Mengde didn't expect that the movement when launched would be so earth-shattering, and he was surprised for a while, and when he picked up the binoculars to observe the area where the bomb fell, the iron bullet had already splashed a huge wave more than ten zhang high in that sea area-

The target ship was about eleven or twelve feet away from the waves, and with the undulation of the waves, you could clearly see the waves splashing on the deck of the target ship from the view.

Although the shooting accuracy can only be regarded as unsatisfactory, but such an earth-shattering movement when launched and such a large wave of falling bullets can be seen that its threat is by no means comparable to the traditional scorpion crossbow and the bed crossbow, Lin Mengde asked Lin Tie in surprise: "Such a sharp weapon, the siege is very profitable, why not equip the horse infantry army first?" Set up on the car, dragged by mules and horses, before going out of the middle battle, it is also invincible for field battles! ”

Although Lin Mengde is good at support, he has been getting along with the generals day and night over the years, and he has been immersed in military affairs for a long time, although he is not as good as Gao Zongting, Wu Qi, Ge Cunxin and others, he is by no means comparable to a layman, and he can also ask key points when asking questions.

Lin Jian was thoughtful, and Gao Zongting answered Lin Mengde's question on the side: "Several kinds of fire crossbows trial-produced by the Ordnance Supervisor, weighing more than 3,000 catties, although they can shoot distant objects four miles away, and they can attack cities, but for field battles, a crossbow needs to be equipped with fifteen pawns and four military horses. The range of the fire crossbow below 1,000 catties ranges from about two to three miles, and the iron bullets below 12 catties can only be fired when the crossbowman is proficient, and only three solid bullets can be fired when a stick of incense is fired. Therefore, the time of one bullet is enough for the enemy cavalry to rush to the front of the formation. Thinking that the longer the range, the larger the charge, the possibility of exploding the chamber will surge, and it is not appropriate. At least at this time, the Fire Crossbow is still not as strong as the Bed Crossbow and the Scorpion Crossbow in the battle formation......"

Huaidong's tactics of using bed crossbows and scorpion crossbows in infantry warfare have been perfected, and in siege warfare, the use of heavy stone-throwing crossbows can also completely suppress the enemy, so the motivation for tactical innovation is not strong. In particular, the early technology of the ambush fire crossbow was not very perfect, and the military department naturally did not advocate that the army should be too eager to equip the fire ambush crossbow.

The firing range of the ambush fire crossbow is one or two times higher than that of the traditional bed crossbow and scorpion crossbow, but at sea, the enemy army does not use cavalry to quickly impact the battle formation like in foot combat, and the ambush fire crossbow is more superior when equipped with warships.

More importantly, the Scorpion Crossbow is a projectile weapon that can only be placed on the deck, and the deck space of a sea ship is always limited, and there is no way to install too many Scorpion Crossbows. Although the bed crossbow can be placed in the cabin, after being placed in the cabin on the lower deck, due to the problem of the angle of fire, it can only attack the enemy ship more, but the attack power of the bed crossbow is very limited to the enemy ship-

Although Lin Jian has always wanted to upgrade the tactics of naval warfare, limited by the weapons of war, naval warfare is still based on traditional near-shore warfare, and even relies on the solidity of the hull, and savage collision has become the most important tactic of the Huaidong Naval Division.

The fire crossbow that can be placed in the cabin can be shot at a sufficient amount of damage to the enemy ship; Theoretically, it can also increase the number of crossbows equipped with a Lin Zhengjun-class battleship to more than 100, so that the long-range strike density of the battleship will increase by more than ten times and the strike range will be increased by two times.

In comparison, the accuracy of the fire crossbow is worse than that of the scorpion crossbow and the bed crossbow, which is already an inconsequential disadvantage.

Because the accuracy of the fire crossbow is only unsatisfactory, it is necessary to equip a battleship with a denser range of crossbows. Within a mile of the side of the ship, forty or fifty fire-ambushing crossbows were fired at the same time on one side of the cabin, and the enemy ships had to be lucky enough to be overwhelmed if they wanted to escape.

The fire crossbow has an improvement over the combat ability of warships, and it is a super weapon that can be eliminated from the tactics of nearboard naval warfare. Although there are still various shortcomings to be overcome, as long as the advantages of the fire crossbow are recognized, none of the generals in the military department advocate that the naval division should give priority to equipping the new type of fire crossbow, which can raise the combat power of the Huaidong naval division to the point of despair of the Donghu people.

There are twelve bottles of ambush fire crossbows squatting there on the crossbow field, and the huge crossbow body also makes Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others, who saw the true face of the fire crossbow at the junior, gasp when they look at it.

It is far away, and it is impossible to accurately estimate the specific size for a while, but the fire crossbow squatting in the middle of the crossbow field and directly away from the crossbow mouth in the sea is definitely much larger than the traditional scorpion crossbow and bed crossbow.

At present, a heavy bed crossbow with a car frame is more than 1,000 catties, and at this time, the heaviest fire ambush crossbow developed by the Ordnance Supervision weighs more than 3,000 catties alone

Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu were also full of curiosity, and with the test firing again and again, they also kept asking Gao Zongting, Ge Cunxin, and the officials of the Ordnance Supervision who were responsible for supervising and testing the fire crossbow......

***************

was forced to squeeze out 200,000 silver dollars from his pocket, and Lin Mengde couldn't come to Haizhou for nothing, so he naturally took advantage of this opportunity to take a good look at Haizhou. Previously, in order to build Haizhou into a logistics support base for the Northern Army, the Privy Council had invested a lot of resources in Haizhou.

Just in time for the first snow in Xu Si, the road back to Jiangning was blocked by snow for a while, and Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu crossed the sea with Lin Lian and boarded the Dongxilian Island to see the military defense of Haizhou. In particular, a new warship in the design cost as much as 500,000 silver dollars, how could the allocator blindly follow the opinion of the military department without seeing with his own eyes the firing situation of the fire crossbow?

Although there is also a test site in Jiangning, the test of the large-scale ambush fire crossbow is still in the stage of absolute secrecy, and it is necessary to hide from the enemy's secret agents, and the test of the large-scale ambush fire crossbow is carried out on an isolated island, and the test crossbow field on Yingyou Island has just been built for less than two years.

Lin Meng had to see the shooting situation of the ambush fire crossbow, and he could only take a boat to visit the island.

**************

Dongxilian Island, also known as Eagle Tour Island, its west cliff branch ridge is like an eagle flapping its wings, and got its name, it is actually divided into two Dokdo Islands, located in the sea area east of Haizhou City. Standing on the Houyuntai Mountain in the south of Haizhou City, looking at each other across the sea, Yingyou Island lies in a long shape in the clear sea waves.

Yingyou Island is nearly 20 miles long from east to west and 4 miles wide from north to south, like a natural barrier on the periphery of Haizhou Port - there is a ferry port on the East Island, and there are more than 100 fishermen living in the early years, which are hidden in the green color of the mountain dock; There are also several fishing villages on the West Island, with four or five zhang high peaks and steep mountains abruptly in the sea, and the cliffs and rocks of Yuntai Mountain behind the shore are opposite like doors, locking the inner Haizhou Port.

In addition to the fishing village and dock village, there were also monasteries, tide viewing pavilions, and anti-sea beacon fire sentry posts on the island in the early years.

From the second year of Yongxing, the Huaidong Army took over the defense of Haizhou and began to establish a water wall, a defense fortress and a test ground for the ordnance supervision on Yingyou Island; After the military headquarters was deciding on the strategy for the eastern front, the defense construction of Eagle Island became more important, and even the sea area on the eastern flank of the island was designated as a military restricted area, and fishing boats and merchant ships were forbidden to approach.

The test crossbow range was built on the east side of the Antler Rock in the northwest corner of Eagle Tour. Although the Antler Rock is only 20 zhang high, standing on it, you can see the launch of the test crossbow field below, and you can avoid being affected by the accidents that may occur on the crossbow field, so the crossbow viewing platform is located on the Antler Rock.

The fire crossbow drill was personally presided over by Yang Shi, the deputy commander of the Jinghai Division, and Lin Lian, Lin Mengde, Gao Zongting and others sat on the crossbow platform of the Antler Rock, and the guards were also standing with swords and halberds, hunting with flags, and giving the sea breeze a loud sound......

Because the fire crossbow is of great significance beyond the times for the tactical innovation of naval warfare, the design, testing, and firing of the fire crossbow and new warships are also one of the most core military affairs at present.

The degree of attention paid to the fact that Yang Shi, deputy commander of the Jinghai Division, personally grasped the fire crossbow on land and on warships, and the design of new warships.

Lin Jian knew no less about the fire crossbow than the engineer in charge of the shooting, but when he was shooting, he had no time to explain to Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu the various abnormalities when shooting, but repeatedly used the lookout to observe the situation of the crossbow field and the drop area, and constantly recorded groups of data on the white paper next to him.

In the face of the intensive inquiries of Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others, the engineering officials of the Ordnance Supervision can still deal with it calmly, but in addition to Lin Lian's supreme position as the supreme commander, he himself is a first-level figure of the great master of new learning and new craftsmanship, and the pressure he put on the engineering officials at the shooting scene is naturally not comparable to Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others.

Lin Tie led himself as a scholar of Chongxue Pavilion, maybe in the eyes of outsiders, Lin Tie wanted to gild himself with a layer of gold, but in the eyes of tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen under the jurisdiction of Huaidong, including many bachelors of Chongxue Pavilion, they would not think that Lin Tie did not have this qualification-

Although it was necessary to ensure that the firing would not be interrupted by accidents and that the firing speed was strictly controlled, 200 iron bullets were quickly fired, and only three iron bullets hit the thousand-stone target ship four miles away.

With such a hit rate, Lin Mengde, Liu Shidu and others didn't know whether it was good or bad, but looking at Lin Jian sitting behind the long case and calculating the numbers, it was not clear whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied with this drill, and the atmosphere was a little stagnant for a while.

Under the blowing of the cold sea breeze, Shi Fengtai, an industrial official who was born as a minor official in the Jiangning Ministry of Industry in the early years, sweat oozed from his forehead.

"Yang Shi, come here," Lin Jian summoned Yang Shi and Shi Fengtai, the engineer of the Ordnance Supervision stationed on Eagle Tour Island, and others, and said, "It is very unreasonable to describe the accuracy of the fire crossbow shooting with one hit in fifty bullets or one shot in one hundred bullets; The accuracy of a fire crossbow should be relatively consistent, but when it is actually test-fired, it is even possible that two or three hundred rounds of ammunition will not hit the target ship. And without the concept of accuracy, what can the Ordnance Superintendent use to explain the performance of the fire crossbow to the military department? ”

"......" Facing Lin Bin's questioning, Shi Fengtai replied stiffly, "What the lord said, it is indeed a problem, and there is also discussion in the ordnance prison, but there is no good law. He knew that such an answer would definitely not satisfy Lin Lian, but he could only answer like this. It will take some years of accumulation for the new school to form a system, and the current work is still based on the traditional scope of craftsmanship, or on the rich experience of the craftsmen and craftsmen.

Lin Jian didn't mean to criticize Shi Fengtai, beckoned him to come closer, pushed the paper on the case in front of Shi Fengtai's eyes, and said: "Just now I fired 200 bullets, all of which were aimed at the target ship, and three bullets hit the target; Within 10 zhang of the target ship, 26 bombs were dropped; Within 20 zhang, there are 100 bullets and 7 bullets, and the rest are 20 zhang away, and the farthest from the target ship is 100 zhang, and there are also three bullets......" Speaking of this, Lin Jian paused slightly, "I give you this data, do you know what I want to tell you?" ”

"The lord is going to talk about the "Speculation" played by Bachelor Song?" Shi Fengtai asked nervously.

"That's right," Lin Jian smiled and said, "Based on your answer, you are indeed qualified to assist Yang Shi in presiding over this crossbow field." I am not dissatisfied with your work, but you should not let that stop. When it comes to shooting accuracy, I won't ask you to hit the target ship with no number of bullets, there is no way to determine this, there are too many interference factors during the actual firing, but with the target ship as the center, the proportion of bombs falling within 10 zhang and 20 zhang can be clearly determined; You have to do this work right away and improve it......"

"The Lord is wise, not ......"

What Shi Fengtai was about to say, Lin Jian waved his hand and said with a smile: "Don't say anything about the whiskers, if you want to do the actual work, you go down first to arrange the next shooting ......"

In the past, even the highest-level engineers had only a vague concept of the shooting accuracy of the crossbow, and there was no way to describe it accurately, so during the test, it could only be described by experience, lacking an accurate and clear standard.

Without a clear and clear standard, any technological progress can only rely on the slow accumulation of experience; Once the standard is established, the level of different crossbow farms is clear at a glance, and how to improve and improve the technology compared to the standard will have a clearer direction.

Shi Fengshi and Yang Shi went down to the crossbow field to arrange the second batch of shooting, Lin Jian saw that Lin Mengde and Liu Shidu were slightly puzzled, and then he had time to explain to them with a smile: "Song Shixian's translation of "Speculation" is also a gambling technique. Two people throw dice to bet, one person rolls a little, and the second person has a high probability of winning him, but how likely is this possibility, have you ever calculated it carefully? ”

"This ......" Lin Mengde was born in business, and his knowledge may not be outstanding, but his experience in dealing with practical affairs is very capable, and when Lin Meng talked about the new learning problem, he didn't understand it and just smiled.

Liu Shidu, who was born in Jinshi, thought about it carefully, he couldn't say anything like "Speculation" in front of Lin Tie, "Speculation" is involved in gambling, and non-Confucian scholars can occupy it, but he knows but has not read the book "Speculation", Lin Tie's simple question, he can roughly guess the answer, but if he is not sure, it must be correct, so he simply hides it and says: "The subordinate is lonely and unheard......"

"The problems discussed in the "Speculation" are basically similar problems, and the discussion of gambling is just an introduction, but the application is far less than this. I have a booklet on my desk, which is still a handwritten record by Song Shixian, and I will give it to Liu Gong when I come back. Lin Jian said to Liu Shidu.

"Thank you for the book, and the teacher will study it carefully." Liu Shidu replied respectfully.

Liu Shidu is already nearly sixty years old, and when Lin Jian first entered Chongzhou, he was the prefect of Hailing, and he was actually Lin Lian's top boss. Unlike others, Liu Shidu has a generous temperament and a very tolerant demeanor, and he also appreciates the new policies implemented by Lin Tie when his status is not as good as his own, and he was the first to promote it in Hailing Mansion.

Therefore, after Lin Lian rose, he also had a lot of respect for Liu Shidu; Among the officials of the old Jianghuai department, Liu Shidu was the most important, followed by Wu Meijiu, who only knew about the affairs of Weiyang Mansion.

Of course, Lin Lian's stunning rise from Jianghuai, Liu Shidu has also witnessed it all the time, so he also has a deep feeling for Lin Lian's ability to govern the government and the army. And once he accepted the New Deal thinking promoted by Lin Lian, Liu Shidu naturally abandoned his loyalty to Yuan Yue, and turned to surrender to Lin Lian's command without wavering.

Lin Jian said again: "I mentioned it a little just now, and Shi Fengtai thought of speculation; Jing Xuan Gong sent Shi Fengtai to Haizhou, and he also saw the right person, and if you have the opportunity, you have to put a burden on his shoulders; There is only one Song Shixian and only one Jiang Yue, which is still far from enough......"

Everyone laughed, Song Shixian, Jiang Yue and other characters are talented and amazing in the world, it is already a luxury to have one person in a hundred years, Lin Tie has two people and one Zhao Shuhan, who has been soft in Jeju, to develop a new school, it is not enough, it is somewhat greedy.

Speculation is actually the prototype of probability theory.

In the later period, especially after the opening of the Haidong trade route and the continuous extension of the Nanyang shipping route to the west, the focus of the work of Xinxue was to translate and absorb the advanced craftsmanship and doctrine of the regions outside the Central Plains.

It's not that Lin Tie is greedy, but when the traditional craftsmanship and miscellaneous learning accumulate to a certain extent, it will inevitably cause qualitative changes and cause the eruptive development of new learning, making grandmaster-level figures emerge in an endless stream, and the starry sky is exceptionally bright because of this.

Everyone was not familiar with the speculation technique, so Lin Jian put it down and didn't mention it, and discussed it with Gao Zongting, Ge Cunxin, Lin Mengde, and Liu Shidu, and used everyone's actual experience to study the shortcomings of the fire crossbow and the method of improvement.

***************

The fire crossbow is the artillery that Lin Tie is familiar with in later generations.

The ancients used saltpeter as the main ingredient, but with saltpeter alchemy, it will explode at every turn, and many alchemists throughout the ages racked their brains and mixed other refining substances into it to suppress the explosiveness of saltpeter, which is "ambush fire".

Therefore, the gunpowder in the eyes of the later generations was called the Fuhuo Dan when the world called it Fuhuo Dan - and there was no concept of "cannon" at that time, only the word "crossbow" was the most suitable for its image of shooting, and since the new war weapon was used to fire iron bullets with the explosion of the Fuhuo Dan, it was logical to name it "Fuhuo Crossbow" - Lin Jian was also inconvenient to abruptly call it "gunpowder" and "artillery".

Because the two emperors of the Chen State in the previous dynasty died violently after eating pills, several emperors of the Chen Dynasty who succeeded to the throne all hated alchemy to the core, and set off a vigorous ban on pills; The higher the ancestor established the dynasty, and alchemy was also listed as an evil art and strictly forbidden.

Although the alchemists three or four hundred years ago realized that the volcanic sulfur and volcanic nitans they refined at that time had the properties of ignition and smoke, they stopped there. In the past three or four hundred years, the development and application of gunpowder have not made any substantial progress, and after three or four hundred years of ban, the people of the time are quite unfamiliar with gunpowder.

When the ship first woke up, Lin Jian even thought that it was a world completely devoid of gunpowder.

Lin Jian developed miscellaneous studies in Jiangning, and never taboo heresies, so Song Shixian presented the "Fuhuo Fang" he had collected. There are a total of 26 kinds of Fuhuo Fangs that have survived in the world, and after testing, there are as many as five kinds of Fuhuo Dan with similar performance to gunpowder in later generations.

Lin Jian knew that charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur were the formulas of traditional black powder, but the formula of Fuhuo Dan in the world was mainly saltpeter, and the auxiliary ingredients were sulfur, bell grass, chicken blood vine and so on, and the power was different, and they were all explosive.

In the end, the actual fire formula used is a mixture of bitter ointment, saltpeter, sulfur and sulfur.

Bitter paste is a kind of light yellow ointment extracted from the bottom oil of the kiln of smoldering coal, because of the bitterness in the mouth, the alchemists of the former dynasty Chen called it bitter ointment.

After the improvement of this kind of Fu Huo Pill, the explosion power is much greater than the black powder in Lin Bin's impression, and it is also beyond the scope of Lin Bin's understanding of black powder.

If it weren't for the threat of exploding, this kind of ambush pill could easily increase the range of the early artillery to more than four miles.

In the later period, Lin Lian simply handed over the development of gunpowder to Song Shixian and others, and he just drew a roughly clear development direction for Song Shixian and others.

With a roughly clear development direction, and a large number of resources and manpower that have been continuously invested over the years to continuously improve Danfang and preparation methods, Huaidong's gunpowder technology has been relatively mature in the past two or three years.

Although gunpowder can be used to blow up mountains and open city walls, when blowing up the city walls directly, it is still necessary to dig holes under the enemy city to bury a large number of barrels of gunpowder in them and detonate them - however, if you can directly dig a hole or tunnel under the enemy city, it is better to dig down the enemy city directly, and there is no need to use gunpowder.

In addition, although the improvement of gunpowder was satisfactory, the source of saltpeter was a headache.

Before alchemy was banned, several nitrate caves developed by alchemists were in the deep mountains of Jiangxi. The Chen Dynasty forbade Dan, and these nitrate holes were all dug and buried by the government. It was only after the Battle of Shanghuan that Lin Jian had the opportunity to dig these collapsed nitrate caves to refine nitrate, so as to solve the problem of the source of saltpeter.

The technology of gunpowder and the source of saltpeter were not a problem, and the widespread use of artillery could become a reality, and the development of artillery was also secretly carried out by the Ordnance Superintendent for several years.

The manufacture of artillery is actually based on traditional craftsmanship.

However, the new learning inheritance and research system established by Lin Jian is incomparable to the traditional craftsmanship inheritance passed down from father to son, master and apprentice.

The traditional inheritance of craftsmanship has a problem of ancestor worship, which restricts the improvement of craftsmanship by inheritors; Passed down from father to son, master and apprentice, the spread of craftsmanship is very limited; Secondly, the traditional craftsmen and craftsmen, although classified as lowly households, have a very low level of education; Another one, the master-apprentice is passed down from master to apprentice, and there is the defect of "teaching the apprentice to starve the master", so many key technologies will not be passed on to the apprentice before the master has to die, and it is often due to accidents, resulting in the loss of many craftsmanship - these are serious restrictions on the development of traditional crafts, and a craftsman's skills may have to be improved and broken through after several generations.

In Huaidong, Lin Jian first split the traditional Ministry of Industry into engineering, ordnance, shipbuilding, metallurgy, industry and mining, and machine manufacturing, and in terms of administrative status, it was the same as the supervision of the branches, taxation, postal communication, civil affairs, education, and commandery. In addition, the Chongxue Hall was set up, so that people who had outstanding achievements in miscellaneous learning and craftsmanship gained an extraordinary political status, and in fact, the new industry and new learning system had become the largest force in the Privy Council, rather than the Ministry of Industry, which was the lowest of the six ministries in the traditional sense.

Again, after Lin Jian completely abolished the craftsman household system and took over the Jiangning Ministry of Industry, he further integrated tens of thousands of craftsmen and hundreds of thousands of craftsmen into the supervision and jurisdiction of the departments, forming a huge system headed by Song Shixian, Ge Siyu, Jiang Yue and other Chongxue Hall scholars.

When the traditional craftsmanship cannot meet the needs of Huaidong, Huaidong's practice is completely different from the tradition.

For example, when the grinding problem of four-wheeled carriages became more and more serious and needed to be solved, the Ordnance Inspectorate clearly put forward this requirement, headed by Jiang Yue, and organized a group of people to study, design, and test repeatedly, so the small roller bearings were launched within a year. The original small roller bearings were still very limited in the friction and damage to the axle wheels of the carriage, and a group of people have been following up on the research and improvement work of the Ordnance Superintendent.

In the process of bearing development, a large number of cooperation requirements were also put forward for other military departments in Huaidong, pushing other departments to move forward together. In the past three years, the workshops under the jurisdiction of the Machinery Manufacturing Department have developed and produced the third generation of bearings, and for the first time, the concept of lubricating oil has been used, so that the kiln bottom oil and Borneo oil of smoldering coal have a wider range of uses.

Without a new system, if the bearing technology is to be spontaneously conceived in the traditional craftsmanship field of "interlacing and separating mountains, and passing on from master to apprentice", I don't know how many years and how many generations it will take.

The same is true for the development of gunpowder and artillery technology.

Focusing on the development of gunpowder and artillery, Huaidong gathered a large number of outstanding talents led by Song Shixian, Shi Fengtai and others. Among them are experienced craftsmen, and there are scholars such as Song Shixian and Shi Fengtai, who are highly educated and born in the imperial examination, who have attracted new learning, and they will concentrate their energy on the research and development of gunpowder and artillery, supplemented by the new learning system that has just taken shape, and the research and development efficiency of three or five years may be equivalent to the accumulation of hundreds of years of experience of traditional craftsmen.

Only the test data and data of artillery from the selection of materials, casting, structure and other directions, the Ordnance Supervision has piled up half of the house, which is the initial accumulation of Huaidong's artillery technology in the past few years.

The R&D system of modern disciplines is incomparable with traditional craftsmanship, but the resources to be invested are also extremely amazing. The R&D system of modern disciplines must also be supported by the strong financial resources of emerging industries to be formed.

In order to break the tradition, Lin Jian rewarded the spread and development of new learning and new craftsmanship in the form of rewards, and in the past ten years, the rewards issued in the name of the Inner Government alone have accumulated as high as 1.2 million silver dollars.

In addition to the Privy Council's tax of 1 million silver dollars, it can also retain millions of silver dollars of profits, a considerable part of which will be consumed in the development and transformation of new technologies in the iron yard next year.

Twelve catties of cast iron bullets, to be made to meet the standard, at present casting one costs two silver dollars; With the addition of firing gunpowder, the cost of a test shot is five silver dollars.

The artillery had not yet been put into actual combat, and tens of thousands of cast iron bullets were fired out in the test firing alone, consuming hundreds of thousands of catties of gunpowder, not to mention the consumption of cannon materials over the past few years, and the casualties of as many as 21 craftsmen and 127 crossbowmen caused by gunpowder detonation and explosion accidents -- the consumption of these resources and manpower was by no means something that Huaidong could bear in the early days, and it was only in recent years that the investment was gradually increased.

Of course, artillery technology is gradually improving, but due to the development of artillery, increasingly stringent requirements have been put forward for departments such as iron casting, ironmaking, shipbuilding, and machinery manufacturing, which have promoted their development; The test firing of artillery also trained the first batch of qualified gunners for the navy and army.

Lin Jian can see the rapid development of new technologies on the basis of traditional craftsmanship, and can see that new learning is increasingly taking shape on the basis of traditional craftsmanship.

Before waking up on the Weiyang ship, Lin Lian, who had just been lifted, was cowardly, even if he was rare in the world, but his understanding of the world was still within the scope of traditional scholars, which limited Lin Lian's initial understanding of the world - in the past ten years, Lin Lian admired and developed miscellaneous studies, and for him, he also continued to learn, not to deepen his understanding of the world, and to realize that although this world has not yet produced the scientific system of later generations that he is familiar with, the accumulation of traditional craftsmanship and miscellaneous learning, Practically at the level of the ceiling, and many times, he only acts as a catalyst.

It is precisely because of the accumulation of traditional craftsmanship to such a level that Lin Jian will catalyze the development of new learning and new craftsmanship, which will be so smooth and smooth, and some of the new concepts he put forward will be understood and accepted by Song Shixian, Jiang Yue, Zhao Shuhan and other characters, so that these characters can take root on the basis of tradition, so that the rudimentary outline of the new learning system will become more and more visible.

After several months of discussion by Zhao Shuhan, Jiang Yue, Ge Siyu, Song Shixian, and Confucianism masters such as Zuo Chengmu and Hu Wenmu, Lin Jian initially proposed a workaround for the new school to be grafted on top of traditional Confucianism, but it also caused fierce debates in all quarters.

This kind of controversy will not stop for three or five years, and Lin Jian does not care; But also to find an outlet for the traditional gentry, which can actually weaken the power of the traditional gentry, Lin Jian did not deliberately suppress the controversy, but created conditions as much as possible to make the voice of the new scholar louder and louder.

The most obvious benefit of the debate between the old and the new is that the sales of the postal newspapers in the hands of the Propaganda Department have surged, from the original ten-day issue and eight-page pages to the current five-day issue and eight-page large pages in one issue. The content of the post is also becoming more and more abundant; The content of the publication also expands from the announcement of government decrees to current political minutes, commentaries, debates between the old and new studies, the proclamation of new studies, and an overview of exhibitions in overseas countries.

Through the postal system, the distribution of the post has penetrated into every county under the jurisdiction of Jiangning. Even the farthest counties can see the latest issue of the Post within three days. Although the price of each post is as high as a dime of silver, and the print run of 30,000 copies per issue is still in short supply.

Although the Propaganda Department and the Postal and Telecommunications Department accounted for the accounting, a postal newspaper was only counted as four silver dollars, and the excess was counted as the income of the postal and telecommunications departments in various places to make up for the consumption of circulation and sales.

Even so, the issuance of the Post has become a considerable income to this day, with 70 issues of the Post a year, 30,000 copies printed, and a net profit of almost 30,000 silver dollars.

Although the profit of the post cannot be compared with the lucrative sea trade, the Lin family controlled the large area of land in Shanglin and the surrounding areas, and the Lin family's net profit was about 30,000 silver dollars a year; However, Lin Jian has no intention of letting go of the ban.

*****************

In the morning, the fire and crossbow drills were fired on land, and in the afternoon, the warships were fired at sea.

The large warships above the Jinhai level have not yet been equipped with ambush fire crossbows, but the Chongzhou shipyard has long built a number of new Jiyun-class warships, which are equipped with ambush fire crossbows, which are currently mainly used for sea trials.

At this time, these new-type warships currently exist as a special brigade of the Jinghai Division, under the direct leadership of Deputy Commander Yang Shi, and while participating in the test of the fire crossbow, the Jinghai Division must also gradually adapt to and accumulate new naval combat tactics.

There is a huge difference between artillery firing on land and from sea ships, and without the accumulation of corresponding tactics and technology, it is obviously unrealistic to build a new type of warship above the sea level in Tianjin at once.

The basic cost of a Jinhai-class iron-bone warship is 40,000 silver dollars; And the new Jinhai-class warship, the initial cost of 200,000 silver dollars, or even higher, is not too difficult to imagine.

The new Jinhai-class warships should be able to deploy more fire-ambushing crossbows, and one or two more cabins should be added below the deck; Due to the need to equip the cabin with fire crossbows and slide rails, the strength and fire resistance of the internal structure should put forward higher requirements; In order not to cause the huge backlash to cause the warship to overturn, it will also put forward more stringent requirements for the balance of the warship -- this kind of warship will not have the accumulation of experience in the early stage, and it is difficult to develop qualified new large warships.

The design and development of new warships, Lin Jian asked Yang Shi to directly preside over as a military general, rather than being independently responsible for the Harbour Master's Department, and the intention is here - without the accumulation of experience in the naval division, it is impossible to build a new warship by relying on the Harbour Master's Department to build ships behind closed doors.

Lin Tie, Gao Zongting, Lin Mengde, and others went out to sea to watch the sea firing on Lin Zhengjun's ship—the result of the sea firing was even more unsatisfactory; although 100 bullets hit once, with the new standard proposed by Lin Tie before noon, the accuracy of the sea test firing was actually three times worse.

After the sea shooting was over, returning to Eagle Tour Island, Lin Jian presided over the shooting summary and said: "Although the shooting accuracy of the ambush fire crossbow is not satisfactory, and it may not be completely satisfactory for a long time to come, we must also see that the dense ambush fire crossbow configuration has advantages that are incomparable with traditional and incomparable combat weapons in terms of range strikes and attacks on enemy land targets......

“…… When the scorpion crossbow shoots at a target five hundred paces away, it can only hit two or three times out of ten; If the range of the Scorpion Crossbow can be increased to 1,500 paces, the shooting accuracy will also be reduced to a very low level in 100 rounds; When attacking an independent, worthless unit, such a low shooting accuracy is indeed intolerable," Lin Jian said, "However, when attacking in a range, the enemy is densely arrayed, and the fire crossbow will shoot cast iron projectiles into the enemy's range, and the lethality will be terrifying, almost ten bullets can shoot three or five people, and a dense salvo may defeat the enemy's dense battle formation - this can greatly reflect the battlefield value of the fire crossbow." If it were not for the cost and use factors, the role of the fire crossbow in the battle formation was incomparable to the scorpion crossbow, bed crossbow and stone throwing crossbow, so the staff department should also arrange for Ma Bujun to participate in the test firing of the fire crossbow to adapt to the new tactical ......"

“…… In addition, low accuracy is tolerable when attacking high-value targets such as enemy ships or city walls, and it is even worth deploying denser ambush crossbows to increase the hit rate. This is the reason why we deployed hundreds of heavy stone throws at any cost before the enemy city. Since the fire crossbow is two to three miles away, it is absolutely worth it to ensure the safety of one's own ship in the first place, so that the enemy ship does not have a chance to fight in close quarters, even if it takes a thousand cast iron bullets to destroy or sink the enemy ship. The General Staff, while drawing up operational plans and strengthening morale factors, did not take the enemy forces lightly. Excluding other factors, the possibility of the two armies fighting close to the side of the warships, our army sinking the enemy ship, and the enemy sinking our ship, is equal, that is to say, the probability of victory is five to five half, and the probability of victory will surge to eighty percent or ninety percent if the new warship is put into the battlefield; This is just a simple battlefield scenario of a confrontation between two ships, both armies enter the battlefield in formation, and the advantages of the new warships will be further expanded, and this possibility will be increased to as much as possible, I suggest that the generals of the General Staff should also read the "Speculation Technique"; The battlefield can be said to be a bloody casino, and the victory and defeat are sometimes a little bit of a line, and to be a seasoned gambler who often wins and does not lose, it is also necessary to have some knowledge......"

“…… Having said all this, the General Staff and the Privy Council, in the near future, should devote considerable energy and resources to the improvement of the ambush crossbow and the adaptation of new tactics; As for whether or not to engage in actual combat on a small scale, I don't think it's too late to wait another year. Strategically, our aim was to draw the attention of the Yanhu to the east, and to induce them to devote a lot of resources to the construction of the Lock-Sea Defense Line, so that their combat readiness in the Yanji and Liangliao hinterlands would be correspondingly greatly weakened. In the end, we want to tear apart Yanhu's sea defense line, but we must tear it apart violently and completely at once, without giving them a chance to react and adjust. To achieve the goal of this campaign, everyone needs to have more patience. ”

Yanhu has imitated the counterweight stone-throwing crossbow, which has built large crossbow platforms on Huangcheng Island and Miaoshan Island, deployed heavy stone-throwing crossbows and a large number of scorpion crossbows and bed crossbows, and blocked the beachhead and narrow water mouth where the Huaidong Navy Division directly landed on the island. In order to storm Huangcheng Island and Miaoshan Island with traditional tactics, the Jinghai Division and the Denghai Town Division would have to pay great sacrifices, and there may not be more than half of the hopes of success.

However, Huangcheng Island and Miaoshan Island, Jinzhou Tieshanzhai and Dengzhou Daoyu Village jointly organized Yanhu to blockade the coastal defense line of the Bohai Sea, and if this defense line could not be torn down, the Jinghai Division would not be able to enter the Bohai Sea on a large scale. The small-scale warships forcibly broke through, but the threat to Yanhu's thistle and the hinterland of Liangliao was very limited, and the danger increased greatly, and the gains often outweighed the losses.

Under such circumstances, the development of fire crossbows and new warships and their actual combat work have become particularly important.

If Yan Hu invested resources worth three million taels of silver in the sea defense line, as long as it could ensure strategic superiority, Huaidong was completely worthy of investing double or even more resources in the Fuhuo crossbow and new warships.

Yanhu's sea-locking defense line, the enemy island defense line built with huge resources and almost close to the coastline, will be the best hunting target for Huaidong's new warships and ambush crossbows in the future.