Lin Yuan said: "What kind of people do you think governments will send to see this exhibition? ”

Shen Wanqing replied, "Of course, I will send a technical expert." ”

Lin Yuan said with a smile: "There is a saying that 'the drum does not need to be beaten with a hammer', what I want to do is to give them some dials, and they will obediently go down that road." ”

Shen Wanqing said: "I don't know much about this, I still want to think about how to get some valuable information from them." ”

After the two separated, Lin Yuan informed the Ryukyu king, who soon issued a statement to the major news agencies in the West through his embassy in Beijing, in which he said that in order to promote friendship among the countries of the world and maintain peace in the world world, the Ryukyu fleet would make a display.

After the news was relayed by major Western news agencies, it immediately set off an uproar in Western countries, with Britain, France, Germany, and Russia all expressing their hope to participate in the exhibition, while Japan did not express its position.

Under Lin Yuan's instructions, the number of people from each country participating in the exhibition was limited to ten, and each person needed to pay a fee of 500,000 pounds during their stay in the Ryukyus.

Sure enough, Britain signed up first, and then Germany and France also joined in, and finally a team of 40 people from Britain, Germany, France, and Russia formed a team of 40 people to go to the Ryukyus, and Lin Yuan easily earned 20 million pounds in the process.

Lin Yuan gave Emperor Guangxu a fold to return to his hometown to visit his relatives, so he left the capital and returned to Ryukyu, and the first thing he did when he returned to Ryukyu was to see the industrial zone.

At this time, the industrial zone has a small scale, as a major pillar of industry, iron and steel metallurgy in the industrial zone has developed relatively smoothly, the production of steel can make general weapons, chemical reaction containers, but due to the lack of ore, alloy steel and non-ferrous metal metallurgy has not made much progress for the time being.

The basis of the chemical industry is the synthesis of ammonia with three acids and two alkalis, and the output of sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and nitric acid is still relatively high; Soda ash is purified from alkali lakes in the Ryukyus, so the yield is average; Caustic soda is obtained by electrolysis of salt water in the modern chemical industry, and there is no ability to smelt silicon steel in the industrial zone, so it is impossible to produce generators, and even if the generators are built, there is nothing to make cables, because there is no copper ore or aluminum ore to make wires in the industrial zone, and there is no rubber or plastic to make insulation.

As for the synthetic ammonia industry, it has not developed at all, and there are three main sources of raw materials for synthetic ammonia, coal, oil and natural gas, the latter two do not need to be thought about at all, and the few coals have to be supplied to the steel industry.

The most surprising thing for Lin Yuan was Cheng Jiuye, under the guidance of the material experts of the Beijing ship, he used the kiln for firing ceramics to successfully fire a lot of refractory bricks, which will be able to be pasted on the furnace wall of the new blast furnace, and more importantly: high temperature is almost a necessary condition for smelting most metals, with these refractory bricks, it will undoubtedly bring convenience to future production.

What worries Lin Yuan is that the warships of the Ryukyus, this era is an era of rapid changes in naval technology, this batch of warships is outdated, and building a shipyard is a very difficult thing, Lin Yuan remembered the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, its subordinate Jiangnan Dockyard is one of the top shipyards in China in this era, and it can build gunboats with a displacement of 2,000 tons, lightning strike ships, and improve them, not necessarily without the production of large warships.

Soon, the missions of the four countries came to the Ryukyus, and the Ryukyu government arranged them in the newly built post house, Shen Wanqing considered that there would be agents from the four countries, so they were guarded around the clock and strictly restricted from going out, but this looked like a prison, so the Ryukyu government found a pretext, saying that there were bandits in the nearby suburbs, so I hoped that people from various countries would not move around at will.

The personnel of the four countries knew the true intentions of the Ryukyu Kingdom - not to let them look around, but they did not raise too many objections and were soon led into the industrial zone.

As soon as they entered the industrial zone, they felt that their eyes were not enough, and after walking for a while, they came to an open space surrounded by barbed wire, and the sign at the door read in Chinese characters: Equipment Test Center.

At this time, a young man walked out of the sentry at the door, this person was Lin Yuan, but he did not show his true face, but dressed up in disguise.

The leader handed over the personnel of the four countries to Lin Yuan, and Lin Yuan smiled at them: "This is our artillery test site, and we will display naval guns here." ”

On the demonstration field, an artillery piece stood quietly under the camouflage net, which was made of fishing nets with tender green branches, and Lin Yuan pointed to the cannon and said, "This is the main naval gun used by our Ryukyu fleet." ”

This gun is a 152 mm rapid-fire secondary gun dismantled from the Yoshino ship, it was originally made in the UK, in order not to be recognized by British experts, the experts on the Beijing ship specially modified it, although the main structure has not changed, many details are completely different from the original warship, so there is no need to worry about this naval gun being recognized by the British.

There were a few guards standing next to the artillery, they were not ordinary soldiers, but agents who had been carefully trained by Zhang Hua and Shen Wanqing, and the agents followed Lin Yuan's instructions to note down which foreigners were the most careful when observing this artillery, and these people were the artillery experts in this group of personnel.

The purpose of this group of agents is of great significance, because in modern intelligence warfare, the situation of the enemy's technical experts has always been the focus of intelligence gathering, but the Beijing warship does not have an espionage agency in Western countries, so this display has become an excellent opportunity to collect expert intelligence.

The people who can be sent to see this exhibition must be the top experts in the relevant fields in China, but they all concealed their identities when they came, and betrayed them when they observed the demeanor and movements of the artillery, and these people were not trained and did not know how to hide their intentions, so in front of the specially trained agents, it was clear which people were artillery experts.

Lin Yuan looked at his watch and said, "Everyone has been visiting for half an hour, now our artillery will show you live ammunition targeting!" ”

Lin Yuan raised a red flag and waved it into the distance, a carriage drove over, the car was loaded with a wall-like thing, Lin Yuan opened the tarpaulin on it, and inside was a silver-white thick plate five meters long and five meters wide, Lin Yuan said: "This is our target plate, 1000 mm thick homogeneous steel armor." ”

After everyone finished reading, the carriage pulled the target board, drove to a thousand meters away, and then set up the target board, this deck with a volume of 25 cubic meters weighed 200 kilograms, if you want to stand it up, it will take a while, during this time, everyone was invited to the viewing platform 200 meters behind the artillery, at this time they can no longer see what is happening in the camouflage net, but they can see that the barrel of the gun is slowly rising, the height of the gun's elevation angle, the range that can be adjusted is very small, So soon the adjustment was over.

A gunner walked out of the camouflage net, waved the red flag in his hand, and Lin Yuan said: "The shooting is about to start, please get ready." ”

Everyone raised the telescope in their hands and looked at the target plate, only to hear a loud "boom", the cannon was ejected, and after an instant, the shell hit the steel plate, raising a puff of smoke.