It's just that strengthening the construction of the navy, it is easy to say, it is really necessary to let the navy surpass many Western powers, especially beyond the Dutch and the English, where is it so easy, this is the world's maritime superpower today, the strength of the fleet is incomparable, the Ming Empire is still too lacking in heritage, fortunately, after the first battle in the South Seas, the Ming fleet has matured a lot, and the officers and soldiers of the Ming fleet have strengthened their confidence, otherwise they really don't know how to start.

Zhu Jie shook his head, since the end of the Nanyang War, it has been half a year now, and it has been nearly a year since his southern tour, in a year's time, the three major shipyards have supervised the construction of warships day and night, and the Firearms Bureau is to produce artillery shells without life, and now the Ming Empire can rely on the increasingly sophisticated artillery technology.

This is also the result of the collective research of the major colleges, after solving the artillery fuze technology, the rifled rear-loading artillery began to gradually replace the solid bullet in the Ming Navy and Army, the power of the flowering bullet is undoubtedly much greater than the power of the solid bullet, once it is fully popularized on the battleship, it will multiply the combat power of the battleship.

The only drawback is that there is too much gunpowder used in the flowering shell, and the requirements for the power of gunpowder are too high, the same number of shells, the amount of gunpowder that needs to be consumed is more than three times higher than before, after all, the flowering bullet does not want a solid bullet, and the solid bullet relies on its own weight to cause damage to the battleship's hull, but the flowering bomb is different, the flowering bullet is hollow inside, the same volume, more than twice as light as a solid bullet, a forty-pound shell, if it does not explode, can only be used as a twenty-pound solid bullet, And the power is not as good as the solid bullet, his power lies in the explosive power of the gunpowder, and if there is less gunpowder, where is the power at all?

Zhu Jie is also scratching his head now, where is gunpowder, especially high-powered gunpowder, so easy to mass-produce? If it is only used by the Tianwei Army and the Tianxiong Army, it is enough, after all, the six towns of the Tianwei Army, the three towns of the Tianxiong Army plus the two towns of Jingying, a total of eleven towns, are only equipped with five or six hundred artillery pieces, these six hundred artillery pieces, a war that lasts for half a year, the shells that can be consumed, at best, tens of thousands of rounds are enough, but the First Fleet of the Navy alone, there are these forty main warships, dozens of auxiliary warships, and the number of artillery pieces exceeds 2,000. If it falls into a protracted war, the consumption of artillery shells is definitely not on the same order as that of the army, and the number will be calculated in 100,000 rounds, or even more than one million rounds.

Millions of shells, Zhu Jie felt a lot of pressure when he thought about it, gunpowder......

"Your Majesty, are you still worried about gunpowder?"

Li Yan didn't know when he came to Zhu Jie's side and asked Zhu Jie.

Zhu Jie nodded and replied: "Yes, Li Yan, you also know that the future flowering bomb must be the trend of military development, once the flowering bomb is popularized, it will cause the most significant changes in the world, whether it is the Dutch warship or the British warship in the world, even if it is huge, it will not be able to cope with the bombardment of the flowering bomb, it will not take many shells to be beaten to ashes, the only problem is gunpowder and copper, which makes us pay too much price, according to the plan provided by the Firearms Bureau, the battleship is equipped with three kinds of shells, 15-pound shells, 20-pound shells and 40-pound shells, even if they are fifteen-pound shells, propellant and shell charge, are more than four catties, as for the other two large shells, they need more gunpowder, although the Ming Dynasty is growing stronger, but the high price of gunpowder, and the price of bronze has been high, where to supply? ”

Li Yan said with a smile: "Your Majesty, you are too worried, I have seen this new artillery with my own eyes, such a huge power, where can a wooden sail warship be able to resist?" In the face of small warships, more than 10 shells can sink them, but in the face of large warships, especially warships of thousands of tons in the West, not to mention more than 10 shells, even more than 100 shells may not be able to sink them, according to the calculation of the hit rate of 10% in naval battles, if you want to use solid bullets to sink the flagship of thousands of tons in the Western Ocean, you need to use thousands of shells, and after a naval battle, you do need to use more than tens of thousands of shells; But where does this problem arise when we use flowering shells? How much more powerful than a solid bullet is ten times more powerful? Once it explodes, it will bring great damage to the battleship, if it hits the opponent's ammunition depot, maybe two shells will solve the problem, and besides, our rifled guns now have a higher hit rate, where do we need thousands of shells, I am afraid that with a maximum of 100 shells, a huge ship can be directly sunk, and the number of shells used by us will be reduced exponentially, where will there be so many shells used? ”

Zhu Jie's eyes lit up, yes, he was smart all his life, and he was confused for a while, but he was affected by inertial thinking, once he was generally equipped with flowering shells, where were so many shells used? A small part of the artillery shells can solve the problem, the amount of gunpowder consumed in the war and the number of shells have dropped significantly, and the pressure on the imperial court is really not as great as imagined!

Li Yan continued: "Also, Your Majesty, if the flowering bomb is popularized, then our warships will not need so many artillery, the most important thing is not the number of artillery, but the quality of the artillery, the accuracy of the momentary hit, but the power of the cannonballs, these two problems are solved, a huge ship, maybe only twenty guns, is enough to deal with the enemy ship on the opposite side, our number of artillery is reduced, the shell reserve is reduced, and the flexibility of the battleship can be improved, the speed is faster, what is the use of hundreds of guns?" What else is the use of those small-caliber guns? What we need to do is the protection of our own battleship, so many flowering bombs on the battleship, we must protect it, once it is destroyed and exploded, we don't need the opponent to attack us, the explosion of gunpowder on our own battleship is enough to kill our battleship......"

"Yes, yes! Haha......"

Zhu Jie laughed, patted Li Yan on the shoulder, and replied, "Li Yan, you really woke up the dreamer with a word!" Immediately pass down the will, summon Bi Dengfu, Hu Yanlei and Cha Bolt into the palace, this matter of naval reform is already urgent, warship protection, we must do it immediately, protect ourselves at the same time, inflict the biggest blow on the opponent, hehe......"

(End of chapter)