Artillery has been one of the most favored objects on the weapons list since Haihan launched the arms sales trade many years ago. So much so that Western countries such as Portugal had to abandon the sale of old weapons to the Far East countries at high prices, and instead imported artillery from Haihan to arm their colonies in the Far East. Haihan's artillery business has also gradually changed from exporting dozens of guns a year to a scale of exporting hundreds of guns a year, and its profits are far superior to rifles.

Although the scale of Haihan's exports has increased a lot compared with the past, the demand gap still exists objectively, and only the large and small cities and passes in Annam need thousands of urban fire artillery. Of course, the use of fortified artillery as a defense plan is naturally from the advice of the Haihan military advisers, otherwise how could a country like Annan under the protection of the Haihan need so many urban fire artillery. The city defense artillery that was bought from Haihan at a high price and deployed back to China was actually never fired, but was just placed on the city and slowly corroded.

Are the people of Annam so stupid that they can't understand Haihan's arms sales routines? Not necessarily, because some of them are rich in their own pockets and eat kickbacks; some people pretend to be deaf and dumb and hang up on their own affairs; and some people need to use this kind of arms trade to consolidate their military alliance with Haihan. There are many vested interests involved in this, and the situation is relatively complicated, but the fact that this unscientific arms trade can be maintained for a long time is not a matter of Haihan shaving his head and picking his head, and the internal reasons of Annan also account for a large part.

In fact, there is a similar situation in other buyers, and urban fire cannons have always been the main type of artillery exported by Haihan. In addition to earning a lot of profits for Haihan, these heavy guys will not pose much direct threat to Haihan, and they can incorporate the armaments of these countries and regions into the system of Haihan's military industry, which can be described as a sales strategy that kills multiple birds with one stone.

However, the guns launched today are not city defense guns, and after the tarpaulin on the cannon body is removed, there are four field guns of different calibers. The biggest difference between this kind of cannon and the city defense cannon is that there are two huge wheels under the cannon body, which can be directly pulled and transported by animal power. There is a mechanism under the gun body, which makes it easy to adjust the firing angle with a hand-cranked wheel. In addition, there are also stationary hoes on the gun mount, which are lowered to the ground in wartime to unload the recoil when firing and stabilize the gun body.

In the past few years, Haihan has been extremely strict in controlling the export of field artillery, and even an old customer like Xu's in Fujian, who is not bad for money and has good connections, can buy only a handful of field guns from Haihan every year. On the one hand, this is to control risks, after all, the guns sold may also be turned into weapons used to fight the Haihan army on the battlefield one day in the future; on the other hand, almost all the output of the Haihan munitions industry is used to meet the needs of the military, and there is basically no excess production capacity for export. After all, the construction of this field cannon is much more complex than the bare barrel of a city defense gun, and the man-hours required to manufacture it are much longer.

For many buyers, the Haihan field gun has always been a hot spot for purchase. Due to the extremely limited number of field guns sold by Haihan Ordnance every year, and the enthusiasm of buyers to buy is very high, it seems unfair to sell to which one to sell first. Therefore, starting from 1631, the annual sales of field guns were carried out by bidding, with a monthly shipment of five guns as the limit, and a one-year delivery period was arranged to bid in batches, and each month's shipment was won by the one with the highest price, and there was only one specification of the six-pound gun, and there was no room for picking.

If you want to equip the advanced Haihan artillery to your own troops at the first time, then you will inevitably have to bid at a high price, and buyers who are not so financially strong can only wait for a few big customers to buy before making plans. Of course, it is not that the price can be much cheaper at the back of the queue, and for rich and capricious customers, participating in the bidding of each batch is the best way to reduce the purchase cost. However, Haihan deliberately does not limit the number of times he can participate in the bidding each year, so basically the sales of twelve batches of field guns in a year will have a pretty good performance.

During the most tense period of the war in the Fujian Strait from 1631 to 1633, Xu Xinsu did not hesitate to invest heavily in bidding for field artillery in order to strengthen the armament of his army as soon as possible, and the unit price even exceeded 10,000 yuan at the peak, which was three or four times higher than the price of urban defense artillery of the same level. Because of this, buyers have always been dissatisfied with Haihan's supply capacity.

In fact, Haihan's sales strategy is simply a kind of hunger marketing, which deliberately controls the supply to regulate the supply and demand, artificially creates a market in short supply, and uses this to affect the final selling price and achieve the purpose of increasing the price of sales. The auction supply may seem fair, but the high added value generated in the actual operation is far more powerful than Haihan's self-raising of the price, and it is easy to create a competitive situation, and it is naturally easier for each buyer to shout high prices when they are hot-headed.

Of course, it is not that in order to save money and trouble, the practice of converting the city defense artillery into field artillery by itself is too large, and the performance gap between the copycat and the genuine version is too big. So the demand for field artillery was not greatly affected by the sales of city defense guns.

The field guns that Haihan Ordnance Industries is displaying to people from all walks of life today are three-pounder, six-pounder, nine-pounder, and 12-pounder guns, and as for the 24-pound guns with larger calibers and the 48-pounder cannons specially designed to bombard cities, they have no export plans at all, so they have not been included in the display.

However, the audience is not sure whether the artillery that Haihan appeared this time is ready for export, or as usual, but it is just taken out to whet everyone's appetite, and after watching it, it is announced that it is not for sale. As a result, the audience was calmer and less enthusiastic than when they had just tried firing the rifle.

However, at this time, Yan Chujie walked to the front, took the iron horn from the guard, and said to the audience: "Everyone, the four types of artillery we are displaying here today are all models that will be included in the list of weapons for export next, so all buyers who are interested in buying field guns, please be sure to watch the next shelling demonstration carefully." For more specific performance parameters, we will provide you with written information at a later date. ”

There was an uproar in the audience, although it has always been hoped that Haihan can provide more field gun models to choose from, but in previous years, it has become a habit to rush to buy six-pound guns, and this year four models were launched at once, which is really much beyond everyone's expectations. Everyone had a bunch of questions at the moment and wanted to ask Yan Chujie immediately, but Yan Chujie said that everyone should watch the demonstration first, and if there are any questions, they will talk about it later.

The shooting demonstration process of the gun is actually similar to that of the rifle, which is to shoot at targets of different sizes at different distances to observe their lethality, accuracy, effective range, operation process, etc. Of course, the target is no longer suitable for an iron target that can be pierced with a rifle, and this time it is directly lifted out of a three-point-thick iron plate. However, because the size of the target is too large, the weight is full, and it is more troublesome to transport, so only the target sample is shown to the audience, and the heavy iron plate target has been arranged on the target position in advance.

Four guns of different calibers fired at targets at the same distance to compare the difference in lethality. Although these smoothbore guns still use solid shells, because of the use of Haihan's special gunpowder, their power should not be underestimated, and at a distance of 200 meters, even the smallest three-pounder gun can easily penetrate the target.

The target position is set up at a distance of 100 meters, but after reaching 300 meters away, the target as large as the door panel has also become a small piece, and there is no scope on the gun body that can be used, and the gunner can only rely on the ruler and experience to aim, so from this distance, the artillery at all levels has gradually appeared off the target. However, this is not a problem in the eyes of the audience, because from the telescope, the impact point is actually not deviated too much, and it is already above the average level.

At a long distance, the lethality of small-caliber artillery has obviously decreased, and it can no longer penetrate the iron plate target, and the sound of metal collision on the target is very clear. However, the effective range of these cannons has exceeded 500 meters, and the fact that they can't penetrate the iron target does not mean that their power is small, even if the cannonballs hit the ground in actual combat, the kinetic energy of the re-bounce is enough to tear the human body to pieces along with the shield armor.

In the final result, the twelve-pounder gun used five shells to hit the target at a distance of 800 meters, which is considered the longest effective range of the model. However, at this distance it could no longer penetrate the target, leaving only a deep dent.

Taking advantage of the time when the soldiers retrieved the target from a distance, Yan Chujie appeared on the stage again to explain the performance characteristics of these models of artillery. Although Liu Shang didn't understand this thing, he also pricked up his ears and listened very carefully, and memorized all the information disclosed by Han Chujie in his mind. He also knew that Haihan's artillery-making technology was very good, but he didn't know that Haihan's arms trade was so large, and so many countries would come to Haihan to order arms. Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty has not clashed with the countries in the south in recent years, otherwise it is really possible to suffer a big loss because of the gap in weapons.

The soldiers removed the target, pulled it back to the spectator in a wagon, and then showed the crowd the effect of the shelling. The holes and craters in the iron plate are clearly visible, and it is not difficult to deduce from the bullet marks which type of shell was hit.

Although Yan Chujie did not give a more specific explanation of the sales method, but simply revealed that these models of field guns will be put on sale, this is enough to mobilize the consumption enthusiasm of buyers. Dong Yanyun even said on the spot that orders for the four types of artillery would be placed, and he would wait to see how Haihan would sell it. If there is no accident, it is only natural to make a lot of money this year by relying on artillery orders.

But the firing demonstration of the artillery is not over there, Yan Chujie announced that he will also show a "concept product" that is still under development. Then the two pack horses pulled a gun carriage draped in oilcloth to one of the gun emplacements, and Yan Chujie personally stepped forward to uncover the oilcloth and show the audience the new artillery.

Although the caliber of this cannon cannot be seen for the time being, there are many officers from various countries present, and it can be inferred from the thickness of the barrel that this cannon is probably similar to the caliber of the nine-pounder gun. But the peculiarity is that this cannon is not loaded from the front, because the artilleryman operating this cannon has opened a bolt device at the rear of the barrel, revealing a hole, and sure enough, the caliber is in line with everyone's prediction.

The breech gun has been equipped in the Haihan Army for a period of time, although only a small number of front-line elite troops are currently equipped, but this news can not be concealed from well-informed people from all sides, and its firing principle is not a secret, but the artillery technology of various countries is limited, and it is impossible to imitate the breech gun that can be put into actual combat application. At this time, the breech gun that Haihan pulled out to display was also the first time that the vast majority of people present had witnessed this new type of artillery with a structure that was very different from the past.

However, some people can't help but have an idea, the Haihan army has already been equipped with this kind of artillery, and even used it in actual combat, you Yan Chujie is actually embarrassed to call it a "concept product", to put it bluntly, you don't plan to export it? Why bother to play tricks like this, and release this thing as a new product?

But the man who thought this way was soon slapped in the face, and the artilleryman opened the box for the shells, which contained not round solid shells, but long shells with front cones and rear posts, about six inches long, and the same thickness as a nine-pound shell. Judging by its appearance and color, it seems to be made of brass. The artilleryman stuffed the shell into the chamber from the tail and closed the bolt to complete the loading.

"This ...... Can this cannonball be fired?" "The Haihan people have always had wonderful ideas, and it is not known whether they will be useful or useful. "Why does this shell look a bit like the paper shell fixed ammunition used in Haihan rifles?"

There was a lot of talk in the audience, and some of them noticed the true characteristics of the shells. Copper-shelled shells and barrel rifling are the inevitable forms of artillery evolution to the advanced stage, and breech-loading guns plus rifling have long been made, but Haihan's metalworking capacity in the past was limited, and it was difficult to make copper-shelled shells with actual combat capabilities. Of course, judging from Haihan's current production capacity and cost, it is still unrealistic to mass-produce this kind of artillery and shells, so this cannon is indeed just a prototype sample, and Yan Chujie called it a conceptual product in research and development, but it is not a trick.

Looking at the audience's reactions, Yan Chujie knew that this cannon had aroused everyone's curiosity enough, and he was hoping for it. The actual shooting effect of this cannon will definitely make these people suffer a lot of impact.

(End of chapter)