Chapter 145: A Thorny Bucket

In the following days, Liu Hou had nothing to do again, and after the newspaper matter was taken over by Liu Yan, the propaganda offensive of Shu was really much more violent.

Liu Yan's breadth of communication and strong communication ability far exceeded Liu Hou's expectations. Needless to say, Dongwu, which is now an honorary ally, wrote several letters to some famous people in Dongwu, and even went over in person, hooking up some famous people in Dongwu, and asking them to write articles in the "Dahan Daily".

He also set up a branch of a newspaper office in Jianye, the capital of Soochow, and openly distributed newspapers in Soochow. Although the articles written by these Dongwu people may not all scold Cao Wei and support Shu Han, at least one point, their articles scolding Shu Han will definitely not appear in the newspapers. The key is their active participation in the contributions, and the influence of the "Dahan Daily" in Soochow is expanding day by day.

The public opinion situation in the entire Eastern Wu was almost completely tilted towards Shu Han. Even in the Wei State, Liu Yan did not let go, and he also wrote a lot of letters and sent people to send them to the famous scholars and scholars of the Wei State, asking them for manuscripts. These celebrities and scholars were very tempted to have their articles published and distributed all over the world, but they did not dare to act rashly because of Wei's severe suppression policy against the "Dahan Daily".

However, not daring to write an article does not mean that they dare not secretly circulate it, these celebrities were aroused by Liu Yan's secret letters, and their channels are always more than ordinary people, plus Liu Yan increased the number of "Dahan Bao" secretly placed in Wei, making it easier for literati in Wei to get a copy of "Dahan Bao", which also made Wei's public opinion affected by Shu's strict zhòng.

The Wei court did not think of following the trend to publish a newspaper, and even they even thought of the name of the newspaper, which was called "Great Wei Bao", but they did not master the printing technology, and each newspaper could only be copied by hand, so that both the layout size and circulation of the newspaper were very small, and its influence was basically negligible.

Seeing that Liu Yan did a good job, Liu Hou was relieved to let him do it. However, pig's feet are always idle, and things are always looking for pig's feet. After Liu Hou and Zhou Xue lived a month of stable and sweet life in Jingzhou, Liu Hou occasionally heard Guan Gong complain at a banquet that there were too many warships in Soochow, blocking the Yangtze River waterway and affecting the traffic of merchant ships.

Under Liu Hou's questioning, Guan Gong revealed the truth, it turned out that since Liu Hou sent troops, Dongwu, an honorary ally, was not enough friends, and they dispatched thousands of warships to garrison the border of the Yangtze River, coercing Jingzhou, so that Guan Gong's garrison army could not act rashly.

Originally, it was not a big deal for them to be stationed there, as long as they did not take the initiative to attack Jingzhou, they could be left alone. And Jingzhou City, which was defended with the assistance of firearms troops, was not afraid of the attack of the Eastern Wu army at all.

However, thousands of warships stopped on the Yangtze River waterway, which frightened those merchant ships that came and went did not dare to pass through Guò, which affected Jingzhou's commerce, and then also affected Guan Gong's tax revenue, so it provoked Guan Gong's complaints.

When Liu Hou heard it, he was annoyed! The people of Dongwu are so bold, this Sun Quan is so uninteresting, and he dares to use the fleet to display the border to coerce us, Shu Huang can bear it, and my aunt can't bear it. Since you are in the first year of junior high school, don't blame me for being the fifteenth. After knowing this, Liu Hou immediately withdrew from the state of vacation and tried to find a way to teach the people of Dongwu a lesson.

Now Soochow is still an ally on the surface, although they have displayed thousands of warships on the border to hold a ship exhibition, but after all, they have not really attacked the territory of Shu Han, and the two sides have not openly torn their faces, so it is impossible for the two countries to openly go to war.

Otherwise, whoever is the first to do it will be said by the people of the world to be a treacherous and spurned, of course, when it is really time to fight the whole country, no one will care about the covenant that is thinner than the ugly cloth, at that time, it is necessary to tear the face or tear the face, but it is indeed not time yet, Shu Han is not ready to kill Wu.

What is needed to defeat Wu is a large number of naval forces, although the current naval army of Shu Han has two super warships, but the other ships are still pitiful, and they cannot meet the needs of the comprehensive defeat of Wu. That is to say, now we have to teach Wu a lesson, but we can't be too blatant, at least it is not possible to send super warships to bombard Wu's fleet.

So what to do? This kind of thing is far less headache than meeting Sima Yi, and it is not difficult for Liu Hou at all, he just thought about it a little and then came up with an idea. The way Liu Hou came up with to teach the people of Eastern Wu a very simple way was to use the gadget he had come up with a long time ago - a mine.

Mines were actually made out by Shu craftsmen a long time ago, and they were used to blow up the reefs on the Yangtze River waterway, but at that time they were not called mines, they were called underwater timed bombs, but in fact, the principle is almost the same, as long as it is slightly changed. As soon as he said it, Liu Hou immediately called relevant craftsmen and researchers to discuss the development of mines with them.

With the previous underwater timed explosion # bomb as the basis, it is not difficult to build mines. Mines also need to be waterproof, or the old way, use a wooden barrel or clay pot to fill it with explosives# and cover it with a sealed lid.

As for the timing of the explosion, it is obvious that it cannot be triggered by a collision, because a sensitive collision trigger device has not yet been developed. There is another reason, the mine is dangling in the water with the breaking waves, if the trigger device is used, then how can this trigger device distinguish whether it hits the battleship or the waves? You know, if the boat is parked there, the two may hit with the same force.

If in the later generations, there are methods to trigger the fuse, in addition to the collision trigger, because the ships in the later generations are made of steel, they can also be triggered by magnetism, in addition, there are also some triggers with noise, water pressure and other factors.

But at this time, Liu Hou didn't have any ruts, even a simple trigger device for a mine, those researchers didn't get it out for so long, not to mention mines, even if it was a grenade # bomb, the kind of device that lights up as soon as the rope is pulled hasn't been made yet, can they be expected to make more complex mines?

So, I still use the old method to put a long lead on the upper part of the explosive# medicine barrel to make it in the form of a timed explosion # bomb. However, this lead is really long enough, and even one layer is not enough to make several layers, because the delay time is very long, and even one or two hours have to be delayed.

Because the mines were to be released from the waters of Shu, let them float down the river to the downstream Dongwu fleet group and then explode, and in order not to be seen by the Dongwu people The ships that released the mines, so that they could catch the pigtails of the Shu Kingdom, then the ships that released the mines should be far enough away from the Dongwu fleet, far enough that they could not see Cheng Dù, so it is very likely that this mine will float in the water for a long time.

There is a very different thing between a mine and an underwater bomb#, that is, the mine needs to be able to float on the water, at least half-sinking and half-floating, which requires that the container containing the explosive# charge should not be too full, and enough space should be left to come out, so that the buoyancy can be enough to support its weight. It just so happens that now this part of the space can be used to accommodate long fuses.

The problems of sealing waterproofing, floating, and delayed detonation were solved, and the mine was basically completed, but not perfect. It has to be a successful mine to have a way to get it firmly on the enemy's ship.

In later generations, it was very simple to deal with a steel ship, just use a magnet, as long as the ship passed next to the mine, the magnet would stick firmly to the iron hull of the hull. The ships are now made of wood, and the magnets obviously do not work.

Liu Hou's idea of a very simple solution was also very simple, he had several long, thin, and sharp steel needles added to the perimeter of the explosive# medicine barrel, so that the final completed mine looked like a monster covered in thorns.

With these steel needles, once the mine collides with the wooden ship of Soochow, it will be nailed to the hull of the ship, and it will not fall for a while, and then wait there quietly for the fuse to burn out, and finally with a "boom", the ship attached to it will blow up a big hole.

It only took half a day for Liu Hou and a group of firearms researchers to complete the design of the mine, and the next day, the craftsmen made several samples.

The samples were remodeled from buckets that looked like buckets with lids and spikes. There is a plug at the top of it, when the plug is removed, a small fuse is revealed inside, and when the fuse is lit and the plug is plugged again, the mine is activated, and it will explode in a quarter of an hour.

Then the craftsman threw the large bucket into the river, and saw it float half-floating and half-sinking downstream, and about fifty paces downstream a wrecked boat had already been prepared to be used as a target. The ship was very small, only about five meters long, and the tattered one had lost its maintenance value, except that it could float on the water, and it was almost unrecognizable as a ship, and Liu Hou was also very curious, where did they find this broken ship as a target.

Since it was only fifty paces, the mine quickly floated in front of the broken ship, and then hit the side of the ship with a "bang", the force of the impact was not great, but the steel needle was sharp enough to pierce the planks of the hull, and the mine was hung on the ship. As the waves ebbed and fell, the mines crumbled, but they never fell out.

Finally, when the fuse burned out, there was a "boom", and the small wrecked ship was blown to pieces. Researchers and craftsmen watching the effects of mines on the shore let out a cheer. Liu Hou and Zhou Xue were also present, but Zhou Xue was silent, probably because she also knew that her husband had made this thing to deal with the fleet that her father once commanded.

The next test was the effect on a ship in motion, and the test method was very simple, the target ship was still a tattered boat, and when the mine touched it and got on it, a fast boat dragged it at full speed on the river with a long rope. The purpose of this test was to test the firmness of the steel needles on the mines on the ship.

Unfortunately, after being dragged for about a quarter of an hour, the mine nailed to the wrecked ship finally broke off under the wash of the waves and drifted downstream. Since this time it is not a test of explosive performance, but a test of the effectiveness of the steel needle, there is no gun# in this mine, but some sediment of the same weight is used instead, so there is no need to worry about it blowing up the flowers and plants downstream.

Perhaps it was because the ship was too fast, and the rapid advance made the mine withstand the impact of the current, and the depth of the steel needle piercing the hull was very shallow, which was simply not enough to support the impact of the water flow for a long time, so it was washed down by the water in only a quarter of an hour.