The first year of Hongguang is undoubtedly a fulfilling year for Li Zhaoji, and it is also a year of harvest.

In this year, Lee established a trading system with Songjiang as the core and Tamsui as the core shipping system, from which the merchant ships of the trading company and its allies departed from these two places and went as far north as Temple Street, south to Java Island, east to Longtou Bay in the Americas, and west to cross the Strait of Malacca, enter India and Duyang, and then follow the route from the colonizers to Europe.

In Qiongzhou, not far away, the army of the Oriental Trading Company quickly suppressed the rebellious Yaoyuan, and a large amount of Nanyang grain was put in, which stabilized the local area and immediately changed the local economic structure.

The subsistence economy based on small farmers was changed to the cultivation of cash crops such as sugar cane and pepper, and after the investment of the Oriental Trading Company and the gentry of Guangdong, the Shilu Iron Mine was smashed open, and the high-quality ore produced by the iron mine, which was not far from the sea and served by inland shipping, came out of the mountains and came to the coast, and iron-making furnaces rose from the ground.

Coal from Vietnam's Hongji Coal Mine entered Qiongzhou, forming the world's first steel complex.

Hongguang 2nd year, April, Tamsui.

Seventeen months later, led by Chen Si'an, the trading fleet to Europe finally returned, and seven ships came back in one go, this is a combined fleet, including the ships of the Oriental Trading Company and the British East India and Du Company, but all the ships will belong to the trading company, because four of them are armed merchant ships, and three are British warships purchased by the East India and Du Company on behalf of the trading company, and after arrival, the three warships will enter the shipyard and be modified according to the standards of the "Hong Kong Treaty".

"Why didn't you see Aaron?" Li Zhaoji looked around and asked with a smile.

Chen Liuzi shrugged his shoulders and said, "This guy is absolutely crazy, he has already gone to the bank to withdraw silver, and then engaged in an ambitious trade plan, eager to transport all the raw silk and porcelain produced in Jiangnan to London." ”

From the purchase to the transportation of the three warships, Li Zhaoji paid a total of 250,000 taels of silver for them, as well as 120,000 taels of silver for the goods, mainly white sugar, raw silk and other goods needed by Europe.

What made Aaron, the commercial representative of the East India and Du Company, happiest, was that he not only got everything that Li Zhaoji promised, but Li Zhaoji also allowed him to trade freely in his sphere of influence, and Aaron was already impatient to prepare for the next voyage.

"Forget it, let's go see our baby, Liuzi, it will definitely be beyond your imagination. I promised you the strongest fleet in the world, and though it may not be done now, the first steps have been trampled underfoot. Li Zhaoji said with a smile.

Chen Liuzi bowed his head and said, "The fleet will always be the security pillar of the trading company. ”

The Arsenal and the Shipyard are two of the largest buildings in Tamsui, especially the Arsenal, which has surpassed the old Tamsui City in size. And Li Zhaoji took Chen Liuzi to the location of the back mountain, which is far away from Tamsui City, which is the school yard of the arsenal, and often conducts gun test firing.

The two first came to a tall building, and when they entered here, they were greeted by pieces of paper hanging on bamboo poles, all of which were black, which made Chen Liuzi think that he had come to the dyeing workshop where he was drying dyed cloth.

"It's paper ........" Touching the hanging thing, Chen Liuzi said with certainty.

Li Zhaoji nodded, and Chen Liuzi asked, "What is this for?" ”

"It's for scientific experiments." Li Zhaoji said that he walked in front, Chen Liuzi followed behind, and the two came to the center of the factory, Chen Liuzi saw that between all the hanging papers, there was a platform made of stone, and on it was a huge iron cannon, the iron cannon was extremely thick, the caliber was very large, and the cannon wall was also thick.

Obviously, such artillery is not practical at all, it is impossible to move as a field gun and siege artillery, and as a ship gun, the warship cannot withstand its recoil, even as a shore defense gun, it is impossible to adjust the angle of fire.

"Don't get me wrong, this is a cannon for testing." Li Zhaoji said to Chen Liuzi.

Chen Liuzi nodded, and Li Zhaoji said, "Master He, try again." ”

He Liangtao shrugged helplessly, all the experiments have become a reality, and they have been proved to be right, and the experiment again can only be regarded as a presentation and report to the two senior executives of the trading company.

After He Liangtao gave the order, a hurried bell rang outside, which was to remind the surroundings to test the gun, and then the workers reloaded.

Chen Liuzi found that these people were not only loaded with medicine bags and shells, but also stuffed something into the cannon, he walked over and found that the cannon had been punched one by one from beginning to end, each hole was only the thickness of the tail finger, and the workers stuffed iron beads into it.

They first stuffed a wooden stick with a diameter into the barrel, and then stuffed the iron ball to prevent the iron ball from falling into the barrel and preventing it from being plugged in place.

After they finished the operation, Li Zhaoji gave his brother-in-law earplugs, motioned for him to plug them, and then the two walked out.

The workers lit the cannon with a long lead, the sound of the cannon was deafening, and when the smoke cleared, Li Zhaoji walked in with Chen Liuzi, Chen Liuzi saw that the iron ball that had just been stuffed into the cannon body had been knocked out, in fact, each hole could be regarded as a cannonball, and each iron ball was a cannonball.

The shells swept in both directions, piercing through the hanging papers.

The workers counted the number of torn papers one by one, and then counted them, and it was evident that the closer they got to the tail of the gunpowder, the higher the chamber pressure, the more paper the iron beads wore through, and the closer they were to the muzzle, the less they were worn.

The difference between the first and the last is nearly three times.

"It's been counted, big shopkeeper." Ho Leung-tao handed over the statistical table to Lee Siu-kee.

Li Zhaoji, on the other hand, leaned over the turret, turned the numbers into visual figures, and each layer of paper was one centimeter wide, and then drew lines with a central axis, and finally connected the dots outside these lines with straight lines, and finally formed a wine bottle shape.

"It's ....... Isn't this what the main gun you set for the trading company's battleship looks like? Chen Liuzi glanced at it and exclaimed, "It turns out that this is how it came." ”

Li Zhaoji nodded: "Yes, this is a way to test the chamber pressure, the place with a large chamber pressure needs to be thickened, and the place with a small chamber pressure needs to be thinned and then reduced, so that you can make a safe and light gun, without wasting any weight."

Although it looks a little uglier than the original cast spindle-shaped Hongyi cannon, like a wine bottle, it is the most scientific artillery.

Come on, sixth brother, let's go see the casting of artillery. ”

Entering the artillery workshop, there is already a row of cast and cooling guns, which are the guns cast for several heavy cruisers that are being renovated and newly built in the trading house.

This kind of artillery is named the Hongguang two-year ninety pound naval gun, which is a kind of naval gun with a length of three meters and a weight of four tons, which uses a thirteen-pound launcher and charge, and can fire a ninety-pound solid bullet and a seventy-four-pound explosive projectile, and can shoot the shell at a distance of three thousand meters when the naval gun is at a six-degree elevation angle.

There is no doubt that this is definitely the best artillery of our time, and at a weight of four tons, the artillery that can be built in Europe is only 36 to 42 pounds.

Unlike the casting method of ordinary artillery, the casting method of the wine bottle cannon is also unique, which uses the hollow cooling method, which can be achieved by using the inner membrane water cooling technology.

The casting of this kind of cannon first starts with the construction of a mold that can be heated, and in the mold, a water tank is set, and this water tank is the essence of the cannon casting.

Before the casting cannon begins, the mold will be hoisted in place, which is roughly equivalent to hanging a bucket in the water tank, and then pouring high-quality high-temperature gray iron, while the water tank is special, which itself is a watertight iron box, but there are two pipes, a long pipe is inserted into the bottom, and a short pipe can be inserted slightly.

After the molten iron used for casting the cannon is poured in, the long pipe is continuously filled with water, while the short pipe is constantly discharging water outward, and the outermost layer, the outside of the 'water tank', is constantly heated.

The whole process takes 40 hours, and the water has to flow continuously for 40 hours, and this process requires more than 200 tons of water.

But all the costs were worth it, and the resulting artillery had very high quality and a life span fifty times longer than that of ordinary artillery.

The cannon casting workshop was still in full swing, and the craftsmen had to cast not only artillery for the heavy patrolmen, but also heavy artillery for shore defense and other artillery.

"There is no doubt that our new guns are powerful, so all the ships that use them need to be remodeled, they need to be reinforced. And I would say that it was all worth it, because there is no warship in this world that can certainly withstand their shelling.

It's just a pity that we don't have the ability to build ironclad battleships, and once we get this ability, it means that our battleships are the strongest in the world. Li Zhaoji said confidently.

Chen Liuzi nodded: "Our European friends are still desperately stacking artillery on the battleship and increasing the number of artillery decks, but they don't know that the firepower that can penetrate the opponent is the effective firepower." ”

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