Mid-February 1849

Just after the Lunar New Year, coinciding with the beginning of spring, California ushered in an overwhelming spring snow, with mountains and rivers frozen and thousands of miles of snow drifting.

Widespread snowfall continued intermittently for two days, killing the little green spring that had just bloomed in the seedling state.

The first sunny day after the snow

A group of dozens of horses galloped on the snowy road from Chang'an New Town to Fangcaodi, the royal flag fluttered, and the knights with Yong were all heroic, all of them were cuirassier heavy cavalry of the royal guard cavalry regiment, which still looked fierce and imposing in the cold situation.

The horses' hooves splashed the remnants of snow and crushed them into mud.

Breathing in the cold air of early spring, the officers and soldiers of the elite guards cuirassier regiment had red noses, but they still maintained a strict formation, and the steel armor and leather shoes were shiny, which represented the glory of the royal family.

Under Richard's crotch was a pure-blooded white Suffolk heavy horse, as vigorous as a dragon, surrounded by a group of guards officers, and his deep gaze had already looked at the town of Yerba Buena in the distance.

The king of the Tang Kingdom traveled, with as little as a personal guard cavalry squad and more as a personal guard cavalry squadron to escort, and there was no such thing as the Manchu Dynasty when the emperor went out to patrol thousands of thousands of vast formations, and all the etiquette was simple, and there were no such things as footsteps, dragon chariots, canopies, and flags.

After all, it's only a small country with more than a million people, and there's no need to engage in those vain things.

Richard did not like the red tape of the Eastern dynasty, which must have been abandoned by the trend of the times, and had no meaning except to promote the vanity of the emperor and completely cut off from the people.

All the way to the gallop, the horses' hooves splashed snowflakes like mist.

The area of the town-lined buildings in Parkview Green is much larger than a few years ago, stretching into the distance along the tall European-style buildings of 4~5 storeys on both sides of the avenue, almost connecting with the Grape Valley.

Due to government restrictions, no buildings were allowed to be built at the mouth of the Grape Valley, so a large square with a radius of one million square meters was formed outside the valley.

Municipal buildings are all built around the square, there are churches, Taoist temples, temples, and more urban shops and residential houses, dense and invisible.

After years of construction, Shanhaiguan has continuously heightened the base building, and above the pass is a 3-storey Chinese palace-style building, which is majestic and tall, just like the city gate of Beiping City.

The city gate was also built into a three-arched system, with a tall main city hole in the middle, which is planned to pass through trains in the future, and two small gate holes on both sides for pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages.

After passing through the main city cave of Shanhaiguan, continuing to go inside is a wide road, the snow on the road has been swept to the side of the road, all kinds of horse-drawn carriages carrying people and goods are driving on the right, and there is an endless stream of traffic.

More than 10 personal guards cavalry rode in front, showing a phalanx of geese, shouting loudly to order everyone to retreat.

The golden royal insignia on the back flag on their backs has already identified their identity. The carriages dodged one after another, and passers-by stood respectfully along the street, looking excitedly at the majestic figure of His Majesty passing by on horseback, and couldn't suppress their admiration.

The unobstructed Boulevard of the Grape Valley stretches inward, with a wide rushing river on one side and a patchwork of buildings on the hill on the other.

Three years

The Grape Valley has taken on the majestic appearance of a modern urban agglomeration, reflecting the silhouette of the comprehensive construction of the Tang Kingdom, with high-rise buildings and apartments in the town, gas street lamps, well-dressed Chinese and their wives and concubines, all reflecting the vitality of the kingdom's economic development.

After galloping for about half an hour, I saw a post-modernist mushroom-shaped building in the distance, which is the world-famous Colt Arms Company, which is the main factory designed and built by Earl Samuel Colt himself, and the interior area is very large.

Here it is

The speed of the group slowed slightly, and from a distance, they saw Count Samuel Colt leading the top management of the weapons company to greet them.

"Weichen greets Your Majesty and wishes Your Majesty the Eucharist and good health."

"Excuse me, Your Excellency."

Richard turned over and dismounted in the square at the entrance of the Colt Arms Company, handed the reins of the horse to the guard officer beside him, and said to Samuel Colt with a kind expression; "Let's go, we don't have to stand in this place and blow the cold wind, let's go inside and talk while watching."

"It's better to obey your orders than to be respectful, Your Majesty, please."

Count Samuel-Colt made a gesture of please, and followed closely as Richard strode over, always maintaining a respectful posture one step behind.

After several years of rapid expansion, Colt Arms Company has developed into one of the world's well-known military equipment companies.

With more than 7,600 workers, it is able to produce and manufacture the best-selling Colt 1846 cavalry revolver, Colt 1848 lever-fired repeating rifle, storm heavy machine gun, British licensed 6-pound, 12-pound, 20-pound, 30-pound, 40-pound and 60-pound series of caliber field artillery, deck guns and shore guns, new copper-shell fixed ammunition, Colt double-barreled shotguns, Colt mini rifles and other equipment, and has obtained a large number of orders from European countries, including France and Prussia, which are European army powers.

Among them, the Ottoman Empire alone ordered 30,000 Colt 1848 lever-fired repeating rifles, 12,000 Colt 1846 cavalry-style revolvers, 5.5 million rounds of new copper-shelled fixed ammunition and a large number of army weapons and equipment, which can be seen in its best-selling degree.

The strength of these new weapons and equipment in the Tang Kingdom is an ironclad fact that has been verified by the outstanding achievements of the Yankees in the mountains of corpses and blood, and there is no doubt about it.

The European powers are all masters who are above the top, and they will not easily look down on the industrial capacity of North American countries.

Without the hapless Yankees as a background board, it is impossible for these old European powers to obediently pick out their pockets and place large orders.

Count Samuel Colt was indeed very capable and gifted in the design and production of weapons, and the factory designed by him was spacious, bright and very modern.

Not only that, Count Colt and his engineers personally designed weapons production equipment, bullet production equipment, and realized the industrial production of uniform specifications, which is of great industrial revolutionary significance.

The entire weapons company was able to develop to such a scale today and became famous all over the world, and Count Colt can be said to have played a key role in the military victory of the Tang Kingdom.

After inspecting the circle, looking at the busy workers in the spacious workshop, Richard asked with a smile; "Your Excellency, you won't be busy making money every day, but you will delay scientific and technological research and development, right?"

"Your Majesty, Weichen really feels that he is lacking in skills!" Count Samuel Colt looked distressed.

He is now happy and distressed, holding a contract for 100,000 long and short guns from Europe, and the rapid expansion of weapons companies again and again, still facing the dilemma of insufficient manpower, insufficient equipment, and insufficient production capacity.

Seeing that the Colt Arms Company is about to develop into a world-class military industrial factory with tens of thousands of people, and there are many problems in managing and producing, even a genius like Samuel Colt feels that it is difficult to deal with the anxiety, let alone spare time to develop new weapons.

Richard shook his head in disappointment and said earnestly;

"Your Excellency, you can't do everything alone, and in due time you must let go and let some other talented person help you manage the company and manage production.

Only in this way can we get out of the trivial corporate affairs and engage in the most meaningful weapons research and development.

In the same way, in the research and development of weapons, it is not necessary to do everything personally, as long as we have a good grasp of the direction of research and development and determine the correct scientific research route, some technical work can be completely handed over to the engineer group to complete.

At the point where the Colt Arms Company has developed to the present level, it is necessary to learn to let go and learn to delegate power, as long as it grasps the financial and personnel rights.

According to the original promised equity change agreement, part of the Colt equity of the Royal Family Holding can be partially resold to you, which is a reward for the hard work of His Excellency Earl, and it is also an expectation.

I hope to make the cake of the weapons company bigger, you must know that the Colt Arms Company is only making achievements in the field of long and short guns today, in fact, the biggest cake is artillery.

A large-caliber coastal defense gun can easily cost thousands or even tens of thousands of Tang Yuan, and the British first-class sail battleship is equipped with more than 200 guns, how much is it worth?

This is the largest arms market, don't be blinded!

If the Colt Arms Company wants to really do it, it must intervene in the field of artillery research and development, improve the process, improve the design, as long as it manufactures high-performance artillery, are you afraid that there will be no buyers? Are you still afraid that Colt Arms will not make money? ”

The King's words made Count Samuel Colt's eyes light up, he was originally a very intelligent man, but he was temporarily carried away by interests and could not see the longer term.

The awakening in Richard's words made his head light up at once.

Immediately, Count Samuel Colt realized something, and looked at His Majesty with surprise and delight, full of heat and anticipation.

Most of the best-selling new products of the Colt Arms Company came from the whimsy of His Majesty the King, and then Mr. Colt was responsible for the realization.

Originally, the royal family held an absolute controlling stake in this company, and the king could be regarded as coming up with ideas for his own weapons company, making a large profit, and no one felt that there was anything wrong.

When it comes to weapon design and innovation, creativity is the hardest part, but it's not hard to realize.

In particular, Colt Arms, which has a group of the world's top weapons designers of Samuel Kert, has strong R&D capabilities from idea to realization, such as lever-fired repeating rifles, heavy machine guns, all-metal fixed ammunition, etc.

Of course, Richard didn't have to sell Guanzi, he originally came for the leapfrog development of artillery, revealing some world-leading ideas, and also for the military development of the Tang Kingdom, and by the way, he also made some money.

So, under the earnest and fiery gaze of Count Samuel Colt, Richard put his hands behind his back and said as he walked;

"Artillery technology in today's world has not changed for decades, from the time of Napoleon to the present day, it is still conformist.

As can be seen from the battle of the Red Rock Valley, the power of the artillery seriously lagged behind the new Storm heavy machine gun, and it was not satisfactory in terms of lethal effectiveness, deterrence, range and explosive effect.

According to the summary of the General Staff Headquarters of the Tang Kingdom, there are roughly four shortcomings, which are also important directions for improving artillery in the future.

First, the range of the artillery is too close, and the shooting accuracy is too poor.

The 6-pounder and 12-pounder field guns of the main force, mostly with a range of 600 meters to 1500 meters, have small coverage and poor accuracy, and can only be used for probabilistic fire.

The direction of improvement and improvement should be to strengthen the sealing of the gun latch, enhance the power of gunpowder, improve the accuracy of shooting, and if necessary, the design of rifled guns should be considered, so as to fundamentally change the old and difficult problem of poor shooting accuracy.

Second, the old breech loading method of artillery is no longer suitable for the current battlefield environment.

Whether it is a heavy machine gun or a rifled mini rifle, the range can threaten the artillery at a distance of 800~1 km, and the artillery loading shells under the enemy's guns is tantamount to sending them to death.

The direction of improvement and improvement should be breech loading, which has already been discussed in France and Italy.

If nothing else

Improvements in European artillery will soon be seen, but I hope that Colt Arms will make a mark in this area, and not wait for the Europeans to lead again.

Thirdly, the types of shells.

Today's shells are still solid and shotgun, oh...... By the way, the navies of Britain, France and other countries also have a chain bomb, which is specially designed to attack the masts and sails of sail warships.

Let's be honest

The solid bullets mainly used by this kind of artillery have a pitiful striking effect, and are more of a spiritual comfort, and the killing effect on enemy troops is far less than that of a salvo of storm heavy machine guns and lever rifles.

In this regard

The direction of improvement should be shells that can explode when they land, can we put a fuse on the shell? As long as it hits the ground, it will detonate, forming 10 or even hundreds of steel fragments, and the lethal power will inevitably be greatly increased.

From a technical point of view

This kind of impact fuze belongs to the field of mechanical chemical industry, as long as the design is delicate enough, it can completely replace unreliable shotguns, and can also replace solid bullets with too little power, so as to become the mainstream product of artillery shells.

As for the test in this regard, it is hoped that the company will be able to carry out it secretly, and the Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom will cooperate with the blockade of information and implement a secret research and development plan.

Fourth, the power of explosives.

I suggest that the Colt Arms Company set up a special laboratory and hire a research and development team composed of senior chemists to conduct in-depth research and development.

A reliable and powerful explosive, the demand in today's world is calculated in the tens of thousands of tons, which can fully support a giant chemical company, and the future prospects are extremely broad.

Do you think so, Mr. Earl? ”

Mr. Samuel Colt was stunned at this time, and he was stunned for a moment before he came back to his senses, and his heart was already wrapped in great excitement, and he could imagine what a brilliant prospect this future could be.

Is it hard to implement?

The answer is yes; It's difficult, but it's not untouchable.

Earl Samuel Colt was already incoherent with excitement, and said;

"You speak very well, Your Majesty, what a great prophet you are!

Well...... In the name of the Celtic Arms Company, I will invite leading engineers and chemists from all over the world to form four R&D teams to tackle the scientific and technological problems you mentioned.

I myself will be the chief designer of the new artillery, and I will work on a revolutionary artillery that will surely become the flagship product of the Colt Arms Company and sell well all over the world.

Oh...... By the way, there is also a new type of gunpowder.

Great, that's really great...... We've found the way to go in the future. ”

For Count Samuel-Colt's fiery eyes that were so excited that they glowed, Richard only smiled nobly, and there was a kind of indifference that he had forgotten his merits and fame.

What's there to be excited about this little thing?

In the future, Colt Arms Company will develop into the world's largest military industrial enterprise or the birth of a future chemical giant, and the royal capital will still be the largest controlling shareholder and beneficiary.

Richard didn't come here on such a cold and snowy day to pretend to be forced, but at a critical time, he could not only reap countless huge monetary returns, but also reap the worship of genius weapon designers, which is a win-win situation!

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