Valley Emperor

The successful development of the wooden delay fuze has greatly stimulated the 6th Army and the Navy. Whether it is Lieutenant General Lei Wan of the 6th Army or Lieutenant General Bao Yifen of the Navy, they are all clamoring for equipment as soon as possible. This new type of artillery shell has made the 6th Army and Navy of the Tang Dynasty truly a big bomb!

And Li Xuan is very pleased with the performance of the 6th Army and the Navy. Pursuing technological progress and more powerful weapons, such generals are good generals.

If it is a general who says that fighting with grenades is not benevolent, too cruel, or does not conform to the traditions of the Tang military, Li Xuan promises to kill him.

However, it is not realistic for the 6th Army and the Navy to equip new-style howitzers in a short period of time.

Because the current new-style howitzer is still in the early stage of testing, and although the live ammunition test has been successful, it still exposes many problems, especially the inability to accurately determine the detonation time, which is very serious, Bi Zifei said. Subsequent improvements will continue.

In the later stage, a large number of tests are still needed to be finalized. At the same time, the three major arms companies also need to organize relevant arsenals to carry out equipment transformation and construction of production lines, which will not be rushed for a while.

However, large-scale equipment is more difficult, and small-scale trial production is not a problem, but these shells produced in small batches in advance cannot be obtained by the 6th Army or the Navy.

Because there is a guard in front of them!

The special nature of the Guards gives them priority to equip all new ordnance!

In particular, some of the ordnance equipment or materials that are in short supply are basically given priority to supply the Guards. After the Guards are equipped, it will be the turn of the 6th Army and the Navy.

The previous nine-jin artillery was like this, the plate armor was like this, and the flintlock gun was like this!

Of course, the Guards who were the first to equip these new weapons, to some extent, also took up the task of conducting large-scale testing of the new weapons. Improve one by one.

After returning from the Royal Institute of Technology, Li Xuan was in a good mood. On the way, he also discussed with Bao Yifen about the iron-hulled battleship.

What Li Xuan said at the beginning, since the new grenade has come out, in the follow-up naval battle, our naval guns can directly blast the enemy's wooden battleship into pieces by shooting grenades, but conversely, if the enemy is also equipped with If the grenade is used, then the wooden battleship of his own will also face the same threat.

In order to solve this threat, it is necessary to improve the defensive performance of the warship!

And to improve defensive performance, what better than steel?

For Li Xuan's idea, Bao Yifen was quite shocked at first, because since ancient times, ships were built with wood, and battleships were built with steel? This sounds a little unreliable.

How much steel is heavy, if this is a battleship, can it still float on the water? Will it just sink in the water?

Although Bao Yifen also has a certain amount of scientific knowledge and knows about water buoyancy, but steel is too heavy, can a hull made of steel float?

In addition, there are several problems, that is, if the battleship made of steel is so heavy, it may be very difficult to propel the sails!

Then there is a more critical issue, and that is the issue of cost.

Steel is not cheap these days, let alone steel, even if it is ordinary iron, the price is not cheap. If a ship is built with steel, how much will it cost to build?

For Bao Yifen's many worries, Li Xuan didn't care, and said on the spot: "Although these problems exist objectively, they are not impossible to solve. You can just wrap a layer of steel on the wooden hull of the battleship. It's not for you to build a whole warship out of steel, just a layer of steel, which can effectively improve the protection ability, especially the protection ability against grenades, and also control the cost and weight!"

Hearing what Li Xuan said, Bao Yifen also immediately came up with the appearance of such a battleship. This is a battleship wrapped in steel armor. It was indifferent to the bombardment of the enemy's various artillery shells and fired calmly. , the grenade hits the enemy's wooden battleship, and then explodes to smash the enemy's battleship!

Thinking of this scene, he couldn't help but get excited!

Immediately, he said loudly: "Your Majesty Shengming, the steel battleship proposed by His Majesty will definitely be able to kill the Quartet, and I, the Great Tang Navy, are just around the corner!"

Li Xuan nodded slightly after listening. If the steel warships could not kill a single sailing warship, then the generals of the Datang Navy could commit suicide collectively.

Bao Yi went back excitedly, preparing to discuss various matters of the steel battleship with the generals within the navy, and was preparing to let the shipbuilding department of the Ship Administration Department start the preliminary design of the steel battleship.

Li Xuan didn't expect to see any steel battleships soon, even if it was an experimental battleship, it would take many years to see it. As for large-scale equipment, he still didn't know when.

In Li Xuan's conception, the combination of grenades, steel hulls, and steam engines will constitute the core main force of the future Datang fleet. There are only one or two of them. Although they also have huge strategic advantages, they are still lacking. Some.

At the same time, considering that the main enemies of the Datang Navy, in addition to those pirates, should be the Portuguese, and in the later period, the Spaniards, the British and the Dutch should be added.

As for the broken ships of the East Asian natives, whether in the past, now, or in the future, they have not been taken seriously by the Datang Navy, and their threat to the Datang Navy is not even as great as those pirates!

There are a lot of pirates these days. Even after the severe crackdown by the Datang Navy in recent years, a lot of pirates have been wiped out, but this is only limited to the coastal waters of the Datang.

But are those pirates gone?

not at all!

Some of those pirates went to Fusang and the coast of North Korea, while more went to the South China Sea.

And these pirates who ran out are still alive and well, because despite the rise of the Tang Dynasty and foreign trade, the maritime trade in the East Asian waters is prospering day by day!

On various routes in East Asia, except for the coast of Datang and the waters near Malacca, there are basically active pirates in other sea areas, and the composition of these pirates is becoming more and more complex.

In the past, when we talked about pirates in East Asia, we basically talked about Japanese pirates, while Japanese pirates were basically people from Fusang and people from the coast of China. It could even be said that Chinese people were the main components of the pirates in East Asia before.

But now, the pirates in East Asia can no longer be said to be all Japanese pirates. The composition of pirates is quite complicated. There are still a large part of the Huaxia people who take the risk. There are also Fusang people, even the Koreans and even the natives of the South China Sea. Even some Indians, Arabs and even European pirates have heard about the prosperity of East Asian maritime trade, and they have come over to make money!

This also makes the piracy activities in the South China Sea quite rampant!

Let the Datang Navy and the Portuguese fleet have a headache every day to protect the safety of the route.

The Datang Navy's side is not bad. The main force of the Datang Navy is basically concentrated in the local coast and the Ryukyu waters. The pirates will not go to these two seas to make money.

But the Portuguese are quite a headache, because now pirates are widely active in the South China Sea, and there are many islands in the South China Sea, giving the pirates many natural hiding places, and the Portuguese siege fleet often plays catch and hide.

This also forced the merchant ships to act in groups, and basically followed a fixed route, and other sea areas did not dare to go easily.

At the same time, the sales of the 680 series of merchant ships that gave birth to the Tang Dynasty are increasing day by day. Domestic shipowners have purchased this series of armed merchant ships. Even merchants from other countries are seeking to obtain this type of ship. .

The 680 Merchant Ship, as an innovative product of Datang Shipbuilding Industry, has the characteristics of fast sailing, flexible maneuverability and high firepower.

But in the context of rampant pirates, it is better to transport a little less cargo than to be robbed in the middle!

Being able to arrive at the destination safely is the core element of maritime trade in this era!

Nowadays, the powerful shipyards of the Tang Dynasty have basically started to give up the construction of old-fashioned blessing ships, and have started to build the 680 series merchant ships.

And the tonnage is no longer limited to 680 tons, and the design details in various aspects are also different, but each shipyard has launched different tonnages, the small one may only be two or three hundred tons, while the medium one has four Five hundred tons, and the larger ones have seven or eight hundred tons.

Hong Kong Dingsheng Shipyard, which is a subsidiary of the Royal Assets Section, which owns many technical patents for this ship type, did not hide it, but basically opened it up for technical authorization.

As long as domestic shipyards give money or exchange for other things, they will authorize technology, regardless of whether it is a shipyard under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises or a private shipyard. ~www.wuxiaspot.com~ However, the situation of technical authorization is only limited In the area controlled by the Tang Dynasty, in foreign countries, people did not need technical authorization at all, and they copied it directly, which made the Dingsheng shipyard quite angry.

In more than one occasion, the person in charge condemned the Portuguese shipyards in Malacca for imitating the 680 series merchant ships without obtaining the technical authorization of their heyday shipyards.

Officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also protested against the Portuguese, and the Portuguese said directly: Patent? What is that, can I eat it?

Good thing, except for the Tang Dynasty, other countries have no perfect patent system at all!

In the face of such a country with no patent awareness, the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were quite helpless. Later, they simply asked the court in Guangzhou to send a court summons to the Portuguese shipyard in Malacca, saying that you had violated the Datang Patent Law. , and was accused in court, be sure to arrive at the Datang Guangzhou Court within a limited time limit to respond!

The Portuguese people certainly do not bird this court summons!

As a result, the Guangzhou court issued a huge fine directly and sent it to Malacca. Needless to say, the Portuguese people would admit that the fine amounted to 500,000 taels only when they were very smart, and created the Tang Dynasty. Dynasty's precedent for fines against foreign companies!

However, this was also within the expectation of the Guangzhou court. Then, the matter was stabbed. Soon after, the Central Court issued an injunction on the matter: prohibiting the citizens of the Tang Dynasty and any registered establishment in the Tang Dynasty. Company purchases non-domestic ships!

And smart people must have seen it, this move is actually playing trade protection!

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