Iron Dynasty - Chapter 1048

Ten days had passed since Xiao Ming received the battle report on Manila.

After carefully studying the minutiae on the battle report, his brow furrowed deeply. First of all, the Dutch dug a deep trench during the landing operation. This trench even required the Dutch to step on a bench to get his head out of the trench. .

This trench reminded him of the contemporary trenches during World War I, when the two sides of World War I used this trench to confront each other.

And the node of this kind of deep trench is also the appearance of machine guns and the increase in the power of artillery. Now all this seems to be repeating. The only good news is that even if there are trenches in the West, there are no machine guns and guard artillery. Weapons, otherwise the war would really become a meat grinder.

However, he was not surprised that the Dutch used the fire hedgehog to fight back against the imperial soldiers, which caused the increase in wounding, because a normal commander would think of this method.

However, if the deep trench and this shooting method are used, it is still a headache when tackling tough points. Of course, he believes that the imperial soldiers will win the final victory, but the casualties will increase relatively, which he does not want to see. , Because any soldier is extremely precious now.

After all, the empires stalls are now very large. The occupied Goryeo and the country need to be stationed, and the colonies need to be maintained by soldiers. The aboriginals there are civilizations that are still in the barbaric era and will not be reasonable at the negotiating table with you, tribal leader Depending on your preferences, you may declare war at any time.

In addition, the land war between the empire and Tsarist Russia has not really begun, and the regional situation there is more complicated after crossing the Tianshan Mountains, whether it is Iran, which is still known as Persia, or Afghanistan, which is known as the Durani Dynasty, and the huge The Ottoman Empire is not easy to deal with, plus a Tsarist Russia, here will become a gunpowder barrel at any time, it will explode at one point.

So when he talked with Yue Yun, his own idea was to slow down the speed of expansion. Compared with the colonial system established by the Europeans for more than 200 years, he did it in just a few years.

As the so-called greed is too much to chew, he is now facing this problem. The vast territory is laid down, but the construction on it is almost zero. In this way, these lands cannot provide any help to the empires economy, and this is Not happy to comment.

Now every war is a huge consumption of bullets and ammunition. The large-scale mining of domestic copper mines can indeed meet the current use, but it is a fool not to dig resources for the hard-fought turf.

Moreover, the empire now has mature ironclad ship construction technology. The next step is the construction of large steam merchant ships. As a result, the empires maritime transport capacity will explode, which will make it easier for overseas resources to be transported to the country.

More importantly, even if he defeated the Western troops in Nanyang, he would not be able to land in Europe and attack Europe.

If it reaches the level of landing operations, the potential for war erupting in Europe is still terrifying, and trench warfare will turn war into a protracted war, which he can’t afford.

Therefore, the next battle is still the battle for colonies and the maritime war in the process of establishing maritime hegemony.

Thinking of this, he gave Yue Yun an order to destroy the Western warships in the Indian Ocean after capturing Jagheda.

This time with Yue Yuns battle report, Wang Xuan also provided information. He has already learned that Western troops are gathering in India to initiate a war to retake Singapore, and at the same time prevent the empire from taking India.

It’s just that in Xiao Ming’s eyes, Westerners once again guessed wrong about the actions he might take.

With the iron armored fleet, he wouldnt silly run to confront them and want to attack Singapore. At least their warships must be able to reach Singapore. Under the empires maritime hegemony, its idiotic to want to attack the empires colonies. , And the soldiers in India will wait indefinitely for ships to pick them up.

As he was thinking evilly, a footstep suddenly sounded.

After a while, Qian Dafu watched Chen Qi arrive at the Imperial Study Room and bowed a salute. Chen Qi said: “The emperor, the improvement of the mortar gun has been completed, and the next official specially came to report to the emperor.”

“So fast.” Xiao Ming was slightly surprised, then smiled, “Yes, yes, soldiers fighting in Nanyang now need this artillery very much.”

After that, he got up and walked out, “Go, let me see the effect.”

Chen Qi followed with a smile, and when he arrived at the military workshop, he asked the technicians of the military factory to take out a short artillery.

“Emperor, this is an improved mortar. Now this mortar no longer needs to be carried by two people. One soldier can carry it and run.” Chen Qi pointed to the green painted short-barreled gun in front of him.

Xiao Ming nodded in satisfaction. In fact, mortars were the predecessors of mortars, and they were all curved artillery.

After the Guardian artillery appeared, he asked Chen Qi to improve the mortar, and the current mortar finally looked like a mortar.

“My lord, now this mortar cannon weighs 9.4 kg, the carriage weighs 5.8 kg, the shell weighs 2.18 kg, the effective kill radius is 17.8 meters, the maximum range is 2,000 meters, and the caliber is 82 mm. Use it to attack enemies hidden behind obstacles. The effect is good.” Chen Qi said with a smile.

In fact, he wanted to improve the mortar gun before, but the quality of alloy steel at that time was not good. Now with the advent of electricity, the School of Chemistry uses pressurized condensation technology to produce pure oxygen, which makes the quality of the oxygen blowing of the electric furnace greatly improved. The improvement of ~~ has improved the quality of refined steel.

“The most important thing about a mortar is a shell. Is this shell qualified?” Xiao Ming didn’t praise Chen Qi immediately, but continued to ask.

Chen Qi said to the technician at this time, and then a box of mortar shells was moved in front of him.

Xiao Ming picked up an artillery shell and observed it. The firing of the mortar was different from the guards’ artillery.

To put it simply, the firing of a mortar relies on the mass of the shell itself to make the primer hit the firing pin at the bottom of the barrel. When the primer is fired, the basic tube at the tail of the shell is ignited, so that the shell can explode with smokeless powder. The power shoots a long way, and then uses the shell head fuze to bottom out and ignite the explosive, which eventually explodes.

Because of this principle, the difficulty of a mortar is higher than that of ordinary shells. It is mainly composed of four parts: the shell, the tail, the bottom basic tube and the fuze. At the same time, the shell of the shell has a closed gas ring to make the shell. It fits perfectly with the barrel, and the shells Xiao Ming is holding now meet the standards of mortar shells.

Tsk his tongue, Xiao Ming said with emotion that the empire’s industrial capabilities have really advanced by leaps and bounds, and now many technical bottlenecks in the technology spar are disappearing.