Anti-Qing: Starting from the Jintian Uprising

Chapter 429 New Weapons

That's what politics is.

I know that many things are unnecessary, but I still have to do them.

Even do it in a big way!

Zhao Wensheng continued.

"This is the grace of God from above!"

"North Korea, everyone, will keep this in mind and never forget it!"

Li Yi nodded slightly, and then continued to talk to Zhao Wensheng for a while.

I asked about the health of the King of North Korea, the recent political changes in North Korea, and expressed concern about the cultural development of North Korea.

After chatting about trivial things for a while, he waved his hand to signal Zhao Wensheng to leave.

Li Yi’s main focus now is on Southeast Asia.

I don’t care much about the situation in North Korea!

As long as North Korea does not jump out and actively seek death and provoke the Tang Dynasty, Li Yi will just treat North Korea as air.

Well, he has no intentions towards North Korea in the short term anyway.

The main reason is that North Korea is too sensible. Since the Ming Dynasty, it has always been a good boy of the Central Plains father.

When the Tang Dynasty was founded, Korea sent people to pay tribute to the country. Every year during the holidays, tribute teams would come from Korea.

This time, North Korea suffered a loss at the hands of Spain and wanted Tang Dynasty to help it. Tang Dynasty only tentatively expressed the hope that North Korea could bear the military expenses of this war, and North Korea agreed without any hesitation.

North Korea is too sensible, so Li Yi really has no interest in them!

Unlike Japan, Li Yi still wants to train her.

After Zhao Wensheng left, Li Yi continued to handle government affairs.

Soon, he reviewed a report sent by the Military Intelligence Department.

This is a report on the situation in Crimea!

According to the information currently collected by the Military Intelligence Department, the war situation in Crimea is not showing any signs of ceasefire and talks, but is instead becoming increasingly intense.

After Tsarist Russia's successful counterattack in Crimea.

Both parties involved in the war have chosen to continue to escalate their attacks on Crimea!

The British House of Representatives has passed the latest conscription order.

France rejected Tsarist Russia's request for peace talks.

Tsarist Russia also sent more troops to Crimea.

If Li Yi guessed correctly, the fight in Crimea would probably continue for a while.

This is undoubtedly good news for the Tang Dynasty.

For Li Yi, fight, fight, it would be better if Western countries beat people's brains into dog brains.

The more intensely they fight, the longer the window of opportunity will be for Tang Dynasty to stabilize its internal situation and expand externally.

Li Yi was only afraid that they would cease fire, not that they would fight fiercely.

If they could continue fighting, then the Tang Dynasty's arms business might be able to continue.

Soon, Li Yi came across a report sent by Foshan Arsenal and Jingshan Arsenal.

In this report, both arsenals stated that they had received arms orders from Britain, France and Tsarist Russia.

The purpose of writing a report is to ask for instructions on whether to take it over.

Li Yi pondered for a moment and then approved it.

But at this moment, Li Liang, director of the Military Intelligence Department, asked for a meeting.

Li Liang spoke immediately after seeing Li Yi.

"Your Majesty, the latest news."

"The Spanish Minister Cotero and the Dutch Minister Andre went to the British Embassy together."

"The British Minister Bruce and the French Minister Baldwin received them together."

Upon hearing this, Li Yi stopped what he was doing, looked up and asked.

"Do you know what they said?"

Li Liang heard this and shook his head.

"I don't know!"

"But when Cotero and Andre left the British Embassy, ​​they both had smiles on their faces. It is likely that they received some promises from Britain and France."

Li Yi narrowed his eyes upon seeing this and said in a cold voice.

"check!"

"Check it out for me!"

"I want to know whether England and France have made any promises to the Netherlands and Spain."

Upon hearing this, Li Liang nodded in agreement and then stepped back.

Li Yi rubbed his eyebrows.

After thinking for a moment, Li Yi made comments on the report in hand.

[I hereby order that the arms order from Tsarist Russia can be accepted.]

【But the orders from Britain and France will be delayed for now.】

Li Yi didn't know what Britain and France had done.

But this does not prevent Li Yi from taking advantage of the convenience of arms trade to strike a blow first.

Anyway, regarding the arms trade, it was Britain and France that needed help from the Tang Dynasty.

Instead of the Tang Dynasty needing help from Britain and France, if we delay, perhaps we will get unexpected gains?
Thinking about this, Li Yi continued to handle government affairs.

……

Soon, Li Yi issued instructions regarding the arms trade.

Britain and France received news that the Tang Dynasty had rejected the order they had placed.

Looking at the receipt from the Tang Dynasty, Baldemi, holding a cigar, had a serious expression on his face.

"I don't understand why Tang State rejected our order this time?"

"Weren't the previous orders all going well?"

He took a deep breath, and the cigar head flickered.

On the other side, Bruce took a deep breath.

"It may be that our plan to support the Netherlands and Spain was discovered by the Tang Kingdom."

Apart from this, Bruce really couldn't think of any other possibility.

Upon hearing this, Baldemi couldn't help but gasp.

“Not many people know about this.”

"In such a short time, no matter how powerful the Tang intelligence agency is, it shouldn't be able to know it!"

Bruce also looked solemn.

Because he also couldn't figure out how the Tang Dynasty knew that Britain and France sided with the Netherlands and Spain.

Unconsciously, the two even felt a chill on their backs, feeling as if they were being watched all the time.

This feeling is really bad!
Baldmi asked.

"Minister Bruce, so, should we continue to help the Netherlands and Spain?"

Baldwin regretted it.

Bruce pondered for a long time with a serious expression, then shook his head and said.

"We have been told by the mainland that no matter what we do in the Far East, we must make concessions for the situation in Crimea."

“Whatever we do, it must not affect Crimea.”

"We should not get involved in the conflict between the Tang Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain this time."

What about the Netherlands and Spain?
There’s nothing we can do, we just have to call it bad luck!
Baldmi took a deep breath and then spoke.

"That's all we have to do."

After they finished speaking, the two looked at each other in silence.

……

The twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month in the first year of Kaitai.

As the end of the year approached, Li Yi left the Old Summer Palace and went to inspect the Jingshan Arsenal outside the capital.

The reason why he set out for Jingshan Arsenal was because Jingshan Arsenal submitted a report to Li Yi.

They have made a new breakthrough in weapons research and development! Therefore, Li Yi set out to inspect in person and prepare to personally verify the new equipment.

When Li Yi arrived outside the arsenal, Wu Zhong, the person in charge of Jingshan Arsenal, was already waiting outside the arsenal.

After seeing Li Yi, he immediately stepped forward and saluted.

"I am here to see you, Your Majesty."

Li Yi reached out and helped Wu Zhong up, then spoke.

"You don't have to be so polite. Take me to the arsenal for a tour!"

Jingshan Arsenal had just been established not long ago, and this was Li Yi's first visit.

Upon hearing this, Wu Zhong nodded immediately.

"Your Majesty, please come this way!"

As he spoke, he walked in front to lead the way for Li Yi.

The two men walked into the arsenal, and Wu Zhong introduced the various facilities in the factory as they walked.

Including factories, warehouses, canteens, dormitories, conference rooms, entertainment centers, etc.

Jingshan Arsenal has everything!

Soon, the two of them came to the weapons testing site together.

"Your Majesty, although our Jingshan Arsenal was established only a short time ago, its technical reserves are no worse than those in Foshan."

"In accordance with His Majesty's instructions, we have successfully developed a new rifle."

"Because this rifle was finalized in the year 4553 of the Kaiyuan calendar, we named it the Type 53 bolt-action rifle."

"The rifle has a body length of 1300 mm, a barrel length of 800 mm, and an empty gun weight of 4.5 kg."

"This rifle adopts a built-in magazine design with a capacity of five rounds. It is suitable for 7.62mm caliber metal fixed bullets, and the bolt adopts a rotating rear-pull design."

"In addition, it is equipped with corresponding accessories such as bayonets, gun belts, sights, dust covers, etc."

"The rifle has an effective range of 400 meters and its accuracy is quite excellent."

Upon hearing this, Li Yi nodded with satisfaction.

As of now, the performance of the Type 53 bolt-action rifle finalized and mass-produced by Datang is no worse than the famous Type 88 committee rifle in history.

Even better!

"Give me one, let me try my hand!"

As soon as Li Yi finished speaking, Wu Zhong nodded in agreement.

Then he took out a Type 53 rifle and handed it to Li Yi.

Li Yi took the rifle, weighed it in his hand first, and then pulled the bolt to check.

The overall texture of this gun is quite good!

The walnut stock is polished very smoothly and painted with tung oil. The trigger, bolt and other components are also very delicate and feel completely free of burrs.

After a quick inspection, Li Yi picked up a few bullets and loaded them himself.

After completing the loading and pulling the bolt to load the gun, Li Yi raised his gun and aimed forward.

Then pull the trigger!

Snapped!
With a crisp sound, a target fell to the ground.

Li Yi pulled the bolt, the metal shell flew out, and then he loaded the gun again.

Snapped!
There was another crisp sound, and the target fell to the ground.

After firing five shots in succession and hitting the target with every shot, Li Yi put down the rifle in his hand and nodded slightly, feeling satisfied with his talent in shooting.

Then, Xiaoxiao said.

"Haha, the Type 53 bolt-action rifle has good performance. How much does it cost?"

Wu Zhong spoke.

"In reply to your Majesty, the current cost of a Type 53 bolt-action rifle is about thirty silver dollars."

"However, once the production line is rolled out and the output increases, the R&D investment will be spread out, and the cost should be able to be reduced to around 10 silver dollars, or even lower."

Upon hearing this, Li Yi nodded in understanding.

"Very good. In that case, let's mass produce and equip the army as soon as possible."

"By the way, expand a few more bullet production lines in the arsenal as soon as possible. After our army is equipped with Type 53 bolt-action rifles in large quantities, the consumption of metal fixed ammunition will inevitably increase greatly."

"With today's production capacity, I'm afraid it's not enough."

While saying this, Li Yi subconsciously rubbed his shoulder which was hurt by the recoil of the rifle.

In fact, after the use of smokeless gunpowder in rifle bullets, the rifle caliber of 7.62 is a bit large.

The 6.5 caliber of the Japanese Type rifle is actually more suitable for Asians.

However, the caliber of Datang's current rotary machine gun is 7.62.

In order to achieve the compatibility of rifle and machine gun bullets and facilitate logistics, the caliber of rifles is larger.

Upon hearing this, Wu Zhong immediately nodded to show that he understood.

No matter whether the emperor's instructions make sense or not, just follow them.

Questioning is what a remonstrator should do!

It has nothing to do with him.

Li Yi continued to inspect other new weapons.

Wu Zhong continued to introduce to Li Yi.

"Your Majesty, this is a Type 53 cavalry rifle."

"Compared with the Type 53 rifle, the main difference is that the length of the rifle is much shorter, making it easier to use on horseback."

"The lance is only 650mm long, half the length of a rifle, but because of this, the range of the Type 53 lance is shorter than that of the Type 53 rifle."

"The effective range is only 300 meters!"

Hearing this, Li Yi just nodded.

Li Yi didn't care much about the fact that the lance had a shorter range than a rifle.

Because when a cavalryman is riding on horseback, it makes no difference whether you shoot from 300 meters or 400 meters away.

Because it's impossible to hit the target!

So, it’s not that big of a deal!

"Your Majesty, this machine gun is designated as the Type 53 machine gun."

"This is an improvement we made on the original Yuannian machine gun."

"The most important improvement is the weight of the whole gun. We have redesigned and simplified the overall structure of the Yuannian machine gun, reducing the weight of the whole gun from 80 kilograms to 52 kilograms."

"Even with the machine gun base, the overall weight does not exceed 100 kilograms."

"Greatly increases the mobility of the heavy machine gun!"

"In addition, the firing rate of this machine gun has also been increased from six barrels to eight barrels, and from the original 8 rounds per minute to 300 rounds per minute, making the fire suppression effect more prominent."

Li Yi nodded slightly, and then personally tried out the improved version of the rotary machine gun.

Listening to the rattling sound of machine gun fire, Li Yi had an obvious smile on his face.

Then, Wu Zhong continued to introduce.

"Then, there is this new machine gun."

"The overall structure of this machine gun is completely different from the previous rotary machine guns that required people to rotate the barrel for continuous firing. This machine gun uses gunpowder gas as energy to drive the bolt structure to feed ammunition."

"In other words, this is a completely epoch-making automatic weapon."

"The caliber of this machine gun is 11.43 mm, the gun weighs 65 kg, and it adopts a short-recoil automatic mode with a water-cooled barrel."

"The ammunition is fed by a 333-meter-long canvas belt with a capacity of 6.4 rounds. The belt can be connected continuously, and the theoretical maximum rate of fire is 600 rounds per minute."

"You can fire single shots, or you can fire continuously for suppressive fire, and you can even adjust the firing rate to a slow rate of fire, firing at a rate of 100 rounds per minute."

"..."

In front of Li Yi was a heavy machine gun similar to the Maxim machine gun.

However, this is actually the research and development result of Jingshan Arsenal itself.

In order to improve the research and development capabilities of the Tang Dynasty Arsenal, Li Yi only gave them a general design idea.

As for the specific drawings and design plans, they were all handled by the technicians at Jingshan Arsenal.

And the results are quite good!

……

PS: That’s just one chapter today.

(End of this chapter)