The meeting ended, and the conclusion was that we should not pay attention to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for the time being, but we should be prepared for strategic defense. We should not allow the Taiping Army to attack, and we should not allow Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang to get a bargain.

In order to deal with the upcoming foreign invasion, the focus of the work of the Shanghai Army Group is still on expanding the army and training, and all funds, manpower and material resources are tilted towards the army and the arsenal.

Takakura Temple and the Shanghai Army Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau have recently ushered in a huge happy event.

Early in the morning, Li Weiguo, accompanied by Fu Xuexian, came to the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.

"Where is the thing? Where is the thing?" Li Weiguo asked anxiously.

"Just ahead, according to your requirements and design, the 2,000-ton hydraulic press has been tested and the effect is very good. The most difficult barrel can be measured at once. You will no longer have to worry about the sudden surge in the gun barrel on the battlefield. In addition, the speed of using a hydraulic press to forge parts is fast and accurate. Workers can get qualified parts after processing a little more. Now our manufacturing bureau has opened three new Wei Guo rifle production lines, forming assembly lines according to your requirements, and can produce 120 rifles every day, which is more than twenty times faster than before."

Fu Xuexian said with an eloquence, and it was obvious that he was quite excited.

In the past, the manufacturing of rifles was entirely dependent on workers' pure manual work. It took several days for a master who had been in decades to build a rifle, which was far less efficient than the large-scale forging of gun parts in later generations, and it was time-consuming.

Li Weiguo knew very well that in this backward era, once the large-scale forging of guns was realized, it would launch a earth-shaking industrial revolution.

Just imagine that even in this era, even a powerful industrial country like Britain, the British army's p1853 musket production was only 50,000 or 60,000 per year. This is why during the Crimean War, the British army could not change all the most advanced p1853s, and could only use the old p1842 to charge.

If large-scale forging technology and advanced assembly line operations suddenly appear at this time, it will definitely shock the world.

Li Weiguo did it. Although it took him nearly five years to finally build the first hydraulic press. Although this hydraulic press is only 1,000 tons, which is incomparable to later generations of 10,000 tons, he is the world's first hydraulic press for forging and the world's first hydraulic press that can test the barrel pressure. With these two points, it is enough to stand out in the world.

With a thousand-ton hydraulic press, various gun parts can be used for large-scale forging and production in the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau arsenal.

Originally, a craftsman had to be responsible for completing a Chinese-style rifle from beginning to end, but now with a hydraulic press and a lathe with high accuracy, it can be standardized for parts production.

All the best craftsmen were arranged to the final assembly line of the gun. They did not need to build every part of the gun in person. This work was handed over to their apprentices. They were only responsible for assembling all the parts of the gun, eliminating unqualified parts, and completing the final part of the Weiguo rifle.

In this way, a craftsman could make a Chinese-style rifle in several days, but now a craftsman could assemble dozens of Chinese-style rifles in one day, which greatly improved the efficiency.

"Now the arsenal can produce 10,000 Weiguo rifles and 100,000 bullets in a month. This was not something I dared not imagine before!" Fu Xuexian said with an intoxicated look on his face.

After the initial joy, Li Weiguo quickly changed into a heavy expression and said, "It's still not enough!"

"It's not enough?" Fu Xuexian was extremely surprised and asked back: "In a year, 120,000 Chinese-style rifles and 1.2 million bullets can be manufactured. Isn't it enough to deal with the foreigners?"

"Not enough! It's far from enough!" Li Weiguo shook his head seriously and said, "It seems that you have never experienced war personally. I don't know that once a war breaks out, it will be money and consumption. Do you know how many bullets the soldiers need to kill an enemy after they go to the battlefield?"

Li Weiguo's problem made Fu Xuexian stunned for a moment. He suddenly realized that he had never paid attention to this issue before, and couldn't help but say embarrassedly: "It's about two or three bullets!"

"Two or three rounds? Twenty or thirty rounds of bullets can destroy an enemy, I'm so happy!"

Li Weiguo smiled helplessly. If two or three bullets could destroy an enemy, then the War of Resistance Against Japan would not have to be fought for eight years.

This is an indisputable fact. You should know that during World War II, the National Army rifle soldiers needed an average of 500 to 800 bullets to kill a Japanese army, and the US army needed an average of 1,000 to 1,500 bullets to kill a Japanese army. The Eighth Route Army had some bulls, "one bullet to eliminate an enemy." But think about the fact that the Eighth Route Army used old and broken rifles with almost smoothed rifles, and it goes without saying how much moisture was.

Li Weiguo naturally also has a relevant statistical data on the consumption of ammunition and killing enemies in battle by Shanghai soldiers, indicating that the current front-line combat troops of the Shanghai army need an average of fifty bullets to kill an enemy.

"At least fifty bullets destroy an enemy. According to this base, 20 million bullets must be prepared in the arsenal in a year, of which 10 million bullets are used for daily training, and the other 10 million bullets are used for combat readiness!"

Li Weiguo gave the task, Fu Xuexian calculated and said: "According to the current bullet production capacity, ten more rifle bullet production lines need to be added to recruit 20,000 workers!"

"It's accurate. Write a report and I'll sign it for you! The matter of guns and ammunition is urgent!"

"In addition to rifles and bullets, should artillery production be expanded?"

"Of course, the real master of modern warfare is always artillery. After a battle, 80% of the enemies killed were killed directly or indirectly killed by artillery!"

Fu Xuexian thought for a while and asked, "Is it the focus of producing pre-installation or rear-installation?"

Li Weiguo asked: "What, has the rear-loading artillery been successfully developed?"

Fu Xuexian nodded and shook his head, and replied: "According to your instructions, we have been studying post-installation in recent years. There has been progress some time ago, and the airtightness problem has been greatly improved. However, the maximum diameter is only 75 mm. Once the diameter exceeds 75 mm, the airtightness cannot be guaranteed."

"The caliber of seventy mm is also good. How heavy is the shell? How long is the range?"

"Seventy mm caliber, eight-diameter cannon body, and about eight kilograms of heavy flowering bullets can be fired. The farthest can reach three miles!"

Li Weiguo calculated and said, "Eight diameters are shorter, and the power of the shells is not as powerful as the twelve-pound infantry cannon, and the range is sloppy!"

Fu Xuexian agreed: "It's just that the air tightness problem is a bit worse, otherwise it will definitely be much better than the twelve-pound infantry cannons of our army at present. However, there is an advantage of rear-loading guns, which is that they are loading at a fast speed. The integrated shells can be loaded directly from the back. Five rounds can be fired in as fast as three minutes, while the front-loading guns can only be fired once every three minutes."

Li Weiguo nodded and said, "You are right. Three minutes are enough to change the end of the battlefield. If you suddenly use this kind of rear-mounted infantry cannon to deal with the British and French coalition forces, you will definitely be caught off guard. If you use it at a critical moment, you might be able to rewritten the end of the war."

Fu Xuexian asked tentatively: "Then do you mean? To speed up the production of new rear-mounted artillery or to fully produce front-mounted artillery?"

Li Weiguo thought for a while and asked, "How many new rear-loading guns can you produce in a year?"

Fu Xuexian thought for a while and replied: "If you add a few production lines to produce them with all your strength, one hundred doors should be fine."

Li Weiguo frowned and said, "There are only five or six cannons in each town, which is a bit too few!"

Fu Xuexian said: "There are only eight towns in the Shanghai army, and the other eight towns are still new recruits now. Aren't you planning to let them participate in the battle directly and let them defend the city? Just load them with guns in front and give them all the guns in the rear. In this way, each town can get eleven or two guns, although half of the artillery less than the existing artillery regiment. But the firepower is at least five times higher."

Li Weiguo nodded and said, "Yes! But think of a way to make the workers work in three shifts. Each shift is eight hours, working overtime day and night, and striving to produce 200 artillery and 50,000 artillery shells."

Fu Xuexian's mouth suddenly opened wide. This was a difficult task that was not easy to complete when vomiting blood. Two hundred rear cannons and 50,000 shells were loaded, which was the rhythm of vomiting blood!

Li Weiguo patted Fu Xuexian on the shoulder and smiled and said, "Try to complete it. If it is done, I will remember you a first-class merit!"

The Shanghai Army Group has its own independent reward and punishment regulations, and the merits are divided into five levels, one, two, three, four, and five levels. The fifth-class merit is the easiest. Generally, if you win a small-scale battle, you can divide it into a collective fifth-class merit, or if you kill an enemy, you can also give it a fifth-class merit. However, the more you go, the more difficult it is. Second-class merit must be won at least one battle before you can get a share. First-class merit has always been a legendary existence, and no one is qualified to obtain it yet.

Each level of merit corresponds to a generous reward. If you make a fifth-class merit, the bonus is equivalent to three months' salary. The bonus of the fourth-class merit is equivalent to half a year's salary. The third-class merit is one year's salary, the second-class merit is two years' salary, and the first-class merit is five years' salary.

As Li Weiguo's elder brother-in-law, Fu Xuexian naturally did not lack the salary for those five years, but he wanted the first-class merit because he did not want others to say that he was sitting in a high position by relying on his sister's nepotism. He wanted to prove his ability and value.

"Success! I'm going to make up this first-class merit!" Fu Xuexian gritted his teeth and accepted the task.

"I am worthy of being my brother-in-law Li Weiguo. I am very powerful at the critical moment!" Li Weiguo said with a smile and complimented.

Only Fu Xuexian was smiling bitterly. He was just slapping the errands and pretending to be fat. He had no idea whether the errands could be completed.

"Let's go, take me to see our new infantry cannon!"

Li Weiguo laughed and said, "He just gave orders, and his subordinates would naturally have to share the suffering and burdens."

Accompanied by Fu Xuexian, Li Weiguo came to the artillery test site.

From a distance, you could hear deafening sounds of cannons from the test gun field. The test gun personnel were testing the artillery they developed.

Until now, the artillery testers under Li Weiguo's men are still not at the level of expert level. First of all, the Qing Empire did not attach importance to the development of artillery and continued to use the artillery of the generals during the Ming Dynasty. It was not until after the Raven War that they began to study Western artillery, but they started very late, especially the rear-mounted artillery. Even Europe was in an enlightenment state, so naturally it was impossible to have any technology and experience to learn from, and it was all up to one's own exploration.

Although Li Weiguo could design a rear-mounted rifle, he often played with a gun so he understood it thoroughly, but he did not have the chance to play with a cannon, so it was impossible to design a complete modern rear-mounted gun. He could only tell the principle to the artillery researchers and let them find ways to develop a rear-mounted gun by themselves.

For these artillery researchers, they also studied the principles provided by Li Weiguo and developed them bit by bit. During this period, they experienced too many setbacks and blows, and even casualties. Based on the principles of Weiguo rifles, they amplified the caliber bit by bit to conduct research. Weiguo rifles have a 9mm caliber. They made 20mm caliber, 30mm caliber, 40mm caliber, and so on, until 75mm caliber, but the 75mm caliber failed, and finally only developed 70mm caliber infantry guns.

Although it only takes 20mm caliber to 75mm caliber, each caliber gun must correspond to a gun body of different diameters. For example, during the development of a 60mm caliber gun, the cannon body alone has developed 3 diameters, 4 diameters, 5 diameters and 15 diameters. In the end, the 60mm 15 diameter cannon is not airtight enough, either the blow-off or the shell can only hit a distance of several hundred meters, and it is finally declared a failure.

In addition, the corresponding caliber shells must be developed and manufactured for each caliber and caliber artillery. The length and weight of the shells, how much explosives are loaded in the warhead, and how much launching medicine is loaded in the firing headquarters. Continuous experiments and repeated modifications are required. This is a huge and cumbersome project and very dangerous. Because once the gunpowder is released, life will be in danger.

They don’t have much knowledge about artillery, just like Edison, they don’t need theoretical argumentation. They just keep experimenting, failing and then come again. After thousands of experiments, they finally completed the 70mm caliber 8-caliber infantry gun test successfully, meeting the actual combat requirements.

Li Weiguo knew very well how much sweat it took, how hard it was, and how dangerous it was, so he admired and respected these researchers very much. He never laughed at their low education, let alone said that they were stupid.

There are dozens of cannons on the test gun field, which are a combination of various calibers and diameters. Some have long barrels but small muzzles, like tall and thin ones; some have short barrels but large muzzles, like short fat men; and more, there are scraps after the test failed. They have been stored on the test gun field and have not been thrown away, because each gun was made by researchers' hard work, and they have the hard work in it, so they are reluctant to throw it away.

"Reload the shells!"

"Please note the record!"

“3!”

“2!”

“1!”

"fire!"

With a thunderous cannon, a test shell roared and shot towards the distant shooting range. After a few seconds, a blast exploded, and a cloud of fiery red mushrooms rose.

Fu Xuexian wanted to call these researchers to come and greet Li Weiguo, but Li Weiguo stopped him. He didn't want to disturb them, so he just watched from a distance.

Fu Xuexian and a researcher asked for a 70-cannon data, pointed to the cannon being tested in the distance and said, "That was the 70-cannon just now. What do you think?"

Li Weiguo looked at the information and wrote the latest development and testing data of the 70 cannons.

70 guns (Basic data and test gun parameters on December 15th)

Diameter: 70.2 mm

Gun barrel length: 8 times the diameter

Total weight of cannon: 0.25 tons

Total length of cannon: 2.8 meters

Total height of cannon: 0.62 meters

High shooting angle: 60 degrees

Low shooting angle: 10 degrees

Range shooting range: left and right 45 degrees

Types of ammunition: 70mm flowering bullet or shrapnel bullet

Bullet weight: 4 kg (flowering bullet), 3.8 kg shrapnel bullet

Maximum range: 1588 meters

Minimum range: 160 meters

Transportation mode: animal or human drag.
To be continued...