"What are you making there?" Alice asked listlessly, watching Tang Mo who had been sitting still for over an hour, fiddling with the strange parts in his hand.
"If I really had to name it… you could call it… a fuze," Tang Mo replied without taking his eyes off the components in his hands, with a steady gaze.
"A fuze? What's that?" Alice, who had never heard the term, continued to ask with a puzzled look on her face.
"Perhaps it's a switch for some kind of superweapon in the future," Tang Mo said with a smile, threading a part made by Mathews through a spring, carefully attaching it to a device.
What he was currently working on was a percussion fuze, a crucial device for artillery shells, without which a shell would not be able to explode at the most needed time.
In fact, after developing fulminate, Tang Mo had begun working on this device. However, it was clear that the device was too intricate for his factory to mass-produce.
Mathews and a few senior technicians helped make some parts, and then Tang Mo himself made one fuze a day, managing to barely produce a few dozen potentially usable artillery fuzes.
This was why Tang Mo was eager to start producing cannons; he truly had the capacity to create new artillery, which explained his rush to melt down half the cannons from the armed merchant ships, using the steel to manufacture his own cannons.
Tang Mo was aware that he couldn't accomplish everything at once, so the cannons he intended to make weren't exactly cutting-edge.
The blueprint he drew was of the renowned Krupp first-generation breech-loading cannon, specifically the C64 recoil gun.
The recoil gun indeed had many flaws and was an early artillery piece not considered advanced. However, this type of gun had the advantages of a relatively simple structure and lighter weight.
Of course, for Tang Mo, there was another significant advantage of this cannon: it had a low technical barrier to production, making it easier to manufacture!
This cannon used a breech-loading mechanism, which was much more advanced than the widely used front-loading Shireck Automatic Cannon.
Its main feature was the wedge breech block, which utilized a screw-driven wedge. When retracted, the breech block thinned, allowing for easy removal, and when pushed forward, it thickened to achieve a seal.
Different from modern cannons, this breech block was slid out from the side of the barrel, which looked quite strange.
Using breech-loading provided evident advantages in terms of rate of fire and airtightness, so in terms of range, accuracy, and loading speed, Tang Mo's new cannons far surpassed contemporary standards.
According to the paper specs of the Krupp cannon, the C64 field recoil gun had a caliber of only 80 millimeters, or 78 millimeters excluding the rifling— not very large.
Yet, this cannon had an effective range of 3500 meters! That was indeed astonishing. Shireck Automatic Cannons, being front-loading guns, had poor airtightness, and to achieve a similar range, they needed a larger caliber and more propellant.
Moreover, Tang Mo's new artillery used an entirely new shell structure, employing real high-explosive grenades, significantly enhancing their power.
For a front-loading Shireck cannon to compete in range and power with Tang Mo's new artillery, it had to weigh at least two tons. Such heavy artillery had poor mobility and couldn't keep pace with the Troops' movement speed.
Cannons of this size were typically fixed artillery in castle forts, akin to fort cannon. Field artillery that accompanied Infantry could not match the performance of the C64 cannon, no matter what.
Another reason Tang Mo chose this type of cannon was due to its transport mobility as field artillery.
At the very least, it was the type of field cannon he could produce that was most suitable in terms of weight and power.
The full weight of the Krupp C64 field cannon was 1.1 tons, which was an appropriate weight for horse-drawn transport.
Furthermore, this cannon came with a small cart for ammunition, which connected for easy transportation, marking a fairly successful early artillery design.
In a newly built factory, brand-new steam machines were creating new barrels. Tang Mo was preparing to manufacture a batch of new cannons before the war arrived to give those arrogant enemies a big surprise.
With breech-loading cannons and the new grenades, given another month, Tang Mo could definitely form a powerful artillery force capable of changing the course of the war.
While relying solely on weaponry is not correct, if there is a generational gap in weaponry, its power can indeed overwhelm the enemy's bravery.
Named by Tang Mo as Type 1 Cannon, the barrel length of this artillery was 1930 millimeters, about 24 calibers long, and the weight of the entire barrel was 285 kilograms. Its elevation ranged from -6.5 to +20 degrees, with a traverse of 5 degrees.
The high-explosive shells it fired weighed 4.3 kilograms with 170 grams of propellant. As for another type, the shrapnel shell, Tang Mo had no intention of manufacturing it, as just working on the grenades had nearly exhausted him.
The muzzle velocity of the cannon's ammunition was 357 m/s, with fairly standard specifications. Due to manufacturing tolerances, Tang Mo estimated this cannon's maximum range to be about 3300 meters, not reaching Krupp's claimed 3500 meter maximum range. Nonetheless, this was an intimidating distance of over three kilometers.
Tang Mo estimated that, while ensuring the production quantity of the K1 Quick Gun and the Revolver, he could produce six C64 recoil field cannons in a month.
These cannons would allow him to form an artillery company capable of effectively supporting his new recruits in combat. With these cannons and K1 Quick Gun revolvers, his new recruits had no problem trouncing opponents three times their number.
"What kind of mess are you up to now... Forget it if you don't want to tell me." Alice asked for disappointment, her voice tinged with a touch of resentment.
"It just so happens that this mess is what saved your beloved Northern Ridge." Tang Mo didn't indulge the beauty, setting aside an assembled fuse he had been working on and shaking his slightly sore fingers.
Having said that, he turned to Alice: "Speaking of which, you've been here for 5 days already. Why haven't you gone back to Northern Ridge?"
John and his remaining four ships had left Brunas two days ago, their departure marked by tearful reluctance.
If one didn't know about his relationship with Tang Mo, they might actually believe the two of them were close friends who had shared many hardships together over the years.
Before leaving, John had reassured Tang Mo that he would return to Brunas with even more Gold Coin within four months at the latest, to settle the debt between them.
Of course, what truly brought John to tears were the contents of those four armed merchant ships: parts for two steam engines, one fully assembled steam engine for mining use, 100 K1 Quick Guns, 200 revolvers, and their respective ammunition.
Additionally, there were the most valuable items: the design blueprints for the steam engines and their associated machine tools, the design blueprints and material parameters for the K1 Quick Guns and revolvers, as well as a family of three full power technical representatives dispatched by the Great Tang Group.
What he took with him was his hope for promotion and wealth, as well as his hope for the revival of the Poplar Kingdom! Meanwhile, the 11 armed merchant ships he left behind, along with more than 400 Elf slave sailors and all the proceeds from this sea trade, were Tang Mo's hope...
"What, you're not happy to have me?" Alice had grown accustomed to Tang Mo, the man of steel, in the past two days, hence she wasn't as puffed up with anger. On the contrary, she played to her natural female advantages, feigning ignorance and acting cute, which had Tang Mo somewhat at a loss.
Seeing that Tang Mo was determined not to talk, she continued: "Actually, I'll be leaving soon too. The 20 steam engines you promised me have already been delivered in batches, with 15 shipped out. I've written to my father telling him that I'll follow the last batch back to Northern Ridge."
"You're leaving?" Hearing that the clingy and beautiful girl was going back to Northern Ridge, Tang Mo suddenly felt a sense of joy as if he were being released from a sentence.
"You seem very pleased." His joy was so obvious that after he spoke, Alice detected a hint in his words that irked her.
Tang Mo quickly feigned a dejected look: "No, of course not, I'm very regretful. I won't be able to see a beautiful girl like you anymore; I'll be very despondent."
"Your acting is really terrible!" Alice complained dissatisfied.
"I'm not acting." Tang Mo argued.
Alice angrily presented her evidence: "The corners of your mouth are almost split up to your ears!"
"How is that possible, I'm not a snake." Tang Mo was unfazed by her accusation and continued to refute.
"You're still laughing!" Alice pretended to be angry.
Tang Mo persisted in his denial, which was one of his ultimate tactics against Alice: "No, it's just because I remembered something funny."
"Don't get too happy too soon!" Alice revealed a mischievous smile.
"Why?" Tang Mo was taken aback, instinctively sensing danger.
Sure enough, Alice suddenly began speaking with a triumphant tone: "Because I lied to you! I didn't write to my father! I'm going to stay here and see what kind of mess you're really up to."
Tang Mo slapped his hand onto his face, covering his eyes—he knew that the most difficult thing to deal with in the world was not the F22 Raptor Fighter trailing behind his own aircraft, but women.
Before his transport to this world, he had many women, all kinds: beautiful, enchanting, sexy, wild. But the woman who left a scar that could not heal for a long time, was only one.
Whenever Tang Mo thought of that woman, he would have a moment of trance. There weren't many good women in the world, and even fewer who would willingly die for a man... Regrettably, Tang Mo had met one and lost her.
Just as Alice was making Tang Mo think of the blurry figure of the woman he could never meet again, a fast horse dashed through the streets of Brunas town like a bolt of lightning.
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7 updates today, Dragon Spirit needs a break. The remaining draft is a bit messy and needs to be sorted out, I'll continue posting tonight, aiming for 10 updates today!
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