Chapter 163: 163 The beginning of troubled times
Chapter 163 Chapter 163 The Beginning of Troubled Times
At the same time when the war between the Orc Kingdom of Gales and the Elf Kingdom of Yangmu Kingdom resumed, and the Yangmu Kingdom once again moved north to attack the orcs relying on its superiority in weapons, Tang Mo stood on the slipway, holding his arms around Countess Allie of Beiling. Si's slim waist looked at the giant steel ship in front of her slowly leaving the slipway.
This battleship is the first ship in human history to be driven entirely by steam power, and it is also the first battleship to be driven by steam power!
Its service marks that Datang Group has officially joined the queue for maritime hegemony. Moreover, Datang Group has just joined this queue and has reached the front row...
Equipped with three 120-caliber naval guns and 12 75-mm caliber side guns, the steel battleship fundamentally changed the world's maritime power balance as soon as it entered the water.
(Long Ling would like to explain here that the caliber of the C64 field gun is 78 mm. Previously, some of Long Ling’s calibers were 75, and some were written as 78. Here we will unify it and write it as 75 mm.)
It's like an elephant among a group of ants, a giant among a group of urchins, a gangster among a group of girls...
Of course, the navies around the world still don’t know that in Bunas, a warship that they have never seen before, changing the rules of naval warfare, has been launched at this moment.
“I have never seen such a warship!” Although Alice is well-informed, she has never seen such a warship.
In fact, she didn’t know much about naval battleships. She had only seen the navy’s sailing battleships from a distance a few times before.
But the battleship in front of me is too different. It has neither sails nor so many cannons.
The sides of this battleship are basically made of steel plates, and there are only some portholes at the higher end of the stern. And these portholes are definitely not so-called gun windows, but real windows...
According to the standards of this era, the number of guns on this battleship can be described as shabby: the number of guns it can concentrate on the sides is only 9 cannons of different calibers at most, which is really no advantage.
However, if you think that its firepower is insufficient, you are really deceived by its honest appearance: in fact, it has things that no naval battleship of this era has ever had.
First of all, it is equipped with two types of sights, which improves its shell hit rate by dozens or hundreds of times, and there is a generation gap between it and the warships currently in service in other countries.
Secondly, the artillery installed on it, with the support of a sight, can attack targets 5 kilometers away, which is unmatched by warships from other countries currently in service.
Finally, because it uses generators and steam power, it can sail faster, it also has a lighting system, and most importantly... it also has a telegraph system.
This allows Tang Mo's warships to maintain contact with the top management of Datang Group in distant seas. This is an ability that other navies can only dream of!
“It’s so different.” Alice was invited to attend the launching ceremony of this new battleship, and she curiously looked at this new battleship that could not be said to be beautiful or ugly.
She really had no way of judging the beauty or ugliness of this battleship, because it was completely different from the current sailing battleships.
Previous sail warships were basically engraved with some reliefs. Coupled with the white sails, they naturally had their own flavor.
But the steel battleship right in front of them had sharp edges and corners horizontally and vertically. The hardness of the steel made it as sharp as a blade, and its sharp domineering power could not be blocked no matter how hard it was blocked.
So, Alice likes the battleship in front of her very much. Of course, this kind of love is also mixed with her complex emotions about the owner of this battleship.
And this time, it was very rare that Alice did not want to spend money to buy this battleship - North Ridge is an inland area, and no matter how much she liked this battleship, she really did not need such a steel battleship to dominate the ocean...
“It’s better to be different...after all, it’s about fighting, not looking good.” Tang Mo smiled and said to Alice beside him.
He invited Alice to attend the launching ceremony of the battleship, and it was also a way for him to show off his strength.
In the end, Alice came here simply to meet her lover, and her liking for this battleship only stayed at the level of "it's pretty good."
However, she was very keen in another direction, and in her bedroom, she proposed to Tang Mo the idea of forming a fleet of faster steam engines and ships. According to what she said last night, she wanted to take a stake in the Datang Group's fleet.
Tang Mo naturally agreed to her request, because this so-called transport fleet did not even have a single well-powered transport ship.
On the contrary, what Tang Mo values more now is the combat effectiveness of this new warship. Because he will rely on this battleship to compete for sea control in the future!
It is said that the sister ship of this battleship is actually being built in the dock next door, and the hull part has even been completed.
Once this warship is launched and becomes seaworthy, Tang Mo will immediately start building a third identical warship. According to Tang Mo's idea, his fleet should have at least 15 such warships to ensure the absolute safety of his maritime transportation lines!
Because this battleship has too few weapon systems, most of these weapons have been installed on the slipway, so this battleship has reduced a lot of installation work.
According to Tang Mo's estimation, with the efforts of all the shipwrights, it will be ready for actual combat in about two or three months, provided that the sailors can learn to operate such an unprecedented warship.
"I asked, does the little girl named You Lin who is always by your side have any objections to me? Every time she looks at me, she looks weird..." I have to say that the woman's intuition is still Very accurate. Alice noticed You Lin's "hostility", so she lowered her voice and asked Tang Mo.
Tang Mo scratched his head and explained awkwardly: "No way...why didn't I see it? Maybe she works too much and is a little tired?"
"It's okay for you to have so many little girls hanging around you. They are always with you. Of course I'm not happy with it! You bad guy!" Alice didn't want to pinch Tang Mo, but just muttered.
Tang Mo chuckled, changed the subject, and asked Alice about mining in Beiling.
Alice was really excited when she mentioned this, and she began to introduce the mining development of Beiling in an orderly manner.
Stimulated by Tang Mo's steam engine, Beiling's ore production reached an astonishing height. A steady stream of ore was mined and turned into Tang Mo's rails and the shell of his battleship...
Of course, now almost one-third of the Leyte Kingdom’s mineral resources have become consumables to support Tang Mo’s development.
Even Jijis was frightened by Tang Mo's total steel consumption. He even thought that Tang Mo was bluffing and using data to intimidate Cyric, so that Cyric would not dare to attack Tang Mo's industry easily.
What no one knows is that Tang Mo is cutting down and burning the vicious forest, turning it into a huge factory, and opening up a new road leading directly to Beiling.
This road has not yet connected to the North Ridge, but it is already close to the edge of the Vicious Forest. What's even more terrifying is that this is a road paved with steel!
A railway with a length of more than 100 kilometers was actually built by Tang Mo - the reasons for this are very complicated. The Bunas-Beiling railway can be built so quickly. The reasons include that the road is relatively smooth, including Tang Mo's steel. The supply has been plentiful, including the desperate support of the Earl of Beiling and Tang Mo himself.
At the same time, Tang Mo also provided the world with 70,000 K1 rifles, 8,900 revolvers, 1,000 revolvers, 600 lever rifles, 900 K3 KAR98 rifles, 80 C64 field guns, and 40 C80 Field artillery…
Now, including some of the troops of the Kingdom of Dorne, the King's Guard of the Kingdom of Wright, the troops of Beiling and the troops of Sussus, they are all equipped with Tang Mo's arms.
As for the K1 fast guns copied from the factories of Cyric and Elf Count Augustine, they are not yet included in the statistics.
Beiling's economy has truly risen due to the development of industry. With Tang Mo's support, Alice is building four factories, including a metal smelting factory, a parts processing factory, a steam engine factory and a power plant.
Moreover, Tang Mo was supporting private capital intentionally or unintentionally. He invested in 4 textile factories in Beiling and used steam engine technology to increase the production efficiency of these factories.
The increase in production capacity has naturally increased the dependence of the secondary industry chain on the primary industry. The prices of agricultural products in Beiling have begun to rise, and farmers have also increased their real income.
The Sussian immigrants who originally settled in Beiling were still very anxious. They didn't know what their future fate would be.
But when they farmed diligently and quickly obtained simple rewards, they completely regarded themselves as Beiling people.
After all, there is really no other aristocrat who can reduce taxes, provide farmers with some subsidies, and revitalize the entire agricultural ecology these days...
As a result, the whole of Beiling was prosperous, society was stable and developed, and the new countess of Beiling also established her prestige.
At this moment, Tang Mo didn’t know that the Kingdom of Dorne was already preparing to declare war on neighboring countries with its 1,000 K1 guns.
At the same time, on another distant continent, the elven Kingdom of Yangmu, which had obtained new weapons, had started a war against the orc Kingdom of Gales...
All this was just the beginning of a series of chaos in the Kingdom of Wright in the second half of the 114th year. The person who stirred up this storm was watching the huge ship in front of him being launched into the water, causing a fierce and spectacular splash.
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Updating is normal, twice a day, 3,000 words per chapter.
(End of this chapter)