Volume 1: The Rise of Elanhill Chapter 0018 Dragon Slaying
It sounds easy to equip an infantry squad with a mortar, but the production of shells can overwhelm the arsenal in Chris's hands ... With the current processing level of the Seris Arsenal, many weapons can be manufactured. However, both the production speed of these weapons themselves and the production capacity of the ammunition they match are big problems.
So Chris didn't dare to produce these weapons, because he didn't have that much ammunition to supply fully automatic weapons. In this case, Chris had to seriously consider choosing weapons that were closer to his current production capacity and equip his troops.
It's not that automatic weapons such as the Maxim heavy machine gun cannot be manufactured now, but that the machine gun bullet factories cannot supply them in large quantities. Even if Chris's troops are forcibly equipped with such weapons, one battle will leave them exhausted of ammunition and food, leaving them powerless.
So, until Des provides the funds and resources to allow Chris to build more and better arsenals, Chris can only rely on bolt-action rifles to equip his soldiers.
Finally, he chose a very fashionable individual weapon as his infantry's weapon of choice: the Mauser 98K rifle!
This weapon, which was once equipped on a large scale by the army, has mature technology and stable performance. In the 21st century, it is still active in the hearts of young people because of games. 98K is definitely a weapon that represents victory, and it is even more exciting when it is combined with eating chicken at night.
What reassures Chris is that the bolt-action structure ensures that the weapon will not consume ammunition quickly, and the firepower of seven or eight bullets a minute is more than enough to serve as the mainstay of the troops' weapons for a long time.
No matter how you look at it, this weapon is the weapon of choice for modern armies, and it will be a good choice for individual weapons until Chris can improve his supply of bullets.
On the one hand, the caliber of this weapon is relatively large, and the barrel is easier to process. On the other hand, this weapon can use steel shell bullets, which has more advantages in metal consumption. Although the firepower is not strong, it can at least be used for a long time.
This weapon has another advantage: moderate length! It is long enough to install a bayonet to give soldiers a certain close combat ability, and short enough for easy operation - so its overall performance is very good in the bolt-action rifle category.
There is another reason why the Mauser 98K rifle was chosen: in the future Chris plans to equip the troops with the high-performance MG42 general-purpose machine gun - obviously, for the sake of unifying the caliber of ammunition, Chris is unwilling to equip two types of bullets.
Because of this, Chris gave up on the Mosin-Nagant rifles of different calibers and the Type 38 rifle with good accuracy: the calibers of these two rifles are very strange, and the performance of machine guns firing the same type of bullets is not very good...
"It's difficult!" Chris leaned back in his chair, looked at the production reports of the past two days, and sighed in frustration.
His industrial process has completely fallen into chaos. Except for the weapons and equipment that are being produced for the soldiers, the rest of the things are basically on the verge of collapse. The consequences of rashly realizing industrialization in a place are very complicated and serious. Chris is not unaware of this, he is just in a hurry to rise and ignore these problems.
These days, his textile factory has completely stopped production. The consumption of raw materials is too high , and the raw materials stored in Seris City cannot meet the consumption rate of such a factory. The cloth that was once very expensive can no longer be produced even a meter.
The situation in the woodworking factory was better, because wood could be harvested nearby, so there was no need to worry too much about raw materials. However, because the production speed of tables, chairs and benches was too fast, the entire woodworking factory had to stop production and transform, and began to produce some strange things whose uses were unknown.
For example, wooden handles for grenades and rifle stocks were produced according to Chris's drawings, but no one knew what they were used for. But even so, it was not a long-term solution: the factory had about 1,000 rifle stocks piled up, but no rifles were produced.
The production capacity of the few earthen blast furnaces that were finally built for smelting was seriously insufficient. If they could produce mechanical parts, they could not produce weapons and equipment. If they could produce weapons and equipment, they could not produce armor. If they could produce armor, they could not produce other iron products...
In short, not much different from the leap forward of a certain era, the direct result of blindly expanding industrial production capacity was an outright disaster.
After all, many things cannot be improved immediately with the addition of technology: for example, in agriculture, even though Chris has many theories of modern agriculture to popularize, this year's crops have already been planted in the fields, and no matter how anxious he is, he has to wait until next year to improve the planting techniques.
Without the support of agriculture and chemical industry, the entire industry stagnated, and the income of Seris City did not increase substantially compared with previous years, because the money earned was either used to expand production capacity or to pay workers' wages.
"I'm at my wits' end now! The purchasing power around here is really limited, and the training of the troops has also entered a bottleneck period... Forcing things to grow faster is really not worth it." Chris muttered in great sorrow, scratching his hair.
Just when he was about to collapse, Strid and Des arrived at Ceris with some personnel and supplies. The arrival of these personnel and supplies undoubtedly cheered Chris up again.
His industrialization journey could finally continue at all costs, and the rest could be left to Strid and Des. Chris was delighted and personally went to the gate of Serris to greet Des, giving him enough face.
Desair lived up to everyone's expectations and handed Chris a scroll at the city gate: "Congratulations, Lord Ailanhill Chris, you have now become the actual ruler of Seris, Mayne, and Ferry..."
Chris took the scroll from Des with a puzzled look on his face, opened it and read the text carefully. It said: "The Alante Empire now places Mayne and the Ferry under the jurisdiction of Seris City, and upgrades it to the Principality of Ailanhill. In addition, the Lord of Seris, Ailanhill Chris, is promoted to the Grand Duke of Ailanhill..."
After carefully looking at the blood-red seal of the Emperor of the Alante Empire on the scroll, Chris looked at Des excitedly: "So, the Alante Empire recognizes my right to rule over Mayne and the ferry?"
"Of course I admit it." Des looked at Chris with a smile, held up five fingers and said to Chris: "But don't be too happy too soon. I promised the Prime Minister of Alante, Lord Clark, that the tax tribute of the Principality of Ailan Hill will be increased to 50,000 gold coins per year!"
"..." Chris couldn't help but smile bitterly when he heard the number: the Maine region is still in chaos, and Ferry City hasn't improved much. Under such circumstances, it is not an easy task to shoulder a foreign debt of 50,000 gold coins.
Thinking of this, Chris shrugged his shoulders and looked at Des and said, "To be honest, we have encountered some problems in production. We need someone to plan it carefully."
Des smiled even more. He pointed at an old man standing next to him and introduced him, "Mr. Gullo, the most powerful businessman I can find. He used to be my personal butler, and now I hand him over to you."
"You are most welcome!" Chris did not doubt the person he hired, and he trusted the person he hired. He had no better choice but to assign the person Des brought to an important position: "Then let Mr. Gullo be the Minister of Commerce of the Principality of Elanhill."
"Thank you. I want to see the recent output of Ailan Hill, as well as the income and expenditure..." The old man did not refuse and took office directly at the city gate. The old man was vigorous and resolute in his work, and Chris was happy to have some free time, so he asked Deans to hand over the account book.
"We produced a lot of cloth and wood products in the past...but we never expected that such a large output would directly drain the surrounding consumption capacity." Chris complained in the corridor as he walked with Des to his study.
Des listened with a faint smile on his face. He walked to Chris's office, chose a comfortable seat, sat down, put his hands together, and asked, "Can I see your weapon blueprints?"
Chris was stunned for a moment, then nodded. He pulled out the weapons he had chosen and the relevant blueprints and piled them in front of Des. "You don't care about my profits... You seem more interested in the weapons."
"That's right. Even if your machine is good, it's not worth my investment." Des said as he flipped through the weapon blueprints and smelting formulas in front of him. "I'm going to ask you a serious question now. Do you think... your weapons can kill a dragon?"
"..." Chris was silent. He frowned and thought carefully about the other party's question, wondering why the other party asked such a question.
In fact, he has always been thinking about this question, that is, whether his modern weapons and equipment can really fight against the ultimate power of this world. Will those evil dragons flying in the sky and the wizards who can control magic be afraid of modern weapons and equipment?
Whenever he was in Seris Castle and every time he ate, he would look up at the mural above his head and think about this question - he felt that it was possible, because Elanhill's ancestors had once accomplished the feat of slaying a dragon with their mortal bodies, so Chris concluded that his weapon could kill the dragon.
There was silence for a while, until Des felt something was wrong and looked up at him. Chris slowly answered, "I think my weapon is fully capable of slaying a dragon."
