Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 35: Saltpeter Crisis
When Lin Fei heard this, he said excitedly: "Great, take me to see it quickly." After Lin Fei finished speaking, he followed Chen Jingui to the factory area.
Lin Fei came to the rifle processing workshop and saw a rifle lying quietly among the crowd. Everyone was standing around it in amazement. Lin Fei walked into the crowd and picked up the rifle. The buttstock, grip and handguard were all made of trees on the island, and the barrel and magazine were made of steel.
Since Lin Fei had not calculated the ballistic characteristics, the front sight and rear sight had not been installed. In order to use the Spanish bullets, Lin Fei designed the rifle's caliber to be the same 7mm as the Mauser M1893. The barrel length, slope angle, and rifling twist were also designed according to the specifications of the Spanish bullets. In the future battles with the Spanish, Lin Fei's men could use the enemy's bullets at any time.
The rifle's magazine can hold 30 rounds of bullets. There is a rate of fire selector on the gun to adjust the rate of fire. There are three types of rate of fire: burst fire, three-round burst fire and long burst fire. Since the three-round burst fire cannot guarantee accuracy, Lin Fei decided to let everyone use burst fire as much as possible in future battles.
Lin Fei said to everyone, "Let's go and try out the gun." As he spoke, he led everyone to the shooting range, turned on the safety, pulled the bolt, loaded a magazine with bullets he produced himself, adjusted the rate of fire selector to burst fire, aimed at the target about ten meters away, pulled the trigger, and the bullet whistled and landed on the target.
Lin Fei pulled the trigger repeatedly and quickly finished a magazine. There was no problem with the gun body and everyone cheered. Lin Fei thought to himself, in my time, a rifle had to go through a lot of tests before it could be put into service, but now I don't have the conditions and resources, so I can only let it go into service first.
Lin Fei decided to put this type of rifle into service, and he thought about the production capacity. He turned around and asked, "What is the current production speed of this type of rifle?"
An old craftsman replied: "Fifteen can be produced in one day."
Lin Fei frowned and asked, "Why is it so slow?"
The old craftsman replied helplessly: "Captain, we have tried our best! As everyone becomes familiar with the process of making guns, it should be faster."
Lin Fei thought that the current conditions were simple, so it didn't matter if the production was slower. Instead, he should speed up the calculations and design the sight and front sight.
At this time, Li Mingbai said: "Captain Lin, should we give this type of rifle a name?"
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Yes, we should give it a name. That's about naming." Lin Fei took out a piece of paper with words written on it from his pocket and said, "Name it according to this standard."
Li Mingbai took the paper and took a look. He saw a line of large characters on the top of the paper - National Military Products Standard GJB-1894-001, Army Weapon Naming Standard. Although Li Mingbai did not understand Chinese Pinyin, he had learned some English letters under the influence of the Zhiyuan ship's sailors, so he also saw "GJB". He asked in surprise: "Captain Lin, isn't it just a name? Why is there so much to it?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Although we only have one type of rifle now, we will definitely have more and more weapons in the future. If these weapons do not have a unified naming standard, it will inevitably cause great confusion. Therefore, I have established a naming standard for all army weapons. According to this standard, army weapons begin with the letter 'L', followed by the name and number of the weapon, so this type of rifle should be called the LBQ-1 rifle."
Li finally understood. Lin Fei returned to his residence and invited Yu Xier and other people who understood mathematics to help him calculate the ballistic characteristics. After a day and a night, he finally managed to solve the ballistic characteristics. Although the result was not very accurate, it was barely enough. He also did some experiments with live ammunition and finally determined the relationship between the sight and the front sight. In this way, this type of automatic rifle could be used.
Lin Fei heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the development of the rifle and bullets was going smoothly. However, before he could relax for long, something big happened again!
Early in the morning, Su Yunzhao came to Lin Fei in a hurry and said, "Captain, something terrible has happened!"
Lin Fei was startled and asked, "What happened?"
Su Yunzhao said: "We don't have enough saltpeter."
Lin Fei was startled and asked hurriedly, "Didn't Chen Fu and Yu Xier buy a lot of saltpeter? How come it's not enough?"
Su Yunzhao sighed and said, "These days, we are making nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, and mercuric fulminate. The saltpeter is consumed very quickly. What they bought is not enough!"
Lin Fei thought that saltpeter was the raw material for making nitric acid, and nitric acid was necessary for making explosives. Without nitric acid, there would be no explosives. Without explosives, how could we fight? In my time, nitric acid was made from synthetic ammonia, but I didn't have the conditions to make synthetic ammonia now!
If there is no saltpeter, we have to buy it. As the production of bullets increases, the demand for nitric acid and saltpeter will certainly increase. It is definitely not enough to just purchase it from outside. It would be great if there was saltpeter on this island!
Thinking of this, Lin Fei said to Su Yunzhao, "Old Su, please go back first. I will figure out a way to deal with the saltpeter."
Su Yunzhao frowned and said, "Captain Lin, you have to hurry up. The saltpeter can only be used for five days now. If there is no ore, we will have to stop production."
Su Yunzhao left after he finished speaking. Lin Fei was secretly anxious. There were only five days left. Where could he find saltpeter? He had to go to Ling Xue for this matter. Only she and her craftsmen knew whether there was saltpeter on the island.
Lin Fei came to the construction factory, walked to the outside of Ling Xue's room, and knocked on the door gently. When the door opened, Ling Xue was standing at the door with a cold face. Lin Fei thought, something is wrong. She usually smiles when she sees me, why is she so cold today?
The saltpeter issue was urgent, so Lin Fei did not ask in detail and directly asked: "Xue'er, on the island..."
"Wait!" Ling Xue interrupted Lin Fei and said, "There are a lot of people here, don't call me 'Xue'er'!"
Lin Fei was startled, thinking to himself, I used to call her "Xue'er" in front of many people, and she was very happy. What happened today? I must ask about this matter after solving the saltpeter problem. Lin Fei asked, "Miss Ling, do you know where there is saltpeter on the island?"
Ling Xue nodded and said, "It's on the Barren Mountain."
Lin Fei was overjoyed when he heard this and said, "So we have saltpeter here! Great, can you take me to Bumao Mountain to have a look? Time is very tight, if possible, I would like to set off now."
Ling Xue hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay, wait for me for a while, I'll go change my clothes." After Ling Xue finished speaking, she closed the door and walked out in men's clothes. She had a dagger on her waist, looking very heroic.
Lin Fei smiled and said, "I didn't expect Miss Ling to look so good in men's clothes." Lin Fei originally wanted to make her happy, but who knew that Ling Xue actually glared at Lin Fei fiercely, without saying a word, turned to the back stable and led out two ponies, threw the reins of one of them at Lin Fei, and walked away on her own.
Lin Fei followed in confusion, and when he left Yanhuang City, he asked, "Xue'er, are you in a bad mood today? Who offended you?"
Ling Xue pouted and snorted without saying anything. Lin Fei knew that she didn't want to talk more, so he quickly changed the subject: "Bu Mao Mountain? This name is so strange, why is it called this?"
Ling Xue said: "Because the mountain is full of saltpeter and no grass grows, it is called the Barren Mountain."
Lin Fei could hear the thorn in Ling Xue's tone, and asked in confusion: "Xue'er, how did I offend you? You treated me so strangely today."
Ling Xue turned her head and said coldly, "What's so strange?" Then she knocked the horse's belly with her legs and urged the horse to run out. Lin Fei had to ride the horse to catch up. People cannot talk when the horse is running fast, because the horse's back is very bumpy and the tongue will be bitten off if you are not careful, so Lin Fei did not ask any more questions.
After running for about ten minutes and passing a forest, Ling Xue reined in the horse and asked it to stop. Lin Fei came to her side. Ling Xue pointed to the mountain and said, "That's Bumao Mountain."
Lin Fei looked in the direction of Ling Xue's finger, and saw a bare mountain in front of him. Lin Fei was excited and said, "Let's go up and take a look."
Ling Xue glared at Lin Fei and said, "You seem very happy?"
Lin Fei said excitedly: "Of course, only with saltpeter can there be explosives!"
Ling Xue sneered and said, "Well, you go up by yourself. I'll go back first. We didn't go around in circles when we came here. You will definitely find the way back." Ling Xue said and rode away. Lin Fei looked at Ling Xue's back and shouted, "Xue'er, be careful."
Ling Xue turned around the woods without looking back and disappeared in front of Lin Fei. Lin Fei sighed and thought that the girl's mind was really hard to understand. Lin Fei got off the horse and led the horse up the mountain. He wanted to see the storage depth of saltpeter and the trend of the mountain, and then determine the mining plan.
Lin Fei had just walked less than 50 meters up the mountain when he suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves behind him. He looked back and saw the red horse that Ling Xue was riding running over. There was no one on the horse. Lin Fei was puzzled, wondering why only one horse came back? Where did Ling Xue go?
Lin Fei hurried down the mountain and came to Ling Xue's horse, only to see Ling Xue's short knife still hanging on the saddle. Lin Fei was even more surprised, thinking that Ling Xue brought the knife for self-defense, so why did she throw the knife away and disappear?
Lin Fei carefully checked the horse's harness and body. There was nothing wrong with the saddle, bridle and girth. When he picked up the reins to take a closer look, he suddenly found a dark red mark on the reins. Lin Fei put the dark red mark under his nose and smelled it. His heart trembled suddenly. It was actually blood!
What happened to Ling Xue? Lin Fei's heart suddenly hung in the air!
