Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 49 New Shells and Rangefinder
Yu Xier asked, "Who is Kishida Ginka? You seem to have heard of him."
Lin Fei shook his head and said, "No , I just think this name is interesting." After saying that, Lin Fei laughed dryly twice and said, "There will be no problem handing Chiyomika over to this Kishida Ginka."
Yu Xier was stunned and asked, "How can you be so sure? You don't know him."
This Kishida Ginka was a well-known spy chief in Japan during Lin Fei's time. The Leshantang he founded was a spy agency. During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Kishida Ginka and his Leshantang provided the Japanese military with a large amount of intelligence about the Qing army. Since Kishida Ginka had a close relationship with the military, there would be no problem handing Chiyo Mika over to him, so Lin Fei was so sure.
However, Lin Fei did not give this reason. He just said lightly: "Nothing, let's go find Miss Chiyomika now, tell her the news, and then prepare to send her back."
Yu Xier thought for a moment and asked, "She won't reveal our secret, right?"
Lin Fei shook his head and said, "Don't worry, she won't. She doesn't understand technology and knows nothing about what we did on the island. The only thing she knows is that we issued banknotes. It's nothing for her to know about this."
Yu Xier nodded, and the two of them went to find Chiyo Mika, who was teaching the bank staff how to calculate accounts. When she saw Lin Fei and Yu Xier coming together, she hurriedly stood up to greet them and asked, "Captain, First Mate Yu, why are you here?"
Lin Fei looked at the staff and said, "It's not convenient to talk here. Let's find a more convenient place."
Chiyomika turned to the staff and said, "You guys go back first, we will continue tomorrow."
The staff members left one after another, and Chiyomika smiled and said, "Can we tell it now?"
Lin Fei nodded and said, "That's right, Meixiang, we found a very reliable Japanese businessman in Taiwan who can send you back home safely."
Chiyomika's eyes lit up and she said excitedly, "Is it true? That's great, I can see my parents again!"
Chiyomika's face was full of joy, but Lin Fei suddenly felt a strange feeling in his heart. Chiyomika suddenly became quiet and looked at Lin Fei silently. Yu Xier turned around and walked out without saying a word, closing the door gently.
The room was extremely quiet, and neither of them spoke. Lin Fei laughed and said, "Mei Xiang, you can go home now. I have fulfilled my promise."
Chiyomika smiled and said, "Lin Feijun is a very good person. I am very happy that I can help you escape from the prisoner-of-war camp."
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Then please don't tell anyone about what happened on this island, okay?"
Chiyomika nodded and said solemnly: "If anyone asks, I will say that I have been detained and I know nothing."
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Thank you very much. If everything is ok, I'll leave first." After Lin Fei finished speaking, he opened the door and walked out. Chiyomika looked at Lin Fei's back and the closed door, and tears suddenly burst out of her eyes, blurring her vision...
When Lin Fei came to the door, Yu Xier sighed and said, "After so many years, the good times and beautiful scenery are gone. Even if there are thousands of customs, who can I tell them to?"
Lin Fei said helplessly: "Old Yu, stop being so pretentious and come with me. We are going to upgrade our naval weapons."
Yu Xier asked hurriedly: "How do we upgrade?"
Lin Fei said: "The first step to upgrade is to have enough shells. Our Nuwa ship has 6 120mm naval guns, and the stock of shells is running low, so we need to make shells."
Yu Xier thought for a moment and said, "Cannonballs and bullets are similar. Now that we can make bullets, we can naturally make cannonballs as well."
Lin Fei smiled and said, "When I was making the shells, I decided to modify them properly!"
Yu Xier said in surprise: "Reform? How to transform?"
Lin Fei smiled without answering and brought Yu Xier to the chemical production area, where he saw several craftsmen disassembling a 120mm naval gun shell and pouring the black powder inside the warhead into a large wooden barrel filled with water.
Lin Fei pointed at the black powder in the bullet and said, "You must be familiar with that powder. It's all black gunpowder. The explosive power of this kind of thing is extremely low, so we must not load black gunpowder as explosives in our newly made shells."
Yu Xier nodded and said, "Yes, the explosive power of black powder is indeed a bit low. We should use nitroglycerin explosives."
Lin Fei laughed and said, "What's the big deal about nitroglycerin explosives? We need to load more powerful explosives!"
Yu Xier was confused and said, "It's more powerful than nitroglycerin? Could it be picric acid explosives?"
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Although the explosive power of picric acid is strong, it is very toxic and unsafe, so I plan to make trinitrotoluene as an explosive."
Yu Xier was stunned and asked, "Trinitrotoluene? What is that?"
Trinitrotoluene is the famous "TNT explosive" in Lin Fei's era. Although this substance was accidentally discovered by scientists in 1862, it was unknown until the beginning of the 20th century, when it replaced picric acid and became widely known as artillery propellant. Therefore, Yu Xi'er had never heard of this explosive.
Lin Fei smiled and said, "Trinitrotoluene is a powerful explosive. We can use the coking industry to produce it."
As they talked, they came to the coking plant area and saw a huge coking oven standing in the middle, with various pipes connected to it. Lin Fei pointed at the pipes and said, "Those pipes lead out various coking products, and after a series of processes, we get the toluene we need."
Yu Xier looked at the tall coking oven and couldn't help but give a thumbs up, saying, "It's great that we have such advanced equipment now."
Yu Xier praised repeatedly, and Lin Fei continued with a smile: "It's not enough to have artillery shells. Our artillery shells must be accurate. What do you think we can do to make the artillery shells more accurate?"
Yu Xier said: "The error of the shells mainly comes from the shaking of the ship. When the ship shakes, the direction of the ship's guns changes, so it is difficult to aim. Although experienced gunners can control the timing of firing and try to fire when the ship moves to the horizontal with the waves to minimize the impact of the waves, the error is still large."
"If we want to reduce the impact of the ship's shaking on shooting, we must increase the stability of the ship. However, if we want to increase the stability of the ship, we must modify the ship. With our current industrial strength, it seems that we are unable to modify the ship."
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Yes, it is indeed impossible to modify the ship's hull now, and newly built warships are not reliable, so I thought of another thing."
Yu Xier asked hurriedly: "What did you think of?"
Lin Fei did not answer directly, but said: "You just said that the error of the artillery shells mainly comes from the shaking of the ship. You are only half right. There is another major source of error, which is the distance measurement. If the distance measurement is not accurate enough, the shooting will also have a large error."
Yu Xier shook his head helplessly and said, "I don't really understand how to measure distance."
Lin Fei smiled and said, "I looked on the Nuwa ship. There is no rangefinder on it, so the distance estimation can only rely on the shooter's experience and feeling. Experience and feeling are very unreliable, so the shooting error of the naval gun is very large. If we have something that can accurately measure the distance, then the shooting error will be greatly reduced."
Yu Xier's eyes lit up and he said, "Rangefinder? I heard about this thing when I was in England! Are we going to make it ourselves?"
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Not bad!" As they talked, they had already walked to the outside of a workshop. Smoke was coming out of the workshop from time to time. Lin Fei pointed to the door of the workshop and said, "This is where the rangefinder is produced."
Lin Fei walked in after he finished speaking. Yu Xier followed Lin Fei. As soon as he entered the door, he felt a wave of heat coming towards him. In the middle of the workshop, there was a kiln about one meter tall. There was a red flame burning inside the kiln. Two strong men were pulling the bellows on one side, making a "whoosh" sound. The wind made the flames grow stronger and stronger. A white-haired old man was standing in front of the fire, staring at the fire intently.
Yu Xier was about to speak when Lin Fei gently waved his hand, signaling him not to speak. At this moment, the old man shouted, "Open the kiln!"
Upon hearing this, the two strong men who were pulling the bellows immediately stood up from the bellows and pulled a handle on the kiln. A "click" sound from the kiln, and a valve on the kiln opened, and a stream of snow-white mucus flowed out from it. The mucus flowed into a ceramic crucible and gradually condensed into a crystal clear piece.
The old man carefully picked up the crystal clear object, looked at it again and again, then put it back into the crucible and said , "Put it in the grinding room."
The sturdy man picked up the object and walked away. Yu Xier whispered to Lin Fei, "Is that glass? It looks like glass to me."
Lin Fei nodded and said, "Yes, it is glass!"
At this moment, the old man turned and walked towards Lin Fei, laughing loudly, "City Lord, why are you here? The glass you want is being ground, and I guarantee there will be no mistakes!"
Lin Fei turned around and smiled at Yu Xier, "Let me introduce you. This old man is a famous glass maker, Wang Zhengbin, Mr. Wang."
