Chapter 1161: Han-style

"Heh heh, for Wang Ying to be so solemn this time, it must be something extraordinary; the soldiers of the entire army are in for a treat again."

On the Drill Ground, the generals of the Defense Department were whispering to each other, and at this moment, Chang Wei replied to Yang Feng.

Compared to Yang Feng, he knew slightly more.

After all, Wang Ying was more familiar with them, the generals of the Yanzhou Faction.

Yang Feng nodded, stroking his beard, feeling increasingly expectant.

At this moment, Wang Ying was attending to Zhao Xu's side, and after receiving Zhao Xu's instruction, he sent an order to the officials of the Industrial Department.

Before long, the officials lifted the black cloth on the first stone platform, revealing the true face of a type of firearm.

For a moment, Zhao Xu and the generals were all greatly amazed.

To Zhao Xu, although he had personally drawn the design blueprints for this firearm, seeing the actual object appear before him was still quite shocking.

After all, for men, firearms and artillery are like flowers to the romance of women.

And generals like Chang Wei and Yang Feng had never seen them before, so naturally, besides the shock, they felt very curious.

Wang Ying was very satisfied with everyone's reaction.

He picked up a rifle from the stone platform where the firearms were placed and said to Zhao Xu,

"Your Majesty, this is the Han-style Rifle."

When this rifle was being designed, Zhao Xu had already named it.

Although everyone was puzzled as to why Zhao Xu designated the series of firearms and artillery with names like Qin, Han, and Tang—which sounded like dynastic titles they had never heard of—they were unwilling to defy his wishes for this reason.

"Hurry and tell us about the features of this rifle."

Zhao Xu nodded and took the rifle, while Chang Wei urged Wang Ying impatiently to explain.

Wang Ying ignored Chang Wei, cleared his throat, and said unhurriedly, "Your Majesty, generals, the most important changes to the firearms and artillery being presented to you this time are in two areas; these two areas can be called another huge revolution for firearms and artillery."

He naturally understood Emperor Zhao Xu's plan to downsize the army next.

Precisely because of this,

during this period, their Industrial Department had been working day and night on research and development, while also receiving the full cooperation of other Industrial Departments, only then managing to complete the second generation of the Han Series of firearms and artillery.

"What changes?" Chang Wei asked again, pursuing the matter.

After pondering for a moment, Wang Ying continued, "First, we have conquered the gas-operated structure for firearms, so this Han-style Rifle is the first semi-automatic rifle in the Great Song, and perhaps even the first in the world, and it possesses a magazine design holding six bullets. Due to the improvement in precision and the enhancement of airtightness, its effective range has also been increased to eight hundred meters, and it still has lethality within one thousand meters."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Xu nodded, showed the generals the magazine position of the firearm, picked up the magazine filled with six bullets from the table, and inserted it directly into the firearm's magazine well.

In the contemporary era, semi-automatic rifles appeared during the First World War.

But it was not until the Second World War that semi-automatic and automatic rifles became the main force on the battlefield.

However, the gas-operated principle appeared in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.

With ready-made technical blueprints, and relying on the electric power industry, it was not difficult for the Industrial Department to produce these things ahead of time in this world.

"Can this firearm fire six bullets continuously?" Chang Wei asked.

Wang Ying nodded affirmatively.

Zhao Xu chuckled twice; facts speak louder than words.

He raised the Han-style Rifle and pulled the trigger at a target in the distance.

"Bang, bang, bang..." Zhao Xu pulled the trigger six times in succession, firing six bullets.

"It's actually real," Yang Feng exclaimed, his mouth hanging open.

The rifle could actually fire continuously like a machine gun, even though it could only fire six shots at a time before needing to change the magazine.

But compared to the Qin-style Rifle, which required loading one bullet to fire one shot, this was already a huge improvement.

This meant that in the same amount of time, the firepower of the Han-style Rifle was far more formidable than that of the Qin-style Rifle.

Moreover, Wang Ying had said that the effective range of the Han-style Rifle was also stronger than that of the Qin-style Rifle, which symbolized that this rifle had greater power.

"Of course it's real, but old General, there are even more surprises below." Wang Ying smiled and lifted the black cloth on the second stone platform.

At this moment, the generals' eyes widened instantly.

Because the firearm in front of them was very unique, short and small.

"This is a revolver; when the enemy gets close and it is inconvenient to use a rifle, you can use it to kill the enemy. If generals and soldiers are equipped with it, they can gain a greater advantage in close combat," Wang Ying smiled and said.

"I have been looking forward to this for a long time," Zhao Xu said at this time, picking up the revolver, loading the bullets, and firing six shots in a row at the target.

The generals were stunned; after a while, they immediately realized the benefits of this small firearm.

Currently, generals still carried swords for self-defense on the battlefield.

When encountering danger, they could only engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

With this thing, they had a firearm for self-defense.

Moreover, this thing was so small that hanging it on one's body was more convenient than hanging a rifle.

"Wang Ying, you damn fellow are truly a talent," Chang Wei laughed loudly and patted Wang Ying's shoulder heavily, causing Wang Ying to wince in pain.

However, Wang Ying knew that this was not his credit, but the Emperor's credit.

But the Emperor had instructed that these matters need not be publicized.

So he could only bear this empty fame.

After Chang Wei, generals like Yang Feng also showered Wang Ying with compliments, making Wang Ying's old face turn even redder.

Zhao Xu also smiled; he then looked at the third large object covered by a black cloth and asked, "This should be artillery, right?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, this is what I mentioned, the second difficult problem we conquered. However, the breakthrough was not in the artillery itself, but in the cannonball. The cannonballs used by this artillery now are no longer wooden wedge fuses, but impact fuzes," Wang Ying said.

Zhao Xu revealed a satisfied expression.

He had long been dissatisfied with the fuses of the explosive shells.

He believed that the wooden wedge fuse was too crude and could not accurately control the time of the explosion, sometimes wasting a large number of cannonballs.

Now, Wang Ying had finally created the impact fuze.

The principle of this impact fuze is the same as the principle of the firing pin ignition for muskets and Artillery.

The most important parts inside the fuze are the firing pin structure and the detonating agent.

Thus, when the Cannonball falls from the sky and the fuze strikes the ground, the internal structure is shaken, and the mechanism controlling the firing pin strikes the detonating agent, thereby causing the Bomb to explode.

With Cannonballs equipped with this type of fuze, their Artillery is effectively on par with the Han-style Rifle, initially reaching the level of military equipment from before World War I.

Even if Britain manages to imitate the breech-loading rifles of Great Song.

The gap in military equipment levels between them will once again be widened by forty or fifty years.

The generals are all veterans of the battlefield; they naturally grasped the value of this impact fuze at once, and immediately let out bursts of exclamations.

To them, this not only means higher efficiency for Cannonballs, but also means soldiers no longer need to adjust wooden wedge fuses, saving a massive amount of time when firing Cannonballs.

It must be said that these two breakthroughs by Wang Ying are indeed a huge revolution for the military's equipment.

Previously, they were still somewhat dissatisfied with Zhao Xu's decision to downsize the military.

But now, they finally understand.

Their Emperor has a well-thought-out plan.