Chapter 648: Weapons for Street Fighting

"The internal chaos of the Great Song must be resolved as quickly as possible." The content of the questionnaire suddenly gave Zhao Xu a sense of urgency.

Compared to the countries of the Western Lands, the industrialization of Yanzhou has only just begun.

If one compares comprehensive strength, Yanzhou is likely inferior to any current country in the Western Lands.

The only stroke of luck is that he possesses the home-field advantage.

Moreover, by taking an unconventional path and using clever military tactics, he has brought the current Prince's Personal Army's rifled muskets to the level of the 1850s.

Although the countries of the Western Lands are currently all equipped with some rifled muskets.

However, they have not yet grasped the mystery of the conical bullet.

This will allow him to maintain an advantage for a period of time.

However, it is clearly unrealistic to rely on a single Yanzhou to oppose all the industrial nations of the Western Lands.

Fighting wars within the country is still manageable.

But if one has to fight wars abroad, the expenditure of manpower, material resources, and financial power will be immense; this is when the importance of comprehensive national strength is reflected.

Therefore, he must unify the Great Song, fully promote industrialization, and at the same time actively develop overseas markets to make the Great Song prosperous.

After all, the industrial nations of the Western Lands have already set their sights on Dongtu, this last piece of pure land.

Furthermore, they have colonized what are equivalent to the modern-day Southeast Asia and Central Asia regions.

Using these as a springboard, they will continuously encroach northward.

He certainly cannot tolerate this.

A war will inevitably break out between them.

And there is one more most important point: in the distant seas to the southeast of the Great Song, there is a massive continent.

This continent is the continent of Australia.

According to what Fei Wen said, there are currently only over five hundred thousand British people settled on this continent.

If he does not seize this piece of fat meat in this era, how will he face his descendants?

And to seize this continent, he must inevitably confront the current superpower of this world, Great Britain.

According to his memory, in this contemporary period, the territory ruled by Great Britain covers thirty-three million square kilometers, and the British Queen rules over four hundred and fifty million people, including those in the colonies.

It is absolutely the current superpower.

He must exert all his strength to oppose such a powerful group led by a superpower and followed by other countries of the Western Lands.

Otherwise, his fate will be like that of Napoleon, who was defeated by the Anti-French Alliance, or perhaps even worse.

"Your Highness, what is this?" While Zhao Xu was lost in deep thought, Zhou Yi looked at the blueprint he was drawing.

Startled for a moment, Zhao Xu came back to his senses and then smiled, "This thing is called a hand grenade, and it is prepared for the soldiers of the Prince's Personal Army."

Zhou Yi was slightly disappointed; he had thought his navy might get a share of the benefits.

Zhao Xu noticed Zhou Yi's expression and gave a helpless smile.

These navy and army forces are like two children he is raising; they will always be jealous of each other because of who gets more and who gets less.

So he said,

"You don't need to envy this. I have already had Chen Shou build steamships powered by steam; these will all belong to your navy in the future."

Zhou Yi's expression instantly changed from sullen to ecstatic, his face crinkling with a smile as he said repeatedly, "Many thanks, Your Highness."

Zhao Xu couldn't be bothered with him; according to his report, Fei Wen has already sent people to Yajia City, and thus, the Eastern Japanese maritime alliance has gone bankrupt.

Then, he can focus his energy on the second Lu City Alliance.

According to the news provided by Xu Ke two days ago, the envoys from the Northern Di and the powerful clans will arrive in Lu City in these two days.

This alliance will determine the subsequent actions of the anti-Yan alliance.

However, he is somewhat indifferent to this.

In any case, no matter what result they deliberate, once the yellow gunpowder is sufficiently equipped, he will have the Prince's Personal Army march south.

At the same time, if the Eastern Japanese take action at sea, he will have Zhou Yi wipe out the Dongying Navy.

In the direction of Qinzhou and Yongzhou, he will also have Ma Han launch a war to recover the two regions of Qinzhou and Yongzhou.

It is easy for the Northern Di to come, but it will not be so simple for them to go back.

Having firmed up his thoughts, he sent Zhou Yi away and took the blueprints to the Armament Bureau himself.

His research into hand grenades was not a whim, but because some problems were exposed during the street fighting in Pingyuan City.

On a vast battlefield, the advantage of the Prince's Personal Army's muskets is unquestionable.

But if they enter street fighting, where the distance between soldiers shrinks to dozens of meters, there is not much difference between a flintlock with a range of one hundred meters and a rifled musket with a range of three hundred meters.

Casualties increase rapidly at such times, and the heaviest casualties during this attack on Pingyuan City occurred during the street fighting.

The Qi soldiers hiding in various buildings sometimes didn't even need flintlocks; they only needed to hold swords and blades, rush out suddenly, and they could injure the Prince's soldiers.

Therefore, the Prince's soldiers face life-threatening danger when entering courtyards to search.

Next, facing the war to unify the Great Song, such street fighting will only be very frequent.

If this problem cannot be solved, the Prince's Personal Army will suffer heavy casualties.

Therefore, after thinking it over, he felt that among the weapons for dealing with street fighting, the only one currently capable of being researched and manufactured is the hand grenade.

When the time comes, if soldiers discover enemy soldiers in a courtyard, they will only need to throw a hand grenade inside.

Arriving at the Armament Bureau, Zhao Xu called for Wang Ying to study the hand grenade blueprints with him.

In contemporary history, after the invention of gunpowder, the most primitive hand grenades first appeared in China.

The hand grenades at that time were called "Heaven-Shaking Thunder," which were spherical ceramic jars filled with black gunpowder, with a fuse inserted on the outside; one just had to light it and throw it out.

However, the power of this "Heaven-Shaking Thunder" was about the same as a modern firecracker and could not cause much damage to the enemy.

Consequently, this type of "Heaven-Shaking Thunder" gradually disappeared.

Later, the hand grenade spread to the West, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the branch of grenadiers was born.

In fact, it is equivalent to soldiers holding an Explosive Shell and throwing it forward.

However, this kind of Grenade is still very primitive; it was not until the 19th century, with the birth of Yellow Gunpowder, that a true Grenade appeared.

After all, with the power of black gunpowder, if the body of the Grenade is too small, it has no power, and if it is too large, it is very cumbersome.

Only by increasing the power of the gunpowder can this contradictory problem be solved.

This is also the reason why he is only developing the Grenade now, because the previous conditions were not met.

"The main difficulty should be this Pull-fire Tube." Wang Ying noticed the annotation of the small tube on the blueprint.

Zhao Xu nodded; what he had Wang Ying build was a Wooden-handled Hand Grenade.

This kind of Grenade has a simple structure and is relatively easy to manufacture.

The only difficulty is the Pull-fire Tube.

But at present, Yanzhou possesses the conditions to produce this kind of fire tube.

The principle of this fire tube is to use a steel tube filled with Glass powder, and place a copper wire coiled into a ball inside the Glass powder.

One end of the copper wire is connected to a pull-fire cord, and the other end leads to a gunpowder fuse and sulfur.

The friction between the copper wire and the Glass powder will ignite the fuse and sulfur, then ignite the gunpowder, and finally explode.

Among the raw materials, the most critical one is the Glass powder.

Since Yanzhou can make Glass, it can naturally make Glass powder.