Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 492 Miscellaneous and Unfortunate

The train stopped at Harold Castle Station one day and overnight, and the next morning at 9: 00 a.m., it started to get on the road and continue its journey.

Claude started to have a headache, and it was a big problem where he should put Sheila. It's impossible to take it home, and you can imagine, the house is about to turn upside down. He's going to the blackstone firearms factory now, and he can't take Sheila there either. Let's not talk about confidentiality, but if Sheila finds out about her relationship with Mrs. Sonia, she doesn't know what will happen...

“Honey, when we get to Wickham Castle, we get off, and I have a farm nearby, you take care of the injuries there first. I'll come with you when I'm done with my business.” After thinking about it, Claude thought it would be better to stay at Wickham Castle for a few days and put Sheila there.

“But I don't want to break up with you, Claude.” Sheila, look at Claude with pity. “Can't I come with you on your official duties? ”

Claude shook his head: "Sheila, I am now in a very high position, and there are things I have to do, and I have to think about the impact. I don't want to be separated from you either, but you're hurt right now and it's not convenient to take you with you. There is also a place where I am going to carry out my official duties that needs to be kept confidential. It is an important base for the production of weapons in the Autonomous Territories and cannot be taken in casually..."

Needless to say, Sheila finally agreed to go to Claude's estate on the other side of Wickham Castle to take care of her injuries, and Claude promised to go with her when she was done with her business. When the train arrived at Wickham Castle, Claude took Sheila to the estate, a field assigned to him personally, 1,500 acres. One of the largest private estates in Cromwell in size.

A veteran of the estate, retired from service due to disability, named Piano. Zrisinko. He served as a security guard around Claude and did well when he was laid down for Squadron Leader. This was supposed to be a promotion path, but he was unlucky, broke a leg on the battlefield, and was bombed by a Hicks thrown iron pumpkin. After being rescued, he cut off his left calf leg and now replaced it with a piece of wood, walking crippled with crutches, although his voice was still as bright as usual.

“General, what are you doing here?” Piano was pleased that Claude's estate had only begun to be built for two years and was essentially entrusted with the responsibility to meet Claude only if he went to the Field Estate in Lake Lang City on New Year's Eve to report back to Claude on the gains and processes.

“It's a lady to drop by and arrange for someone to take care of the injuries.” Claude said faintly, "Piano, you're doing well here, looking organized. ”

Piano cracked his mouth and laughed: "Thank you, General. By the way, General, I was about to write to you to report something. Businesses are now joining forces to bring together small private estates for unified cultivation and processing, with participating heads of households paying dividends at the end of the year. They also sent someone to ask us if the estate would like to join them..."

“That's not necessary.” Claude waves: “Our estate doesn't need to be added, so they don't use our estate name to pull more people in, so if something happens at the end of the year, we'll be involved. ”

In fact, fields in Cromwell are better suited for large-scale production, like stockholding or something. The immigration policy of accelerating the absorption of family members of soldiers met with opposition when it was initially decided to divide land in Cromwell and Bering Ghana into smaller pieces and distribute it to soldiers in two regiments in theatres of war to own their own property.

Many major commercial firms hope to be able to lease land in the two states or buy large amounts of land to open large farms and pastures, which will improve productivity more effectively. However, it was vetoed by the war zones, which required a large number of immigrants to enhance their war potential and increase their sources of strength, so the relatives of the soldiers of these regiments became the target of the war zones, and the personal property allocated to the soldiers attracted their relatives to settle here and join the regiment...

In practice, splitting the land between the two states into smaller pieces does feed soldiers and their relatives, but small estates are hard to eat and drink and wealthy. So there are comptoirs to find a way to combine a large number of small-scale pasture ranches and so on, so that they can use the fields to stock up, implement unified agricultural production such as cultivation and farming, and then dividend them by the end of the year.

The Autonomous Territorial Regions are already aware of the situation, but are unable or unable to stop it, and can only strengthen the approvals and supervision of these comptoirs when entering into stock agreements to ensure that economic disputes arising from gaps in the agreements do not result in landowners losing their fields.

After all, cash crop cultivation by those comptoirs did not mean that they would necessarily be wealthy, and it was not uncommon for farmers to waste a year of hard work in markets due to the saturation of supply. There had been a great deal of civil unrest when small estates had been implicated by their comptoirs and forced to sell their land to pay their debts.

Piano nodded: "Okay, General, I was going to grow blueberries this year, and then I could produce my own pastoral blueberry fruit wine. By the way, General, who did you say was going to take care of the injuries? ”

“A lady..." Claude stung his teeth, did you guys listen to me or not: “Just let her live in the main house, keep all the hospitality in line with me, you give her whatever she wants, if you can't, send someone to inform me, and I'll leave a small team of guards here to protect her. Besides, you hire two waitresses to stay with her and take care of her. Understood? ”

Now, even if Piano is dumb enough to understand, the relationship between the lady and her own general who is going to stay here to feed the wounded is not simple. He nodded immediately: "Yes, General, I will treat her as the general's wife and make sure she gets what she wants..."

After saying goodbye to Sheila, Claude arrived at the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop, greeting him with Mrs. Sonia's white eyes: "You should have been here three days ago. How did you get here today? I can only postpone my trip to my father's and wait for you here..."

There's nothing more to say than bow down. That's why Claude rubbed his sour waist at noon the next day and took a tired step to visit the so-called special rifle that fired 38 bullets together, led by the radiant Lady Sonia.

“... this rifle was not developed by me, but by Barclade. Results of the Sheriff's study.” Mrs. Sonia introduced.

“Barclade. Master Sherriffield?” Claude asked in confusion.

“He is one of four wild character grammars hired at a high salary in our workshop and is very knowledgeable in the study of mechanical construction and metal materials. Didn't your military region order another 1,000 sniper rifles this time? Because I was busy studying my father's heavy guns on board, I had to give him the task of equipping sniper rifles and customized spare parts.

As a result, he not only accomplished the customized task of this thousand sniper rifles, but was fascinated by the mechanical construction of the rifle and its motion process. It took him three months to build this weird special rifle that could fire 38 bullets in a dozen seconds, which is why I wrote to you to come and see... "

Claude was taken to a very strange machine by Lady Sonia, and the weird thing to say was that the thing in front was square, and if it wasn't for the board and the butt, maybe Claude would think what the machine was in front of it, not a gun.

And then he saw Barclade. Master Sheriff, he's about fifty years old, fits the image of Dr. Weird in previous science fiction films, bald, wearing thick eyes, thin, just short of a white coat.

“Hello, Doctor. Oh, no, Master Barclade.” Claude shook his hand. “Can you shoot him on the spot? I want to see if it works. ”

Too heavy to pass. It will take four strong soldiers to move it to the iron cart, which alone will allow Claude to fork it.

“Why is there such a heavy iron plate underneath?” Claude asked.

“Ah, this is because the vibration of the barrel does not affect the accuracy of the shooting when firing, so the weight needs to be added to stabilize..." Master Barclade replied quite rightly.

And then there was the shooting show, just to make Claude strange, you have to keep turning a crankshaft that's connected to the outside in the process of pulling the trigger, and the bullet's firing is really continuous, and in just half a minute, you've shot 38 bullets.

“It's over?” Claude asked.

“Yes, General, the shooting is over. ”

“So how do you do it? ”

“Well, you see, after the launch, we need to open this rear cover, take out this tray, shove it into this tray, load the four barrels inside, press the tray up, cover the rear cover, and we can fire again.” The Barclade Mage personally came forward and gave a detailed operational demonstration.

And Claude sort of looked at the internal structure of this strange firearm, and finally understood the effect of the crankshaft inserted outside. The effect of this crankshaft is to rotate the bullet tray so that the bullet inserted in the tray can attach to the barrel that has fired the bullet and shoot again. Just to connect the bullet to the barrel perfectly, soldiers who need to rotate the crankshaft for a certain amount of even-speed training.

Claude shook his head and felt a great sense of disappointment. Because the machine gun in front of you isn't what you think it is, it's just a single-shot machine. He just calculated the next time and found that it would take at least five minutes to remove the bullet tray and reload it. And in five minutes, enough for a veteran to fire ten new rifle magazines.

Thirty-eight bullets, compared to 50 bullets in 10 magazines, are clearly of no real value to this uninterruptible special-purpose rifle.

Claude smiled and asked, "Master Barclade, I hear you have a lot of research into mechanical construction and metallic materials, so what kind of magic research did you do before? ”

“Oh, I used to help the aristocrats design and build their family's treasure trove and gates, all of which required setting up guard agencies. Later I made a small magic crossbow for sale and some mechanical magic items..." replied Master Barclade.

Turns out, Claude unraveled his doubts. No wonder he thought this special rifle was really weird. When he made it, he dared to follow the old thinking and develop it in a hidden mechanical way. This thing, if it's in the corner of a dark chamber wall, is really very powerful, and no one can escape the 38 bullets that have been ejected in a tiny room.

“Sonia, prepare a separate laboratory for Master Barclade to meet his needs for magic apprenticeships and magic test materials. His treatment is in line with yours, and some confidential tests are open to him. The difficulties you encounter in developing the tests can be discussed and studied with him..." Since he is a human resource, Claude is naturally not stingy enough to offer the best conditions to handle it, and Master Barclade opened his mouth with joy.

“But for the troops, your special rifle is useless.” Give the radish and a stick to awaken Master Barclade, who is immersed in pride and joy:

“First of all, it is too heavy to follow troops in mobile combat and to carry out rapid transfers and deployments on the battlefield. Secondly, the shooting time is too short, the loading steps are too cumbersome, and in wartime, there is no possibility that you will shoot for one minute and stop for another five minutes to load, whether offensive or defensive, is not very practical...

The continuous firing of bullets is a firepower repression of the enemy, or the use of a barrage to block the enemy's attack, as well as a defensive force movement, causing serious casualties to the enemy. in order to achieve the goal of victory and strength with fewer enemies on his side. So the time-efficiency of continuous firing is very important. The development of a serial firing weapon must meet the constant firing requirements of its source in terms of firepower.

For example, if you can fire 560 bullets in a minute, then you can still fire 560 bullets per minute over the next 10 minutes, suppressing enemy offensive and defensive fire and soldier strikes and repercussions. Only such a serial weapon can truly meet the troops' needs on the battlefield. ”

Claude pointed to the weirdly styled special rifle in front of him: “I call this serial weapon a machine gun, but it is clear that this serial weapon of Master Barclade and the machine gun I need have a huge shortcoming. Dumb, too sophisticated an interior structure, the explosion vibration of a shell on the battlefield is likely to render it ineffective.

But I'm sure that one day, as long as you keep researching, you'll develop the best machine guns for the battlefield. So, Master Barclade, I have some ideas about machine gun development. Let's go to the lab and talk to each other, and you'll be in charge of this machine gun development project in the future... "

Claude spent five or six days at the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop examining and discussing the construction and development of machine guns with the Barclaude Mage. Among them, Claude proposed to replace heavy bullet trays with bullets, and to reduce the weight of the machine guns by inserting large magazines outside, what the Barclaude Mage called the idea of genius, but whether to develop a machine gun that meets Claude's requirements depends on what Barclaude Mage is capable of. Claude's memory of that knowledge and impression of machine guns is all said.

Mrs. Sonia left the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop the first day and took a group of mechanics to Port Patres to install six guns on the first Iron Shell Ocean Cruiser built by Master Byrd, which was to mount an enlarged version of the new light infantry field artillery on top of the battleship and conduct a naval launch test.

In a sense, this all-iron shell battleship is unlike any other, and even though Claude has provided the shape and design of those battleships that he saw in his previous life, Master Byrd, who was responsible for making it, did not. The all-iron shell battleship he built was actually a reprint of the now popular sailwood warship, and the only change was to replace it with an iron shell. Three masts are also retained on board, with wind sails and steam power sharing.

The most unsatisfactory thing about Claude was that the Iron Shell Battleship also opened a row of cannon windows on the walls on both sides of the ship, preparing twelve guns in each of the compartments below the deck to boost the ship's fire. And in Claude's view, this is not necessary at all. The six new types of guns placed on the deck are the expanded version of the new infantry light field guns. They can be fired at a distance, targeted, blown up, freely rotated turret. They should be able to hang all the wind and sail battleships of this era. There is no need to install twenty-four old front-loaded guns under the deck at all...

However, Master Byrd is older and more stubborn. Without listening to Claude's bitter words, Claude has no choice. After all, he cannot go to fight Master Byrd on his own. He can only comfort himself that this Iron Shell Battleship is the first experimental nature. With this lesson learned, it is believed that the next Iron Shell Battleship will be better and better.

After leaving the Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop, Claude returned to his estate at Wickham Castle, where he was accompanied by Sheila. Until the end of May, Claude was preparing to leave for Anna Ranch, because Adele's due date was early June, and Claude had to go to the Ranch to accompany his brother Browick to the birth of his first child in his life...

Sheila recovered quickly and had barely been able to move freely. She was tired of staying in the estate and wanted to go back with Claude. Claude wanted Sheila to stay in the estate for another month until her body was fully recovered. While doing her thought work, an urgent letter disrupted all Claude's arrangements. Adele was born prematurely and she gave birth to a pair of dragon phoenixes, but died of major post-partum bleeding...

“I have to go back right away, you wait here and I'll pick you up.” Claude looked seriously at Sheila. And Sheila would have figured it out, knowing that something unfortunate had happened at Claude's house, and she nodded nicely.

Claude hurried back to Anna's ranch and met her wretched sister Anna: "What happened? Didn't you say at the time of the exam that Adele was very healthy and everything was fine, even if she was pregnant with twins? How could there be sudden premature birth and haemorrhage? ”

Sister Anna laughed bitterly: "It was her mother who sent a servant to see Adele, but she wrote a letter to Adele asking her to get out of the Fields family after giving birth, leave Browick alone, so that she could give birth prematurely..."