Chapter 1041

When Xiao Ming received the battle report from Manila, ten days had already passed since the battle took place.

After carefully studying the details of the battle report, he frowned deeply. First, in this landing operation, the Dutch had dug very deep trenches, so deep that the Dutch had to stand on stools to stick their heads out of the trenches.

These trenches reminded him of the trenches from World War I in modern times. At that time, both sides in World War I used these trenches to confront each other.

And the appearance of these deep trenches also coincided with the appearance of machine guns and the increased power of artillery. Now, all of this seemed to be repeating itself. The only thing to be thankful for was that even though the West had trenches, they did not have weapons like machine guns and Imperial Guard artillery, otherwise the war would truly become a meat grinder.

He was not surprised by the fact that the Dutch used the fire hedgehog tactic to counter the imperial soldiers, which resulted in an increase in casualties, because any normal commander would think of this method.

However, if deep trenches were combined with this firing method, it would still be a headache during an assault. Of course, he believed that the imperial soldiers would eventually achieve victory, but the casualties would also increase, which was something he was unwilling to see, because every soldier was extremely precious now.

After all, the Empire’s reach was now very large. The occupied Goryeo and Japan needed garrisons, and the colonies also needed soldiers to maintain order. The natives there were still in a barbaric era of civilization and would not be reasonable at a negotiating table. Tribal leaders could declare war on you at any time based on their moods.

In addition, the Empire’s war on land with Tsarist Russia had not yet truly begun, and the situation in the region beyond Tian Shan was even more complex. Neither Persia, which was still called Persia, nor Afghanistan, which was called the Durrani Empire, nor the massive Ottoman Empire were easy to deal with. With the addition of Tsarist Russia, this place could turn into a powder keg and explode at any moment.

Therefore, when he chatted with Yue Yun, he mentioned his idea of slowing down the pace of expansion. He had, after all, established a colonial system in just a few years that had taken the Europeans more than two hundred years to build.

As the saying goes, if you bite off more than you can chew, you will choke. He was now facing this problem. A vast territory had been conquered, but the construction on it was almost zero. In this way, these lands could not provide any help to the Empire’s economy, which was not a desirable outcome.

Now, every war was a huge consumption of bullets and ammunition. The large-scale mining of domestic copper could indeed meet the current needs, but only a fool would not exploit the resources of the hard-won territory.

Moreover, the Empire now had mature ironclad warship construction technology, and the next step was the construction of large steam merchant ships. In this way, the Empire’s maritime transportation capacity would increase exponentially, which would make it easier for overseas resources to be transported back to the country.

More importantly, even if he defeated the Western armies in Southeast Asia, it would be impossible for him to land and fight in Europe to attack Europe.

If it really came to a landing operation, the war potential that could be unleashed in Europe would still be terrifying, and trench warfare would turn the war into a protracted one, which he could not afford.

Therefore, the next battles would still be about the struggle for colonies and naval warfare in the process of establishing maritime hegemony.

Thinking of this, he gave Yue Yun an order, telling him to attack Jakarta and then annihilate the Western warships in the Indian Ocean.

This time, along with Yue Yun’s battle report, there was also intelligence provided by Wang Xuan. He had learned that the Western armies were gathering in India, preparing to launch a war to retake Singapore, and at the same time, defend against the Empire’s attack on India.

But in Xiao Ming’s opinion, the Westerners had once again guessed his possible actions wrong.

Now that he had a fleet of ironclads, he would not be foolish enough to go head-to-head with them. To attack Singapore, their warships would at least need to be able to reach Singapore. Under the Empire’s maritime hegemony, it was wishful thinking for them to attack the Empire’s colonies, and the soldiers in India could wait indefinitely for a ship to take them back.

While thinking with an evil grin, a sound of footsteps suddenly rang out.

A moment later, Qian Dafu and Chen Qi arrived at the Imperial Study. Chen Qi bowed and said, “Your Majesty, the improvement of the mortar has been completed. I have come specifically to report to Your Majesty.”

“That fast?” Xiao Ming was slightly surprised, and then a smile appeared on his face. “Excellent, excellent. The soldiers fighting in Southeast Asia are in great need of this artillery.”

With that, he stood up and walked outside. “Let’s go. I want to see the results.”

Chen Qi smiled and followed. When they arrived at the military factory, he had the technical staff of the military factory take out a short cannon.

“Your Majesty, this is the improved mortar. Now, this mortar no longer requires two people to carry. One soldier can carry it and run,” Chen Qi said, pointing at the short-barreled cannon with a green coating in front of him.

Xiao Ming nodded with satisfaction. The mortar was actually the predecessor of the modern mortar, and both were indirect fire cannons.

After the Imperial Guard artillery appeared, he had Chen Qi improve the mortar, and now the mortar finally had the appearance of a modern mortar.

“Your Majesty, this mortar now weighs 9.4 kilograms, the stand weighs 5.8 kilograms, the shell weighs 2.18 kilograms, and it has an effective killing radius of 17.8 meters and a maximum range of 2,000 meters, with a caliber of 82 millimeters. It is very effective in attacking enemies hiding behind obstacles,” Chen Qi said with a smile.

In fact, he had the idea of improving the mortar before, but the quality of the alloy steel at that time was not good. Now, with the advent of electricity, the Academy of Chemistry used pressurized condensing technology to produce pure oxygen, which greatly improved the quality of oxygen blowing in the electric furnace, thereby also improving the quality of the refined steel.

“The most important thing for a mortar is the shell. Is the shell up to standard?” Xiao Ming did not praise Chen Qi immediately but continued to ask.

Chen Qi then said something to the technical staff, and a box of mortar shells was brought in front of him.

Xiao Ming picked up a mortar shell and examined it. The firing of a mortar was different from that of the Imperial Guard artillery.

Simply put, a mortar shell’s firing relied on its own weight to make the primer hit the firing pin at the bottom of the barrel. When the primer was fired, it would ignite the basic cartridge at the tail of the shell. In this way, the shell could be fired very far with the power of the smokeless gunpowder’s explosion, and then the fuse at the head of the shell would be triggered upon impact to ignite the explosive charge, finally causing an explosion.

It was precisely because of this principle that mortar shells were more difficult to make than ordinary shells. They were mainly composed of four parts: the shell body, the tail fin, the basic cartridge at the bottom, and the fuse. At the same time, the shell body also had a gas-sealing ring to make the shell fit completely with the barrel. The shell that Xiao Ming was holding now met the standard of a mortar shell.

Clicking his tongue, Xiao Ming said with emotion that the Empire’s industrial capacity was indeed making great strides. The bottlenecks of many technologies in the technology crystals were now disappearing.