I want to be emperor

Chapter 739 200mm Rifled Cannon
In the spring and April of the 27th year of Chengshun, Jinling City Dongcheng District.

In the newly established pharmaceutical laboratory, Luo Zhixue is leading a group of officials to inspect.

The pharmaceutical laboratory was established just five days ago. Some of the researchers in it are personnel from several government-run pharmaceutical factories, and some are medical experts and chemical experts from several universities.

As for why there are chemical experts in the pharmaceutical laboratory... that is because many drugs are compounds.

Generally speaking, there are actually only two categories of drugs, one is biological drugs, such as various vaccines that are common in later generations, which are very typical biological drugs, and the drug itself is a kind of biological;
The other is chemical drugs. Almost all drugs used in daily life belong to chemical drugs, such as amoxicillin, a broad-spectrum bactericidal drug that people are exposed to most in daily life, and penicillin, which often appears in historical texts. Antibiotics...Although these antibiotics are said to be available in the form of biopharmaceuticals, these substances themselves are still compounds, with molecular formulas...

Of course, some people will say that in addition to these two categories of medicines, there are a lot of herbal medicines or mineral medicines or other messy "drugs" in empirical medicine.

Well, most of them are useless, they belong to the category of placebo or simply superstition, these can be excluded from the ranks of drugs, and some of the useful herbal medicines are also chemical medicines strictly speaking, because they are one of the herbal medicines. A chemical substance plays a medicinal role.

Like the cinchona tree, the reason why this thing can cure malaria is because it has quinine in it...

There is also willow bark, the reason why it can relieve pain and reduce fever is because it contains salicin, which will be converted into salicylic acid after taking it, and then cure diseases. If salicylic acid is combined with acetic anhydride, it will become acetylsalicylic acid ,What's this?It is the famous aspirin, one of the three great medicines of mankind.

Aspirin is a serious chemical.

Willow bark in ancient empirical medicine and aspirin in modern medical theory are actually the same thing.

Medicine, that’s what it is. Empirical medicine develops scientifically step by step, and finally it becomes modern medicine.

Well, the premise is that you don't talk about the five elements, yin and yang, dampness and heat, that stuff belongs to the category of metaphysics and has nothing to do with medicine.

……

Find out and extract the active ingredients from the botanicals in empirical medicine, and then try to synthesize them artificially.

This is an important channel for early drug research under modern medical theory. Many blockbuster drugs from the second half of the [-]th century to the beginning of the [-]th century came from this way, such as quinine, aspirin, morphine and so on.

Therefore, a series of chemical theories and methods are very important and even indispensable means in the pharmaceutical field.

Therefore, it is inevitable to introduce a large number of chemical experts into the pharmaceutical laboratory. Of course, there are many kinds of chemists. The chemists who work in the pharmaceutical laboratory are basically chemists who have extensively carried out drug research before. To be precise, they belong to medicinal chemists.

At the same time, this group of medicinal chemists is also the main professor of pharmacology in several colleges and universities.

In order to achieve great breakthroughs in the field of pharmaceuticals, the Great Chu Empire adopted the method of concentrating manpower and material resources. Not only did the domestic researchers from several large pharmaceutical factories directly under the Ministry of Industry gather together, but also the professors of pharmacology in the High-efficiency Lane They also concentrated on various types of drug research by means of concentrated research.

As for the funds... that's nothing. Except for the research and development funds of a few universities and pharmaceutical factories, the Ministry of Industry has invested 80 Chu Yuan in pharmaceutical laboratories, and these funds are only preliminary research and development funds. In the future, these institutions will continue to invest in research and development funds until they produce results.

From a legal point of view, this pharmaceutical laboratory is a commercial laboratory jointly invested by the Ministry of Industry, several pharmaceutical factories, and several universities.

Of course, all the above-mentioned capitals belong to the official capital.

This mode of joint commercial operation and profit sharing of pharmaceutical laboratories using universities-enterprises-the Ministry of Industry (or local industrial departments/divisions/sections) is also a considerable part of the government-run research institutes in the Great Chu Empire. , The basic model of the laboratory.

Even the government-run research institutes such as the Firearms Research Institute and the Artillery Research Institute, which specialize in arms research, have adopted a commercial operation model after reform.

For example, the well-known Jinling Firearms Research Institute used to belong directly to the Ministry of Industry and did not participate in commercial activities. The research results directly belonged to the state and did not conduct commercial operations.

However, after the reform, the Firearms Research Institute was independent for commercial operation. The Jiangnan Arms Company held most of the shares, the Ministry of Industry retained a part of the shares, and the Royal Institute of Technology also held a part of the shares. Its research and development results will be authorized by patents. The method was awarded to Jiangnan Arms Company, which obtained profits and then continued to maintain the research and development of weapons.

However, some basic research projects, especially purely theoretical research laboratories, and research institutes are still directly under the Ministry of Industry or belong to major universities, mainly because these pure theoretical or basic research cannot directly generate economic benefits...

For example, the group of mathematicians who study number theory, theoretical physicists who study theoretical physics, and astronomers who study astronomy... Although what they study is very important, what they study is too high-level, and it is different from ordinary people. It doesn't matter if you are sincere, and it is difficult to generate economic profits in a short period of time.

These basic theoretical research projects naturally need the support of official funds, otherwise the group of mathematicians and a group of theoretical physicists will starve to death...

Therefore, in the current Great Chu Empire, there are many various research projects, and the sources of research funds are also diverse.

Generally speaking, the sources of funds for pure basic theoretical research are financial funds, the kind that are directly allocated from the financial... What mathematics, theoretical physics, and other cutting-edge theoretical research, etc. are all like this. Some of these studies are Relying on the development of various colleges and universities, the finance allocates funds to colleges and universities, and colleges and universities allocate funds to research projects.There are also some research institutes and laboratories that directly belong to the Ministry of Rites and Education, the Ministry of Industry, or other departments. This is simpler and directly uses the financial allocations of various departments.

There is another kind of official capital. This official capital and financial funds are not the same concept. Financial funds are used directly from taxation and are part of the government’s financial budget. Official capital mainly refers to the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Finance of the Great Chu Empire. The funds of government-run enterprises controlled by various ministries of the Ministry of Rites and Education and local industry departments are part of the economic system of the Great Chu Empire.

R&D investment is dominated by government-run enterprises, the most typical of which are research on various weapons, steam engine research, etc. The three major steam engine manufacturers are all wholly owned by the Ministry of Industry.

Part of it is private capital, and these private research and development funds are actually very large. The private capital in the Great Chu Empire is still very large. The scale and output value of Li's Iron Manufacturing Company are not small, and Li's Iron Manufacturing Including its subsidiaries, the scale of R&D investment in various fields is very large.

There is also Suqin Textile Company, which has invested heavily in research related to the textile industry, such as cotton selection and breeding, research and development of textile machinery and equipment, research and development of dyes, etc. These traditional businesses will not be mentioned.

In recent years, Suqin Textile Co., Ltd. has expanded very rapidly in scale, and is developing towards diversification. When it enters new fields, it will also invest heavily.

In addition to the textile field, Su Qin Textile Co., Ltd. is also involved in various chemical products, mainly coatings and daily chemicals. Last year, one of its subsidiaries also obtained a gunpowder production license and entered the gunpowder field.

Why would a textile company get involved in gunpowder and household chemicals?
Because they themselves have the largest dye factory with the highest technology and the level of research and development in the Great Chu Empire.

The dye itself is a large collection of compounds!
Su Qin Textile Company not only maintains a group of chemical experts, but also maintains cooperation with many universities to jointly develop various messy compounds.

These various messy compounds have been studied more, and many chemical by-products have come out.

Twenty-five years later, they developed a new yellow dye, only to discover that it was easy to explode... Its powerful explosive power quickly attracted the attention of the military.

The military let them continue their research, and even got them a gunpowder production license.

The military is counting on them to continue to improve this explosive, and then use it for military purposes... But it is estimated that it will not work out for a while. This ghost thing is too dangerous to research and use, so it is not easy to do!
Su Qin Textile Company will not be able to produce new explosives for a while. It will not increase the existing national defense force of the Great Chu Empire, and the military support is only for the future... and the military supports various projects. Su Qin's new explosive project is just one of them.

On the contrary, many new gunpowder achievements made by the Jinling Gunpowder Research Institute have greatly promoted the development of the national defense industry of the Great Chu Empire.

The copper fire caps used in the fire cap percussion guns used by the Great Chu Empire today were produced by this research institute.

At the same time, they continued to make various improvements to the black powder, from various techniques to the proportion of ingredients, and recently came up with a gunpowder with a slower burning speed. This kind of black powder is lighter in color than the previous black powder. Showing maroon, also known as maroon gunpowder.

At present, various tests have been carried out with this maroon gunpowder, and it is found that it is very effective as a gunpowder propellant. The relatively slow burning speed can make it burn stably, and it is not easy to explode the chamber when more propellant is used.

A simple description is that the black powder is the shell that is pushed out at the maximum speed at the moment of the explosion, then the maroon gunpowder is the slow burning of the sizzling, and then the shell is gradually pushed out at a faster speed.

The military attaches great importance to this maroon black powder, and has conducted various practical tests. At the same time, it organized the Zhenjiang gunpowder factory to carry out preliminary test production. If there is no accident, the military will use this maroon black powder on a large scale to serve as a launcher for artillery. medicine use.

Well, propellants only for artillery, preferably large-caliber artillery.

However, this thing is not suitable for use as propellant for muskets.

If the follow-up maroon gunpowder can be widely used, it will also have a great effect on improving the performance of various artillery of the Great Chu Empire.

Luo Zhixue, who heard the news, watched a test firing of a new type of artillery organized by the military in late April.

And the test is not only the propellant such as maroon gunpowder, but also the artillery itself, because this time the new artillery that participated in the imperial test firing is all front-loaded rifled artillery.

Although considering the current basic industrial level of the Great Chu Empire, it is relatively difficult to manufacture rifled artillery, and its cost will be very high, but the huge power displayed by rifled artillery is something that the military cannot refuse.

Front-loaded rifled artillery has a huge advantage over the previous smoothbore artillery. One is the effective range. Because of the existence of the rifled artillery, it can easily make the artillery shoot thousands of meters or even farther, while maintaining great accuracy.

The second is power!
Because the front-loading rifled artillery uses cylindrical shells, it has a larger charge, and a larger charge means greater explosive power.

This can be seen from the power of the naval 150mm front-loading rifled gun equipped in the previous test. Its caliber is only 150 mm, but its explosive power exceeds all other large-caliber smoothbore guns currently in service in the Chu army, including those More than 200mm heavy siege artillery.

This makes this 150mm front-loading rifled gun the most powerful artillery in the Great Chu Empire at present!
These two advantages are enough to make the military, especially the navy, ignore the defects of high cost and low barrel life of rifled guns.

On the other hand, although the army is also very interested in front-loading rifled guns, it also tries to develop front-loaded rifled guns, but it does not have the same determination as the navy and wants to fully reinstall.

For the army, the power of artillery is important, but the cost is also very important, and the service life is also very important.

After all, the army's artillery is used far more frequently than the navy's, especially many troops deployed overseas. When fighting, they can fire dozens of shells casually. If they encounter a tough battle, a single artillery can fire hundreds Shooting shells is possible.

If you give them a rifled gun that can only fire one or two hundred rounds, the army will be damned... because it means that the artillery may be useless before a battle is over.

Then there is the issue of cost... The army is more sensitive to the cost of artillery. Unlike the navy, where a warship costs hundreds of thousands, the price of naval guns will not have a big impact.

At the same time, naval battleships, due to the development of steam engine power, have made the hull design more troublesome, and the space for deploying artillery is also more troublesome. Therefore, at present, they are more inclined to have fewer equipment, but with longer range, higher accuracy, and greater power. naval gun.

The overall idea is to use the power of the steam engine and the rifled gun with a longer range, play the wind gust tactics, kill the opponent as far away as possible, and then avoid queuing up at sea with the enemy ship at a distance of two to 300 meters!
The development route of the navy has also gained more competition space for front-loading rifled guns.

Therefore, this time the test firing of the new artillery mainly focused on the navy's front-loading rifled guns.

When Luo Zhixue arrived at the test site, the first thing he saw was a row of dark cannons ahead, and one of the cannons caught Luo Zhixue's attention.

This thing is very big, obviously bigger than other new artillery pieces around!
Without Luo Zhixue asking, the officials on the side took the initiative to explain, and Luo Zhixue knew through the explanation.

This is the latest 200mm front-loading rifled naval gun developed by Dangtu Heavy Artillery Factory. The gun weighs more than a dozen tons. Just by looking at the weight, you can tell that this thing is a typical large-caliber cannon and can only be used as a naval gun or a fortress artillery. .

The effective range of this thing can reach more than 5000 meters. Well, this is the performance of the artillery itself, but if you want to hit a long distance, the premise is that the gunner can aim accurately... It’s okay on land, but if it’s on the sea, it’s basically necessary be thrown off balance.

In today's situation, it is useless to rely on primitive observation and aiming methods. If you want to hit an enemy more than 5000 meters away in a naval battle, all the gods will come to pray for you!
In addition to this big guy, there are more front-loading rifled guns of other calibers and different classifications, and the most attention-grabbing one is not the big guy like the 200mm naval gun, but a new type of 150mm naval gun. And this thing is the new type of naval gun that the navy attaches the most importance to and prepares for a large number of equipment.

(End of this chapter)