Chapter 511 Tenfold Return, Advantages of Industrial First-Developed Countries

Compared to steel mills, the first stop for envoys from most countries is the shooting range.

Many of them have asked officials from the Song Dynasty to know the scale of the steel industry and how much money it would cost to build a steel mill.

The answer given by the officials was an astronomical figure, and there were many harsh conditions.

In this case, most envoys silently estimated the national strength of their country, and then very self-awarely stopped talking about this matter.

After all, building a steel mill is not something that these countries can handle.

Even the Holy Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Seljuk Empire, the Chola Dynasty and the Chalukya Kingdom, which are relatively wealthy, have a large territory and a large population, almost need the whole country's strength to build a steel mill.

In addition to technology, materials and funds, it is also necessary to meet the need for there to be an adjacent coal mine and iron mine in the country, and even if the wealth worth millions of Song coins is invested in it, there is a possibility of losing money.

So from a pragmatic point of view, on the one hand, they do not have such great authority to make such an important decision, and on the other hand, compared with the huge investment and slow return of steel mills, firearms are better.

At least firearms can produce immediate results, allowing domestic military strength to increase rapidly in a short period of time, which is more effective than building steel mills.

Therefore, except for a few countries with relatively strong national strength, the rest of the countries flocked to the suburbs of Bianliang.

Originally, the imperial guards of the Song Dynasty were stationed in the city, but were later transferred by Zhao Jun. Except for a small number of imperial guards who were responsible for the city defense in the city, most of the imperial guards left the city and stationed in the suburbs.

For this reason, the Song Dynasty established many suburban military camps and shooting ranges for testing various weapons and artillery, including the research of the School of Physics and the Firearms Department, which were all carried out in the suburbs.

At this moment, in the shooting range outside the north of the city, with an order, nearly a hundred cannons were fired at the same time, and the hills in the distance roared in the smoke.

One by one, the shrapnel hit the ground, and then exploded, sparks splashed, mud flew, and smoke and dust rose to the sky.

"It's terrible. If it explodes on a person, he will probably be torn into pieces in an instant."

"I have heard about the power of Song Dynasty's firearms. I only heard that they easily defeated enemies ten times their size in Baghdad with firearms. Now it seems that even if they are ten times their size, it will be useless."

"I really hope that our country can also have such a heavy weapon."

Envoys from about thirty countries gathered on the parade ground, sitting in the audience and watching the test firing in the distance with telescopes, all with their mouths wide open.

They never thought that they would be able to see such a spectacular scene in their lifetime.

The West is now in the Middle Ages.

The Roman Empire and the Capetian Dynasty of France jointly occupied Western Europe, and Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Principality of Kievan Rus were located in central and eastern Europe.

Next was the Byzantine Empire in the Mediterranean region, and then the Fatimid Dynasty, Abbasid Dynasty and Seljuk Empire in the Middle East.

These countries are countries with relatively large territories and populations. The rest of the small countries survive in the cracks between them. In terms of national strength and status, they must rely on those powerful countries.

But even those small countries saw the power of firearms at this moment.

If they could have these firearms, even if they could only equip a few thousand people, even if they could not sweep across the West, they could still dominate the surrounding areas, and even conquer a large territory and achieve great things.

Therefore, the attraction of firearms is much greater than that of steel mills. When they saw the smoke and dust and splashing mud caused by the explosion of these firearms in the distance, they made up their minds to bring a large number of firearms to their countries even if they had to sell their pots and iron.

"This is the firearm of our Song Dynasty. It was developed and manufactured by our firearms military factory. It is extremely powerful. One bullet can kill an enemy. One shell can blow away even the thickest armor."

"We have long abandoned cold weapons such as swords and guns. These weapons are no longer useful. Only guns and cannons are the kings of future wars."

"Okay, please rest assured, envoy. We will never break our promise on the weapons order we agreed on on the spot."

"What? You want to increase the order?"

Many accompanying officials proudly introduced and narrated to the envoys.

Even if these are backward firearms eliminated during the Song-Xia War and the Song-Liao War, the main power is black gunpowder, not the yellow gunpowder guns and cannons used by the Song Dynasty army now.

But in the Middle East and Europe, it is already a dimensionality reduction attack. No matter how powerful the heavy cavalry and heavy infantry are, they are as fragile as a piece of paper in front of them.

At one time, many envoys present, some who had not negotiated orders before, wanted to negotiate immediately, some who had already negotiated orders wanted to increase the order quantity immediately, and some simply asked the officials of the Song Dynasty whether they could build a production line in their country.

At this moment, the backward military equipment that had been piled up in the Song Dynasty was quickly cleared out of stock, and various orders came in like raindrops.

A few days later, on the 23rd, there was still one day before the celebration.

In the cold winter, there was no snow in Bianliang, the air was quite dry, and the sun could not be seen during the day.

But the sky was not gray, but like the bright sky at five or six o'clock in the morning in summer, but not very bright.

The room of the Political System Institute was spacious. Relying on the special design, it used to allow sunlight to shine in and fill the room with light.

Now there is no sunlight, so we can only turn on the lights.

The dim incandescent lamp illuminated the room brightly. There were many official documents piled on each prime minister's desk, and rustling sounds kept making.

"Zhiyuan."

As the director of the Production Department, Su Huan handed over the latest official documents from the outer court.

In the past, the way the Constitutional Yuan worked was that ministries would send documents to the Constitutional Yuan, and then the Constitutional Yuan would make a ruling or review.

Later, Zhao Jun thought that this kind of work was too inefficient and very troublesome, so he changed the Zhongshu Sheren Zhigao, which was originally used to refute the emperor's imperial edict, to the Zhongshu Shengsi, and acted as secretary.

Official documents submitted by various ministries will be reviewed by the Production Department, so even though the Production Department is only a third-level organization, Su Huan, the director, is only a fourth-level official.

But just as Gao Yuliang and Li Dakang had to honor Xiao Bai as Director Bai, no one among those second-rank ministers dared to underestimate Su Huan.

Everyone knows that the Imperial Academy is training Su Huan to be prime minister, and it is said that Su Xun's son Su Che has quickly ranked among the best since he entered Bianliang Middle School. Perhaps the Su family will have another prime minister in the future.

"What's wrong?"

Zhao Jun stopped the pen in his hand and raised his head.

He has just signed some plans for next year's administration, and the Statistics Department and various ministries have submitted data a few days ago. The prime ministers are also busy with this matter these days.

In addition, the New Year celebration will start tomorrow. Although there are still three days of working time from the 25th to the 28th, it is basically just these three days.

Therefore, the Constitutional Yuan is extremely busy with year-end tasks.

"This is the result of the talks between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Rites, the Department of Firearms, and the Ministry of Commerce in the past few days. This is the gift list for kings and envoys from various countries to bribe officials. This is the list of their purchases in the past few days, and this."

Su Huan sorted out each official document clearly, then put the thinner document at the bottom and said: "This is a wish list from several countries who want to buy steel technology. There is another one at the bottom, which is The total price calculated by several departments."

"Let me see."

Zhao Jun took it and glanced at each of them. The thickest of the official purchase lists was more than a foot high, and the thinnest was the steel technology wish list.

It is estimated that there is no statistics on the total price of technology. These things are relatively complicated and involve the establishment of an industrial system. Several departments may not be able to do it in a short time. They just calculated the wishes and requirements of the other party.

Those total price lists were relatively detailed, with almost eighty pages, detailing the weapons and ammunition that each country needed to purchase, with the total price recorded on the last page.

There are currently more than fifty countries that want to buy guns. Except for a few small countries that just made up the numbers and only bought some muskets to arm the King's Guard, most of the other countries have bought a lot of guns and grenades, and some have even added more. quantity.

For example, the Chola Dynasty originally required 50 artillery pieces, but now it has been changed to 80. It also needs to purchase 300 Weiyuan cannons, 12,000 flintlock muskets, 900,000 rounds of bullets, and 30,000 grenades.

The rest of the Chalukya dynasty were similar, except that the Chalukya dynasty was restricted by the agreement between the Song Dynasty and the Chola Dynasty and could not sell cannons, so they bought 70,000 flintlock muskets, 6.2 million rounds of bullets, and 200,000 grenades.

There are also countries with relatively strong national power in the Western world such as the HRE, the Papal States, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Abbasids, the Seljuks, and the Fatimids. They have purchased more than 100 artillery pieces, hundreds of Weiyuan cannons, and firearms. Tens of thousands of rods and tens of thousands of grenades.

All in all, the Song Dynasty sold most of the firearms made from the Baoyuan period to the Qingli tenth year. The total price of various orders actually reached an astonishing more than 30 million yuan.

"Thirty-six million four hundred thousand strings."

Zhao Jun picked up the last page and flicked it, with a joyful smile on his face.

"How many?"

His words immediately attracted the attention of several prime ministers around him.

Everyone is at work.

But after hearing these words, they almost all raised their heads and looked over at the same time.

"More than thirty-six million strings."

Zhao Jun put down the paper with a smile and said: "They are all big customers. Those with stronger national power bought more than one million guan, those with less power bought 700,000 to 800,000 guan, and those from small and medium-sized countries bought more than 300,000 to 400,000 guan. Guan, ranging from tens of thousands to more than 100,000 guan, but mosquitoes are still meat, and more than 50 countries want to buy them, adding up to more than 30 million guan, not only the cost is recovered, but also a huge profit."

This time when all nations came to North Korea, the effect of bringing goods was surprisingly good.

For example, the Chola Dynasty initially only planned to buy 50 heavy cannons, costing 180 guns each, but the negotiated price was 1,728 guns, which was almost a tenfold premium.

However, due to the Chola Dynasty's condition, the Song Dynasty was not allowed to sell artillery to Chalukya, so the price doubled again. Counting cannon shells, gunpowder and other add-ons, the artillery reached 7656 guns, and the total price was 382,800 guns.

But now there are 30 more heavy cannons, 300 small steel cannons, 12,000 guns, and 30,000 grenades. Taking into account consumables such as gunpowder and bullets, the total price has reached 1.2249 million yuan.

This almost wiped out the Chola dynasty's finances for half a year, but after watching the shooting range demonstration and adding that their rival Chalukya dynasty also wanted to buy firearms, the Chola dynasty still had to bite the bullet and buy it.

no way.

The Song Dynasty is rich in the Song Dynasty. One million coins is a huge wealth for most countries in the world, including some powerful countries.

Like the Liao Dynasty in its heyday, the population was about 9 million, and the annual fiscal revenue, including the tribute from the Song Dynasty and the tribute from the tribes in Liaodong, was only 5 to 6 million guan, less than one-tenth of the Song Dynasty's annual fiscal revenue.

Although the population of the Chola Dynasty was about 15 million, its productivity and prosperity were even worse than that of the Liao Dynasty, so the fiscal revenue was basically only 3 to 4 million guan a year.

This military expenditure was still quite large, almost consuming one-third of the Chola Kingdom's annual fiscal revenue.

Similarly.

Since the Chalukya Kingdom could not buy artillery, it could only buy more guns and bullets.

A flintlock rifle costing about 1.5 guan was sold for 12 guan by the Song Dynasty. Counting bullets, gunpowder and grenades, the Chalukya Dynasty, which was richer than the Chola Dynasty, bought more than 1.6 million guan of arms.

The arms trade of other major countries such as the Holy Roman Empire, the Papal States, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Abbasids, the Seljuks, and the Fatimids was also over 1 million guan.

The ten or so countries alone spent almost 15 million guan, and the remaining 40 or so small and medium-sized countries shared the other half of the firearms sales, so the total value came to more than 36 million guan.

"This, this, this, is it true?"

Hearing Zhao Jun's words, Yan Shu could no longer sit still, stood up and walked to Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun handed him the list and said, "Look for yourself."

"Let me see."

Yan Shu picked up the paper and read it up and down three times before he came to his senses and said excitedly, "It's really unexpected."

"It's really 36 million guan? I remember that a few years ago, the government asked the Firearms Department to make a large number of firearms, spending more than 10 million guan. In this case, wouldn't it be a bloody profit?"

"What else, it also helped us clear a lot of inventory and saved us the cost of spending money on maintenance."

"That's great, although our annual income has exceeded 200 million guan, but every year There is too much money to spend. Not only can we not save money, but we have to borrow money. Now it seems that the treasury can save some money this year. "

"What a pity."

"Huh?"

Hearing Fu Bi's regretful voice, Wen Yanbo beside him was surprised and said, "What's so regretful about this? Isn't it a celebration for all the people?"

Fu Bi smiled bitterly and said, "I regret that many firearms have been damaged due to poor maintenance over the years. I guess they will buy more in the future. It would be great if they can be preserved."

"If you put it that way, it is indeed a pity."

Everyone couldn't help but agree.

In fact, the Song Dynasty has indeed cut a lot of military spending over the years.

But the investment in firearms is still very huge. For example, most of the steel produced by Wu'an Iron and Steel Plant in the early years was used to make firearms.

In order to deal with the threats from Xixia and Liao, the Song Dynasty began to manufacture a large number of firearms from the Baoyuan period.

Like the 80,000 firearms troops at the beginning, there were 16 armies, each with three artillery battalions, each with ten cannons, 60 Weiyuan cannons, a total of 480 heavy cannons and 3,000 small steel cannons in the army.

This does not include city defense cannons and defective products.

Because heavy artillery is inconvenient to move, it often falls into pits when pulled by tractors, resulting in few military deployments, and the main heavy artillery is placed on border cities.

So from the beginning of the war, the Song Dynasty has been frantically piling up firearms, and the guns and ammunition it has made are piled up like mountains.

Even if the war stops, based on Zhao Zhen's fear of insufficient firepower, the Song Dynasty's firearms are still being manufactured on the original basis, and the number of firearms is naturally increasing.

More than ten years later, according to statistics from the Firearms Department, the Song Dynasty has built more than 5,000 heavy cannons of 2,000 kilograms, more than 10,000 Weiyuan cannons, more than one million flintlock rifles of various types, and millions of grenades.

The cost of a heavy artillery is about 180-200 guan, the cost of a Weiyuan cannon is about 20-30 guan, the cost of a flintlock rifle is low, about 1.5 guan, and a grenade is a consumable item, the cost is very low, just a little iron and black powder, about a dozen coins.

Adding the cost of research and development, manpower, materials, maintenance and other costs invested in firearms in recent years, the total cost is about more than 10 million guan.

Among them, the most expensive is black powder, and the rest are made and can be used. Black powder is consumed and must be made, resulting in high costs, which has always been a major expense.

However, there have been no wars in recent years. Except for daily training, most firearms can only be placed in warehouses. Due to the limitations of storage technology and various reasons, the damage of firearms is still very large, and many of them have become waste on the cruel battlefield.

There may be some problems of poor supervision, but there is basically no problem of reselling arms.

Because the Song Dynasty strictly controlled guns and did not allow them to be sold to the public, and transportation was inconvenient in those days, a large number of military weapons could not be transported abroad. Even if the military wanted to resell the arms, there was no way to sell so many things.

So it was almost improper storage, resulting in frequent damage, rust and other problems.

But there was nothing to do.

In the tenth year of the Qingli period, the Song Dynasty upgraded its firearms. Experts from the School of Chemistry used gelatin to solve the stability and flammability problems of nitrocellulose, allowing the Song Dynasty to officially enter the era of smokeless gunpowder.

In addition, steel technology has also been improved, and high-strength steels such as chrome steel and nickel steel have appeared, and new materials have quickly become popular.

The smokeless rifles and smokeless cannons developed with smokeless gunpowder and new steel are basically technologies from the Second World War, so they naturally need to be updated.

This made the black powder guns and cannons no longer in demand, and the court could not spend so much money to maintain them.

Therefore, no one can be blamed for this matter, it can only be a historical legacy.

The Firearms Department did a statistics last year.

Including the equipment damaged in the previous war, less than half of the more than 5,000 heavy artillery pieces remained, 60% of the Weiyuan cannons were left, and many firearms such as flintlock muskets and grenades were retained, including 70 to 80 guns and millions of grenades.

It can be said that the remaining firearms have been damaged by nearly 50% after years of lack of maintenance.

However, even so, selling these black powder guns and cannons in stock would make a huge fortune, which can be said to be a ten-fold return on investment, and the Song Dynasty made a lot of money.

Seeing the excitement of the crowd, only Zhao Jun smiled without saying a word, unfathomable.

Seeing his expression, Fan Zhongyan asked: "Why, you are not happy to solve this difficult problem?"

"Happy, but not too happy."

"Why?"

"Because this is normal."

Zhao Jun smiled calmly, looked out of the door with a deep gaze and said: "The advantages of first-mover industrial countries are here, and there will be more profitable things in the future. Sometimes you still have to learn to be calm. You will often see such things in the future, so don't make a fuss."

Everyone looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

Damn.

He pretended.