Wusongkou Fortress, with its back against Baoshan and facing the Yangtze River, is the western gateway to Shanghai City. Once it is lost, the enemy fleet will be able to attack Shanghai City along the Huangpu River, with its strategic location and importance.

Since the Shanghai Army seized the Wusongkou Fortress, Li Weiguo has spent a lot of effort here, and all of them are given priority in construction, whether it is manpower, material resources or financial resources.

But Li Weiguo would come to Wusongkou Fortress in person every other month. He knew that this would be the main battlefield for facing the British and French coalition forces head-on, so he discovered the problems as much as possible and then repaired the omissions in time.

The military exercises at Wusongkou Fortress are held once a month, just when Li Weiguo came to inspect.

"This time we imagine that the enemy landed from the northwest shallow"

"No, this deduction cannot tell the problem!"

Li Weiguo denied the exercise plan originally planned by the fortress guard Li Xiang. He proposed: "We must calculate according to the worst case scenario. We do not have naval support. The enemy occupied the landing shallows we set No. 1 to 5, and launched a full-scale attack on our fortress fortress battery."

Li Xiang said confidently: "There are 5,000 defenders in the fortifications. With the fortifications, it can stop 50,000 enemy attacks. In addition, there is a whole town of troops in Baoshan, so you can reinforce at any time. If the enemy wants to capture the fortress, it is impossible not to leave behind 100,000 corpses!"

Li Weiguo sternly said: "Even if 100,000 corpses are left, the fortress cannot be thrown away!"

Li Xiang immediately stood at attention and replied: "Yes! People are in the fortress!"

Li Weiguo nodded, suddenly remembered something, and asked, "By the way, how did you arrange the new large-caliber fortress cannon I sent you some day ago?"

Half a year ago, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau received four heavy fortress guns imported from the Krupp factory in Prussia. Two were sent to the Jinshanwei Fortress, and the other two were sent to the Wusongkou Fortress.

The Krupp cannon is a world-famous cannon. Of course, it was the Krupp factory ten years later. The Krupp factory is not famous at the moment, but they have successfully developed Krupp steel and used Krupp steel to complete the manufacturing of the Krupp artillery.

As early as six years ago, when Li Weiguo sent people to Europe and the United States to purchase industrial equipment and raw materials, he specifically instructed him to focus on contacting the Krupp factory and find ways to obtain the core secrets of the Krupp factory, especially the production technology of Krupp steel and Krupp cannons.

However, although the Krupp factory successfully developed Krupp steel six years ago, they kept the new steel technology very confidential at that time, and the Krupp cannon was still under development, which prevented the Chinese S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have not successfully obtained these two technical data.

Until three years ago, Agents of SHIELD bribed local Prussian police station officials and falsely accused Krupp of killing people. Krupp was imprisoned. At the same time, Prussian police broke into the Krupp factory under the pretext of collecting evidence of crime, opened the safe and obtained the manufacturing technology of Krupp steel, and quickly resold it to Agents of SHIELD. The detailed information of Krupp steel was sent back to Shanghai, allowing engineers at Jiangwan Steel Plant to quickly master the production technology of Krupp steel and quickly produce high-quality Krupp steel.

After being released, Krupp was very angry when he learned about the information and leaks of new steel materials and became very careful from then on.

Two years ago, Krupp finally successfully developed the Krupp steel cannon. The Krupp factory successfully developed the 80mm Krupp small steel cannon and the 200mm caliber Krupp cannon. Krupp originally wanted to sell it to the Prussian military, but in the end the Prussian military only purchased the Krupp small steel cannon in a small batch and was not interested in the 200mm large caliber Krupp cannon.

The Prussian Intelligence Station of China SHIELD has been keeping a close eye on the Krupp factory. After they received the news in time, they carried out several operations, but they failed to obtain detailed information about the Krupp cannon.

Finally, under the authorization of Li Weiguo, the Prussian Intelligence Station of SHIELD commissioned Danish merchants as intermediaries to order four Krupp cannons from the Krupp factory. While planning to transport them back to Shanghai to study slowly, they continued to wait for the opportunity.

The Krupp factory began to develop and produce according to the order. Because it was the first foreign customer, the Krupp factory attached great importance to it. It completed all design and manufacturing at the highest specifications.

After a year of manufacturing, four Krupp cannons were finally built.

The final Krupp gun was delivered with a diameter of 201 mm and a diameter of 30.5, a total length of the gun body was 13.9 meters, a total weight of 59 tons, a 5-degree elevation range of 4030 meters. The 30-degree elevation range can reach 11,760 meters, and a 2 rounds in 3 minutes.

Half a year ago, four Krupp cannons were transported back to Shanghai. Each Krupp cannon itself costs 80,000 taels of silver. In addition, each cannon needs to pay an additional 50,000 taels of freight, as well as the supporting armor-piercing bombs, blasting bombs and repair parts, all of which cost a total of 600,000 taels of silver.

The Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau quickly tested and copied this Krupp cannon.

Since the production and smelting methods of Krupp steel have been mastered, Jiangwan Steel Plant can provide the steel needed to build Krupp cannons, and even special steel from Jiangwan Steel Plant, the steel raw materials have met the conditions.

At the same time, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has a large tonnage hydraulic press and new lathe, barrel forging, bore boring and precision cutting of parts, etc., all of which have met the requirements. After carefully dismantling the two Krupp cannons, the engineers quickly copied all the parts one by one. After several months of testing, they met the standards of the imitated Krupp cannons.

However, after testing, the artillery experts of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau discovered a serious problem. The Krupp cannons have very good shooting accuracy, artillery power, or operability, which is consistent with the Shanghai army's requirements for the use of fortress cannons. However, the Krupp cannon has a fatal flaw, that is, the accuracy of the first fifteen shells is very high. After the rifle in the barrel will be severely worn and the accuracy will be severely reduced. After fifteen shells are fired, they are basically no longer rifled guns, because the rifle is smoothed and turned into smoothbore guns.

Regarding the wear of the rifle, the larger the caliber, the lower the lifespan of the heavy artillery. The only solution is to coat the barrel with a protective film, galvanized, copper-plated chrome, etc.

Li Weiguo didn't know much about what materials to plating, so he could only ask artillery experts to find their own materials, and then conduct experiments one by one to select the best materials. The help Li Weiguo could provide was that he knew the names of some wear-resistant materials, such as chromium, molybdenum, etc.

Of course, hard layers are not necessarily required to be plated in the barrel. Sometimes, as needed, in order to prevent the barrel from corroding, some corrosion-resistant materials must also be plated.

These require the artillery experts to explore themselves. Anyway, Li Weiguo has pointed out the correct research direction for them. As long as they work hard and rely on their knowledge and wisdom, I believe that it will be solved soon.

Li Xiang accompanied Li Weiguo to two east and west turrets, two 200mm Krupp cannons were installed on two east and west turrets in Wusongkou. After Li Weiguo's reminder, the bases of the two giant cannons were poured with reinforced concrete and were usually hidden in anti-aircraft holes. During wartime, they entered the turret position through rails, and the cannon seats could rotate 360 ​​degrees. The fire range not only covered the Huangpu River and the Yangtze River, but also covered other turrets in the entire Wusongkou Fortress. Even if the enemy captured the adjacent turret, the main turret could also attack it and eliminate the enemies occupying the turret.

"The artillery entered the position and prepared to shoot!"

"preparation"

The cannon leader was about to issue an order to fire, but Li Weiguo suddenly stopped him and said, "Stop! No need to fire the cannon! The lifespan of this cannon is limited, with only fifteen shots in total. One shot will be less, and one less enemy ship will be sunk!"

Li Xiang agreed: "What the lord said is that the normal life span is only fifteen. This cannon is so expensive. I just don't know how effective it will be in the battle. If one cannon sinks an enemy battleship, it will make a lot of money."

Li Weiguo nodded and said, "That's right, a 200mm Krupp cannon costs 150,000 taels of silver, and a British steam battleship costs several million taels of silver."

Li Xiang said: "I believe that these fortress artillerymen are the best gunners I have ever seen. They will definitely sink a few more British battleships as the adults wish."

Li Weiguo thought for a while and asked, "How strong are your usual training and how much can the shelling hit rate be?"

Li Xiang thought for a while and replied: "According to the order of Lord, both artillery and infantry in the fortress have been desperately trained in the past year. The hit rate of artillery soldiers is about 40%, mainly because most of our artillery are smoothbore guns, with poor accuracy, and some of them even fail to reach 20%. However, when our artillery uses the remaining rifled guns to shoot, the hit rate is as high as 75%.

The hit rate of the smoothbore cannon was not surprised by Li Weiguo's expectations, nor did he blame Li Xiang.

"Average five shots hit two shots, which is already very good!"

Li Xiang quickly said: "Thanks to your advice, you asked our artillery to draw the terrain around the Wusongkou Fortress into an accurate sand table, mark it with equally spaced coordinate systems on the sand table to divide small partitions. When artillerymen train to fire artillery, they will record the small partition where the shells are located, as well as the artillery firing angle, the required launch medicine, multiple shells and other parameters. In this way, the next time they fire the gun in this small partition, the gunner directly loads the launch medicine and shells based on the previous records, and the hit rate will naturally be eight to nine."

"Very good!" Li Weiguo nodded with satisfaction. This was the method he thought of based on the modern artillery strike theory and was written in the Fortress Defense in the Artillery Dictation.

In an era without precise satellite positioning, this tactic can only be used fortress defense.

Next, Li Weiguo, accompanied by Li Xiang, visited other parts of the fortress one after another, and was very satisfied overall.

"Sir, further forward is a minefield!"

Li Xiang stopped Li Weiguo. The two stood on a high ground. There was a forest under the slope, but trees with arms thickness or more than half a meter were all cut down. The vision was wide, and there were barbed wire in the middle to prevent the enemy from raiding.

However, the barbed wire mesh is on the surface, with landmines placed everywhere under the stones and in the grass. If an enemy attacks, there will be heavy casualties.

"This area is on the back of the fortress, and its location is extremely important, so the mine layout density is very high, and there is a thunder within almost two or three steps."

Li Weiguo nodded and listened carefully. At this moment, a sudden explosion occurred in the minefield in the distance, and a landmine was triggered.

"What's going on?"

Li Xiang shouted at the sentry on the mail tower.

Soon the sentry replied: "Someone sneaked into the minefield! It seemed to be killed by the bomb!"

"Send someone to take a look, be careful, don't step on the mine!"

"yes!"

Li Weiguo frowned and asked, "What's going on? There are military restricted areas around him. How did this person get in?"

Li Xiang smiled bitterly and said, "I don't know anything. This person must be a detailed work sent by foreigners. He is specially designed to spy on the fortress' terrain and military deployment. In recent months, it has become more and more frequent. We have caught five or six living people alone! At least twenty of them have been beaten to death by us!"

Li Weiguo immediately said angrily: "If these damn spies are mastered by them, it will be too unfavorable to us!"

Afterwards, accompanied by Li Xiang, Li Weiguo came to the fortress prison and saw five people imprisonment, only one British, and the others were Han.

"What's going on?"

Li Xiang explained: "Foreigners are very cunning. They usually don't go out in person. They often give local people some money to instruct these local people to sneak into the fortress defense zone and step on the terrain and inquire about information. Because they are all local people, it is difficult for us to distinguish whether they are spies, so we can only wait for them to enter the defense zone before catching people."

Li Weiguo sighed. These ignorant people are really a headache.

However, this is impossible. Under the poor and backward Qing Empire, the people had no patriotism, and were forced to do such spy activities because of their lives. Even in modern times, many people still provide intelligence to overseas spy agencies, and they are willing to give only a few dozen dollars to one intelligence.

This is the reality. Li Weiguo thought a lot. He knew best how great the harm of espionage activities on the eve of the war was, so he had to take action immediately.

"All these spies are paraded in the streets and displayed. Don't be too far away. Just walk around the villages and towns around the fortress. Make sure that all the people know that these people are spying on military information, committing death sentences, and then beheading them all."

Li Xiang immediately understood: "Sir, I'm going to kill the chicken to scare the monkey!"

Li Weiguo snorted coldly and said, "It's not only to kill the chicken to warn the monkeys, but the local government has implemented the Baojia joint position system for several years, but there are still people who dare to test the law with their own body. It seems that these ordinary people are not effective in reasoning to them, so they must be scared."

Li Weiguo's face turned cold and said to a personal soldier: "Transfer my order to inform Baoshan County Government and the Police Department to immediately verify the household registration of these local people who act as spies to foreigners, strictly implement the Baojia joint position system, and let them know that some things cannot be done or touched when they are doing them!"

Li Xiang also trembled all over, as if he had known Li Weiguo for the first time. A tremor rose inexplicably, which was awe for the superiors.
Chapter completed!