Chapter 404: Jeremiah's Painting
The smirking pirate captain, the tall and majestic pirate ship, the slightly decayed wooden boards, the machetes and muskets, accompanied by the evening breeze and the waves splashing on the dock, are all frozen on the Banshee's canvas.
Finnel paints very quickly, with several brushes in each of her six hands, and her painting speed is comparable to that of a printer.
Soon, she took down the wooden board with the canvas stretched on it, held it before her eyes, looked at it, nodded with satisfaction, and handed it to Jeremiah.
"Let's take a look. How about it?"
Jeremiah stretched his neck and smiled happily: "Good, good, that's great. That's great, that's great."
"Next time you want to leave a record, you can go find Nini. I heard she is researching a device called a camera that can freeze the scene in just a moment."
"Is there such a thing?" Jeremiah held the drawing board carefully. "But I probably won't change the Black Pearl again. This time I'll just add a few steam engines. She's already perfect and doesn't need any more decoration."
Finnel smiled softly and said nothing.
"Young men, let's get to work!" Jeremiah turned around and shouted to the workers, "I'll treat you tonight. You can all get together to drink and read the Bible!"
"oh oh!"
“Yeah!”
The workers cheered and walked towards the pirate ship with their tools in hand.
On the other side, Hughes took his men to Richard's testing site.
There is no shortage of researchers in Castells, but there are indeed too many projects being carried out at the moment.
Therefore, Hughes could not find a suitable person to conduct the research on the artillery project for a while, and finally handed it over to Richard.
The Fire Moth, who was originally a doctor, is now responsible for the development of artillery. However, this is also a tradition. It is said that the Gatling gun was also invented by a doctor. So it seems reasonable to let Richard develop artillery.
And to be honest, he's pretty motivated.
Hughes found him in the laboratory.
"My Lord, you came at the right time. The artillery I'm researching will be tested today!"
"What a coincidence? It was developed as soon as I arrived?" Xius scratched his head with a strange look on his face.
"Not really. We have already produced several types of artillery, but due to their weight and size, they are difficult to transport to the battlefield. The one we are going to test-fire today is a miniaturized version."
"That's fine. The larger version can also be used on ships, where size is not a big concern."
"Will it work?" Richard was a little surprised. "Our guns have a lot of recoil. We've done experiments on Mr. Jeremiah's ship before. Even firing on a calm sea would cause violent shaking. The new ship at the shipyard has to be big enough."
Worried that the boat isn't big enough? Hughes' eyes twitched.
"The island didn't shake when you fired the cannon last time, did it?"
"Ah? No, right?"
"It's ok as long as it doesn't shake. Let's try installing it. Their boats are almost as good as those on the islands."
Richard took off his hat and scratched his thinning head, unsure if this was a joke.
He knew Tata. He was a colleague of Fire Chaser Moth. It was possible for the shipyard he led to come up with any design. "Then let's go to the test site first. I have made some improvements to this cannon according to my own research direction. It will surprise you."
Zeus nodded and followed. At that moment, he did not pay attention to Richard's words until later when he remembered that Richard's research direction was human body modification.
When they arrived at the testing ground, the two put on earmuffs. Zeus was somewhat surprised to see that there were actually several banshees there, standing in the waiting area laughing.
"My Lord."
They both bowed together.
"What are you doing here?"
"Mr. Richard's cannon, let's test fire it."
A piece of artillery that needs a Banshee to test fire?
Richard quickly stepped forward to explain, "It's like this. With the Gatling machine guns you had before, the soldiers could only pull them up to the battlefield and fix them on the ground to shoot, but the Banshee can be shot directly by holding it in their hands."
"I wonder if the same can be done with artillery. For heavy artillery that the soldiers need to carry, the Banshee troops can just hold it and use it."
Handheld cannons? It sounds weird, but it does make sense.
"If there are no problems, we will start the test firing, Lord."
Xius nodded and began to look around - where is the artillery? Isn't this a test site? Where is the artillery? After receiving the order, the two banshees raised their hands and pointed at the target in front of them.
It was not until then that Zeus noticed that they all had a thick black tube on their hands. The tube was several times thicker than their hands and looked very heavy, but the banshees had no difficulty in lifting it.
"What is this? A hand cannon? How..."
Boom!!! The flames from the explosion gushed forward like a waterfall. The bright red flames dimmed the sunlight for a moment. The two banshees were pushed back a few steps by the recoil. Smoke slowly came out of the hand cannons hanging at their sides.
A long dragon of fire instantly sprang across the ground, rushed towards the target and burned it to ashes, leaving a long shallow ditch.
A black and red substance like magma slowly flows out of the ditch.
Hughes stood aside, completely stunned.
"How is it, Lord?"
"Is this a cannon? This is a cannon?"
Richard scratched his sparse hair in confusion. "This is according to your request. Heavy weapons, fired like guns, can destroy fortifications that are difficult for machine guns to break through. It is also useful against large monsters."
Hughes was speechless for a moment.
This thing doesn't look like the artillery he remembers. At least artillery doesn't have such exaggerated special effects! It's really pretty.
After a while, Hughes felt something was wrong: "How did you change the formula? No matter how you twist the nitroglycerin, it won't have this effect, right? What did you add? White phosphorus? Magnesium powder?"
Richard adjusted his monocle: "I added pollution."
"ah?"
"It was Gaia who first discovered it. The storage of nitroglycerin has always been a problem. No matter what method is used to deal with it, it is difficult to solve the problem of its explosiveness. We have tried to make several safer explosives before, but they are difficult to maintain stability for a long time. After a long time, it will become highly active again."
This is why until now Castel has only been able to make explosive packs, but has not been able to find suitable explosives for artillery shells.
To be honest, Xius had long suspected that this was caused by the technological lock, but there had been no good solution, so he could only let the researchers figure it out on their own.
The results turned out to be useful, but quite unexpected.
"In the end, it was Monica who gave us the inspiration. She could put the pollution into the furnace and burn it. So it shouldn't be a problem to use it to blow it up, right?"
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
