At the same time, although Laurence Bonaparte, who was stationed in Sardinia, could also guess that his own initiative would cause dissatisfaction in Paris and Versailles, he did not have much energy to take care of the old man during this period.

The king's thoughts.

For Lawrence, there are only two immediate priorities:

One is to use the time during which the troops are stationed in Sardinia to restore administrative order on the island as soon as possible.

The second was even more crucial during the war - to equip the troops under his command with new rifled rifles produced by the Trefali Arsenal in Marseille as soon as possible.

After Lawrence took full control of Sardinia, Major Trifalli in Marseille also received an order to personally escort a batch of arms to Sardinia to assist the soldiers of the National Defense Forces in training this new musket of epoch-making significance.

At the training ground on the plains north of Cagliari, Lawrence and his officers would visit the site almost every day to supervise the training. After all, this army equipped with new muskets was Lawrence's biggest trump card during the Italian War, and there was absolutely no room for it.

Mistakes.

In the shooting area of ​​the training ground, Chief of Staff Berthier also personally held a brand-new musket, holding his breath and aiming at a human-shaped haystack a hundred yards away.

The musket in his hand has a longer barrel and a slightly heavier weight than the muskets currently in use. There is also a small iron sight above the barrel. Other than that, there is no other visible sight from the appearance.

What's special is that there is a line of small words engraved on the bottom of the gun handle:

"Tréfaly 1771 rifle, produced at the Trefaly Arsenal in Marseille"

Aiming the crosshair in the sight at the haystack in his field of vision, which was only as thick as his little finger, Berthier pulled the trigger hard.

As a wisp of green smoke suddenly ignited, debris instantly flew from the haystack a hundred yards away, indicating that the bullet accurately hit the target.

“It’s really amazing!”

Berthier simply cleaned the gunpowder hole, and then looked at the rifle in his hand fondly. He had no idea that such a deadly weapon could be produced on the remote island of Corsica:

"It can achieve accurate shooting at enemies within a hundred yards. The key is that the shooting frequency is no less than that of today's smoothbore flintlock muskets. I really can't imagine how many soldiers will die under this musket."

What shocked Berthier, a top student at the Paris Military Academy, was not the shooting accuracy of this musket. After all, the rifled gun had been invented hundreds of years ago.

However, the firing frequency of rifled guns in the past was extremely low. Soldiers needed to carry a mallet with them to pound bullets into the rifling of the barrel to fire them normally. Even skilled veterans took a minute or two to complete a loading and firing.

The firearm in Berthier's hand, combined with the use of Mini bullets, could achieve precise shooting while retaining the shooting frequency of two to three rounds per minute of a musket. This really surprised him.

Major Serurier on the side stared at the musket in his hand with a solemn expression. He had previously heard that the Corsican Army was researching a new type of musket, but this was also the first time he had seen its power with his own eyes:

"It's really amazing. It completely defeated the enemy before they got close... This gun may be able to change the situation of all wars. If it can continue to increase the shooting accuracy and shooting frequency... maybe it can be connected to the line."

Tactics will be consigned to the dustbin of war history."

Hearing the unstinting praise from the two French officers, Major Trifali couldn't help but feel a hint of joy on his face. After all, as the designer of this musket, his name is enough to be engraved in history.

"Having said that, there are still many areas for improvement on this rifle. Its reliability, weight, complexity, etc. can continue to be improved..." Major Trifali responded humbly.

Berthier asked curiously:

"What is the possibility of large-scale installation?"

The surrounding officers also immediately came over. If this deadly weapon could be deployed on a large scale in the army of a major European country, it would undoubtedly have an advantage on the battlefield.

But Major Cui Farali scratched his head, shrugged helplessly and said with a smile:

"It is very difficult at the moment. The most critical issue is cost. The precision of this rifle is far superior to that of a smoothbore rifle, so the production cost is naturally much higher. Including the Mini bullets it uses, it currently requires manual labor.

The production and output are far inferior to those of lead projectiles..."

The production of ordinary spherical lead bullets only requires pouring a pot of melted lead water from a perforated disk at a height. The lead water droplets will solidify in the air and naturally form a perfect spherical shape under the action of gravity.

The Mini bullet currently used in this musket is a cone-shaped projectile. The projectile itself requires a pouring process to manufacture, and the cork filled at the tail needs to be manually installed. Therefore, compared with mass-produced lead bullets, it has

The cost has increased more than several times.

The more critical issue is that due to material problems caused by the metallurgical technology at the end of the 18th century, the service life of the rifled gun is far shorter than that of the smoothbore gun, because during the firing process, the rifling in the barrel of the rifled gun will continue to be

Grinding, resulting in a continuous decline in accuracy.

Historically, after about two hundred firings of a seventeenth-century rifled gun, its internal rifling had been almost worn out. Even in the nineteenth century, after the advancement of metallurgical technology, the service life of a rifled gun was only about

Three hundred shots.

The Trifali Arsenal in Marseille has expanded to include thousands of craftsmen and apprentices. With the strong support of Mayor Lawrence and Josip, so many craftsmen are working hard to produce regardless of cost, and their production capacity is barely enough to supply science and technology.

Thousands of soldiers from the Sika Army are fully equipped.

All the officers were a little disappointed after listening to Major Trifali's explanation. From this point of view, it is unrealistic to promote this rifle to the French Army in a short period of time.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! The finances of the Kingdom of France are already extremely tight. The Duke of Choiseul has continued to expand his army and prepare for war in the past ten years. Louis XV will never invest in the army no matter how hard he thinks.

There is more investment. After all, the daily cost of the Trifali Arsenal in Marseille alone is an extremely terrifying figure.

Lawrence was naturally not surprised by this conclusion. He had been paying close attention to the production situation of Cuifali Arsenal, and he also knew how terrifying the daily labor and material costs of this arsenal were.

If it were not for the funds of the National Silver Company of Corsica and the secret support of Mayor Josip, the Kingdom of Corsica’s own financial level would probably not be able to maintain the arsenal even after the implementation of the agricultural tax reform bill.

daily operations.

"As expected, productivity is everything."

Lawrence couldn't help but lamented that the essence of war is ultimately a competition of national strength.

Even if you have knowledge and technology in your mind that are far beyond this era, you still need a powerful state machine to realize it.

Now that the internal obstacles to Corsica's development have been completely removed, Lawrence is also thinking in his mind that Corsica's rapid industrialization process should also be advanced.

As for the other major condition required to complete industrialization - the accumulation of original capital, Lawrence naturally would not think of completing it by exploiting the interests of his own people.

During the time he was stationed in Sardinia, Lawrence was also constantly thinking about what was the best option to provide Corsica with original capital.

...

At the end of September 1771, it had been nearly two months since Lawrence officially took over Sardinia.

With the assistance of the local Sardinian nobles and bureaucrats headed by Governor Bertrand, the turmoil on the entire island did not last long. Order was restored within a few weeks, and the laws and regulations of the Kingdom of Corsica also

It began to be gradually implemented in Sardinia.

Officials from various ministries in the Kingdom have also ushered in their busiest months of work, especially the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance. They not only have to lead the implementation of agricultural tax reform and land reform bills in Sardinia, but also have to deal with the Savior

The assets of the Yi nobles will be liquidated and collected in a unified manner.

According to the agreement between Lawrence and Governor Bertrand, the assets of the Savoy nobles, such as farmland, manors and other small and medium-sized assets, are all handled by local municipalities as collective property, while large assets such as mines and castles are

Unified and nationalized, and handed over to the central government of Ajaccio for direct disposal.

The Savoy lords on the island were undoubtedly extremely frightened and angry about the sudden levy and confiscation, but with the defeat of Lieutenant General Ethel, these colonist-like nobles could no longer make any waves.

, they can only be forced to accept this reality.

Most of the Savoy lords were only allowed to keep their necessary luggage, and were then sent back to Savoy in batches by Lawrence.

Among the confiscated assets, the ones that concerned Lawrence the most were the several giant silver mines headed by the Argentiera Silver Mine.

You must know that the scale of the Argentiera silver mine is much larger than the Ajaccio silver mine invented by Lawrence. If it is announced that these silver mines will also be under the management of the Corsican National Silver Company,

I am afraid that a new investment frenzy is about to usher in the Paris Stock Exchange.

However, since he is now overseas, Lawrence has decided to temporarily put these large silver mines under the management of the central government of Ajaccio, like other mineral veins.

For this kind of news that can stimulate the whole of Paris and even the French financial community, Lawrence still plans to return to Paris in person and then find the right time to spread the news in order to make the most of this news.

In addition, Governor Bertrand also revealed a piece of news to Lawrence midway:

Just before Colonel Bartland led his army to attack Ajaccio, a diplomatic mission from the Republic of Genoa came to Sardinia to discuss the sale of Corsica's legal claims with Governor Bertrand and Lieutenant General Ethel.

The Kingdom of Sardinia seemed to be sure that they could successfully annex Corsica in the Italian War, so they proposed a deal to the Republic of Genoa to purchase the legal claims of Corsica, in order to make their territorial merger more reasonable.

according to.

After all, although Lawrence led Corsica to surrender to Louis XV, the war between Corsica and Genoa entered a de facto truce, but the Republic of Genoa never recognized the independence of Corsica.

Nor did anyone send anyone to discuss with Lawrence a formal truce between the two countries.

On the map hanging in the Palace of the Governor of Genoa, Corsica is still a legal territory belonging to the Republic.

Of course, the Governor of Genoa also knew that it was impossible for them to quell the Corsican independence rebellion initiated by Pasquale Paoli and Lawrence Bonaparte. Therefore, for this group of profit-seeking businessmen, it was

This mythical legal theory asserts that it is in the best economic interests to seek a buyer.

Historically, their buyers were the French, but this time, the Genoese apparently reached a deal with the Kingdom of Sardinia.

This also explains a doubt in Lawrence's mind - why Lieutenant General Ethel was able to recruit a Genoese mercenary group of thousands of people in such a short period of time. From this point of view, it seems that the Genoese diplomatic mission is indispensable.

of assistance.

After listening to Governor Bertrand's report, Lawrence just smiled contemptuously.

Today, he is no longer the passenger of the White Rose who struggled to survive under the pursuit of the Genoese warship, nor is he the major of the National Defense Force who narrowly escaped death in order to lure the enemy deeper into the country.

The current Republic of Genoa is no longer even qualified to be regarded as a worthy opponent by the Corsican people.

However, since this small country had repeatedly blocked his way, Lawrence felt that it was necessary to visit the Palace of the Governor of Genoa in person.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading!......

By the end of September, the situation in Sardinia had basically stabilized.

Although the Kingdom of Sardinia continued to send envoys to condemn Lawrence Bonaparte's unreasonable behavior of annexing other countries' territories before the end of the war, neither Lawrence nor the Sardinian people took the enemy's complaints to heart.

Barking in the eyes.
To be continued...