Chương 161: Manufacturing Cannons

At the construction site of the mage tower, Li Qinwu wore a helmet as a hardhat and loudly commanded the goblins to mix concrete and lay bricks. From time to time, he snatched the workers' tools to lay bricks himself, shouting safety precautions to the people around him as he worked. A mage tower was a high-rise building after all; if something went wrong, it would be disastrous. Li Qinwu didn't dare slack off for a second and kept his eyes wide open, watching carefully.

Fortunately, the goblins felt immense pressure under Li Qinwu's stern glare and learned very quickly. Coupled with a day-and-night two-shift rotation, the structure could be topped out within a month. While Li Qinwu was happily mixing concrete, Jin Lambo ran over to the construction site and told him a piece of good news.

"Your Majesty! Good news, I have good news!" Jin Lambo shouted up toward Li Qinwu, who was on the wooden scaffolding. Having traveled to many places, he naturally recognized that the structure being built was a mage tower, which made him hold this goblin-led nation in even higher regard. At this point, the mage tower had reached a height of about 10 meters. A vast amount of scaffolding surrounded the cylindrical mage tower, and goblins were active on the platforms, laying it up brick by brick.

Li Qinwu plunged his shovel into a bucket of cement, scooped out a dollop, slathered it onto a brick, and set it onto the wall. Only after continuously using up a whole bucket of cement did Li Qinwu put down his work.

"Everyone stop for a bit, take a break." Li Qinwu issued the order to halt work. For such an important high-rise facility, he didn't dare leave the goblins to work unsupervised without watching over them personally. He climbed down from the scaffolding, untied the canteen at his waist, took a sip, and looked at Jin Lambo, asking: "What good news?" Seeing Li Qinwu's dust-covered appearance, Jin Lambo's mind was filled with a thousand thoughts.

The supreme leader of an organization actually going out to perform construction labor? He shook his head, sweeping away the disrespectful thought.

"Your Majesty, I received news via carrier pigeon that the items you asked me to acquire are ready. Furthermore, they will be transported by a flight vessel from the Mage Guild. This will speed up the delivery time; you will be able to see the goods in less than a month." Drinking water, Li Qinwu paused, his brows immediately furrowing deeply.

"The Mage Guild? What's going on? How did the Mage Guild get involved in our business?"

"Your Majesty, earlier I sent the list of goods you needed and the items available for sale back to the chamber of commerce via carrier pigeon. Among them, depleted mana crystal cores can only be procured from the Mage Guild, and Ebony happens to be what the master mages are most interested in. It might be that during the negotiations, the staff at the chamber of commerce revealed that you could provide Ebony, so the mages offered to provide a medium-sized flight vessel to assist in transporting the goods."

Li Qinwu silently set down his canteen, his gaze toward Jin Lambo gradually taking on a dangerous edge.

"Jin Lambo, the Mage Guild and the Alliance are enemies. You know this, right?" Jin Lambo nodded.

"Your Majesty, I know. But the master mages are simply too interested in Ebony; to them, an Ebony staff is like a second life. If you can allow the mages to enter your territory and select the Ebony themselves, the price can double! Furthermore, with their flight vessel assisting the transport, you can obtain the goods at the fastest possible speed. Otherwise, it might take over two months for the chamber of commerce's trade caravan to cross the Monster Forest and reach this place."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Li Qinwu looked at Jin Lambo with a deep, meaningful stare, making him gradually shut his mouth.

"Listen closely, Jin Lambo. I didn't tell you before, but now I am making it explicitly clear to you: the Alliance and the Mage Guild are in a state of hostility. My side prohibits enemy personnel from entering our territory, nor do we allow enemy aircraft to enter!"

"But Your Majesty, this is merely a commercial transaction. The chamber of commerce can serve as a middleman to guarantee it. The mages will behave themselves in your territory, and we can cooperate..." Jin Lambo still wanted to persuade him, but Li Qinwu extended a finger, pointing at his eyes to stop him.

"Listen carefully, Jin Lambo. This is not business; this is our nation's foreign policy. Without permission, no foreign aircraft is allowed to enter our airspace, otherwise our side will shoot it down!" With that said, he left behind the panic-stricken Jin Lambo, allowed the workers at the site to take a few days off, and left the construction site on his own. Based on his understanding of mages, those arrogant fellows would absolutely ignore his warning.

There was no way he would allow mages to fly over his territory and map out the terrain and distribution of settlements in the Monster Forest—this was a serious security issue. Li Qinwu had to prepare a countermeasure. He sent people to summon several military commanders and Iron-Orc to the Grand Chief's residence, while he went to bathe and wait. It wasn't until evening that everyone was assembled. Li Qinwu had people prepare a sumptuously rich meal, and they discussed matters while eating.

Li Qinwu mentioned the matter regarding the Mage Guild's flight vessel, and then said to Iron-Orc: "I want to build a cannon specifically designed to fire high into the air, capable of direct fire up to a distance of at least 1, 000 meters." The flight vessel Li Qinwu saw last time flew at an altitude of 500 meters. He had learned through various channels that the flying altitude of flight vessels actually followed the mana tides. Mana tides existed in both high and low altitudes.

Some tides were fixed, some tides only appeared in special weather, and other tides occurred randomly. Generally speaking, however, the higher the altitude, the more frequent the mana tides were and the greater their flow rate; the lower the altitude, the gentler the mana tides were, with a smaller flow rate. The flight vessels built by the Mage Guild were equipped with dual-function mana engines. During takeoff, they could be fed mana crystal cores and then search for mana tides.

As long as a stable mana tide was found, the mana engine would absorb the surrounding mana to fly, serving as a way to save mana crystal cores—much like how a sailing warship needed to find wind to navigate. The flight vessels of the Mage Guild generally flew at an altitude of around 1, 000 meters. If they went too high and encountered a particularly violent mana tide, the mana engine wouldn't be able to handle it and would burn out.

Therefore, to seal off the sky, building an anti-aircraft cannon with an effective ceiling of 1, 000 meters would suffice.

"Your Majesty, the cannon foundry has no experience in building this type of artillery. I am not confident." Iron-Orc was extremely honest. When it came to technical matters, what couldn't be done simply couldn't be done; bragging was useless. He hadn't even fully mastered field guns yet, so jumping straight to anti-aircraft cannons left him completely bewildered.

"It's fine. I will personally design an anti-aircraft cannon. When the time comes, assign a few skilled workers to me. I will lead the construction of the new cannon, and you can learn how to design artillery while you're at it." Designing an anti-aircraft cannon in the era of black powder smoothbore guns was a bit fantastical, but Li Qinwu was confident: it was just a matter of piling on materials to the extreme. First, make a small-caliber projectile, 30 to 40 millimeters.

Second, build a large chamber that could hold a massive propellant charge. Give it a heavy base, make the barrel as long as possible, and if conditions permitted, add rifling. Using this line of thinking, making an anti-aircraft cannon with a ceiling of 1, 000 meters was not a problem, though the rate of fire would be worrying. With a muzzle-loading barrel made so long, when the enemy arrived, there might very well be only one chance to fire.

Still, there was no choice; the Alliance's sky urgently needed defending, so making an emergency product came first. Having agreed upon the anti-aircraft cannon, Li Qinwu saw that the military officers were so fully assembled, so he discussed with them the manufacture of new types of artillery once the high-performance steel went into production in the future. Regarding this, Gob-Run was exceptionally excited. Having lost his legs and his manhood, his temper had become explosive instead.

He loudly put forward his views to the others present. Gob-Run hoped to equip the cavalry with a lightweight small cannon pushed to the absolute limit—preferably one that could be pulled by a single mount spider. After the operations in New-Thea, Gob-Run had also figured out some tactics.

He believed the troops could abandon certain heavy weapons and baggage to drastically boost their long-distance raiding capability, allowing them to strike the enemy's second-line troops, or even hit the enemy's non-combatant targets. As long as the troops could be delivered to the enemy's rear, whether the force possessed strong fortification-breaching capability didn't matter at all.

If the enemy allowed our troops to slip past them, then the enemy had already lost—the ambush battle at New-Thea had already proven this point.