1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 158 Military Industry
There was a "bang" gunshot, and the violent vibration hit Qi Tian's shoulder painfully.

"260 five meters!" Soon, a row of wooden targets in front reported a number, "It is estimated to be the maximum range!"

"The farthest is 260 meters, and the effective range is less than 120 meters. Well, this range is farther than most current muskets. It should meet your requirements, right?" Marciolo said beside him.

"Didn't I ask you to imitate a flintlock gun? You have been working on it for more than half a year, and you made me a matchlock gun! ... Besides, the gun body is too heavy, and the recoil is too strong." Qi Tian said with some dissatisfaction.

When Cao Xiong returned to Hanzhou in mid-June, he brought back a large number of oyster mirror gunsmiths and gunsmiths, which made Hanzhou's military production develop by leaps and bounds.Not only was the 18-pound heavy gun quickly cast, but also began to study and produce the 24-pound naval gun and coastal defense gun.It has played a positive role in maintaining the coastal defense security of Hanzhou.

At that time, if 16-pound and 24-pound heavy guns are installed on the three forts at Jianye City Wharf, any ship that dares to invade will face the risk of being pierced by a single shot.

As for the musket imitation, for several months, Marciolo only produced a finished matchlock gun.Attracting Qi Tian to relentlessly complain and cast aside, matchlock guns will eventually be eliminated!Even though your arquebus shoots farther than other arquebuses, it is much more complicated to operate than a flintlock.

The arquebus of this era is already lighter than the original, and it no longer needs a bracket to assist when shooting.

This matchlock gun uses a slow-burning match that is ignited. After the shooter pulls the trigger, the burning match falls and ignites the gunpowder in a small brazier on the gun. The ignited powder then detonates the barrel. gunpowder and shoot the projectile.This complex shooting process makes the arquebus a slow-firing and very inaccurate weapon.

Slow-burning matchlocks can cause great problems in wet climates, and make archers good targets at night due to the glow of the matchlock.To use a matchlock gun, more than forty steps of loading are required to complete one shot, and the rate of fire is about one round per minute.

Theoretically speaking, the shooting distance of the arquebus is about 200 meters, but because of its serious inaccuracy, in actual combat, its effective range will not exceed 50 meters.

Conversely, a flintlock is more effective than an arquebus.It was a method of igniting gunpowder with sparks from flint striking iron plates, in place of the slow-burning match.The flintlock is lighter, more reliable, and easier to handle. Its ammunition reloading steps can be reduced to more than 20, and its theoretical rate of fire is twice as fast as the original arquebus.

At the same time, the caliber of the gun barrel can also be reduced, and more than 20 projectiles with a diameter of 16mm can be produced per pound of lead, compared with the original matchlock gun, which can only produce more than a dozen projectiles per pound of lead, which saves a lot of money.And the strike effect is much stronger than that of the matchlock gun.

"General Manager, the armies of many countries currently use matchlock guns. Why do we have to make this kind of flintlock gun with a more complicated structure?" Marciolo said aggrievedly.

It is true that the matchlock gun is still the mainstream weapon used in the armies of various countries, and its manufacturing technology and process are very mature, and it is also the musket that many gunsmiths are best at manufacturing.

However, our Hanzhou currently has fewer people, so there are fewer soldiers.If we all hold the same weapons as other western colonists, and then fight to consume them on the battlefield.How can you fight!

Therefore, in Hanzhou, if we use muskets, we only need to be a little more advanced than others and have a slightly higher performance, which is enough.

If our Hanzhou army uses more advanced flintlock guns, then the shooting frequency will be twice as fast as yours, and the shooting range will be 30 meters farther than yours, then the number of dead people will be much less than yours.

"Yuan Shan, go to Heishan City and bring the "Illustration of Military Weapons" in my room!" Qi Tian turned to Qi Yuanshan and ordered.

"Illustration of Military Weapons" is one of the many books Cao Xiong collected and brought back from the Ming Dynasty. It was published by Bi Maokang, the right servant of the Nanjing Ministry of War, in the eighth year of Chongzhen (AD 1635).

This book is not divided into volumes, but with drawings.In front of the book, there is a preface by Zhang Jimeng, nephew Dengfu Xiaoyin, nephew Denghan Postscript and the author's preface, which reads: "On July [-], the eighth year of Chongzhen, the former right servant of the Ministry of War is here to address Bi Maokang, an official."The book says: "What the barbarians fear most in China is firearms."

This book also lists all kinds of firearms and poisonous crossbows, with pictures and texts, and describes in detail the manufacture of weapons and the power of use.

When Qi Tian took all the teenagers to organize the books, he casually glanced at them and was immediately shocked.Co-authored, during this period, our Chinese firearms manufacturing concept and manufacturing technology were not behind the West at all.

More importantly, the book records a kind of "self-generated firecracker" with rich pictures and texts. "Pull the trigger, press down the faucet, and the energy storage effect of the spring will cause the flint to rub against the fire door to start the fire, completing the firing of the firecracker..."

Nima, this detailed description is simply the detailed manufacturing process of a flintlock gun.

However, in 1781, Emperor Qianlong, known as Shiquan Old Man, decreed that such an advanced and detailed description of musket making instructions should be banned from publication.

Isn't it quite sad, with the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the limitations of Manchu thinking caused the development of Chinese firearms to stagnate, and fell behind the world step by step.

Originally, the test firing of muskets in the military camp outside Montenegro turned into a gathering of many gunsmiths to discuss the process and production methods of "self-generated guns".According to the content of "Illustration of Military Weapons" narrated by Qi Tian, ​​several gunsmiths immediately asked the left-behind marine soldiers for a flintlock, and began to disassemble and verify it on the spot.

"Old horse, the author of this book is a pure literati and an official of the Ming Dynasty. Look at them, they have written down the manufacturing process of the flintlock gun, so they must have made a real thing.  …You How long do you think it will take you to produce a qualified flintlock for me?" Qi Tian patted Marciolo on the shoulder and said earnestly.

Marciolo felt very disappointed and ashamed at this time. He thought that the improved matchlock gun he had spent several months working out would be recognized by Qi Tian.Unexpectedly, not only was he disgusted by others, but he also took out a book and told you clearly that in the Ming Dynasty, there was already a mature flintlock manufacturing process, and your stuff is behind.

"One month!" Marciolo gritted his teeth and said, "In one month, we will produce a qualified flintlock gun!"

Qi Tian stared fixedly at the Italian, then nodded.

"My lord, in addition to muskets, we also built a kind of hand-throwing bomb!" Marjolu Qitian was about to leave, and hurriedly said: "The lethality is still not small! Would you like to see it?"

Hand throwing bombs?What is it?Could it be that you made a grenade for me!
When two artisans recruited from Haojing each held a round black tin can, they showed it to Qi Tian.The tin jar had a small opening, tightly plugged with rags, and a long wire was left outside.

Under Qi Tian's signal, one of the craftsmen took a few steps forward, lit the wires on the round tin jar with a matchlock, paused for a few seconds, and then threw it out.

After waiting for about a minute, the tin jar thrown out remained silent.

The watching crowd looked at the tin jar in the distance, and at Marciolo and several craftsmen.what's going on?
"The fuse may not have detonated the explosives inside..." said a craftsman awkwardly.

"Try one more." Marciolo looked at the expressionless Qi Tian, ​​feeling a little thumping in his heart.

Another craftsman lit the tin jar fuse, held it in his hand a little longer this time, and threw it.

"Boom!" There was an explosion, and the tin can exploded on the grass in the distance, and the scattered iron fragments spread for three to four meters.

Isn't this the soil bomb of the Anti-Japanese War in later generations!
In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, Ming soldiers defending the Great Wall on the front line were recorded to have used these weapons such as throwing bombs.The earliest recorded grenade throwers in the West appeared in Austria and Spain, and King Louis XIV of France listed grenadiers as an official type of soldier in his military reforms in the late seventeenth century.

A hand bomb is a hollow metal sphere filled with gunpowder, detonated by a matchlock, and carried and thrown by a grenadier.In all European countries, this weapon was used in infantry close combat, and in siege warfare.

After 1660, grenadiers, as a new infantry unit, began to appear in all armies.After 1670, most infantry regiments formed a grenadier company, while in France, each battalion formed a grenadier company, or regrouped into an independent grenadier battalion according to the situation.

When the grenadiers are in a dense formation against the enemy, it is very easy to cause a large number of casualties on the opponent's personnel, and destroy the linear array of the musketeers, creating favorable conditions for their own infantry to attack.

"This kind of hand-throwing bomb is very well done!" Qi Tian showed a satisfied smile, "However, further improvement is needed. First of all, we must ensure that it can explode after being thrown, and there must be enough fragments. Second, we must How to ensure its safety during transportation and storage. In the end, this thing can be made even smaller. Such a big tin can, and a strong person can throw it more than 20 meters at most.  … On the battlefield Come on, just throw one over, and before you hear the sound, they will rush to you!"

Marciolo breathed a sigh of relief, he was not satisfied with the manufacture of muskets, at least, this hand-throwing bomb was still acceptable to the chief executive.

In the past six months, Hanzhou has been continuously recruiting various craftsmen from Daming and Batavia, and as they arrive one after another.Marciolo and a group of craftsmen brought over from Luzon felt the pressure.Whether it is craftsmanship or knowledge, they are inferior to those Ming people and Portuguese craftsmen from Foshan, Guangzhou, and Haojing.The only advantage is that they are the first to come.

With a strong sense of crisis, they, the earliest "from the dragon" craftsmen, must constantly improve and create new objects. At the same time, they must continue to learn mature experience and methods from new craftsmen to ensure that they will not be They were eliminated.

In Hanzhou, the treatment of craftsmen is the best, and their status has also been subverted in essence compared to before.In this environment, how dare you let yourself lag behind others?
(End of this chapter)