Daming kill

Chapter 77 The Age of Cotton Armor
After a few days, Song Baolai's open-hearth furnace produced the first batch of steel smoothly, and Li Ping, who was overjoyed, immediately thought about what to do with these steel materials first.

The attack in the valley a few days ago gave him his first intuitive understanding of bows and arrows. The important strike effect of bows and arrows and the soldiers' fear of bows and arrows made him think of defense first.

If everyone has excellent armor, the casualties will be much reduced, and the fighting courage of the troops will be greatly enhanced.

What armor can be made?
Those bright plate armors from Europe immediately came into Li Ping's mind, and he couldn't help but dislike the seemingly weak cloth, leather and cotton armors equipped by his troops.

When he had an idea, he naturally went to do it, but he unexpectedly ran into a wall with Song Baolai first.

Song Baolai doesn't understand military history, nor has he studied European armor, but he understands the history of metallurgy, and he understands the issue of merit and effectiveness.He simply sneered at the fact that European armor was stronger than China in history. He thought it was a waste for everyone to wear heavy armor.

From Song Baolai, Li Ping learned for the first time that the metallurgical technology of ancient Europe was far behind that of China, especially the technical level of steelmaking. Steel technology is inherited in one continuous line, and has nothing to do with the European iron-smelting context.

According to Song Bao, in 1845, American entrepreneur Kelly invited four metallurgical experts from China to Kentucky City to teach Chinese steelmaking technology. In 4, this technology spread to the United Kingdom. The decarburization of pig iron into steel promoted the mass production of steel in Europe.

In the middle of the 19th century, the open-hearth steelmaking method jointly invented by the Frenchman Martin and the German Siemens, which is the prototype of the open-hearth furnace used by Song Baolai today, is also based on early Chinese equipment and principles.It can be said that the technology of refining pig iron and making steel from pig iron imported from China is the key to the development of the European steel industry.

Because he focused on steelmaking, and because he was a Chinese, Song Baolai was almost familiar with this period of history.

There is a gap in the materials, so Song Baolai doesn't believe that European armor technology is ahead of China at all. As for the plate armor and breast armor that Li Ping is talking about, Song Baolai doesn't take it seriously.

He believes that these armors cannot be made very thick, and they are not tanks, and they have no engines. If they are too thick, people will not be able to walk even if they are crushed to death.Based on his understanding of metals, the thin metal armor is a redundant burden in front of firearms.

His guess is that the Europeans developed these things not because their metallurgical technology is good, but because the metallurgical technology is too poor, which leads to the hardness and durability of offensive weapons, which is why Li Ping said Plate armor or something.

Moreover, Song Baolai seemed to vaguely remember the information he had read that said that carburizing technology was not even popularized in the West until the Middle Ages, and wrought iron with a softer texture and lower hardness was always used in large quantities.

What do you mean?
To put it bluntly, the tip of the attack weapon is soft, so it doesn't need too strong protection.

And in terms of maintenance and use comfort, China's small pieces of armor are obviously more advantageous.

Although he was hit, Li Ping obviously couldn't just listen to one side of the story, he had to conduct a physical test.He thought of most of the iron, cotton, and cloth armor that had been lying in storage.

Because most of the teams were still in the recruit training stage, most of these armours had never been used, and the most important thing was that they hadn't attracted Li Ping's attention.

In the battle to protect Mrs. Zuo, the leather armor and cotton armor they equipped played a limited role, which made Li Ping have a natural distrust of the allocated equipment, so he was very inactive in using it.

Although there is still a main force armor, the cloth face armor is a kind of armor with an outer layer of cloth or cotton and an inner layer of iron sheets. This kind of armor is mostly equipped by generals and elite cavalry.However, Li Ping can use commoner clothes and iron armor to simulate it.

But before the test started, Li Ping received another surprise after careful inspection of the test equipment.

Because of his preconceived notions, and because Li Ping's main thoughts were on attacking weapons, Li Ping didn't really check all kinds of armors he owned, let alone being familiar with them.

When he really studied it in detail, Li Ping found that he took too many things for granted.

Not to mention the leather armor, animal leather can be thick or thin, and it has been treated with oil, nothing special.It is not bad against minor knife scratches, but it is not good against sharp blades and heavy slashes, and the defense effect against piercing is even worse.

The cloth armor started to surprise him a bit.

Li Ping had never seen cloth armor before, and he had a deep misunderstanding of cloth armor. He thought it looked like he had no money to make up for it. When he was guarding Mrs. Zuo, it was even a little strange to see the infantry wearing cloth armor.Zuo Menggeng gave him 30 short cloth armors, which made him even more disapproving.

But when I really got to know it deeply, I found a huge deviation in understanding.

His batch of cloth armor is made of about 40 layers of linen that are laminated and sewn together. It looks a bit like a cotton vest. It is said that the cost is higher than that of cotton armor (cotton has been grown in large quantities in the Ming Dynasty, and cotton is cheaper than linen).The defense effect against knives and arrows is much better than that of leather armor, and it is not worse than cotton armor.

It's no wonder that the horseman always looked down on Li Ping at the beginning, and his clothes were not as good as his infantry.

The cloth armor had an accident, and the cotton armor was naturally even more unexpected.

Because Li Ping had carefully looked at the batch of cotton armor they equipped first. After all, he was curious and had never seen it before.

That batch of cotton armor was said to be armor, but it was better to say that it was simply compacted and compacted cotton jackets. The defense was surprisingly low. At that time, Li Ping wondered how these things could dominate the army after the Qing Dynasty.It turned out that his batch of armor turned out to be super fake and shoddy products, and the real cotton armor was not like that at all.

The cotton armor allocated to him by Madam Zuo Menggeng is the real cotton armor. Although it is not particularly good, it can be used seriously.

This batch of real cotton armor, as long as you touch it carefully, you will know that it can really be used as armor, and the defense should be pretty good.Just like the cotton soles of old-fashioned cloth shoes, thick, soft and hard.

After inquiring among the officers and soldiers, quite a few old soldiers still know how to make this kind of cotton armor, because there is no secret at all, and the process is very simple.

To put it simply, it is like sitting on a cotton-padded jacket, and then sew the cotton into two layers of earthen cloth, and then use thick money to sew it tightly to make it denser, and then soak it in water, and then lay it flat and then press it tightly so that it will not Then expand, and finally dry.This is the most basic cotton armor.

If you want to be more defensive, you can add a few more layers; if the conditions are better, you can sandwich leather, paper, or even iron pieces between two layers or between layers, and then Fastened with brass nails.Of course, the more processes, the higher the cost.

As for Li Ping's batch of counterfeit and shoddy products, they just simplified the process a little more. Not only is there only one layer, but the work of compacting and drying is not done well. And deal with something.

Moreover, cotton armor of this quality is still very common in the Ming army, and everyone has long been used to it, and most of them are worn as clothes to keep out the cold.And because it is fluffy, the effect of keeping out the cold is quite good, probably similar to the principle of down jackets.

Of course, this also makes it unpopular in the hot and humid south.

"Cotton armor in the northern army and cloth armor in the southern army" was a major feature of the Ming army at that time.

Although the batch of cotton armor sent by Mrs. Zuo Menggeng only had one layer, but the basic process was relatively in place, so it seemed to be the case.

And among this batch of cotton armors, one is very special, because the other cotton armors are all khaki or red or blue, only it is black.Moreover, this armor was hung in a room at first, with a separate armor shelf.

Li Ping didn't see this black cotton armor because he didn't check each storeroom one by one.When Song Baolai received it together, he was already dazzled and mixed it with other armors.Finally, when it was assigned to Hu Zhongshan's logistics department, the soldiers in charge of the armor thought that Li Ping knew about the cotton armor, so they didn't report it.

Just by looking at it, Li Ping knew that this padded jacket was of high quality, and when he took a closer look, it was indeed remarkable.

This cotton armor is multi-layered, and the method of compressing the cotton should be different, because each layer of it is particularly solid and hard; The copper nails on the outside are dense and thick, and the defensive power of this cotton armor is astonishing just by feeling it.

However, during the test, Li Ping didn't mean to cherish all kinds of armor that he didn't care about at all, and he didn't worry about damage at all. What he wanted was data, the most authentic data.

Not to mention the short fish-scale armor, the real iron armor, with the armor pressed against the armor, is basically immune to knives, and even ordinary bows and arrows will be bounced off directly. The defense effect is amazing, but it is also a bit heavy.

In ancient books, there are often generals who are hit by dozens of arrows and even turned into hedgehogs and are still alive and kicking. The key is that they are not fatally injured because of the full set of armor they wear.Even the arrows inserted into the armor basically only penetrated a little bit, either scratching the skin a little, or being blocked by the clothes or even the leather armor inside. no harm.

If Li Ping had this fish scale armor back then, he probably wouldn't have suffered such serious injuries.

The chain armor (called ring lock armor in ancient China) is a complete set and has a good defensive effect, but it is super soft after all, and has almost no defense against blunt attacks, so it must be worn together with other armor.

Chain mail?
Yes, that's right, there were chain mails in ancient China, and the amount of equipment was still very large.

The chain armor was first seen in the "Armor Biao from the First Emperor" that Cao Zhi sent to Cao Pi, Emperor Wen of Wei after the death of Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period.It reads: "The first emperor gave his ministers armor, one collar for black light, one collar for bright light, one collar for ring lock armor, and one collar for horse armor. In this generation, peace is promoted, and there is nothing wrong with the military revolution. Please pay for the armor and take care of yourself."

In the Tang Dynasty, chain mail was listed as one of the 13 armor systems.But this time it was not heavily equipped.

The Tibet area may be the earliest area in ancient China to equip chain armor on a large scale, so that when people in the Ming Dynasty talked about chain armor, they still called it "the ancient Western Qiang system of steel wire chain armor" ("Wu Bei Zhi" Volume [-] " Military Resources [-]").

Chain armor was heavily equipped in the Central Plains mainly in the Yuan Dynasty. Although the Ming Dynasty restored the Huaxia Zhengshuo in terms of clothing system, it mostly followed the Yuan Dynasty in terms of armament and military.In the 26th year of Hongwu, "six thousand pairs of lock helmets" were built at one time, which shows that the ring lock armor has been equipped with a large number of troops.

However, although fish scale armor and chain mail are good, their shortcomings are indeed very obvious as Song Baolai said, and it is not a problem of complicated process and high cost, let alone a problem of really heavy weight.

Their defense against firearms is indeed very poor, and the medium-range fire of the blunderbuss is sufficient to achieve penetration.To make matters worse, the cavity effect and lead poisoning of lead bullets penetrating into the human body are very fatal.

The performance of the cotton armor in the test also stood out, its defense power far exceeded Li Ping's imagination, showing a high level of comprehensive defense.Of course, those fake and shoddy products cannot be counted.

The cotton armor can effectively shorten the killing distance of the bird gun, and the black cotton even armor can shorten the effective killing distance of the bird gun by more than two-thirds, which is amazing.

But there is also a problem, that is, the sharper the arrows and spears, the less defensive the cotton armor is.In other words, the cotton armor's defense effect against sharp weapons is not good, but it is within the acceptable range.

Li Ping, who had some understanding of the principles of later generations of soft body armor, quickly figured out the joints in them, because they are so similar, they basically use toughness to absorb kinetic energy, instead of relying on hardness to bounce kinetic energy like iron armor .

After all the tests were completed, Li Ping smiled wryly.

Some things really can't be self-righteous. He finally understood the reason why the cotton armor became popular in the late Ming Dynasty and the reason why the iron armor was completely ended in the Qing Dynasty.

The continuous improvement of cotton armor manufacturing technology and the great development of firearms should be the main reasons.

The reason why the cotton armor manufacturing technology is constantly improving is that the cotton armor itself originated in the Yuan Dynasty and began to develop in the Ming Dynasty when cotton was widely popularized. The development time is relatively short, and the technology is still maturing and improving.

Of course, there is another point that the cost of cotton armor is obviously lower than that of a suit of iron.

The survival of the fittest in history is really not just for fun, especially in wars that are life and death.It is impossible for technological retrogression to occur in a war. It can only be an accident when the peace has passed and the horses have been released from Nanshan.

Combining the general knowledge of metallurgy that Song Baolai had popularized to him, Li Ping also seemed to understand the reason why heavy cavalry and heavy infantry had never grown stronger in the Chinese Han army.

The horse should not be the main cause, the attack technology is too developed to be the most likely.In particular, the technology of Chinese minions is too developed, and there are too many types.

Regardless of how much iron you have on your body, a hard spear or a strong slave may end you, which is not cost-effective in terms of cost-effectiveness.Of course, due to the full rise of firearms in the Ming Dynasty, the role of strongmen was actually mostly replaced.

If there were no firearms, plate armor and breastplates that had been shaped and curved could still make a difference, but the firearmization of the late Ming Dynasty would be a major issue that Li Ping had to face in the future. One or two can be seen in the distribution.

Moreover, Li Ping also recalled that the disappearance of breastplates in Europe seems to have come from the beginning of the [-]th century when the threat of firearms increased dramatically, and the European firearms technology at that time was not much more advanced than that in the late Ming Dynasty.

Starting from reality, especially considering the cost, Li Ping's current choice can only be cotton armor.

Now that the development direction of cotton armor has been set, cotton has become the focus.

But fortunately, Comrade Zhu Yuanzhang did a good thing. It was he who firmly popularized the cultivation of cotton throughout the country, and cotton will not disappear in the stomach like grain.Therefore, although it was a war, the acquisition of cotton was not particularly strenuous.

But to focus on cotton, Li Ping realized that there was a very important thing to do as soon as possible.

Because of cotton, Li Ping thought of the most terrible historical event, that is the Little Ice Age.

(End of this chapter)