Qian Song

Chapter 326 Sweeping the Grasslands in Three Years and the World in 20 Years (Ask for a monthly ticket!)
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Firearms are actually easy to make, especially the most primitive firearms, which are easier to make than cannons.

Even if Li Cun does not appear, Chen Gui, a military strategist in the Southern Song Dynasty in history, will be able to invent the world's first musket a few years later.

The musket invented by the stereotype is extremely simple.

——To put it simply, it is simply a bamboo tube, one end of which is simply sealed with a wooden plug, and then simply filled with gunpowder, and then simply leave a small eye at the part where the gunpowder is filled, draw out the fuze, and use it after ignition. The open end burns the enemy, even as simple as missing a bullet.

The power of this kind of musket is not worth mentioning, and the bamboo tube is particularly easy to explode, and it is easy to injure yourself or your own people, but it is indeed the earliest tube-shaped firearm in the world's military history, and it is called the modern tube-shaped firearm. Grandfather, there is no problem at all.

Also in the Southern Song Dynasty in history, someone was injured by a burst bamboo tube when using the earliest musket, and then found that the burst fragments were more lethal, so someone put small iron balls in the front of the gunpowder, creating a kind of gunpowder. Bursting gun, the gun uses giant bamboo as the barrel, fires Zike (filled with black powder, porcelain pieces, broken iron, stones, etc.), the burner spouts flames, and the Zike flies out to kill and injure the enemies facing it.

This burst gun can barely be regarded as the originator of the shotgun.

Within a few years, Chinese gunpowder and metal tube-shaped firearms were introduced to Europe, and Europeans made Chinese artillery into hand-held ones based on Chinese gunpowder and metal tube-shaped firearms.

In other words, rather than saying that the earliest musket in Europe is a gun, it is better to say that it is a hand-held small artillery.

This kind of "fire gun" has a small fire door at one end of the barrel, which is used to ignite the gunpowder, and an opening at the other end, where stones, broken iron, etc. are put in, and then shot out.

When this kind of gun explodes, the strong recoil will often hurt the musketeer, and the musketeer must concentrate when lighting the gunpowder, so the musketeer has no time to take care of him and cannot aim at all.

Later, around the time of the Ming Dynasty in China, the Spaniards developed the matchlock gun—this kind of musket was imitated by the Ming Dynasty, and it was called the bird gun.

The advanced part of this kind of matchlock gun is that a wooden support is added, which can be fired on the shoulder, which can effectively reduce the recoil force when shooting.

The appearance of this matchlock allows the gunner to hold the gun with one hand while igniting the fire, and keep his eyes on the target, at least the shooting direction will not be wrong.

The matchlock gun is a gun that actually carries an ignition system, and it is also the first mass-produced gun in history. It was used in large numbers in the Italian wars in the sixteenth century and helped Spain defeat France.

But this kind of arquebus actually has many problems.

Since it takes a piece of matchlock to fire the matchlock (hence the name), the musketeer who uses the matchlock has to carry a matchlock several meters long on himself.

Before the battle, the musketeer had to light the matchlock before he could shoot, which made the use of the matchlock gun very cumbersome and unable to deal with sudden wars at all.

The point is, let alone in rainy days, even in wet weather, it is extremely difficult to ignite the match.

——Actually, you can’t use matchlock guns not only on rainy or wet days, but also when the wind is strong, because the wind will blow away the powder on the fire door, and because matchlock guns use pyrotechnic powder, so When shooting, it is like a smoke bomb that will seriously blind the sight of one's own army.

In addition, when the matchlock is lit, it is also very dangerous. If you are not careful, sparks will ignite the bullet belt on the musketeer's body, causing an explosion and injuring the musketeer himself or even his accomplices.

Also, the ignited match can easily expose itself at night, so that it is impossible to sneak attack the enemy at night with a matchlock gun.

What's more, the operation of the matchlock gun is extremely complicated-even for a well-trained musketeer, it is difficult to fire more than two shots in one minute, and with this time, a well-trained archer can shoot more than ten or twenty shots. Arrows, the speed of fire of the divine arm bow is much faster than that of the matchlock gun.

The biggest disadvantage of the matchlock gun is that the range is short, especially the effective range, which is very short, which is far from being comparable to the crossbow.

——The bullets fired from the matchlock gun are ricochets, and it depends entirely on luck.

If this kind of arquebus is equipped in the army, Li Cun can only learn from the early European square formation, that is, a group of people lined up neatly to kill the enemy by density.

This tactic is really stupid. If Li Cun really used this stupid tactic, Li Cun would be ashamed to call himself a traverser.

The key point is that instead of equipping his army with matchlock guns, Li Cun might as well use bows and crossbows with tiger squat guns, thunderbolts and other firearms.

This is why the Royal Research Institute has developed a matchlock gun long ago, but Li Cun did not install it.

Li Cun's minimum requirement for muskets must also be percussive flintlocks.

The so-called flintlock gun is to clamp a piece of flint on the jaw of the hammer, and there is an anvil beside the fire transmission hole. When shooting, the trigger is pulled, and under the action of the spring, the flint is hit heavily on the edge of the fire door. Sparks came out, igniting the gunpowder and firing.

This will greatly simplify the shooting process, improve the firing rate and shooting accuracy, easy to use, and low cost, which is convenient for mass production.

Historically, in the middle of the seventeenth century, many European armies were generally equipped with flintlock guns. Until 200, they had been equipped for more than [-] years.

This is the best proof of the practicality of the flintlock.

However, Li Cun was not satisfied with the simple flintlock.

Because the pure flintlock hit rate is only about 20.00%.

This is certainly not enough.

In order to increase the hit rate of the flintlock, Li Cun introduced the concept of rifling to Qian Guifei and others who developed the flintlock.

Rifling, also known as rifling, is also called windmill line because its cross-sectional shape resembles a windmill.

The rifling can be said to be the soul of the barrel. The function of the rifling is to give the bullet the ability to rotate, so that the bullet can still maintain the predetermined direction after it comes out of the chamber.

This can greatly increase the hit rate of the flintlock.

Historically, although there were records of the use of rifling in the fifteenth century, due to the difficulty of the manufacturing process, rifling was not popularized until the nineteenth century.

It can be seen that rifling is the really difficult high-tech.

This is one of the reasons why Qian Guifei and others took so many years to develop the flintlock that Li Cun wanted.

And this is because Li Cun provided research ideas and advanced industrial tools such as lathes to the researchers of the Imperial Research Institute such as Qian Guifei. Otherwise, I really don't know how many years it will take them to develop a flintlock that satisfies Li Cun.

Li Cun and Concubine Qian came to the firearms shop, a man in his thirties wearing a seventh-rank official uniform had been waiting here for a long time.

This man was Li Xiang, the younger brother of businessman Li Daming, the genius who developed guns that Li Cun met when he was looking for raw materials for gunpowder.

Li Xiang had already built a "fire gun" that could shoot dozens of steps away more than ten years ago, so he was recruited by Li Cun to help him develop the fire gun.

Later, Li Cun was afraid that the gunpowder would hurt his precious concubine Qian Guifei, so he issued a strict order that Li Xiang presided over all the musket experiments.

Of course, Li Cun is also worthy of Li Xiang. After Li Xiang made the matchlock gun, Li Cun gave Li Xiang an official status. Over the years, he has been promoted step by step to the current seventh-rank Yuanwailang.

Seeing Li Cun coming, Li Xiang quickly stepped forward and respectfully said: "Your Majesty, Li Xiang!"

From Li Xiang's attitude towards Li Cun, it is not difficult to see that Li Xiang really respects Li Cun from the bottom of his heart.

But this is also normal. Li Xiang, who didn't know a single word and was not good at martial arts, became a real senior official of the Ministry of Industry just because he liked to play with gunpowder and like to study things.

You know, in this era, there is a strict hierarchy. Although there are imperial examinations to select officials, poor people have no chance to study. Some people say that being a soldier requires desperate efforts to get ahead.

Therefore, Li Xiang, who became a senior official of the seventh rank and changed the fate of himself and his family just by relying on his hobbies, is really similar to picking up a pie that fell from the sky. Of course, Li Xiang would like to thank Li Cun for everything. .

Furthermore, although Li Cun does not conduct R&D by himself, Li Cun often gives these R&D personnel ideas and directions, which can save them countless detours. Who can not respect Li Cun?
Li Cun couldn't wait to say to Li Xiang: "Tell me about the performance of this gun?"

Li Xiang immediately said like a few Jiazhen: "The effective range of this gun can reach 320 paces. I have taken 25 musketeers who have been trained for [-] days to test, and they can hit two or three out of ten at three hundred paces, and three out of ten at two hundred paces. Four, one hundred steps can hit five or six out of ten, fifty steps can hit seven or eight out of ten, twenty-five steps can hit eighty-nine out of ten, and all within ten steps..."

Li Xiang reported to Li Cun a lot of data on the flintlock guns they developed.

Like the soldiers who train for ten days, they can shoot three to four shots in one minute-mainly because it is too time-consuming to reload.

There are also flintlocks that can break leather armor within 250 steps, chain mail within 150 steps, and plate armor within [-] steps.

Compared with excellent archers, this data does not actually have any advantage.

If you look at the rate of fire alone, this flintlock gun is not as good as the rate of fire of bows and arrows.

However, it may take several years or even ten years to cultivate a good archer.

And a gunner only needs a few days of training before he can go to the battlefield with a gun.

In addition, the poor rate of fire can also be compensated tactically.

For example, Li Cun could line up soldiers equipped with flintlock guns in two rows, or even in three rows, and then after the first row finished firing, the second row would fire, and then the third row would fire. Shoot in volley, and the soldiers who have finished shooting will retreat to the back and start loading ammunition. The three rows of soldiers will fire in turn. In this way, the rate of fire will definitely not be lower than that of bows and arrows.

If the Dagan Dynasty with a population of hundreds of millions can equip a large number of this kind of flintlock guns, Li Cun is confident that he will sweep the grasslands in three years and the world in 20 years.

Soon, Li Cun saw the flintlock gun developed by Qian Guifei, Li Xiang and others.

There are three types of this gun.

The first is the infantry type, with a 85cm long stock and an [-]cm barrel, and is equipped with a one-foot-long bayonet specially given by Li Cun.

The second type is a short-barreled rifle with a 35cm long stock and a [-]cm long barrel. It is also equipped with a one-foot-long bayonet.

The third type is the cavalry gun type, the butt length is 35 cm, the barrel length is [-] cm, and there is no bayonet.

Li Cunrang's personal guards led Zhao Tietou (the second son of Zhao Han'er) and Wu Gong (the eldest son of Wu Jie. It is also said that Wu Gong was originally the bastard son of Wu Jie's father, Wu Jian, and his maidservant. Afraid of his wife Wu Jie and Wu Lin's mother Liu, he asked Wu Jie to adopt Wu Gong as his son.), Zhai Cong (son of Zhai Xing), Zhai Liang (son of Zhai Jin), Han Liang (eldest son of Han Shizhong) and others to test this Three powers of flintlock.

Li Xiang personally told Zhao Tietou and others how to use the flintlock.

According to Li Xiang's narration, the shooting steps roughly include steps such as pouring the powder, charging the powder, pressing the fire, loading the bullet, and shooting...

According to Li Xiang's instructions, Zhao Tietou and the others took out the paper-shell bullets from the ammunition pouch they had just carried on their backs, bit them open with their mouths, poured part of the granulated black powder on the primer tray, and put the remaining gunpowder and bullets together Pour into the barrel, then use a push rod to push the pellets into place.

Although this loading method is quite cumbersome, it is actually a huge improvement compared with history.

You must know that in history, the gunpowder used in the early muskets did not have a fixed amount at all. How much gunpowder was put in depends entirely on the experience of the musketeer.

As a result, in history, the early muskets were extremely easy to explode, and then injured or even killed the musketeer, and sometimes even the musketeer's accomplices were affected.

And this kind of paper cartridge case proposed by Li Cun has the most scientific and fixed amount of gunpowder in it, which can effectively prevent the chamber from exploding.

Even the ammunition bag was proposed by Li Cun.

Each ammunition pouch contains 53 paper shells, that is, 53 gunpowder in paper tubes—this number is stipulated by Li Cun based on the equipment of Qi’s army in history. Don’t ask Li Cun why there are [-], Li Cun doesn’t know. The reason, he only knew that there must be a reason for the Qi family army to strictly abide by this number.

"boom!"

"boom!"

"boom!"

"..."

After Zhao Tietou and others shot, Li Cun called them over and asked, "How about this gun?"

Zhao Tietou scratched his big head and said, "It's easy to use without a bow and arrow."

Although Zhao Tietou is similar to his father, Zhao Han'er, and both of them are not very smart, but Zhao Tietou has been fighting with Zhao Han'er on the battlefield since he was a child, and has always taken the lead. The key is that Zhao Tietou and his father Zhao Han'er The same is extremely loyal, the kind that Li Cun told him to die, he would not hesitate to die, so after Zhao Han'er's eldest son died in battle, Li Cun transferred Zhao Tietou to be his The head of the bodyguard.

With getting along with each other in the past few years, Li Cun likes this naive Zhao Tietou more and more, and prepares to train him well so that he will succeed his father in the future and become a general in the side of the Daqian Dynasty.

Therefore, although Zhao Tietou answered the question, Li Cun still smiled and said: "That's Aiqing, you are used to bows and arrows."

Li Cun looked at the others again.

Wu Gong said: "This gun is easy to learn. It is not like a bow and arrow, which needs to be practiced frequently. It is not like a bow with a god's arm. It is difficult to shoot two or three arrows after one arrow."

Li Cun nodded secretly: "Wu Gong is careful and has the style of a general."

Zhai Cong then said: "The range of this gun is farther than that of a crossbow. It can knock down the enemy three hundred paces away. It should be able to give our army the upper hand at the beginning of the battle with the enemy."

Li Cun thought: "Zhai Cong is also good."

Most of the other people who participated in the test firing later gave the flintlock gun a good evaluation.

Li Cun tried it himself, and felt that this kind of flintlock could barely equip the army.

So Li Cun asked Li Xiang, "How fast is this gun built?"

Li Xiang replied: "The barrel of this gun has very strict requirements. When making it, the rifling lines are first made on refined iron, and then rolled into two iron pipes, big and small, and then drilled into the barrel with a steel drill. Skilled craftsmen every It can only be drilled about an inch a day, and it takes more than a month to complete one, so that the barrel can be durable and durable, and it will not burst when shooting..."

Before Li Xiang finished speaking, Li Cun understood that his dream of "sweeping the grassland in three years and sweeping the world in 20 years" can only be thought about before he finds a way to mass produce this kind of flintlock gun. ...

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(End of this chapter)