Nanming Yiming

Chapter 57 Technological Innovation

Just when everyone was full of anticipation and thought that there was something shocking in the fifth kit.

But disappointed to find that there is only this sentence: "Looking for Mr. Song Yingxing."

Gu Yanwu said: "This Lord Song Yingxing Chongzhen served as the magistrate of Bozhou, Fengyang Prefecture, Southern Zhili in 16 years."

"In the first year of Hongguang (1645), Song Yingxing was recommended as Chuhe Bing Xundao and Nanrui Bing Xun Dao, but the Song masters all resigned and refused. Now they are missing, and they should be living in seclusion in the countryside."

Qian Mo said: "Sir Song Yingxing is familiar with all kinds of casting, machinery, and calculation methods. If you can find Mr. Song to come out of the mountain to preside over the construction of the bastion, it will definitely get twice the result with half the effort."

"I remember that Mr. Song is from Fengxin County, Nanchang Prefecture. Xiaoyin, please tell Qian Ning to quickly establish a contact point in Nanchang Prefecture. You must find Mr. Song."

"Tiangong Kaiwu" written by Song Yingxing is known as the encyclopedia of Chinese craftsmanship in the [-]th century.

His main contribution is that he made a summary of the knowledge of agricultural production and handicraft production that has appeared in China for thousands of years, and also made a summary of technical experience.

And make them systematized and organized, and then write them into books so that they can be passed down.

Song Yingxing's books include agriculture and handicrafts, such as machinery, bricks, ceramics, sulfur, candles, paper, weapons, gunpowder, textiles, dyeing, salt making, coal mining, oil extraction and other production technologies.

In terms of agriculture, Song Yingxing made detailed records of the whole production process of rice, such as soaking seeds, breeding, beating seedlings, and weeding grass.

Although Qian Mo, as a person of later generations, has a certain knowledge of physics and chemistry, and he is also a fan of the military, and has seen some posts about the improvement of ancient technologies on many military forums.

But it’s not enough on paper. If you ask Qian Mo to do these things himself, he can’t do it.At least it won't be possible in the short term. It's impossible for Qian Mo to turn himself into a scientist and do invention experiments all day long.

It is still possible to give some directional suggestions to professionals to help them break through some technical barriers.

Therefore, Qian Mo urgently needs to find a comprehensive Ming Dynasty scientist like Song Yingxing to overcome some technical difficulties together.

If you want to build a bastion quickly, you can only make cement.

Qian Mo knew that with the technology of the Ming Dynasty, the temperature of the blast furnace could not reach above 1600 degrees. This technology was only conquered by Europeans in the 18th century.

Therefore, it is impossible to manufacture cement in the modern sense under the current conditions.

In 1756, British engineer J. Smeaton found that when studying the characteristics of some limes hardening in water: to obtain hydraulic lime, limestone containing clay must be used for firing;
The masonry mortar used for underwater construction is ideally composed of hydraulic lime and volcanic ash.This important discovery laid a theoretical foundation for the research and development of modern cement.

In 1796, British J. Parker fired a kind of cement with marl, which was brown in appearance, much like the mixture of lime and volcanic ash in ancient Rome, and named it Roman cement.

Because it uses natural marl as raw material and is directly fired without ingredients, it is also called natural cement.It has good hydraulic hardness and fast setting properties, especially suitable for projects in contact with water.

There are no volcanic rocks near Zhejiang, so there is no need to think about "natural cement".

Qian Mo's goal is to find natural marl, and use this marl to directly burn "modern cement".

Although this kind of cement is the embryonic form of modern cement, the artillery power of this era is not very powerful, so it can handle it completely.

Although I don't have the ability to manufacture a blast furnace with a furnace temperature of 1600 degrees or even 2000 degrees to refine better quality steel.

However, under the guidance of a blacksmith to improve the existing bellows, and then use high-quality coal to break the furnace temperature to over 1400 degrees, and add this marl, he can still burn the original "modern cement".

Qian Mo remembers that there are a lot of marl resources in Tianmu Mountain, which is one of the reasons why Qian Mo chose Tianmu Mountain as his base. The rich mineral resources can be directly utilized.

Marl is often distributed in the transition zone between limestone and claystone, and is sandwiched between limestone or claystone layers in a thin layer or lenticular shape.

Qian Mo ordered people to find some miners who had been digging mines, and told them to go to the Tianmu Mountain area and look for a kind of earthy yellow stone mine among the limestone with clay. Those who found it would be rewarded heavily.

There are blacksmith shops and various workshops in Tianjiazhuang itself, and with the various craftsmen brought back from Jinshanwei, Qian Mo decided to transform Tianjiazhuang into a production base of various workshops for the production of materials.

In addition to military supplies, other commodities such as textiles can also be produced for sale, providing stable economic income for the rebels.

After all, there are not always such tyrannical traitors like Tian's father and son, and robbery is not a long-term solution.

Otherwise, wouldn't he, the majestic governor of the Ming Dynasty, Su Song, be turning into another Li Zicheng?
On the other side, Xia Wanchun, Gu Yanwu and the battalion leaders negotiated and finalized the location of the bastion.

Everyone agrees that Tianjiazhuang is actually not suitable for reconstruction. Although Tianjiazhuang has some ready-made village wall towers, the main body of the bastion as the core needs to be built on a higher ground. It is too difficult to rebuild Tianjiazhuang, and it will also destroy Some existing facilities in Tianjiazhuang.

So everyone chose a small highland on the right side of Tianjiazhuang, where it is condescending and can rely on each other with Tianjiazhuang.

After completing the site selection, first set up a temporary camp outside Tianjiazhuang, and then start clearing the foundation on the high ground.

After the marl is found, the marl from Tianmu Mountain can be burned into cement and transported back to build the bastion.

Now the Taihu Rebel Army only needs to have a solid stronghold in Jiaxing, and there is no need to build a huge military fortress group.

Therefore, it is most suitable to build a small bastion that can accommodate about a thousand people. After all, building such a fortress requires a lot of money and manpower.

The next step is how to increase the power of the bird gun.

In fact, the arquebus of this era has two fatal problems.

One is that the power is limited, resulting in a very short effective killing distance.

The maximum effective killing distance for the enemy wearing cotton armor is 30-50 steps (one step in the Ming Dynasty is about 1.6 meters).

Firing at a distance of more than 50 steps basically does not cause any damage. Facing some heavily armored Eight Banners soldiers wearing double cotton armor, it may take less than [-] steps to achieve effective damage.

The bird gun is a kind of matchlock gun. According to records, the matchlock gun was introduced to my country from the West through the hands of Japanese pirates during the Yongle period when the Japanese pirates were at their most rampant along the coast of my country.

The general structure of the bird gun is as follows: barrel, gun body, bolt, trigger, the bolt can rotate around the axis, one end is connected to the trigger, and the other end holds the burning matchlock (after special treatment), the trigger is pulled, and the bolt is pressed down Light the matchlock to fire the fire door.

After being introduced into the Ming Dynasty, the arquebus gun was imitated in large numbers by the Bingzhan Bureau, and gradually became a standard firearm of the Ming army. In the Wanli Korean War, it defeated the invading army of the old thief Toyotomi together with other firearms.

The bird gun is a relatively stable and mature fire gun of the Ming army.The statistics of the bird guns in the Yongle period are not inferior to those of the Western fire guns in the same period.

But in the past 200 years, firearms in the Western world have continuously improved their performance, and have surpassed big firearms.

Although the Ming Dynasty also attached great importance to firearms, there were many inventions of firearms, such as self-generating guns (that is, flintlock guns), but self-generating guns were never officially equipped with the Ming army.

In 1598 (the 26th year of Wanli), Zhao Shizhen asked Duo Sima, the envoy of the Lumi Kingdom, for advice on the structure and production methods of the Lumi Kingdom musket.

"Wu Bei Zhi" said: "Bird blunderbuss: only Lumi blunderbuss is the farthest and most poisonous."

The shape and structure of the entire Lumi gun consists of a gun barrel, a gun bed, a curved butt, a dragon head and a trigger, a fire door, a rail, a front port, a rear door, and sighting devices called a rear sight and a star.

The shooting accuracy of the Lumi gun is more accurate, the range is longer, and its structure is closer to modern rifles.

However, the trauma caused by the Lumi gun at close range is not as good as that of the bird gun.

The two can be said to have their own merits, but the barrel of the Lumi gun is longer, and it needs to use 1 catties of fine steel (10 catties of crude iron can be drilled into 1 catties of fine steel), and the cost is also more expensive.

Therefore, the bird gun is still the main equipment of the southern Ming army, while the northern Ming army prefers to use the "three-eyed gun".

The second problem is that the rate of fire is relatively slow, because the loading of the matchlock gun is troublesome, which seriously affects the rate of fire.

The "three-stage strike" used by Huang Yu is actually not the three teams of people who take turns to fire continuously.

Matchlock guns can't reach this rate of fire at all.

Huang Yu's "three-stage strike" just divides the original team into three groups to shoot, and turns the original one-shot deal into three more layered continuation of firepower.

Therefore, the 3 shots in the first round of the "three-stage strike", at the expense of the number of shots fired in a single shot, did create an "illusion" of continuous firepower.

After the shooting of these three groups of people is completed, there will be a certain interval between the second round of three shots.

Therefore, if the number of enemies that Huang Yu faces each time is less than the number of firecrackers he has, he can use the "three-stage strike" to complete an effective three-shot burst.

If there are too many opponents and the distance is relatively close, he will have no chance to show the second "three-stroke".

For the above two problems, although Qian Mo has no way to create a self-generated gun to completely solve it.

However, as a frequent visitor to future military forums, he can still give certain optimization solutions.

For the problem of power and distance, it can be achieved by "granulation of gunpowder".

That is the "gunpowder granulation" technology. This technology that can improve the power of gunpowder also appeared in Europe around 1400. This is a revolution in gunpowder technology and an important turning point in the history of firearms.

Prior to this, people used powdered gunpowder as gunpowder (propellant) when using firearms. There are many disadvantages when using this form of gunpowder in combat, such as inconvenient transportation, uneven burning rate, and easy to be affected by moisture.

The powdered black powder is easily squeezed together when it is under pressure in the barrel, so that it will not burn completely due to lack of oxygen when it is ignited, which reduces the power of the gunpowder.

In order to solve this problem, the early gunners would avoid loading the gunpowder too tightly, but not too loose, because this will also reduce the power of the gunpowder.

The best way to do this is to deliberately not overfill and tighten the gunpowder when loading the gunpowder. Although this can bring out the power of gunpowder, it requires a lot of experience and skills for the gunner, and it is difficult for ordinary people to learn.

In addition, powdered gunpowder is also susceptible to moisture.

The technology of granulated gunpowder solves these problems. First of all, after turbulent transportation, granulated gunpowder will also be layered. The largest particles will go to the bottom of the gunpowder barrel, and the smallest particles will go to the surface of the gunpowder barrel. , but this does not affect the quality and use of gunpowder.

Second, granulated powder is also far less hygroscopic than powdered powder because granulated powder has a smaller surface area to volume ratio and absorbs less moisture from the air.In the era of great voyages, the best granular gunpowder also used a graphite grinder to polish the pores on the gunpowder grains to reduce the hygroscopicity of the gunpowder and extend the storage period.

Finally, because granulated gunpowder is in the form of granules, even when pressed, they do not fit tightly together and do not form a "whole" like powdered black powder.The gaps left between the particles of gunpowder make it easier for oxygen to support the combustion of the gunpowder (to facilitate the spread of the flame), making the burning rate more uniform and improving the efficiency of gunpowder combustion, unlike powder gunpowder when shooting. The ignited gunpowder is ejected from the barrel, so its power is greatly increased.

Therefore, as long as the "gunpowder is granulated", the power and range of the bird gun will be greatly improved.Specific performance needs to be tested before accurate data can be obtained. The most conservative estimate can at least increase the effective killing range by 1/3.

Of course, there is also a disadvantage. Due to the increase in power, the service life and frequency of the barrel will be shortened.

It is not difficult for experienced gunpowder craftsmen to master this technology, as long as they experiment more.

It should be noted that with the influx of European technology, gunpowder granulation technology also appeared in the Ming Dynasty, but it was not widely used, and the granulation process was not standardized.At this time, the Ming and Qing armies were basically still using powdered black powder.

As for how to increase the rate of fire, it is mainly to simplify the loading process.

Although "paper-loaded bullets" can only be used with flintlock guns.However, matchlock guns can also be loaded with a fixed amount of gunpowder and projectiles in advance, so that soldiers do not need to choose the loading amount based on experience when loading ammunition, which saves some time, but only needs to be installed with matchlock fuses.

However, the stability of shooting and the speed of loading can still be improved to a certain extent in this way, and the requirements for soldiers' experience are also low, and it is not easy to explode the tube.

After these two technologies are applied, the power of the bird gun and the combat effectiveness of the Shenji Battalion can be significantly improved.

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