Southern Ming: A boy soldier at the beginning, supporting the world

Chapter 77 Artillery
The infantry team had a fire gun sentry, equipped with three-barreled guns and single-barreled guns. Single-barreled guns had a slow firing rate and poor accuracy, and were no longer valued by the Ming army at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The Yong'an Army expanded too quickly and was short of weapons. In order to make up for the shortage of three-barreled guns, a small number of single-barreled guns were still equipped.

Even though the targets for the three-barreled and single-barreled guns were set closer, the soldiers' test scores were still worse than those of the musket soldiers and about the same as those of the archers.

Danchu didn't say anything, but his mind was already full of thoughts. In addition to being cheap, reliable and durable, the three-barreled gun and the single-barreled gun also have another advantage that the matchlock gun cannot match.

When the battle was about to begin, soldiers using three-barreled guns or single-barreled guns could form a denser formation and create dense firepower in a short period of time. In contrast, the matchlock of the musket was always burning. If the formation was too dense, the matchlock could easily ignite the gunpowder of the soldiers next to it, causing accidental injuries.

Musketeers equipped with matchlocks could not form dense formations, nor could they form dense firepower. When the battle was about to begin, the musketeers would disperse horizontally, leaving at least one person's distance on the left and right to facilitate the exchange of positions; vertically, they would generally maintain at least three rows to maximize the density of firepower.

This point is surprisingly consistent between the East and the West. This also determines that the musketeers equipped with matchlock guns must rely on the protection of spearmen.

This was a fatal flaw. Formation tactics depended on equipment, and the line shooting tactics that would later become famous had to wait until the flintlock rifle and sleeve bayonet matured before they could flourish.

It's a tall order to use musketeers equipped with matchlock rifles against Manchurian Eight Banners soldiers equipped with broadswords!

Fortunately, the Manchurian Eight Banners could not stand the heat and would not easily set foot in Lingnan. According to the logic of the Manchurian nobles and based on history, the Qing court would continue to drive the four kings and one duke of the Han army to fight against the Southern Ming.

Wu Sangui, the King of Pingxi, Kong Youde, the King of Gongshun, Geng Zhongming, the King of Huaishun, Shang Kexi, the King of Zhishun, and Shen Zhixiang, the Duke of Xushun. These four traitors, Kong Youde is brave but not wise, Geng Zhongming has no opinion, Shang Kexi is weak, and Shen Zhixiang is mediocre and sick. Only Wu Sangui has some strategy and a strong army, but he stopped his troops in Sichuan and pointed his sword at Yunnan and Guizhou, and would not enter Lingnan.

It would take at least three or four years for Li Dingguo to lead his troops to Lingnan. Only then would the Eight Banners of Manchuria enter Lingnan to fight.

For Danchu, it should be possible to use three to four years to gradually expand, improve the flintlock rifle, equip the army with flintlock rifles, and practice line shooting tactics.

The infantry battalion headquarters also has an artillery post under its jurisdiction, which is equipped with three submachine guns, three tiger squat guns, and two Weiyuan guns, all of which are light artillery.

The mother-and-sub-cannon was improved from the falconet. One mother cannon was equipped with five sub-cannons. It had a faster firing rate and was lighter. The mother cannon plus one sub-cannon weighed about 60 kilograms. There must be a gap between the mother cannon and the sub-cannon, resulting in poor airtightness.

Therefore, cluster guns are usually used to fire small lead bullets. One shot can fire sixty or seventy lead bullets, specifically for dealing with dense enemy formations.

The tiger squat cannon also fires lead bullets, and can fire one hundred lead bullets at a time. It is more powerful than the cluster gun and weighs less than fifty kilograms, but its firing rate is not as good as that of the cluster gun.

The Weiyuan Cannon weighs 160 jin and needs to be carried by two gun carriages. It can fire solid bullets or lead bullets, or both at the same time. When firing at the same time, it is loaded with 8 liang of gunpowder, a large lead bullet weighing 3.6 jin, and 100 small lead bullets, each weighing 6 qian.

The light artillery of the battalion artillery post was mainly used to kill the enemy in close combat and to make up for the lack of firepower of the musket.

Danchu attached great importance to the mobility of artillery, striving to make it light and easy to carry, and not blindly pursuing power.

The standard camp has an artillery team, which is also mainly equipped with light artillery. In addition to the sub-munitions cannon, tiger squat cannon, and Weiyuan cannon, it is also equipped with sky rockets and light red cannons.

The sky rocket can fire shrapnel shells, which have the greatest lethality. The Red Cannon was famous in the late Ming Dynasty and was the most powerful.

The Ming army had a high rate of firearms popularization, and military books were widely circulated. Military books such as "Wu Bei Zhi", "Tian Gong Kai Wu" and "Shen Qi Tu Shuo" all recorded in detail the production methods of various artillery and muskets, and were widely circulated in the late Ming Dynasty.

Danchu also tried his best to collect and purchase various firearms, recruited craftsmen, purchased ironware, and stepped up the production of firearms. However, the army was still short of firearms such as matchlock guns, sky rockets, and red cannons. The artillery team only had two sky rockets and two light red cannons. These four sky rockets and red cannons weighed nearly 400 kilograms and needed to be carried by a four-wheeled gun carriage. Each gun was equipped with a gunner, a gunner, a loader, a sighter, and an ammunition handler.

Danchu paid the most attention to and was most interested in the sky rockets. When he arrived at the artillery team, he went to see the sky rockets first. Ferreira, the captain of the artillery team, demonstrated the process of launching the sky rockets to Danchu.

The barrel of the rocket is short and thick, which is actually a mortar with low chamber pressure, and can fire shrapnel. The black powder production technology of the Ming Dynasty was the best in the world, and the shrapnel technology was also ahead of Europe at the same time.

Sky rockets are very lethal and are very effective against dense enemy formations. They were highly valued by the armies of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Most of them were made of copper and were expensive.

A squad of gunners began to practice firing rockets. The sergeant first estimated the distance, which was about 200 steps, and shouted, "200 steps, fire two shots quickly."

The gunner used a wooden stick wrapped with a wet rag to wipe the barrel to prevent the gunpowder from burning. The other gunner used a wooden stick wrapped with a dry rag to continue wiping the barrel to prevent any moisture from remaining in the barrel.

Next, the gunner filled the gun barrel with gunpowder. The gunpowder was packed in cloth bags, and two bags of gunpowder were needed for a range of 200 steps. Another gunner followed closely behind, tamping the gunpowder bags with a ramrod.

Deputy Commander Wu adjusted the left and right directions of the gun body and used the gun gauge to adjust the elevation angle of the muzzle.

The loader took a shrapnel shell, ignited the fuse in the wooden fuse on the shrapnel shell with a red-hot iron rod, and then stuffed it into the barrel of the gun and pushed it into the barrel with a plunger, making it close to the gunpowder bag.

The cannon must be fired as quickly as possible, firstly to prevent the matchlock fuse from going out, and secondly to prevent the barrel from exploding.

The gunner inserted the red-hot iron rod into the firing port at the rear of the gun barrel to ignite the powder bag in the barrel. There was a loud bang, and a burst of intense white smoke came out at the scene, with a very pungent smell of gunpowder.

The shrapnel shells were fired and fell to the ground without exploding. After about three or four seconds, they exploded, and the iron edges, lead bullets and other objects inside the shells flew out in all directions, knocking down several targets.

The Ming Dynasty's shrapnel bombs used a fuse. The length of the fuse was determined by the distance of the target, and the time of detonation was controlled. The accuracy mainly depended on the gunner's experience.

Next, the gunners repeated the same action and shortened the fuse in the wooden fuse tube. This time, the shrapnel shells exploded before they hit the ground, and the iron edges burst out and scatter, knocking down a large number of targets, with a pleasing power.

Everyone was delighted, and Danchu also praised: "Very good! Very good!"

The Red Cannon has a slender barrel, so it has higher accuracy and greater chamber pressure, and can only fire solid bullets.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Red Cannon received unprecedented attention. The Liaodong Border Army of the Ming Dynasty "relying on strong cities to use cannons" to resist the Qing army, and the cannons they used were the Red Cannon. The Qing army also regarded the Red Cannon as the only weapon to capture strong cities.

However, the Red Cannon was expensive and incredibly heavy, with the lightest weighing three to five hundred kilograms and the heaviest weighing up to six to seven thousand kilograms. It was very inconvenient to carry and was not suitable for field battles.

Muzzle-loading artillery has a too slow firing rate. In actual combat, it is very rare for an enemy formation to be defeated with artillery alone. In the future, we should continue to develop light artillery to increase firepower and weaken the cavalry advantage of the Manchurian Eight Banners.

(End of this chapter)