Zhu Yuanzhang in the cellar

Chapter 115 The Ming Dynasty Has Guns
The next afternoon, Zhu Yunfeng extracted the mercuric fulminate and packed it carefully.

This thing is a ticking time bomb.

After nitroglycerin is added to diatomaceous earth, it will not explode even if you hit it with a hammer, it cannot be ignited with fire, and it will only decompose at high temperature if thrown into the fire.

But mercury fulminate is different. It will explode if you hit it on the ground.

The principle is the same as the firecrackers and revolver fireworks we used when we were children, but the ingredients and power are different.

Although a small dose does not pose any threat, Zhu Yunfeng is afraid of the pain.
Coming out of his own chemical laboratory, he walked towards Zhu Di's workshop alone.

Ji Hyuk went to the company today to take care of some things.

He never expected that the processing plant opened for Daming would actually receive an order, and it was a big order at that. Ji He had no choice but to sign the contract.

Zhu Di spent the entire night yesterday studying how to make bullets. He came here early this morning and is still working in the workshop.

When Zhu Yunfeng went there, the craftsmen were driven out and Zhu Di was left alone inside, not knowing what to do.

"Get out. I told you to get out and don't come in."

Hearing the sound of the door opening, Zhu Di shouted impatiently at the workshop door.

"Why are you so mad?"

Zhu Yunfeng walked over and saw that Zhu Di had actually taken out a bullet and was looking it up and down in his hand.

In the basket next to Zhu Di, there were seven or eight bullets, but they were scattered, including primers, shells and bullets, all made of copper.

You can say that if you stuff a piece of nitrocellulose into it and then put mercury fulminate into the primer, it will be a real bullet.

“Because I found that it is impossible to mass produce.”

Zhu Di sighed.

“Can’t mass produce it?”

Zhu Yunfeng was puzzled: "Isn't there a production line?"

"Yes, I first used a stamping machine to make molds for cartridge cases, bullets, and primers, so that each press can punch out twenty-four cartridge cases, bullets, and primers from the copper plate."

Zhu Di casually threw the assembled bullets without detonators and propellants into the basket and said, "But after they are stamped out, they cannot be mechanically assembled. The primer must be manually placed into the primer shell, then into the shell slot, and then the bullet and shell are assembled together. If you want to mass-produce, you need at least three stamping machines, plus dozens of skilled workers to work together."

“So how many bullets can be produced every day?”

"With three stamping machines, we can probably produce tens of thousands of rounds. With one press, because they have to be stamped separately, we can probably produce less than 10,000 rounds."

“Not bad.”

Zhu Yunfeng scratched his head and said, "Ten thousand bullets are not enough."

Zhu Di rolled his eyes at him and said, "Any small munitions factory in the United States can produce 1200 bullets a minute, and those large munitions factories can produce five to six million bullets a day."

"Well, that's indeed a little less."

"Look at this."

"what?"

Zhu Yunfeng came over.

Zhu Di took out his mobile phone and showed him several videos of bullet production lines on Bilibili.

In fact, bullets are not difficult to make. There are only three parts: a primer, a bullet and a cartridge case. Including propellant and explosive, there are only five things in total.

The rest of the primer anvil, spark hole, annular groove, base rim, and case mouth all belong to the cartridge case design, and standard mold parts can be made.

When the primer, bullet and casing are assembled together in this way, it becomes a real bullet.

However, the method used by Zhu Di belonged to the bullet production method during World War II. He first used machines to mass-produce warheads and shells, and then manually loaded propellant and detonator to complete the bullet manufacturing.

What is shown in the video is a direct reflection of the manufacturing method used in modern countries' military factories. It is fully automated. Copper plates are placed into a special machine, which is then rolled into a punching machine through an automated belt. Dozens of bullet casings are pressed at a time, and the machine can do so once per second.

Then the assembly line moves along, with bullets placed on top and primers installed at the bottom. After a series of processes, the bullet box can be loaded with twenty rounds of ammunition per second.

The same goes for the primer production line, which is all automated and does not require several workers.

After watching the video, Zhu Yunfeng finally understood what was going on.

Strictly speaking, Zhu Di's operating method was all manual, whether it was guns or bullets, the productivity was very limited and could not reach the capacity of the assembly line at all.

As for firearms, even if there are three stamping machines working at the same time, only dozens of guns can be produced in a week, and 200,000 to 300,000 rounds of bullets can be produced in a week.

And they have to be built separately.

Because there are only a few machines, they make dozens of guns in the first week and hundreds of thousands of bullets in the second week. In this way, after a month, they can make hundreds of guns and less than 400,000 or 500,000 bullets.

In a year, they could only arm a small force of more than a thousand people.

And even though standard production has been carried out through the mold, if the initial mold design does not pass, it will have to be redesigned.

Until a stamping is designed to be perfect for the bullet, it can be manufactured with precision.

Modern automatic assembly lines are different. They use special machines to produce guns and bullets. Every gun and bullet produced are exactly the same, and the production speed is very fast.

No wonder India was unable to produce bullets independently, or to produce bullets that meet international standards. It turned out that they did not have their own production line.

"Do you understand?"

Zhu Di asked.

"I see."

Zhu Yunfeng touched his chin and said, "Are you talking about military machinery?"

"Correct!"

Zhu Di nodded repeatedly and said, "I checked it online. This is called a non-standard production line. Can you get it?"

"That's too much punishment. You think I don't have enough food in prison, right?"

Zhu Yunfeng rolled his eyes.

TM's.

The machines that are specifically designed to produce guns and bullets can definitely be purchased abroad.

For example, in the United States, it is legal and privately owned. If you have money and a business license, you can easily buy a machine that makes bullets.

But in our country.

That's a standard prison sentence.

"Then there's nothing we can do."

Zhu Di spread his hands and said, "We can only get more equipment."

"It's still a question whether your AK can fire or not."

"They are all stamped parts made according to the design. Since the bullet has been designed, and you happen to have made nitrocellulose and mercuric fulminate, why not give it a try?"

"You'll die if you try. Anyway, I won't go. If you can do it, go ahead. I'll just watch from a distance."

Zhu Yunfeng kept shaking his head.

In fact, a barrel explosion shouldn't pose much of a risk.

Because the steel he bought was of high quality, a piece of nitrocellulose was unlikely to blow up steel of this quality.

But there is still an instinctive fear of this deadly weapon.

After all, the current international situation is quite unsafe. Although the terror of war has not shrouded our country, the shadow of war is still frightening.

Especially after witnessing the horror of modern warfare, one may be a complete person in the last second, and in the next second a drone whizzes by and the person is torn into pieces in an instant.

So even though he is now producing deadly weapons, he is still a little afraid to actually go out and test the guns himself.

What if it explodes?

"I will do it myself."

Zhu Di waved his hand and said, "I made the gun myself, so you can try it yourself."

"Okay, I'll get the nitrocellulose and mercuric fulminate."

Zhu Yunfeng nodded.

When mercuric fulminate is separated from the solution, it becomes gray precipitated particles.

It's a bit like gunpowder, but its composition is quite different from gunpowder.

At least gunpowder has difficulty detonating nitrocellulose.

It is easy to use nitrocellulose, you can just stuff it in from the top of the cartridge case, but mercury fulminate has to be carefully poured into the primer case and then sealed.

Zhu Yunfeng performed the series of operations slowly, but he was also too cautious. Although mercury fulminate was unstable, at least at room temperature, there would be no problems as long as there was no collision.

Unless the temperature is very high, or you put it in the sun, or throw it directly on the ground, it won't explode so easily.

Soon he poured all the mercury fulminate into the primer shell and sealed it.

Zhu Di made both AK and 7.62 bullets according to standard design drawings he found on the Internet. Under normal circumstances, as long as the mold proportions were correct, there would be no problems such as jamming.

After making seven or eight bullets, Zhu Di successfully pressed the bullets into the magazine, and then loaded the magazine by hanging it from the front and pushing it from the back as taught in the video.

With a "click", the magazine was successfully inserted into the gun body.

As a part of the firearm, the magazine must naturally fit perfectly and have specific parameter standards.

Zhu Di would naturally strictly control all the data, including the Su AK data that Xiao Liu got from his master, as well as the AK data that can be found on the Internet, to ensure that there are no mistakes.

"go!"

After loading the magazine, Zhu Di grasped the handle with his right hand and took a deep breath. His whole spirit and energy became different. He was the first to walk out of the factory gate and headed towards the parade ground.

The parade ground was the military camp of the troops stationed in the imperial farm.

In fact, the research and development base of black powder is also here, and black powder grenades are currently being produced in large quantities.

Although Zhu Yunfeng had developed smokeless gunpowder, he was still unable to produce it on a large scale.

The reason is that the raw materials, sulfur and saltpeter, are not a big deal when bought in small quantities, but if you buy them in large quantities online every day, it is easy to attract attention.

So we can only do it in Ming Dynasty.

There was sulfur and saltpeter naturally in the Ming Dynasty, but the purity was not high and contained a lot of impurities. Further purification was needed before these two things could be made according to Zhu Yunfeng's steps for making nitroglycerin and mercury fulminate.

However, with Daming's purification capabilities, it is basically unrealistic to achieve this anywhere other than Zhu Yunfeng's own laboratory.

What's more, a large number of chemical talents are needed.

Therefore, to a certain extent, whether it was the smokeless gunpowder made by Zhu Yunfeng or the AK made by Zhu Di, the monthly production was very limited.

One year's output is enough to equip an elite team, but mass production is impossible.

In this case, black powder is still useful.

Zhu Di rode into the parade ground on horseback.

"His Royal Highness the Prince of Yan has arrived, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wu has arrived!"

Zhu Di's personal guards went in first and shouted loudly inside.

At this time, the guards who were out on patrol or on guard in the parade ground were training. When they saw him come in, they all moved away.

"Your Highness the Prince of Yan, Your Highness the Prince of Wu."

The commander who was in charge of training the guards hurried forward and bowed.

"Well, I want to try out a new weapon."

Zhu Di dismounted and said, "Go, set up a target far away."

"Yes."

The commander waved his hand quickly.

Immediately, a guard brought three wooden targets for archery practice from the armory.

After the wooden target was set up, Zhu Di said, "Stand behind me, don't go in front of me."

"Quick, back off!"

The commander hurriedly ordered the soldiers to retreat.

Everyone retreated more than ten meters behind Zhu Di, and only Zhu Yunfeng stood three meters behind him.

Zhu Di took a deep breath, then turned off the safety, pulled the bolt, and started loading the gun.

There was a "click".

The bullet had apparently gone into the gun chamber without incident.

"boom!"

Zhu Di raised his gun, aimed and shot in one go.

then
He almost dropped the gun due to the incredible recoil.

"I go."

Zhu Di was startled and quickly calmed down.

But when he looked up, he saw a bullet hole on the wooden target not far away.

"Success!"

Zhu Di was overjoyed and immediately raised his gun and fired again.

"Da da da."

Three more shots were fired, and shell casings continued to fly out of the gun chamber.

But by the fifth shot, the trigger wouldn't pull and the shell didn't fly out.

Zhu Di skillfully opened the gun chamber and saw a shell stuck inside, so he pulled it out.

"what happened?"

Zhu Yunfeng walked forward and asked.

“It’s stuck.”

"AK rarely jams."

"It's probably because the shell hook was not made well."

Zhu Di looked at it and said, "I looked it up online before. This situation is often caused by a problem with the extractor and the shell. But the first few rounds fired smoothly, which means the size of the shell should be correct. It's because I didn't fix the extractor properly."

"Can it be solved?"

"I'll try it a little more. This thing needs more experiments."

"Ah."

Zhu Yunfeng took a few steps back.

Zhu Di fired all the remaining bullets, and then said with a sense of unfulfilled desire: "The feeling of having a gun in hand is different from the feeling of not having a gun in hand."

"Come on, it's just a semi-finished product now. We need to try more."

Zhu Yunfeng scratched his head and said, "Besides, mass production is also a problem. Even if we make AKs with all the molds, we can only make a few in a month, and a few bullets."

"What should I do then?"

Zhu Di put the gun in his hand on his back and said with a bitter face: "I asked you to build a non-standard production line, but you can't do it."

"You're not talking nonsense. You have a production line that specializes in producing guns and bullets. Are you afraid that I haven't been to jail?"

Zhu Yunfeng was speechless.

Zhu Di must have been obsessed with guns.

But if you think about it carefully, mass production is indeed a problem.

After all, whether it's bullets or guns, relying solely on these robots to rub them is really hopeless.

He thought for a moment, then asked, "Why are we so obsessed with making modern weapons?"

"Don't you think so?"

Zhu Di asked back.

Two people were walking and chatting on the school ground.

Zhu Yunfeng said: "There shouldn't have been such advanced production lines in the 19th century. How did they make rifles then?"

"You mean to make one of those antique rifles?"

Zhu Di frowned.

This is not what he wanted to do.

"Just take it one step at a time."

Zhu Yunfeng smiled and said, "We can produce some modern rifles on a small scale. If we want to mass-produce them, we can make antique rifles with paper shell ammunition. That thing doesn't need machines and can be made by hand. If there is a good harvest next year, Daming will not be short of manpower."

"Well"

Zhu Di pondered for a moment, nodded and said, "Okay, then I will go back today and find out how to make an old-fashioned rifle."

Ugh.

no way.

Ordnance is like that.

If there is no gun ban abroad, you can definitely buy military production lines.

Guns are banned in the country. Not only can military production lines not be purchased on the market, but even the raw materials for guns are controlled.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty still has a long way to go if it wants to truly realize automated gun manufacturing.

But it is undeniable.

With the support of modern technology, the Ming Dynasty now has guns!

(End of this chapter)