Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 520 Flower Bullet
After half an hour of busy work by the young and strong of the two hundred heavy camps, the masonry sacks that blocked the gate of the Great Wall for more than three feet were finally basically cleaned up. After that, he was ordered to transfer to the city and scattered behind various fortifications.

Zhou Yuji already knew about the fortifications near the city gate through the map drawn by the Ministry of War. Just after the young men completed their tasks and evacuated, they fired a direct shot at a red cannon at the city gate.

A projectile passed through the long door opening and made a big gap in a row of fortifications built with sackbags. The archers of the Qing army gathered behind the fortifications had no time to let out a miserable howl before they were knocked down by the projectile five or six times. Ten shieldmen covered the two general Weiyuan cannons with two wheels on the gun mounts, and when they reached the door opening that could accommodate six or seven people in parallel, more than a dozen grenadiers in double armor followed closely behind them. back.

This kind of sturdy gun cart can be pushed by a strong man, and two people use ropes to pull it forward. The style is similar to that of the later rural carts, but the shape is simpler.

This is what the Military Weapons Supervisor improved based on the Dutch artillery carts captured by the Ming army and sent to the capital after the Battle of Taiwan.

The most important thing is that the Military Weapons Supervision successfully imitated the flowering bomb.

After dismantling the flowering ammunition left by the Dutch, the craftsmen of the Military Weapons Supervision conducted reverse research for several months, and finally developed Ming's own flowering bomb.

The difficulty of the flower bomb is the slow-burning powder used in the fuze and how to ignite the fuze. There must be a slow-burning powder with a very stable burning rate.

The first problem was solved by a craftsman named Wang Shun in the gunpowder workshop.

Wang Shun's family has dealt with gunpowder for several generations. Due to the difficulty of making a living, his father often made gunpowder privately, which was used to make the medicine hair puppets (fireworks) that were set off during the New Year's festival. For the sake of safety, it is deeply loved by rich families, and the gunpowder fuze used in the gunpowder puppet is a slow-burning gunpowder similar to the cannonball fuze.

It was Wang Shun who had an idea and thought of the scene where the puppet exploded after being lifted into the air, so he explained the method of making a slow-burning fuze. Although it worked after several experiments, the tissue paper fuze tended to burn from the tail , this is a very difficult problem.

Later, Feng Liuzi, a craftsman skilled in carpentry, proposed the method of replacing the cotton paper fuze with a wooden tube fuze, and the effect was very good after testing.This method not only solves the problem of the flammability of the fuze, but also solves the problem of inconvenient operation caused by the gunner lighting the fuze and then inserting the shell into the barrel.

The structure of the wooden tube fuze is generally a hollow wooden tube with openings at both ends, which contains slow-burning gunpowder with a very stable burning rate.

There is a scale marked on the wooden barrel. When using it, the gunner first estimates the firing distance, finds out the distance and the flight time corresponding to the type of shell from the artillery manual, then presses the knob on the fuze to adjust the detonation time, and at the same time punches a hole in the corresponding position of the fuze. Finally, it is inserted into the fuse hole of the shell.

At this time, one end of the fuze is exposed outside the shell, and the other end is in contact with the explosive in the shell.Finally, the shell is inserted into the barrel with the position of the fuze facing forward.

Since the diameter of the inner bore of the smoothbore front-loading gun is slightly larger than the diameter of the shell, when the propellant explodes, part of the flame penetrates from the gap between the shell and the barrel to the front of the shell, directly igniting the part of the fuze exposed outside the shell, and the shell flies in the air for a certain period of time. After the specified time, the fuze burns to the position of the explosive in the shell according to the previously adjusted time, ignites the explosive, and the shell explodes.

After hundreds of experiments, the technology of General Weiyuan's cannon with explosive shells finally stabilized, and then Zhu Youjian ordered five artillery vehicles ordered by the Ministry of War to be sent to the front line to test the effect in actual combat .

In order to commend the great contributions of Wang Shun and Feng Liuzi and encourage more craftsmen to devote themselves to inventions and creations, Zhu Youjian not only rewarded all officials and craftsmen participating in the development with 1000 taels of silver, but also specially rewarded Wang Shun and Feng Liuzi. A huge sum of 1000 taels of silver per person.

This incident caused a huge commotion in the Military Weapons Supervision and even the entire court. For a while, everyone who knew about it was talking about it, but except for the Military Weapons Supervision, almost all court officials Expressed dissatisfaction and opposition to Zhu Youjian's move.

In the eyes of these officials and lords, those cheap craftsmen are engaged in their own jobs, and after the emperor greatly improved the treatment of craftsmen, the income of some craftsmen's families has exceeded their own. To reward them with such a huge bounty?
Most of the important officials in the court took a disapproving attitude towards Zhu Youjian's behavior of rewarding craftsmen. Although many people expressed their dissatisfaction with this matter, they were all detained by Zhu Youjian.

It didn't take a month, and under the nature of Chinese people who forget quickly, no one paid any attention to this matter.

This time the gunners were not the gunners from the Yongwei Battalion and the Jingying Battalion, but the soldiers who specialized in gun testing in the Armament Supervision. They still need to be familiar with it, and they have to test fire in the military inspection all day long. For these people, operating guns is as simple as eating and drinking.

Arriving at the entrance of the city gate, the gun cart stopped, the gunner and the loader quickly prepared the launch procedure, and then someone yelled, and the large shields covering the front moved away one after another, and the gunner with cotton in his ears lit a fire Launch the fuze.

"Gudong!"

The loud sound of General Weiyuan's cannon firing caused a long-lasting echo in the city gate, and a large puff of black-gray gunpowder smoke filled the air, and then rushed into the gate under the blowing of the south wind.

The flowering shells filled with gunpowder in the circular hollow shell whizzed past the six or seven-foot-long door opening, landed on the gap made by the Hongyi cannon just now, and rolled forward for a few breaths. When the army was lucky and doubtful, the flower bomb exploded suddenly, and the thin iron shell was blown into countless fragments by the huge tension of the gunpowder, and then splashed around.

Yellow dust accompanied by black-gray gunpowder smoke filled the air, and then the broken limbs and broken arms crackled down in the east air. The Qing army within a radius of more than ten feet was killed and wounded by the explosion, and wailing and screaming were intertwined. Together, the gunpowder smoke dissipated, the dust fell, and a large crater with a diameter of seven or eight feet and a depth of about one foot appeared at the place where the flowering bomb exploded.

Before the surrounding Qing troops could react, another loud noise was heard, and the second shell landed a few feet away from the explosion point. There was another scream, and five or six Qing soldiers fell into a pool of blood.

Immediately afterwards, more than a dozen grenadiers in heavy armor were divided into two groups, and under the leadership of the team leader, they quickly ran into the city gate cave, and quickly rushed to the exit of the city gate cave under the cover of gunpowder smoke all over the cave.

The first group of six grenadiers ignited the Thunderbolt, counted silently and then threw it to the right outside the city gate, and then retreated a few steps close to both sides. The second group immediately moved forward and threw the already lit Thunderbolt at left side.

In the first round of explosions, the grenadiers took the opportunity to throw another round, and then a dozen people rushed back from the doorway, and fifty shieldmen rushed in one after another with their big shields in their hands. A team of 500 spearmen followed closely behind. Their purpose was to rush into the city and advance to both sides, so as to open up enough space for the archers and gunners behind.

The Ming army bombarded and thundered, shielded and spears led the battle, and the archers and gunmen followed up and waited for the opportunity to shoot. This series of actions were all planned in advance. Although the execution process will not be so smooth, the continuous explosions have a great impact on the Qing army. Under the shock and psychological impact caused, everything is progressing normally.

At around [-] o'clock, the vanguard of the Qin army broke into the south gate of Shengjing first. After being taken away by Houjin for more than ten years, finally a Ming army stepped into the original Shenyang city again.

　Thanks to Venus for the graphics card reward.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)