Anti-Qing: I'm actually an honest person

Chapter 99 Gunpowder and Ballistics
As a science student, I have traveled to the seventeenth century. I would be too sorry for my major if I didn't study firearms. Naturally, Liu Dapao wanted to study this thing.

It's just that this thing pays attention to timing. Now that Wu Sangui's rebellion is imminent, and Wu Sangui's rebellion, his undercover career should come to an end, right?Naturally, it was time to take this thing out.

"Grenades are weapons that have already been used in actual combat in Europe. The famous French general Vauban is an expert in this field. He especially likes to use grenades to attack cities. It is said that his siege warfare is an art. Their emperor My favorite entertainment is to lead all the civil and military officials to watch this General Vauban attack the city, live broadcast, claiming that no one can capture his Vauban-style castle, and also claiming that there is no city that General Vauban cannot capture, I am fascinated what."

Feng Zhenhai couldn't help being surprised and said: "It's not like no one has used this type of grenade here, but no matter what, there is no such momentum. How can it be so powerful?"

"The core lies in gunpowder. In fact, the development of firearms is ultimately a process of purifying gunpowder, or the purification of fire nitrate. When the purity increases, the quality of firearms will naturally improve. Not only grenades, but also the guns and cannons we use. That's all."

As he spoke, Liu Dapao pulled out three more guns, and said, "These three guns are the duck gun, the European flintlock gun, and the new gun I developed by myself. I haven't named it yet. What's the difference in appearance? ?”

Wei Xiaobao said: "It doesn't matter? Of course, one is lighter than the other, and the other is thinner than the other."

"The senior brother thinks, which gun is more powerful and has a longer range?"

"Of course it's the longest and thickest duck gun."

The so-called duck gun, also known as the turtledove gun, was the mainstream heavy weapon in the Qing army at this time, also called the big bird gun. Because the gun was too long and heavy, there were two shelves on the gun body similar to the turtledove's feet, and it was usually fired Most of the time, they are fixed on the ground with a frame, or simply use an auxiliary soldier to carry the barrel.

This shape is generally called a cannon in modern times.

It was made by Xu Guangqi imitating the Portuguese eagle-billed blunderbuss at the end of the Ming Dynasty. This thing was considered a heavy weapon. At this time, the mainstream firearm of the Qing army was actually the bird blunderbuss. , is no longer within the scope of Liu Dapao's comparison at all.

Liu Dapao handed Wei Xiaobao a duck gun and a European flintlock and said, "Try?"

Feng Zhenhai said: "Don't try it, the Dutch foreign gun is more powerful than the duck gun in terms of power and range, but it is said that there is a spirit in this gun, and it can only be used by red hair. If we Han people use it, it will not have such power. It's even particularly easy to explode."

Wei Xiaobao wondered: "Obviously the duck gun is thicker and longer, and contains more gunpowder, so why is the red gun more powerful?"

Liu Dapao smiled and said: "This is a misunderstanding in the research of firearms. Most people think that the quality of firearms is not easy to explode because of the firearm itself or the quality of the steel. In fact, this is not the case at all. China’s iron smelting industry is not stronger than ours, and in fact the power of firearms is not related to the caliber, at least in this era when everyone uses lead bullets, the caliber is meaningless.”

"What's that about?"

"Gunpowder, to be precise, is the purity of saltpetre in gunpowder. There is a science in it called ballistics. A few years ago in Europe, an Englishman invented a ballistic pendulum, which has since been extended to ballistics. From then on, our firearms can no longer be compared with Europeans."

"The specific principle is more complicated. To put it simply, the higher the purity of the gunpowder, the lower the risk of bombing, the lighter the ammunition can be, and the thinner and shorter the barrel can be made, but the power is greater. Of course, This requires a series of mathematical calculations, but I have already done them."

"That's why we can't use European guns smoothly, because the method of obtaining fire nitrate in Europe is different from ours. The purity of the fire nitrate obtained is higher, and this kind of flintlock has higher requirements for gunpowder loading. Anything more or less, there is a risk of bombing."

"To put it simply, the gunpowder must be fully burned when the bullet slips out of the barrel by 60.00%, so that the bullet can go far. However, if the purity of the gunpowder is not enough, the burning speed will be slow. For this 60.00% value, you have to add Xu Guangqi knew about the long barrel but didn't know why, so he made the duck gun long and heavy. This is also the reason why the duck gun had to be made longer than the eagle-billed gun even though it was an imitation of the eagle-billed gun. And because the barrel is too long, the traditional three-stage shooting formation cannot be used, so it is usually only used for support, and cannot be used on a large scale in the decisive battle with the Eight Banners of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties. , which caused Mingjun to be unable to defeat the Eight Banners Army."

"Besides, there are bullets. Because the burning speed of gunpowder is not enough, the bullets must be made large and heavy, so that the speed of the bullets in the gun chamber is as slow as possible, so the caliber is made so large, so lead must be used to make bullets. , and the bullets fly slowly, the power and range will naturally not increase. Moreover, the faster the gunpowder burns, the faster the air pressure in the barrel will rise, and the power will naturally be greater."

(Firearms without rifling can only use spherical bullets. If the bullets are stretched and weighed, the bullets will not even be able to fly in a straight line)
"So for firearms, the faster the gunpowder burns, the shorter the firearm, the smaller the caliber, the lighter the bullet, the greater the range and power, and the smaller the risk of bombing."

"Gunpowder is the source of power to promote the development of firearms, not the barrel!"

"Second son, the new gun you made is shorter and thinner than the European flintlock gun, and the power of the grenade just now is obviously higher. Does it mean...you have found a more powerful gun than the European one? How to make gunpowder? Is this the new gunpowder that you asked Zhu Zhu to use deaf-mute people to make?"

"That's right, because we have a lot of natural fire nitrate in our country, so our countrymen invented gunpowder earlier than Europeans. There is no nitrate mine in Europe, so their development of gunpowder in the early days has not been as good as ours."

"However, every drink and peck is God's will. For hundreds of years, Europeans have been working hard to extract fire nitrate from human and animal urine. Naturally, the purity of this fire nitrate has become better and better during these hundreds of years of exploration. Now their gunpowder is more pure than our natural fire nitrate, and their firearms are naturally more powerful than ours."

"So this method of purifying gunpowder is our lifeblood. Firearms don't matter. Even if they get samples and successfully imitate them, they won't be able to use them without high-purity gunpowder. Master Zhu, ten years, I want you to follow me I promise that within ten years, the method of making new gunpowder will not be leaked."

(The power of high-purity black powder is actually quite sufficient, there is no need to use nitroglycerin.)
Zhu Sheng heard the words, but he simply took out a small knife, and directly carved words on his arm: "The secret formula is leaked, and I am willing to suffer a thousand cuts."

　This chapter is written with a little bit of ink, because I read that most of the time-traveling novels made a fuss about the gun barrel when they made firearms, and most of the people who studied firearms in the Tang and Song Dynasties would also be criticized and thought they couldn’t do nothing. Seam steel pipes and the like, but in fact, ancient muskets don’t need seamless steel pipes at all. Gunpowder, or the development of saltpeter purification technology is the real foundation of thermal weapons. The core reason for the application of gunpowder in China is that I don’t know who accidentally It was discovered that natural nitrate and radish can be purified by boiling together, and in the following hundreds of years, there was no other major progress.

　　Sometimes I really feel that the saying that there is God’s will in every drink and peck is true. Why did modern science break out in Europe?Because there is no natural saltpeter in Europe, it went further in the research of gunpowder purification, which triggered the musket revolution, and entered the era of hot weapon warfare in advance.

　　Why did Galileo study which of the two iron balls hit the ground first?Isn't this a by-product of studying the range of shells?Is it possible that Newton was really enlightened by being smashed by an apple?No matter how you look at it, Newtonian mechanics is all about calculating range. As for early chemistry, it was purely for saltpeter purification. This is the true face of science, and it has a relationship with culture, history, national character, and mathematical foundation.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)