Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 267 0262 [Cannon Test]

Slowly closing the book, Zhu Ming finally took the time to finish "Wu Zong Zong Yao".

To be honest, a lot has been gained.

Marching, camping, ordering flags, drums... are clearly written, which can be called a nanny-style tutorial.

What is most useful to Ju Ming is the military information on the northern and southern frontiers of the Song Dynasty and the barbarians of the foreign countries.Where there is a shop, where there is a fort, where there are mountains and rivers, the orientation, and the distance are all clearly marked.

Including the mountains, rivers, forts, villages, towns, and shops throughout Shaanxi!

Zhu Ming also carefully studied the famous "Ping Rong Wan Quan Zhen Tu".Based on his poor military quality, he can give a pertinent evaluation: the formation is very good, but it is not practical.

The formation method recorded in this book is actually the "Eight Formation Map" which is quite useful.

The eight formations are also called Li Jing's formations. According to different terrains and enemy situations, corresponding battle formations are formed. The size of the troops is about 1 people.

The name of each formation is also quite vivid, "female formation" as the name suggests, is like a female genitalia.The two wings are protruding, the middle is sunken, surrounded and devoured the enemy's front army on three sides. "Wu Jing Zong Yao" also classifies the Queyue formation as a variant of the female formation.

"Muzhen" is like male genitalia, also called sharp formation, which is used to break through the enemy's formation.

The eight formations are not so mysterious, they just use geometric principles to make changes, creating opportunities for local battlefields to fight more and less.

The last part of "Wu Jing Zong Yao" is particularly nonsense, and it is devoted to the method of "divination by Liu Ren".

When to send troops and when to fight, all these require divination.

Even the envoy sent by the enemy can use divination to judge whether the envoy is telling the truth or lying...

The book also records three kinds of gunpowder formulas, namely gunpowder for artillery, gunpowder for poisonous smoke balls, and gunpowder for fireballs of terrestris.

The first two are launched by catapults, which cannot produce an explosive effect. They can only be killed by high-temperature combustion or poisonous smoke. The instantaneous temperature of the fireball can reach 1300 degrees.

The caltrop fireball is a defensive weapon, and it is thrown by the rope, a bit like a grenade.But it also cannot explode, relying on the raised barbed wire and high-temperature combustion to kill and injure the siege enemy.

……

On the back hill of the iron smelting yard, three tiger squatting cannons are lined up neatly.

There is also a large pit dug behind each artillery. After the gunner ignites, he immediately jumps into the pit.Because Zhu Ming doesn't know how much gunpowder should be filled, if there is too much gunpowder, it is easy to explode the chamber.

"Bai Sheng, go get some medicine. After igniting it, immediately jump into the pit." Zhu Ming said.

Bai Sheng stepped forward with a torch in his hands.

After lighting the gunpowder, he glanced at it twice before jumping into the pit.

"boom!"

There was a muffled sound in the barrel, and the stone bullet flew a few meters before falling to the ground, and rolled away for a certain distance.

For this launch, gunpowder bought on the market was used.

The gunpowder formula used in wars in the Northern Song Dynasty, because too many combustion aids were added, the highest proportion of nitrate was only 50.19%. This kind of gunpowder ratio could not explode at all.

On the contrary, it is folk firecracker gunpowder, which has a higher proportion of nitrate.

Zhu Ming scratched his head, and ordered: "Clean the barrel, reload, and add more gunpowder."

Soon, the second launch, with a range of less than ten meters...

Zhu Ming muttered: "It seems that the gunpowder formula is not working, so I will replace it with granulated gunpowder."

The previous powder gunpowder was bought on the market.

The granular gunpowder this time was made by Ju Ming.

The production process is very simple, first grind charcoal, then add sulfur, and then add saltpeter.Then add water, the water content is about 5%, more or less is fine.Then grind it with a wooden stick, wrap it with sackcloth, squeeze it with a heavy object, and then crush it to the required particle size.

The above process is extremely safe and will not explode due to the high water content.Then just dry it with warm air, and it can be used when the water content drops below 1%. The combustion efficiency is twice that of powdered gunpowder.

Standing beside Zhu Ming, Zhang Tong and Li Bao didn't take it seriously when they saw Bai Sheng jumping into the pit again.

"boom!"

There was a loud noise, both of them were startled, and they watched the stone bullet fly out in dumbfounded.

However, because the tiger squat gun is too light, even though a bracket is inserted into the soil, the gun body is still overturned by the backward force.

Zhu Ming shouted, "Measure the distance."

Liu Shiren took people to measure the impact of the shells, and quickly ran back and said, "Twenty feet and four feet (about 63 meters)."

"Add more gunpowder and try again." Zhu Ming said.

The three tigers squat and cannon, coming in rotation.

Continuously increasing the charge of gunpowder, the falling distance will soon exceed 100 meters.This is still a stone bullet. If it is replaced with a lead bullet, the range should be longer.

But the usual usage of the tiger squat gun is to fill many small shotguns first, and then press a large shot to increase the airtightness.

Zhu Ming has tried this a few times. Recently, small stone shells have only shot more than 40 meters, and the farthest they can shoot is more than 60 meters. The impact point of big stone shells has dropped to more than 80 meters.

All of the above are just stone bombs.

The remote output of Qi Jiguang's triple stack is as follows:

Waiting for an order at 160 meters, about 100 meters away, the bird gunners fired a salvo, and then retreated to reload ammunition.

Within 96 meters, 60 tiger squatting cannons were waiting to shoot, firing 1800 large stone bullets and 6000 to [-] small cannonballs in an instant (the size and quantity of the cannonballs were different, and instead of stones, iron bullets or lead bullets were used).

According to the enemy's situation, the firepower will be supplemented by rocket vehicles and general artillery.The rocket car fires hundreds of rockets instantly, and the general cannon fires thousands of shells.

The gunners who retreated almost finished reloading and could make up for the second round of shooting.

This is only the firepower of the forward. If the enemy attacks around the flanks, there will be gunners and archers behind.At that time, the forward and rear three formations of infantry will form a cross-fire attack on the flanking enemy.

The full version of the triple formation has more than 4 troops and is 10 miles wide after being lined up.

It is extremely difficult to practice this formation. In addition to requiring a large number of firecrackers and artillery, it is also necessary to be equipped with enough grassroots officers.That is, the small captains of the mandarin duck formation, they are the core of the triple formation, they can deal with all kinds of emergencies, even if they are rushed to the front by the cavalry, they can still fight in close combat.

Zhu Ming experimented with more than 20 cannons and used up all the granular gunpowder he made.

Zhang Tong was stunned: "Such a sharp weapon should be dedicated to the imperial court!"

Ju Ming pretended to sigh: "I'm afraid it will be a disaster after it is dedicated to the court."

"How do you say that?" Li Bao asked.

Zhu Ming explained: "The danger of the Great Song Dynasty is not outside but inside. Corruption is rampant inside and outside the government and the field, and it is cruel to the people. If this cannon is offered with the temperament of an official, he will be ecstatic. He will order more cannons, and treacherous officials will take advantage of the opportunity. For profit. Especially in the iron smelting field on Jingdong Road, treacherous ministers must use the guise of making guns to expropriate a large amount of wrought iron to make gun bodies and shells. Gunpowder will also be listed as monopoly items, and the tax amount will be greatly increased.”

Zhang Tong said, "It's not that serious, is it?"

"It's more serious than this," Zhu Ming said. "With a sharp weapon in his body, he will kill himself. If he can defeat Xixia by chance, he will attack Liao again. Regardless of whether he wins or not, can the people of the world hold it?"

This is not alarmist talk, Song Huizong would really do this.

After the official army wiped out Fang La, the country was already riddled with holes, and it stands to reason that it should recuperate.

The finances at that time made it impossible to fight another big war.

But Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty was so happy that he forcibly raised taxes to gather the army, and went to recover Yanyun without stopping.

That tax increase was like opening a Pandora's box.

The names are the money made by the economy and the money made by the general, collectively known as the "money made by the general".In fact, it is the excessive collection of surcharges, which have to be paid by all walks of life, leading to a collective increase in the prices of all commodities on the market.

In the beginning, it was only the economic and general envoys who ordered tax increases, which gradually spread to government departments at all levels.

Even the academic envoys came out to raise taxes. The taxation of the whole country was completely messed up. The prices of daily necessities such as food, wine vinegar, salt tea, and cloth rose to the point that ordinary people could not bear it.

Not to mention Zhu Ming offered a few tiger squat guns, even if he offered a howitzer, he would lose.

Quoting Tong Guan's own memorial: Seeing that it is rough and unbearable, it is only half of it when you have to turn it around, and most of it is far away...

It probably means that what the soldiers eat is so poor that it is difficult to swallow.The rations are only half full, and they haven't arrived yet.There is also a shortage of ordnance, so they must be recruited from Taiyuan, Daming, Kaide and other places.Armor uniforms are also not enough.For the construction of fortifications and defensive materials, nothing has been obtained for the time being.

It was in this situation that Tong Guan led the army to recover Yanyun.

Let's just say that he won by luck, how to deal with the newly occupied land?

There was already a famine in the territory of Liao, bandits and bandits were everywhere, and refugees were everywhere.Tong Guan didn't even have enough rations for the army, so how could he recruit bandits and resettle refugees?
To bring down Yanyun is simply to take over the mess, and you have to keep throwing money into it.

In history, Song Dynasty bought Yanjing and threw the refugees to Shanxi and left them alone.Those refugees couldn't have enough to eat, so they all went to the Kingdom of Jin to help the Jin soldiers capture the city of Shanxi.

In order to appease the newly occupying land, he frantically sucked blood from Hebei and Shandong, causing uprisings everywhere in Hebei and Shandong. Zhang Wanxian even gathered hundreds of thousands of people to rebel.

Song Huizong and Tong Guanhao were overjoyed, and the people all over the country paid for them.

After Jin Bing went south for the first time, why didn't Song Qinzong build a line of defense?Because he has no money at all!

Zhu Ming said: "Last spring, the imperial court had already planned to attack Liao, but the ministers opposed it."

"Last year when we attacked Liao, what should Xixia do?" Zhang Tong thought he had misheard.

Zhu Ming laughed and said, "How do I know?"

Tong Guan really planned to attack Liao last spring, and even started to mobilize troops, completely ignoring that the battle of Xixia was not over yet.

Even Song Huizong felt unreliable about this matter, saying that he sent people to inquire about the truth before making a decision.

Li Bao asked: "The world is like this, how can we save the world? Can my husband have a way?"

Zhu Ming shook his head and said in a low voice, "It can't be saved, unless the emperor is changed."

Zhang Tong and Li Bao were startled, and looked to the left and right.

Zhu Ming added: "I heard that the prince is calm and frugal, and he listens to advice. Maybe he can turn things around."

Zhang Tong immediately relaxed his tension, he thought that Zhu Ming was going to rebel.

As long as you don't rebel, you can change the emperor. The people of the world have long had enough of the current one.

Li Bao muttered, "I don't know how long this Taoist emperor can live. If he can live another 20 years, the people of the world will suffer a lot."

Zhu Ming smiled and said, "Who knows?"

(Some readers said that the cannon body can be cast, and then the air holes can be removed, saying that Lao Wang doesn’t understand anything. Brother, that chapter said that the furnace temperature is too low, wrought iron can’t be cast, and wrought iron can’t be forged. Pig iron cannon can Casting, but it is too heavy, and it is inconvenient for field battles. In addition, the Huang Chang in the previous chapter was wrong, and Jianzhou Huang Chang is not the one who compiled Daozang.)
(End of this chapter)