The sniper starts from the bright sword escape period

Chapter 416 Bailixiu's Guidance

Thinking of this, Zhu Biao couldn't help sighing:
"That's right! Reloading the gunpowder is indeed very cumbersome. When reloading, not only must the gunpowder be erected to fill the gunpowder, but the most fearful thing is that the gunpowder will be loaded too much accidentally, which will cause the chamber to explode. Yes! I often heard that the recruits in training accidentally poured too much gunpowder, which caused the bombs to explode!"

After hearing Zhu Biao's words, Bai Lixiu smiled and said:

"Then I don't know if you have ever thought about adopting the method of fixed installation! It is to put gunpowder and lead in a tube, and then insert it from the back of the firecracker. Isn't this more convenient and quicker than firing from the front of the firecracker! "

That's right, what Bailixiu was talking about was of course the originator of the Fran cannon, which was installed and fired in the back hall, which was a kind of artillery introduced from the West in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, also called the Invincible General Cannon.

Bai Lixiu is also very familiar with the history of Daming's firearms development.For the phenomenon that the firearm technology of the Ming Dynasty developed greatly in the early stage, but gradually lagged behind the world in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the phrase "born in sorrow, died in peace" could not be more appropriate to describe it.

During the Battle of Jingnan, the firearm equipment rate and usage rate of Jianwen's army far exceeded Zhu Di's army, and the power of its firearms left a deep impression on Zhu Di, which prompted Zhu Di to promote firearms on a large scale in his army And one of the driving forces for the establishment of highly weaponized units such as the Shenji Battalion.So far, the development of firearms in the Ming Dynasty has reached a climax, and its quantity, quality, and tactical use have made great progress compared with before.

At that time, a kind of thing called "trojan horse" was used by people. This is a kind of hardwood firecracker accessory, which is used to place between the gunpowder and the projectile to stop the gunpowder from leaking, and can also greatly improve the quality of the gunpowder. The small invention of increasing the airtightness and shooting range of the firecrackers made the firecrackers in the Yongle period much more powerful than the firecrackers in the Hongwu period.

However, although Zhu Di attached great importance to firearms and established an organized firearms unit——Shenji Battalion, but from the overall environment, with the end of the Jingnan War, the Ming army after Zhu Di seized the throne and proclaimed himself emperor , except for the frontier troops guarding the border areas, the combat tasks of most troops have gradually decreased a lot, and the military household system of the guards has also begun to be destroyed. slave.

In fact, at that time, apart from the southwestern frontier and the northern grasslands, the Ming army had rarely encountered large-scale wars. In the basic territory of the Ming Dynasty, such as the two sides of the Yellow River, the north and south of the Yangtze River, and other places, medium-to-high intensity wars basically disappeared. .The northern frontier army often did not have too many combat missions. After Zhu Di's several northern expeditions, the Mongols' wars against the Ming Dynasty were mostly small-scale raids, and even the famous Civil Fortress Change and BJ Defense War It didn't take long, and all of them were resolved properly.

When encountering a small-scale war, the Ming army can crush or maintain it with its existing firearms and size. Therefore, without the stimulation of war, the Ming court naturally has no incentive to spend huge military expenditures on large-scale research and development. Replace weapons.

The firearms of the Ming army were originally produced and deployed by the imperial court, and craftsmen from institutions such as the Baoyuan Bureau, the Weapons Bureau, and the Bingzhan Bureau were responsible for the manufacture. Afterwards, in order to facilitate timely replenishment and consumption in the border areas, the border towns were allowed to manufacture firearms and gunpowder by themselves when the supply was insufficient and unfavorable.

Lacking the support and funding from the imperial court, as well as the army's demand for new firearms, the government-run workshops fell into a vicious circle. They did not have much motivation to develop new firearms. Minor design changes, so during the period from the early Ming to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, although the firearm equipment rate in the Ming army went up, there were not many outstanding new firearms worth mentioning, such as three-eyed guns. It's just an improvement on the existing firearms, and it doesn't make people's eyes shine.

At the same time, it was strictly prohibited by the imperial decree, and the research on firearms among the people was also at a low ebb, so it is not difficult to understand that China's firearm technology will "stagnate" in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.And what's interesting is that, limited by the backward artisan household system of the Ming Dynasty, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, even though various technologies from the West were absorbed, such as the Flang cannon, the firearm manufacturing skills of the Ming army still appeared. "Backward", the quality of the firearms it manufactured was not even comparable to that in the early Ming Dynasty!

Of course, this is not because the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty could not produce high-quality firearms, but because they were dragged down by the Ming government's backward artisan household system. Regarding this point, the people of insight in the Ming Dynasty at that time hated it deeply.Under the backward craftsman household system, the raw materials distributed by the government to firearms craftsmen were exploited layer by layer by officials big and small, and when they reached the hands of the lowest craftsmen, there was not much left, but the government paid extremely low prices when purchasing firearms. Buying makes the artisans unable to earn even their hard-earned money. Therefore, firearms artisans often hand over the worst quality firearms to the government to deal with official errands, and sell high-quality firearms to merchants, or even sell them overseas to make money.

What's more, because they couldn't live on, many craftsmen chose to flee. In the tenth year of Tianshun, the management made a statistics of the craftsmen and found that there were as many as [-] official craftsmen who had fled.

In fact, the artisan household system is one reason, and the main reason is because there is no war, so the emperor naturally does not care about the artisan households that make firearms, otherwise, if he is concerned about firearms, naturally there will be no The steward dared to covet the wages of ink craftsmen.

Just when Bailixiu was recalling the history of firearms development in the Ming Dynasty that he saw in that world before crossing over, Zhu Biao couldn't help clapping his hands after hearing Bailixiu's description, and then said:
"That's right! In this way, you only need to replace the charge cartridge, and you can replace the charge and fill the lead. Moreover, with such a fixed charge cartridge, the gunpowder loaded must also be fixed, so you don't have to worry about soldiers They charged too much gunpowder on the battlefield or in training!"

Of course, not only Zhu Biao, but the two blacksmiths, Lao Zhang and Lao Li, also thought that this method was very good after hearing what Bai Lixiu said, and immediately planned to try it out.

Naturally, Bailixiu had no reason to stop it. Let them get out the top-loaded ammunition first. As for the metal fixed-loaded ammunition that uses flash caps and mechanically launched, we have to talk about it later.

After all, the mechanical excitation device also involves some more complicated mechanical parts such as spring triggers.

Of course, although it is difficult to knock out with the current blacksmith's craftsmanship, it is not impossible to knock out, not to mention that they have not solved the trouble of reloading after the metal!
The two old blacksmiths were always ready to do what they said, and in a short while they got out the rear-mounted and loaded firecrackers.

(End of this chapter)