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Chapter 943 Percussion Gun

"Wang Zheng, how are the percussion cap guns and needle guns that were sent to the Marine Command for trial? Can they be put into mass production and formally equipped?"

Speaking of his own strength, a light suddenly flashed through Hong Tao's mind. Nothing could improve strength more directly than new weapons, and the empire happened to have some in its arsenal. However, he had to ask Wang Zheng, the right vice minister of the Ministry of Industry who was in charge of the military industry, whether he could use them.

"Uh... I have already submitted the report to the General Staff Headquarters while Your Majesty is leading the army in person!" In fact, Wang Zheng has been puzzled for a long time. In the past, the emperor always approved the reports on weapons and equipment very quickly, so why did it fall on deaf ears this time and there has been no news yet?

But the emperor had just returned from fighting in the Western Regions for more than half a year, so he had to rest, and it was not good to chase him too closely. It was not until today that he was suddenly summoned to the palace for questioning that he was shocked to find that the emperor had not seen it.

"Huh... Yuan Keli is gone, but he can't take the report with him. How can he forget such an important matter? Wang Chengen, find Tan Mingming immediately. I want to see if the General Staff can't function properly without Yuan Keli!"

After Wang Zheng said this, Hong Tao immediately realized where the problem was. Wang Zheng would definitely not lie. It was the problem of the new acting chief of the general staff, Tan Mingming. He could not help but get angry. How could he forget such an important document? It was too outrageous!
"...Your Majesty..." Wang Cheng'en moved upon hearing the voice, but instead of hurrying out to convey the order, he turned to the emperor and pretended to respond, but his eyes kept glancing towards the back hall.

"Fuck... give Minister Wang a piece of roasted sweet potato to try first!" Hong Tao was stunned for a moment, and the anger on his face suddenly disappeared. He tried hard to force a smile, and enthusiastically invited Wang Zheng to eat the sweet potato roasted on the stove, and then turned and walked towards the back hall.

It was so embarrassing. Wang Zheng's memorial was mixed with seven or eight other memorials and piled under the recliner. There were two more similar piles of documents, both near the recliner, totaling more than twenty.

This is what Hong Tao picked up when he was sleeping or resting. He would lie down to review it, fall asleep when he felt sleepy, and then review it again when he woke up. As a result, he was so busy these days that he couldn't even take a short nap, so he just forgot about it.

It must be said that the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties were indeed very miserable. They had endless memorials to review all day long, and they could not just read them wholeheartedly. They had to pay attention to the thoughts of the court officials from time to time, and listen to various reports to distinguish which ones were true and which ones were false.

Lazy? Of course you can, but you can't delay your work, so you have to find someone to help you. So powerful ministers and eunuchs came into power. Whoever helped the emperor do more work and was trusted by the emperor would indirectly gain more power.

If we set up a special agency to help handle public affairs, wouldn’t that just be the Secretariat? Power and responsibility are conjoined, and it is impossible to have only one without the other.

If you want to take charge of all the power, don't be afraid of being tired, and you must have the ability to withstand the test. You have to handle all the big and small things in the country, and you can't make mistakes because of the busy work. If you want to relax, you have to delegate power. You can't just watch others manage the country according to different ideas from your own, and you can't change them casually unless there is a big problem.

The bigger the country, the more populous it is, and the faster it develops, the more acute this contradiction becomes. Every emperor in ancient China probably weighed the pros and cons of decentralization and centralization every day, wavering back and forth for thousands of years without finding the right balance.

Now this problem has fallen on his head again. How should he solve it? Hong Tao’s answer is to centralize power first and then delegate power.

He was not afraid of fatigue and could bear it physically. In the early days of completely changing the Ming Empire, he had to work hard to centralize power and turn the entire country into a big machine. He was the operator and could not listen to anyone else. He used the fastest speed to seize resources and living space in the world and attack possible competitors.

When this step is completed, we can consider decentralization. At that time, the country is still a big machine, but it has become a CNC machine. I am still the operator, but with the help of a computer, the work will be easier. In the future, this big machine may have several coprocessors and robots, and the operation steps will be further simplified by division of labor and cooperation, turning the input of a large amount of data into only one specific instruction.

"Let's go to the shooting range and check out the new guns!" This memorial made Hong Tao refreshed. He swept away the fatigue of recent days. He stood up and walked out, and even his steps became much lighter.

Good news, absolutely good news, the research on breech-loading rifles has made another breakthrough. After more than a year of actual combat testing, the military industry has collected enough data to prove that percussion cap rifles are more suitable for current use requirements than needle guns.

In fact, judging from the parameters reported by Lu Zhanwei, the performance of the needle gun is better than that of the percussion cap gun. Because it uses an integrated paper shell bullet, after each shot, you only need to fill the gun chamber with a new paper shell bullet to aim and shoot again, which simplifies the steps and increases the firing rate.

The integrated paper shell bullets are also more convenient to carry. They are placed in special whale skin ammunition magazines and strung on the weapon belt. They are waterproof, moisture-proof, impact-proof and easy to use. Each soldier carries 6 ammunition magazines, with a total of 120 paper shell bullets, enough for a large-scale battle.

In contrast, the percussion cap gun is not so convenient. When loading the same paper shell bullet into the barrel, you must first tear open the tail to expose the propellant. After closing the barrel, you must install a percussion cap on the flash hole before shooting.

If you are running or riding a horse, it is a bit troublesome to quickly and accurately place the flash hider the size of a green bean, which requires a long period of training to do it.

In terms of carrying, soldiers using percussion cap rifles, in addition to 6 ammunition magazines with a total of 120 paper shell bullets, also have to carry a small bag containing percussion caps. The bag contains percussion caps stuck on paper rolls, which can be torn off one by one like a toilet paper drawer.

Since the needle gun was more convenient to use, why did Wang Zheng and the General Staff finally choose the percussion cap gun, which was slightly inferior in performance? This is related to the barrel principle. In addition to comparing which gun was better, they also compared which gun had fewer disadvantages.

There are two main disadvantages of the acupuncture gun. First, the processing is relatively complicated. The steel needle used to pierce the ignition and the spring that drives the steel needle have relatively high requirements for materials and processes, and the output is low.

Second, the manufacturing and use costs are high. The steel needle is a consumable. Due to the long-term high temperature corrosion caused by the explosion of the propellant, it needs to be replaced after every 50 rounds. This not only increases the use cost and the subsequent maintenance cost, but also reduces stability.

If during a battle, a gun suddenly fails to fire due to a steel needle failure, it may not just be the loss of one gun, but hundreds or even thousands of soldiers may lose their lives.

At this time, the percussion cap gun, which had no obvious advantages, became the first choice. Compared with the previous flintlock muzzle-loading rifle, its processing difficulty only added a breech locking device similar to the screw breech block, which can be fully realized with the current machining capabilities, and the future use and maintenance are basically the same.

As for the fact that the firing rate is not as high as the needle rifle, this is not a big problem. The emperor only asked for the new model of guns to be rainproof, and did not say that the firing rate should be greatly increased. It is not right to meet the basic requirements first and then pursue higher standards.

(End of this chapter)