Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Because I remembered some pictures of flintlock rifles in my mind, the Ming Dynasty's flintlock muskets had already taken on the appearance of later generations under the guidance of Zhu Youjian.

However, the ignition rate was never high enough, even after improving gunpowder and trying many flints and fire steels.

Even the use of tinder as a fire starter was tried, but the flames produced and the ash left behind made it unpopular.

Under the current conditions, it seems that only a 50% success rate in igniting a flintlock can be produced. This is still unacceptable to the army.

Even though the matchlock had a lower success rate of ignition in windy and rainy weather, they believed that the always burning matchlock was more trustworthy than the flintlock musket.

Flintlock lighters sold to the public were not criticized for this problem, because if they couldn't light a fire the first time, they could just try again a few times. In the past, when they used flints, they often tried to light a fire many times.

Inspired by this, Bo Jue added a quick-return device to the flint clip of the flintlock musket.

This device was not his original creation, because some of the current flintlocks have similar devices.

The reason why it was not proposed for military flintlock muskets is that if they were to be fired twice or three times, the army would need to change its training and combat methods. After the first shot, they would fire twice or three times.

The craftsmen of Wensi Academy and Equipment Academy did not have this authority. They did not even dare to have this idea and did not think that the army should accommodate them.

But Bo Jue was different. After all, he was a county student, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with those soldiers accommodating the equipment he developed.

Under the temptation of titles and official positions, he, who was usually timid, boldly proposed to the emperor that multiple firings should be allowed.

Zhu Youjian didn't know the inside story, so he thought Bo Jue's idea was a genius one that would enable the Ming Dynasty to upgrade its firearms and enter the era of flintlock muskets.

It was not until Bo Jue proposed to change the drill code that he realized that this matter was not simple:
"After one ignition, about 50% of the pellets are fired."

"They could only watch with their eyes open while the remaining 50 percent launched a second attack."

"If there were three launches, there would be more people watching."

"For the military, this will reduce the number of volleys fired in the same amount of time."

Zhu Youjian believes that whether it is worth doing so needs to be tested in practice.

If the success rate after the second shot reaches more than 80%, he personally believes that the soldiers can be allowed to pull the trigger one more time, so that the Ming army can enter the flintlock era ahead of time.

The next two hundred years in history belonged to the era of flintlock rifles.

Zhu Youjian believed that it was very worthwhile to equip flintlock muskets in large quantities and promote their maturity in actual production and combat.

Otherwise, if it keeps dragging on, it might take five or ten years... to raise the ignition rate of the flintlock musket to 80% or 90%, which would take too long.

After more than a year of equipping the Ming army with matchlock guns, Zhu Youjian had already deeply realized that weapons could only mature and be improved rapidly through production and actual combat.

For example, the 20mm heavy musket initially weighed more than ten pounds, and the soldiers found it inconvenient to operate, and they could only use a tripod to mount it on the city wall for defense.

But after more than a year of production, it has been successfully reduced to less than ten kilograms by craftsmen from the Equipment Institute.

This is acceptable to most soldiers.

Zhu Youjian even planned to popularize heavy muskets, reduce the equipment range of light muskets, and reduce the complexity of logistics.

The flintlock musket is another type of musket that can reduce logistical complexity. It allows soldiers to no longer carry a matchlock or ignite a firearm. Without the worry of accidentally igniting the gunpowder they carry, they can line up in a denser formation.

If after being equipped, the army puts forward suggestions for improvement under the stimulation of actual combat, and the craftsmen also make various minor improvements in production, its maturity speed will be greatly accelerated, just like the improvement of heavy muskets.

Zhu Youjian has already decided that as long as the success rate of the flintlock musket's secondary ignition reaches 80%, this new musket will be equipped.

He asked Bo Jue to organize a team in the Equipment Research Institute to first produce one hundred flintlock muskets based on the heavy musket, and then let the squadron equipped with flintlock muskets conduct exercises with other squadrons to determine its advantages and disadvantages.

Bo Jue happily accepted the order and quickly selected craftsmen to trial-produce this new musket.

When Lu Xiang, who was in charge of Wensiyuan, learned about this incident, he immediately felt a sense of crisis.

Secondary ignition is not a new concept, and it is often encountered when using flintlock lighters. Someone once proposed this suggestion to Lu Xiang, but he rejected it.

Now that this improvement plan, which he himself disliked, was proposed by Bo Jue and supported by the emperor, how could he not feel a sense of crisis?

Even though he felt that he was not wrong and still believed that the second ignition was a wrong approach, Lu Xiang had to apologize to the emperor and explain his mistake.

Zhu Youjian did not blame him, because he did not think that secondary ignition was the right way. If it was not for speeding up the development of flintlock muskets, he would not agree to it.

However, no other craftsmen tried this after Lu Xiang vetoed it. He saw the drawbacks of the existing research system.

After thinking about it, he said:
“Technological progress is sometimes just a small idea.”

“No matter how ridiculous it may seem, you have to try it first.”

"But the court's budget is tight, so it's impossible to test all the ideas."

"I will have the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Literature and Thought, and the Academy of Equipment organize a technical committee and allocate a certain amount of money from the Imperial Household Department as a technical fund every year."

“As long as it is approved by this committee, funds will be allocated for research.”

"Artisans from both the inner and outer courts can submit proposals to this committee."

“Funds are earmarked for specific purposes, and research results are reviewed.”

This is a funding project he set up in imitation of the natural science foundation of later generations. It focuses on technological improvement and allows craftsmen with ideas to have funds to conduct research.

When Lu Xiang heard this, he was happy for the craftsmen of Wensi Institute and Equipment Institute, but he also felt that after the implementation of this plan, there would be more and more people who could threaten his position, and more technical talents would emerge.

So he hurriedly proposed one of his improvements to show his merits to the emperor:

"I have successfully developed a new projectile based on the Minié bullet your majesty mentioned."

"This bullet is not as long as the Minié bullet that Your Majesty drew, but when it is fired, it does not require the rifling that Your Majesty mentioned."

"It can be fired with existing muskets, and the effective range is longer."

Zhu Youjian became very interested when he heard this and asked Lu Xiang to explain this new projectile.

Lu Xiang immediately took out several new projectiles, all of which he had tested before.

These projectiles were modeled after what the emperor called Minié bullets, with a pointed tip and a hollow tail that could be corked.

He experimented several times and found that making long projectiles according to the emperor's drawings would greatly increase the weight of the projectiles, requiring more gunpowder to fire, and increasing the recoil and danger of the musket.

Moreover, if a musket that fires long projectiles does not have rifling, the projectiles will tumble after leaving the barrel, and the accuracy will not be greatly improved.

So the Minié bullet, an ammunition with a strange name, is indeed suitable for rifled muskets as the emperor said. The smoothbore muskets currently used by the Ming Dynasty are not suitable for this.

Because the manufacturing technology of rifled gun barrels was not mature, and the wooden-stock arrow-shaped bullets could not be used after the rifling was added, the Equipment Academy only produced a small number of such muskets and ammunition for use by the army's skilled shooters as a technical reserve for the next generation of weapons.

For the smoothbore muskets used by most soldiers, Lu Xiang developed a new projectile.

This projectile is based on the Minié bullet, still with a pointed tip and a hollow bottom, but Lu Xiang shortened its length to make it closer in weight to the spherical bullet used before.

This way, there would be no need for more gunpowder for firing, and existing muskets could be directly converted to use the new projectiles.

Moreover, after being shortened, the center of gravity and flight trajectory of this projectile become more stable, and it will not roll randomly. The accuracy is greatly increased, far better than the previous spherical bullets.

According to the test conducted by the Equipment Academy, at a distance of 35 meters, when shooting at a two-meter-high and one-meter-wide human-shaped target, the hit rate of a spherical projectile is 78%, that of a Minié bullet is 60%, and that of this type of projectile is %.

At a distance of 25 meters, the hit rate of spherical projectiles is 63%, that of Minié bullets is 43%, and that of this type of projectile is %.

It can be said that it is a projectile between a spherical bullet and a Minié bullet, and is suitable for use in smoothbore muskets, without the need to increase the cost of rifling the smoothbore gun barrel.

The most powerful armor-piercing wooden-stock arrow-shaped bullet can still be used on smoothbore gun barrels and continue to be used as a long-range armor-piercing bullet.

After listening to Lu Xiang's introduction, Zhu Youjian was very satisfied.

He believed that Lu Xiang was indeed a talented person who could realize the various ideas he proposed.

This type of projectile is actually the Nessler projectile which was short-lived in history. It greatly increased the effective range of the smoothbore gun, far surpassing the previous spherical bullet.

However, because it appeared slightly later than the Minié bomb, it was not used on a large scale.

At present, the Ming Dynasty's rifle manufacturing technology is not mature, and the arrow-shaped bullets with wooden supports also need to be fired with smoothbore gun barrels, which gives it a chance to survive and can replace spherical bullets with poor accuracy at long distances.

It increased the effective range of the smoothbore musket from a little over 100 meters to about 200 meters, nearly doubling it.

In the future, when facing the Jianlu, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would no longer need to rely on expensive arrow-shaped bullets at long distances. Instead, they could use this low-cost new projectile to threaten them.

This solved the cost problem of long-range ammunition and allowed muskets to be equipped on a larger scale.

Moreover, the doubling of the effective range also greatly enhanced the power of the fire gun, giving it an advantage over bows and arrows.

The bows and arrows used by the Jianlu could not reach an effective range of 200 meters no matter how effective they were. As for projectiles fired at maximum range, they were even less effective than the projectiles fired by firearms.

It can be said that the emergence of this new projectile further enhanced the power of the Ming Dynasty's muskets, and achieved a comprehensive surpassing of bows and arrows in terms of range and accuracy.

The only difference compared to the bow and arrow is the shooting speed.

However, the fact that muskets require less effort to fire makes musketeers more capable of sustained combat and easier to train than archers.

Zhu Youjian happily named this new projectile with high accuracy as conical bullet, as opposed to arrow-shaped bullet and spherical bullet.

Then Lu Xiang demonstrated a new achievement, which was a complete bullet wrapped in oil paper, made based on the arrow-shaped bullet with silk medicine bag.

This type of ammunition puts the gunpowder and bullets needed for the musket in a paper bag. When firing, soldiers only need to bite open the paper bag and pour the required gunpowder in, instead of having to estimate the amount of gunpowder as before.

This can prevent soldiers from pouring too much gunpowder carelessly and reduce the risk of explosion. The thickness of the breech of the future musket can be further reduced to reduce the weight of the musket.

The bullets were not limited to one or two, you could wrap several small bullets in paper and pour them into the musket. In an emergency, you could also put oil paper and bullets in together, use the burning and impact of gunpowder to break the oil paper and fire it out, and clean up the remaining ones later.

You can even combine one large projectile with three small projectiles to take both lethality and hit rate into consideration.

This allows soldiers to choose from a wider range of ammunition, from arrow-shaped bullets at 300 meters, to cone-shaped bullets at 200 meters, to a spherical projectile combination at 100 meters, and shotgun shells for close range use, forming a complete system.

The firing rate of the musket can also be further improved. When used on the flintlock musket, the firing rate can be increased from two rounds per minute to three rounds per minute, which is closer to the firing rate of the crossbow and can be used to form a formation to deal with cavalry.

Zhu Youjian was very happy to name this oil paper wrapped bullet as paper wrapped bullet, and it was used as a new generation of standard ammunition. (End of this chapter)