Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

In Zhu Youjian's opinion, the development of muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock muskets to the stage of self-flowing powder had reached its peak.

Due to the action limitation of front loading, the maximum firing rate of this type of firearm can reach six or seven rounds per minute.

If you want to improve further, you can only change to a breech-loading musket.

This is also the reason why after Zhu Youjian identified the self-flowing flintlock musket as the second-generation musket, the next generation of research and development target was set as the breech-loading musket.

Even in his opinion, ordinary breech-loading muskets were not enough, and the smoothbore barrel should be changed to a rifled barrel to further increase the power.

This is also the biggest advantage of breech-loading ammunition, which makes it more convenient to load various ammunition rather than being limited to Minié bullets.

Especially now, under his guidance, the Ming Dynasty has developed arrow-shaped bullets and conical bullets. The front-loading rifled muskets using Minié bullets have little advantage over smoothbore muskets. Zhu Youjian has planned to skip this step and directly develop rear-loading muskets.

What was the first breech-loading musket to leave a name in history?

It is the famous Dresser needle-fired gun.

Its rotating rear-pull bolt directly inspired a series of breech-loading firearms, which are still widely used in later generations.

The Mauser-style revolving bolt sketch drawn by Zhu Youjian to inspire Lu Xiang and others was developed based on it, and it was more perfect, without a series of problems such as air leakage.

At the same time, it is also more difficult to manufacture, far superior to the muzzle-loading muskets of the time.

In addition, there is no automatic rifling machine, so it is very difficult to draw rifling. Zhu Youjian positioned it as a supplementary firearm, waiting for its development to mature.

At the same time, he was more looking forward to the emergence of fulminate of mercury to get rid of the unreliable firing method of flintlock ignition.

Unfortunately, he only remembered that fulminate of mercury was made by the reaction of mercury nitrate and something, but he didn't know what it was. The Equipment Academy only produced mercury nitrate and had not yet discovered fulminate of mercury.

The officials and craftsmen in charge of this matter are trying hard to experiment with various things in an attempt to produce fulminate of mercury and be granted a title like Bo Jue.

The one who was more anxious for the appearance of fulminate of mercury than them was actually Lu Xiang.

After the emperor proposed paper shell fixed loading and using a firing pin to fire fulminate of mercury to get rid of the flintlock ignition, Lu Xiang suddenly realized that if he wanted to equip the breech-loading musket he designed, he would have to wait for the invention of fulminate of mercury.

Thinking that the mortars and arrow-type grenade fuses he designed also required fulminate of mercury to fire better, he looked forward to the invention of fulminate of mercury even more.

Lu Xiang has already decided in his heart that he should provide more support to the Gunpowder Research Institute so that they can develop fulminate of mercury as soon as possible.
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After watching the breech-loading musket developed by Lu Xiang, Zhu Youjian also saw the mortar developed by Lu Xiang under his guidance based on the tiger squat cannon.

Because of the sketch he drew before, this mortar already has a base plate in addition to the barrel and bipod. The bipod has also been improved to make it easier to adjust the firing range.

There are four ring-shaped tail fins at the tail of the shell, which can fix the silk powder bag. By adjusting the number of powder bags, the power and range can be changed.

However, because there is no primer, the shell needs to be ignited after being loaded into the barrel. The firing rate is naturally slower than that of later mortars, and the wooden fuse may not explode.

Therefore, the arrow-shaped shrapnel shells manufactured by Lu Xiang naturally could not be equipped in large quantities at this time. Because its manufacturing cost was too high, every misfire was a huge loss, which even the Ming Dynasty could not afford.

Today's mortars mainly use shotgun shells to attack enemies at close range.

There are also cast iron grenade, which uses prefabricated fragmentation body like hand grenade. Even if it misfires, the loss is not too great, and Ming Dynasty can afford it.

Zhu Youjian was very satisfied with this type of artillery and ordered that 60 and 80 mm light mortars be equipped to the support and guarantee squadrons, and to be strengthened to the infantry squadrons in wartime to improve their combat capabilities.

Mortars with larger calibers are equipped at the brigade level and their usage is being explored.

His requirement for the mortar was to further reduce its weight to meet close-range needs.

The artillery with a longer range was the breech-loading cannon made by Lu Xiang, which was based on the Portuguese cannon and was named Lu's cannon by Zhu Youjian.

However, after the army tried it out, it was more commonly called the Lü Gong Cannon in accordance with the custom at the time. Lü Xiang, who invented this cannon, was affectionately and respectfully called Lü Gong.

After Zhu Youjian learned about this, he also changed the name of Lü's Cannon to Lü Gong Cannon, which further improved Lü Xiang's status.

What was in front of him at this moment was the Lu Gong cannon, which was completely finalized after a year of improvement by the craftsmen of Lu Xianghe Equipment Institute. It came in five calibers: 30, 50, 75, 100, and 125.

Zhu Youjian looked at the smallest 30mm caliber artillery and frowned:

"Is such a small caliber easy to use?"

"What is its role on the battlefield?"

Lu Xiang replied:

"Most of the Portuguese cannons in the army have a caliber of 25 to 28 mm. They need this small cannon to replace the existing Portuguese cannons."

"Compared to the 20-30mm wall muskets, small cannons are easier to manufacture and are just as powerful."

"The bipod or tripod used is the same as that of the wall musket, and it can completely replace the wall musket."

After enumerating the advantages of this type of artillery, it is recommended to use it to replace the city wall musket.

Compared with the city wall musket, which has a slender barrel and is difficult to manufacture, the breech-loading Lu Gong cannon has a larger caliber, more gunpowder, can fire more shotgun shells, and has excellent power at close range.

Moreover, after using the rotary lock, its air leakage phenomenon is greatly reduced, and its long-range power is also very strong. After the caliber is lengthened, its range is not inferior to that of the wall musket.

After learning about this situation, Zhu Youjian also understood why the Ming soldiers guarding the Great Wall and city walls liked to use the Portuguese musket. In many aspects, it was indeed better than the heavy and low-rate-of-fire city wall muskets.

Thinking that the city wall muskets had not existed for a long time in history, he gave the order:
"The wall musket and sniper musket were combined to develop a heavy sniper musket."

"The breech-loading rifled musket I mentioned earlier can be developed into a 20mm one."

"At the same time, we also need to explore how to use arrow-shaped bullets with wooden buttstock for rifled muskets."

This small-caliber Lu Gong cannon was allowed to be equipped to replace the short-lived city wall musket.

Lu Xiang was very happy to hear the emperor's permission, and requested to use this kind of artillery to replace the original small Portuguese cannon:

"The Portuguese cannons made during the Jiajing and Wanli periods were mostly made of copper."

"I think we can use this iron cannon to recover the Portuguese copper cannon."

This was an idea he came up with after being inspired by the emperor's recycling of copper coins and copper utensils to cast cannons.

There were quite a few copper cannons equipped in various parts of the Ming Dynasty. If they were all replaced with iron cannons, a lot of copper could be recovered.

Zhu Youjian was even more satisfied with Lü Xiang when he saw that he had taken financial factors into consideration. He also told him to strictly control the quality and satisfy the soldiers who were replacing the guns.

In fact, without him saying anything, Lu Xiang had already grasped this point very strictly. In addition, the new artillery used a fixed amount of sub-guns and ammunition bags, which greatly reduced the risk of explosion due to random loading. The army welcomed this new artillery and rushed to request equipment.

Otherwise, Lu Xiang would not have agreed to their request to manufacture 30mm artillery.

From 30mm up, it is 50mm. At this level, you can’t just use a bipod or tripod to fix it.

Following the emperor's instructions, Lü Xiang built a scissor-shaped gun carriage and wheels that could be towed by horses.

Zhu Youjian became even more satisfied after watching the demonstration and thought that this type of artillery was suitable for field battles.

Because it is a field gun, the maximum caliber of the Lü Gong Cannon is currently 125mm. Anything larger than that would be very heavy, making it difficult for soldiers to carry and load.

Moreover, the overall weight with the gun carriage was too heavy to be towed by horses.

Zhu Youjian frowned and asked the Equipment Institute and the Imperial Household Department to cooperate to cultivate special draft horses and explore towing methods. At the same time, he hoped that Sun Yuanhua and others who were sent to the West would bring back rubber trees to make rubber tires.

Then came the red-coated cannons and naval guns. Zhu Youjian didn't know much about them, so he just asked the craftsmen to imitate them in order to increase their power as much as possible and reduce the cost of casting the cannons.

His main improvement to this type of artillery was in its mode of transportation, which was the rail gun vehicle he had proposed when he was watching the attack and defense of the bastion.

After more than half a year of research by the Armaments Institute and the Imperial Household Department, the feasibility of the track was gradually confirmed. However, for the artillery tracks used on the city wall, they did not use iron tracks as the emperor had requested, but wooden tracks. Only in some places that were easily damaged were iron sheets wrapped.

Zhu Youjian appreciated this method of reducing costs, but he was a little worried:

“Will this track work?”

"Can it carry the red cannon?"

Chen Qiyu, the Minister of the Imperial Household Department, said:

“It works, and it works very well.”

"It is now much easier to move the red cannon on the city wall."

"And they can also transport soldiers by carriage. The Imperial Household Department plans to build a track in the capital."

Chen Qiyu seized this good opportunity to show off. After learning that the emperor was going to inspect the progress of firearms research, he also displayed the artillery track jointly developed with the Equipment Academy.

Zhu Youjian became interested after hearing this and asked Chen Qiyu to demonstrate.

Chen Qiyu ordered people to lay a short section of track on the spot to demonstrate the movement of the red cannon on it.

They also used horse-drawn carts for soldiers to sit on and transport the troops. They used open flatbed carts that could accommodate one person on each side.

Zhu Youjian praised this several times and said:
"We can build a section of track in the west of Beijing to facilitate travel between the capital and the royal palaces and university towns."

"When Qin Shi Huang unified the country, the first thing he decided was to standardize the track for all vehicles. Has the spacing of the tracks been determined?"

Chen Qiyu responded:
“The roads on the city wall are narrow, and there’s not much width for the artillery.”

"I and the officials in the Ministry of Works believe that 600 mm or 800 mm is fine."

“1000 millimeters is barely acceptable, but it’s not very convenient for laying double tracks and making turns.”

These three track gauges were all tested by Zhu Youjian. After hearing this, he asked:
"What's your opinion?"

“Which track gauge to choose?”

Chen Qiyu hesitated for a moment and replied:

"I think we can choose 800mm track gauge and use one horse to pull the carriage."

"Order a wider gauge, and use two horses to pull the cart."

The emperor asked them to choose one, but he changed it into two.

Zhu Youjian said with great interest:

"800mm is fine. It can be used as artillery and mining tracks."

"How many broad gauges do you plan to choose? What will you transport with two horses?"

He was not surprised by this because in addition to the standard track gauge of 1435 mm, track gauges of 762 mm were also widely used in later generations.

The 800mm track gauge is close to 762mm, which he thinks is acceptable.

In his opinion, this track gauge can already carry vehicles more than two meters wide, which meets the needs at the time. Therefore, he did not propose a wider track gauge before, but planned to develop it after the narrow gauge matured.

I didn't expect Taibusi to be so ambitious and now wants to use wide-gauge tracks.

Chen Qiyu said to the emperor:
"The 800mm narrow track can only carry carriages that are more than two meters long. Any wider will be unstable."

"This type of vehicle has an aisle in the middle, and it would be a squeeze for two people to sit on each side."

"And the vehicle can't be too big, otherwise one horse can't pull it."

"After discussion, we believe that two horses are more suitable for the carriage, and the track gauge should be wider."

This was determined by the large population of the Ming Dynasty. Chen Qiuyu and others looked down on the narrow gauge from the beginning and believed that the wide gauge was more suitable.

Zhu Youjian thought about the buses of later generations. Most of them were between two and a half and three meters wide. A little over two meters was indeed a bit narrow.

So he asked:
“Can’t an 800mm track gauge carry a m carriage?”

“Will 1000mm track gauge be okay?”

Chen Qiyu responded:
"1000mm won't work either, unless we use the I-shaped rails that Your Majesty mentioned."

"But that would be very expensive, so it would be better to widen the track and use a wider gauge."

"The carriage we have built is 3600 millimeters wide, the aisle is 750 millimeters wide, each seat is 475 millimeters wide, there are three seats on each side, and six people can sit side by side."

"And we can use double-decker carriages, which can also accommodate people."

He ordered people to pull out the double-decker carriage and present it to the emperor.

Zhu Youjian opened his eyes wide in surprise when he saw that they had even built a double-decker carriage. He had never expected that these people could even build a double-decker passenger car.

But think about the fact that the population of a small place like Beijing is close to one million. He can understand the choice of Chen Qiyu and others because the demand is here.

Such expensive railway tracks require two horses to pull them. If we don’t use double-decker carriages to carry more passengers, when will the cost be recovered?

So he nodded and said:
"What is the track gauge for this type of carriage?"

“What is the maximum width it can carry?”

Seeing that the emperor approved of this, Chen Qiyu said happily:
"The I-rail proposed by Your Majesty is very stable and only needs 1400 millimeters to carry such a wide carriage."

"However, to be on the safe side, we think we can use the 1600mm rule, which is exactly twice the 800mm gauge, and use both gauges."

“The maximum width of the carriage can be set at four metres, nearly twice what 800mm can carry.”

"Your Majesty can use a wider carriage when traveling, which will make the ride more comfortable."

Zhu Youjian felt very comfortable with this flattery.

He wanted to make the railway boundaries wider so that they could transport large items such as rockets in the future, so he seemed to be delighted and said:

"The railroad limit for this gauge is determined to be four meters, just like the width of a road lane."

"Starting from the middle of the track, there must be no obstructing objects two meters to the left and right."

"There should also be a safe distance between the two double-track lines to prevent carriage collisions."

Chen Qiyu and others were asked to determine the railway limit and other standards for the 1600mm track gauge based on this number. The highway lane width standard should also be unified with it.

As for the railway limit of 800mm track gauge, Zhu Youjian set it at a maximum of 2.8 meters. This is to facilitate the replacement of wooden tracks with iron tracks in the future, so as to carry wider carriages.

At least two seats should be placed on each side to carry more passengers.

(762mm track gauge rolling stock upper limit, maximum width 2800mm.

The specifications of 800mm track gauge in the book are roughly the same, but using integers makes calculations easier.

Railways with a 762mm gauge were common in the past. Henan built more than kilometers of them, and the five-cent trains carrying sugarcane on Dongning Island built about kilometers of them.) (End of this chapter)