Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

A single-shot rifle sounds very simple, and its fame in later generations is far less than that of a bolt-action rifle that can fire continuously.

But in the history of weapons development, it is an important link, representing the comprehensive transcendence of hot weapons over cold weapons.

Compared to a bow that can be fired as soon as an arrow is placed on the bow, a single-shot gun can be fired by loading ammunition and closing the bolt.

Compared to a bow and arrow, it only has the additional action of opening and closing the bolt.

The firing rate between the two is almost the same.

In terms of range, power, and accuracy, single-shot guns are superior to bows and arrows in all aspects. Bows and arrows no longer have any advantages over firearms.

The legends of many famous and brave nations came to an end when faced with single-shot guns.

The Indians and the buffalo on which they depended for survival were nearly exterminated by white men armed with Sharps rifles.

The Afghan people, who defeated the British army, had no choice but to sign the treaty in humiliation when faced with the Martini-Henry rifles.

Even the corrupt Qing Dynasty, led by famous ministers like Zuo Zongtang, used single-shot rifles to defeat separatist forces in the border areas.

The advantages that nomadic peoples had over agricultural peoples were almost wiped out.

It can be said that after this step, the Ming Dynasty had a complete chance of winning the war against the Jianlu.

All Zhu Youjian needed to do was to prepare money and equip himself with more muskets and bullets.

This made him feel mixed emotions as he looked at the copper shell bullet in front of him:
"Copper is money!"

"Wars will become more and more expensive in the future."

"It seems that we need to abolish the circulation of copper coins as soon as possible and completely switch to silver coins."

"Transfer copper coins into production, and don't let people keep them."

He has been pushing this matter forward, and the result is that the price of copper coins in the metal exchange has not been able to go up, and occasionally there are violent fluctuations, allowing the inner court to collect copper coins.

There were growing calls from the public for issuing fen and li coins. People did not want to use copper coins, which had large price fluctuations and were constantly depreciating.

Now that he saw that the copper shell bullet technology had matured and was about to be put into use, Zhu Youjian decided to divert the manpower used to cast copper coins to making bullet shells.

Even if people who want to use copper coins are asked to trade with bullet shells, they are still more valuable than issuing square-hole coins.

Zhu Youjian, who was full of imagination, decided to promote the equipment of single-shot guns at all costs and eliminate all obstacles for this purpose:
"There is no revolution after the breech-loading rifle."

"Although this statement is biased, it is not without reason."

"After the introduction of breech-loading muskets, the gap between the army and the civilian population will widen completely. The civilian population's training and equipment are far inferior to the army. A revolution that does not involve the army will basically fail."

"As long as I can control the garrison soldiers, I won't be afraid of any force."

After ascending the throne, he continued to show favor to military generals, redistributed land to military households, and granted titles to officers. Zhu Youjian can say with certainty that some people in the army may be dissatisfied with the reform of the guards, but more of them are looking forward to it.

Military officers wanted to obtain titles and fiefs, or transfer to local civil service positions. Military households also wanted to become hereditary soldiers and obtain more land.

The Weisuo system, which had been implemented for more than two hundred years, has been revitalized under his policies.

Relying on the garrison soldiers who were loyal to him, Zhu Youjian was confident that he could regain the empire.

Under such circumstances, he naturally had fewer concerns and was able to push forward the reformation of ritual music more deeply.

In fact, this is also the reason why Zhu Youjian still chose to equip himself with breech-loading muskets when the breech-loading muskets were not mature enough and the cost was very high.

After being equipped with this type of firearms, as long as Zhu Youjian firmly controls the army, anyone who wants to rebel will fail, so there is no need to worry so much.
-
Instructing Zhang Tao and others who were improving the electric gun to further simplify the firing procedures, Zhu Youjian said:
"The two actions of opening the bolt and ejecting the shell can be combined into one."

“The two actions of locking and preparing the hammer can also be combined into one.”

"We need to further reduce the number of steps required to operate a musket, and make the firing rate closer to that of a bow and arrow."

"The range of motion should also be reduced, making it suitable for ambush operations."

After determining this guiding ideology, Zhu Youjian thought of bullet boxes and bullet belts for ammunition, and asked the Equipment Institute to develop related equipment and integrate them into combat vests or belts.

Thinking of the machine guns that would completely drive cavalry out of history, Zhu Youjian asked Lu Xiang:
"How are the improvements to the rotary-barreled thunderbolt rifle going?"

"We must immediately switch to metal fixed-charge ammunition to achieve continuous firing."

Upon hearing this, Lu Xiang replied:

"The revolving thunderbolt rifle can now be loaded and unloaded continuously, but it was difficult to fire because of the lack of fulminate of mercury."

"Now that we have fulminate of mercury and primer, we can perfect it quickly."

Zhu Youjian had already asked Lu Xiang to make a model of the rotary machine gun, which was modeled after the famous Gatling gun.

The Equipment Academy set up a special team to achieve continuous loading and unloading using bullet casings without fulminate of mercury.

Zhu Youjian nodded with satisfaction and asked Lu Xiang to organize people to develop it as soon as possible and put it into actual combat testing.

With this weapon, the Ming Dynasty's chances of winning against the Jianlu were further improved, and they could try a field battle.

In order to better explore relevant tactics, Zhu Youjian said to Gu Yanwu who accompanied him:

"The combat methods and effectiveness of the new muskets require your new army to experiment with them."

"You and Sun Yingyuan select a few battalions from the new army and form a shooting and sonic battalion that uses only firearms."

"When you have mastered it, I will personally review it!"

Upon hearing this, Gu Yanwu happily accepted the order and did not feel bothered at all by changing the drill rules.

Compared with the original paper-wrapped bullets, the advantages of metal fixed bullets are really too much.

These well-trained new troops had never liked flintlock muskets in the first place, so everyone would be happy to see them switch to the new muskets.

In particular, the emperor's decision to ask him to explore new tactics and new methods of warfare reminded him of the slogan posted by the Equipment Department, and he gained a deeper understanding of "equipment determines tactics."

In addition to the single-shot electric rifle and the revolving thunder rifle, Zhu Youjian also made a comprehensive plan for firearms for the new army.

The revolver musket was issued as a standard weapon and used as a hand cannon by officers.

After using metal fixed bullets, the power and safety of this type of musket will be further improved, and it can be used as standard musket equipment.

As for ordinary soldiers, they could not all be equipped with revolver pistols due to military budget issues. Zhu Youjian planned to equip them with single-handed pistols with a handle that fired fixed ammunition for revolver muskets.

This simple locking mechanism is difficult to use on high-powered muskets, but it can be used on firearms that do not require a high range, such as hand cannons.

After using metal fixed bullets to reduce air leakage, the range and power of this breech-loading musket are already very impressive.

Later shotguns also usually adopt a similar breakaway design, and some even use two barrels, one for large-caliber shotgun shells and one for small-caliber rifle shells. Whether it is long-range or close-range, there are corresponding ammunition to deal with it.

Shotgun shells were not a problem for the current Ming Dynasty. The shotgun shells used in smoothbore muskets were already very mature, and it was not difficult to load them with metal fixed bullets.

As for small-caliber rifle bullets, Zhu Youjian planned to imitate the later .22LR and let the Equipment Institute design a metal fixed bullet with low power, high accuracy and low cost.

Thinking of this, he asked Lu Xiang:
"How is the manufacturing technology of rifled gun barrels?"

“How much can be produced in a day now?”

Lu Xiang was somewhat embarrassed by this, but still replied to the emperor:
"The scrap rate is still very high, and we can only produce about a thousand qualified rifled gun barrels per month."

"There are more smoothbore musket barrels, more than 5,000." After the craftsmen were given titles and honors and their salaries were improved, the enthusiasm of the Ming craftsmen was greatly improved. The tens of thousands of craftsmen received by the Equipment Department from the Military Equipment Bureau no longer worked in shifts and were all put into production.

Moreover, after measuring tools such as vernier calipers were manufactured, Zhu Youjian also instructed them to distribute parts such as gun stocks and cleaning rods that did not require high precision to craftsmen from other government offices.

This allowed the Equipment Department to produce more than 200 muskets a day, nearly six times the original output.

However, it was still very difficult to obtain a qualified rifled musket. Rifled muskets could only meet the needs of sniper teams, and other armies could only be equipped with smoothbore muskets.

Zhu Youjian was of course very dissatisfied with this disconnect between design and production, so when he asked Lü Xiang to improve the breech-loading rifled musket, he specifically proposed to lower the manufacturing requirements and improve the design in accordance with the manufacturing level at that time.

Now, facing the appearance of metal fixed bullets, he felt even more impatient and ordered Lu Xiang and Zhang Tao:

"Design a bullet with a bullet diameter of about six millimeters, a shell length of about twenty millimeters, and a total bullet length of about thirty millimeters, for use in hand guns and hunting guns."

"You don't need to install a special primer for it. Just apply a layer of fulminate of mercury on the bottom of the shell and use the firing pin to hit the edge to ignite it when firing."

"For firearms that use this type of ammunition, private workshops are allowed to obtain licenses to produce them, and ordinary people are allowed to purchase them for hunting purposes. Special weapons licenses are issued, and restrictions on purchases are lifted."

This is the new ammunition he proposed based on the .22LR. Compared with the .22LR, the bullet diameter is similar, but the shell and the length of the whole bullet are longer, close to the 9mm Parr bullet.

This is the most suitable length for pistol bullets as proven by later generations.

The black gunpowder used by the Ming Dynasty at this time also required more gunpowder in the cartridge case.

In the future, this type of ammunition will be used for small-power pistols and hunting.

For hunting, low power is not a disadvantage, because many people only hunt pheasants and rabbits... If the bullet is too powerful, it will break the prey into pieces and it will not sell for much.

As for the army, this kind of ammunition, which is somewhat weak even when used in hand cannons, poses almost no threat to the regular army.

It can be said that it is a very suitable ammunition for civilian use. The annual production in later generations is more than 2 billion rounds, which is an extremely huge output.

It also has very good accuracy. This type of bullet is used in the 25m pistol and 50m rifle events of the Olympic shooting competitions.

Zhu Youjian planned to add these two items to the shooting events of the martial arts competition and encourage the public to use this ammunition for training and reserve enough shooters.

Of course, what is more important is to let civilian craftsmen produce rifled muskets that use this kind of ammunition and improve the manufacturing process of rifled gun barrels.

He believed that under the stimulation of money and honor, the skilled craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty would definitely produce excellent muskets to benefit the Ming army.

Lu Xiang and Zhang Tao obviously understood the emperor's intention and prepared to organize personnel to design this new bullet.

It is a huge challenge for the ammunition designers of the Equipment Academy to make this bullet have a certain power but not too strong, have good accuracy and control costs at the same time.

They were especially careful when they thought that the emperor might use this bullet for hunting. They also had to consider the safety of the ammunition, so that even if something went wrong, it would not cause any harm to anyone.

After making these arrangements, Zhu Youjian eased his anxiety a little, and lifted the restrictions on civilian production of smoothbore muskets below 20mm, also for hunting.

He needed civilian craftsmen to improve the manufacturing process of gun barrels, not just rifled gun barrels.

The idea of ​​the Equipment Academy to produce and sell its own weapons and manage civilian weapons was ruthlessly crushed by his policy.

The most they were given was the power to manage equipment production, and the issuance of weapon certificates had to be handed over to the Ministry of War.

This was the allocation he made in response to the dispute between the two departments.
-
In addition to the musket, there are many other firearms that became more practical after the appearance of fulminate of mercury.

For example, the mortar designed by Zhu Youjian for the Equipment Institute, after the primer is installed, the shell can be fired directly when it falls to the bottom, without the need to use a fuse to ignite it from the ignition hole.

This further increased its firing speed. Except for the fact that the shells were still charged with black powder, other aspects were no different from later mortars. If it continued to be optimized, it would become a qualified team artillery.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youjian felt somewhat dissatisfied with the black powder used in shrapnel bombs.

The energy density of black powder is not high, and the detonation speed is not fast enough, which makes its explosive power not strong. It is common for it to not explode after being fired, or to explode in two pieces, spraying the enemy with dust.

Now that fulminate of mercury has appeared, as long as a qualified impact fuse is designed, the explosion rate of shrapnel bombs will be greatly improved, which immediately highlights the problem of its power.

If we had TNT, the power of artillery shells would be greatly enhanced, and explosives such as grenades would also be greatly enhanced.

Unfortunately, Zhu Youjian only knew that TNT was trinitrotoluene, and had no idea how to make it.

This forced him to turn his attention to another kind of explosive:
"The research and development of nitroglycerin should be put back on the agenda."

"Before, because there was no fulminate of mercury and detonators, it was not practical to make it. Now we can let the Gunpowder Research Institute focus on it."

The Gunpowder Research Institute had developed this type of explosive. Following the emperor's request, Zhang Tao studied various nitrates, including nitroglycerin, after producing nitric acid.

However, the stability of nitroglycerin is so poor that it will explode if heated or collided even slightly.

As a result, several accidents occurred in the gunpowder research institute, and Zhu Youjian ordered a temporary ban on research. Only some were produced experimentally as a secret weapon for blasting the walls of Jianlu, and it was intended to be used to attack the city when needed, regardless of the loss.

It was after those accidents that the various regulations of the Gunpowder Research Institute were improved, and all researchers followed them consciously to reduce the chance of accidents.

Now, the various systems of the Gunpowder Research Institute have been gradually improved, and fulminate of mercury has also been discovered, which can be used to make detonators.

Zhu Youjian believed that the conditions for researching safe explosives were ripe, and he instructed Zhang Tao:
"The next task for the Gunpowder Research Institute is to perfect mercury fulminate, study nitrocellulose, and devote some energy to the research of explosives."

"If you succeed in developing this, I will give you a promotion to a higher rank."

When Zhang Tao heard this, he immediately became excited.

The credit for inventing fulminate of mercury was mainly attributed to Lu Xiang, and he was somewhat unwilling to accept this.

Now the emperor's promise gave him motivation again, and he was determined to develop explosives.

However, thinking of the accident caused by nitroglycerin, he felt a little scared and said:

"Nitroglycerin is too unstable, and there is no suitable way to produce and store it."

"I am worried that frequent accidents will affect morale."

In this regard, Zhu Youjian thought about it and decided to find another place to relocate the personnel who were researching nitroglycerin.

We can't let researchers hear explosions every day and affect their research.

He said to Zhang Tao:

"Build a bunker in the West Hills to specialize in explosives research."

"Also, you can fuse nitroglycerin and diatomaceous earth to stabilize it."

"Use a detonator to detonate this explosive."

This is what he knew from Nobel's deeds, but he didn't really understand how to actually implement it.

Even less is known about how to safely produce nitroglycerin.

To research these, human lives may be lost.

This is also the reason why he did not arrange for anyone to study nitroglycerin even though he knew it could treat angina pectoris.

He did not want other people to come into contact with nitroglycerin before he understood its various properties. He also did not want it to be discovered by the Jianlu and used as a weapon to blow up the city walls.

That is to say, now that he has the single-shot musket, he has absolute confidence in destroying the Jianlu, so he plans to expand the scope of research and development and allow more people to participate.

However, it was also necessary to keep it strictly confidential to prevent the Jianlu from learning about it and producing this kind of explosive that could be helpful in sieges.

This is also the reason why Zhu Youjian specially built a bunker and placed researchers inside. (End of this chapter)