Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 882 New gun and new armor
Overnight, outside the four gates of Yangzhou, many criss-crossing deep moats and low walls suddenly appeared on the originally flat ground.

With the Ming army doing this, it was impossible for the Qing cavalry to rush out directly, unless the infantry rushed out first, pushed down the low wall, and erected a trench bridge, so that the people and horses in the city could enter and exit.

In the early morning, Duoduo saw the results of the Qingming army overnight, and the criss-crossing fortifications under the city shocked him a little, and he couldn't bear it.

He ordered Liang Huafeng to lead 2000 people to fight out of the city, trying to destroy the Ming army's fortifications, but the Ming army used the fortifications to defend, and under a burst of artillery fire and volleys of blunderbusses, although the Qing army pulled down two earthen walls, They still left hundreds of corpses behind and fled back to the city.

As soon as the Qing army retreated, the Ming army put their shields on their backs and lay in the ditch, using shovels to rebuild the damaged fortifications.

Duoduo had no choice but tossing and tossing all night. He had long lost energy and was exhausted, so he could only go down to the city with hatred.

The Ming army used fortifications and a little force to block the connection between the Qing army and Shizhai in the city, but the Ming army did not attack Shizhai immediately. Half of the Ming army dispatched last night's operation, and at least one day needs to be rested before attacking the village.

At this time, outside the big camp, in a school yard, the sound of "bang bang bang" rang out.

A soldier of the Ming army of about [-] people was trying to shoot, and there were many soldiers sitting around watching it, which aroused discussions among many military academies.

On the school grounds, Chen Bangyan, Liu Shun and others were watching the soldiers try new guns.

They have seen this kind of self-fire gun several times, but they are mainly equipped with Wang Yan's bodyguards, that is, the original superintendent, and the other towns of the Five Loyalist Army rarely equip them.

It was Zhang Youde's department who tried the guns. As soon as the thousand guns arrived in the camp yesterday, they were assigned to his Xuanwu camp.

At this time Zhang Youde was a little excited, "Gebu, Duzhen, the general knew this kind of self-generated firecracker long ago. When he was in Wuchang, he followed His Highness and saw the person who supervised the bid to test fire. He was still thinking about when he could equip his subordinate Erlang. Thinking of it so quickly, a thousand sticks were allocated."

Chen Bangyan smiled, "This kind of gun, as far as I know, the Kesheng Battalion is not fully equipped. Your Highness sent a thousand guns. You should understand His Highness's intentions."

"Don't worry, the Ministry of Cabinet, the final general will definitely live up to His Highness's trust." Zhang Youde clasped his fists solemnly.

Chen Bangyan nodded, and then asked: "How does the soldier use it, and can it be put into the battlefield immediately."

"This kind of blunderbuss is easier to use than the bird blunderbuss and Lumi blunderbuss, and it only takes one day for the blunderbusser to use it proficiently."

Liu Shun listened, and interjected: "That's good, don't blow the bullshit, if you can't take down Shizhai tomorrow, let's see if the town doesn't cut you to death."

Yangzhou City was blocked, and now he got another thousand fast guns, Zhang Youde patted his chest, "Don't worry, Duzhen, if you can't beat it, the Ministry of Ge and Duzhen can beat the last general to the end."

After hearing this, everyone laughed together, and the gloom of being frustrated in attacking the stronghold for several days seemed to slowly dissipate.

At this time, Lu Shikui, who was standing next to him, also smiled and said: "How about the defense of the new armor? It is said that the Ministry of Industry refers to the breast armor of the Dutch, and invited Portuguese craftsmen and artisans from the Ministry of Industry, and Song Shilang personally presided over the forging."

When Wang Yan bought guns from the Portuguese, he took a fancy to western plate armor, but it was difficult to make and the cost was high, so he gave up making this kind of armor.

The reason why forging is started now is that the number of cavalry in the Ming army is not as large as that of the Qing Dynasty, so Wang Yan wanted to surpass the Qing cavalry in terms of equipment, so he instructed the Ministry of Industry to manufacture new equipment for the cavalry. Second, the imperial court had some money. , a breakthrough in forging technology.

It is worth mentioning that this technological breakthrough was not made by craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry and the government, but from folk workshops.

Over the years, Wang Yan has handed over the production of many military weapons to private firms. In order to expand production, it is inevitable for these firms to compete for craftsmen, improve salaries, and encourage innovation.

One of the firms is mainly responsible for making swords and armor for the imperial court. Because of the lack of craftsmen, the scale has not been expanded, and the main business has taken many orders from the imperial court. Use it as two.

Although the boss gave a high salary, the blacksmiths were still suffering. An old blacksmith in the firm had to go home to recuperate because of being overworked.

During the training period, the blacksmith looked at the water wheel in his hometown, and suddenly had a whim. If the water wheel was improved, he added a hammer, and then installed a few gears, cranks and control rods to change the water lifting into lifting. Can a hammer be used to strike iron?

With this idea in mind, the blacksmith asked his boss for a long vacation to rebuild the waterwheel at home, but the process was not easy, and soon he spent all his savings, but the transformation of the waterwheel was never successful.

The blacksmith is the master craftsman of the shop. Seeing that he hasn't returned to the shop for more than half a year, the owner thinks that the old man is going to another shop. A master in the workshop often takes more than a dozen apprentices with him. When the master leaves, most of the apprentices will also leave. The firm will suffer a lot of losses, so the owner sent someone to renegotiate the treatment and wanted to keep it.

As a result, the people who came back told the blacksmith what he thought, and the owner of the firm was keenly aware of the benefits, and immediately contributed money and efforts, and recruited many craftsmen to carry out the transformation on the basis of the old iron general, and finally achieved initial results.

After the blacksmith carried out the transformation, the main problem was that after the hammer was lifted up by the water wheel, the landing point was not stable when it was lowered. Many craftsmen worked together to cast the hammer into a square shape, and then used iron bars and plates to build the skeleton to become a hammer. The size of the square well.

The iron hammer is hoisted and lowered by the rope pulled by the waterwheel in the square well, and the falling angle of the hammer is kept vertical, so as to ensure the stability of the landing point.

The firm quickly adopted this technology, reducing the amount of manpower hammering and switching to a water machine forging hammer. In order to maintain its advantage, the owner naturally signed a new contract with blacksmiths and other craftsmen in order to monopolize this technology.

However, the businessmen were well-informed, and when others saw them eating so many orders, they naturally became suspicious, and the matter spread quickly and became known to the government.

Afterwards, the officials of the Ministry of Industry came forward and recruited the old blacksmith and others into the Ministry of Industry on the condition that they would give the firm a fixed order every year, and then gave them the title of the ninth-rank official of the Ministry of Industry.

The Ministry of Industry has acquired this group of craftsmen, and on the basis of the original one, it has been perfected, which has greatly improved the speed of armor-making by the Ministry of Industry.

These thousand pairs of armor were also equipped with the Xuanwu Camp, but because they were much heavier than the cotton armor and the full armor, they had not been put on by the soldiers.

"This way has never been tried!"

After hearing this, Lu Shikui hurriedly said: "Then give it a try at this opportunity. It is said that this batch of armor was originally prepared to equip the horse army, but was transferred to Yangzhou by His Royal Highness. Before I left, Song Shilang had ordered I hope that these guns and new armor can be used by soldiers, and I also hope that if any problems are found in the army, they will report to the Ministry of Industry in time, so that the Ministry of Industry can improve the weapons."

Although these things have been repeatedly tested by the Military Weapons Supervisor, they still need to be used on the battlefield, so Song Yingxing is extremely concerned about the feedback on the battlefield.

"Then take it out and try it!" The Ministry of Industry is using the Yangzhou battlefield to test new guns and armors. Chen Bangyan is in charge of the Ministry of War, so he naturally hopes that the Ministry of Industry can produce good things.

Hearing the words, Zhang Youde cupped his fists, then turned and left.

Not long after, several soldiers took out some new sets of armor, which consisted of two iron plates, a chest plate and a back plate, with buckles and rivets made of brass, leather inside, patterns on the breast plate, and "horizontal "Chong", it can be seen that it was indeed built for the rampant horse army.

The soldier quickly put a new set of armor on the dummy made of straw, and then raised the gun to shoot. A hundred steps away, after the sound of the gun, the soldier stepped forward to check. The entire armor was dented, but the gun did not hit the armor. wear.

The soldiers immediately moved forward to fifty steps, and then fired again, and a bullet hole the size of a little finger was immediately visible.

After hearing the report, Chen Bangyan and others were surprised. This new armor is made of iron, which is obviously better than the cotton armor. How could it be pierced in fifty steps?What's the point of equipping it.

Lu Shikui was also very puzzled. The military inspector must have conducted tests and refused to be able to produce such thankless armor. He glanced at his own guns in the hands of the test shooters, and suddenly realized, "Change to a bird gun and test fire. !"

Everyone also reacted in unison, and hurriedly asked the soldiers to change the bird guns and Lumi guns to shoot again, but they didn't break the armor within fifty steps.

Seeing this, Lu Shikui and the others couldn't help but feel a little bit in their hearts. Firearms will definitely become stronger and stronger in the future, and armor will inevitably be eliminated in the end. But for now, these armors are still very useful against the Manchus.

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(End of this chapter)