Daming Military Empire

Chapter 81 Weapon Quality
Zhu Cijiong has been thinking about why the Ming army with hot weapons could not defeat the backward Qing army since the beginning of his journey. At the beginning, he thought it was caused by range, penetration, accuracy and other reasons. , The more things you see, the more comprehensive the analysis of the reasons for the defeat of the Ming army.

He found that the range, penetration, and accuracy were not the main reasons, but the biggest reason was the poor quality of weapons!
For example, Qi Jiguang recorded in "Records of Military Training":

"Only firearms are my specialty, but firearms are also sick. The mouth is crooked and crooked, and the size is different. The lead does not fit the mouth, and it is also pointed and slanted. Some people can't put it in the mouth temporarily, and some are only on the mouth. Those who have a big mouth and a small mouth flow out when they are about to be released, some who twist the medicine thread so that it cannot enter, and those who twist it with the guide to spit, and those who have extinguished the fire thread. None of these can be released, and there are already twenty rods. High and low are not allowed, those who are wet and non-combustible have more than [-] rods. The winners are only more than [-] rods. There are his legs and horse legs inside, which are not fatal, and he cannot be beaten to death. Among them, he was fatal. And the dead were only a dozen or so people. How can you kill more than a dozen people and make them go away with thousands of enemies coming? It is now that I and the lords have not yet gone out, and have not seen the enemy. We have already lost .”

This record truly reflects the quality problems of gunpowder weapons in the Ming Dynasty:

The size of the barrel of some guns is often inconsistent with the projectile, which makes it impossible for soldiers to load the projectile into the barrel when they are ready for battle; Low, a little water will fail.

There is really no problem at all, only 15 shots out of 15 shots, and only a dozen shots out of these [-] shots can guarantee the power, which means that the pass rate of each gunpowder weapon in Daming is only about [-]%!And this [-]% can't guarantee the accuracy, most of them are hit on the legs of horses or people, and they can't kill people at all!

The actual situation on the battlefield is that when thousands of enemies rushed over, Da Ming's army lined up a round of guns, killing only a dozen or so people, and then the enemy rushed to the front!How can we fight this battle?What is the use of such a gunpowder weapon?

Even Qi Jiguang said: It is now that I and the lords have not gone out, and have not met the enemy, we have already lost!
Therefore, the quality of gunpowder weapons was the key to Ming's failure to defeat the Qing army, which also led to the fact that the development of gunpowder weapons has been ignored since the establishment of the Qing Dynasty.In their opinion, gunpowder weapons are just a joke. The actual combat effect is so poor, it is not as real as bows and arrows!

Naturally, Zhu Cijiong will not let gunpowder weapons become a joke on the battlefield, so while increasing production, quality is also the focus of his consideration.

Someone has to ask, since you attach great importance to the quality of weapons, why don't you set up a quality inspection department?In fact, there are quality inspections. Every gun has to be tested after it is assembled. This testing process is a quality inspection process.But good products are manufactured rather than inspected. At most, quality inspection can ensure that unqualified products do not flow into the hands of users. If we really want to improve quality, we still need to work hard in all aspects of production.

Someone has to ask again, isn't it contradictory if you want to increase production and improve quality?Actually otherwise, sometimes output and quality complement each other, and there are many ways to increase both output and quality.

For example, in this modern factory management system, after the establishment of management levels, each leader only needs to manage five people at most, so that they can effectively supervise the work of their subordinates. Not only can they arrange the work of everyone under them, but they can also supervise They get the parts quality right.There is someone watching from behind, workers will never be lazy; if this person checks on what they are doing from time to time, then even if it is not well done, they will find a way to do it well.

There are still many ways to increase both production and quality. This time, Zhu Cijiong plans to promote some improvements that are not difficult and will have quicker results.

For example, in the design stage, many designers like to copy manuals or ready-made things, and use them after slightly changing the size, without considering the problem of processing.This is actually wrong. There must be no problems with the things designed in the past, but it was also designed based on the previous processing equipment. The processing equipment has been updated, and the original design is copied, which will not only affect production efficiency, but also may cause Quality issues.

Zhu Cijiong carefully studied the parts diagram of the new flintlock gun, and found that many parts were copied mechanically. Although it did not affect the function, it virtually affected the processing efficiency and the quality of the parts.It's possible that the designers of Miracle Company didn't know much about ancient gunpowder weapons at all, so they could only piece together things, follow the gourds, sort out all the graphic materials, and put them together.

There are many parts that can be stamped and formed by a punching machine at one time, but the strange shapes to be designed can only be forged by hand.The speed of stamping with a punching machine and forging by hand is conceivable. Maybe ten of them have been punched out here, and one has not yet been forged over there.Moreover, the parts punched by the punching machine are all punched out of the same mold. As long as the mold is fine, there will be no quality problems; manual forging is different, ten people can create eleven patterns for you, and the pass rate can How high can imagine.

Zhu Cijiong is going to find a few typical parts, to inspire Bi Maokang and others, let them try to gradually improve the drawings of the parts, try to rely on the existing equipment for the processing of all parts, and do not process them manually if they can. Not to mention time-consuming and laborious, the quality is not guaranteed.

Another example is the production stage. If there are many machine tools, we must pay attention to the subdivision of parts. Try to let each worker who starts the machine only process a certain part, instead of thinking that every worker can make all the parts of the flintlock.This is a question of practice makes perfect. A flintlock gun has dozens of parts, and one part may be proficient in a few months. It is impossible to be proficient in each part in a few years.

There are also tooling. The tooling mentioned here is not the uniform of the workers, but the auxiliary equipment for processing parts. For example, a part has three key dimensions. If each part is processed, use a ruler to measure it carefully, so that the quality is guaranteed and the efficiency is guaranteed. It's low.It takes time to look at the size. It takes ten seconds to look at it once, and it takes a hundred seconds to look at it ten times. It takes [-] seconds to make one hundred such parts a day, which is more than eight hours!Well, you can work ten to twelve hours a day at most, so in this way, you don't have to do anything, just look at the size.

If you make three toolings, it happens to fit in these three sizes. You need to process them and snap them in. You don’t need to look carefully. If you fit in, the size is right. If you don’t fit in, or if it fits in loosely, it’s wrong. Measure the size once. At most three seconds, you can save nearly six hours in a day!

So this tooling must be available, and the more the better, don't be afraid of trouble, compared with the time saved, the time spent making tooling is nothing at all.

Zhu Cijiong listed all these methods that can increase both production and quality, and planned to take some time to train Bi Maokang and Song Yingxing.

Seeing these familiar methods, he couldn't help but think of his own job, which is: compiling process sheets.That is, who designs a part, which workshop is responsible for production, what material is used, what machine tool is used, size requirements, appearance requirements, etc.

Once the list came out, the work assignment became even easier. Zhu Cijiong picked out a familiar part, drew a simple form on the rice paper, and filled in the contents one by one. The world's first process list And so was born.

Zhu Cijiong flicked the list in his hand quite proudly. He has learned this thing for several years, and it is naturally very standard to make it. I wonder if Song Yingxing and the others can compile the process list of all parts according to this format.As for this form, although the Ming Dynasty did not have computers and printers, it had movable type printing. As long as the form was compiled and typed, the printed form was almost the same as that typed by a computer.

(End of this chapter)