Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 87 New Guns
After a day of competition, 18 sergeants, 18 sergeants and 36 corporals were finally selected.

Li Jing was quite satisfied with this result, especially the few people who followed him from Chenzhuang were at least sergeants.

Of course, because the pillar is not on the mountain, he was not able to participate in this competition. According to the latest rules of the cottage, he is still a third-class soldier.

But Zhu Zi is the person Li Jing is trying to cultivate, and he is usually Li Jing's messenger, who follows Li Jing all day long. Among the few people who came out of Chen Zhuang, Zhu Zi is the one Li Jing likes the most.

After the sergeant was selected, he had to appoint a team officer. Li Jing thought about it and decided to promote several people to serve as captains. Otherwise, their identities would be a bit inconsistent.

So the eighteen sergeants began to fight against each other again, choosing one out of three and choosing six second lieutenants.

After all the competitions were over, Li Jingxian selected ten people from the non-commissioned officers to be members of the assault team.

Then some first-class soldiers were selected together with the original scouts to form a scout team, and a second lieutenant was appointed as the captain of the scout team.

The remaining personnel, Li Jing, divided the bandits into several teams according to a team of ten, and appointed some corporals and sergeants as team leaders.

Then the three squads form a squadron, and the squadron leader is served by a sergeant.

Three more squadrons form a brigade, the captain is a second lieutenant, and these people are responsible for ordinary combat tasks.

For Li Jing, there is really no way to select the captain by force, especially the captain who leads nearly a hundred people.

As long as he has a few talents under his command, he will not do this.

But now, after all, they are fighting with cold weapons, and the soldiers are fighting with their fists, so this method is reasonable.

There are five captains in total, namely Chen Dahu, Liu Erleng, Zhou Huhu, Zhang Chu and Wang Ermao, and Chen Dahu's brigade is not full yet.

The cottage has four and a half brigades plus a scout squad and an assault squad. The assault squad is under the command of Li Jing himself, and Chen Dahu's half brigade is temporarily designated as Li Jing's personal guard. Li Jing decides to send Chen Dahu out after Zhuzi returns. .

Li Jing divided the four entire brigades into two battalions.

For the time being, the battalion officer of the first battalion was concurrently held by Li Jing himself, while the battalion officer of the second battalion was Gao Qi. At the same time, Gao Qi and Sun Meng were publicly appointed as the deputy chief instructors of the cottage, and the military ranks of Gao Qi and Sun Meng were tentatively set as majors.

After thinking about it, Li Jing conferred the rank of Major on Ma Wu, Shen Zheng and Old Man Chen, and the rank of Second Lieutenant on Zhang Ao and Zhao Shuangxi.

Among them, although Ma Wu is no longer serving in the military, Ma Wu is loyal to him, and he can't treat him badly in this regard.

As for giving military ranks to Shen Zheng, Old Man Chen, Zhang Ao and Zhao Shuangxi, it was only for their convenience.

After the bandits dispersed, Li Jing called Shen Zheng, Old Man Chen, Ma Wu, Gao Qi, Sun Meng, Zhang Ao, Zhao Shuangxi and six newly promoted second lieutenants to his room.

"Hehe, Old Sun, I will keep this first battalion for you. When you don't need to eat imperial food at the government, this position will be returned to you." Li Jing said to Sun Meng with a smile.

"Hey, if my old grandson comes back, it's not enough for the eldest brother to only give to these few people, and he will pay me several times." Sun Meng smiled.

"Hehe, that depends on whether you have the ability to command thousands of troops." Li Jing patted Sun Meng and smiled, "Don't forget what I said, go back in a few days."

Sun Meng knew that Li Jing was talking about obtaining gunpowder pellets from the officers and soldiers, so he nodded vigorously immediately.

Li Jing looked at Shen Zheng first and said. "Uncle, arrange for Shen Liu'er to go to the south as soon as possible. It will probably take three months to go back and forth. Don't delay the cultivation if you come back late. Well, Zhang Ao will go with you, and you must take the sweet potato. I have learned the planting technique, and if there are other seeds, I will also buy them back."

Shen Zheng and Zhang Ao nodded together.

Li Jing looked at Ma Wu again and said, "Fifth brother, after the foundation is laid in the capital, you should rush to Shaanxi immediately and establish a stronghold in a prefectural city like Xi'an, which will be safer."

Ma Wu nodded.

Then Li Jing turned his head to look at Chen Dahu and the others and said, "Some of you came out of Chenzhuang with me, some followed Fifth Brother, and some followed Old Sun and Brother Gao. You are all old people in our cottage. Say what you want, train hard, and set an example for your brothers."

"Yes!" Chen Dahu and others responded.

Finally, Li Jing said to Zhao Shuangxi: "Shuangxi, I will leave the equipment department to you. I will draw some blueprints for you in the past few days. You will work hard with everyone to try to make the best weapons for us. "

Zhao Shuangxi knelt down and was about to kowtow to Li Jing, but Li Jing smiled and pulled him up: "If you work hard, you will be worthy of me, and you don't need to kneel in the future."

Zhao Shuangxi nodded with a sob.

The sixth day of the first month of the seventh year of Tianqi.

Ma Wu, Sun Meng, Zhang Ao and others left the mountain one after another.

The brothers on the mountain were trained by Gao Qi, Li Jing finally got some free time, and started to hang out with Zhao Shuangxi and others to study firearms.

Most of the current muskets are arquebus guns. The operation of arquebus guns is relatively cumbersome and has many disadvantages. Moreover, because the gunpowder loading speed is too slow, even if it is fired in sections, it will still not have much power.

Li Jing was not an idiot, he believed that the officers of the Ming Dynasty who led the battle were not idiots either, if segmented shooting was really useful, Li Jing did not believe that those officers of the Ming Dynasty did not even understand this simple truth.

The biggest reason is that the performance of the matchlock gun is unstable, the accuracy is too poor, and it is very easy to explode the chamber.

Li Jing knew very well that the first shot of the musketeer was completely different from the second shot. Since there was sufficient preparation in advance when firing the first shot, the amount of medicine used would basically not go wrong.

But when firing the second shot, due to the rush of time, it is impossible to control the dose as accurately as the first shot. In this way, all the problems will be reflected immediately, so officers and soldiers who use matchlock guns are not willing to use it. Use this kind of thing, put a shot and run.

The reloading is too slow, the rate of fire is slow, and the distance is not far. These are the most common problems with matchlock guns, especially the inability to use them on rainy days is the most troublesome, and it is also what Li Jing is most dissatisfied with.

Li Jing's request is not high, he just wants to remove the cumbersome detail of the matchlock, that is, upgrade the matchlock gun to a flintlock gun.

It is too difficult to mass-produce metal bullet casings in this era, but Li Jing knows that paper bullet casings have appeared between bulk ammunition and copper bullet casings, and paper bullet casings have greatly improved the loading speed.

And because it has been weighed in advance, it greatly compensates for the problem that the amount of gunpowder exceeds or is insufficient when filling gunpowder based on experience, and the probability of bombing the chamber is greatly reduced.

Borrowing the experience of his predecessors, Li Jing will naturally not be polite.

Li Jing drew this musket as a blueprint, and then explained it to the craftsmen in detail.

Zhao Shuangxi and the others felt awe-inspiring when they heard this, they all knew that if they could make the firearm that Li Jing said, with three to five thousand people, they could be an enemy of tens of thousands.

Of course, it is not easy to make the firearm designed by Li Jing, but Li Jing is not in a hurry. He draws the firearm he imagined and every part on paper, and let the craftsmen build it slowly one by one. And ask them to be precise.

Li Jing hoped that the first firearm he designed could become a sample, and with a successful example, it could be mass-produced in the future.

These craftsmen have experience in making firecrackers. Although it takes time to make large parts such as gun barrels, it is not difficult. Moreover, there are now hundreds of firecrackers on the mountain, and the barrels can be used without removing them.

On the contrary, it was Li Jing's design of the trigger, small parts such as the flash cap, which caused the craftsmen a lot of headaches.Without machinery and equipment, these parts must be handcrafted, and the difficulty can be imagined.

However, the manufacturing capabilities of the Chinese are recognized around the world. Without any equipment, Zhao Shuangxi and others spent more than two months finally building the first flintlock musket with simple tools such as a hammer and chisel.

Seeing Zhao Shuangxi carrying the newly built flintlock gun, Li Jing was overjoyed and brought Shen Zheng and others to the training ground.

"Hehe, come on, reload me, I'll try the effect of this gun." Li Jing said with a smile.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Shuangxi immediately took out the cloth bag containing gunpowder from his body and poured the gunpowder into the gun, then compacted it with a cleaning rod, and finally put in the bullets and handed them to Li Jing.

"Dahu, go fifty steps away and put up a wooden sign." Li Jing looked at the training ground and said.

Chen Dahu took the order, turned around and went. After a while, he set up the wooden sign, and Li Jing raised his gun to aim.

To say that Li Jing, who is used to modern weapons, is really not used to using this old-fashioned musket suddenly. After aiming for a long time, he was not sure that he could hit the target.

"It doesn't matter, it's just to test the effect anyway, if you really can't hit it right, then you can't hit it right." Li Jing secretly said.

After thinking about it, Li Jing pulled the trigger, only to hear a bang, sawdust flying in the distance, and the shot actually hit the wooden sign.

Seeing a big hole in the middle of the wooden sign, Li Jing was overjoyed: "Come here, reward Zhao Shuangxi with 50 taels of silver, and the craftsmen who made new guns with him, each with ten taels of silver."

"Hehe, congratulations to the boss for getting this sharp weapon." Gao Qi said happily, "I'll try it out too."

Li Jing smiled and threw the gun to Gao Qi and said, "You are only allowed to shoot once. This gun is just a sample. Don't break it. There will be a new gun later. You can shoot whatever you want!"

"Hehe, I'll save it, little brother." Gao Qi said with a smile: "Come on, press a wooden sign for me too."

Chen Dahu is now the captain of Li Jing's personal army, Gao Qi dare not order casually, he can only greet his own subordinates.

Fortunately, Gao Qi had many subordinates, and he quickly pressed a wooden sign fifty steps away.

Gao Qi took the cloth bag from Zhao Shuangxi, filled it with gunpowder and pellets, then imitated Li Jing's example and raised the gun to aim. Hit the corner of the wooden sign.

"Hahaha, great gun." Gao Qi laughed.

"Brother, why don't you shoot me too?" Liu Er came forward and said in a daze.

"Hehe, fuck off, don't wear it out, you can hit it if you have too much in the future." Li Jing scolded with a smile.

Signaling Gao Qi to hand over the gun to Zhao Shuangxi, Li Jing continued: "Shuangxi, from today onwards, you will bring all these craftsmen to make this new gun for me. Anyone who can make a new gun will be treated like a third-class gun." Zhengbing, if he has good skills, I will upgrade him."

(End of this chapter)