Since the Qing army entered the Pass at Dushikou in Xuanfu Town in early July, they have broken through nearly fifty cities, killed countless Ming people, and looted countless properties.

Zhu Cixi felt that the situation was getting more and more serious. He first inspected the Yongwei Camp. The Yongwei Camp was now in excellent condition. Especially after the reward, the soldiers were full of enthusiasm and eager to go on another expedition.

The soldier resources of the Yongwei Battalion have been replenished and expanded to 6,000. The more than 2,000 people who joined later are all outstanding soldiers selected from the new battalion. They are all outstanding in ordinary training. They only need to go through a

The baptism of actual combat.

Zhu Cihong was very satisfied with the situation in the Yongwei Camp, and then he went to the Military War Bureau and Anmin Factory to inspect the status of firearms research and production.

Today's Military and War Bureau vigorously recruits craftsmen with high salaries, and the number has grown from more than 200 to 1,200.

Zhu Cixi implemented a system of leading new craftsmen with old craftsmen. Each old craftsman led several new craftsmen to teach their skills. The new craftsmen he led were rewarded for the qualified firearms they produced, and the old craftsmen also received commissions.

Similarly, if the firearms produced by new craftsmen are unqualified, the old craftsmen will also be punished. Under this system, the old craftsmen can only work hard to teach the new craftsmen, and the more work they do, the more they will get.

Since the Bingzhan Bureau's R&D rewards are very generous, craftsmen have formed more and more research groups voluntarily, and the R&D enthusiasm and atmosphere are quite good.

Just recently, an old craftsman made several attempts to imitate the rotary musket based on Zhu Cixiang's idea, and finally made some improvements, greatly reducing the weight and size of the originally bulky rotary musket, which was quite a prototype of a later revolver.

However, it only reduced the size and weight, and there was not much breakthrough in performance. The biggest improvement was to increase the number of bullets from four to six. There was still not much improvement in loading, which was still very troublesome and time-consuming.

.

Zhu Cixiang knew that if he wanted to imitate later generations of revolvers, he had to develop primers and later generations of bullets. The bullets were the main body, and the gun was just the carrier.

For example, the rifled gun is more advanced than the flintlock gun, that is, the rifle. The spiral rifling of the rifled gun can make the projectile spin and fly stably in the air, improving the shooting accuracy and range. The range can reach more than 900 meters.

Although the manufacturing of rifled guns is a bit troublesome, with Zhu Cixiang's knowledge and the manufacturing capabilities of the Bingzhan Bureau, it is completely possible to manufacture them. However, just manufacturing the guns is almost useless, and the core and most troublesome thing is the bullets.

In terms of the relationship between bullets and firearms, the bullet determines the gun. There will be a gun according to the bullet. Only when bullets make fundamental breakthroughs in new principles, new structures, new materials, and new technologies can guns make a qualitative leap.

The current musket bullets, which are mainly steel balls and lead balls, are not suitable for rifled guns at all, and are not as good as self-produced Lumi guns.

Spiral rifled guns were already available in Italy in 1476. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Danish army was also the first to equip and use rifles. However, it was not until the second half of the 19th century that rifled guns became mainstream because the problems of loading and bullets had not been solved.

solve.

Because the rifled guns of this era had to be loaded with bullets (wrapped with a cloth soaked in lubricant), which had to be hammered into the barrel. Loading was very time-consuming, and was far inferior to the loading of Yongwei Camp's self-produced Rumi guns.

high speed.

If you want to use the advanced rifles of later generations, you must solve the problems of breech loading and primer bullets. These problems are not complicated. Zhu Cixiang also discussed them with Sun Heding in detail. However, the development and manufacturing of bullets are quite difficult and cannot be done casually.

It can be made easily.

According to Zhu Cixiang's general understanding from later generations, it is said that the caliber error between the bullet and the gun bore is within one millimeter. He is not sure about the specifics. After all, he is not omnipotent and knows everything.

With the ideas provided by Zhu Cixiang, if the Bing Zhan Bureau continues research and development, and the development of breech-loading guns, spiral rifling and bullets is successful, it will be a matter of time.

Zhu Cixiang is not in a hurry, because there is no point in rushing. The bullet can be said to be a product of civilization that integrates physics, chemistry, materials science, aerodynamics and craftsmanship. Everything takes time to solve.

Technology and civilization do not just come out of the mouth. Zhu Cixiang's advanced thinking can only make them happen in advance to avoid detours, and cannot be achieved overnight.

If everything becomes very simple because of time travellers, then Ming Dynasty’s spacecraft will be able to land on the moon in a few years...

After inspecting the war bureau, Zhu Cixiang went to the armor factory located in the southeast of Dongcheng District of the capital. The armor factory is where armor, guns, bows, arrows, and gunpowder are manufactured.

The armor factory used to have the same virtue as Anmin Factory, which exploded at every turn. In the thirty-third year of Wanli, the officers and soldiers of the three major battalions of the capital went to the armor factory to collect gunpowder. The dead eunuch who supervised the gunpowder ordered the craftsmen to chop it with an iron ax because the old gunpowder had agglomerated.

open.

After the craftsman brought down the ax, he immediately pulled out a ball of sparks, which directly detonated the gunpowder. Needless to say, the outcome was that nearly a hundred officers and soldiers waiting to receive the gunpowder were burned to death on the spot, and countless craftsmen in the factory and nearby residents were killed and injured.

A few years ago, the same place was bombed again, which destroyed many houses and even the big stone mill used for making gunpowder was blown away under the city wall of Paozi River.

After Zhu Cihong asked Wu Zhong to take over the War and War Bureau and Anmin Factory, he also cleaned up the armor factory and also implemented a set of preventive and safety measures according to the Anmin Factory.

At the testing ground of the armor factory, the ambassador of the armor factory was holding a flintlock gun with a bayonet in his hand. He said with a smile on his face: "Your Highness, this is the bayonet made according to your requirements."

Zhu Cixiang made a half circle around the musket with a bayonet installed. He was quite satisfied with the appearance, and then ordered someone to test the bayonet penetration on dummies with different armor thicknesses.

According to the "Daming Huidian", in the second year of Jingtai (1451), the Ming Dynasty first installed spearheads on iron blunderbuss for assassination, integrating the performance of muskets and spears.

It was not until the mid-16th century, more than a hundred years later, that the invention of installing a spearhead on a hunting rifle for stabbing prey appeared in Europe.

In the history of later generations, the bayonet originated in the French army in 1647. It was a French musketeer who thought it was troublesome to hold a blunderbuss in one hand and a dagger in the other hand, so he stuck his dagger on the muzzle of his gun.

.

Just such a whim invention changed the pattern of war in later generations. All pikemen gradually became unemployed and changed careers, and withdrew from the stage of history.

After the bloody battle in Liangxiang, Zhu Cixiang immediately notified the armor factory to produce bayonets as soon as he returned to the capital. However, this bayonet was not the flat-headed bayonet of later generations during the Anti-Japanese War, but a three-edged military bayonet.

Zhu Cixiang considered that the flat-headed bayonet required relatively high steel, which would be very laborious given the current productivity of the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, most of the Qing troops wore two or three layers of heavy armor. It is estimated that they would not be able to stab at all with this immature flat-headed bayonet.

The armor worn by the Tartars was broken.

Zhu Cixiang also considered the spear head of the early Ming Dynasty, but considering that it was too bulky and was eliminated by history, Zhu Cixiang had no choice but to give up. Finally, he thought of the three-sided military spurs of later generations when he was in the army.

The triangular military bayonet has an edge-shaped body, which requires lower material requirements than a flat-headed bayonet, and is structurally stronger.

The most important thing is that the Mitsubishi Military Assassin has a very high lethality. It has a prismatic appearance, an icy color, and its fatality rate is very high.

The wound caused by the triangular spear was generally a square hole. Not only did blood flow out along the groove on the spot, but this kind of wound could not be bandaged and closed. Especially on the battlefield, there was no chance to call an ambulance or anything.

Wait to die!

The shortcomings of the three-edged bayonet are also obvious. It has a relatively single function. It lacks the functions of cutting and slashing that the flat bayonet has. It can only be used for stabbing and stabbing, and is used as a spear.

Due to the short time, the armor factory has been working overtime to produce only 500 three-edged bayonets, all of which are made according to the barrel specifications of the Yongwei camp muskets.

Theoretically, installing a bayonet does not affect the firing of the musket, but the current loading mode of flintlock muskets is front-loading. Installing a triangular bayonet in front of the musket will definitely affect the loading speed.

In order to avoid this kind of trouble, Zhu Cixiang adopted the earliest split-type installation method, using a casing bayonet to install the triangular bayonet. During normal battles, the triangular bayonet was installed in a sword holster and worn on the waist, and then installed in close combat.

In view of the fact that the three-edged sword is too overbearing, in order to avoid accidental injuries during training, the blade is not sharpened during the training of the Brave Guard Camp on weekdays. It is sharpened (tip) only when going out for battle. It brings its own small grinding stone. The time it takes to sharpen it is about
Chapter completed!