Such powerful weapons are by no means a slap in their hands. There are many people and departments working together and persistently investing a lot of resources to gain such a reward.
The earliest cause was that Zhang Lu's old habits were reborn in Jiaozhou, and he was preaching and refining alchemy. He collected various minerals such as realgar, yellow, saltpeter, and other minerals, intending to prolong his life and become a god and become an immortal. This absurd and nonsense practice was immediately ordered to ban Lei Yuan, but Zhang Lu's alchemy prescription was solemnly collected by Lei Yuan and studied by Xu Jian, the leader of his craftsman.
Later, when Ding Feng fought in Jingxiang, he took a few Xu Jian's trial products and threw them to enemy ships and exploded and burned them. However, the output of those trial products was very limited and there were many taboos when transporting them, so Lei Yuan was not used when he led his troops to raid Cao Cao's team.
The most important components of this explosive are charcoal, sulfur, saltpeter, and Lei Yuan remembered it in his previous life. The effective ratio of the three can also be determined through repeated experiments.
The reason why the output was limited at that time was mainly due to the restriction of nitrification soil and the difficulty in collecting sulfur was difficult.
According to the records of "Shennong Bencao Jing", saltpeter is mostly produced in pigpens, stables, and corners near the toilets. It will precipitate from the soil when the weather is cool and cool in autumn. However, Jingzhou and Jiaozhou are mostly rainy and wet. Lei Yuan appointed a special person to search, but the number of collections is always insufficient.
On the other hand, the soil containing nitrate can be soaked, filtered, and then boiled and dried to obtain saltpeter crystals. This treatment method comes from a pseudo book presented by Zhang Lu, called "Thirty-Six Water Method". Since the yield of nitroso soil is insufficient, the output of saltpeter will be even smaller, and the specific experimental consumption is always huge.
The amount of saltpeter is very small, and the supply of sulfur is relatively abundant, but it is not very rich. Lei Yuan set up a special fire kiln in Cangwu, which was obtained by roasting Nirvana stones. In addition, he also worked with Jiangdong to search for some in Yizhou.
Generally speaking, the results of the past two years are hard to say, and Lei Yuan has no choice but to do anything about it.
Fortunately, his Jingzhou army and the Jiaozhou army were strong and were not in a hurry to turn over with these magical tools. He continued to promote research in this area step by step, and took the opportunity of the central command to transfer Ding Feng and Lei Cheng to Chengdu to enrich the rear army, summarized the corresponding test records and his ideas on gunpowder weapons, and asked Ding Feng to hand it over to Zhuge Liang.
Zhuge Liang has always attached extraordinary importance to various new technologies. Previously, Lei Yuan used wheelbarrows to transport materials between the Xiajiang River. After Zhuge Liang took a fancy to this product, it has now been widely used between thousands of mountains and valleys from Longshang to Nanzhong. Not to mention various models of crossbows and waist-induced crossbows, the Han army's crossbows are the best in the world, which is by no means false.
Zhuge Liang immediately grasped the key to the exploration of the Jiaozhou Military Administration in gunpowder weapons. He was the prime minister of the Han Dynasty. He had the resources he could use and the information he had access to was extremely huge. So in a short time, the officials of the Prime Minister's Office found a considerable natural saltpeter mine in Hanzhong and Zitong and other places, and began to build a nitride cave and a nitride pool.
In this way, the development speed of gunpowder weapons will accelerate.
In terms of the specific selection of gunpowder weapons, Zhuge Liang gave up the throwing weapon, which was always unreliable and had limited power. Instead, according to Lei Yuan's several ideas in his letter, he chose a thick bamboo tube or giant wood that was opened in the center, wrapped it with a solid iron hoop, and used the power of gunpowder to launch the nest.
Lei Yuan gave this thing a strange name, called it "Shock Musket".
During the battle, first place silk and a certain weight of gunpowder at the bottom of the musket, and then place it into the skull that is also tied with silk. Inside, there are hundreds of small pieces of iron, porcelain or small stones. Only by drawing fire through the small hole behind the bamboo tube, the gunpowder suddenly explodes, accompanied by a loud bang, sending out huge pieces in the skull, causing damage.
During his letter communication with Zhuge Liang, Lei Yuan also half-jokingly suggested that the gun body could be cast with pure copper or iron; the sudden musket could be as large as thousands of kilograms, and it would be filled with a skewer weighing up to hundreds of kilograms, causing a erosion for dozens of miles. After several experiments, Zhuge Liang could not solve the problem of metal cooling and shrinkage, and in the end he could only regard Lei Yuan's suggestions as his dream murmur.
In order to continuously improve this weapon and play an unprecedented role, Zhuge Liang expanded the Cheguan City near Chengdu, specially selected Liu Yin, who was both civil and military, to take charge, and transferred many loyal and reliable soldiers from the Yizhou army to participate with Pu Yuan and other masters.
During the entire process, Zhuge Liang went to Cheguan City dozens of times and studied and analyzed it with the soldiers and craftsmen. His good intentions can be seen. This army, which had never been in battle since its establishment, appeared at the most critical moment and was directly applied on a large scale.
After the thunderous sound, the Cao army's cavalry was in chaos. Even the brave soldiers pulled the reins hard, just trying to avoid the vicious weapon that devoured human lives in front of them.
In fact, the power of the storm gun is not extremely powerful. Even if the storm guns on dozens of large trucks fire at the same time, the casualties may not be much more than the intensive shooting of the crossbow.
Because of the hardwood, the two assembled gun bodies are not firm enough, and the amount of gunpowder is very limited. Even if the secret practice is done many times, the soldiers are suddenly in such a fierce battlefield, and they are inevitably stiff and make mistakes in their movements. After just one round of bombardment, several gun bodies will directly crack or explode, and they will never be able to use them.
If the Cao army soldiers could calm down and analyze the situation a little, they could find that the Han soldiers who operated the rifle gun were almost in a state of chaos. They tried their best to quickly clean the inner chamber of the rifle gun and prepare to put the gunpowder bag and the cervical squat again.
As long as the Cao army's cavalry must have the courage to hit the chariot before they complete their shooting preparations, thus eliminating the threat of the storm.
But they dare not.
The momentum of the Cao army's knights was interrupted by this terrifying blow, shattered, and could never recover.
Any weapon will definitely have an effect beyond imagination when it is used on a large scale for the first time. It is because the enemy has no idea about it and can only develop all kinds of terrifying imaginations within their cognitive range. The violent roar of the sudden musket fired, dispersing white smoke, pungent smell and unprecedented facial killing, further aroused Cao's fear,
The knights at the back saw their bosses, or famous warriors in the army, in rows of casualties, blood squirting, bones breaking, and even the entire head was smashed, and their tofu-like brains were splattered everywhere.
How could this be seen on the battlefield? Even in a nightmare, it is hard to imagine such a divine punishment! Yes, this must be a divine punishment! Or is it the most terrifying and cruel one!
The fighting spirit and will of many Cao army cavalry immediately collapsed. The strong sense of fear was like a gust of wind, forcing everyone to breathe. Some people let out incredible roars, as if crazy.
Even though a small number of knights could barely remain calm, the war horses that had never heard the sound of gunpowder explosion were all frightened, and that was not something that could be comforted in a short period of time.
At least thousands of war horses stopped desperately, causing the knights on the horse to pounce on the ground one by one. More war horses neighed, jumped and turned around, and ran wildly behind them, colliding with the subsequent teams, making the situation even more chaotic.
Occasionally, some brave Tiger and Leopard Cavalry soldiers barely control their horses and rushed towards the direction of the chariot formation to yell. But on the battlefield where thousands of people were on the battlefield, since they had lost their courage and determination to move forward to the death, these few shouts only showed their weakness.
Chapter completed!