Chapter 137: The Unexpected Manchu Firearms Strength
Chapter 137 The unexpected strength of Manchu firearms
"Boom!"
As the gunfire rang out, two puffs of white smoke rose from the fire cap and the muzzle at the rear of the gun, thirty meters away from the wooden target.
This is the Qing army equipment captured by Wang Yuanfang and others during testing at the shooting range.
"Sir, my lord! The little one has finished practicing the musket!" A Qing prisoner with a shaved head knelt on one knee, holding a musket in his right hand.
Surrounding the prisoner were ten soldiers armed with lever rifles. If the prisoner dared to make any move, they would be shot at any time.
"Tell me again, what is the name of this gun?" When the prisoner said the name of the gun before, Ding Guofeng didn't hear it clearly.
"Sir, this gun is called the 'Xin Hui Bu Hua Sheng Qian', but the kids usually call it the 'Hui Hui Gun'."
The "Xinhuibu Huashaoqiang" is a type of matchlock gun issued by the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Nearly two hundred of them were seized on the battlefield this time, and the others were ordinary shotguns.
The "Hui Hui Gun" is not heavy to acquire. Wang Yuanfang previously weighed the gun used by the prisoners. It weighed 3.96 kilograms (made in the Qing Dynasty, six pounds and ten taels); and other "Hui Hui Guns" of the same type were also distinguished by him.
After weighing it, it was roughly around 4 kilograms, and the error was not too big.
It is said that the weight of the modern military Type 95 rifle is 3.25 kilograms, and the HK416 A7 equipped by Zhao Xin for the six-man team of the Security Department is 3.69 kilograms.
It should be pointed out that the weights and measures of the Qing Dynasty were not very accurate. According to the actual weights left by later generations, the weight of one tael was between 35 and 37 grams. A set of weights inside the Qing Palace was 35.05 grams for one tael. And one tael weighed 35.05 grams.
The length of the ruler can also be divided into three standards: cutting ruler, measuring ruler, and construction ruler. The length of the construction ruler is 32 centimeters.
The length of the "Hui Hui Gun" is three feet, five inches and seven minutes. The barrel and bolt are all made of cast iron. The barrel is quadrangular. The front sight and rear sight used for aiming are very delicate. The butt is
It is made of basswood and painted black; there are three thin hemp ropes tied around the gun; there are also two wooden forks used to support shooting under the butt.
The color of the gun body also has something to say. According to the provisions of the "Qing Dynasty Huidian", the gun bodies of the Eight Banners of Manchuria are all painted yellow; the Eight Banners of the Han Army are black; and the Green Camp of the Han Army is red.
The gunpowder used for shooting this kind of gun is one cent and a half, and the projectile is made of iron. It weighs one cent and eight cents, which is 9 grams, and is more than half the size of the middle knuckle.
"Report to the instructor! The wooden board has been penetrated." A Beihai Town soldier came over carrying a wooden target.
Liu Sheng and others stepped forward to check and found that two 10-centimeter-thick wooden boards had been shot through.
Wang Yuanfang said: "It's not surprising. If they can't penetrate such a close distance, how can the Qing soldiers fight the Burmese! Continue, try fifty meters, one hundred meters, and one hundred and fifty meters!"
So this morning, the sound of muskets would be heard from time to time in the shooting range.
The soldiers in Beihai Town had a two-hour break every night after literacy classes, and then went to sleep.
Since the six-member team of the Security Department had to check the wards and check the sentry posts every night, they took advantage of the two-hour gap to hold a meeting after class. Zhao Xin, Chen Qingsong, and even Liu Zheng, who claimed to be "queuing up to shoot the party,"
Here too.
Liu Sheng took a thick stack of records and began to describe the morning's musket shooting drill.
"Let me first talk about the quality of the Qing soldiers' shotguns. Currently, the shotguns we have captured are divided into two types. One is the 'Xinhuibu Huashaoqiang', commonly known as the 'Huihui gun' by the Qing army; the other is an ordinary shotgun. About the two
Everyone here has various data records for planting guns, so I won’t go into details.
It should be noted that the craftsmanship and production level of Manchu shotguns are quite good. We randomly selected 20 of each of the two types of muskets. After comparing the weight and length measurement results, we found that they are basically consistent.
.The weight error shall not exceed 50 grams, and the length error shall not exceed 5 cm.”
Liu Zheng carefully read the data on the paper, raised his hand and asked: "These are all matchlock guns! Then why do we need to equip soldiers with SKS! How good would it be to let Zhao Liang make the 'Brown Bess'!"
Zhao Xin saw no one answered, so he said: "Let me explain this question. Based on the interrogations we have conducted on Qing prisoners these days, especially on the two Zhenglan Banner Firearms Battalion shotguns, gunxiao cavalry officers...
This name is really long and convoluted!"
Everyone pursed their lips and smiled as Zhao Xin continued.
"This counselor is Jia La Zhangjing; there is one Jia La out of the five Niu Lu in the Eight Banners. Based on the interrogation of these people, we learned that the Qing army was equipped with flintlock guns..."
"Ah?" Liu Zheng was stunned. Didn't he say that the Qing Dynasty did not have flintlock guns before the Opium War? Why is it different from what he knows?
"As an aside, according to historical records, the Manchus came into contact with flintlock guns during the Kangxi period, that is, during the Second Battle of Yaksa, and captured some of them, but in the end they did not pay much attention to them."
"Why?" Liu Zheng raised his hand again and asked. This habit of his is really good.
Deng Fei smiled and explained: "Because the advantages of the flintlock gun need to be reflected by another kind of equipment and a kind of tactics."
Liu Zheng said excitedly: "I know! Line tactics and bayonets!"
Deng Fei nodded: "The bayonet can turn the gun into a short spear, thereby gaining better melee combat capabilities. However, the Qing soldiers do not need it!"
"Why? Could it be that the two iron forks under the matchlock can be used as bayonets?"
Liu Sheng explained: "Those two forks cannot be used as bayonets. Most gun forks are made of wood. Mainly because all musketeers are equipped with waist knives!"
The armament system of the Qing Dynasty was inherited from the Ming Dynasty. The Yanling knives, lancet knives, and Yanwing knives used in the Ming Dynasty army were all continued to the Qing Dynasty army. The waist knives commonly equipped by the Qing army were all in the shape of a Yanling dagger and were long.
Two feet six inches and four points, the blade is two feet two inches long.
Zhao Xin explained: "In the daily training of Qing soldiers, the assessment of swordsmanship is a very important part. If you switch to a flintlock gun and equip it with a bayonet, let alone other things, just cold weapon training, the assessment mode will be
Make big changes.
Of course, for the emperor, whether to change or not seems to be a matter of one sentence; but for the entire solidified bureaucracy, it is a huge matter, and no one knows how many people's interest circles will be broken during it. The Manchus did not care about it.
This account has been settled clearly, and no one will take advantage of this bad luck and use it as a target."
Changing a waist knife to a bayonet sounds simple, but it involved a major adjustment in the Manchu military system. Before suffering a major blow, no one in the Qing court would think this was a problem. Could it be that using a waist knife to engage in close combat with the enemy was not a problem?
Are the soldiers brave?
Liu Sheng lit a cigarette and saw that Liu Zheng stopped asking questions, so he said: "Liu Zheng, I will ask your question later. I will finish the report first."
"OK."
"I just mentioned that the Qing army is now equipped with flintlock muskets, but most of the officers and soldiers are unwilling to use them. In addition to the Second Yaksa War mentioned above, the origin of flintlock muskets is also the Huojizhan Rebellion in the northwest.
and the Qing-Burmese War. We believe that the flintlocks of the Yaksa and Northwest Wars came from Tsarist Russia, while those on the Burmese side came from the British and French.
I have already mentioned the bayonet of the flintlock gun. Another very important issue is the misfire rate. Qing prisoners have mentioned that although the loading of the matchlock gun is slower... Oh, after our tests, experienced muskets
Soldiers, the reloading speed is two rounds per minute. ...The shooting accuracy and fire rate of the matchlock gun are higher than those of the flintlock gun."
Although the flintlock guns at the end of the 18th century were faster to load than matchlocks, the misfire rate was a very prominent problem. The solution to this problem had to wait until 1825, when the British chemist Chevriery conducted many experiments.
The "optimal chemical reaction equation for black gunpowder" proposed later.
Based on this equation, the British formulated the optimal gunpowder ratio for guns and cannons. They also entered the mechanized production stage of modern factories in gunpowder production processes such as purification, crushing, mixing, pressing, and drying.
The British used physical and chemical methods in the production of gunpowder, and used advanced industrial equipment to refine high-purity nitrate and sulfur;
These advanced processes ensure the excellent quality of British military gunpowder, which will still maintain good results even after long-distance shipping.
"The next one is the ammunition and kinetic energy of the Qing army's matchlock gun. The charge of the 'Huihui gun' is 7.5 grams, and the bullet weighs 9 grams; the charge of the ordinary shotgun is 15 grams, and the bullet weighs 5 grams. The bullets of the two guns
These are not lead bullets, but iron bullets.
This time we used two 10 cm thick pine boards to observe the shooting effect. According to the actual shooting data, these two guns are most lethal within a distance of 30 meters. The return gun can penetrate two boards. Normally,
The shotgun can penetrate a single board and a half; at a distance of 50 meters, the returning gun can penetrate a single board and a half, and the ordinary shotgun can only penetrate one board; at a distance of 100 meters, neither the returning gun nor the ordinary shotgun can penetrate a single board, but
The bullets of the return gun penetrate deeper than those of ordinary shotguns.
Based on this result, we estimate that the muzzle kinetic energy of a return gun is between 2,400 and 3,200 joules, while the muzzle kinetic energy of an ordinary shotgun is between 900 and 1,700 joules."
"Sorry, let me interrupt." Liu Zheng raised his hand again. He felt that he had to ask. "Why does the kinetic energy of the muzzle you mentioned fluctuate so much?"
"This is what I want to talk about next, the issue of gunpowder." Liu Sheng put out his cigarette and took a sip of water. "We asked the musketeers among the prisoners and finally got the gunpowder ratio of the Qing army. This ratio
It’s so touching!”
After Liu Sheng and others learned the gunpowder ratio data of the Qing army, they found that the proportion of saltpeter accounted for 80%. The ratio was so unreasonable, no wonder the shooting distance was so "pleasant"!
After getting all the test data in the morning, Ding Guofeng, who was very curious, proposed to test it with the explosive powder of 7.62 rifle ammunition. So for the sake of safety, the six-person team of the security department worked for more than half an hour to get a nylon rope.
A stand for long-distance hair extensions.
Taking into account the power of modern gunpowder, the wooden target was placed 200 meters away. The best-made reciprocating gun was placed on a wooden frame. Ding Guofeng stood two meters behind the wooden frame to pull the hair; everyone struggled for a long time.
I found two explosion-proof shields and put them in front of him.
By the time everything was ready, an hour had passed.
The results of the test were as expected. Two pine boards two hundred meters away were shot through! However, the barrel of the return gun that had been fired many times was also exploded.
According to Deng Fei's calculations, if modern propellant is used, the effective shooting distance of the return gun can reach 200 meters.
"The Qing army's gunpowder production has obviously regressed compared to the Ming Dynasty! The Ming Dynasty also knew about granular gunpowder. The Qing army's current gunpowder is still hand-made, very rough powder gunpowder." Liu Sheng changed the subject and said with a smile: "However, this pair
We are good news!”
"The third question I want to talk about is the shooting training of the Qing army. According to the prisoner interrogation records provided by Mr. Zhao and what we asked, the shooting training of the Qing army is polarized.
First of all, let’s talk about the Eight Banners. The musketeers we captured this time were all from the Eight Banners of the Han Army. The gunpowder and bullets used for their shooting training were all borne by the Qing court. So we are sure that the Manchus, Mongols, and
The troops of the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty can conduct shooting training on a regular basis.
However, I learned from the captured firearms battalion commander that the Green Camp Musketeers in the inland areas are completely different from the Eight Banners. All the gunpowder and bullets spent during their training are borne by the soldiers themselves, and are paid from the military salary.
Deducted! I think everyone here knows what this means. The more gunpowder bullets used by soldiers in training, the more military pay will be deducted. Only fools will actively participate in training!"
A burst of laughter rang out from inside the room. Liu Zheng stood up and refilled everyone's cups with water. He said excitedly: "This is really different from what I knew before."
Liu Sheng lit another cigarette and said with a smile: "I haven't finished speaking yet, and you can't even imagine what's going to happen next."
"The fourth point, and the last question, is the Qing army's musket array. Among the Qing soldiers we captured this time, there are several older ones who participated in the Qing-Burma War more than ten years ago. According to these people's accounts, the Qing army
When the army was attacking the Burmese, the ratio of musketeers to archers in the army was about 4:1.
According to the historical information provided by Mr. Zhao, during the Fourth Qing-Burma War, the Qing court’s frontline strength was 18,900 troops. Excluding the 2,000 naval troops, the actual number was less than 17,000.
In addition to Myanmar's 30,000 troops, some French soldiers also participated in the war.
According to the Qing army array diagram drawn by the prisoners, the Qing army had a musket phalanx! It was a large phalanx with spearmen on the outside and musketeers on the inside."
Liu Zheng raised his hand anxiously and asked: "Where is the artillery? Is the artillery in the center of the phalanx?"
Liu Sheng smiled and shook his head: "No, the artillery is arranged at the rear of the square formation. Its main function is to attack the enemy troops attacking on both wings, and to cover the large-scale charge and outflank of the cavalry."
"Understood?" Zhao Xin patted Liu Zheng on the shoulder and said, "I have learned how to line up and shoot people long ago! We don't have that many people playing with the Qing army."