Among the four young people, Lin Qing is the most outstanding. He is a descendant of Quanzhou craftsmen. He has been in school for eight years since he was a child. He is very interested in miscellaneous studies. After coming to Taiwan, he learned Latin and Portuguese from missionaries. Now It is now possible to roughly understand some of the Western scientific and technological works brought by missionaries. For example, the work "New Science" by the Italian Niccolò Tatgrai, the originator of ballistics.
In the 16th century, there were many researchers in Europe on parabolas and ballistic theory. In 1537, Italian Niccolo Tatgrai published the first paper on ballistic trajectories, which aroused the interest of many mathematicians. Interests. Italian mathematician, physicist, and military technician N. Tartellia. He is famous for discovering the general solution to the cubic equation and initiating ballistics. He published the earliest book "New Science" in 1537. "" discusses the problem of artillery shooting. In 1540, Tartaglia used the results of many experiments to reveal the fact that at a shooting angle of 45 degrees in a vacuum, the cannonball can reach the maximum flight distance.
The use of mathematical axioms in scientific and technological research is the first step towards modern science. Unfortunately, ancient China could never take this step.
On the playground, most of the sentry team of 200 nominal soldiers had been "killed" and their formation had been completely disrupted. The 200 soldiers of Zhao Xuanming's "Iron Wall Regiment" launched a counterattack after repelling three of their attacks. Defeated the Yiwu sentry in one fell swoop.
These Yiwu gun soldiers voluntarily stayed to fight for the Zhonghua Company. After the Battle of Penghu, more than 900 Zhejiang soldiers were captured. After Yin Feng negotiated peace with the government, all those hopeless guardsmen were captured. They were let go. There were about 200 nominal Ukrainian soldiers who were willing to stay in Taiwan and serve as soldiers for the Chinese company.
They were originally mercenaries recruited by the imperial court.
Yiwu is only a hundred miles away. After Qi Jiguang recruited more than 16,000 nominal U.S. soldiers, the Ming Dynasty came to Yiwu many times to recruit troops. Yiwu soldiers fought against Japanese invaders, suppressed bandits, guarded the border, aided Korea, fought in the north and south, and established outstanding achievements in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty regarded the Yiwu soldiers as invincible. Whenever there was a war, they would recruit FM soldiers. As a result, countless strong men in Yiwu died from fighting and the population dropped sharply. According to "Yiwu County Chronicles", in the 24th year of Hongwu (1391) Yiwu had 28,972 households and 143,932 Dingkou. By the 19th year of Wanli (1591), there were only 15,610 households and 71,497 Dingkou. Yiwu soldiers made great contributions to the Ming Dynasty. They made selfless contributions and made huge sacrifices. A father must not care for his son, a brother must not care for his brother, and a wife must not have a husband." In the 22nd year of Wanli (1594), Zhou Shiying, the magistrate of Yiwu, suggested to the court that the recruitment of Yiwu soldiers should be stopped. He lamented the disadvantages of repeatedly coming to Yiwu to recruit soldiers: the place was haggard and the people were exhausted. There are many casualties. Tens of thousands of people have been separated over the years. Less than three-tenths of them returned home after the Japanese war. How many soldiers can be recruited in a small county like Yiwu? Since all young people have become soldiers, the remaining ones are He was an old and weak man. In a family of eight, there were only two people who could farm. Therefore, Zhou Tuying asked the court not to recruit more troops in Yiwu, "to save one side from hanging upside down."
However, since then, in the wars such as aiding Korea and countering rebellions in the southwest, Yiwu soldiers have appeared everywhere. The local area is mainly mountainous. The people live in poverty. Serving as soldiers is their main means of making a living. Moreover, Yiwu people have no chance of resettling. The custom and habit is to travel around to make a living. Therefore, Yin Feng led his troops to recruit them and tried his best to recruit them to stay as soldiers. However, they felt that working for the Chinese company and serving as soldiers for the imperial court were the same thing. Moreover, the wages were still high. It was much higher, so I stayed willingly.
Yin Feng asked them to form a separate sentry team, directly under the old camp of the escort team. They mainly played the role of officers and soldiers in various drills and exercises. They used the Ming army's familiar combat methods to conduct confrontation exercises with the escort team.
The shouts of "kill" on the playground were loud, attracting everyone's attention. Zeng Rui was young after all, and had always yearned for a fighting career. Looking at it, he couldn't help shouting: "The Yiwu army has been defeated. Their formation has been destroyed." Chaos..." He suddenly realized that Yin Feng was looking at him with a half-smile, and quickly restrained himself.
Yin Feng nodded: "Their problem is that they copied General Qi's Yuanyang Formation. The Yuanyang Formation was originally used to deal with small groups of Japanese pirates in the Jiangnan water network. It was also used to deal with Japanese pirates who basically used cold weapons. Our troops fight with firearms. They gather the troops into a dense formation and rely on firepower output to kill the enemy. The Yuanyang Formation has a small number of firearms and weak firepower. In addition, the formation of a team of more than ten people is scattered. Therefore, in It is simply impossible to counter our escort with firepower."
He suddenly turned around and asked Lin Qing: "Look, what would happen if the Yiwu soldiers were equipped with a few cannons."
Lin Qing thought for a while, then shook his head and said, "To tell you what the Commander-in-Chief is saying, our best light field artillery, with the most skillfully trained gunners, can only fire once every two minutes, and people's physical strength is limited. The movement will become slower and slower after continuous firing. I think that even if the Yiwu soldiers have several cannons, one shell will knock down two or three people... The situation will not change much."
Yin Feng smiled: "What would happen if the shells fired from the cannon could explode like the grenades you invented?"
The four members of the firearms group looked at each other in amazement. Lin Qing immediately understood what Yin Feng meant. He said with a look of surprise: "This. Isn't this just a shell? Use a cannon to shoot out the grenade. We have thought about using a trebuchet to throw the grenade. .It's just too inconvenient. Now we understand. We'll go back and do experiments right away."
Yin Feng smiled and patted his shoulder: "I called you here just to say this. Flintlock guns will soon become popular among our enemies. We must invent better and stronger weapons. Only in this way can we protect our Brother Guards, go ahead. As the old saying goes: pay attention to safety."
The four young firearms inventors bowed to Yin Feng and then left.
The confrontation drill on the playground has ended. The soldiers are marching in formation and are preparing to go to the field training outside the camp.
Yin Feng took Lin Xiao and Zeng Rui and walked slowly by the playground. The oncoming soldiers stood at attention and saluted hurriedly. Yin Feng liked the orderly and lively atmosphere of the military camp. He was asked to deal with the officials and gentry. He would rather wallow in muddy water with the soldiers.
They boarded the main entrance of the military camp and looked at the Taiwan Port City area to the south. The escort military camp had become a small city surrounded by eight forts. Therefore, many immigrant villages and towns also appeared in the surrounding areas.
Lin Xiao and Zeng Rui stood behind Yin Feng, looking at each other and feeling very uneasy.
Yin Feng suddenly said: "You two are the people I trust the most. Ruizai. Your eldest brother Zeng Yue was the first person to help me after I returned to the Ming Dynasty. Brother Guangze, we can't make a deal without fighting. So. Be friends.”
Lin Xiao quickly raised his hands and said: "Ship owner, look what you said. I, Lin Xiao, will work with you all my life. If you want to scold me, just scold me. I know. You want to blame me for arresting people again..."
Yin Feng waved his hand and said: "Forget it. Forget it. Guangzhi. Just try to follow the rules from now on. What I want to tell you two is to ask you to be more careful in your work in the future. Our Zhonghua Company only had more than a thousand people fleeing at first. It is not easy for a group of entrepreneurs to reach this stage. In fact, this is also said to myself; I am also responsible for some omissions and mistakes. The road ahead will be even more difficult. There are too many people in the company. With more money, people's hearts are not unified; in the past, there was a connected wax man in front of us, but now we have a big enemy, so everyone can work together; now Luzon is occupied by us, the government has negotiated with us, and the company has no big enemy for the time being. I’m worried that people’s hearts will be scattered.”
Lin Xiao and Zeng Rui both nodded. Lin Xiao said: "Yes. There has been a lot more corruption in various businesses recently. There are many people on the island of Taiwan who are smuggling for profit and poaching companies; many of them are Someone on the inside did it.”
Yin Feng patted the railing of the watchtower. He let out a long sigh and said, "Yes. You have to pay close attention to this aspect. The most important thing now is to reunite the company."
"Then. What to do?" Zeng Rui asked.
"Find us another enemy." Yin Feng said with a sneer.
Lin and Zeng were startled: "What."
Yin Feng nodded: "Yes. We need an enemy. In order for the Greeks to counterattack Luzon, at least until the end of next year. During this period, you must work hard. Whether it is the indigenous people, coastal pirates, or Japanese pirates, we must Get rid of a few."
…
Flowering bombs are not that easy to make.
The firearms quartet initially used primitive grenades that were too heavy to be deployed in the army for experiments. However, how to ignite the fuse of the artillery shell became a problem. At this time, the prototype of modern mercury fulminate gunpowder had appeared in Europe. However, The shells are still fired from mortars. There are monks under Bishop Baradas who are Italian. They once told Yin Feng: There was an Italian military technician Guiliano Bassi who used antimony or mercury (mercury) with nitric acid. (HNo3) reacts chemically. The precipitate produced can be used to make high-potency gunpowder. One of his formulas uses 2 to 3 grains (1 grain = 64.8 mg) of metal powder. The precipitate after reacting with nitric acid .? Add ammonium chloride and mix it with tartar to form a solid. The gunpowder made in this way has the performance of modern mercury fulminate gunpowder. Its power is much greater than black gunpowder. It can even be fired with a hammer. Explosion. Known as gold fulminate in Paoshi's formula.
However, this monk was only half a bucket of water. When he was asked to make gold fulminate explosives by himself, he was so frightened that he shook his hands and said that it was too dangerous. Therefore, there is no hope of developing explosive bombs that can trigger ignition now.
After three months of hard work, the four-man team finally came up with a cannon that can fire explosive shells. It is similar to a European mortar. It must be ignited twice when firing; after the shell is put into the barrel, the fuse is first lit for the explosive shell. Then light the propellant in the barrel and fire.
The efficiency of firing this way is too low. However, the foursome made the barrel as short and thick as a small water tank. It is almost the same as the peripheral iron barrel used by the People's Liberation Army to launch indigenous aircraft in the Huaihai Battle.. The heartless cannon Same. This made Yin Feng marvel for a long time. However, the probability of dud bombs was higher. Therefore, this mortar was named after the Zhentian Cannon. It was only produced in small quantities. Yin Feng planned to equip this kind of cannon on the port fort. We also plan to build a bombardment ship, which will be used specifically to bombard coastal cities in the future.
The four-person firearms team continued their efforts. A month later, they launched a new type of explosive shell that uses linen to package the propellant and shells. This kind of shells are usually stored separately from the quantitatively packed propellant bags. When firing, put the explosive shells into the propellant bag and then put them together.
It is inserted into the gun bore. When the gunner lights the propellant, the long fuse drawn out of the explosive shell is also ignited by the deflagrating propellant. Therefore, it becomes a real explosive shell.
This invention was immediately adopted by Yin Feng and named the Hongtian Cannon.
At the same time, the method of packaging fixed propellants in linen was popularized for the firing of all cannons. Regardless of ship-based cannons, field guns, city defense guns, and explosive shells, from now on, the artillery teams of the Chinese United Company's escort team will all use fixed propellants. In this way
The charger does not need to work hard to use the medicine shovel, but relies on feel and experience to charge. It also facilitates the gunner to adjust the shooting distance and angle and correct the shooting effect.