On the training ground, the attacking cavalry changed their tactics. They began to use the "turning the wheel" tactic, that is, firing a carbine in front of the enemy's position and then turning rapidly 180 degrees. After going in a circle, they fired again. The cycle started over and over again. They started a war of attrition with the infantry. The infantry formations continued to shoot at them, causing more and more cavalrymen to be judged to be "out".
At the climax of the exercise just now, Yin Feng remained silent. He just focused on observing with his telescope. At this time, he said loudly: "It's almost the time. The cavalry has reached the point where they are exhausted by fighting hard and fighting hard. It can be counted." The battle is defeated. Yan Siqi, please order it to stop. The Military Supervision Department and the Exercise Department of the Operations Department will evaluate the exercise situation. The performance of all recruits and trainee officers must have clear written evaluations."
Portuguese missionary Lu Ruohan came from the bottom of the hill at this time. He bowed in front of Yin Feng and said: "Your Highness, the rapid-fire rifle has been transported, and everything including the ammunition arrived safely."
Yin Feng stood up. All the generals also stood up. Yin Feng looked around and said with a smile: "Okay, don't leave in a hurry. Everyone, stay. Let's take a look at the new gadgets of the Weapons Research Department."
I saw a dozen well-covered large vehicles that arrived at the new barracks in the morning appearing in a corner of the training ground. Craftsmen from the Weapons Research Department and Yin Feng's personal guards were arranging them in a straight line.
Several messengers went down to the recruits who were forming the team and conveyed Yin Feng's order. Soon these recruits immediately took action. Under the leadership of the trainee officers, they lined up and left the exercise site at a rapid march speed. They rushed to the Jinzhou Guard recruits. The camp marches on.
Yan Siqi, Yang Dacheng, Huang Lue, Lu Xiaotian and others immediately thought: This is a clearance operation to keep it secret. This made everyone have a strong interest in these dozen large cars.
Lin Tianping, the captain of Yin Feng's personal guard, ran quickly up the hill. He stood at attention and saluted: "Report to your Majesty. The exercise troops have returned to the camp. The surrounding area within ten miles has been completely blocked by the cavalry troops."
Yin Feng nodded. Lu Ruohan took a step forward at this moment. He unfolded a piece of paper in his hand. After reading it, he said in standard Beijing accent: "There are currently three six-piece flintlock guns, four lightning strike revolvers, and four lightning strike honeycomb guns. Get in position. Your Majesty, would you like to start testing now?"
"Have the targets been set?"
"It has been set up. There are 20 targets 200 steps away from the shooting position. There are 10 targets each 300 steps away and 500 steps away." Lu Ruohan showed the target positions to everyone. The so-called targets are the standard human-shaped wooden objects used in shooting training for new recruits. Making a target. Yin Feng held up the telescope and looked at it for a long time. He put down the telescope with an expressionless face and said calmly: "Let's get started."
At this moment, the dark clouds that had been shrouding the earth during the exercise were blown away by a gust of sea breeze. The setting sun cast blood-red sunlight from the western end of the earth.
Under the setting sun, the canvas covering the eleven carts was torn open by craftsmen from the Ordnance Research Department. The craftsmen personally operated these strange-looking things.
From east to west. First there are three thick round iron tubes mounted on metal frames. If you look carefully with a telescope, you can see that there are six barrels in the thick round iron tubes. At the rear is a rotating bolt firing system. In Yin Feng It looks like an enlarged version of a later-generation revolver. However, the barrel of this weapon does not rotate. What rotates is the firing lever system. This is the so-called six-gun flintlock.
Behind the three huge revolvers are four barrel-like objects mounted on stands. There are also six barrels wrapped in a thick iron pipe. But the rear firing system is very thick and has a handle-like handle. It has a gadget and an iron sheath that can be put on the back of the barrel. It looks like a giant version of the revolver system. It’s just that the rear firing system is more complicated than the three six-piece flintlock guns in the front. This is a “thunder strike revolver”.
The last four are 36 iron barrels mounted on a support frame framed by four iron rings. There is a complex bolt locking block system at the back of the densely packed barrels. It is made of the same number as the barrels. It is composed of a short iron pipe and a thing like a hand crank. These things are the so-called "lightning honeycomb guns".
The craftsmen are doing final debugging and inspection. The four members of the firearms team are: Lin Qing, Zhang Xiaohai, Wang Gong, and Li Hetian. Lin Qing, the director of the weapons research department, is directing several guards to carry ammunition. The other three are each Bring a team of people to debug and inspect these new weapons.
The curiosity in the hearts of the generals of the Chinese army present has reached its peak. They gathered around Yin Feng and asked questions: "This is a rapid-fire gun. It must be. It is said that the weapons research department started it two years ago." It's being trial-produced. Can it be used to kill enemies now?"
Yan Siqi observed the most carefully and immediately raised a question: "Shipmaster, these six flintlock muskets seem to be used together. But the latter two seem to be unable to fire with flintlock. How do they shoot." "
Yang Dacheng also asked: "Why is it called a lightning gun? Isn't it a flint fire?"
Yin Feng smiled faintly and nodded to the guard captain Lin Tianping. Lin Tianping then distributed several small iron pipes to several Chinese army generals.
"Isn't this? Isn't this iron tube filled with paper-wrapped bullets for a flintlock gun?"
"Take out the paper-packed bullets..." Yin Feng said.
Everyone followed his instructions and took out the ammunition from the small iron tube. "What? What's inside? A white gasket."
Yin Feng raised his voice: "Everyone, be careful. This thing is very easy to get angry. Brother Zhenquan, carefully put this piece of thing on the ground. Then hit it with a stone or something hard."
Yan Siqi looked at Yin Feng with doubts on his face. But he still did as Yin Feng said.
"Bang." There was a flash of light. The small piece of stuff was easily hit by the stone and exploded. Yan Siqi was startled. Then he jumped up excitedly: "This. This is a new detonating powder. Compared with the flint fire, "It's basically..." He couldn't find the words to describe it for a moment. He couldn't help but dance and said: "Shipmaster, what is the name of this gunpowder?"
Yin Feng said: "This thing is called mercury fulminate. Its properties are extremely violent. Due to the complicated manufacturing process, it has not yet been mass-produced."
"Thunder Lord. He lives up to his name. He is as fast and violent as a lightning strike." All the generals gathered around and started experimenting as excitedly as children. There was a crackling sound on the hill for a while.
…
The new detonating powder was plagiarized by Yin Feng, a copycat military history expert. It was actually the home-made mercury fulminate invented and manufactured by Ding Shoucun of the later Qing Dynasty during the Opium War. At that time, the preparation method of mercury fulminate had not yet been introduced to China. Ding Shoucun Based on the existing technology of the Qing Dynasty, he used pure saltpetre, alcohol, alum, and silver as raw materials to trial-produce a rapid detonator. His method was to first use alum and saltpeter to make nitric acid, and then distill it into concentrated nitric acid. At the same time, Alcohol is repeatedly distilled into concentrated alcohol. Then concentrated nitric acid and concentrated alcohol are made into a concentrated solution. Finally, the footmark silver is hammered into thin slices and thrown into the solution. "The silver immediately turns over" (a violent chemical reaction occurs) and is then placed in a glass test bottle. There is "foam sitting on the bottom". After the water on the upper layer is poured out, it becomes insoluble white mercury fulminate crystals. It becomes an important raw material for making cartridge-type bullets. In the 22nd year of Daoguang (1843), Ding Shoucun described the trial production process. and the results. He wrote the article "How to Make Western Fire Guns", which was later included in Volume 9 of "Hai Guo Tu Zhi" by Wei Yuan.
Although Ding Shoucun's trial production of mercury fulminate was more than 40 years later than that of the British chemist Howard, it was, after all, the first successful independent trial production of a new type of explosive. It can also be considered a major achievement for China's military technology to enter the firearms era.
This is also the reason why Yin Feng wants to use Ding Shoucun's method to make mercury fulminate: in the Opium War period of the original time and space, the technology and craftsmanship level have changed time and space compared to Yin Feng. The actual level is not much different. What Ding Shoucun can do. Yin Feng He believed that his own weapons research department would be able to do it. And with the financial and material resources of Yin Feng's ruling area, funding issues could almost not be considered in the research. After two years of careful experiments, five or six major accidents occurred during this period. One craftsman and one technician were killed or injured. Finally, mercury fulminate was successfully produced.
The ignition of mercury fulminate was refreshing to the generals. However, the subsequent rapid-fire gun experiment was a bit full of twists and turns.
The basic appearance and basic design ideas of these rapid-fire guns are mostly Yin Feng's concept. The firearms quartet concretized and detailed Yin Feng's concept based on the existing technical conditions of the Chinese Army. Yin Feng's principles It was a step-by-step process in terms of technology; he really wanted to produce the Gatling gun in one go. But according to the current military technical level of the Chinese Army, with metal processing mostly relying on manual work and only simple hydraulic machine tools, the golden finger was too harsh. The firearms quartet couldn't figure it out. In the end, Yin Feng had to provide some design concepts and let the firearms quartet decide the direction of development.
The six-piece flintlock gun was actually developed from the concept of defense gun in later generations. In another time and space, in 1718, the Englishman James Buck invented a revolving defense gun. Its magazine was the same as that of a revolver. There are also six holes. Six small metal tubes can be installed. The tubes are filled with paper-packed ammunition used by the army at that time. There is a rocker behind the magazine. The small tubes can be turned to the position of the barrel and fired one by one. After the bullets are fired. The magazine can be removed and another magazine can be installed. You can continue shooting. The firearms quartet used the design of the Franco gun. Instead of a magazine, they used a small iron pipe with an opening in the upper part to manually load the ammunition. Use the rocker to fire the flintlock mechanism on the barrel in sequence to fire bullets. In this field test, the six-gun flintlock gun fired not very fast, but it was relatively stable. There were three operators on each of the three six-gun flintlock guns. Basically, Maintain a speed of fifty rounds per minute. There will be no accidents until 200 rounds of ammunition are fired.
The "Thunder Strike Revolver" is actually a homemade copycat version of the later Ripley Machine Gun.
The appearance of the Lepri machine gun is very similar to the Gettling machine gun. However, it was invented in 1861 in another time and space, earlier than the Gettling machine gun. Therefore, the Gettling machine gun may borrow some of its design. Although its The appearance is somewhat similar to the Gettling machine gun. Even the position of the barrel group is similar. But its operating principle is completely different. Its barrel group is fixed and does not rotate. And its firing mechanism is somewhat like a magazine. Supply ammunition. There is an iron pipe on the locking block of the bolt. Install the standard paper-packed ammunition and the mercury flash cap. Then put the bolt into the back of the barrel and lock it. Turn the rocker once to fire all the bullets. Then put The bolt locking block was taken out and replaced with another locking block loaded with bullets. It could be fired immediately. During the test, two of the four lightning strike revolvers had ammunition supply locking blocks malfunctioning. In one case, the rocker was stuck. Not all of them moved. Only one completed firing all 200 rounds. It took less than three minutes.
The densely packed barrel of the "Lightning Cell Gun" looks very much like the existing multi-barreled "Heavy Rain Gun" of the Chinese Army. However, it uses a locking mechanism magazine to feed ammunition. It also has to put the paper-wrapped bullets in a small iron tube before it can be used. .It is essentially a copycat version of the Mitrailleuse gun of later generations.
In another time and space, in 1851, Captain Fafschamps of Belgium invented an improved discharge gun. 37 barrels were cast in a circular tube. The bullets were installed in 37 small holes in the circular bolt locking block. The gunner Place the bullet-loaded locking block in the gap at the rear end of the gun. Push a lever again. Push the locking block forward to complete the locking. At this time, the bullet is exactly aligned with each barrel. Then the gunner turns a rocker located at the rear. The firing device fires the 37 bullets one by one; after one revolution, all the bullets are fired. At this time, the gunman pulls the lever. The locking block slides back. The gunman takes out the locking block and puts in another locking block loaded with bullets. Enter and start another round of shooting. This design sounds very complicated, but it is actually very simple. In this test, four lightning-strike honeycomb guns spit out flames like lightning and fired 200 rounds of bullets in an instant. One of them The locking magazine of one aircraft was stuck. The rocker firing system of another aircraft was stuck. The remaining two aircraft completed shooting. The three trained gunners cooperated with each other to fully utilize the functions of these two lightning strike honeycomb guns. The rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute stunned the generals of the Chinese army. In fact, this Mitriures gun was also the first practical discharge gun in later generations.
After the thunderous and lightning-like shooting ended, Yin Feng murmured to himself: "It seems that the failure rate is still too high. It needs to continue to be improved." He found that everyone behind him was silent. He looked back and saw that the generals were still there. He was in a state of shock. He smiled and said, "Everyone, go down and see what happens."
This was the moment that changed the history of weapons.
Portuguese missionary Lu Ruohan came back from the shock and looked at Yin Feng beside him in awe. He did not know in advance that a rapid-fire gun experiment was going to be conducted. Although he had the title of consultant in the weapons research department, he only participated in some Regarding the development of mercury fulminate explosives, he thought sharply at this moment: In terms of military technology alone, what Yin Feng has mastered far exceeds the current technical level in Europe. With Yin Feng's current power, in China The empire will occupy the pinnacle position in this ancient country. There is almost no doubt now.
Everyone went down to the training ground. They couldn't put it down and surrounded these monsters. There was a lot of discussion.
"The lightning honeycomb gun can still be used. It fires out bullets like raindrops. This one can withstand the impact of a thousand officers and soldiers. It can block a hundred Jurchen Tatar cavalry."
"Brother Huang, this is too much. I think the probability of malfunction of this gun is still too high. It is also too heavy. It is almost as heavy as a light field gun."
"The six-gun is stable enough, but its rate of fire is far inferior to these two guns. The best one is this mercury-fired bullet. You can try to make a gun for individual soldiers using this kind of bullet."
"The honeycomb gun is better. Thousands of rounds of bullets are overwhelming. Jurchen cavalry and white-armed soldiers are all out of the question. Your Majesty, hurry up and distribute these artifacts to all troops."
Yin Feng stood behind everyone with his hands behind his back. He looked at it with a smile for a while, and suddenly gave a loud order: "Colleagues from the Weapons Research Department stay. The other brothers packed up these treasures and transported them back to the Lushun Arsenal. Everyone should keep it confidential.
.Understand."
Then he called to the generals of the Chinese army: "Let's go. Don't look at it. When these weapons are distributed to the troops later, you can put them on your bed and watch them all." Everyone burst into laughter.
He suddenly said seriously: "Brothers, these firearms need to be improved before they can be used in battle formations. Although we are about to have these sharp weapons, I don't want the Chinese army to become like the Ming Dynasty official army, which only relies on firearms.
The weapons are long but the breath is short. They will collapse at the first touch. Bayonet assassination training in the army must be strengthened. Discipline, willpower and weapons are the three magic weapons for the victory of the Chinese army. Don't forget it."
…
After this test, the six-bolt flintlock gun was improved by the Ordnance Research Department. It was changed to a mercury-fired cartridge to feed ammunition. The improvement in the rate of fire was limited, but the stability was still good. It was called the six-bolt lightning gun. It began to be distributed to
The performance of the lightning strike honeycomb gun of the Chinese Army Infantry and Marine Corps was improved. Because it was too heavy, it replaced the Folan gun on the Navy warships and became a melee shooting weapon on the battleship deck. It is also used in the Chinese Army Infantry.
Started to use. Due to process problems, the failure rate is high. It cannot completely replace the huge and heavy rain gun.
Yin Feng believes that the lightning strike revolver is the most promising manual machine gun. It can become a template for the development of the Glint machine gun in the future. However, the failure rate is higher than that of the honeycomb gun. It must be improved. At the same time, a trial production of a mercury-fired needle gun for individual soldiers
The matter was also put on the agenda by the Weapons Research Department.
At the same time, the Chinese army continued to gather troops in Liaodong and northern Korea.
The Ming Dynasty and Hou Jin Dynasty were not idle either. Officials and troops in western Liaoning were gathering. However, the Ming Dynasty court was still arguing over the party. Xiong Tingbi was being tried as the scapegoat for the failure of Liaodong. Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch of the inner court, was beginning to develop himself.
The new army trained so hard by Xu Guangqi and Yu Zigao has no one interested in it.
In Liaoyang and Shenyang, Nurhachi was driving hundreds of thousands of Liaodong people to build city walls and fortifications. He was rushing to make armor and weapons. After Amin, the leader of the Blue Banner, fled back to Liaoyang, he was imprisoned by Nurhachi in the dungeon of Hetuala.
Nurhaci almost chopped off Amin's head. Later, Huang Taiji tried his best to persuade him to stop. Amin was knocked unconscious by the Chinese army's firearms combat. He tried to exaggerate the power of the firearms in his words. Nurhaci did not believe his words. But this man
The rulers of the Later Jin Dynasty also saw the power of firearms. They ordered to find firearms craftsmen among the captured soldiers and civilians of Liaodong and began to formally build the firearms of the Later Jin Dynasty.
The Eight Banners of Houjin always look bad without one banner. Nurhachi ordered dozens of Niulu to be drawn from Zhenglan Banner, Zhengbai Banner and other banners. Then he organized dozens of Niulu from the newly conquered Mongolian tribes to form the new Eight Banners.
The new blue-trimmed flag. The flag owner is temporarily held by myself.