Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 210 Tianxiong Army 2
Qi Hu smiled lightly, pointed to the majestic army behind him, and said, "Give it another year and a half, and then pull it out to fight a few battles, the Tianxiong army will become an iron-blooded army, enough to look down upon the world!"

Lu Xiangsheng heaved a sigh of relief and said, "If this is the case, my hard work for the past six months will not be in vain... During these days, I have even exerted all my strength in the next life!"

There is no exaggeration in this statement.After returning from Wuyang County, he was busy reorganizing the guards, reclaiming wasteland, building canals, water trucks, and some government affairs in the three prefectures. There really was nothing to stop.His jurisdiction is different from Nanyang. Daming, Shunde, and Guangping are not as rich in iron ore and water resources as Nanyang, and the arable land is not as fertile as Nanyang. The court made it clear that the land of these three prefectures was given to him as a place to raise soldiers. It's just that it's not easy to raise enough money to raise soldiers in this barren land!Those weapons and armors were all given to him by Yang Menglong on credit at half price because of everyone's friendship. There are more than [-] Tianxiong soldiers, the swords and guns in their hands, the iron helmets on their heads, and the armor they wear are all from Wu Yangwei. In the past few months, I tried my best to get money to pay back, and it was almost paid off, but this favor was owed after all.To manage the people's livelihood of the three prefectures well, to improve the lives of the military households, and to provide enough food for nearly ten thousand troops, it really made him burnt out!Fortunately, with the bumper harvest of wheat and potatoes, it finally came to an end.The businessman's sense of smell is very good. As soon as the news of his large-scale planting of potatoes spread, businessmen came to negotiate with him about setting up potato processing factories and purchasing potatoes.Cheng Ji has made a fortune relying on the potatoes he bought from Wuyangwei. Everyone can see that now that the opportunity has come, there is no reason not to follow.But Cheng Ji obviously didn't intend to give them any chance. Yang Menglong and Lu Xiangsheng had a deep friendship, and he and Yang Menglong had a good friendship, so he was close to the water, and he signed a contract with Lu Xiangsheng early on. Half of the funds needed were borrowed from Cheng Ji. Without Cheng Ji, Lu Xiangsheng really didn't know what to do.

Qi Hu said with a smile: "Xiao Shuai Yang sometimes sighs like this."

Lu Xiangsheng laughed and said, "He's just shouting to show off. I think he's enjoying it."

Qi Hu said: "That's right, that guy is a big horse monkey, and he likes to toss the most. Not letting him toss for a day is more uncomfortable than killing him!" What you want the most, get it out!"

Lu Xiangsheng was overjoyed: "Really!?"

Qi Hu made a "please" gesture, and led Lu Xiangsheng straight to the central camp.

Just like Wuyangwei, the Tianxiong Army also moved its ordnance workshop into the central camp, and the craftsmen could make any equipment they needed immediately, and the finished weapons were delivered to the army as soon as they left the gate of the workshop, which was convenient and quick.At this time, the heat wave in the workshop was sizzling, dozens of blowers were blowing wind into the stove, and the crucibles filled with bright red molten iron were carefully tilted, and the molten iron was poured into the mold and cast into shape.For the Tianxiong army, although the quality of Wuyang steel is excellent, the price is not cheap. Although the adults have a good relationship with Yang Menglong, they can buy it at half the price, but it is not an option to transport it thousands of miles away. They cherish the good steel bought from Wuyang. , Every point is used on the blade, and things that consume a lot of money, such as arrowheads, rivets, and caltrops, are made by ourselves.On the other side, hundreds of skilled craftsmen and apprentices are carefully sawing pieces of steel ingots that they regard as precious ones into pieces, reheating them, and then swinging a sledgehammer to beat them into a pair of steel ingots. sword.When the first batch of horizontal knives made of manganese steel purchased from Wuyangwei were sent to the barracks, no matter whether it was the soldiers of the Tianxiong Army or the craftsmen who had dealt with steel all their lives, they were all amazed and obsessed with it. It is a precious sword that is hard to buy!But the Tianxiong army is not like Wuyangwei, who can guard a large iron mine and a manganese mine to smelt manganese steel. In their view, it is too extravagant to cast knives with pure manganese steel. Cut it off, and clamp it to the edge of the knife as a blade. Although the overall strength of the cast knife is not as good as Wuyangwei's horizontal knife, its sharpness is not inferior.

There are also many craftsmen who are working hard to drill the barrel of the gun.Qi Hu came to the Tianxiong Army, and after inspecting it once, the muskets in the hands of the Musketeers of the Tianxiong Army were quite frightened—the barrel of the gun was so thin and thin, how thin is it?The caliber is only a little over six millimeters!My goodness, is it too early to play small-bore rifles now?There are quite a few such muskets!Although the batch of muskets that Lu Xiangsheng obtained were better than those of the other side armies in the Ming Dynasty, the degree of goodness was limited. Gou Ri’s Bingzhang Bureau always deducted raw materials when making muskets, and they were short of two pieces. Well, the muskets produced are more dangerous than the other ones. The worst ones will explode as soon as they are shot, and the better ones will explode after two or three shots. This makes the Ming army terrified. They would rather use bows than arrows. up.Of course, the bows and arrows provided by the Bingzhang Bureau are not good things. When making bows and strings, they are shoddy. If you can use a little bad material, you will never use good ones. The arrow still has some lethality within thirty or forty steps, and it will become floating if it is farther away... Seeing that the shot is so far, but it can't kill people even after shooting more than a dozen arrows, it is a bit frightening.Not to mention the arrows, how rotten is the iron material of the arrowheads, how rotten is the use, one is lighter than the other, and the arrowhead is more steel?Think beautifully, that is the benefit of generals!With such equipment, coupled with the terrible treatment and low status, it is unreasonable for the Ming army not to lose the battle.Qi Hu's advice to Lu Xiangsheng was to recast those arrowheads and barrels, otherwise the Tianxiong Army would be killed by these rubbish things sooner or later!Lu Xiangsheng had such an idea a long time ago, but because he didn't know much about these things, he couldn't start.It just so happened that Qi Hu came from the Qi family army and had his own unique views on the standards and technological process of making weapons, so he simply left this matter to him.And Qi Hu was unambiguous, dismantled all the muskets and arrowheads, and melted them into fine iron with ideal hardness and toughness according to the method he stole from Yang Menglong, and then drilled them with drill bits made of manganese steel. barrels, nearly four hundred new muskets were made in the first month.After the test shots, the musketeers said that the new muskets were far more reliable and more powerful than the rubbish provided by the Staff Bureau.The most amazing thing is that the calibers of all the gun barrels are the same, so that the lead bullets can be distributed uniformly, and the musketeers don’t have to work hard to make their own—the musket calibers at that time were uneven, and the same It is not uncommon for rifles of different calibers to be off by one or two millimeters. Even if you have superb skills, you cannot equip so many muskets with the lead bullets that the shooter needs.Of course, the caliber of the musket produced by Qi Hu still has an error, but this error value has been greatly reduced, and it is much more convenient to use.

It is said that "an old man in a family is like a treasure", and an old man in the army is an extremely precious wealth.Lu Xiangsheng really wanted to poach this old man into Tianxiong's army, but Qi Hu was one of the core figures of Wuyang Guard, so he really couldn't afford to have the shame to poach Yang Menglong's wall.

Standardized production process, standardized arrowheads, standardized lead bullets, standardized musket caliber... Under the teaching of this old man, the Tianxiong Army knew what "standardization" is for the first time. It has benefited them a lot.However, what Qi Hu wanted to bring them the most was a sharp weapon unique to the Qi family army, a sharp weapon that was lost in the wind and sand outside the Great Wall before it had time to play a big role.He also gave this sharp weapon to Wuyangwei, but in the Battle of Dingxing, the musketeer's performance was so bad that Yang Menglong left too deep a shadow in his mind, and he would not pay too much attention to muskets in three to five years. It was difficult for sharp weapons to play their due role, so he chose to try his luck with Tianxiong Army.

He brought Lu Xiangsheng into a highly secret warehouse.

The warehouse was empty except for two kegs.

The first small bucket was filled with black particles, about the size of mung beans, all rising to the top.The second small bucket contained a bucket of dark lead bullets, which were still steaming. They had obviously been taken out not long ago.Lu Xiangsheng looked at these two things, his eyes flashed, and asked: "Old man, this is..."

Qi Hu reached out to the first small bucket, grabbed a small handful of granules and showed it to Lu Xiangsheng: "This is granule gunpowder."

Lu Xiangsheng also picked up a handful, and the smell of gunpowder came straight to his nose.He flipped through it carefully, no, it was all gunpowder, large and small, and it was processed from extremely finely ground gunpowder. The Qi family army had used it before, and found out the optimal formula, which was very powerful.It’s just that it’s hard for a clever woman to cook without rice. The Qi’s army has been stationed outside the Great Wall for a long time, and was ignored by the court. The food, clothing, and clothes are all supplied by the court. Obviously, it is impossible to have money to get a large amount of raw materials to make gunpowder. disappeared.

Qi Hu said: "The reason why the barbarians are afraid of China is because they are afraid of the fineness of Chinese firearms. The fineness of firearms in the hands of my Ming soldiers is unparalleled in the world. As long as they are used properly, even elephants can be killed, let alone mere armored slaves!" However, the lethality of firearms has become worse and worse over the years, so that soldiers are reluctant to use firearms anymore. The reason is that there are more and more impurities in gunpowder, and the effect is getting worse and worse. It is really heartbreaking. Qi Shaobao also suffered from the fact that gunpowder had a lot of impurities and was susceptible to moisture when he was in Pingwo, so he hired many craftsmen to improve it... The craftsmen tried repeatedly to make this kind of granular gunpowder. Before making this kind of gunpowder, saltpeter was used first. Egg white or radish is purified to remove impurities. Sulfur and charcoal must also remove impurities. The materials used must be ground to a very fine level without being sloppy at all... Finally, add an appropriate amount of water to make it granulated, and then use a fine gong to sieve evenly sized particles. The process is so complicated that it cannot be compared with ordinary black powder. However, it has the advantage that it is powerful, and it can still explode normally after being dampened to a certain extent."

Lu Xiangsheng said with emotion: "I am afraid that only a genius like Qi Shaobao can make such a fine thing." The quality is full of opinions——Can you make it worse?Now I heard that this granular gunpowder is more powerful than powdered gunpowder, and that it can be used as long as it is not severely damp, so I am overjoyed.In addition to his joy, he was bitter. Qi Shaobao's talent is unmatched by anyone. If the court can continue to trust him, reuse the Qi family army, and let the Qi family army continue to grow and develop, how can the whole country be incapable of fighting? A possible general!
He put down the powder, reached over to the other keg, picked up a buckshot and looked at it.The diameter of this thing is [-] mm. For guns, the caliber between [-] and [-] mm is ideal. If it is smaller than this caliber, the lethality will be greatly weakened. If it is larger than this caliber, the gun will become It is dead heavy, and it has to be mounted on a bracket to launch.The muskets equipped by the Tianxiong Army have a uniform caliber of [-]mm, which is just right for this lead bullet.What puzzled him was that the shape of this lead bullet was quite different from the lead bullets he was familiar with. Ordinary lead bullets were round, but this kind of lead bullet was cylindrical, pointed at the front and concave at the back, and wrapped in a few pieces in the middle. A layer of nitrocellulose is very peculiar.He asked in surprise, "Why is the shape of this lead bullet so weird?"

Qi Hu also picked up one, and explained: "Wuyang Guard is also equipped with a large number of six-barreled electric guns, six-barreled bursts, dense firepower, and great power. But the gunners often complain that it is too troublesome to load, especially the round ones. Lead bullets are very inconvenient to roll around. Xiao Yangshuai worked with them for several months and came up with a way to ask the craftsmen to make the bullets into a cylindrical shape with a pointed front and a concave back. The inner diameter of the bullet is slightly smaller than that of the firecracker. , and then wrapped in flammable gunpowder paper, which is just slightly larger than the inner diameter of the gun barrel, but it is easy to stuff in. In this way, when the gunner reloads, he only needs to stuff the projectile into the gun tube, adding The lead bullets of the gunpowder paper are firmly inserted into the gun barrel and will not move again, which is very fast and convenient.”

Lu Xiangsheng was startled and smiled: "Although Xiao Yangshuai's method is simple, it is also very effective. He is really a genius to come up with such a method."

Qi Hu said: "In addition to fast loading, this kind of lead bullet has another advantage."

Lu Xiangsheng asked anxiously, "What's the benefit?"

Qi Hu said: "This kind of lead bullet hits much farther than ordinary lead bullets, and it can break through iron armor within fifty steps!"

(End of this chapter)