One Piece of Song Dynasty

Regarding Tian De's respectful attitude, Li Xin was very satisfied and said: "Well, most of the members of the Imperial City Division are composed of eunuchs. You can choose some from the palace, or you can recruit some from the people who are willing to become eunuchs, and others can also be recruited from Some were secretly recruited from the capital's imperial army.

The Imperial City Department is divided into four departments. One department monitors the imperial guards in the capital; the second department spy on the officials of the capital, regardless of grade, including the imperial guards; the third department investigates nobles and clans; the fourth department monitors public opinion, public sentiment, market prices, etc. in the capital. spy. "

Compared with the Jinyiwei North and South Fusi, the four departments of the Imperial City Division look much simpler, but the scope of supervision has been expanded, and the Jinyiwei is also within the scope, but they lack the power to investigate and deal with them.

Tian Dezhong thought about it. The Imperial City Department was established, and even the prime ministers, nobles, and clans were included in the scope of supervision. It seemed that it had a lot of power, but it could only supervise and not have the power to investigate and deal with it. It was a bit restrained. However, this was not bad.

"As for you, the commander, like the young eunuch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, you are from the fourth rank and receive the same treatment. From now on, Wang Shun will be the young eunuch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."

Li Xin said calmly: "I have already prepared the specific details, you can take a look at it when you go back.

By the way, for those nobles and clans who select bodyguards from the Forbidden Army as usual, you can send some people there. "

Tian De knelt down energetically and said, "I understand." The establishment of the Imperial City Division, especially the improvement of his rank, made him very excited. For him, he already stood above many eunuchs.

After arranging the affairs between the Jin Yiwei and the Imperial City Secretary, Li Xin sent someone to call Chen Gui. At this time, Chen Gui had been staying in Yanjing for three or four months with a matchlock gun. Before that, Li Xin had been busy ascending the throne, and now he finally has Opportunity to meet him.

After Chen Gui received the news, he took the matchlock gun that he had prepared and his men followed the person who sent the message into the palace. When he saw Li Xin, Chen Gui presented the matchlock gun with both hands and said: "Your Majesty, this is what the weapons supervisor has been doing in the past few years." The result was an arquebus."

Li Xin took the matchlock gun and looked at it. The matchlock gun was about meters long. The front two-thirds was a black barrel, and the back third was a wooden handle. It weighed about three and a half kilograms. The inner diameter of the barrel is about fifteen millimeters, and the outside of the barrel is hexagonal.

Chen Gui introduced: "Your Majesty, there is a metal hook on this gun. One end of the hook is fixed on the gun and can rotate around the axis. The other end holds a burning match rope. When the soldier fires, he uses his hand to push the metal hook towards the gun. Pushing in the fire door causes the match rope to ignite the black powder, thereby ejecting the projectile in the barrel of the gun."

Li Xin took the barrel and observed it carefully. The entire barrel was made very straight. After unscrewing the screws at the back and looking at the inner bore of the gun barrel, it could be seen that the inner bore was drilled very smoothly.

Li Xin nodded and said, "Well, the inner barrel of this gun is well made and very smooth."

Hearing this, Chen Gui said with great interest: "Your Majesty, this barrel as a whole is the highest level we can do at present. First, we repeatedly hammer the rough iron into fine iron, then beat it into iron sheets, and roll the iron sheets together." On an iron rod, beat and forge the joint, and then make a thick iron pipe. On the outside of this iron pipe, heat and forge it into one piece. After completion, use a drill to drill the gun bore smooth and straight.

This barrel is easy to say, but it is really difficult to make. It requires the craftsmen who build the barrel to have very high skills, and it also takes more than ten days to make a lot of special tooling to create a qualified barrel. If the craftsmanship of the gun barrel is not good, the scrap rate of the barrel is very high. In recent years, in order to explore the technology, we have scrapped a lot of gun barrels. We can’t even remember how much iron was consumed. If the emperor hadn’t opened up to us With the supply of iron, it will probably take a long time to make this matchlock gun. "

Li Xin nodded and said: "Well, how far can this gun shoot?"

Chen Gui replied: "Your Majesty, we have tested it and the longest range can reach one hundred meters, but the power of one hundred meters is not enough. The best power of this gun is within seventy meters."

Li Xin asked: "Can you try it now? Let me see with my own eyes the power of this matchlock gun."

Chen Gui nodded and said: "Yes, yes, it's just the shooting range."

Li Xin said: "There is an archery range in the palace, let's experiment directly there."

Chen Gui bowed and said, "I obey your order."

Arriving at the shooting range in the palace, Chen Gui's men began to test-fire the matchlock gun. After the first test-firing, Li Xin stepped forward and looked at the bullet holes on the wooden target. The bullet holes on the wooden target hit the target very well. Densely, basically concentrated in the white bullseye area the size of the mouth of a bowl. Only the first two shots landed outside the bullseye because they were not aimed. After subsequent adjustments, the impact point of the projectiles became much more accurate.

"When testing, how far is the target from the muzzle?" Li Xin turned to Chen Gui and asked.

Chen Gui quickly replied: "To return to the emperor, we have just started the test shooting, and we didn't dare to set the target too far away. We placed it thirty meters away."

Li Xin observed the wooden target. The thickness of the wooden target was about an inch or so. The several rounds of test shots all penetrated the wooden target, indicating that the shooting power of this matchlock gun was quite good, at least. When shooting at unprotected targets, a distance of thirty meters can basically guarantee sufficient kinetic energy to ensure lethality against living targets.

So Li Xin nodded and said: "Yes, but thirty meters is a bit close. Let's try again. Place the target at a distance of fifty meters and seventy meters and try again for accuracy and power."

So the shooting range became busy again, and gunshots were heard from time to time. According to Li Xin's request, the wooden targets were placed fifty meters and seventy meters away.

The result of the test is that at a distance of fifty meters, the accuracy and power of this matchlock gun can still be guaranteed. The impact point distribution of the musket has only expanded a bit, but it is still within an acceptable range. The impact point is concentrated on the size of a washbasin. Although not all of the one-inch-thick wooden boards were penetrated, most of the muskets still effectively penetrated the thick wooden boards. This means that within fifty meters, the projectiles fired from this barrel can still kill people alive. Cause fatal damage to the target.

But after reaching seventy meters, the fire rate of the matchlock gun began to decrease significantly. On the large desktop target used as the target, the bullets began to miss the target, and the power of the projectiles also dropped sharply. It was also concentrated on the lower part of the target, and could no longer effectively penetrate the board.

Therefore, the effective range of this matchlock gun is only about fifty meters, and it can be used between fifty and seventy meters. But after seventy meters, the kinetic energy of the bullets begins to be seriously consumed, making the fired bullets The power and accuracy can no longer be guaranteed. Hitting the target basically depends on God's care, and if the target is protected by armor, there is no guarantee of effective killing of the target.