Author: Scholar Wu

Just when everyone was full of expectations and thought that there was something shocking in the fifth tip bag.

But I was disappointed to find that there was only one sentence in it: "Looking for Lord Song Yingxing."

Gu Yanwu said: "This Lord Yingxing of the Song Dynasty served as the magistrate of Bozhou, Fengyang Prefecture, Nanzhili in the 16th year of Chongzhen."

"In the first year of Hongguang (1645), Song Yingxing was recommended to be awarded the Chuhe Bingxing Road and the Nanrui Bingxing Road, but the Song masters refused to accept the offer and are now missing. They must be living in seclusion in the countryside."

Qian Mo said: "Master Song Yingxing is proficient in all kinds of casting, machinery, and calculation methods. If we can find Master Song to come out and take charge of the construction of the fortress, we will get twice the result with half the effort."

"I remember that Mr. Song is from Fengxin County, Nanchang Prefecture. Xiaoyin, please inform Qian Ning to quickly establish a contact point in Nanchang Prefecture and be sure to find Mr. Song."

"Tiangong Kaiwu" written by Song Yingxing is known as the encyclopedia of Chinese crafts in the 17th century.

His main contribution is that he made a summary of the knowledge of agricultural production and handicraft production that has appeared in China for thousands of years, and also made a summary of technical experience.

And systematize and organize them, and then write them into books so that they can be passed down.

The books written by Song Yingxing include agriculture, handicrafts, production technologies such as machinery, bricks and tiles, ceramics, sulfur, candles, paper, weapons, gunpowder, textiles, dyeing, salt making, coal mining, oil extraction and other production technologies.

In terms of agriculture, Song Yingxing made detailed records of the entire production process of rice seed soaking, breeding, seedling beating, and cultivating.

Although Qian Mo, as a later generation, has some knowledge of physics and chemistry, and he is a military fan, he has also seen some posts on ancient technological improvements on many military forums.

But what you learn on paper is ultimately shallow. If you ask Qian Mo to do these things by himself, he can't do it. At least not in the short term. Qian Mo can't turn into a scientist and make inventions all day long.

experiment.

It is possible to give some directional suggestions to professionals and help them break through some technical barriers.

Therefore, Qian Mo urgently needs to find a comprehensive Ming Dynasty scientist like Song Yingxing to work together to overcome some technical difficulties.

If you want to quickly build a bastion, you can only make cement.

Qian Mo knew that with the technology of the Ming Dynasty, the blast furnace temperature could not reach above 1,600 degrees. This technology was only conquered by Europeans in the 18th century.

Therefore, it is impossible to produce cement in the modern sense under the current conditions.

In 1756, British engineer J. Smeaton discovered when studying the properties of certain limes that harden in water: To obtain hydraulic lime, limestone containing clay must be used for firing;

The ideal composition of masonry mortar for underwater construction is composed of hydraulic lime and volcanic ash. This important discovery laid a theoretical foundation for the research and development of modern cement.

In 1796, the Englishman J. Parker fired a kind of cement from marl, which was brown in appearance and very similar to the mixture of lime and volcanic ash in ancient Rome, and named it Roman cement.

Because it uses natural marl as raw material and is fired directly without ingredients, it is also called natural cement. It has good hydraulic hardness and quick-setting characteristics, and is especially suitable for projects in contact with water.

There are no volcanic rocks near Zhejiang, so there is no need to think about "natural cement".

Qian Mo's goal is to find natural marl and use this marl to directly bake "modern cement."

Although this kind of cement is the prototype of modern cement, the artillery of this era is not very powerful and can completely cope with it.

Although I do not have the ability to build a blast furnace with a furnace temperature of 1,600 degrees or even 2,000 degrees to refine higher quality steel.

However, under the guidance of the blacksmith, he could improve the existing bellows, use high-quality coal to increase the furnace temperature to over 1,400 degrees, and add this marl to burn the original "modern cement".

Qian Mo remembered that there were a large amount of marl resources in Tianmu Mountain, which was one of the reasons why Qian Mo chose Tianmu Mountain as his base. The rich mineral resources could be directly utilized.

Marl is often distributed in the transition zone between limestone and claystone, and is sandwiched between layers of limestone or clay in the form of thin layers or lenses.

Qian Mo ordered people to find some miners who had mined before and told them to go to the Tianmu Mountain area to look for an earthy yellow stone among the limestone with clay. Those who found it would be rewarded heavily.

Tianjiazhuang itself has a blacksmith shop and various workshops. In addition, various craftsmen were brought back from Jinshanwei. Qian Mo decided to transform Tianjiazhuang into a production base for various workshops for the production of materials.

In addition to military supplies, other products such as textiles can also be produced and sold to provide stable economic income for the rebels.

After all, there are not always big and arrogant traitors like Tian's father and his son, and robbery is not a long-term solution.

Otherwise, wouldn't he, the dignified Governor Su Song of the Ming Dynasty, turn into another Li Zicheng?

On the other side, Xia Wanchun negotiated with Gu Yanwu and the battalion leaders to decide on the site for the fortress.

Everyone agreed that Tianjiazhuang is not suitable for reconstruction. Although Tianjiazhuang has some ready-made village wall watchtowers, the main body of the bastion as the core needs to be built on higher ground. It would be too difficult to reconstruct Tianjiazhuang, and it would also destroy the village.

Some existing facilities in Tianjiazhuang.

So we chose the location on a small highland on the right side of Tianjiazhuang. It is condescending and can rely on Tianjiazhuang.

After completing the site selection, we first set up a temporary camp outside Tianjiazhuang, and then began to clear the foundation on the high ground.

After the marl is found, the marl from Tianmu Mountain can be burned into cement and transported back to build the bastion.

Now the Taihu Rebels just need to have a stable stronghold in Jiaxing, and there is no need to build a huge military fortress group.

Therefore, it is most appropriate to build a small fortress that can accommodate about a thousand people. After all, building such a fortress requires a lot of money and manpower.

The next step is how to increase the power of the gun.

In fact, the matchlock guns of this era had two fatal problems.

One is that its power is limited and the effective killing distance is very short.

The maximum effective killing distance for enemies wearing cotton armor is 30-50 steps (one step in the Ming Dynasty was about 1.6 meters).

Firing from a distance of more than 50 steps will basically not cause much damage. Facing some heavily armored Eight Banners soldiers wearing double cotton armor, it may be necessary to get within 20 steps to achieve effective damage.

The bird gun is a kind of matchlock gun. According to records, the matchlock gun was introduced to my country from the West through the hands of Japanese pirates during the Yongle period when the Japanese pirates were most rampant along the coast of my country. Because the gun is shaped like a bird's beak, it is also called the bird's beak gun.

The general structure of a bird gun is: gun barrel, gun body, bolt, and trigger. The bolt can rotate around the axis. One end is connected to the trigger, and the other end holds the burning match rope (after special treatment). When the trigger is pulled, the bolt is pressed down.

Use the match rope to light the fire door and fire it.

After the matchlock was introduced to the Ming Dynasty, it was copied in large numbers by the Military War Bureau and gradually became a standard firearm of the Ming army. In the Battle of Wanli Korea, it, together with other firearms, defeated the invading army of the Toyotomi thief.

The bird gun is a relatively stable and mature fire gun of the Ming Dynasty. All aspects of the data of the bird gun during the Yongle period are not inferior to the Western fire guns of the same period.

But over the past 200 years, firearms in the Western world have continuously improved their performance and have surpassed the Daming firearms.

Although the Ming Dynasty also attached great importance to firearms and invented many firearms, such as self-generated muskets (also known as flintlock guns), self-generated muskets were never officially equipped with the Ming army.

In 1598 (the twenty-sixth year of Wanli), Zhao Shizhen asked Duo Sima, the envoy of the Lumi Kingdom, for advice on the structure and production methods of the Lumi muskets. After improvement, he made the Lumi gun, which is an important upgraded version of the bird gun, the fire gun.

"Wu Bei Zhi" says: "Bird guns: only the Lumi gun is the farthest and most poisonous."

The entire shape and structure of the Lumi gun consists of the barrel, gun bed, curved stock, faucet and trigger, fire door, rails, front door, rear door, and aiming devices called rear sight and star.

The Rumi gun has more accurate shooting accuracy, a longer range, and is closer to modern rifles in structure.

However, the damage caused by Rumi's gun at close range is not as good as that of bird's gun.

The two are quite different, but the Lumi gun has a longer barrel, requires 1 jin of fine steel (10 jins of crude iron can be used to refine 1 jin of fine steel), and is more expensive.

Therefore, the bird gun is still the main equipment of the Ming army in the south, while the Ming army in the north prefers to use the "three-eyed gun".

The second problem is that the rate of fire is relatively slow, because the loading of the matchlock gun is more troublesome, which seriously affects the rate of fire.

The "three-stage attack" used by Huang Yu is actually not the three teams of people taking turns shooting with continuous firepower as everyone imagined.

The matchlock gun simply cannot reach this rate of fire.

Topaz's "three-stage attack" simply divides the original group of people into three groups to shoot, turning the original one-shot deal into three more layered continuations of firepower.

Therefore, the three shots in the first round of the "three-stage strike" did create the "illusion" of continuous firepower at the expense of the number of people fired in a single shot.

After these three groups of people finish shooting, there will be a certain interval between the second round of three shots.

Therefore, if the number of enemies Huang Yu faces each time is less than the number of his own fire guns, he can use the "three-stage attack" to complete an effective three-shot streak.

If there are too many opponents and the distance is relatively close, he will have no chance to display the second "three-stage attack".

Regarding the above two problems, Qian Mo had no way to create a self-made blunderbuss to completely solve them.

However, as a frequent visitor to the military forum of later generations, he can still provide certain optimization solutions.

Regarding the issues of power and distance, it can be achieved through "gunpowder granulation".

That is the "gunpowder granulation" technology. This technology that can improve the power of gunpowder also appeared in Europe around 1400. This was a revolution in gunpowder technology and an important turning point in the history of firearms.

Prior to this, people used powdered gunpowder as gunpowder (propellant) when using firearms. There were many disadvantages in using this form of gunpowder in combat, such as inconvenient transportation, uneven burning rate, and susceptibility to moisture.

Powdered black powder is easily squeezed together when it is stressed in the barrel, so that when ignited, it will not be completely burned due to lack of oxygen, which reduces the power of the gunpowder.

In order to solve this problem, early gunners would avoid loading the gunpowder too tightly, but it would not work too loosely, because this would also reduce the power of the gunpowder.

The best operation is to deliberately not fill the gun chamber too full or too tightly when loading gunpowder. However, although this can bring out the power of gunpowder, it requires a high level of experience and skill on the part of the gunman and is difficult for ordinary people to learn.

In addition, powdered gunpowder is also susceptible to moisture.

The technology of granulated gunpowder solves these problems. First of all, granulated gunpowder will delaminate after bumpy transportation. The largest particles will run to the bottom of the gunpowder barrel, and the smallest particles will run to the surface of the gunpowder barrel.

, but this will not affect the quality and use of gunpowder.

Secondly, the moisture absorption of granulated gunpowder is also much less than that of powdered gunpowder, because the ratio of surface area to volume of granular gunpowder is smaller, and it absorbs less moisture from the air. In the Age of Discovery, the best granular gunpowder

A graphite polisher is also used to polish away the pores on the gunpowder grains to reduce the hygroscopicity of the gunpowder and extend the storage period.

Finally, because granular gunpowder is in the form of granules, even when pressed, they do not fit tightly together and do not form a "whole" like powdered black powder. The gaps left between the granular gunpowder

, it is convenient for oxygen to play a supporting role in the combustion of gunpowder (facilitating flame diffusion), making the burning rate more uniform, and improving the efficiency of gunpowder combustion. Unlike powder gunpowder when shooting, a considerable part of the gunpowder that has not yet been ignited is sprayed out of the gun.

pipe, so its power is greatly increased.

Therefore, as long as the gunpowder is granulated, the power and range of the bird gun will be greatly improved. The specific performance needs to be tested before accurate data can be obtained. The most conservative estimate is that the effective killing range can be increased by at least 1/3.
To be continued...