Poor Family Chapter 942

  Chapter 942 Mysterious Firearm

Jingzhaojun's firearms research and development and testing site is located on the west bank of Bashui, 20 miles north of Chang'an City. There is a small basin here, with a radius of about ten miles, surrounded by continuous mountains, many caves in the mountains, and relatively dry air, which is very suitable for Manufacture and development of firearms.

   In the afternoon, under the **** of a thousand cavalry, Li Yanqing brought a group of important officials here.

  Everyone was immediately attracted. It turned out that the famous Thunderbolt was created here. At this time, a 'Boom! ' There was a muffled sound, but the sky was very clear and there was no sign of rain.

  Li Yanqing smiled and said to the crowd: "This should be an experiment in shaking the sky."

   Liu Kai asked suspiciously: "Zhentianlei should be a very mature firearm, do we need to continue testing?"

   "Of course it is necessary. Constantly change the gunpowder formula to make the explosion more powerful, or experiment with various special thunderbolts. For example, the explosion sound just now exploded on the Bashui River. It is very likely that it is an experiment in the water.

   "What does the thunder in the water look like?" Wu Jie asked curiously.

"Actually, the principle is very simple. It is a big wooden box, and the Thunderbolt is fixed inside the box. After lighting the match, cover the lid, then put it into the water, and let it float down the river to the middle of the river to explode. It is usually used to blow up floating bridges and the like. , You can also blow up the boat. If you have time when you come back, I will take you to see it. Now let's go to the shooting range.”

  At this time, there was another explosion from the direction of Bashui, which stirred up a stream of white water, which was more than a foot high.

  Everyone looked in the direction of the explosion, but the shooting range was in another direction, so they had to wait to see if there was time when they came back.

Not long after, everyone came to the shooting range. This is an archery range. In everyone's memory, the archery range is used to test the rockets in the firearms, the fire kite or the latest bursting crossbow. The bursting crossbow is also a new type that appeared at the beginning of the year. A firearm is a two-inch-long sealed thin bamboo tube filled with explosive gunpowder, which is so powerful that it can burst a shield. It is mixed with iron sand. When it explodes, the iron sand splashes, which is also a potential injury to the soldiers' eyes.

  This kind of bursting bamboo tube is usually tied to the arrows of the **** arm crossbow or the city defense bow, so it is called the bursting crossbow. It is actually an upgraded version of the gunpowder arrow.

  At this time, there happened to be a row of ten soldiers who were half-kneeling and shooting. Everyone was immediately attracted by the firearm in the soldier's hand. It turned out to be a six-foot-long black pipe. They only saw an order, 'Bang! boom! boom! ' There was a loud noise, and puffs of white smoke came out of the mouth of the iron pipe.

   "What is this?" Everyone asked in surprise.

   "This is called a firecracker!"

Li Yanqing smiled and introduced to them: "A powerful shooting weapon has been developed for six years before it is successful. The key is the material. At the beginning, it was made of cast iron pipes. After various failures, it was finally decided to use copper pipes. , easy to cast, smooth in the tube, not easy to blow the tube.”

  Li Yanqing took a firecracker and handed it to everyone, "Let's have a look!"

From the appearance point of view, this is not the first firecracker that appeared in history. The historical firecracker appeared at the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty. Li Yanqing advanced it by more than a hundred years, and made an excellent wooden buttstock , you can shoot with the **** of the gun. From the appearance, it is completely a matchlock musket of later generations.

   "What did it shoot out?" Zhang Shuye asked.

Li Yanqing took a lead bullet the size of a little finger from a soldier, and said to everyone with a smile: "That's it, the killing distance is 200 steps, a little farther than the God Arm Crossbow, but its armor-piercing effect is better than the God Arm Crossbow." stronger."

  Seeing that everyone was still confused, he smiled and said to a soldier, "Demonstrate it to everyone!"

   "Follow the order!"

The soldier turned the gun barrel upwards and took out a tube of gunpowder. The tube was a bamboo tube with a cover on it. A tube of gunpowder happened to be the explosive gunpowder needed for one shot. It was very standard. The soldier poured all the gunpowder into the gun tube and pulled it out. A long iron bar poked the gunpowder tightly, and put the lead bullet in.

He immediately set up his shooting support, put a spoonful of igniting gunpowder from his waist into the gunpowder pool, took out a five-inch long match rope and inserted it into the gunpowder pool, at this time he pulled out the fire bag from his back waist and flicked it. Immediately it ignited, the soldier lit the matchlock, retracted the fire pocket, and immediately assumed a shooting posture, aiming at a straw man a hundred steps away in front of him.

   For a moment, just hear 'Bang! ' There was a sound, a puff of sparks and white smoke spewed out from the nozzle, and the buckshot shot away quickly, 'Crack! ' Right in the middle of the straw man.

  Everyone was stunned again. After a long while, Li Guang stammered: "Jing Lue Shi, this is too troublesome!"

  Li Yanqing smiled slightly: "It looks troublesome, but you are proficient. In fact, it is the same as the magic arm crossbow. It was just shown to everyone, so I deliberately slowed down the movement. Next, everyone will read it again."

  It was still the same soldier, I saw him pouring medicine, loading ammunition, filling medicine, lighting the matchlock, and shooting, all in one go, as fast as clouds and flowing water, even a little faster than shooting with the **** arm crossbow.

  Everyone nodded their heads. Sure enough, after proficiency, it is extraordinary, and it looks very pleasing to the eye.

  At this time, Li Yanqing waved, "Bring it up!"

  Two soldiers carried the straw man target over a hundred paces away. There was an armor on the straw man target. At this moment, Wu Jie and Xu Huiyan exclaimed in unison: "Cold forged armor!"

Everyone's eyes lit up. It turned out that this dark armor was Xixia's most famous cold-forged armor. It is said that it is extremely difficult to forge, and the success rate is very low. Xixia has only built thousands of pieces in the past century, except for the three thousand iron kite equipment. , the rest of the cold-forged armor was lost in the hands of the nobles of Xixia, and one of them unexpectedly appeared in front of them.

Li Yanqing introduced to everyone, "This is indeed cold-forged armor. A complete set of cold-forged armor includes cavalry armor and horse armor. Horse armor is slightly weaker than cavalry armor. I haven't been able to get it. This cavalry armor is for me. It was bought from a down-and-out nobleman in Xixia through the channel of the black party for three thousand taels of silver, everyone, please take a closer look!"

  Li Yanqing ordered the soldiers to peel off the cold-forged armor and unfold it for everyone to take a closer look. They saw that the thick cold-forged armor was covered with densely packed holes, and everyone was stunned.

  Liu Kai suddenly realized, "Is this what the firecracker pierced through?"

  Li Yanqing nodded, "If you can't penetrate a hundred and fifty steps away, you can penetrate it in a hundred steps. This is the secret weapon I told you about the iron kite."

  The iron kite is actually a heavy armored cavalry, impenetrable to arrows and impenetrable to spears. It has always been the Xixia army that the Song army feared the most. Now they finally have a weapon to restrain it, giving everyone hope.

Li Yanqing smiled and said nothing. In fact, not only firecrackers, but also the blasting thunder can kill iron kites in large numbers. Its huge shock wave can definitely kill iron kite cavalry. Although it has not been tested, Li Yanqing is full of enthusiasm. confidence.

At dusk, Zhang Shun led a middle-aged man into the Jinglue Mansion quickly, and two soldiers behind were still carrying a box. They waited in the yard for a while, and a soldier led them into Li The official room of Yanqing.

Li Yanqing had just returned from the firearms testing ground, and was playing with a firecracker brought back from the firearms base, which was actually an arquebus gun. Li Yanqing was amazed at the superb craftsmanship of the Song people, who could make such a slender and uniform long copper pipe. The grinding is extremely delicate. It is said that it takes craftsmen ten days to make one such copper tube, and it took two years for the craftsmen to make a thousand copper tubes.

With the current technology, it is not realistic to make internal spiral rifling, but Li Yanqing is considering whether it can be made into a flintlock gun. With the technology of the Song Dynasty, it should be feasible. As for how to do it, Li Yanqing will not think too much about it. Just put forward an idea, and the skilled craftsmen will naturally complete it according to his idea.

  At this time, a soldier reported at the door, "The commander of the scout battalion is here!"

   "Let him in!"

   After a while, Zhang Shun walked in, knelt down on one knee and saluted, and introduced the man behind him to Li Yanqing, "This is Tuobalu, chief of Xianghui Prefecture of the Black Party, owner of the Helan Old Sword Arms Shop."

  Tuoba Lu hurried forward to salute, Li Yanqing said with a smile: "You are welcome, please sit down!"

  Li Yanqing asked Tuobalu to sit down, and served tea to his soldiers. He smiled slightly and said, "Last time I made you worry about the cold forging!"

  Tuoba Lu hurriedly said: "Xiaomin got another piece of cold-forged armor this time. I wonder if Li Dutong is interested?"

  Li Yanqing's eyes lit up, "Did you bring it?"

"Brought it!"

Zhang Shun hurriedly asked the soldiers to carry the box in, opened the box, and it turned out to be a black cold-forged armor inside. Li Yanqing was so excited that he rubbed his hands. He took the previous one to test the gun, but he was still very regretful. If he gets another one, he will definitely use it to study counterfeiting.

He has always wanted to rebuild a heavy armored infantry to deal with cavalry, that is, the Mo Dao Army of the Tang Dynasty. The forging technology of the Mo Dao in the Tang Dynasty has disappeared, but the Song Dynasty also had a sword and a three-pointed double-edged sword. Ma Jian and Li Yanqing have studied it carefully, and the hardness is enough, but the sharpness and durability are not good enough. Until they cracked Xia Guojian's gold-filled forging method, they can already forge a new Mo Dao.

  Now what Li Yanqing needs is heavy armor, cold-forged armor is undoubtedly the best heavy armor, and finally got another one, if it can be cracked, he can imitate it in large quantities.

Li Yanqing simply put the cold-forged armor on the table and put it down, gently stroking the cold feeling on the armor. He suddenly found that this armor seemed to have never been worn, and the make was different. hammer armor.

   "Is this also purchased from that ruined nobleman?"

  Tuobalu shook his head, "I got this one from a Qiang family on Xihe Road."

  Li Yanqing was startled, seemed to think of something again, and hurriedly asked: "Could it be Qingtang Qiang?"

Cold forging armor was not invented by the Xixia people, but the ancestral unique skill of Qingtang Qiang living in Huangzhou. The armor they forged was also regarded as a treasure in the Song Dynasty, called the Jiazijia. There are detailed forging records in "Mengxi Bi Tan". But I didn't remember it all, so the armor forged in the Song Dynasty was not as strong as that forged by Qingtang Qiang. Later, Qingtang Qiang was attacked by the Xixia army and they were all taken captive to Xixia. This armor forging technology was handed down in Xixia.

Tuobalu nodded, "It is the one left by Qingtang Qiang. They haven't forged armor for nearly 50 years, but they still keep the forging method of cold forging armor. This time, Xiaomin brought three old men. , they can dictate a full set of forging methods for cold forging armor."

  Li Yanqing was overjoyed, God helped him, with the forging method of cold forging armor, he could rebuild the Song Dynasty's heavy armored Modao army, so why be afraid of Jurchens' iron cavalry?

  (end of this chapter)

Chapter end