My life skills in Daming Liver - Chapter 660

c650 smokeless gunpowder

Seeing that everyone was silent, Li Rushe said:

“The goal of our Jurchens is to occupy the outside of the pass. This would have been impossible before, but now that the Central Plains is in chaos, we still have a chance.”

Li Ruzhen is a careerist, but he is not a lunatic.

He participated in the decisive battle of Dagu and also fought with the Southeast New Army in Shandong. He is very aware of the current combat effectiveness of the Southeast.

Not to mention the southeast, even Li Ruzhen, the new army of the Ming Dynasty, was not sure of dealing with it.

What he plans is to separatist power outside the customs.

And the idiot Li Rusong made it possible to achieve this goal.

Even Li Ruzhen did not have to rebel against the Ming court, as long as he could obtain autonomy outside the customs.

Li Ruzhen said:

“I have sent envoys to contact North Korea. As long as we can get the canonization of the Grand Governor of the Southeast, we can raise troops to occupy the outside of the pass!”

“We can pay tribute to the southeast just like North Korea, and in the future, just outside the customs can become a vassal state like North Korea!”

Li Ruzhen’s wishful thinking was loud and clear, and his envoy had already crossed the Yajiang River.

According to his political understanding, Su Ze would not let go of this opportunity to weaken the Ming court. As long as Guanwai could become an independent vassal state like North Korea, the Jurchens would have a chance to develop.

Of course, he cannot have the ambition to annex the world, but as long as he can be a king outside the customs, the Jurchens can absorb the technology of the Han people and develop it.

As for the upper limit of Jurchen development in the future, it depends on the development of future generations.

Li Ruzhen’s wishful thinking was very loud. As long as it could be independent and independent like the Bohai Kingdom in history, it would be enough.

But he obviously miscalculated a little.

Nanjing, before the New Year, Su Ze came to the shooting range outside Nanjing.

Nowadays, most of the artillery in the southeast have achieved boring production, that is, after the steel billet of the artillery body is produced, a special drill bit is used to pull out the barrel.

Last year, Eunuch Hu’s disciple, Eunuch Xiaoyou, improved the technology of the muzzle drilling machine so that this technology could be used for drilling the bore of muskets.

From then on, muskets in the southeast also began to be produced with drilled bores.

Originally, the gun barrel was continuously forged into a barrel shape by hand. This method was not airtight enough, and the diameters of the produced gun barrels were different.

The advantage of using drilled bore production is that the caliber of the muskets is unified, the air tightness is better, and the lethality of the muskets has reached a new level.

For this matter, Su Ze specially rewarded Little Eunuch You with a large sum of money.

Encouraged by Little Eunuch You, the craftsmen of the entire ordnance factory continued their efforts, and soon another important invention was created.

rifling.

Some craftsmen discovered that the internal spiral rifling of some drilled muzzles that had not been polished could make the bullet more powerful and its flight trajectory more accurate.

When this was discovered, the craftsmen immediately began experiments, and finally determined that the rifling caused the bullet to rotate, and the rotating bullet was more stable and more penetrating.

After discovering this, craftsmen invented a special rifling machine, which could create the desired rifling for the barrel, which greatly enhanced the power of the musket.

Technologies such as striking springs and flint firing triggers have also gradually matured, and the development of musket technology can be said to be rapid.

The development of muskets also led to the development of gunpowder technology. Today Su Ze saw the old Eunuch Hu.

“Hu Gong!”

This old eunuch who oversees the mines can be regarded as Su Ze’s earliest investor, and he has a transcendent status within the Southeast system.

Eunuch Hu’s status is not only because he was the first to “follow the dragon”, but also because he holds a number of technical patents, which greatly changed the course of the war.

In addition to weapons, Eunuch Hu’s inventions can also be found in fields such as medicine and materials. His name has appeared in the textbooks of Tiangong Academy many times.

Su Ze respected Eunuch Hu very much. In these years, apart from giving lectures at Tiangong Academy, Eunuch Hu spent every day in his laboratory.

However, Eunuch Hu is already quite old. He accidentally broke his leg a while ago. Although Li Shizhen personally diagnosed it as nothing serious, it is already difficult to recover at this age.

Su Ze personally designed and manufactured a wheelchair for Eunuch Hu.

Eunuch Hu said:

“Grand Governor, my subordinate’s research has finally made progress, so I hurriedly invited the Grand Governor to come over.”

Su Ze was followed by important ministers from the southeast. They all respected Eunuch Hu very much, but since Eunuch Hu’s research was a highly confidential project, they didn’t know exactly what he was researching.

“Xiao Yuzi, let me demonstrate this to you adults.”

Everyone saw that Eunuch You, who was already the general office of the Nanjing Ordnance Factory, was being called around by Eunuch Hu like an assistant, and everyone couldn’t help but feel a strange feeling.

The relationship between Eunuch Hu and Eunuch You was that of master and apprentice, as well as father and son. Eunuch You immediately picked up a musket, but this time he did not load gunpowder, but stuffed a white cotton ball into the gun.

Eunuch You loaded bullets at the back of the barrel. With the development of rifling technology, this kind of rear-loading musket has gradually become the mainstream loading method.

Everyone was still a little confused. Isn’t this just an ordinary percussion musket? This type of musket is already common in the Southeast.

But Su Ze saw the doorway and saw Eunuch You pull the trigger. The gun immediately fired and the bullet hit the target in front of him.

Everyone was still confused, but Su Ze walked over and took the gun and asked excitedly:

“No cigarette?”

Only then did everyone realize that they had all seen muskets before. When fired, they would emit a large amount of smoke and produce a large amount of fire.

Therefore, the battlefield is filled with gunpowder smoke, and soldiers sometimes need to cover their mouths and noses with cotton cloth to endure the unpleasant smell.

The smoke brings not only a pungent smell, but the smoke will expose the target, and the smoke will leave residues of gunpowder and soot in the gun chamber. Soldiers must clean the gun chamber before the next shot.

The musketeers in the southeast have been trained very well, and have reached the first-class level in terms of reloading speed. However, there are many factors that restrict the shooting speed, and the musket itself is also a restriction.

That’s why smokeless gunpowder has become the most important technological point in the history of firearms development, and Su Ze has been promoting this research.

It’s just that since he became the governor, Fang Ruolan and the ministers in the southeast have refused him to engage in gunpowder research. After all, this research is very dangerous. If the governor blows himself up, it will be an eternal joke.

Moreover, there were many matters in the southeast, and Su Ze only left them to Tiangong Academy for research.

Unexpectedly, after such a long time, it was Eunuch Hu who came up with the research results first.