A small fire rope, but it is a strategic material of the Tang military, the production method is extremely secret, and the process formula is a state secret. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Of course, this production process was taken out by Li Chao and then dedicated to the imperial court. Li Shimin also issued a special decree to commend him, and also rewarded Li Chao with 500 yuan.

Historically, it took hundreds of years for arquebuses to appear.

But actually, this thing is not difficult. It is to roll a few strands of hemp into a rope, and then boil it in vinegar or soak it in a solution of combustible substances before drying.

After this kind of fire rope is made, it is smoldering when it burns, and it burns very slowly, but it is difficult to light it. It was because of this arquebus that arquebuses were created later.

Before that, it was directly used to light the gunpowder in the fire door with red wire or charcoal.

And now that Li Chao has a fire rope and a fuse, of course there is no need to be so troublesome.

Sitting on the boat, all the way down the river, occasionally going ashore to rest, replenish grain and grass, etc. These days, Li Chao is studying his musket, or arquebus, on the ship every day.

Historically, the musket gun was very large when it was first invented, and it had to be operated twice. Later, arquebuses were made shorter and ropes were hung on the body of the guns, so that when fighting, soldiers could hang the guns around their necks, and then hold the guns in their left hands to aim, and light them with their right hands.

There were blacksmiths on the ship, these people were originally repairing armor and weapons, Li Chao called them over and explained to them carefully what they needed.

Barrel, bayonet.

They also hired carpenters and asked them to make the body of the gun according to their own requirements.

The historical musket gun was actually a stick with a barrel on it.

The body of this straight stick is very inconvenient to hold and is not conducive to aiming. Li Chao simply came up with a doctrine and changed the spear, which was originally seven or eight feet long, to only three feet.

In fact, this length is far beyond the rifles of later generations, after all, most rifles are less than three feet long. But Li Chao considered that at this time, he would definitely have to fight closely, so he finally adopted a three-foot length.

The butt also has the shape of a rifle butt, with a crosshair on the barrel.

However, this gun can't withstand the arquebus of later generations, Li Chao's gun barrel is very short, because the longer the barrel, the more difficult the process, in addition, Li Chao's gun does not have a bolt, so naturally it cannot be directly pulled the trigger and ignited with the arquebus.

To put it bluntly, the arquebus still requires too high a process, and the manufacturing difficulty and cost are large.

Maybe Li Chao will improve it into an arquebus in the future, but now he must only research and make a musket. In addition, a harness and a sleeve bayonet were added to the gun.

The craftsmen were very skilled, and they didn't know the role of muskets, but Li Chao ordered them to come down, and they made them.

All hand-made according to the size of the drawing.

Because it was a musket, the barrel was very short, so it was not as difficult to shoot as the barrel of the later bird-gun guns. The bird gun in the Ming and Qing dynasties was already a very advanced arquebus. Not only is the structure of the bolt more and more complex, but also the barrel is very long, the longer the barrel, the more difficult it is to build, in order to ensure that the chamber is not blown up, it is necessary to drill out the chamber by drilling the chamber method, which is very slow and the pass rate is also low.

But the barrel that Li Chao now asks the craftsmen to build is only very short, so the process is not very difficult.

Another advantage of such a gun is that there are not too many requirements for bullets, not as good as birds, and the bullets have to fit the barrel. When it came to the later rifled guns, the bullets were more demanding.

Now, iron sand, gravel and everything can be used, just fill it in, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a bullet with the barrel.

Under the careful research and construction of the blacksmiths, especially with Li Chao, the designer, to guide them to the key points, the manufacture of the musket was very smooth.

The Great Wall No. 7 is the seventh test product, and it is also the gun that is most in line with Li Chao's mind at present.

In appearance, it is almost the same as the arquebus in the Ming Dynasty, with a front sight and a door, a butt that can shoot against the shoulder, and a gun body that is conducive to aiming.

However, this gun does not have a bolt part, this gun has a fire door, which contains gunpowder, and when shooting, you need to hold the fire rope to ignite the gunpowder in the fire door, and then ignite the gunpowder in the gun chamber to fire the bullets in the gun chamber.

In fact, it is not so difficult to add a bolt.

The Great Wall No. 6 is an arquebus with a bolt. According to Li Chao's drawings, the craftsmen made a groove on the outside of the butt, which contained a serpentine rod, one end of the rod was fixed, and the other end formed a trigger, which could be rotated, and there was a clip to hold the fire rope.

There is a powder disc at the rear end of the barrel, and when fired, as long as the trigger is pulled and the nose is pressed down, the burning fire rope enters the powder disc, ignites the gunpowder, and shoots the bullet out.

However, after careful calculation, Li Chao felt that after the Great Wall No. 6 added a bolt, the rate of fire could indeed become faster, but the manufacturing cost and difficulty of a gun would rise sharply.

In the end, Li Chao decided to slow down, no matter how fast the arquebus was, but if the barrel couldn't keep up, the range was actually limited, and it was unrealistic to expect such an arquebus to become the main force on the battlefield.

Subtracting the part of the bolt, there is no need to ignite the fuse, but directly holding the fire rope to ignite the gunpowder in the fire door, Li Chao feels that it is much simpler, especially the time, difficulty and cost of manufacturing, which have plummeted.

In the history of warfare, it is not that the more powerful the weapons are used, on the contrary, many simple weapons have eliminated those powerful weapons, such as many ordinary arms, and some powerful weapons have been eliminated.

The armor and cavalry equipment that prevailed during the Northern and Southern Dynasties were eventually replaced by those spearmen. The expensive and sharp weapon of the horse lance was replaced by a wooden-pole lance.

Just because of the three words of cost performance.

Although many classes are not as powerful, they have faster training cycles, equipment costs, replenishment speeds, etc.

A good horse lance has to be made for three years, which is expensive, but a wooden gun is much simpler, and the cost of making a horse lance can make hundreds of wooden guns. Raise one armored cavalry, maybe a hundred pikemen.

After a heavy cavalry is killed, it is very difficult to replenish it, not only is the equipment valuable, but also the training period is longer, and the requirements for soldiers and horses are extremely high.

But a hundred ordinary light infantry were killed, but it was very easy to add a hundred, and a hundred peasants were requisitioned and given a spear, and they became a hundred pikemen.

In the end, history eliminated the heavy cavalry and eliminated the horse lance, and this is the trend.

Just like bows and arrows and muskets, in the early days, muskets were completely incomparable to bows and arrows. But on the other hand, the training cycle of musketeers is shorter, the training cost is less, and the requirements for soldiers are not high, even young and old men and women can operate, and if there are a certain number, the power is just as amazing.

On the contrary, an archer is not so easy to train, it takes a long time to train and become a good archer, and the archer also has high requirements for the physical fitness of the soldiers, and even on the battlefield, a soldier can not actually shoot many bows in a row, and his strength will be exhausted.

And musketeers do not have the problem of not being able to shoot continuously.

Great Wall Six has higher performance, but it is less cost-effective.

On the contrary, the Great Wall No. 7 has no bolt and relies on manual ignition, but the operation is simple, the production cost is low, and the production cycle is short.

When he held this three-foot long gun, put the butt on his shoulder, put the body of the gun on his cheek, and with the help of the front sight and the door, when he hit the trunk of the tree in front of him with a shot in thirty steps, a group of generals were all exclaimed.

This musket, which seemed to them to be very short, was even more powerful.

Walking to the tree, there were several grains of iron sand embedded in the tree.

Great Wall No. 7 can be loaded with iron balls or lead bullets, or directly loaded with iron sand, or even stones.

Loaded with iron sand, it becomes a shotgun.

"This is very powerful, I guess ordinary armor can't stop it at all."

Zheng Rentai was excited, damn, his own Shenji Battalion, wouldn't he become the first elite of Datang now.

Li Chao just smiled, he didn't think that a musket could dominate the world. In fact, the musket was far less powerful than the crossbow.

The range is short, the rate of fire is slow, and it takes more time to reload after a fight.

In Li Chao's opinion, this musket is actually not equipped for elite troops, but for those cannon fodder troops.

Those miscellaneous troops, bows and horses are not skilled, and may even be not good at military morale, and their personal martial arts are insufficient. But if they are equipped with muskets, then they don't need to have any brave personal martial arts, they don't need to be strong, they don't even need to be good at archery, and they don't need to be good at spearing, because musketeers don't really need much.

The physical fitness of the soldiers is not high, and they do not need to be very skilled in archery and horse skills, anyway, the musket can be fired, and they don't even need to shoot well, because with the accuracy of this musket, it can basically only rely on luck, to exert its power, it is still necessary to close the distance of the platoon gun, relying on tactics such as three-stage style.

Therefore, the key to musketeers is to form a numerical scale, to fight closely, and to rely on platoons to win.

Isn't this kind of tactic a cannon fodder tactic?

"Okay, there's another musket here, tentatively named Yanshan No. 1, to test his power."

Li Chao waved his hand, and the craftsman took out a new musket.

This musket is completely different from the Great Wall No. 7.

He was shorter, with a barrel only a foot long, and what was even more peculiar was that the gun actually had three barrels.

Together, the three barrels looked like a stingless fange.

Li Chao picked up the three-eyed gun, loaded the gunpowder projectile, and then ignited the gunpowder to shoot.

After the bang, Li Chao didn't stop, he turned the handle of the gun, ignited again, didn't reload at all, and the bang rang again.

And then go on.

Three shots in one shot.

In the end, Li Chao really used the empty three-eyed gun as an iron hammer and directly smashed a spear.

Zheng Rentai and Cheng Chumo and other generals were all stunned.

They didn't expect that there would be such a firearm, which could be fired three times in one shot, and it could be used as a hammer directly after the fight.

For generals like Zheng Rentai and Cheng Chumo, they simply love this kind of musket that can shoot and smash.

"Xiangguo, is this musket called Yanshan No. 1, it's really sharp, this gun is good, this gun is more powerful than the Great Wall No. 7. The Great Wall No. 7 can only shoot one shot at a time, this one can be used as three shots, and it can also be used as a hammer, okay. ”

The Great Wall No. 7 can also be used as a long gun with a bayonet, but it is just a little short gun, and with a bayonet, it is only more than four feet.

The Three-Eyed Gun is shorter, but in their opinion, this can be used as their blunt weapon. The generals of the Tang Army basically will be equipped with one or two blunt soldiers to break the armor of the enemy generals.

What kind of steel whip, copper mace, iron bones, etc., now this three-eyed gun is very much to their liking.

"This Yanshan No. 1 has three gun holes, so it's better to call it a three-eyed gun." Yu Chi Baolin said on the side.

Li Chao smiled, "Then let's call it a three-eyed gun!" ”