"Tum!"
As the gunfire rang out, two puffs of white smoke rose from the fire cap and the muzzle at the rear of the gun, thirty meters away from the wooden target.
This is the Qing army equipment captured by Wang Yuanfang and others during testing at the shooting range.
"Sir, my lord! The young man's musket practice is over!" A Qing prisoner with a shaved head knelt on one knee, holding a musket in his right hand.
Around the prisoner stood ten soldiers armed with lever rifles. If a prisoner dares to make any unusual move, he will be shot at any time.
"Tell me again, what is the name of this gun?" When the prisoner said the name of the musket before, Ding Guofeng didn't hear it clearly.
"Sir, this gun is called the 'Xin Hui Bu Hua Sheng Qian', but the kids usually call it the 'Hui Hui Gun'."
The "Xinhuibu Huashang Gun" is a type of matchlock gun issued by the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Nearly two hundred of them were seized on the battlefield this time, and the others were ordinary shotguns.
The "Hui Hui Gun" is not heavy to acquire. Wang Yuanfang previously weighed the gun used by the prisoners. It weighed 3.96 kilograms (made in Qing Dynasty, six pounds and twelve taels); and he also let people distinguish other "Hui Hui Guns" of the same type. After weighing it, it was roughly around 4 kilograms, and the error was not too big.
It is said that the weight of the modern military Type 95 rifle is 3.25 kilograms, and the HK416A7 equipped by Zhao Xin for the six-man team of the Security Department is 3.69 kilograms.
(The weights and measures of the Qing Dynasty were not very accurate. According to the actual weights left behind, the weight of one tael was between 35 and 37 grams. A set of weights inside the Qing Palace was 35.05 grams for one tael. The length of a foot is also divided into There are three standards: tailoring ruler, floor measuring ruler, and construction ruler. The length of the construction ruler is 32 centimeters.)
The length of the gun body of the "Huihui Gun" is three feet, five inches and seven minutes. The barrel and bolt are all made of cast iron. The barrel is square-shaped, and the front sight and rear sight used for aiming are very delicate. The stock of the gun is made of basswood and painted black; there are three thin hemp ropes tied around the body of the gun; there are also two wooden forks used to support shooting under the butt.
(According to the provisions of the "Qing Hui Dian", the musket barrels of the Eight Banners of Manchuria are all painted yellow; the Eight Banners of the Han Army are black; the Green Camp of the Han Army is red.)
The gunpowder used for shooting this kind of gun is one cent and a half, and the projectile is made of iron. It weighs one cent and eight cents, which is 9 grams, and is more than half the size of the middle knuckle.
"Report to the instructor! The wooden plank has been punched through." A Beihai Town soldier came over carrying a wooden target.
Liu Sheng and others stepped forward to check and found that two 10-centimeter-thick wooden boards had been shot through.
Wang Yuanfang said: "It's not surprising. If they can't penetrate such a close distance, how can the Qing soldiers fight the Burmese! Continue, try fifty meters, one hundred meters, and one hundred and fifty meters! Ding Guofeng, I'll leave it to you to take charge here, and we'll go back first."
So this morning, the sound of muskets would be heard from time to time in the shooting range.
The soldiers in Beihai Town had a two-hour break every night after literacy classes, and then went to sleep.
Since the six-person team of the Security Department had to check wards and check posts every night, they took advantage of the two-hour gap to hold a meeting after class. Zhao Xin, Chen Qingsong, and even Liu Zheng, who claimed to be "queuing up to shoot the party," also came.
Liu Sheng took a thick stack of records and began to describe the morning's musket shooting drill.
"Let me first talk about the quality of the Qing soldiers' shotguns. Currently, the shotguns we have captured are divided into two types. One is the 'Xinhuibu Huashaoqiang', which is commonly known as the 'Huihui gun' by the Qing army; the other is an ordinary shotgun. About the two Everyone here has various data records for planting guns, so I won’t go into details.
It should be noted that the Manchu and Qing shotgun craftsmanship and production levels were quite good. We randomly selected 20 guns from each of the two types of muskets; after comparing the measurement results of weight and length, we found that they were basically consistent. The weight error shall not exceed 50 grams, and the length error shall not exceed 5 cm. "
Liu Zheng carefully read the data on the paper for a while, raised his hand and asked: "These are all matchlock guns! Then why do we need to equip soldiers with SKS! It would be great to let Zhao Liang make the 'Brown Bess'!"
Zhao Xin saw no one answered, so he said: "Let me explain this question. Based on the interrogations we have conducted on Qing prisoners these days, especially on the two Zhenglan Banner Firearms Battalion shotguns, gunxiao cavalry officers... This name is really long and convoluted!"
Everyone pursed their lips and smiled as Zhao Xin continued.
"This staff officer is Jia La Zhangjing; there is one Jia La out of the five Niu Lu in the Eight Banners. Based on the interrogation of these people, we learned that the Qing army was equipped with flintlock guns..."
"Ah?" Liu Zheng was stunned. Didn't he say that the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not have flintlock guns before the Opium War? Why is it different from what I know?
"As an aside, according to historical records, the Manchus came into contact with flintlock guns during the Kangxi period, that is, during the Second Battle of Yaksa, and captured some of them, but in the end they did not pay attention to them."
"Why?" Liu Zheng raised his hand again and asked. This habit of his is really good.
Deng Fei explained with a smile: "Because the advantages of the flintlock gun need another kind of equipment and a kind of tactics to be reflected."
Liu Zheng said excitedly: "I know! It's a bayonet!"
Deng Fei nodded: "The bayonet can turn the gun into a short spear, thereby gaining better close combat capabilities. However, the Qing soldiers do not need it!"
"Why? Could it be that the two iron forks under the matchlock can be used as bayonets?"
Liu Sheng explained: "Those two forks cannot be used as bayonets. Most gun forks are made of wood. Mainly because all musketeers are equipped with waist knives!"
The armament system of the Qing Dynasty was inherited from the Ming Dynasty. The Yanling Dao, Lancet Dao, and Yanchi Dao used in the Ming Dynasty army were all continued to the Qing Dynasty army. The waist knives commonly equipped by the Qing army are all in the shape of a wild goose feather. The sword is two feet six inches long and quarters long, and the blade is two feet two inches long.
Zhao Xin explained: "In the daily training of Qing soldiers, the assessment of swordsmanship is a very important part. If you switch to a flintlock gun and equip it with a bayonet, let alone anything else, the cold weapon training and assessment mode will require Make big changes.
Of course, for the emperor, whether to change or not seems to be a matter of one sentence; but for the entire solidified bureaucracy, it is a huge matter, and no one knows how many people's interest circles have to be broken. Unless the entire Qing Dynasty settles this account clearly, no one will take advantage of this bad luck and use it as a target. "
Changing the waist knife to a bayonet sounds simple, but it involves a major adjustment in the Manchu military system. Before suffering a major blow, no one in the Qing court would think this was a problem. Doesn't using a waist knife to fight the enemy in close combat show the bravery of a soldier?
Liu Sheng lit a cigarette and saw that Liu Zheng stopped asking questions, so he said: "Liu Zheng, I will ask your question later. I will finish the report first."
"OK."
"I just mentioned that the Qing army is now equipped with flintlock rifles, but most of the officers and soldiers are unwilling to use them. In addition to the Second Yaksa War mentioned above, the origin of the flintlock rifles is also the Huojizhan Rebellion in the northwest. and the Qing-Burmese War. We believe that the flintlocks of the Yaksa and Northwest Wars came from Tsarist Russia, while those on the Burmese side came from the British and French.
We have already talked about the bayonet of the flintlock gun. Another very important issue is the misfire rate. The prisoners of the Qing army all mentioned that although the reloading speed of the matchlock gun is slower... Oh, after our tests, the loading speed of experienced musketeers is two rounds per minute. ...The shooting accuracy and fire rate of the matchlock gun are higher than that of the flintlock gun. "
Although the flintlock muskets at the end of the 18th century were faster to load than matchlocks, the misfire rate was a very prominent problem. The solution to this problem had to wait until the "optimal chemical reaction equation for black powder" proposed by the British chemist Chevriery in 1825 after many experiments.
Based on this equation, the British formulated the optimal gunpowder ratio for guns and cannons. And in gunpowder production such as purification, crushing, mixing, pressing, drying and other processes, it has entered the mechanized production stage of modern factories.
The British used physical and chemical methods in the production of gunpowder, and used advanced industrial equipment to refine nitrate and sulfur of high purity; they used steam engines to drive drum-type devices to crush and mix the gunpowder raw materials; they used hydraulic machinery to crush and mix the gunpowder raw materials. The prepared gunpowder is placed on the grinder and pressed into solid and uniform particles, so that the gunpowder has a certain shape and density. Use a mechanical granulating cylinder to make gunpowder blocks into uniformly sized gunpowder granules; place the granular gunpowder in a drying room and dry it with a steam heater to keep it in a good dry state ready for use; use graphite The finished polishing machine polishes the surface of the gunpowder to remove pores and reduce hygroscopicity to extend the storage period of gunpowder.
These advanced processes ensure the excellent quality of British military gunpowder, which will still maintain good results even after long-distance shipping.
"Next, let's talk about the ammunition and kinetic energy of the matchlock gun. The charge of the 'Huihui gun' is 7.5 grams, and the bullet weighs 9 grams; the charge of the ordinary shotgun is 15 grams, and the bullet weighs 5 grams. The difference between the two guns The bullets are not lead bullets, but iron bullets.
This time we used two 10 cm thick pine boards to observe the shooting effect. According to the data obtained from the actual shooting demonstration, these two guns are most lethal within a distance of 30 meters. The return gun can penetrate two wooden boards, and the ordinary bird gun can only penetrate one. At a distance of 50 meters, the returning gun can penetrate a single board and a half, while the ordinary shotgun can only penetrate one board; at a distance of 100 meters, neither the returning gun nor the ordinary shotgun can penetrate a single board, but the penetration depth of the returning gun bullet is higher. More than regular shotguns.
Based on this result, we estimate that the muzzle kinetic energy of the return gun is between 2400 and 3200 joules, while the muzzle kinetic energy of the ordinary shotgun is between 900 and 1700 joules. "
"Sorry, let me interrupt." Liu Zheng raised his hand again, feeling that he had to ask. "Why do you mean the kinetic energy of the muzzle fluctuates so much?"
"This is what I want to talk about next, the issue of gunpowder." Liu Sheng put out his cigarette and took a sip of water. "We asked the musketeers among the prisoners and finally got the gunpowder ratio of the Qing army. This ratio is really touching!"
After Liu Sheng and others learned the gunpowder ratio data of the Qing army, they found that saltpeter accounted for 80%. The ratio is so unreasonable, no wonder the shooting distance is so "pleasant"!
After getting all the test data in the morning, Ding Guofeng, who was very curious, proposed to test it with the explosive powder of 7.62 rifle ammunition. So for the sake of safety, a team of six people from the security department worked hard for more than half an hour before they built a shelf that used nylon rope to pull the hair from a distance.
Taking into account the power of modern gunpowder, wooden targets were placed at a distance of 200 meters. The best-made retort gun was placed on a wooden shelf. Ding Guofeng stood two meters behind the wooden shelf and pulled his hair. Everyone struggled for a long time to find two explosion-proof shields to block in front of him.
By the time everything was ready, an hour had passed.
The results of the test were as expected. Two pine boards two hundred meters away were shot through! However, the barrel of the returning gun that had been fired many times was also exploded.
According to Deng Fei's calculations, if modern propellant is used, the effective shooting distance of the return gun can reach 500 meters.
"The Qing army's gunpowder production has obviously regressed compared to the Ming Dynasty! The Ming Dynasty also knew about granular gunpowder. The Qing army's current gunpowder is still hand-made, very rough powder gunpowder." Liu Sheng changed the topic and said with a smile: "However, this pair We’re good news!”
"The third question I want to talk about is the shooting training of the Qing army. Through the prisoner interrogation records provided by Mr. Zhao and what we asked, the shooting training of the Qing army is polarized.
Let’s talk about the Eight Banners first. The musketeers we captured this time were all from the Eight Banners of the Han Army. The cost of gunpowder and bullets for their shooting training was borne by the Qing court. Therefore, we have determined that the Manchu, Mongolian, and Han Eight Banners troops in the Qing army can conduct shooting training on a regular basis.
However, I learned from the captured firearms battalion commander that the Green Camp Musketeers in the inland areas were completely different from the Eight Banners. All the gunpowder and bullet costs during their training must be borne by the soldiers themselves and deducted from military pay! I think everyone here knows what this means. The more gunpowder bullets soldiers use in training, the more military pay will be withheld. Only a fool would actively participate in training! "
A burst of laughter rang out from inside the room. Liu Zheng stood up and refilled everyone's cups with water. He said excitedly, "This is really different from what I knew before."
Liu Sheng lit another cigarette and said with a smile: "I haven't finished speaking yet, and you can't even imagine what's going to happen next."
"The fourth point, and the last question, is the Qing army's musket array. Among the Qing soldiers we captured this time, there are several older ones who participated in the Qing-Burma War more than ten years ago. According to these people's confessions, the Qing army When the army was attacking the Burmese, the ratio of musketeers to archers in the army was about 4:1.
According to the historical information provided by Mr. Zhao, during the Fourth Qing-Burmese War, the Qing court's frontline strength was 18,900 troops. Excluding the 2,000 naval troops, the actual number was less than 17,000 troops. In addition to Myanmar's 30,000 troops, some French people also participated in the war.
According to the Qing army array diagram drawn by the prisoners, the Qing army had a musket phalanx! That is, a large phalanx of spearmen on the outside and musketeers on the inside. "
Liu Zheng raised his hand anxiously and asked: "Where is the artillery? Is the artillery in the center of the phalanx?"
Liu Sheng smiled and shook his head: "No, the artillery is arranged at the rear of the square formation. Its main function is to attack the enemy troops attacking on both wings, and to cover the large-scale charge and outflank of the cavalry."
"Understood?" Zhao Xin patted Liu Zheng on the shoulder and said, "You have already learned how to line up and shoot people! We don't have that many people playing this with the Qing army."
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