The Rise of the European Emperor

Although the hit rate had dropped to about 50% when shooting a target at a distance of 200 paces (300 meters), the knowledgeable Ming officials and soldiers were still shocked.

The Ming Dynasty had strict control over firearms. Why was the control so strict? Because the Ming Dynasty regarded firearms as a strategic weapon, it attached great importance to the issue of firearms. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, as long as they were civil officials who knew military affairs, they would not ignore firearms.

Therefore, when the Ming army was suppressed by the Houjin army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many officials pinned their hopes on the red barbarian cannons imported from the West, advocating the idea of ​​"cannon is the truth". For this, he was also blackmailed by the Portuguese. An 18-pound cast iron long gun cast in England cost no more than one hundred taels of silver, but it was sold by a black-hearted Portuguese businessman for an exorbitant price of one thousand taels. And the Ming Dynasty actually recognized it, and was willing to take the role of taking advantage of it.

In fact, the Fran cannon is more suitable for use as a land gun than the Hongyi cannon, which is used to strike the enemy. However, at that time, because the Ming Dynasty artillery did not have a movable gun mount, it was also difficult to transport the Fran cannon. In addition, the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty also made shoddy production of the Fran cannon, which resulted in a poor fit between the sub-gun and the mother cannon, and serious air leakage, which made the Fran cannon unusable.

In Marin's view, the Fran cannon with an effective range of 300 meters is actually more suitable as an infantry gun in front of the formation because of its fast rate of fire. Because, before the enemy's cavalry rushes in front of our phalanx, it's a matter of how many shots can be fired. Killing 5 sub-guns in one go can definitely cause great damage to the opponent. If the shotgun is loaded with shotguns, the damage will be even stronger.

However, Daming artillery has never had a good movable gun mount (the tiger squat gun has been fired on a chariot, but the power, range and rate of fire of the tiger squat gun are not good. It is a standard earth gun, but in the anti-Japanese China has also built a lot of meritorious deeds), generally the Fran cannons are mounted on the city head or on the fort, and naturally they cannot exert their advantages. The reason why the Fran Cannon was replaced by the Hongyi Cannon was because the Hongyi Cannon with a longer range was obviously more suitable for the city head and the fort. The Fran cannon, in fact, is most suitable to be placed in front of the formation. But the premise is that you need a modern gun mount that is easy to transport and quick to deploy...

This time, when Malin presented the Fran cannon, he dedicated the entire cannon with the modern gun mount to the Ming court. With the modern movable gun mounts, the Fran cannons will inevitably be brought to the battlefield in the future to bombard the enemy head-on.

...

On the shooting range, not only Liu Meng, a knowledgeable civil servant, was excited. Many other civil servants who are knowledgeable about military affairs, including generals such as Xu Yong, have also gradually seen the advantages of this new type of artillery - long range, great power, fast deployment and shooting speed, and it is an absolute weapon on the battlefield...

Just as the Daming officials and soldiers at the scene were all excited, Kong Tai coughed and said:

"Master Shen, Master Liu, General Xu, there are still muskets in our country that haven't been shown..."

Liu Meng was suddenly shocked,

Then he said expectantly:

"Ah, yes yes yes, I haven't seen the effect of the fire gun yet, Deputy Ambassador Kong, please show it to this old man!"

Then, Xu Yong, the commander of the Guangzhou avant-garde, immediately ordered Qianhu under his command to replace the gun targets in the shooting range of Qianhu with musket targets...

However, the current mainstream musket in the Ming Dynasty was the three-eyed gun. The three-eye gun is held in one hand. Generally, the fire gun holds the gun in the right hand and ignites the lead in the left hand to activate the three-eye gun.

The three-eyed guns are three iron pipes tied to the front of the wooden handle. When the fuze is ignited, it will fire three bursts. However, the reassembly of the three-eye gun is very troublesome and very slow. Therefore, after a round of shooting, the fire gunner will hold the three-eyed gun and use the three-eyed gun as a hammer to smash approaching enemies. The head of the three gun tubes tied together is indeed quite heavy. If it hits the enemy, it cannot kill the enemy immediately, and the more the enemy can be injured. Therefore, the main function of the three-eyed guns in the Daming army is to give the opponent a three-shot before the battle, and then the fire guns will become the hammer soldiers in melee combat...

Moreover, the range of the three-eye gun is very close, and the best range is generally only 30 steps (about 45 meters). Within 30 steps, you can defeat the heavy Kai and deal with the enemy's heavy armored cavalry.

It is precisely because of the existence of the three-eyed gun that the Mobei Mongolian tribes gradually abolished the heavy cavalry in the Ming Dynasty, and basically evolved into light cavalry. why? Because the daredevil cavalry in the era of Genghis Khan is useless. In front of the three-eyed gun, the heavy armored death squad also sent it. Later, the Manchus won because they used cotton armor that was more suitable for resisting muskets. And the cotton armour technique was also learned from the Ming Dynasty...

And beyond thirty paces, the three-eyed gun cannot hurt the heavily armored enemy. But at 50 steps, it can also damage completely unarmored enemies. But generally such unarmoured enemies are cannon fodder. Hitting them with three-eyed guns is also a waste of ammunition.

In general, the power of the three-eyed gun is about the same as the power of the short musket. Of course, the barrel length of the three-eye gun is also very short. If the length of the wooden handle is not counted, the length of the barrel is similar to that of a Western short musket, and its power is naturally similar.

The barrel of the matchlock gun is often more than one meter long. The longer the barrel, the faster the initial velocity of the bullet out of the muzzle, and the longer the range, and the same is true for the artillery. Therefore, the long-barreled matchlock gun brought by Marin is naturally much more powerful.

According to the shooting habit of the three-eyed gun, the gunners of the Guangzhou avant-garde set the target at a distance of 20 steps (Note: Although the three-eye gun has a 30-step armor-piercing distance, within 20 steps, It is convenient to aim. Within 20 steps and 30 steps, if you aim at this distance, you may not necessarily hit the target. The same is true for arquebuses, which can generally be aimed within 70 yards (63.7 meters). However, muskets are a bit hit outside the range of 50 meters. Nope. And the extreme lobster musketeer will force a wave of enemy fire, and will not fire until within 30 meters. Within this distance, even recruits can hit). Kong Tai saw that he was too close. So, I negotiated with Xu Yong and put the target at a distance of 30 steps...

"At a distance of 30 steps, are their muskets better than Daming's?" The Daming officials who were onlookers were discussing.

However, seeing the muskets that the musketeers of Beihai Kingdom took out, the barrels were much longer than Daming's three-eyed guns...

Long barrels are difficult to machine, and a barrel is different from a gun barrel. The barrel is cast, and the wall is generally very thick. The barrels are generally forged, with very thin walls. However, really speaking, the thin-walled barrel is much more difficult to process than the barrel.

The Ming Dynasty had a bad tradition of treating craftsmen as slaves. Generally, the craftsmen who have entered the craftsman household registration basically become the slaves of the court. Any civil servant with a big sesame can shout to those master craftsmen. In fact, the Ming Dynasty also inherited this tradition from the Yuan Dynasty. The Mongolian and Yuan Dynasty regarded the Han people as slaves, and the craftsmen were no exception. The Ming Dynasty also inherited this unreasonable system. Therefore, the status of the Ming craftsmen is low. Because there is no hope in sight, even if there is an invention, the credit will be taken away by the civil servants, so the level of craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty stagnated, and in the late Ming Dynasty, it was surpassed by the West...

The reason why the short-barreled three-eyed gun was used in the early Ming Dynasty was also related to the lack of technology for making long barrels. It was not until the Jiajing period that the Portuguese, in order to curry favor with the Ming Dynasty, passed the technology of making long barrels together with the Fran cannon to the Ming Dynasty...

A distance of thirty paces is really not difficult for the musketeers sent by Beihai Kingdom this time. You must know that these people are sharpshooters specially selected by Beihai Kingdom, just to show it to Daming. So, their shooting skills are superb.

With a burst of gunfire, the smoke gradually dissipated. After seeing that the musketeers of Beihai Kingdom had put down their muskets, the gunmen of the Qianhu Qianhu Institute in Guangzhou in the Ming Dynasty went to retrieve the targets one after another and showed them to the two envoys...

After Shen Rui and Liu Meng watched it, they were surprised to find that these gun targets had holes in them... That is to say, in this round of shooting, all 15 musketeers who participated in the shooting hit the target. Moreover, most of the bullet holes punched by people are still very close to the middle of the target, and the results are quite good...

"Sure enough archery!" Liu Meng praised.

You know, this is thirty steps away, which is 45 meters away. At a distance of 45 meters, the gun target was already quite small in the field of vision. It's not bad to be able to hit the target, not to mention that the bullet hole is close to the center of the target? Therefore, the praise of Liu Meng, who is knowledgeable, is not exaggerated at all.

Shen Rui didn't know much about firearms, but Liu Meng said yes, he stroked his beard and smiled in satisfaction...

However, before the two bosses finished their praise, Kong Tai asked again - set a target at a distance of 40 steps...

The Daming officials and soldiers present were all taken aback - the distance of 40 steps, but twice the distance of the Daming fire gunners practicing shooting. Western firearms are so sharp?

Soon, they knew the result - this round of shooting was much worse than the 30-step distance, but all 15 people hit the target, but most of the bullet holes are not located in the center point, but are distributed on the target. fringe area...

However, Baihu Li Sanshui, the commander of the fire gun team of the Qianhu Qianhu Institute in Guangzhou, who is knowledgeable, was taken aback:

"Can you penetrate the target even 40 steps away?"

"What? Li Baihu, what do you say about 40-step through the target?" Liu Meng asked with interest, not caring about Li Sanshui's rude behavior.

Li Sanshui folded his fists, and replied:

"Master Hui, the fire gun targets used by our thousand households are all made of hard beech wood. Moreover, this kind of target is very particular. As long as it can penetrate this kind of wood target, it means that the bullet also has a heavy armor. Because this beech wood target is made to imitate the protective power of heavy armor. If it can penetrate the target, it can break the heavy armor!"

"Then, my Daming's three-eyed gun can break the heavy armor in a few dozen steps?" asked the layman Shen Rui.

"Go back to your lord, there are only 30 steps!"

"Ah? Doesn't that mean that Beihai Kingdom's fire guns are also better than Daming?" Shen Rui said a little unhappily.

"I'm afraid that's the case..." Li Sanshui was also a little depressed. As the leader of the Great Fire Gunnery, he was also a little uncomfortable. After all, he used to be proud of being the commander of the Great Fire Gunnery.

At this time, Kong Tai, who had been silent for a while, interjected:

"My two adults, General Xu, the muskets produced by my Beihai Kingdom have the ability to break heavy armor within 66 steps (100 meters). However, beyond 40 steps, it is difficult to guarantee a hit..."

"66 steps...it's amazing...it can be guaranteed to hit within 40 steps, it's a weapon in the firearm..." Liu Meng said thoughtfully.

Kong Tai knew very well at this time - the Daming court may not be able to save face, this is what Marin explained before, and Daming must save face...

So he made a Han salute and said:

"The two chief envoys, General Xu, I am a small and widowed country in Beihai, and what I can do is firearms. And our highness, the Grand Duke, has long longed for a prosperous and powerful Da Ming, and we are very proud of it. Please be a vassal of Daming."

"His Royal Highness once said that swords have been matched with heroes since ancient times. The wealth and power of the Daming Dynasty is the best in the world. The sharp firearms of my Beihai Kingdom should also be dedicated to the mighty Daming to show my sincerity..."

After saying such a long "line", Kong Tai couldn't help turning over the "Tribute Collection" tucked in his sleeve. Kong Tai's words just now came from this book. This thing is very similar to the "Interview Collection" that has been passed down in later generations... However, there are two kinds of collections, one is to know how to interview, and the other is to guide how to flatter... After all, Kong Tai's Chinese vocabulary is limited and cannot be organized. Too many shameless flattering Chinese words... So, before leaving, Ma Lin gave Kong Tai a "treasure book", which is somewhat similar to Zhuge Liang's "smart plan"...

Hearing what Kong Tai said, the two political envoys Shen Rui and Liu Meng changed their faces. After all, it's a shame that firearms are behind people. But Beihaiguo's attitude was so low, which made them feel a lot more comfortable.

Liu Meng nodded and said to Kong Tai:

"Since Lord Ma (Ma Lin's surname is Ma, of course, he was indeed surnamed Ma in his previous life) is so sincere, this official should show the court of the Ming Dynasty and report Ma's heart to the emperor and the elders of the pavilion... "

"So, if you are humble enough to thank Lord Liu!" After speaking, Kong Tai bowed to the ground, expressing his gratitude to Liu Meng...

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