Daming Military Empire

Chapter 18 Experiment
Since Zhu Cijiong ascended the throne, the court has been peaceful, and the eunuchs are no longer so unscrupulous. The Donglin Party also temporarily died under the hint of Sun Chengzong, and no longer entangled with the eunuchs.Everything seems so beautiful, giving people a feeling that the prosperous age is about to start.

Is this the fact?
of course not.

The eunuchs just no longer blatantly exclude dissidents and mutilate loyal people. They do things like forming cliques for personal gain, taking money and perverting the law.

The Donglin Party didn't really die down, he just gritted his teeth and hid in the dark. As long as Sun Chengzong gave an order, they would rush forward desperately to have a showdown with the Eunuch Party.

The living standards of ordinary people have not improved a bit, as long as there are droughts and floods, a large number of people will still starve to death.

The threat of Houjin in the north is still there, but the Ningjin line of defense is too difficult to crack. They have no choice for the time being, and instead go to annex the various ministries of Mongolia to strengthen themselves.Once they develop, Daming will be in danger.

Zhu Cijiong did not relax because of the superficial peace and tranquility. After initially establishing a team, he immediately set about establishing a military industry system.

As mentioned earlier, the military industry system is actually a system for the industrialization of science and technology. The entire system is divided into four parts: research and development, experimentation, production, and improvement.

With mission rewards from the military industry system, research and development is naturally not a big problem. Zhu Cijiong only needs to guide them, and the direction can never be wrong.

After the research and development is completed, the next step is the experiment. Judging from the current situation of the black powder weapons in the Ming Dynasty, they did not have the link of experimentation at all.

Without experiments, one would not know the pros and cons, and the weapons made would naturally not be able to withstand the test of actual combat.

In order to establish the link of experimentation from scratch, it is natural that they cannot use a set of modern experimental methods and let them do it directly. In that case, the experimenters will not know why they want to experiment, and naturally the experiment will not produce any effect.

To get the effect of the experiment, they still have to guide their thinking and let them find their own way to carry out the experiment.

The first experiment that Zhu Cijiong was going to conduct was the power test of black powder. Although the cylinder mechanism of the steam engine was not complicated, it did not have the modern processing level in the Ming Dynasty. That really wasn't a matter of a day or two.This black powder is different. The powders of the three materials are ready-made, just change the ratio.

After the early court that day, Zhu Cijiong called several key training subjects to the side hall of Qianqing Palace and organized a seminar, the main topic of which was black powder.

Zhu Cijiong always pays attention to maintaining the majesty of the emperor in front of outsiders, but there is no need for him in front of his cronies. How to put it, if you are timid, this seminar cannot be held.

After everyone sat down, Zhu Cijiong first asked: "How do you mix the gunpowder now, who of you knows?"

The people below basically knew this question, and everyone gave way, and finally Xu Guangqi said: "Your Majesty, the current gunpowder is made of three kinds of raw materials."

Zhu Cijiong continued to ask: "Have you ever tried to change the dosage of the three things?"

Everyone was embarrassed, and none of the people sitting here thought of changing the ratio of gunpowder.

Sun Yuanhua was the most familiar with gunpowder among these people. He asked cautiously: "Your Majesty, why did you change the dosage? This is a formula passed down from the older generation, so there is no problem."

Zhu Cijiong heard the words and encouraged him: "Well, good question, why change the formula if there is no problem? Have you ever thought about what gunpowder is mainly used for?"

Perhaps it was Zhu Cijiong's approachability that infected everyone, Bi Maokang took the initiative to answer: "Naturally, it is used in guns to fire bullets and shells."

These words were exactly what Zhu Cijiong wanted. He followed the trend and said, "Since we are shooting bullets and cannonballs, naturally the farther the shot, the better, and the greater the power, the better. Can we change the formula and try it?"

Everyone heard the words, thought about it, and showed hesitant expressions. After all, the formula of gunpowder has been passed down for so long, and it should already be the best formula. Is it necessary to produce better gunpowder than the current formula?

Seeing everyone's expressions, Zhu Cijiong knew that they were just making trouble and didn't want to try.As a scientific researcher, how can you do without the habit of doing experiments? If you think of everything, you will do it, and you will use it when you make it. If it is not practical, you will not care about it. How can there be progress in this way.

It seems that it is not enough to use the way of going around to guide, let's explain it more clearly, he said directly: "I have a recipe here, you make it first, and then we will try it together."

Everyone heard the words, thought about it again, and continued to show hesitant expressions. Zhu Cijiong was baffled. This recipe is already available, so why hesitate?
It was Sun Yuanhua who raised everyone's question: "Your Majesty, how can we try this? We have never tried it before!"

Zhu Cijiong was speechless. He asked him such a simple question. In his previous life, he had seen many weapons tests. Combined with the conditions of the Ming Dynasty, he came up with an idea after thinking about it casually.

He said angrily: "Isn't this simple? Take a thicker wooden board, stand fifty steps away, take ten copies of the old and new gunpowder, use the same gun, shoot at the wooden board, and then go to see the impact of the bullets. If you don’t know how deep it is, you will know how powerful that gunpowder is.”

When everyone heard the words, they suddenly realized that the new formula and experimental method were available, so they naturally stopped hesitating. Anyway, this thing is powder, and when it fails, just add some more according to the old formula.

After Zhu Cijiong announced the adjournment of the meeting, several people from the Ministry of Industry went to the gunpowder factory to personally supervise the work, and it was done in the morning.

In the afternoon, Zhu Cijiong organized the first gunpowder power experiment in the history of the Ming Dynasty. For the sake of confidentiality, the experiment was arranged to be held in a small square between Qianqing Palace and Kunning Palace.Those who participated in the experiment were only his cronies and more than 20 eunuchs under Cao Huachun.

Sun Yuanhua brought a few gunpowders from the arsenal, Song Yingxing brought a can of old and new gunpowder, and Bi Maokang, the right servant of the Ministry of Industry, went to the field to test the guns in person.

If this was seen by the literati of the Donglin Party, it would probably cause an uproar.A group of officials from the six ministries did not study the classics of sages and sages, and ran to the palace to play with guns!

The emperor didn't go to review the memorial, but ran here to accompany them crazy!
What kind of strange technique is really harmful, gentle sweeping the floor, gentle sweeping the floor!

It is naturally impossible for Zhu Cijiong to let the Donglin party members find out that everyone present can be said to be his hard-core cronies.

Bi Maokang is worthy of being the No. 1 inventor of the flintlock gun in the Ming Dynasty. He is very familiar with the matchlock gun, and he can fill and reload the gun in one go.After he was ready, Sun Yuanhua next to him took the tinder and lit the match directly.

After a while, there was a bang, a puff of smoke rose, and a small black pit appeared on the plank leaning against the railing 50 meters away.

After shooting, Bi Maokang took out tools and began to clean the barrel, while Wang Zheng and Song Yingxing ran to the plank to measure the depth of the crater.

Zhu Cijiong silently counted to the side, alas, with this rate of fire, it really takes 1 minute to fire a shot.It takes at least 3 minutes to clean and cool the barrel, otherwise there is a danger of explosion!

This standard bird gun equipped by the Ming army has a range of 150 meters, an effective killing distance of 50 meters, and two bullets in 5 minutes. This effect is really not as good as directly using bows and arrows.

Of course, Zhu Cijiong was not discouraged, he wanted to make the latest type of flintlock gun, and following the bird gun is not a concept at all.Although it is still in the stage of R&D testing and talent training, and it is still far away from real mass production, he believes that as long as it is made, it will definitely save Daming.

Here Zhu Cijiong is silently planning the road to Ming Dynasty's military industry, while Wang Zheng and Song Yingxing have already measured the depth of the crater.Since it is an experiment, it is necessary to record the experimental data. Zhu Cijiong completely instilled modern experimental methods into these cronies, so as soon as the data was reported over there, the recording began here. Xu Guangqi, the right minister of the Ministry of Rites and Dongge University scholar, is the recorder. member.

He sat at a small table next to Zhu Cijiong, and began to record experimental data under Zhu Cijiong's guidance.The header is the first gunpowder experiment. A simple table is drawn below, with three columns and eleven rows. The first column is written from the first to the tenth time. Old gunpowder test results and new gunpowder test results, the next ten lines are experimental data.

After Xu Guangqi finished recording, Bi Maokang began to reload the gunpowder again, this time using new gunpowder.

After a while, Bi Maokang finished loading, and Sun Yuanhua lit the matchlock.

There was a bang, this time the sound was obviously louder than before, and the recoil was obviously much stronger, Bi Maokang almost missed the bird gun!
With a snap, the bullet actually embedded itself directly into the plank. This power was at least [-]% greater!
All the cronies were stunned. They didn't expect the power of the new gunpowder to be so much stronger. They looked at Zhu Cijiong as if they were gods. All this is really amazing!
In fact, there is no need to experiment. The new gunpowder must be much better than the old gunpowder.

However, Zhu Cijiong asked them to continue the test. The scientific experiment must be rigorous, and the experimental plan must be completed meticulously. Only in this way can the experimental data obtained be real and comprehensive.It’s not that Zhu Cijiong is boring, I want to entertain them, it’s a matter of philosophy, only people who are rigorous enough to be almost rigid can make the best products, there are many examples of this in later generations, such as Germany (due to well-known reasons, not here said.)
At the end of ten experiments, it was finally concluded that the new gunpowder is indeed better than the old gunpowder. The penetrating power within 50 meters has more than doubled when tested with a bird gun.As for the shooting range, further testing is still needed. Zhu Cijiong has nothing to worry about. He has already given a perfect demonstration, and Xu Guangqi and others will have to figure it out for the next experiment.

(End of this chapter)