Daqin Engineering Corps

Then Edmund added:

"Of course, with all due respect. If the Seleucids capture Homesang again, I will betray you too!"

Shen Bing nodded to express his satisfaction, this is the kind of person he wanted.

It would be obviously a lie if he said how and how he would be loyal to the Qin army as soon as he opened his mouth.

Shen Bing handed the blueprint in his hand to Edmond, and said:

"I need you to make five thousand in two months, is there any difficulty?"

Edmund took the drawing and looked at it, and after a little calculation, he frowned and replied:

"We don't have enough iron. I'm afraid it will be difficult to produce it within two months."

Shen Bing replied:

"All armor and weapons in the warehouse can be used as raw materials!"

Edmond looked at Shen Bing in surprise, and said:

"That's enough, General."

"Just, are you sure you want to use those armors and weapons to make... this thing?"

As he spoke, he raised the blueprint in his hand.

"Of course." Shen Bing replied.

"Okay!" Edmond replied: "As you wish, five thousand in two months!"

Shen Bing said:

"I think you should know, first make a few according to the drawings for testing. After passing the test, mass production!"

Edmond nodded and said:

"Yes, my lord general!"

"I'll have someone make a few of them right away!"

The blueprint that Shen Bing handed over to Edmond was a matchlock gun.

Shen Bing does not want to be passive all the time when facing Seleucid ultra-pikemen and Roman infantry, especially when it is necessary to defend the city.

Compared with artillery, arquebuses are obviously more advantageous in dealing with dense infantry.

For example, the firepower of artillery is concentrated, and after firing a solid bullet, it will kill several people, while the matchlock gun actually divides the solid bullet into dozens of small iron bullets, and then dozens of people fire them to hit the target.

In addition, the matchlock gun has the characteristics of light weight and fast transfer speed.

Of course, the disadvantage of the arquebus is that it is difficult and time-consuming to make.

As I said before, the barrel of a matchlock gun in the actual sense needs to use a whole tube and then slowly drill it out with a steel drill.

Of course, this high-quality matchlock gun Shen Bing could not be produced in time, Shen Bing could only lower the requirements, that is, use the most primitive method to mold it at one time.

There is a serious problem with the barrel made by mold, that is, it is easy to explode.

The reason is that there will inevitably be many small bubbles in the one-time molding of mold casting.

When the matchlock gun is used, the gunpowder explodes again and again in the gun chamber, which will gradually form cracks around the air bubbles. When these cracks reach a certain level, it will explode with a "boom".

The explosion of the musket is a very serious problem. This is not just about how many people will be injured, but it will make everyone lose confidence in the matchlock and dare not use this equipment.

Shen Bing's solution to this problem is very simple...that is to put another layer of iron on the barrel.

In fact, this is not Shen Bing's invention. A rifle made in modern China also has the same problem, that is, it is easy to explode, so a barrel is put on the outside of the barrel.

Therefore, this gun is called "old sleeve".

Of course, there are problems with weight and carrying after such a tube is put on, but for the sake of safety, we can only make do with it.

Shen Bing is also doing what he can at this time, in order to solve the immediate problem quickly, he can only do so.

That's why Edmond didn't find it difficult after seeing the drawings. He cast the gun barrel with a mold, made a sleeve with the ready-made armor iron sheet and wrapped it around the outside, and then fastened it to the handguard with a few iron rings. , and then install a trigger device and tie a matchlock... a matchlock gun is completed.

It's just that Edmund didn't understand the use of this thing when he made it. He was still feeling sorry for the general of the silk country who had to melt armor and weapons as raw materials to make iron pipes and cut them into sleeves.

Edmund even looked at the matchlock gun and said to the other blacksmiths:

"I don't know what General Si Guo can do with this thing."

"However, if you don't want to lose your life, hurry up and make it!"

It only took three days before and after, Edmund hurriedly produced ten for Shen Bing to try out, and also produced some matching iron bullets and cleaning rods.

Ten were requested by Shen Bing, because in addition to testing the gun, it is also necessary to test the charge.

Of course, the amount of charge is also particular...

If there is too much charge, the gun can explode in one shot.

With less charge, the fired bullets simply cannot penetrate the enemy's wooden shield or armor.

When testing the gun, Shen Bing took Wang Ben and Jiang with him as usual.

Shen Bing weighed the matchlock gun, perhaps because of the thick cast iron pipe and the added sleeve, so it was quite heavy, probably weighing twenty catties.

Shen Bing took a gunpowder tube, erected the gun barrel and carefully loaded some gunpowder, then stuffed a ball of paper into the gun barrel and poked it to the bottom with a cleaning rod to plug it tightly...

This is for airtightness, or a ball of sackcloth will do, although of course paper is more convenient.

Then put in the iron projectile and poke it to the bottom and plug it tightly.

In fact, the standard should be to use soft lead to make projectiles.

The reason is that soft lead has a certain degree of plasticity, so the projectile can be made slightly larger than the barrel, so that when the cleaning rod pokes it into the bottom, the airtightness can be guaranteed to be more powerful.

But Shen Bing certainly didn't dare to ask so high.

On the one hand, there is no soft lead at this time.

On the other hand, even if there is soft lead, it is more troublesome and time-consuming to make with the current art, and it cannot meet the high standard of just a little bit bigger.

Therefore, the projectiles used by Shen Bing will be smaller than the caliber of the barrel to make it easier to fit into the barrel.

This will make the power less powerful, but due to technological limitations, Shen Bing has nothing to do.

Then pour some gunpowder on the fire door, put on the lit match and get ready.

These are actually similar to artillery, which is why the most primitive firearms are called "hand cannons". As the name implies, they are guns held in the hand.

Chapter 5 Training

This time, Shen Bing didn't let others do it for him... If he doesn't have confidence in the matchlock gun, how can he make his subordinates have confidence in it?

What's more, there is a barrel on the outside of the barrel, even if the chamber explodes, it will not hurt people.

Shen Bing raised his gun and aimed at the wooden shield more than ten steps away, and pulled the trigger, only to hear a "boom" and a puff of smoke rose, and then looked at the wooden shield, nothing happened... the bullets didn't know where to go up.

After thinking about it, Shen Bing asked people to place more than ten shields densely in front of him, and then fired again.

This time, it hit the shield on the left, and the projectile pierced through the wooden shield and then embedded deeply into the wooden pillar behind it.

This surprised Wang Ben and others.

After YouQi saw the bullet hole, Wang Ben exclaimed:

"General, this thing has such power through the wooden shield."

"Even if the enemy is wearing armor, they won't be able to stop this thing!"

Seeing that the iron pipe has such a great power, he was dumbfounded, and after a while he said:

"Although this thing is good, it's not accurate..."

Wang Ben retorted:

"What about the accuracy? If I equip thousands of them and shoot at the enemy indiscriminately, what do I need to do?"

When he heard it, he immediately understood, nodded and said:

"What the captain said is very true, just like the bow and arrow, although they are all inaccurate, but if there are too many arrows, they can always hit the enemy."

Shen Bing didn't say much, he just made a few test plans for Ren Yigan's personal guards to test.

He wanted to find out at what distance the arquebus could penetrate the combination of wooden shield and armor, and how much charge it needed.

After some testing, it was found that the distance was sixty steps, which is about 80 meters.

This power should be said to be unsatisfactory. A normal arquebus should be about 100 meters away and can kill enemies in armor.

The lack of power may be due to the lack of airtightness of the ammunition.

However, it is enough at this time. At a distance of more than eighty meters, at the forward speed of Roman infantry or Seleucid ultra-pikemen, it takes about 2 minutes, and 2 minutes can be fired ten times for a skilled musketeer... usually The situation is 3 rounds per minute.

But that's the case when a soft lead pellet needs a blow rod to drive it into the chamber.

Smaller projectiles also have small advantages, that is, it is relatively easier to reload. Shen Bing may even consider asking the gunner to load the projectiles and smash the butt of the gun on the ground twice... This is the lazy way of the musketeer , although feasible but the life of the gun is reduced and it is prone to misfire.

In the end, Shen Bing decided not to do this, because as soon as there are more soldiers, he must conduct formatted training, otherwise problems of one kind or another will easily arise.

On the other hand, the reason why the musketeer fires 1 times in 3 minute is that the amount of charge is difficult to determine.

In this regard, Shen Bing can make necessary simplifications.

For example, the amount of charge is weighed before, and the packs are packed in paper. After the soldiers pour the gunpowder into the barrel, they can then stuff the wrapping paper into the barrel to increase air tightness.

In addition, Shen Bing felt that Huomen could also make necessary improvements to make the reloading speed faster.

For example, the Prussian musket designed its fire door into an inverted cone shape, that is, the inside is large and the outside is small.

The advantage of being designed into this shape is that after the gunpowder is loaded into the powder chamber, the gunpowder will leak from the inverted cone fire door due to the top plug of the cleaning rod.

So the step of loading gunpowder can be omitted, and the gun can be fired directly after loading the projectile.

Because of this small design, Prussian muskets allow ordinary soldiers to fire five rounds in one minute.

Five shots against the enemy's three shots, which gave the Prussian army a great advantage for a time.

At this time, Shen Bing can of course also use this design.

It's just that it will be more troublesome to make on Edmund's side.

When Shen Bing showed the modified painting to Edmund, Edmond seemed to have not reacted from the shock just now, and he was a little submissive and didn't know why.

Shen Bing asked:

"Can it be done?"

"If you make any mistake, Edmond, I will use you to test the power of the musket!"

Edmund was taken aback, and immediately replied:

"Yes, General, I promise!"

"Also... please forgive what I said before, even if Seleuci fights back to Huo Musang now, I will not betray you!"

Shen Bing let out an "oh" and asked:

"why?"

"Do you think it's impossible for Seleucid to fight back?"

"You underestimate them, Edmond, they are the coalition forces of several countries, and it is said that there are 10,000+ people!"

Edmund replied:

"That's one of the reasons, General."

"Besides, I know that even if Seleucid fights back and takes Homesang, you will still defeat them one day!"

Shen Bing smiled, what he said made some sense.

So the arquebus was slightly modified and entered mass production.

At the same time, paper-making workshops were also built, and gunpowder was packed into cylindrical packets of the same weight with sheets of paper.

Later, Shen Bing designed an ammunition bag that could be hung on the waist, with a cylindrical ammunition bag on one side and projectiles on the other side.

In this way, it can not only prevent water and moisture, but also put ammunition and projectiles in a bag for soldiers to take.

Shen Bing also thought about designing a bayonet.