Since the Fu Han Army thoroughly set the standard for Hanyang flintlock pistols in the second year of innovation, in addition to the development of cavalry standard flintlock pistols and the separate development of six-round handcuffs on this basis, all subsequent work has basically turned to the full production of Hanyang flintlock pistols, in order to realize the replacement of the whole army as soon as possible.

After three full years of vigorous production and re-equipping, at present, more than 600,000 active troops of the Fu Han Army have fully completed the re-dressing, and all the old flintlock pistols have been eliminated and sealed, and will only be re-activated in a full-scale war, so at this point, the General Armament Department of the Fu Han Army has begun to work on the research and development of the next generation of rifles.

In fact, as early as the second year of innovation, when Ning Yu instructed Lei Huozi to improve the Hanyang flintlock pistol, he had already raised the issue of rifled guns, but compared with the smoothbore guns that Ning Chu had already played very skillfully at that time, rifled guns would have higher requirements for all aspects of craftsmanship.

After some trial production, they found a lot of problems, among which there were many problems as the key to rifled guns, that is, rifling.

Although it is not difficult to depict rifling, due to the limitation of materials, the rifling of rifled guns is easy to be completely worn out, especially due to process errors, so that the rifling depiction can not be fully standardized, and it will also bring a very serious consequence - that is, the rifling speed is different.

You know, this will become a very serious problem on the battlefield, because when some rifled guns can play the role of rifling, and some rifled guns are smoothed out rifling, it will lead to a serious decrease in lethality, and it will also make the commander misjudge, resulting in the loss of the battle.

In addition, there is another point that Ning Chu's smoothbore gun technology is mature, the probability of failure is small, and it is more stable to use, while the rifled gun technology cannot use steel due to the need to carve rifling, and can only be built with wrought iron, which itself will also reduce the life of the barrel.

Therefore, after the complete perfection of the Hanyang flintlock pistol, the smoothbore gun has always been the mainstream of the Fu Han army, and the rifled gun was only used in a small amount, until the iron smelting method of the Fu Han army was only found after a long period of technological improvement.

The development of weapons is always decisively related to the development of metallurgical technology, especially the barrel part, the key to which is that in the past, when Ning Chu used shaft furnace to smelt iron, the fuel used was ordinary coal, and the toughness of the wrought iron obtained was relatively poor.

After in-depth exchanges with the Chinese iron-smelting experts, the two sides learned from each other and began to improve the blast furnace process, and effectively improved the blast furnace iron-smelting process under a long period of experiments, especially the discovery of a very important process, that is, changing coke to fuel iron-smelting.

You must know that before this, although Ning Chu, as a traverser, provided a blast furnace iron smelting method, he did not know that he wanted to change coke to smelt iron, so that the Fu Han army had made rapid progress in output for a long time, but the quality of the iron obtained was not particularly improved.

Of course, the coke iron smelting method did not come out of thin air, in fact, in the experiment, it was found that the reaction of the blast furnace itself occurred between "one rise and one drop", that is, the rise of the gas and the decline of the charge, which required the material column to have good air permeability, so that the raw material can be fully reduced, and the coal itself is relatively brittle, which is easy to be crushed, resulting in poor air permeability of the blast furnace.

After understanding this principle, when the craftsmen built the skeleton of the material column, the coke pile entered the field of vision of the technicians due to the characteristics of the smallest density and large gap, and the coke itself was relatively strong, and the block can always be maintained above the tuyere area, so that the material column has good air permeability and keeps the furnace condition smooth, thus providing all the heat required for blast furnace smelting.

After such a step of improvement, the wrought iron process used in the rifled gun is a complete achievement, its life has been greatly improved, coupled with the practical application of steam engine technology, rifling and characterization technology has also begun to achieve standardization, these multi-faceted technologies have advanced, so that the front-loading rifled gun can really begin to achieve mass production.

It was when Ning Yu got the news that he really realized how much progress Ning Chu had made in terms of craftsmanship, and this also gave birth to the General Armament Department's thinking about the next standard musket.

Of course, just the progress of the process, naturally there is no way to completely solve the pain points of the new musket, and these problems also need to be further inspired by Ning Yu to the General Armament Department.

On December 18, the fifth year of the reform, on the occasion of the upcoming New Year, Ning Yu, accompanied by officials of the General Armament Department of the Privy Council, went to the Xinyou No. 2 Base set up outside Nanjing to inspect the current level of military development of the Fu Han Army, which set the tone for the research and development of the new rifle.

The so-called Xinyou No. 2 base, like the previous one, belongs to the research and development center with the highest secrecy mechanism, and there are more than 40 bases like this, so they are named in the way of the sexagenary branch, and this time the research and development of new standard rifles was placed in the Xinyou No. 2 base.

In front of the heavily guarded Xinyou Second Base, a group of researchers in white coats, led by a gray-haired old man, waited respectfully, not all of them were yellow-skinned and black-haired Chinese, and some were technical experts from the West, but they seemed very harmonious when they gathered together.

The reason is very simple, among the high-level experts in Ningchu today, there has never been a shortage of Westerners, especially in the Dachu Supreme Scientific Research Institute established this year, more than 80 Westerner experts led by Ernst and Newkomen have officially become lifelong scholars, and the lowest of them also enjoy the treatment of the fourth grade of civil officials, and Ernst, Neukomen and Lei Huozi and other ten people have become the chief university scholars, and can directly enjoy the treatment of the first grade of civil officials.

Therefore, the Westerners who have been given high-ranking officials and even knighthoods have a great sense of belonging to Da Chu, because even in their own countries, they cannot get such great respect and courtesy, and they cannot really show their strengths - but in Nanjing, they can get almost everything they want.

When Ning Yu's imperial chariot arrived at the door, the thunder camel, who was already a little old, walked forward slowly with people, first bowed deeply, and then said loudly together: "Wait for the ministers to meet Your Majesty, long live Your Majesty!" ”

Ning Yu was wearing a heavy coat, with a little smile on his face after stepping off the imperial chariot, he looked at Lei Huozi and the others, and said softly: "Science and technology are the primary productive forces, this is not a lie, but I think it is not enough, I can add one more sentence, that is, science and technology are also the first combat power, I came here today, I believe you should understand my intention." ”

The slightly shriveled Lei Camel had a smile on his face, of course he could understand that although the imperial court had money, no penny was superfluous, and it was impossible to let the Academy of Sciences, which cost a lot of money, waste resources, so every time after the project application fee, they also needed to come up with something that could be paid.

"Back to Your Majesty, since the ministers have invited Your Majesty to come and inspect, they naturally have a plan."

Ning Yu nodded noncommittally, and then under the guidance of Lei Huozi and others, he walked into the slightly mysterious Xinyou Second Base.

When everyone came to a very large laboratory, they saw that a large number of researchers were divided into groups to conduct experiments, and each of them was doing something different, obviously from different directions.

Lei Huozi hurriedly stepped forward and introduced: "Your Majesty, our current R&D strength is very sufficient, and the R&D personnel directly owned by the Xinyou No. 2 Base alone have more than 200 people, and now it has been divided into six project teams to conduct trial production of new standard rifles. ”

Ning Yu nodded, picked up the sample gun in front of him, looked at it carefully, and then laughed softly: "When I was on the battlefield before, many soldiers were still full of praise for our Hanyang flintlock pistol, because compared with the Qing army's bird guns, our guns are really much stronger. ”

Speaking of this, Ning Yu's expression was slightly solemn, and he said in a low voice: "But judging from the previously captured Erut muskets, Russian muskets, and muskets brought by the Swedes and British, our muskets are not much stronger than them, and they are even a little backward in some places, so the idea of living a lifetime with a gun is absolutely not good." ”

Since the musket in the early eighteenth century was still the main musket, although the musket currently used by the Fu Han army is still second to none, there is no real technical difference with the smoothbore guns of other countries, and this war against Jungger and the Russians can be reflected, in the platoon gun shooting stage, they also caused a large number of casualties to the Fu Han army.

Therefore, in the current Dachu military industrial system, everyone is naturally very interested in rifled guns with longer range and higher accuracy, after all, rifled guns have been invented a long time ago, and the reason why they have not been used on a large scale is completely due to various technical restrictions, but it is still the mainstream of development.

Lei Huozi stroked his beard and sighed: "Your Majesty, Dachu's new generation of standard rifles naturally cannot continue to follow the path of smoothbore guns, this time the iron-smelting technology has improved, and the problem of our barrel material has been solved, but there are still two key problems, one is the projectile, and the other is the ignition powder." ”

It turned out that before this, the smoothbore gun used by Ning Chu, although it had begun to use the process of customizing paper shell bullets, but the warhead part was still the traditional lead-melting round bullet, in order to facilitate loading from the muzzle, the diameter of the bullet was usually slightly smaller than the diameter of the barrel, and there was no problem with it.

However, when the new rifled gun came out, it was found that the diameter of this round bullet was slightly smaller than the diameter of the barrel, and it was difficult to maintain the breath-holding of the breech, which greatly reduced the power, so in desperation, the caliber of the bullet could only be made equal to or even slightly larger than the caliber of the gun.

Therefore, under so many technical difficulties, although the rifled gun was born as early as the fifteenth century, it has been bothering everyone because of the problem of the bullet, and it has not been recognized by the world, and it is also a stupid method when using a rifled gun, that is, carrying a mallet with you, and loading it by striking the pusher lever when loading, which often leads to more dangerous rupture of the rifle, and it is difficult to get the satisfaction of the world.

This problem is not easy to solve, if there is no Ning Yu, a traveler from the next generation, I am afraid that it will continue to delay, but fortunately, with Ning Yu, I naturally understand the solutions that will appear in later generations, the main solution is to use rear loading bullets, in order to do it once and for all, but its requirements for the airtightness of the gun chamber will be relatively high, and it is basically impossible to achieve under the current technical ability, so it was temporarily vetoed by Ning Yu.

The other way, which is more ingenious, is to use a bottom expansion bomb, also known as a mini bomb.

In fact, the so-called Mini bullet is not the product of a whim, its own principle is inspired by the blowing arrow used by the South Indian tribe, the tail of the blowing arrow is made of soft and elastic wood pith, which itself has the characteristics of expansion, so when using the blowing arrow, it is through the expansion of the wood pith and the inner layer of the blowpipe to prevent the air from running away, so as to launch the arrow.

The appearance of the Mini bullet, the conical bottom expansion bullet, imitates this design, which no longer adopts the circular design of the past, but adopts a conical warhead, the diameter of which is slightly smaller than the diameter of the chamber, and then digs a conical hole at the bottom of the bullet and plugs the bottom of the hole with a wooden stopper.

When the musket is fired, the gas generated from the inside out will compress the wooden plug and squeeze into the cavity, forcing the bottom of the bullet to expand, which can achieve the purpose of close to the rifling, thereby sealing the gap between the bullet and the rifle, so that the gas cannot leak out, and can also make the bullet rotate at high speed under the pressure of rifling, which solves all the technical problems above in one fell swoop.

It is precisely because these problems have been completely solved that the power of this rifled gun is unimaginable, and its effective firing range has reached at least about 500 meters, while Ning Chu's current Hanyang flintlock pistol, because it is a smoothbore gun, has an effective range of only between 100 meters and 120 meters.

In addition to the multiplication of the firing range, due to the threaded wire engraved inside the rifled gun, the bullet can achieve rotational flight, so that it has the precise directivity and long-term stability in high-speed movement that smoothbore bullets do not have, and its accuracy has also reached an unimaginable level, and it can even complete long-distance sniping on the battlefield.

However, in the original history, the bottom expansion bullet was invented too late, so it coincided with the era of reloading guns, and as the last glory of the front-loading gun, the Minny gun did not show its true brilliance, but quickly disappeared into the twilight of the preloading era like a meteor.