In order to study the new musket, Chi Fei transferred all the hundreds of firearms that were about to turn into antiques, and then asked a few craftsmen assigned to him by his father-in-law to disassemble a few of them and carefully study their structure.

One of the middle-aged craftsmen surnamed Wu was the one who happened to be present to debug this firearm when Ning Zhiyuan tried it out, so he was specially transferred by Ning Zhiyuan.

When Chi Fei saw this batch of firecrackers for the first time, even a layman like him felt that this firecracker was too simple and rough.

The body of the whole fire gun is cast in bronze, the body is thick and short, about 35 centimeters long, about 10 centimeters in diameter, and it weighs fifteen or six pounds.

The front is the gun tube, the middle is the medicine room, and the back is the gun tail.

The tube is straight and cylindrical, but it is open into a trumpet shape near the mouth.

The medicine room is thicker than the gunnery tube, and the wall of the chamber is convex outward.

The tail is shorter, with a backward chisel hole, and the bottom diameter is about 7 cm, which is smaller than the diameter of the gun. and has a square hole about 2 cm long on each side of the tail.

The center of the square hole is exactly on the same plane as the axis of the body.

A metal bolt is threaded through the two holes and then fastened to the wooden frame.

Craftsman Wu told Chi Fei that this metal bolt played the role equivalent to a trunnion, so that the copper bolt could be adjusted on the wooden frame to adjust the shooting angle.

He also told Chi Fei that when this gun was used, he should first erect the gun mouth towards the sky, and then fill the gun tube with gunpowder.

After the gunpowder is filled, hard objects such as iron sand and gravel are poured into it.

Then open the movable fire door of the medicine room, stuff the fuse, and then ignite the fuse to detonate the gunpowder inside.

When the gunpowder is detonated, it will spray iron sand or gravel inside the barrel, causing damage to the enemy.

After listening to his explanation, Chi Fei decided to personally verify the lethality of this firecracker.

So he found an empty space outside the camp and put it on the target for a live-fire test.

As the muffled noises continued to occur, after trying more than a dozen guns, Chi Fei ordered to stop the test.

After inspecting all the targets, Chi Fei finally knew why his father-in-law said that this fire gun was just a useless product.

The reload time is simply too slow, and the range is too short.

Let's talk about the reloading time first, every time Wu craftsmen complete a complete ammunition load, it takes at least four to five minutes.

Even if it is because Craftsman Wu has not undergone professional training, his hands and feet are slow, but Chi Fei has estimated that even if he is a well-trained soldier, it will take more than two minutes to complete a loading of ammunition at the earliest.

Then let's talk about the range, the longest effective range is less than 30 meters, and it is generally about 20 meters.

If there is an enemy at this distance, by the time you finish reloading, the enemy will already be in front of you, and it is not as useful as a bow and arrow.

Not only that, but in these dozen tests, one of the guns exploded.

Fortunately, there was not much gunpowder added at that time, so it didn't hurt anyone.

After this test, Chi Fei probably knew why this firearm was so easy to blow up.

In his opinion, this fire gun is more like a horn or suona with a wide front and a thin back.

In order to prevent the gunpowder from leaking out, it is necessary to stuff a large amount of hard objects such as iron sand or gravel into it as a plugging.

However, if there are too many hard objects stuffed, or if the hard objects are stuffed too tightly, the explosive force of the gunpowder cannot eject the hard objects, and the barrel will explode.

In addition, this stubby and short flare structure is equivalent to an open shotgun, although it can cause a large area of damage, but with such a short barrel, the range is naturally far away.

Such a firearm really has no actual combat ability, and it is not as effective as a bow and arrow, so it is no wonder that it will be shelved by the army.

As for the Great Wei Ministry of Industry, it is understandable that no one is willing to continue researching, after all, the entire fire gun is made of all copper, and each one weighs about fifteen or six catties.

In ancient times, there has always been a shortage of copper, if you make a hundred, it will cost nearly 2,000 catties of copper, and 1,000 will cost more than 10,000 catties of copper, and the cost of this material alone is very amazing.

This is not counting all kinds of R&D expenses, and the sum of all kinds of things will definitely not be a small amount.

If this firearm is really useful on the battlefield, it is understandable that the research and development cost is higher, but in the current situation, there is really no value in any research, so no one in the Ministry of Industry is willing to study and improve it.

Almost everyone regarded these firearms as a product of the failure of the Ministry of Works, and in fact they were.

However, Chi Fei is a modern man after all, and he knows very well that once this so-called failed product is successfully improved, it will become a key weapon to change the entire war situation.

Chi Fei never thought of making a modern rifle, which was simply unrealistic at the level of industrial technology of this era.

So he didn't even think to make high-end parts such as rifling, fire caps, magazines, etc., that only modern rifles have.

He just wanted to make some knockoffs like flintlock pistols, which was the most realistic goal.

It's a pity that I don't know how the foreigners' guns have developed, if the foreigners have already made flintlock pistols, it will be easy to do, just get a few to come and disassemble and copy the structure.

But since there is nothing now, we can only start research from scratch.

First of all, there is the problem of the barrel, which must be made with a smooth interior and a long barrel of uniform caliber, which is the most critical step.

In terms of the materials used, Chi Fei decided to abandon the use of copper for the barrel and instead use iron for the barrel.

As far as he knew, the barrel of the flintlock pistol was also made of iron.

Therefore, there should be no problem in changing copper to iron, which is also to reduce the cost in the future when mass production is carried out.

The second is the issue of ammunition, and Chi Fei will no longer use irregular hard objects such as iron sand or gravel, but will instead use solid lead bullets of similar size.

As for how to solve the problem of inconsistent filling gunpowder, he already had a general idea in his heart.

In fact, this problem is easy to solve, that is, the gunpowder is packaged separately and dosed.

The presumptuous method is to first calculate the amount of gunpowder that most barrels will not explode, and then use this weight as the only criterion to test whether the newly made barrel meets the standard.

In other words, it is not to let the amount of gunpowder accommodate the body of the gun, but to use the body of the gun to accommodate the amount of gunpowder.

Only a barrel that does not explode because of this amount of gunpowder is a qualified product, otherwise it is a non-conforming product.

Only in this way can a large number of relatively safe muskets be made.

The third is the issue of the ignition device, which is another key point in whether the flintlock gun can be successfully studied.

As the name suggests, the flintlock pistol ignites the gunpowder by hitting the flint to produce sparks, hence the name.

Although Chi Fei didn't know the structure, he felt that the craftsmen of this era should be able to solve the problem.

Many of the crafts and mechanisms that amaze modern people in ancient times were made by ancient craftsmen, so don't underestimate the skilled craftsmen of this era.

As long as the above three major problems can be solved, there is great hope that the flintlock pistol can be built.

In order to speed up the research, Chi Fei divided the craftsmen into two groups, the first group was responsible for researching how to make a long barrel with a smooth interior and a uniform caliber, and the other group was responsible for studying flint ignition devices.

To motivate them, Chi Fei promised all the craftsmen that once the research was successful, there would be a big reward. It is possible to have as little as a few hundred taels or as many as a thousand taels.

Hearing that there would be a heavy reward, the craftsmen were suddenly shocked, and everyone's enthusiasm was immediately raised, and they all geared up to do a big job.

This is not the capital, but the northwest, where there is almost nothing. Not to mention thousands of taels, even a few hundred taels is already an astronomical amount that many ordinary people can't even think about.

In this way, while serving as the chief quartermaster of the Northwest Battalion, Chi Fei took these craftsmen to start the secret research of flintlock pistols, and he was very busy.

Just when he was busy, one afternoon his father-in-law suddenly came over happily and told him the good news: Jiujiang had succeeded.

A few days later, everyone in the Great Wei court, including the newly enthroned Emperor Shuntian, who had also received this military information, was surprised by the news, and did not understand why the Northwest Army was interested in Jiujiang, a small seaside city that was neither rich nor rich.

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