Three hundred steps? Ma Cheng squinted at what the ambassador said, the ambassador had a big head and a thick neck, and according to later generations, he was either a big man or a man. This ambassador doesn't look like a big guy, so he must be a man.

The ambassador knew that the young man in front of him was the son of Governor Ma, and now he was furious with his heart, so he hurriedly whispered: "Second master, the villain's brother-in-law is the second master and Gu San!" ”

Ma Cheng's face changed when he heard the ambassador say this, patted his fat shoulder and smiled: "Haha, it turns out to be my own family!" What's your name? ”

The ambassador was very happy to have a relationship with Ma Cheng, and hurriedly bowed down and said: "The villain Wang Qingwei, the ancestor is also a military household under Gu Houye!" ”

I didn't expect it to have something to do with my grandfather's family, and it seems that most of the official positions under my Lao Tzu are controlled by these people. But this is also a helpless thing, China is a society that talks about human feelings, one person has ascended to heaven, Ma Shiying has become a feudal official with heavy troops, and naturally his subordinates have to appoint their own people.

Ma Cheng saw that this ambassador looked like he had read books, and his name was not taken randomly like other military households, so he couldn't help but ask curiously: "Lao Wang, are you literate?" ”

"Back to the second master, the villain used to go to a private school for a few years, but it was really not a material for reading, so the villain asked his brother-in-law to find an ambassador's errand!"

Ma Cheng heard Wang Qingwei say this and knew that it must be Gu Changwei who left Zhang Guozhu's relationship, otherwise this warehouse ambassador is a good errand for farting oil crotch, where it will be the turn of this dead fat man.

Ma Cheng nodded and said, "You said that this Lu Mi Gong has a range of three hundred steps?" It just so happens that the second master is fine today, let go of two shots to play! ”

This warehouse is a firearms warehouse, the location is relatively secluded, and there is a shooting range in front of the door, and there are several wooden targets standing two hundred paces away.

Wang Qingwei saw Ma Cheng go to the shooting range with the Lu Mi gun, and his face turned green with fright. The reason is very simple, the Lu Mi gun in Ma Cheng's hand is a defective product.

Lu Mi Gong is the best musket of the Ming Army, the production process is very cumbersome, and the price is naturally very high, a finished Lu Mi Gong costs twenty taels of silver, and it is about to catch up with a good armor.

The price is expensive, and there is naturally room for opportunism, plus the firearms of the Ming army are all handmade, and the craftsmanship of natural craftsmen and craftsmen is different, and the quality of finished products is also uneven. However, the regular channel is that after the production of weapons is completed, it still needs to be accepted by the management of the War Bureau, and the army can only be equipped after passing the test firing.

In Ma Cheng's hand, this Lu Mi Gong is a defective product that has not been accepted, Wang Qingwei collected it at the price of five taels of silver a rod, replaced those qualified Lu Mi guns, and then sold the qualified Lu Mi guns at a large price, as for the flow there, it is not Wang Qingwei's control.

Of course, this kind of livelihood is not something that Wang Qingwei does alone, basically all warehouse ambassadors do this to varying degrees, or how to make money?

Not all the money earned by Wang Qingwei belongs to him alone, and he has to take out most of it to feed officials at all levels, such as Zhang Guozhu, a Chinese officer in front of him.

Zhang Guozhu saw that Wang Qingwei's face had changed, and he knew that something was wrong, so he hurriedly asked in a low voice, "What?" Is there a problem with that firebolt? ”

Wang Qingwei nodded with a sad face, Zhang Guozhu was so angry, although everyone above knew this kind of unspoken rule, but if the second stunned Ma Cheng turned it out, it would not be able to explain.

Zhang Guozhu thought for a while and asked, "Do you have a qualified Lu Mi gun here?" ”

Wang Qingwei heard Zhang Guozhu say this, and hurriedly said: "Yes, I'll go and get it!" ”

Ma Cheng came to the shooting range alone with the Lu Mi gun, and took the musket in his hand to his eyes to look at it carefully. The barrel of this gun was not made in one piece, but was rolled out of iron sheets.

In fact, most of the early musket barrels were made, and there was no way to process it, and the gunpowder in the early Ming Dynasty was not very powerful, so the barrel rolled with iron sheets could also withstand the impact.

However, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the introduction of European gunpowder technology, the power of gunpowder became more and more powerful, and the rolled barrel could no longer meet the requirements, so the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty learned European craftsmanship and invented drilling.

The barrel of a qualified Lumi gun naturally uses a cold-forged solid iron rod and then drilled with a drill bit, and these manufacturing processes are detailed in the "Artifact Spectrum" written by Zhao Shizhen, a master of weapons in the Ming Dynasty.

Ma Cheng didn't know that the Ming Dynasty had such advanced technology, and thought that the barrels of the Ming Dynasty were like this, so he couldn't help but despise it in his heart. At this time, Zhang Guozhu came to the shooting range with another Lu Mi gun: "Second Young Master, use this fire gun!" Yours has been tested by multiple people, and some of the cracks have to be repaired by the blacksmith. ”

Ma Cheng took the firearm brought by Zhang Guozhu and knew what was going on at a glance, the one in his hand was obviously stronger than the one just now, and the barrel had no obvious joints, the most important thing was that the inner wall of the barrel was smooth, and it was polished and polished at a glance.

Ma Cheng repeatedly looked at the Lu Mi gun in his hand, this musket was like a work of art, and the barrel of Lan Wawa was shiny, and it was of the highest grade at first glance.

Ma Cheng knew that there must be something greasy in this, but Ma Cheng didn't want to care, after all, he was not a big official now, and Wang Qingwei was not corrupt or embezzled his silver, so Ma Chengle was out of sight and out of mind.

Ma Cheng had seen a shotgun fired on the Internet in later generations, but it was the first time to operate it himself. A Kuding on the side stepped forward to explain to Ma Cheng, first selecting a lead bullet of the same size as the barrel from the lead bullet, then putting the lead bullet and gunpowder into the barrel, compacting it with a whole strip, and then taking out the gunpowder pot and pouring gunpowder into the fire door. At this point, the Kudin clamped the prepared arquebus to the dragon head at the back of the gun, and then pushed the fire door open to reveal the gunpowder inside the barrel, so that it could be fired.

Ma Cheng took the loaded Lumi gun in Kuding's hand, and then aimed at the wooden target 200 meters away with Wangshan, and pulled the trigger with his index finger, and the trigger drove the fire rope on the dragon head to contact the gunpowder, and the gunpowder in the musket exploded, firing the lead bullet.

In order to maintain the power of the arquebus, the arquebus of the Ming Dynasty was very large, and it was fifteen millimeters, so the recoil was also very large. Ma Cheng felt a shock on his shoulder, a loud bang in front of him, and then white smoke came out, and the lead bullet in the musket was fired.

Ma Cheng estimated that from the beginning of the charge to the final launch, it took more than a minute, even a qualified musketeer could not compress it to less than a minute, and it seems that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the musket of the Ming Dynasty.

First of all, the arquebus can be canceled, it can be changed to flintlock, and the reload can also be changed to a fixed load, which is used to save reload time, and the decoration on the musket can also be canceled. Ma Cheng looked at Lu Mi Gong and saw that he was actually equipped with a slashing saber, which was really redundant, and the pattern on the butt and gun body could also be canceled, which was really useless.

When Ma Cheng was thinking about how to transform the musket, Kuding took the target, and when he saw that there was nothing on it, Ma Cheng's shot missed the target.

Ma Cheng didn't take it to heart when he saw that he missed the target, the range of 300 steps that Wang Qingwei said just now was too exaggerated, and Ma Cheng estimated that 300 steps was probably the longest range. Just like the rifles of later generations, the longest range is thousands of meters, but the effective range is 300 to 400 meters, and this kind of musket in the Ming Dynasty is probably about the same.

Ma Cheng asked Kuding to place a target fifty steps in front of him, and then another target at seventy paces, both of which were equipped with armor, and this time Ma Cheng had to test the power of the musket.

After two shots, the seventy-step target missed the target again, there was nothing on it, and the fifty-step one hit.

The point of the shot was right in the chest, and the lead bullet of the musket did not penetrate the armor due to the obstruction of the armor leaf. You must know that this target is wearing the most ordinary kind of armor, and if it doesn't even penetrate this, it is not as powerful as a bow and arrow.

Seeing that the power of such a good craftsmanship was not as great as that of a bow and arrow, Ma Cheng couldn't help but feel very frustrated. In fact, Ma Cheng didn't have to be sad, the power of the smoothbore gun before the rifling appeared was not as good as that of the bow and arrow. It was the brown bass smoothbore gun equipped by the British army during the Opium War, and it was not as powerful as the bow and arrow equipped by the Qing army. But don't forget that it is always people who decide the war, and because the British army has good training and strict military discipline, it can use thousands of people to hang the rabble Qing army.

When the British army fought against the French army, it could advance to a distance of 30 meters under the fire of the French army before firing, and this kind of elite army could not only hold muskets, but also shoot any army with cold weapons.

Ma Cheng was deeply influenced by those military enthusiasts on the Internet in later generations, thinking that the smoothbore gun was infinitely powerful and could completely shoot bows and arrows, but he didn't expect that the reality and ideals were different. Originally, according to Ma Cheng's estimate, he trained 100,000 musketeers, and then lined up in a neat formation, using muskets to kill and injure Manchu cavalry, but he didn't expect that the musket as the main force of the weapon is now so powerful, which really disappointed Ma Cheng.

In the late Ming Dynasty, muskets did not become the main weapons, and in this era, the armies of various countries around the world still retained a large number of cold-weapon armies and cavalry, and musketeers were only auxiliary to these cold-weapon armies in battle.

The firearms of this period are still subordinate to the cold weapon equipment, although there is a famous all-firearms army Shenji Battalion, but its role is only to give a certain amount of firepower in the face of the enemy's charge, and the follow-up battles are still completed by the cold weapons such as lunges and cavalry.

Zhang Guozhu didn't know what Ma Cheng was thinking, he saw that the fire gun could still hit the target at a distance of fifty steps, and said happily: "The second young master's marksmanship is fascinating!" You can still hit so far! ”

Ma Cheng smiled noncommittally, originally he thought that the musket of the Ming Dynasty was infinitely close to the smoothbore gun of the British army during the Opium War, but it seemed that he was wrong, and he had to make this kind of thing by himself. Originally, Ma Cheng wanted to get a hundred muskets from Zhang Guozhu, but now it seems that he doesn't need them, and this kind of musket is useless if he is equipped.

"Lord Zhao, can you give your subordinates a few shots of this firearm to familiarize your subordinate soldiers with the shooting process?" Ma Cheng decided to take a few shots, so that those mud legs that had never been touched by the gun would be familiar.

Zhang Guozhu originally thought that Ma Cheng wanted the lion to open his mouth, but he didn't expect that it would only take a few shots, Zhang Guozhu smiled reassuringly: "This is no problem at all!" Ambassador Wang, you pick out ten Lu Mi guns and hand them over to the soldiers under Ma Qianhu's mark! ”