As a prince who made his fortune in war, Marin attached great importance to the army. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoWhenever he has time, Marin will go to the barracks to inspect it. No, when he got up early in the morning, Marin decided to ride his horse to inspect the barracks outside the city to check whether the army was strictly training in peacetime.

According to Marin's regulations, every morning, after running a 5-kilometer run, the soldiers have to train the battle formation and individual skills and tactics. Mainly, spearmen are trained to stab, while musketeers are trained to shoot.

Marin's musketeers, training was frequent, and live firing training was often conducted. The armies of other countries, even if they have musketeers, do not train with live ammunition very often. Because, gunpowder is too expensive......

There are no saltpeter mines in Europe, and if you want saltpeter, you can only go to the toilet to find it. Moreover, the number is still very small. As a result, saltpeter prices in Europe are expensive. Marin, on the other hand, can go to India to buy saltpeter, so the cost of saltpeter is much lower than that of other European countries. But the problem is that the ship to India only makes a round trip every two years.

Marin estimated that the spices in Spain were almost sold out. So, he also planned to send a ship to India to buy saltpeter.

Of course, there are now 20 new fertiliser plants in East Friesland, as well as in Oldenburg and Schleswig. These fertilizer processing plants no longer make manure directly into fertilizer, but add a process of extracting saltpeter.

Specifically, the manure is collected and then introduced into a dug earthen manure tank. After a month, the manure is transferred to another place to make manure blocks, and the empty manure tank, the surrounding soil, is dug up and used to extract soil nitrate.

Recently, a craftsman who extracts soil nitrate has proposed a more efficient method. He used gauze to filter the feces by using gauze to make tofu, leaving only urine, and the fecal solids were used as fertilizer. As for the urine, it is used to stir the yellow mud.

For every 1,000 pounds of soil, mix 150 pounds of urine. After stirring well, place it in a damp place to ferment, preferably at around 26 to 28 degrees. After a month, the soil turned into nitrate. And this thousand catties of nitrate can extract eight to nine pounds of saltpeter.

This new method of soil nitrate extraction is much more efficient than before. Previously, only the surrounding soil could develop nitrate in the pond where the nitrate was extracted. And this method greatly increases the amount of nitrate extracted.

Before, a large pool of manure was extracted only a few hundred pounds of saltpeter. Now, a large pool of manure can extract thousands of pounds of saltpeter.

It's just that Marin knows very well that the amount of saltpeter extracted in this way has certainly increased. But at the same time, it also leads to a decrease in the nitrogen content in the feces.

Because, in feces, nitrogen is mainly in urine, and the nitrogen content in fecal solids accounts for a minority. The new nitrate fermentation method has increased the extraction of saltpeter, but it has also reduced the nitrogen content in the manure, resulting in a reduction in the nitrogen content of fertilizer blocks.

After thinking about it, Marin decided that when making nitrate, only half of the urine would be extracted to produce nitrate. The rest of the urine is still used to make fertilizer blocks. After all, agriculture is a major matter, and agriculture cannot be mistaken because of military needs.

At the same time, when making fertilizer blocks, Marin also asked the serf workers in the fertilizer factory to increase the content of manure and use the amount to make up for the lack of nitrogen content per unit of fertilizer.

Nevertheless, because the new method of extracting nitrate is ten times more efficient than before. Although only half of the urine was used, the amount of saltpeter extracted was four or five times as much as before.

In this way, even if you don't go to India to buy cheap saltpeter, the saltpeter here in Marin is enough. There are 20 large-scale fertilizer processing plants, which collect manure from all over the country and process nitrate day and night, which is enough to supply the saltpeter needs of the Marin army.

As for the other materials used for gunpowder, charcoal and sulfur, there are many of them in Europe, and they are not expensive......

Under such conditions, Marin naturally asked the musketeers to practice live firing on a regular basis. However, it is not every day, but only once a week. Otherwise, Marin's financial resources are also a little overwhelmed.

It also happened that when Marin came to inspect the barracks, the musketeers were training in live ammunition. So, Marin rode his horse with great interest to watch.

Between the musketeers the commander shouted:

"Attention everyone!"

"Get shot!"

"Stir the gunpowder!"

Suddenly, the musketeers began to open the copper kettle they were carrying, and with a copper spoon, they began to stir the gunpowder powder in the copper kettle.

Marin's musketeers still used powdered gunpowder, not granular gunpowder. The reason why this is so is also to keep it secret, so that the secret of granular gunpowder will not be learned. In addition, there is no need to use granular gunpowder even at present.

Other armies are not yet popular to use muskets, and no army uses muskets to shoot at their own troops. Therefore, there is no need to use granular gunpowder to increase the effective range of the cross-fire.

At present, there are only artillery in Marin's army, which uses granular gunpowder. Moreover, the granular gunpowder of the artillery was rationed in animal skin bags. When firing a gun, the artilleryman only needed to open the leather bag and pour the gunpowder into the barrel. Normally, gunpowder bags are not allowed to be opened to avoid getting wet.

The musketeers, on the other hand, always used copper kettles for gunpowder. As for the amount of charge, the copper spoon used for stirring is used to measure the amount of gunpowder.

Powdered gunpowder is different from granular gunpowder, granular gunpowder, because before being made into granules, are stirred evenly, and then glued together, the natural quality is good. And powdered gunpowder, because saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal have different densities. During transportation, after bumps, it will be layered, sinking with high density and rising with low density.

Therefore, before each battle, the musketeers needed to stir the gunpowder powder in the copper kettle.

Seeing that the musketeers had all their gunpowder stirred, the musketeer commanders shouted:

"Charge!"

The musketeers immediately dug two spoonfuls of gunpowder powder into the copper kettle with copper spoons and put them into the barrels, no more, no less. Then, the iron strip was drawn from under the barrel and the gunpowder in the barrel was tamped.

"Reload!" The commander continued to shout.

The skilled musketeers took the iron strip in their left hand, and immediately pulled out a buckshot from their purse, and at the same time, a small piece of cut leather.

After that, the musketeers placed the leather across the muzzle of the barrel, placed the bead-shaped lead bullet on top of the leather, and pressed it inside. Then, with his right hand, he took back the copper bar from his left hand, and smashed the lead bullet and leather that had been pressed into the muzzle of the barrel to the bottom, and tammed it. Then, the iron bar is drawn and inserted into the socket under the barrel.

After that, the arquebus was raised flat, and the musketeer scooped up a little powder with a spoon and placed it in an open powder pool......

The powder pool of the arquebus is different from the flintlock pistol, which is held down by an iron sheet. Therefore, the powder pool of the flintlock pistol can be poured into the powder pool in advance, and then pressed with iron sheets, and then the musket is erected and the barrel is filled with gunpowder and lead bullets.

However, arquebuses are different, and the ignition method of arquebuses is to use a clip driven by the trigger to send the lit arquebus into the open powder pool above the rear end of the barrel, ignite the gunpowder in the powder pool, and then ignite the excitation powder in the barrel through the fire transfer hole.

Because it is an open powder pool, it is natural that gunpowder cannot be put in first. Otherwise, when the barrel is erected, the gunpowder from the powder pool will be scattered on the ground.

Therefore, this point is one of the important differences between arquebuses and flintlock pistols. At the same time, because the powder pool is open and upward. In the event of a rainy day, the powder pool is prone to rainwater. So, arquebuses are afraid of rain. When it rains, the arquebuses are easy to extinguish and the powder pool is prone to water. Unlike flintlock pistols, which are covered with pieces of iron, they are not afraid of rain.

After all the soldiers have loaded their ammunition and clamped the lit arquebus, it is natural to enter the famous "three-stage shooting" time. This process, naturally, is needless to say.

After visiting the shooting training for a while, Marin suddenly remembered that it seemed that the 1,000 knives of whale oil paper had not yet decided on its use.

Originally, Marlin planned to make all the oiled paper into oiled paper bags to wrap salt and cane sugar. However, Europeans are now more accustomed to using oak barrels when transporting sugar and salt, and do not necessarily need oil-paper bags.

Only bulk cane sugar and salt are used in oiled paper bags. However, when ordinary people buy bulk salt and cane sugar, they often bring their own bottles and cans, and they don't need you to provide oil paper bags. Buying vegetables is the same, and people bring their own vegetable baskets. Unlike the common people in later generations, they didn't bring vegetable baskets when buying vegetables, and plastic bags were directly provided by merchants.

Marin was also influenced by the thinking of later generations, so he thought of providing oiled paper bags to guests. However, after investigation, he found that ordinary people buy things with their own containers, and there is no need for businessmen to worry about it.

In other words, those oiled papers may not necessarily be used......

However, combined with the shooting training in front of him, Marin suddenly remembered what those oiled papers could do......

Ammunition is loaded! The earliest fixed ammunition was made of oiled paper.

In the early days, the officers were afraid that the soldiers would not put in the right amount of gunpowder, and if they put too much, it would be easy to explode. After all, the barrels of the early ones were wrought iron and did not have much strength.

It just so happened that later papermaking technology advanced, and the cost of oiled paper decreased. As a result, some experts came up with the concept of custom-packed gunpowder. It is a packet of oiled paper of a certain size, filled with the amount of gunpowder needed to shoot a single shot. Then, it was issued to the soldiers.

In this way, even the most stupid soldier knows that when shooting, as long as he tears open the oiled paper bag and pours the gunpowder inside into the barrel, it must be right. Then, wrapped in oiled paper, holding a lead bullet, the copper and iron strips were pierced into the bottom of the barrel and tamped.

In this way, the oil-paper packet containing the quantitative gunpowder not only allowed the soldier to achieve accurate charging. Moreover, oiled paper bags can replace the expensive leather of the previous one, as an aid for breath-holding, and wrap lead bullets. In this way, the application of oiled paper bags can also save a lot of leather.

Of course, the charge in the oiled paper bag is not only the stimulant in the barrel, but also a small part of the ignition powder to be poured into the powder pool.

However, this is only suitable for flintlock pistols. Because, if the ignition powder is loaded first, the flintlock pistol can press the powder pool with a piece of iron. And arquebuses obviously can't.

Moreover, because the oiled paper bag had to be pressed into the barrel with lead bullets, it was impossible to pour a little more gunpowder into the powder pool at the end. Therefore, the method of "one pack of dual-use" gunpowder is not suitable for arquebuses, only flintlock guns.

Of course, this is not a problem. The musketeers could have prepared a small copper kettle for gunpowder. When the excitation charge, lead bullet, and oiled paper bag in the barrel are all loaded, a small copper kettle is used to pour a little gunpowder into the powder pool......

In addition, gunpowder wrapped in oiled paper can only be granular gunpowder, not powdered gunpowder. Because the powdered gunpowder is bumped in the oiled paper bag, it is also easy to stratify, which affects the effect of deflagration. Therefore, for fixed ammunition, it was necessary to use granular gunpowder.

In fact, Marlin had long planned to use gunpowder in a custom-made order. Moreover, it is not very troublesome to make granular gunpowder, as long as enough labor is arranged, it can be done. It is nothing more than a glue made from fish skin, which is glued together with a well-stirred gunpowder powder, then kneaded into strips, cut into granules, and then air-dried......

However, in the past, there was no large amount of cheap oiled paper, so it was impossible to use customized gunpowder. Moreover, the use of oiled paper to load the fixed gunpowder, as long as it is sealed, can also prevent moisture, which can be described as killing three birds with one stone (the first is to accurately measure the amount of gunpowder, so as not to make mistakes among soldiers; The second must be to replace the leather sheet, wrap the lead bullet and press it into the barrel to hold the breath; Thirdly, it is natural to make the granular gunpowder waterproof).

In fact, in fact, the use of oiled paper packets to order gunpowder also has a function, that is, to make soldiers usually unable to see the granular state of gunpowder, so as not to attract the attention and imitation of others.

Thinking of this, Ma Lin happily ended the inspection of the barracks, and before leaving, he praised the soldiers well, which made everyone feel a little inexplicable.

After returning to the palace, Marin immediately arranged manpower to prepare to expand the scale of the granular gunpowder workshop, and recruited more people to process the granular gunpowder.

At the same time, Marin also hired a group of skillful women to make oil paper into fixed-size oil paper packets out of batter, which were used to hold containers for gunpowder.

After the granule gunpowder is ready, it can be directly wrapped in these oiled paper, and then wrapped in oiled paper with batter and sealed. When it was time for the battle, the soldiers could carry the gunpowder in leather packs. Each time he loaded, he pulled out an oiled paper bag directly from his leather bag, tore it open and poured gunpowder into the barrel. Then, the lead bullet is wrapped in oiled paper and pressed into the barrel. Finally, use another small copper kettle to pour some gunpowder powder into the powder pool as ignition powder......

In this way, when the musketeer fires, the step of stirring the powder is omitted, which can save a lot of time. Moreover, the soldiers did not have to carefully measure the amount of gunpowder, which saved a lot of trouble, and also eliminated the danger of the barrel blowing up due to overcharging, and also saved a lot of leather pieces......