[196] Sitting in Liaodong

There is a small church near Xuanwumen in Beijing, which the locals call Nantang, a Catholic church built by Matteo Ricci in 1605 and not very large. A middle-aged missionary was chatting happily with a young Chinese under a window

"It turns out that Pingbeibo, who defeated the barbarians and defended the frontier of the empire, is Your Excellency~~" The missionary laughed

"Father Tang has won the prize~~" The young man laughed

It turned out that these two were Song Youliang and Tang Ruowang

John Tong devoted himself to proselytizing in China, helping the Ming Dynasty to build artillery, compiling calendars, and translating some Western works. But he was disappointed that the Chinese emperor's interest in firearms, mining, and the calendar had always been in the field of firearms, mining, and the calendar, and that he had a dispensable attitude toward God

Knowing that Song Youliang was also a baptized Christian, John Tang was a little more affectionate to the rising star of the empire.

"Fr. John Tong, I have come this time in the hope of inviting you to teach in the newly opened school." Song Youliang said straight to the point

John Tong had previously received letters from Father Thomas and Father Bergine, and it was not easy for missionaries to gain legal status in China, and Song Youliang went one step further and offered to establish a church school for missionaries to serve in it. John Tong felt that this was very beneficial to spreading the gospel of God in China. So he agreed without thinking.

Tang Ruowang agreed too simply, but Song Youliang was stunned, "Father, have you thought clearly?" When you come to me, you're not an official, you're a teacher. ”

John Tang said simply: "Officials and teachers are just titles, my main job is a clergy, and everything must serve God~"

Song Youliang secretly said that this foreigner was simply the same, so he said: "Then you pack up, let's go~!" ”

In the spring of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, the new Liaodong Capital Division was established. The scope of direct jurisdiction includes the places within the Great Wall of Liaodong, which is divided into three counties of Song, namely Jinzhou Prefecture: Jinzhou, which governs Jinzhou, and has jurisdiction over four counties: Ningyuan, Guangning, Qiantun County and Yizhou; Jinzhou Mansion: Jinzhou, which governs Jinzhou, has four counties: Fu County, Gai County, Fengcheng and Kuandian; Shenyang Prefecture, governed by Shenyang, has jurisdiction over four counties: Liaoyang, Fushun, Kaiyuan and Tieling.

Song Youliang was removed from the post of the commander-in-chief of Dengzhou and transferred to the governor of Liaodong, which was the highest military and political chief of the Liaodong Metropolitan Division, above the three divisions. Fang Kongzhi was transferred from Huguang as the governor of Liaodong, Song Xuezhu was transferred from Shandong as the inspector, and Sun Chuanting was the capital secretary.

He Tengjiao was transferred to Huai Xu Bingbei Dao as the prefect of Jinzhou, Qu Shiyun, who was squeezed out and framed by Wen Tiren and Zhou Yanru, and returned home from his post as the prefect of Jinzhou, and Han Chengxuan, the prefect of Licheng County, who was desperately defending the city in the defense of Jinan, was transferred to the prefect of Shenyang. The rest, such as Yan Yingyuan and Lu Xiangsheng's three younger brothers, Lu Xiangguan, Lu Xiangjin, Lu Xiangtong, and some students from Dengzhou University, served as county magistrates and other grassroots officials.

At the same time, a large number of machinery and skilled workers and their families in Dengzhou were all transferred to Liaoyang, and a Seiko Bureau was opened up on the basis of the original military, civilian, and vehicle and ship bureaus, which was specially responsible for tackling key technical problems.

Although Song Youliang did not go to the Military Bureau and the Civil Bureau for a long time, before leaving, Song Youliang prepared a detailed document, which contained many of his ideas for the improvement of firearms and some of Song Youliang's own knowledge. So Shen Lusu, Song Yingxing, Bo Jue and others gathered the cooperation of a group of skilled craftsmen and a group of Western craftsmen in accordance with Song Youliang's guidance and ideas, and created what Song Youliang was waiting for - a rear-loading rifle

The new rear-loading rifled rifle has greatly improved the technology compared with the current front-loading rifled rifle. The steel used to make the barrel in the first place was specially refined. It is the arsenic ore used in smelting white copper with wrought iron, and the heat must be controlled when frying steel, so that the steel can be used to make the barrel. Of course, the specific refining process of this special steel, according to the rules set by Song Youliang for them at the beginning, must be recorded in detail, and at the same time, it must be kept strictly secret from the outside world. The arsenic ore used to smelt cupronickel is actually nickel ore in later generations, and from the process flow recorded by the craftsmen, the steel material of this barrel should be nickel steel.

Is there any record in the ancient books whether the ancient people would smelt nickel steel Song Youliang doesn't know, but he knows that if soft iron is used as the barrel, then the rifling can also be pulled out by using nickel steel as a knife, but after dozens of shots, the rifling may be polished, and there is no actual combat significance at all. In this way, you have to have a strong enough barrel, and you have to have sharp props

Sun Hejing said that a Jiangxi craftsman told them that if they beat the heavy stone ore and another type of amethyst ore into an extremely fine powder, first smelt it with charcoal powder and heavy stone ore, mix it into the amethyst powder while it is hot and press it into shape, and then return it to the furnace to smelt, so that they can refine harder drilling and chiseling knives. At that time, their ancestors left such a chisel, which was very convenient for them to use to turn the thread of the breech of the firebolt after they were modified.

Sun Hejing also said that the Jiangxi craftsmen said that their ancestors only passed down the refining heat and craftsmanship of these things, and the detailed locations of these mines were lost during the war at the end of the Song Dynasty. It is only known that the black iron ore with weak magnetism is in the current boundary of Wusi Zangdusi and Duogandusi, the amethyst ore is in the boundary of Qiongzhou Prefecture, and the heavy stone is only known in Jiangxi, and I don't know where it is

In Song Youliang's memory, a little metallurgical knowledge told him that only tungsten was used in steelmaking to achieve the effect of heavy stone mine as the Jiangxi craftsmen said, and Jiangxi was precisely the largest producer of tungsten ore in China in later generations. In addition, the kind of black iron ore with weak magnetism they are talking about should be chromite, otherwise it would not have been possible to achieve the effect they described. And the boundary between Wusi Tibetan Dusi and Duogandusi they are talking about is the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in later generations, the largest chromite mining area in China! As for the method they said of beating heavy stone ore and amethyst ore into extremely fine powder and mixing them together for smelting, the amethyst ore should be cobalt crystal, which can almost be equivalent to the powder alloy method of refining tungsten and cobalt alloy only in the twentieth century! And now Qiongzhou Mansion, that is, Hainan Island in later generations, has arsenic cobalt ore that can produce purple cobalt crystals!

"Damn ~~~" Song Youliang laughed secretly in his heart, "Could it be that these Jiangxi craftsmen are metallurgical professional traversers?" "Song Youliang's current financial resources can send a large number of people to Qinghai-Tibet, Jiangxi and Hainan to purchase and even look for these mineral deposits, but he is now in Liaodong, one Tiannan, one Haibei, and wherever the people go, all the dishes are cold.

For the new rifle, the craftsmen forged a barrel with an inner diameter of only eight millimeters, thickened the rear part of the barrel, widened the breech to the shape of the same as the shape of the bullet casing they used, and slowly rifled the front barrel part with the collar knife. At the same time, a spiral power spring made a simple bolt out of iron, and the barrel and bolt part were fitted with wooden supports. Finally, a rotating screw is placed under the bolt, pull the screw down, and then rotate it back 180 degrees, and the rear loading port will be exposed, and one bullet can be loaded at a time. After the reloading, as long as the screw is turned back to 180 degrees, and the spring will pull the screw back, and then it can be fired

Then there are bullets, and a gun without bullets is worse than a burning stick.

As for the bullet, the craftsmen began to improve it because they thought that the paper shell bullet was susceptible to moisture, so they used their brains to replace the paper shell with a copper shell. Later, according to Song Youliang's requirements and inspiration for the manufacture of copper-shelled bullets and the impact of the hammer, the craftsmen began to use their brains. For example, Song Youliang left the formula for red powder, and the craftsmen followed the instructions of the recipe to grind saltpeter and realgar into powder, and then mixed them according to the proportion, and successfully made red powder.

Then to make bullets, the craftsmen first made more than a dozen inverted bottle-shaped molds based on the diameter of the breech of the gun, and then expanded the inside of the shell that had been drilled out of the primer groove into a bottle-shaped empty cylinder, and after pouring out the bullet shell rough blank with brass, it was made into a pointed bullet. Finally, lead is poured into the empty warhead of the copper case, and a bullet is completed. The bullet with the warhead and gunpowder weighed almost forty grams. For this copper-shelled bullet, the craftsmen created a new folding rear-loading rifle, and the assembled new gun was one meter four in length, plus the spear stab, the whole field was one meter seven, and the total weight was six catties.

After test firing, the maximum firing range of the new rifle is about 1,200 meters, and the effective range is about 400 meters, and the back of the gun is also equipped with a scope developed by Wang Shan and Bo Jue (although it is still almost as long as the gun body)

Gu Junen was also very excited after testing the new gun, but he said worriedly: "What about the original more than 6,000 firearms?" Do you want them to sleep until the arsenal leaves? That's a waste! ”

Li Xin smiled: "It's better to sell them to Hong Chengchou, anyway, he is going to the northwest to suppress bandits." ”

Song Youliang also smiled: "Yes, let's send a few more instructors to give him ****, and ensure that Hong Chengchou will thank me for giving the silver." ”

Everyone had no objections, so Song Youliang sent Li Xin to discuss the sale of guns with Hong Chengchou in Jinzhou. Sure enough, Hong Chengchou, who had seen the power of the Song musket, was very happy, but he had limited money in his hand, and was only willing to buy 500 at the price of 1501 rods. Li Xin, who was fully authorized by Song Youliang, immediately made a decision, we are all a family, talking about money hurts feelings, fifty taels of one, Inspector Hong, you will give Bao Yuan when you are old. Not only that, Song Youliang also provides after-sales service, one-month guarantee, half-year warranty, and also sent ten military attaches to your army to be responsible for training musketeers for one month, during which the salary is still Song Youliang

Hong Chengchou was overjoyed and couldn't stop praising Song Youliang for his generosity, so the two sides made a deal on the spot, Hong Chengchou paid half of the payment in advance, and 6,000 muskets were sent to Hong Chengchou's military camp in three batches within three months.