When Emperor Chongzhen finished explaining and wanted to end this meeting, the Portuguese named Rodriguez suddenly bowed and saluted, saying, "Your Majesty the Emperor, we have come all the way from Haojing Ao, and we have specially prepared a small gift for you. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info hopes to be able to get your permission, show you, and get your appreciation! ”

After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen was a little surprised, but he was naturally very happy to have a gift, so he said with a smile: "Since you have brought a gift to me, then present it." ”

However, in that era, anyone who wanted to enter the Forbidden City had to go through strict inspections, not to mention a few Westerners, so the things they carried were left outside the Daming Gate.

Now with the permission of the emperor, Gao Wencai, the commander of the Gong Guard Division who was accompanying him, hurriedly sent someone to fetch things outside the Daming Gate.

After a while, a long box was handed over to Gao Wencai's hand, which looked a little heavy.

When Rodriguez saw this box, he immediately said happily: "Your Majesty, this is a gift for you. ”

Wang Chengen immediately stepped forward, opened the box, was stunned for a moment, then turned around, bowed to the emperor and said, "Your Majesty, it is a long and a short two-pole firecracker." ”

As soon as Wang Chengen finished speaking, the Rodriguez said again: "His Majesty the Great Emperor knows that this is not an ordinary musket, but the latest musket of Europa. Even in the current countries of Europa, there are only a few armies equipped with such advanced muskets. ”

After hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen's heart moved, and then he said: "Wang Chengen, show it to me." ”

Wang Chengen picked up the short-handled musket among them, stepped forward quickly, and handed it to the emperor.

Emperor Chongzhen took it in his hand, took a closer look, and immediately determined that this handcuff was not fired by the fire rope, because there was no open medicine pool, and there was no place to put the fire rope, could this be the legendary flintlock pistol? When I thought of this, I was overjoyed.

At this moment, Rodriguez spoke again, only to hear him say: "Your Majesty, the two muskets presented to you are the new front-loading flintlock muskets of the Europa countries. ”

Rodriguez looked at the emperor as if he was very attached to it, and his face was also proud.

At this time, Bi Maokang suddenly said: "Your Majesty, can you let Weichen take a look at these two muskets?" Emperor Chongzhen then motioned to Wang Chengen to take the musket and hand it over to Bi Maokang.

I saw Bi Maokang, who was over 60 years old, took the long-handled musket with trembling hands, looked at the position of the fire door and the bolt, and said "so it is" and "so it is" in his mouth.

After Bi Maokang read it, he first returned the musket to Wang Chengen's hand, and then knelt on the ground very solemnly, and said with an excited and excited expression: "Congratulations to Your Majesty, congratulations to Your Majesty!" This thing is really a divine weapon, by no means comparable to my Ming shotgun fire gun now, if my Ming Nine Sides are equipped with a large number of this musket, then Jianyu, Mongolian Tartar is not enough to worry about. ”

Since Bi Maokang was promoted to the head of the military department, he has been in charge of rectifying the nine-sided armaments on a full-time basis, and it can be said that he has a clear understanding of the base number of the imperial court and the nine-sided armaments, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

It is precisely for this reason that since he took office, Bi Maokang has always pondered how to improve the firearms equipped with the Shenji Battalion and the towns on the nine sides.

In history, it was not until around the eighth year of Chongzhen, when he was only seventy, that he succeeded in making the first flintlock pistol, although there was still a lot to improve, but after all, it was difficult to take that step.

Now, seeing the flintlock pistol offered by Rodriguez, Bi Maokang suddenly realized that the advantages of this musket and its great strategic value were immediately realized.

Just when Bi Maokang was still excited, Sun Yuanhua's eldest son, Sun Heding, suddenly bowed down and said: "Your Majesty, the two hundred long-handled firearms purchased by Weichen and others in Trench Jingao are all this kind of self-generated firecrackers, compared with the arquebuses and other bird guns equipped by the Shenji Battalion, they are easier to operate, safer to use, and have a longer range, and they are not affected by wind and rain, which is really a sharp weapon of the militarism. ”

Emperor Chongzhen, who knew the advantages of flintlock pistols, was even more overjoyed when he heard it, but he didn't expect that the 200 new Western muskets reported by Sun He Ding before were all flintlock muskets. Although today's flintlock pistols are still front-loading smoothbore guns, compared with the arquebuses currently equipped in the Ming army, it is naturally a big step forward.

Emperor Chongzhen, who had the soul of later generations, of course, knew the great advantages that the flintlock pistol had in this era.

In fact, the earliest musket in human history was invented and manufactured by the Chinese. As early as the Northern Song Dynasty, the army was already equipped with a lot of gunpowder weapons, such as "assault muskets".

It's just that this kind of "assault musket" at that time was made by loading gunpowder into a bamboo pole that had penetrated inside, except for creating a little momentum on the battlefield and scaring people, it actually did not have much effect, and it could not change the situation of riding and shooting on the battlefield at that time.

After the Ming Dynasty, the equipment of firearms was basically popularized to a certain extent. Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the army of the Ming Dynasty has been a semi-firearms army, known as the thunderbolt arquebus, as well as various large and small caliber artillery, in the process of Zhu Yuanzhang's leveling and overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty, played a key role.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army against Jianyu in Liaodong was still a semi-firearms army, but unfortunately, the gunpowder weapons of the Ming Dynasty made relatively slow progress and were always in the stage of arquebuses.

Historically, it was not until the middle of the 16th century, that is, the early days of the Wanli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, that the flintlock pistol was first invented by a French watchmaker and musket enthusiast, and after that, until the middle of the 19th century, for nearly 300 years, the front-loading flintlock musket gun has always been the main combat equipment of Western countries.

However, the original flintlock musket was actually to remove the fire rope used for ignition on the original arquebus, and then replace it with a spring hammer triggered by the trigger, inlay a piece of flint on the hammer, pull the trigger when firing, and the hammer hit the powder pool of the original arquebus, and the flint hit the powder pool of the original arquebus, and then ignited the gunpowder in the powder pool, ignited the gunpowder in the barrel, and shot the projectile out at the same time.

Slightly different from the open medicine pool of the arquebus, the flintlock pistol does not require arquebus ignition, so the medicine pool is closed, only in the direction of the medicine pool facing the hammer landing point, leaving a fire transmission hole commonly known as the fire door, below the fire transmission hole, there is usually a striking anvil, and the flint hits the striking anvil to produce sparks, and then ignites the gunpowder to fire.

Although airtight could not be compared with later firearms, in the 17th century, the flintlock pistol was considered the most advanced individual weapon in the Eastern and Western worlds.

The flint, which is the most important part of the flintlock pistol, was also called "flint" in ancient China, also known as flint or fire sickle.

The Chinese ancestors understood the principle very early and mastered the use of flint, so they used it as a fire tool for a long time.

So on the whole, the principle of the flintlock pistol is very simple, and the required flint is everywhere, so as long as you understand the principle, it is not complicated to transform the original arquebus into a flintlock pistol.

Now that he received the flintlock pistol as a gift, Emperor Chongzhen was of course very happy, and immediately explained to Li Banghua and Sun Yuanhua that the salaries and remuneration of Rodriguez and other gun technicians should be preferentially arranged on the basis of Sun Heding's previous promise.

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen also appointed Rodriguez as Sun Heding's deputy on the spot, serving as the deputy envoy of the Firearms Bureau, assisting and guiding the foundry of the Firearms Bureau, quickly imitating the front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun, and striving to convert all the arquebuses equipped in the Shenji Battalion into flintlock muskets as soon as possible, and then according to the output, further expand the scale and scope of the equipment of the flintlock pistol, and gradually eliminate the backward arquebus, and in the future, the Ming army will use the flintlock pistol as a unified standard equipment.

Emperor Chongzhen also immediately instructed Sun Yuanhua to send people to Jingao to continue to purchase as many flintlock pistols as possible.

After the meeting, Emperor Chongzhen asked Wang Chengen to take Sun Heding and four other Portuguese out of the palace first and return to Tongzhou to settle down. while the others stayed in the Wuying Hall to continue their deliberations.

After Sun Heding left with the Portuguese, Li Banghua saw that the emperor was still holding a short-handled flintlock pistol, and he looked like he couldn't put it down, so he said: "Your Majesty, this kind of flintlock musket is naturally not as powerful as the arquebus.

"Nowadays, there are many kinds of gunpowder bureaus, gun factories, ordnance bureaus, and armor factories in the imperial court, some of which belong to the Ministry of Industry, and some belong to the Ministry of War, and they are not subordinate to each other.

"It is the minister's opinion that it is possible to set up another yamen under the Military Aircraft Department to be responsible for supervising the manufacture of imperial court armaments. Your Majesty, please be aware of it. ”

After Li Banghua finished speaking, Bi Maokang and Sun Yuanhua, who had a deep understanding of this, glanced at each other, and bowed down together and said: "What Elder Li Ge said is very true, and the minister seconded it. ”

Li Guoyi, Xu Guangqi, and Zhang Weixian also immediately said: "The ministers seconded the proposal. ”

And this is one of the reasons why Emperor Chongzhen left everyone to continue the deliberations, so he said: "In this case, then all the yamen who supervise the manufacture of armaments in the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of War, and the Inner Court will be centralized in one place.

"In my opinion, there is an Armament Institute under the Military Aircraft Department, the Gunpowder Bureau, the Ordnance Bureau, the Armor Factory and the Military Warfare Bureau of the Military Aircraft Department, the Ministry of Industry, the Inner Court, and from now on, the personnel, equipment, materials and venues will all be placed under the unified management of the Armament Institute.

"In the future, the Armament Institute will be under the supervision of Li Aiqing, the Minister of Military Aircraft, and the Armament Institute will set up two general superintendents on the left and right at the same time, Bi Maokang and Bi Aiqing, the attendants of the Ministry of War, will be the left chief superintendent, and Sun Yuanhua, the squire of the Ministry of Works, will be the right chief superintendent, who will be responsible for the manufacture of various ordnance and daily specific affairs of the Armament Institute."

After saying this, the emperor explained to Li Banghua, Sun Yuanhua and others the relevant functions and personnel issues of the Armament Academy, and then picked up the tea cup, drank the ginseng tea, and everyone immediately retired.

The next day, the cabinet sent the emperor's will, appointing Bi Maokang, a squire of the Ministry of War, as the left director of the Military Aircraft Department and the left squire of the Military Department, and appointed Sun Yuanhua, a squire of the Ministry of Works, as the right director of the Military Aircraft Department and the right squire of the Ministry of Industry, and the post of the right director of the Armament Institute.

At the same time, there are several other holy decrees, one is that Yang Yingqian recruited people to make meritorious contributions to reclamation, and was promoted to the head of the Ministry of Works, and with the title of head of the Ministry of Works, he still served as the general office of the reserve battalion of the Zhuozhou New Army; The other is that Mao Yuanyi participated in the preparation for the establishment of the martial arts hall and was promoted to the head of the military department, and served as the secretary of the martial arts hall as the head of the military department.