That night, Emperor Chongzhen stayed in the guest house specially prepared for him in the lecture hall. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Early the next morning, the emperor went to inspect several important institutions in Tongzhou, first to the Yamen of the Governor of Zhili, then to the Agricultural Institute of the Ministry of Rites, and then to the Military Aircraft Department in Tongzhou.

The Yamen of the Governor of Zhili is really quite magnificent, pavilions and pavilions, all places, all are complete, and it is in the center of Tongzhou City.

The newly enclosed entire Tongzhou City is centered on the original canal wharf, and the Yamen, the governor of Zhili, is near the canal wharf, and the transportation is very convenient, which is more conducive to strengthening the control and control of the land of Gyeonggi than being located in the Jingshi.

The Agricultural Courtyard is still busy, although the spring ploughing in Gyeonggi has long been over, but the cultivation along the Great Wall in the north has not yet been completely finished, coupled with the needs of Yuan Keli, the governor of Caoyun, the needs of the three prefectures under the jurisdiction of Lu Xiangsheng in the south of Beizhili, and the needs of Datong Mansion and Taiyuan Mansion in Shanxi, so that the people of the Agricultural Institute have always been in extreme busyness.

Emperor Chongzhen met with Xu Ji, Wang Zheng and others, who were very busy in the Agricultural Academy, as well as Spanish missionaries Julius and Deng Yuhan who were invited by Xu Guangqi to help guide them, and praised each of them, and then left the Agricultural Institute and went to the key military institute of this trip.

First of all, they went to the cannon foundry of the Arsenal Academy, and Bi Maokang, Sun Yuanhua, Tang Ruowang and others showed the emperor several bronze cannons that had been cast one after another with reference to the Western Hongyi cannons not long ago.

Bi Maokang even brought Rodriguez and other Portuguese gun technicians to show the emperor several new muskets that they had recently forged with reference to Western front-loading flintlock muskets.

Although the division of labor in the Armament Institute is not particularly clear, as far as firearms are concerned, Sun Yuanhua mainly supervises the casting of cannons, while Bi Maokang focuses on supervising the manufacture of flintlock muskets.

Emperor Chongzhen first took a serious look at these newly cast bronze cannons, and named these bronze cannons of the same caliber and model as "Shenwei Invincible General Cannon".

Emperor Chongzhen saw this bronze cannon, and its later generations in the military museum to see the Hongyi cannon exactly the same, the whole body is cast at one time, the body of the cannon is up to three meters, the caliber is up to 120 millimeters, converted into the traditional Chinese unit of measurement, that is, the length of nine feet, the caliber of four inches, the front of the cannon body is thin and the back is thick, two-thirds of the two ears are there, can be installed on the fort or gun carriage, and can adjust the angle of fire, the total weight of the cannon body is more than 2,500 catties, the firing range can reach up to ten miles away.

Such a front-loading smoothbore bronze cannon, even in today's Western countries, can already be regarded as a heavy artillery, and its main purpose is also for the defense of Xiongcheng fortress and the naval guns of giant ships. The reason for this is that it is too bulky to be used for mobile warfare in the field.

Such bronze cannons, of course, were the mainstream of the seventeenth century, and even until the first decades of the nineteenth century, bronze front-loading smoothbore guns were still widely used in warfare.

However, when people entered the twentieth century, the artillery used by the army was basically all steel cannons, at least cast iron cannons, while copper cannons became fewer and fewer, and they were eventually eliminated.

One of the important reasons, of course, is that the cost of copper is relatively high, and it is not cost-effective to use steel or cast iron. Another reason is that the texture of the copper cannon itself is not as powerful as the new gunpowder and explosives.

In the sixteenth century, when the level of iron and steel smelting was generally not good, bronze or brass with a low melting point naturally had a great advantage when casting artillery, but with the progress of steel smelting technology, especially the strong demand for artillery firepower in war, the disadvantage that bronze or brass cannons were not resistant to high temperature and high pressure inside the gun chamber became increasingly apparent.

Under the continuous high temperature and high pressure, the copper cannon is easy to deform and distort, and its accuracy will become worse and worse, which is a major disadvantage of the brass cannon. The material of the bronze cannon is more brittle, and once you want to increase the range and amount of medicine, you have to bear the risk of exploding.

However, in the era of Emperor Chongzhen, that is, in the seventeenth century, bronze artillery was still the mainstream of the East and the West, although the cost was much higher than that of iron cannons, but it was easy to smelt, easy to maintain, and not easy to rust. Especially at that time, the casting process of bronze, whether it was China or Western countries, was relatively better than that of steel smelting technology.

Therefore, during this period, whether it was the Western artillery purchased by the Ming Dynasty from the Portuguese, or the artillery that he had been casting since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, it was mainly copper cannons, supplemented by iron cannons.

Historically, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court was short of finances, and Emperor Chongzhen tightened his belt to cast dozens of bronze Hongyi cannons, but at that time it was too late to cast cannons, and the newly cast artillery had not yet played its due role, and the city of Beijing fell because of the initiative of the traitors to open the door and surrender.

Now, Emperor Chongzhen reopened iron smelting in Zunhua, and found Sun Yuanhua, Tang Ruowang and others a few years in advance to set up a cannon casting factory and cast guns full-time.

After looking at these majestic and majestic divine and invincible general cannons, Emperor Chongzhen took a serious look at the newly cast musket presented by Rodriguez as if he were offering a treasure.

The new muskets made by Rodriguez and others at the Tongzhou Gun Factory were naturally exactly the same as the muskets he made at the Portuguese gun factory in Macao.

However, compared to the long-handled flintlock pistol that Rodriguez gave him as a gift, this newly cast musket was a little lighter to take, and it seems that they took care of the significant difference in physical fitness between the Ming soldiers and the Western army.

At this time, the muskets used by the Western countries, many of them were arquebuses in dozens of catties, even if they were equipped with the most advanced flintlock smoothbore guns, the weight of each musket was still about 30 catties, and only a few strong professional soldiers could hold the gun with their left hand, hold the gun with their right hand, and hold the shoulder socket with the butt, and then shoot smoothly.

Most soldiers, including those from Western countries, had to use a kind of brace on which the barrel of the gun was placed and aimed.

This was especially true for the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who used arquebuses. In addition to the handcuffs, most of the firecrackers have a large caliber and a thick and thick barrel, and unless they are skilled firecrackers, a person cannot complete the whole set of loading and firing actions.

An arquebus is usually around thirty or fifty pounds, and it is either used on the basis of fortifications or on the shoulders of auxiliary soldiers.

In addition, the gunpowder was not packaged in a quantitative manner, and the barrel of the gunpowder was poorly cast, and every firing could be said to be an adventure.

However, the newly cast musket of Tongzhou Gun Factory is different, while the shape is consistent, the weight of the entire gun body has decreased, and the total weight is 24 catties and 8 taels.

If we use the arithmetic of later generations, the total length of the body of this musket is about 1.56 meters, the length of the barrel is about 1.12 meters, and its caliber is between one centimeter and two centimeters, about 156 millimeters.

Emperor Chongzhen is almost more than one meter seven points tall, and it is not difficult to hold such a musket, and it feels very comfortable to start, so he is full of praise while watching.

Bi Maokang, who was accompanying him, saw that the emperor was so happy, and he had just ordered the four-inch caliber, twenty-five times the diameter of the imitation red-coated cannon cast by Sun Yuanhua in person, so he stepped forward and bowed down and said: "Your Majesty, although this musket is modeled on the Western flintlock musket, it is the first flintlock musket made in my Ming Dynasty, and it is of moderate size and weight. The ministers thought that it could be fixed, mass production, and equipment for the new army. The minister dared to ask His Majesty to give this musket a name. ”

Emperor Chongzhen thought for a while and said: "What Bi Aiqing said is reasonable, this musket is indeed the first flintlock musket imitated by my Ming Dynasty. In this case, I gave this musket the name Chongzhen a front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun. ”

Bi Maokang and others immediately knelt on the ground to thank him.

But after Emperor Chongzhen said the name, he continued: "Although this musket has the essence of Western flintlock muskets, it is not perfect. I thought that in the future, the Chongzhen style would be mass-produced, and the design of the butt would continue to be improved, and a bayonet would be added to it. ”

In front of him, this Chongzhen front-loading flintlock smoothbore gun, compared with the arquebus in the past, is of course a huge progress, but he also understands from later generations that the butt of this musket is still very obvious in design flaws, although it can rely on the shoulder to offset the recoil, but its arc curve, compared with the butt that has been improved countless times in later generations, it is definitely not as good.

Therefore, although the musket was named and approved for the continuation of mass casting, Emperor Chongzhen pointed out the problem of the design of the butt to Bi Maokang, Sun Heding, and Rodriguez, and asked them to take the charcoal strips used by craftsmen to mark the line, and drew the curve of the butt of the rifle used in later generations, and also drew the shape of the bayonet with the collar fixing device used with the rifle in the early twentieth century, and asked them to study and manufacture it accordingly.