readx;?readx; Chapter 658: The King of War

In fact, this is also what Qin Lei wanted to say to Chen Liefeng, facing the Tiger Prison that was not opened, he had to take out the things at the bottom of the pressure box. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

I saw the fiery red Lingqi hunting and dancing, and a trumpet cannon rang out.

As soon as they heard the sound of the cannon, the gunners of the Qin army, who had already adjusted the firing range, neatly cut the thick rope that involved the noose and the artillery base, and the huge tendon noose made a strong 'whirring' sound of breaking the wind, and the tip of the cannon flipped over violently, and the shells in the leather socket popped out, and the flight trajectory was more than twice as high as eight years ago.

The cannonballs crossed the sky, smashed on the Tiger Prison Pass City one after another, and exploded with a loud bang as soon as they fell, and then a series of fires rose into the air, countless sharp iron nails and stones flew all over the sky, and suddenly the rainstorm covered the city like a pear blossom, and the middle people all screamed and fell to the ground.

Immediately the walls were in chaos, the wounded were screaming and groaning, and the rest were scurrying like headless flies, even though they were knocked down by the increasingly violent rain of bullets. Even the officers and soldiers who ran down the city to take shelter were not spared, because the same heavy rain of bullets completely covered a few feet east of the city wall.

The anti-aircraft bed crossbows under the city also began to speak, and the archers sprinkled clusters of sharp arrows at the city without money. Thousands of fire oil arrows and fire oil bombs were fired, turning the city into a sea of fire.

The Qi soldiers screamed, ran, and scattered in all directions, completely chaotic into a pot of porridge.

But Chen Liefeng, who was on the tower of the city gate, although his brows were twisted into pimples, he was only distressed that the casualties of the troops were too great, and as for the city defense of the Tiger Prison Pass, he was not worried at all.

Because every few zhang on the city wall, there will be a tall arrow tower made of bricks and stones, and under the arrow tower is a hollow hiding cave, which hides elite archers. As long as they give the order, they will return to the combat position in the shortest possible time, and attack the enemy army with the most powerful arrow raindown.

Chen Liefeng was complacent, when he suddenly heard a muffled sound from a distance, followed by a huge explosion sound under his feet. The whole gate tower shook, and the dust on the wall fell in a flutter, so that he almost sat on the ground.

"What's wrong?" He asked, yelling.

The people on the side also looked at each other, not knowing what was going on.

It wasn't until loud noises sounded one after another that someone pointed to the left hand side in horror and said, "Look at the military gate!" ”

When Chen Liefeng heard this, he saw that a large hole like a basin had been opened on an arrow tower on the left, and black smoke was still emitting from the hole. Then there was an explosion that I had never heard before, and orange fires exploded in all directions, each explosion stirring up countless rubble, and when the wind blew away the smoke and dust, a large black pit the size of a watermelon was revealed on the solid wall.

"What the hell is this?" The astonishing power surpassed Chen Liefeng's cognition, and he couldn't help but be shocked: "How can even the city bricks be broken? "Decades of experience in fighting horses have taught him that there is no long-range weapon in the world that can destroy the city walls.

But now the power of the Qin army's weapons is obviously beyond his cognition.

When he took Hangu Pass by sneak attack seven years ago, Qin Lei was always fighting the idea of Tiger Pass. But he also knew that Zhao Wuyi would definitely be acute, and it was impossible for him to give himself a chance. There is no other way than a hard attack, and he has long had this awareness.

Therefore, in the past few years, he has taken a few months a year to stationed in the 'Second Invalids Farm' hidden in the depths of the desert, which is actually his top-secret arsenal. There are the most superb craftsmen of Great Qin, blacksmiths, gunpowder craftsmen, ordnance craftsmen, and even alchemists...... Qin Lei opened a door for these people, that is, how to use the gunpowder used to make firecrackers into a powerful killing weapon.

Of course, Qin Lei did not have the luxury of making killing weapons such as compound guns and breech guns. Although he could build several kinds of long guns and short guns by giving him a lathe, there were no lathes in this era. What's not just a lack of lathes? What he lacks is a whole modern industrial chain, and he can't put those powerful weapons on the stage of history.

And those second-hand firearms that were slightly less powerful, such as fire guns, bird guns, earth cannons, and cannons, had a crosshair difference, low power, slow speed, and explosive bore, and they were no match for elite cavalry at all, so he had never thought of developing those things before.

However, as time passed, when he focused on attacking the fortifications, the creation of powerful firearms was finally put on the agenda.

Generally speaking, there are two main categories of ancient firearms: the first type is the firearm and bird gun that are set by hand, which are small in shape and caliber, and are generally filled with lead bullets and iron bullets, and their range is only tens of steps to 200 steps. They are not lacking in the four problems just mentioned, and Qin Leiyu is trying to overcome them one by one, and it will take at least twenty years to develop a flintlock pistol or a rear-loading gun...... After all, the improvement of the productive forces of the whole society is slow.

So Qin Lei gave up this category and concentrated resources on the second category...... That's the cannon fired from the mount, with a large caliber and shape! The range of this thing is generally hundreds of paces to two or three miles, and it is mainly used for defending and attacking cities!

He knew that the bigger the thing, the simpler it was, because of its large size and thick barrel, the requirements for the materials used were not so high, and even if it was cast from pig iron, it was not afraid of exploding. Moreover, the larger the caliber and the more charges, can effectively increase the range, which can be regarded as a local method to increase the power.

After careful consideration, Qin Lei focused on the development of two kinds of artillery, one is the small artillery Franc machine, the barrel of this thing is five to six feet long, and its advantages are that the projectile shoots out a large muzzle velocity, a long range, and a greater lethality. Moreover, the structure of the mother and child guns was adopted. The female gun refers to the barrel of the gun, and the sub-gun is actually a small firearm, usually five to nine, and the ammunition is loaded in advance or in turn. When using, first put one sub-gun into the barrel of the mother gun, and after firing, the empty sub-gun is withdrawn and replaced with another sub-gun. Because the guns can be swapped out, the time it takes to reload ammunition on the spot is reduced, which increases the rate of fire.

Moreover, the gun is also equipped with sights, equipped with crosshairs, illuminating doors and other devices, which can aim and shoot at the target, which improves the shooting accuracy.

He also installed a latch at the bottom of the gun shaft, a guide tube and a tail shank at the tail, and mounted the gun shaft on the gun carriage through the latch; Then control the guide tube and tail handle, which can rotate the gun body left and right, adjust the firing angle, and expand the firing range.

In order to increase safety and shooting accuracy, he used repeated forging from wrought iron and white iron to produce water-patterned steel with high hardness, high strength and good toughness, which was then melted in a coke-heated blast furnace to recast the barrel. This cost is extremely high, but Qin Lei believes that in the primitive artillery unit, the most precious resource is the gunner...... A cannon can be rebuilt in a few days at most, but if the skilled gunner is gone, it is not something that can be retrained in three or two years.

Therefore, he would rather spend more money than let the gunners be killed by their own cannons, and the high-quality barrel is conducive to improving the stability of multiple shots, which has a considerable boost to the gunners to give full play to the power of the cannon.

In this way, the four problems were solved, and the only problem left was the power of the artillery, and Qin Lei started from two aspects, one was to improve the quality of gunpowder...... Because there were too many impurities in the black powder, even if the configuration was reasonable, the power would be like that, so he decided to change to a more powerful one.

This is not a difficult thing for a former special instructor, in his mind, there are almost all the methods of making gunpowder, after some careful consideration, Qin Lei chose the 'cotton gunpowder' with a relatively balanced performance and difficulty of production. ’

Yes, cotton can explode when immersed in nitric acid. As long as the cotton is immersed in a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid to wash away the excess acid, nitrocellulose can be made. This nitrocellulose gunpowder is made into the propellant of a gun, which is much more powerful than black powder, and it is also very safe.

Although nitric acid is not readily available, as long as there is sulfuric acid, there is no need for nitric acid. And the sulfuric acid thing doesn't even need Qin Lei to worry about, because the alchemists have a set of 'refining stone gall extract method' handed down from the time of Tang Gaozong, that is, the method of obtaining sulfuric acid with dry distillation stone gall, that is, bile alum.

Of course, in order to improve efficiency, Qin Lei still made a small improvement of this method, he distilled it with saltpeter and green alum, and the resulting gas dissolved in water became sulfuric acid.

As long as sulfuric acid is applied to sodium nitrate, the most critical nitric acid can be obtained.

Sodium nitrate is derived from sodalite, which is mainly composed of nitrate produced by the decomposition of rotting plants and animals by nitrifying bacteria and the sodium in the soil. The high purity is white or even colorless, and it is dyed light gray and light yellow due to impurities, and there are also light brown or reddish-brown.

But this thing is most susceptible to water dissolution and loss, so hot and dry desert areas are good conditions for sodium saltpeter enrichment. This is also one of the reasons why Qin Lei chose the Western Desert as an arsenal, in addition to secrecy, it is also good to collect those small spars. His luck was quite good, and he even found a small surface mine dozens of miles away, and among the associated time minerals, there was a large amount of sodalite...... That's enough for him for ten years.

After making nitric acid, the mass production of 'cotton **' was started. Of course, he also thought about going further and making a gelatinous Dana**, but ** was too difficult and too dangerous, he didn't want those craftsmen under his command to die in a few days, so he had to retreat and freeze the Qin army's artillery projectile on the nitrocellulose**.

Isn't there a saying that there is no best, only the most suitable? In the current era, at this level of technology, relatively simple cotton is undoubtedly the best choice.

In addition to the solid bullets made of iron and stone, he also made a hole in the cast iron bullet body, plugged it with a wooden 'letter tube', and installed slow-burning gunpowder in the letter tube to detonate, which is the legendary flowering bullet like a fairy scattering flowers, which can kill and injure enemy soldiers in a large area, and the effect is not only ten times that of solid bullets?

After solving all four problems, Qin Lei encountered a new problem, that is, the gap between the breech and the barrel of the Franc machine was difficult to overcome, so it would cause gunpowder gas leakage, and it was impossible to convert all the explosive force into firing force, so that the range of the cannon was limited.

Therefore, Qin Lei imitated the red-coated cannon, which is a big guy, the principle is similar to that of the Franc machine, but the caliber is larger, the pipe wall is thicker, and it can withstand a large chamber pressure, which is the most powerful artillery at that time. It is more than two zhang long, weighs two thousand catties, and can crack the stone city and shake dozens of miles! It is definitely the number one killer in the world for quite some time!

The combination of two cannons, one long and one short, made the artillery system of the Qin army more mature.