The Ferguson rifle, which is characterized by the injection of gunpowder, from the front, to the rear like a gun is loaded. The key to the pen is www.biquge.info the rotating handle, which is a long-handled handle on a screw.

After each shot, the screw was turned to reveal the chamber, the bullet was stuffed in, the gunpowder was poured, and then tightened, and the flint was fired. In a minute, it is possible to shoot six to eight times. There have only been five demonstrations just now, and this is the result of a deliberate slowdown.

In addition to this, there was rifling engraved in it, which was already a rifled gun, and the rate of fire was very impressive, but the British did not expect to promote it at all. It will take decades for rifled guns to shine on the battlefield again. However, now in Li Chen's hands, he was manufactured in advance, and he plans to mass-produce this weapon.

Although its range is not as good as the strong crossbow currently used by the Tang Army, the range of the crossbow is even farther than the four types of the crossbow, not to mention the improved Tang crossbow, the rate of fire is not worse than his, and the distance is especially excessive.

However, the biggest advantage of the musket is that it is not too picky. After only a few months of training, a musketeer is on the line. A good archer, at least one to two years.

Li Chen plans to expand the army on a large scale. It is necessary to have muskets, otherwise it will not be easy to recruit soldiers who know how to bow and arrow. Those 20,000 people were still carefully selected.

Originally, Li Chen wanted to continue to study muskets, while slowly expanding the training army, conquering Tibet in the west, conquering Nanzhao in the south, Pingfan in the east, and the desert in the west. This is all in order, while expanding the army and fighting, conquering the desert, he intends to cut off the foundation of the rise of all nomads in the future at one time, just like the later Mongolia, domesticated by the Manchu Qing to subdued and pasted, the Mongolian race has never increased.

Why, you know? In addition to preaching that kind of Tibetan Buddhism, every time the population of Mongolia exceeds one million, there is a massacre. This is really shocking, the Manchurians relied on massacres to limit the Mongol population. Therefore, in the first Qing Dynasty, except for the Geldan rebellion in the Kangxi year, Mongolia was very peaceful. He had already figured out how to concoct the nomads. And all in order.

But the problem is that after receiving the good news of Tubo's victory, he thought about it carefully, and he ignored some problems. With the conquest of these places, more and more soldiers were needed. He is right to take the line of elite soldiers, he wants to work hard to eradicate illiteracy, and he wants every soldier to have a good job and a high honor after retirement, so as to reverse the bad impression of the world towards soldiers and cultivate a martial style.

However, seriously speaking, to do these things, it is simply not enough for more than 100,000 or 200,000 people. More people. Just defending everywhere is probably going to cost hundreds of thousands of Tang troops.

He was right, 20,000 people, it was enough to fight Tubo and Nanzhao, but what about defending afterwards? Also, to pacify the Hebei Domain, maybe 50,000 people are enough. But it's also about defending.

Therefore, the expansion of troops and horses is not in conflict with the policy of elite soldiers at all. In other words, he still has too few soldiers and horses. Now, he is even more in crisis, maybe the three towns of Hebei are unstable, maybe the time to send troops is coming, and when the time comes, the army will be more needed. Therefore, he wants to expand the army, or expand the army.

Originally, it was expected that retired soldiers would be placed in public positions, and they would be basically held in positions such as a lizheng, not to be regarded as the lowest unit. However, it also managed several families. This is also a very honorable position, in addition, there are many public offices, they can be arranged, calculated, tens of thousands of people are just enough.

Tens of thousands of people are enough, and he considered that there will be more soldiers retiring in the future, so he can't arrange a public post before, and then leave it alone. In his plan, soldiers are entitled to a number of years of service.

First of all, recruit single soldiers and let them serve for ten years, during these ten years, they have to go south and north, and they have no worries about being single. After that, they were arranged to retire, start a family, and hold public office. There is also a dozen or twenty years to do. Just enough to raise the next generation with peace of mind.

Then about every two or three years, a group of new recruits will join the army, and the veterans will retire, that is, every few years, a group of people will fill the vacancies, which can be slowly filled. Considering the continuity, this kind of elite military system is quite sustainable in his opinion.

However, with the development of the past few years, his thinking has also changed. Who says you have to hold public office to be honorable? In fact, you can also give a knighthood.

Moreover, not everyone is preferred and suitable for public office. Moreover, with the development of all walks of life, more and more people will be needed. In this day and age, those who can read, write, and count are all considered highly intellectuals. It would be too wasteful to completely arrange these soldiers into public office.

It is entirely possible to arrange them into all walks of life. Every industry needs such talents who can write and calculate. Literacy, arithmetic, anything you want. It's even more honorable to even work as an elementary school teacher. That is, tens of thousands of people are simply not enough. To change this era, tens of thousands? More than 100,000 people are not enough.

Therefore, the expansion of the army is imminent. It just so happened that at this time, the improved rifle, the middle four type was completed. Moreover, he initially used a modified crossbow, and the key to not considering the musket was that the crossbow was many times stronger than the flintlock smoothbore gun. The power, range, and safety are not comparable to the flintlock smoothbore gun, so he has to use a strong crossbow. You must know that the popularity rate of bows and crossbows in the Tang Army is 125 percent.

Smoothbore guns, in all seriousness, are not necessarily better than archers. When Zheng Chenggong fought the Dutch, he was skilled in archers, so he turned the Dutch into smoothbore spearmen, and shot bitterly.

The improved strong crossbow, with the range of crossbow arrows and the rate of fire of bows and arrows, is definitely the best weapon to suppress the armies of other feudal towns. Although it is not as good as some ultra-long-range crossbows such as the Fuyuan crossbow, compared to the rate of fire, that kind of weapon is not as good as the new strong crossbow. He could completely suppress any army with firepower outside the range of his bow and arrow, whether it was the Tubo people or the armies of other feudal towns.

Facts have also proved this, the Tubo people, brave is very brave, but in the face of the firepower of the Tang army, they are simply beaten, if Xiaohu they have enough cavalry to pursue, do not block the Tubo retreat, this big victory loss will be much less.

However, now, the Zhongsi type, which is almost used by the modern army with rifles, has changed his opinion. This flintlock pistol not only has an excellent rate of fire, but also a great distance. Although compared to the real rifle, the distance is about four hundred and fifty meters, which is still a bit different.

However, the accuracy can reach 220 paces, and the effective killing is even more than 160 paces of rifles, which is far more than the bow and arrow.

The popularity rate of bows and crossbows in the Tang army was 125 percent, but the crossbow arrows were only 2 to 5. The others are bows and arrows, that is to say, if you switch to this weapon, you can completely beat the traditional Tang army from a distance, although the bow and arrow are fast, but the range is only a hundred steps away, and even closer if you want to break the armor. But if you really want to go forward, you will be shot before you get close, and you will be shot like a river of blood.

As for the two-to-five crossbow arrows, it is not a problem, it can be completely replaced with various improved long-range weapons, and now not only the medium-fourth rifle, but also the large-fourth type field artillery has been completed.

In the future, long-range weapons will be suppressed by cannons, bows and arrows will be completely suppressed by rifles, and the Tang army will already be able to enter the era of firearms.

Wei Fu, the squire of the military department, under the guidance of a musketeer, personally operated this Zhongsi type musket. First, unscrew the screws to expose the medicine chamber, stuff the projectile, pour in the gunpowder, and tighten it. Raise your gun, aim, shoot. I saw a humanoid marker in the distance.

Next to... The dirt next to the marker has suffered. However, he was not discouraged, and then did it again, shooting five times in a row, and finally pierced the chest of the Tang Army's standard Wenshan Jiade 75 zhang away, and opened a hole.

"If we can equip a large number of people, the firepower of our Tang army can be on a higher level." Wei Fu muttered to himself, "I shot five shots, and I didn't feel any fatigue at all, but this shoulder was hit a little painfully." ’

'Ge Lao, this is because you are not skilled, and when you first practiced, you were also knocked to the ground. This musket is better than the bow and arrow, and the bow and arrow will get tired after shooting for a long time. This fatigue is not relieved in a short period of time.

Although the musket has been fired for a long time, although the barrel will be hot and needs to be cooled, it can recover faster than the arm. Moreover, bows and arrows cannot be manufactured in large quantities in a short period of time, and it takes three years for a bow to start from the raw materials.

'How much material is used for this musket, and how much does it cost?' Cui Yuanshi, asked a very key question, is this musket good, how much does it cost? ’

'Hui Ge Lao, this gun is five catties, each one needs six catties of steel and a few pieces of wood. The cost of each handful is about... Two thousand five hundred dollars. "If you need to make a large number of them, now that they have been completed, it is estimated that they can produce 3,000 pieces per month." ’

'About 30,000 a year. It's very strange that there are 3,000 in a month, and 36,000 in a year.

There is no way, the Wei River will freeze in winter, and there will be no water conservancy for several months, so you can only use animal power, which is much less efficient.

However, this speed has already exceeded the speed of rifle production in England in 1776. At that time, the British had only 500 rifles a month. 6,000 a year.

Why is this happening? Could it be that Datang's industrial technology has surpassed that of Britain at that time? The answer is, yes.

First of all, why did the Ferguson rifle, which is so easy to use, not be massively adopted? Because, such a gun is too difficult to produce. Ferguson ordered a thousand of these guns, and if they were really built within two months, the real battlefield situation would be rewritten.

First of all, rifled guns appeared at that time, and the firing range was also very long, but they were not practical. Because it's too slow. In fact, the history of the appearance of rifled guns is very early. It was used as early as the 14th century. Its accuracy and range are far superior to that of smoothbore guns.

It's just that, at that time, there was no way to solve the problem of air tightness. It can only be wrapped in deerskin and hammered into the barrel of the gun hard, and the speed is too slow. So, only some hunters use it again. They don't rush for time,

This gun was also widely adopted in North America, and it also turned the tide of the North American theater, and the British commander was killed from 300 meters away, so that a key battle did not break out. And Ferguson also suffered the loss of this weapon, and vowed to research it, so he had the Ferguson rifle.

If you can really create a thousand, I am afraid that it will really rewrite the battlefield situation, although because of the problem of bullet airtightness, the range accuracy of the Ferguson rifle is not as good as that of the rifle, but a thousand rifles with such a fast rate of fire and so far away, on the frontal battlefield, the United States and France can not raise their heads. Thus rewriting the situation of the war.

But even if the Ferguson rifle was made by four craftsmen, it would be only 100 in six months, and it would cost four times as much as a regular gun. It was simply impossible to assemble in large quantities, and in the end it was abandoned by the British, and after the battle, this gun was short-lived.

However, in fact, the reason for the abandonment is not without the reason that the British are too conservative. At the beginning, the Germans used the Delai rear-loading rifle to easily solve Austria, which shocked the world and caused a boom in rear-loading guns.

However, at first, this kind of gun was unacceptable to many people, and many people could not accept loading from the rear, a Swiss general, after reviewing this rifle, even said that eating with the mouth is noble, and the Swiss infantry will not use this kind of ** gun. It is also the Germans who have a unique vision, adopt a large number of them, and teach other countries a lesson with facts.

The British don't look at the industrial revolution that led to it, but they are actually very conservative in their bones, and they will not consider any changes until they have been taught a lesson. The earliest rifled gun used Mini bullets, the principle of which many people know, that is, the rear of the bullet is stuffed with a wooden plug, which expands when heated, which can solve the problem of the bullet and the pipe diameter not fitting. This invention, in 1849, was adopted by the French.

However, in fact, as early as 1823, a British captain proposed this plan, and in 1836, the engineer Greene proposed an improvement plan, which was rejected by the British military.

It was not until more than a decade later that it was adopted by the French. Then the British suffered a loss, and only then did they spend money to buy it back. It can be seen that the British are conservative, and they are called John Bull, which is not without reason.

However, now Li Chen wants to mass-produce this rifle. Even 30,000 a year, the industrial power of the Tang Dynasty is really far greater than that of Britain in the 18th century?

The answer is yes and no. Under the command of Li Chen, a large number of craftsmen, and with the help of students trained by new-style education, Datang's industrial strength has grown greatly.

The denial is that the British at that time had a complete industrial base, and the Tang Dynasty was raised under the help of Li Chen. The foundation is unstable. Datang doesn't have that many industrial talents.

A complete industrial system should have the ability to research, continuously improve on its own basis, have the ability to transform into productivity, have the ability to cultivate backwards, and have an endless stream.

But now Datang's industrial strength has only developed to this extent under Li Chen's golden finger and guidance in advance. The foundation is still unstable, and if you lose Li Chen's guidance, I am afraid it will be difficult to go further, and there is even the possibility of regression.

However, now that it has come to this point, Li Chen's foundation has been laid, and many students who have received a new education will slowly fill in, as long as Datang is not chaotic, it only takes more than ten years to slowly digest these achievements. The prospect of Datang is promising. (To be continued.) )