The main direction of Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen's current research and development is still focusing on artillery, and he also did not bring back any models from modern times, so his research and development basis is only the most old-fashioned Franc cannon.

The Franc cannon (the upper is the son, the lower is the mother) The Franc cannon was invented in Europe, and was introduced to China by the Portuguese Republic in the first year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1522), and was named "Franc Machine" according to its national name, which became the artillery of the middle Ming Dynasty in China. In the third year of Jiajing (1524), the Ming court successfully imitated the first batch of 32 Franc machines, each weighing about 300 catties, the mother gun was 2.85 feet long, and it was equipped with 4 sub-guns. Later, the Ming court successively imitated various types of Franc aircraft of different sizes and models to equip the northern and coastal armies.

The Furlong Cannon was an early reloader smoothbore cannon. It is composed of a mother and a child gun. The female body is slender and has a small caliber, and the body is equipped with a front sight and a light door, which can aim and shoot at long-distance targets. There are gun lugs on both sides of the gun body, which can be placed on the bracket and can be tilted to adjust the firing angle. The rear part of the gun is thicker, and there are long holes and grooves to fill the guns. The sub-guns are similar to the small firearms, each female gun is equipped with 5 to 9 sub-guns, which can be pre-loaded with ammunition for backup, and the mother guns can be loaded and fired in turn during battle, thus increasing the firing speed.

The Franc machine was invented by Europe, and was introduced to China by Portugal in the first year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1522), and was called "Franc Machine" according to its national name. In the third year of Jiajing (1524), the Ming court successfully imitated the first batch of 32 Franc machines, each weighing about 300 catties, the mother gun was 2.85 feet long, and it was equipped with 4 sub-guns. Later, the Ming court successively imitated various types of Franc aircraft of different sizes and models to equip the northern and coastal armies. The first year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1522). He Ru, who was the inspector of Guangdong at the time. A new type of artillery was seen on a Spanish and Portuguese merchant ship anchored here. The firing range is 2,000 feet, Jiajing three years (1524), get its production method, "take copper for it, five or six feet long, the big one weighs more than 1,000 catties, the small one is 150 catties, the giant belly and long neck." There are repaired holes in the abdomen. Take five pieces of Zi Gong and store the medicine in the abdomen. It is more than 100 zhang. The first batch of such weapons was created, which was called "Francophone" at that time, and "Ming Shizong Records" mentioned that "China has Fran machine firearms, covering from the beginning of Confucianism." At that time, the Ming Dynasty called Spain and Portugal "Franc Machine", so it called this weapon by the name of its country.

The Franc cannon is a new type of artillery introduced from the West during the Ming Zhengde period (early 16th century), that is, the short-barreled cannon. Franco, originally the Ming Dynasty to the Portuguese, the Spaniards collectively named. In the last years of Zhengde, He Ru, the Baisha inspector, saw Western artillery on a Spanish ship coming to China, and its performance was superior to that of Chinese artillery at that time. So he mobilized the Chinese gunsmiths on the ship to go ashore and imitate the first batch of Western fires for our country. The name is called the Franc machine.

In March of the twelfth year of Zhengde [1517], the rebel king of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Chenhao began to privately build the Buddha Lang machine, which was the beginning of the earliest imitation of Western cannons in China. In the second year of Jiajing (1523), the Ming Dynasty government imitated it in Nanjing, called "General". After research and transformation, it is made into three kinds of large samples, medium samples and small samples, with copper casting and iron casting. The large Franc fuselage is 2.85 meters long and weighs 300 kilograms. "Wu Bei Zhi" divides the imitation Franc machine into No. 5. No. 3 and No. 4 are lightweight. No. 3 is four or five feet long, each containing lead weighs 5 taels and 9 yuan, and the medicine is 6 taels. No. 4 is two or three feet long, each containing lead weighs 3 taels, and the medicine is 3 taels and a half.

No. 1 and No. 2 are heavy-duty. No. 1 is eight or nine feet long, each containing lead weighs 1 catty, and the medicine is 1 catty. No. 2 is six or seven feet long, each containing lead weighs 10 taels, and the medicine is 11 taels. The range of all kinds of Franc machines, where the weight is more than 70 catties, can reach five or six miles. No. 1 and No. 2 Franc machines can be used in water warfare. The fortress-type Franc cannon weighs 1,000 pounds, and its power far exceeds that of No. 1 and No. 2.

The Ming Dynasty Franc cannon is a developed version of the early European rear-loading gun, but it is different from the modern rear-loading gun. It has a front sight and a door in the rear, which can be aimed from the hole in the door, and has a gun carriage, which can be rotated up and down, left and right. The abdomen is swollen, leaving a long mouth, the outside of the gun body is wrapped in wood, and the iron hoop is used to prevent explosion, and there are 5 sub-guns, which are loaded with ammunition in the sub-guns, and are placed in turn into the long mouth of the abdomen to fire. (Note: The sub-gun, also known as the heart cannon, is equivalent to the medicine chamber part of the artillery, which is a kind of barrel that is slightly thinner than the mother gun's body tube, and together with the mother's gun's body tube, it forms a double gun barrel.) Because of the separation of the child and the mother, the weight is lighter, the lightest is only 150 catties, and the heavier one is 1,000 catties. "History of the Ming Dynasty" records that the Franc cannon: "Copper is for it, five or six feet long, and the big one is heavy and heavy." The small one is one hundred and fifty pounds, with a huge belly and a long neck, and the abdomen is repaired by the merchant, and five pieces of medicine are placed in the abdomen, and the hair is more than 100 zhang. "The advantage of this type of artillery is that it has a pre-storage of ammunition with a sub-gun, which does not have to be temporarily reloaded, which can speed up the fire. The disadvantage is that the body barrel is shorter, and compared with the Hongyi cannon, it cannot have a long range.

According to European data, the short cannon has a range of between 340 and 2000 meters, and the highest hit rate is at six or seven hundred meters. However, because China rarely encounters such a powerful maritime opponent as Europe, the imitation ship Franc cannon shells are relatively lightweight, and the firing range of the thousand-pound cannon can be compared with the Hongyi cannon, reaching two or three thousand meters. There are historical records that the range of Hongyi artillery can reach ten miles, that is, five thousand meters, and it is estimated that it is set up on the high city, and it is difficult to achieve it in field or naval battles.

In the first half of the 17th century, during the Apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty (the 20s of the 17th century), it was purchased and copied from the Portuguese in Macao, which was a front-loading smoothbore gun, that is, the European Koferin cannon, which was widely used in British and Dutch warships at that time. "History of the Ming Dynasty" records the import of Hongyi cannon and its shape and performance: "After (referring to the import of the Francophone cannon), the Atlantic ship arrived, Xia De hundred cannons, called Hongyi." It is more than two zhang long, and the heavy one is up to three thousand catties, which can crack the stone city and shake dozens of miles. From this point of view, the length of the barrel of the Hongyi cannon is more than two zhang, while the barrel of the Franc cannon is only "five or six feet" (see the above quotation), the former is about four times that of the latter, and its range is so long and powerful that it is a matter of course. At the same time, the body grows up, the weight of the gun body must also increase accordingly, otherwise it is difficult to ensure the structural strength of the gun body, the Hongyi cannon weighs to 3,000 catties, and the heaviest Franc cannon is only more than 1,000 catties, on the contrary, the bulky gun body is another characteristic of the Hongyi cannon, and it is also its shortcoming. However, the advantages of long range and great power enabled it to overwhelm the Franc cannon and catch up, as the people of the time said: "Today, the Hongyi gun method is popular in China, and the Franc machine is a common skill." "It's obvious. The Hongyi cannon is a heavy artillery with a long barrel and a long-range firing circle. The cannons of the same period as the aforementioned Western contemporaries belonged to the same type. The effective range has reached a maximum of 2000 yards. Approx. 1830 meters.

There are three types of projectiles fired by the Ming artillery: solid bullets, shotgun shells, and flowering shells.

Solid shells - this kind of shell has no fire or powder inside, is made of iron or lead, a small amount is ground into a sphere of stone, mainly used for siege holes to penetrate the city wall fortifications, the range is long, but the lethality of personnel is not large, unless it hits directly or by hitting other objects. Cause it to shatter and splash, causing indirect casualties.

Shotgun - at that time, it was a high-power type of field artillery, composed of several pounds of lead and iron pellets, and there were also filled with gravel, and when firing, a dozen large pieces were fired, mainly anti-personnel personnel, but the shotgun had a fatal weakness, that is, the range was short, and the effective killing was about 300 meters (one said within 500 meters).

Flowering shells - this is another name for an explosive projectile with fire inside. medicine, because of the shrapnel that shoots when it explodes. It is named like a flower blooming. Since the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, iron-shelled flowering shells have appeared in China, and their improved versions were used by the Yuan army in the campaign against Japan. Shells were widely used in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, such as the Ningjin victory, which is a successful example of the use of this kind of shells. Different from the Franco cannon, the flowering shells of the Ming army were developed by themselves, in 1488-1505 AD, the Ming people invented early explosive bombs called "poisonous fire flying cannons" and "pomegranate cannons" on the basis of traditional explosive firearms, which were not later than the flowering shells that appeared in the same period in the West, and the poisonous fire flying cannon was also a chemical warhead, "built-in arsenic, poison, medicine, exploded after landing, and the medicine and iron shell fragments killed and injured the enemy at the same time." "Its power can be called unique in the world, the howitzer is a conventional warhead," shaped like a pomegranate, the size of a bowl, built-in fire, medicine, with a special slow-burning fire, thrown into the enemy formation, shocked and exploded. "There is a clear difference between the Eastern and Western flowering bombs: the Western flowering bombs are made with an opening in the cast iron projectile body, plugged with a wooden letter tube, and a slow-burning fire and medicine are installed in the letter tube to detonate it; The flowering bomb of the Ming Dynasty is a protruding platform on the surface of the sphere, there is a round small hole in the middle of the table, and the medicine twist is inserted in the small hole to detonate, and the design is more scientific than the letter tube type, in fact, whether it is the "letter tube" or the "medicine twist", they all belong to the time fuse, which is the ancestor of the modern shell fuse, which also proves that the East and the West are independently developed the flowering bomb.

The arquebus is to rely on the burning arquebus to ignite the fire and medicine, so the name arquebus arquebus has a milestone significance in the history of firearms development, and is the direct prototype of the modern rifle. The emergence of the arquebus has also changed the form of warfare, and with the development of the arquebus, human warfare has entered the era of hot weapons from cold weapons.

The structure of the arquebus is that there is a metal hook on the gun, one end of the hook is fixed on the gun, and can rotate around the axis, and the other end is clamped with a burning arquebus, when the soldier fires, the metal hook is pushed into the fire door by hand, so that the fire rope ignites the black fire, medicine, and then the projectile contained in the chamber is fired. Because the fire rope is a hemp rope or a tightly twisted cloth strip, soaked in potassium nitrate or other salt solutions and dried, it can burn slowly, with a burning rate of about 80 mm ~ 120 mm per hour, so that the soldier can hold the gun with one or both hands after pressing the metal hook into the fire door, and his eyes are always focused on the target. According to historical records, a well-trained shooter can fire 2 rounds every 3 minutes, and the range of the long-barreled gun is about 100 meters ~ 200 meters.

What Xu Guangqi showed to Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen was the mainstream musket equipment of the Ming Dynasty, the arquebus.

As we all know, the invention of fire and medicine is an outstanding contribution made by the Chinese to the world. Since the fire, the medicine has formed an indissoluble bond with the god of war since it was born in the alchemy furnace of the Tang Dynasty.

At the end of the 10th century, the military technologists and generals of the Northern Song Dynasty in China prepared the initial fire and medicine according to the fire and medicine formulas used by alchemists in the process of refining pills in the past, and after adjustment and correction, they were prepared into the original fire and medicine and made into primary fire and medicine weapons for combat, creating a new era in the history of human warfare using firearms. By 1259 (the first year of Kaiqing in the Southern Song Dynasty), the firearms developers of Shouchun Mansion (now Shou County, Anhui) invented the assault musket, which was the first single-soldier hand-held bamboo musket in human history. The creation of the assault rifle has been valued by the developers of firearms in various countries in later generations, and it is recognized as the world's earliest tubular firearm, which can be called the originator of the world's guns.

In 1206 AD, Temujin, the leader of the Mongol Qiyan tribe, was proclaimed as the Great Khan of Mongolia at the Nan River, and was honored as Genghis Khan. After the rise of the Mongols, they not only destroyed the Western Xia, the Western Liao, and the Jin in a short period of time, but also went south to overthrow the Song Dynasty. In the process, they were given the methods of manufacture and use of gunpowder, powder weapons. Moreover, Genghis Khan and his descendants tried their best to expand the use of foreign troops, conquered in the east and west, went south to the South Seas and attacked the European continent in the west, and radiated primary tubular firearms to many countries and regions in Europe and Asia. In particular, in 1252, the Mongol army led by Hulegü invaded Iraq and Syria, and the manufacture and use of primary firearms at that time were introduced to the Arabs. It was not until more than 100 years later that China's firearms manufacturing technology was introduced to Europe through the Arabs and developed significantly in Europe.

30s of the 14th century. The first tubular metal firearms appeared in Europe. Call it a musket.

The earliest record of armed guns in Europe is from 1364. A list of the arsenal in Perugia, Italy, reads: "500 guns, one long and one in the hand; It's very beautiful and can shoot through any armor." The excavation of the Tanneburg hand-held gun shows that Germany has also made a metal tubular firearm with a considerable level in the 70~80s of the 14th century. Located in the German state of Hesse, which is rich in mineral resources, Tanneburg is small and destroyed in 1399. In 1849, a copper hand-held gun was unearthed in the ruins. The length of the gun is 330mm. With a diameter of 17 mm and a mass of 1.24 kg, it is now in the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg. It is basically similar in shape and structure to a musket from the 11th year of the Yuan Dynasty to the 11th year of Zheng (1351 AD) in the collection of the Military Museum of the Chinese Revolution: it is composed of a breech, a medicine chamber and a house letter, but the wooden handle has decayed. The "Zhizheng 11" musket has a body length of 430.5mm, a caliber of 30mm, and a mass of 4.75kg. Compared with the two, the "Zhizheng 11 years" musket is more exquisite. The excavation of the Tanneburg hand-held gun is the most favorable evidence of the spread of Chinese metal hand-held guns to Europe through Western Arabia. But this simple hand-held musket had neither a door nor a crosshair. And there is no butt that can be held to the shoulder, so it can only shoot roughly. Its role in warfare is probably only to cause confusion among the enemy's forces and give its own infantry and cavalry an opportunity.

Chinese muskets, Arab motor methods, and European muskets are all fired with hand-held igniters, which are very inconvenient to use on the battlefield. Around 1450, European firearms researchers improved it into a semi-mechanical ignition device: a groove on the outside or upper part of the butt, in which a serpentine rod was attached, one end of the rod was fixed, the other end formed a trigger, which could be rotated, and a clamp was attached to a slow-burning arquebus soaked in potassium nitrate. The rear end of the barrel is equipped with a fire, a powder tray, when fired, the trigger is pulled, the nose is pressed down, the burning fire rope enters the fire, the powder tray ignites the fire, the charge, and shoots the projectile or arrow. The butt was also improved and handguards were added, allowing the musket to shoot from the shoulder.

By the second half of the 15th century, arquebuses in Europe had advanced considerably, and in 1499, an inventory in the Italian city of Naples recorded an arquebus known as the "Musket". The name comes from the Italian word "Moschetto" (a sparrowhawk), which means that this gun is as powerful as "falcon" and "eagle". The gun is heavier and has a tripod attached. This gun was first used in 1521 at the Battle of Chalabi, Italy.

——A collector named Blair in Germany collected an arquebus made in 1493~1519, with a body length of 550mm, a caliber of 30mm, a handle length of 880mm, a total length of 1430mm, an octagonal barrel, and a fixed bamboo shoot at the front end of the handguard, which could be connected to a tripod and fired by 2 shooters.

The 16th-century Spanish arquebus Mushquet represented the advanced level of arquebuses in Europe at that time. The gun has a caliber of 23mm, a mass of 10~11kg, a full bullet mass of 50g, a maximum range of 250m, an effective range of 100m, and a mechanical sight that can fire 2 rounds per minute. Although the gun was bulky and could only be fired with a fork mount most of the time, the lead projectile fired was extremely powerful, and could penetrate the heavy cuirass worn by the knight at a distance of 100 m (most weapons at the time could hardly do any damage beyond 80 m). It was with this weapon that the Spaniards conquered the large and backward Inca Empire.

Also in the 16th century, muskets were introduced to Japan, and muskets were called "iron cannons" in Japan, and Japan developed "Kunitome Barrel" and "Triple Barrel", "Sakai Barrel", "Satsuma Barrel" and so on on the basis of European muskets. The more effective musket was fully used by Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu in the battle against Takeda Katsuyori, so that Japan truly understood the power of the "iron cannon". And began mass production of "iron cannons". Due to the lack of resources in Japan. So Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered. Large-scale trade with neighboring countries. The problem of resources was also a reason for Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion of the dynasty.

In the 16th century, Japan was in the midst of warlord warfare, and the warlords in various places supported the development of maritime commerce, and European explorers and merchants at that time wanted to make the most of the benefits in the East, so Japan became a developed country in maritime commerce, which also provided opportunities for foreign firearms to be introduced to Japan.

The Japanese arquebus was introduced by the Portuguese on August 25, the 12th year of the Japanese Tenbun (22nd year of the reign of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty, 1543), when a ship carrying more than 100 people was on board. It docks at Tanegashima Island in southern Kyushu. There were 3 Portuguese on board, as well as Wang Zhi, who was nicknamed Wufeng of the Ming Dynasty (later known as Wang Zhi, King of Jinghai). The Portuguese carried a kind of arquebus, which had a hole (i.e., a fire door) next to it, which was a way to pass the fire, loaded with fire, medicine and small lead pellets, and ignited with the arquebus, which could shoot the lead pellets and hit the target, and when fired, it emitted a fire and a thunderous explosion. When the Japanese Shi Yao (a local warlord) saw it, he regarded it as a rare treasure. Call it an iron cannon. After that, it was purchased with a lot of money. He also sent his minister, Jokawa Koshiro, to learn from the Portuguese the use of arquebuses and their fire, and the method of making zuò with medicine, and imitated more than a dozen of them. Soon, some ironworks in Japan imitated Japanese-style arquebuses. At that time, the Japanese also used such firearms in their plundering of China.

In the first year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1521), the Ming army obtained Western arquebuses from two captured Portuguese ships in the Battle of Xicaowan in Xinhui, Guangdong. In 1548, when the Japanese invaders who had invaded the coastal Shuangyu Islands of our country were captured, Japanese arquebuses (iron cannons) were seized. The military bureau of the Ming Dynasty attached great importance to the imitation of the arquebus, and made the bird gun (the bird gun is the name of the new arquebus in the Ming Dynasty, because the muzzle size is like a bird's beak, so it is called the bird gun, also known as the bird's beak gun).

The main characteristics of the bird gun are first of all that the front end of the gun tube is equipped with a crosshair, and the rear part is equipped with a light door to form an aiming device; The second is the design of a curved gun stock, the launcher can put the side of the face close to the gun stock to aim and shoot; Again, the gun tube is relatively long, the ratio of length and caliber is about 50:1~70:1, the slender gun tube makes the fire, the charge burns fully in the chamber, produces a large thrust, the muzzle velocity of the projectile after the chamber is larger, and obtains a low extension trajectory and a longer range; Finally, the ignition is different, using the fire rope as the fire source, pulling the trigger to ignite, not only the fire source is not easy to extinguish, but also improves the launch speed and enhances the killing power.

According to the "Daming Huidian. Firearms records that the War Bureau imitated the first batch of 10,000 bird guns in the 37th year of Jiajing (1558) and equipped them with the Ming army. At that time, the bird gun pipe was made of fine iron, and this kind of fine iron needed 10 catties of crude iron to make 1 catty, and only the pipe made of such fine iron could be strong and durable, and it would not explode when shooting. When making zuò, it is usually rolled into two iron pipes, one large and one small, with large and small ones, so that the two are tightly attached, and then drilled into a smooth and straight pipe with a steel drill. The drilling process is very precise, each person can only drill about 1 inch per day, and it takes about a month to drill into one. After the pipe is drilled, the front end is installed with the front end, and the rear end is installed with the door. The inner wall of the tail of the gun tube is engraved with a female thread, which is screwed in and out with a screw, which plays the role of holding air when screwed in, and is convenient for cleaning the inner wall of the gun after screwing out. The outside of the nozzle is a regular 8-sided shape, and there is a medicine chamber at the rear, and a fire door is opened, and a fire door cover is installed. After the complete canopy is formed, it rests on a dense and hard bed. A curved butt is attached to the rear of the bed, and a dragon-shaped trigger is installed on the bed. After the imitation and restructuring of the Ordnance Bureau and the War Bureau, the arquebus was widely used, and in a short period of time, it became the main individual shooting weapon equipped by the Ming army. During the Wanli period, there was a lot of progress in the development of arquebuses. At that time, Zhao Shizhen, a firearms developer, had imitated the Turkish arquebus, and successively developed more than 10 kinds of arquebuses with their own characteristics, and more than 10 kinds of other firearms and chariots.

Ma Xian, Li Huai and others sorted out and taught the bird gun manufacturing process has been used until the end of the Qing Dynasty has not changed greatly, although the European arquebus was eliminated by the reed wheel gun around 1575, but in China, the arquebus and arquebus technology has not been eliminated until the early years of the Republic of China. During this period, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Bi Maokang invented the Chinese reed wheel gun, which was adopted by the later Qing government, but its extension was made into an imperial tap musket and has been in the possession of the Manchu nobles, and most of the Qing army was still armed with old arquebuses such as large-line guns and soldier bird guns, and even relied on traditional swords and bows to fight foreign invaders equipped with advanced flintlock muskets.

In order to understand the practice of bird guns, this has to start with the craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty. Song Yingxing's "Heavenly Creation" said: "Where the hammer is a bird." First of all, the iron is as big as a chopstick. Wrapped in red iron hammer. The first is three connections. The interface is red-hot and struggling to collide. After the combination, the quadrangular steel cone is used as a big one, and it is rotated through it to make the aurora clean, and there is no blockage in the medicine. Although the ignition technology of the Chinese firecracker has been improved several times, the traditional manufacturing process of the gun's body was not completely abandoned until the rise of the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was used for hundreds of years from the first arquebus to World War II. It can be said that it has a long history; In the early Ming Dynasty, riveting was adopted, due to the inconvenience of manufacturing, two sections of copper hoops were used to fix in the later period, although it was inconvenient to clean, but it shortened the time of making bird guns, the Qing Dynasty learned the Turkish method, fixed the gun pipe with a thin rope, and tied a firm thin cotton rope on a gun divided into several sections, and the gun tube could be removed as long as the rope was untied when cleaning the gun tube, but the rope was easy to be burned by the hot gun tube after shooting.

Arquebuses have been popular in armies around the world for more than 200 years (and longer in Asian countries), but they have many disadvantages, especially in the extreme environment of the battlefield.

Cons one. This is because a length of arquebus (usually a fuse made of several strands of thin linen rope, boiled in vinegar or soaked in potassium nitrate) is required to start the arquebus. So every musketeer at that time had to carry a fire rope several meters long on his body. Before the battle, they had to light the arquebus, because in wet weather, the arquebus is extremely difficult to ignite, and experienced warriors will light both ends of the arquebus so that they can fire a second shot at any time, so that a single arquebus will not burn for long. In the revolutionary war of the British bourgeoisie, a knight named Ralph found himself in such a predicament. He was besieged by Waller at Dvichais, and since all the ropes had run out, he had to order his officers to "search all the ropes in the whole city, bring them back, and hammer and boil them as much as possible" to use them as arquebuses for emergency relief. The arquebus is also dangerous when lit, as if you are not careful, the spark will ignite the bullet belt on your back, causing an explosion that injures the musketeer himself, and the lit arquebus can easily expose itself at night, making it impossible to sneak up on the enemy at night.

Disadvantage two, arquebus operation is complicated.

Forward with fork stand in hand!

The arquebus rests on the left shoulder, the gun is held in the left hand, the arquebus is held between the fingers of the left hand, and the fork is held in the right hand.

The fork stands advance by the gun!

The fork is crossed to the left hand, leaving the right hand free.

Put down the fork rack and lower the shoulder!

The left hand lowers the fork stand, and the right hand removes the arquebus from the left shoulder.

The gun is held in the right hand, and the left hand is drooping!

The right hand holds the gun, the barrel remains vertical, the left hand hangs down, and the end of the fork frame touches the ground.

Gun to the left hand, raise the fork stand!

The gun is shifted to the left hand and the fork carriage is lifted at the same time, and the two are held at a slight angle and held by the left hand.

The arquebus is in the right hand!

Blow the fire rope!

Gently blow on the firewire to create a firehead.

Load the arquebus!

Attach one end of the arquebus to the snake rod clip.

Test the Flamerope!

Adjust the length of the arquebus to make sure that the arquebus can be lit exactly into the pot (the lid is closed).

Blow the fire rope and open the lid of the medicine pot!

Raise your gun and aim!

Tilt the fork slightly forward, balance the arquebus on the fork, and take a step forward with your left foot.

Shoot!

Lunge with both feet, bend left and right, hold the butt against your chest, pull the trigger and shoot.

Put down the musket and lean against the fork stand!

The thumb and forefinger of the left hand hold the barrel and fork holder. The muzzle of the gun is forward, so as to avoid late accidents.

Take off the arquebus!

Remove the fire rope from the clamp on the snake rod with the right hand to avoid accidents when filling the fire and medicine.

Arquebus left hand!

Hold both ends of the arquebus with the middle finger, ring finger, and little finger of your left hand (the arquebus is lit at both ends so that if one end is extinguished, the other can be rekindled).

Clear the medicine pot!

Blow off the remaining ash in the pot or wipe it off with the thumb of your right hand to avoid sparks igniting the primer.

Loading the primer!

Take out the primingflash and pour the primingpowder into the pot.

Close the lid of the pot!

Shake the pot!

Tap the medicine pot with your fingers, shake off the primer outside the lid of the medicine pot, and let the primer in the medicine pot fall into the ignition hole.

Blow the pot!

Blow off the primer powder on the outside of the lid of the pot.

Turn the gun!

The musket is turned to stand alongside the fork, with the muzzle facing upwards.

Put the fork rack!

The musket slides down to the left side of the body, holding the gun in the left hand. Do not hold the fork frame. The fork stand is hung with a small length of rope that hangs from the wrist.

Turn on the fire. Medicine bag!

Take a fire and medicine bag in the right hand, and open the lid with your thumb at the same time.

Load!

Pour fire and medicine into the muzzle, let go of the medicine bag, take a projectile from the projectile bag (or mouth) with the right hand and put it into the muzzle, and then take a small piece of cloth or paper and stuff it into the muzzle.

Take out the throughbar!

The right hand backhand (tiger mouth downward) takes out the strip from under the barrel, usually the right hand needs to be drawn two or three times to take it out; At this point, the front end of the bar (the larger end) is on top. With the right hand, hold the tail of the strip downwards.

Reverse the passage!

Turn the bar 180 degrees (tiger mouth up), hold the front end of the bar against your thigh or buttocks, slide your right hand down, and hold it not far from the front end of the bar. At this time, the end of the strip is on top, and the right hand holds the front end upwards and the tip is down.

Solidify the ammo!

Arquebus shooting

Arquebus shooting

With the right hand (mouth up), tuck the tip of the strip into the muzzle and moderately scoop the ammunition into the chamber.

Draw out the pass!

In the same way, use the right hand backhand (tiger's mouth down) to pull the whole bar out of the muzzle, the end of the whole bar is on the top, and the right hand is holding the front end of the tiger mouth downwards on the bottom.

Reverse the passage!

Turn the bar 180 degrees (tiger mouth up), put the end of the bar against the thigh or waist, and slide down with your right hand. Hold it not far from the end of the strip. At this time, the front end of the whole strip is on the top, and the right hand holds the tail end upwards and the tail end is down.

Put it back on!

Put the through-strip back into the space under the barrel.

Raise your gun!

With his left hand, he picks up the gun and holds it high and upright. The fork stand is still hanging from the wrist of the left hand.

Take the fork rack!

The left hand holds the gun to the right hand, still vertical, and the left hand holds the fork mount.

Shoulder gun!

The right hand holds the gun on the left shoulder, and the left hand holds the fork and arquebus.

The fork stands advance by the gun!

Gun under the shoulder!

Put the gun on the fork stand!

Hold the gun steady on the fork mount!

Balance the gun on a fork mount!

Balance with only your left hand and leave your right hand free.

The arquebus is in the right hand!

Blow the fire rope!

Load the arquebus!

Test the Flamerope!

Close the lid of the pot and get ready!

It can be seen that the process of firing the arquebus was very complex and slow. Qi Jiguang recorded 10 processes in the use of arquebuses in "Qi Jiguang's Art of War". In Europe, in 1607 Jacob de Geye of Amsterdam published an illustrated volume of Weapon Exercises, which described the firing steps of the arquebus, divided into 25 steps. When the musketeer goes into battle, he must bring a gun, a fire rope, fire, medicine (for the inside of the gun and for the fire door), a projectile, and a fork bracket. As soon as there is an exchange of fire between the enemy and the enemy, the shooter is busy firing - reloading - and firing again, and the hands and feet must be very agile, and the best marksman can only fire two or three rounds per minute.

Therefore, the musketeers usually always lined up in five or six rows, sometimes ten, with the front row firing and retreating to the back to reload, and the gunners in the back row continuing to fire. But then it turned out that it would be more effective if all the gunners fired together, so the gunners began to line up in three rows, the first on their knees, the second half standing, and the third on an upright line, replacing the old circular firing method with a salvo. China, on the other hand, lined up the gunners in nine rows, in groups of three, with the first group retreating to the rear to reload after firing, and the second group continuing to shoot. Despite these remedies, it was inevitable that the enemy would rush in front of the musketeers, who would not be able to resist, so the musketeers had to be formed into companies or battalions with a mixture of soldiers with cold weapons. In 1571, the ratio of musketeers to spearmen in the Spanish legions in the Netherlands was 2:5, but by 1601, 30 years later, it had become 3:1.

Disadvantage three, it cannot be used in rainy days.

You can't get angry because it will get water on rainy days. In fact, it is not only not allowed to be used on rainy days, but also when the wind is strong, because the wind will blow away the fire transmission and medicine on the fire door. And because of the pyrotechnics and medicine used at that time, it was like a smoke bomb when shooting, which would blind the sight of your own army.

Disadvantage four, poor accuracy, short effective range, can only shoot at targets within 100m.

Because the current muskets, even if they are copied in large quantities and are currently the most advanced muskets in Europe, they are not practical enough in warfare and cannot become the mainstream of warfare.

Therefore, the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen would rather have a slower pace of research and development than prevent European muskets. (Want to know more exciting news about "Chongzhen Shengshi"?) Open WeChat now, click on the "+" sign in the upper right corner, select Add Friends to add an official account, search for "Qidianzhongwenwang", follow the official account, and never miss every update! (To be continued......)