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In addition to the gap between the musket and the artillery itself, the huge gap in the level of firearms between the Qing Empire and the British Empire during the First Opium War, and the gap in the corresponding aspects of the cannonballs are also very clearly stated:

The artillery of the Qing army was mainly handled by the Ministry of Industry in Beijing, and then allocated to the provinces. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info please search and see the most complete! The fastest updated novels are sometimes made by the nearest locality. In addition to lead, its material is mainly made of pig iron, cast with clay, and molded with two semi-circular billets, so it must leave a line mark of the model, and due to the relationship between smelting and casting technology, there are often more air eyes.

Therefore, Ding Gongchen improved this in 1841, and he switched to the lost wax method casting, and the cannonballs cast were round and traceless. However, the artillery of the Qing army at that time had a serious drawback: the gun body was huge, the muzzle was extremely small, and the shells were light. Shells generally weigh about 3 to 10 catties, and the largest ones are only 16 or 17 catties, and the largest shells are like the 68-pound shells and shells larger than this in the West, but the proportion is not large. Today, in the Zhenjiang Tuanshan Guanjiang Defense Fort, there are four types of spherical iron cast solid bullets unearthed at this time, the most about 80 pounds, which undoubtedly shows that the Qing army used more than 10,000 catties of huge cannons to bombard British ships at that time.

In 1843, Binghan, a British officer participating in the war, published the book "Records of the British Army's Operations in China", in which "the Battle of Humen" was written: "There were 12 cannons on the old fort, four of which were Portuguese-style brass cannons that could hold 68-pound shells, bought from the Macao authorities two years earlier. The rest are of the Chinese type, in which there is a large metal component and a large caliber. ”

Because the artillery shells of the Qing army were too small, they were often said to "bump back" in wars. At this time, Qi Shan and Lin Zexu both told the Qing court that the British artillery shells weighed more than twenty or thirty catties. The largest British shell weighed 68 pounds, and after Qishan arrived in Guangzhou, the British fired this type of shell in retaliation for the Humen Fort that was fired at the British ships with white flags.

Among the types of shells, there does not seem to be much difference between the types of shells of the two sides, but there is a fundamental difference in the elastic performance of the cannons:

Honeycomb bombs. It is also called sealing the door and the group, 1 cannon is usually equipped with 1 sealing door, 12 groups. The size of the group and the sealing door should be closely matched with the caliber of the gun chamber, and if it is too large, the drug force will be occluded, which will easily cause the gun body to burst. If it is too small, the medicine will be deflated, and the shells will be powerless. "The Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" "Using the Cannonball Method" Zhongyun: "Where the muzzle of the cannon is equipped with a bullet, the rate is nine folds." For example, the caliber is six inches, and the diameter of the ammunition is five inches and four minutes. The caliber is two inches, and the diameter of the bullet is one inch and eight minutes, and the rest can be imitated. The method of testing the bomb is to use a copper plate, or a paper gauge around a hole, and you will know whether it is round or not. When smooth, a line around the waist, it is advisable to knock flat paste, first wrap it in thin cotton, then wrap it with wood red cloth, and send it carefully into the belly. After the large bomb is inserted, a pack of twelve bullets is added, and each of them is folded in two at the diameter of the muzzle. If the mouth is six inches, each bullet diameter is one inch and two points, and the mouth is two inches and each bullet diameter is four points, and the rest are like this. The group of bullets has entered, and then use the old hemp rope to dissolve and tie into a round ball, close to the muzzle of the gun, and then lick into the belly of the gun to make the bullet powerful. Hit from a height, and do not grind out. ”

Chain bombs. In the month, Guan Tianpeiyun, the commander of the Guangdong Navy Division: "The cannon is divided into sealing the door, the group, the cup, and the pole." Sealing the door and the group are used to hit the boat and fight the thief, and the special mast for the pole and the cup should be equipped with the ships of each battalion. "At the time of the Opium War, the Qing army used it a lot against the enemy.

In "The British Army's Combat in China", the British army's description of the Qing army's chain bullets in the Humen artillery battle: "Their chain bullet is particularly good, it is an empty ball, cut in half, and the 18-inch chain plate is used in the hollow part to make the hemisphere tightly connected, so when the hemisphere is bolted together so that it can be loaded in, it is like a cannonball, and a large number of stone shells for large cannons have been found here." ”

Explosive bombs. On February 26, 1841, the minister of the Imperial Mission, Yu Qian, reported: "The rebellion was rampant, the Humen was lost, and it approached the provincial capital...... The hollow missiles used by the Qing army were due to the thin barrel of the cannon and the large muzzle, so that if there was too much charge, it would explode, and if there was less charge, the solid iron bullet could not go far. If you use a small bullet instead, the bullet will not fit the muzzle and will not be cast accurately. It is to hollow out the iron bullet and use gunpowder to match the size of the muzzle and the weight of the medicine. It is not surprising that Fujian Province has this method because the muzzle of the new cannon is too large, even if this ammunition is used, the Zhejiang Quartermaster Bureau also has it. ”

Zhang Jixin, a contemporary of the time, recorded the battle of Xiamen at that time, "The civil and military soldiers made dozens of large and small cannons and placed them in the city. Looking at the residents and shops outside the city, there are rows of people, even if there are police and cannons are difficult to use, there are many respects, and they are just ornamental. It is especially useless to make bombs, thistles, and other things. The thistle terrestris is so limited to the horse's feet, and the reverse is to make the boat but not the horse. The first-line stone road in Fujian Province, if you bury thistle, you must go to the stone first, and there is no such way. The bomb is only a mile or two, and it cannot reach its ships, and whether the bomb explodes or not, or is thrown and never explodes, or explodes immediately, it is most difficult to determine the time of proportion. ”

However, in the whole process of the war, most of the Chinese artillery was mainly spherical solid iron bullets, so Wei Yuan said in the "Raising the Sea" that the British were not afraid of anything, and I had practical ways to deal with it. Although our fort was strong, he attacked with flying cannons, bursting in all directions, bursting several feet, and our soldiers often disturbed ...... Baoshan is defeated by flying cannons, and from the point of view, the long skills of Yi are called flying cannons. ”

The bomb types of the British army are mainly as follows:

The spherical solid shells of the British army are divided into ordinary wrought iron shells and scorching solid shells. Wrought iron bullets are cast with wax molds, round as the earth. It is characterized by a long range and average penetration. Small-caliber guns were used with these shells, and large-caliber guns were also equipped with a certain proportion of solid shells. These shells are not aerodynamic, and after being discharged, they roll and jolt in the air, and the trajectory deviation is very large. Moreover, Western warships at that time were made of oak wood, which was very good in hardness and elasticity, up to 10 centimeters thick, and at a long distance, round shells were not enough to penetrate this oak hull. The scorching solid shell, first used during the American Revolution, "is extremely flammable and hits the target with relative accuracy, which is indeed a great improvement over the floating fire attack ships and fire attack rafts of the past, which were not sure of their effectiveness." In his 1858 book Incendiary Bomb, Engels wrote: "A cast metal ball has the ability to set fire when heated, and a soaked felt pad placed between the heated cannonball and the gunpowder can fire such a projectile without allowing it to ignite the gunpowder prematurely." ”

Chain bombs and bar bombs. In Engels' book "Artillery": "Around 1600...... There was also an important invention, the invention of the chain shotgun and the ordinary shotgun. On the first day of October in the 22nd year of Daoguang, General Yishan and others played: "The cannons used by the Chayi people are mostly hollow, and there are also hollow ones. He also divided the hollow cannon into two halves, smelted mature iron, and tied the iron chain in the middle, about a foot long, and put the iron chain into the hollow when used, and it was still folded, which was no different from the ordinary cannon. Once the exit is bombarded, the two halves fly, shaped like a butterfly, hit the mast of the ship, and then hang and burn on the hook, called the butterfly cannon. ”

There are two types of shotguns: regular shotguns and modified grapes. Since the 17th century, there have been shotguns made of bullets or metal fragments in Europe, which are filled with dozens of lead bullets, and the iron barrel will disintegrate when it is discharged, so dozens of lead bullets fly forward in a fan surface to kill and injure the assembled people and horses.

"Grapegres" were artillery shells used primarily to kill people in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Wrapping small iron beads together in cloth, mesh fabric, or wooden boxes, and shooting them out with cannons is called grape bullets.

The use of such shells to kill and injure infantry marching on open terrain often had disastrous consequences, and its main disadvantage was its short range, which did not have much lethal effect on the enemy who took advantage of the undulating terrain. Bernard, a British officer, said of the battle clouds that took place on January 7, 1841, at Big Horn and Sandhorn: "The Vengeance arrived at the right time, and rained a barrage of grapeshot and shotgun from its two base guns, and it became a witness to the reality of this most brutal war." ”

Flowering shells are divided into flowering shells with black powder, grenade shells with timed leads, and incendiary bombs with arson. In the second half of the 15th century, the spherical explosive bomb appeared in Europe, a hollow iron projectile with black powder inside used on heavy artillery and mortars, and was the largest type of artillery shell of the time. Shrapnel with timed leads is divided into two types: round and pointed. The round "shrapnel shell" was invented in 1784 by Lieutenant Henry Schleipnell of the British Royal Navy, and was named the "Shelf shell" after him.

"Install marbles (iron balls, usually smaller than grape balls, often made of lead instead of iron) in artillery shells, and equip them with a timed fuse to explode when flying over enemy infantry. This overcame two drawbacks of grapeshots: the shells had traveled a considerable distance before the fuse was detonated, and troops in the open could not hide from the projectiles that had been splashed down after the explosion in the air...... However, this new ammunition, which bears the surname of its inventor, has its serious inherent shortcomings, such as the fact that it is very difficult for the fuse to detonate accurately and instantaneously; even if the fuse is in perfect working condition, only a highly skilled gunner can shoot after taking into account the distance, direction, and the height of the explosion over the enemy.

As a result, shrapnel was not widely used in the 19th century, despite its effectiveness. The Chinese also know that on July 27, the 23rd year of Daoguang, the Daoguang Emperor's edict Zhongyun: "The hollow cannon exploded and flew a flying one." It is also of no use, because the cannon is out of the muzzle, and it explodes in the air, and there is no definite determination of where to fly. That is, if Yingyi is good at flying artillery, there are many explosives it uses that cannot be bombed. ”

"In the 19th century, the round bomb fired by artillery developed into a pointed cannonball, which was like the early explosive blade, and the only real invention was the fuse, which became a wooden plug with a pointed end at the end, filled with gunpowder, hammered into the projectile, which was ignited by the blast of the blast when the cannonball was fired. ”

The book written by the present man contains pictures of spherical flowering shells used by the British army during the Opium War. Today, the Lin Zexu Memorial Hall in Fujian Province displays the empty shells of missiles (pointed barrels) that did not explode during the First Opium War.

Incendiary bombs with arson, invented in Europe in the 15th century, Engels Yun: "Incendiary bombs - shells filled with flammable agents, when it burns, the flames shoot out through three or four holes, and it is difficult to extinguish them." Firing such shells from mortars, howitzers and cannons is like firing ordinary explosive shells, and their burning time is 8 to 10 minutes.

The agent is either melted with fire, injected into cannonballs when it is red-hot, or made into a dense object with liquid grease and then loaded into cannonballs. The bullet holes of the incendiary shells were plugged with cork or wooden stoppers, through which a central tube filled with flammable agent entered the shell...... Incendiary bombs were mainly used in artillery bombardment, and sometimes to bombard ships, although in the latter case incendiary bombs were almost entirely replaced by red-hot solid shells, which were easier to manufacture, capable of firing with greater accuracy, and had a much greater incendiary effect. ”

On the sixth day of October in the 21st year of Daoguang, the general Yishan played: "The Yiren bomber landed, and the first bombardment hit four times, and the poisonous fire was all over the ground, even if the card could protect the body, it could not advance." If a man arrives, he cannot kill a thief with his bare hands."

In 1826, the British army began to use explosive shells, and in 1839 the British began to be equipped with improved barrel-shaped pointed flowering shells, which greatly improved the armor-piercing performance of the conical front part, which in turn promoted the birth of ironclad ships. But in the 20s and 30s, it was not generally favored, because the accuracy of this gun was much inferior to that of a solid projectile when firing at long distances. Therefore, until the 30s, only about 40%~60% of the naval guns of the British and French navies belonged to explosive shells.

At the time of the war, the above new incendiary bombs, grapeshot bombs and explosive bombs were the secret of the British "artillery profits". In warfare, when there is no in-depth understanding of the construction principles of enemy shells, all that can be directly felt is the power of the shells they use.

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In fact, perhaps at the time of the Qing Empire's peace of the three feudatories, or even the Battle of Yaksa, the Qing Empire's own firearms level could hardly be regarded as a big gap with the West.

It is very likely that the level of firearms in the Qing Empire was different from that of the West during this period.

Unfortunately, the Qing Empire did not continue to develop in this area, but chose what they thought was a more efficient way to kill the enemy.

This point was the basis of the thinking of the rulers of the Qing Empire at that time, and it can also be regarded as a choice of the Qing Empire's military and tactical system.

It's just that maybe even the three great Qing Empire masters known as the Kangqian Dynasty, Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, didn't think that sometimes being too stubborn is really not a good thing. (To be continued.) )

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