readx;?? Historically, both in the East and the West, the relative combat significance of muskets was when arquebuses appeared. Pen & fun & pavilion www.biquge.info ¥ ♀ 8 ¥ ♀ 8 ¥ ♀ read ¥ ♀ book, .2≠3.o◆

And the mainstream of weapons that really made muskets occupy the war situation was after the advent of fixed ammunition.

The former is a major change in the development of the musket in history, while the latter is a milestone in the historical development of the musket.

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The arquebus is to ignite the gunpowder by burning the arquebus, so the name arquebus arquebus is a milestone 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 holds 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 powder, and then the projectile contained in the gun 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 meters.

In the thirties of the 14th century, the first tubular metal firearms appeared in Europe, called the musket. The earliest record of a gun in Europe was in 1364, when an inventory of the arsenal in Perugia, Italy, stated that "500 cannons, long in the hand, were so beautiful that they could pierce 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 gun was long, caliber 17 mm, mass 1.24 kg, and is now preserved 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 years" musket has a length of 30mm and a mass of 4.75kg. Compared with the two, the production of 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, with neither a sight nor a crosshair, and no butt to hold to the shoulder, could only shoot roughly, and its role in war was probably only to cause confusion among the enemy's troops and give them an opportunity for their own infantry and cavalry.

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 powder disc, and when fired, the trigger is pulled, the nose is pressed down, and the ignited fire rope enters the powder pan to ignite the gunpowder, firing the projectile or arrowhead. 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 made considerable progress, as shown in the following two examples.

In 1499, an inventory in the Italian city of Naples recorded an arquebus known as a "smoothbore gun". The name comes from the Italian word "" (a sparrowhawk), meaning that the gun was as powerful as the "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 has a collection of arquebuses made in the year, with a long body, a caliber of 30mm, a long handle, a full length, an octagonal barrel, and a fixed bamboo shoot at the front end of the handguard, which can be connected to a tripod and fired by two 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.

And in the West, the Battle of Pavia was a war in which arquebuses became "famous":

Under the leadership of the young King François I, the French army invaded Italy again. Frank I was a sumptuous and dignified man of humor and affability in literature and art, but he lacked composure, wisdom and perseverance, and was keen on hunting and tennis, and had little interest in court politics.

In the winter of 1525, the French laid siege to the city of Pavia again, and the Spaniards once again came to try to relieve the besieged city. The French had not only built siege fortifications, but also dug trenches on the side of the road that the Spaniards approached to defend it. The Spaniards also dug trenches 40 yards beyond the French trenches. Therefore, the two armies faced each other in trenches. The departure of some of the mercenaries weakened the French army, and the Spanish army was depleted of financial resources and decided to attack. The Spaniards passed through the unguarded protective wall, and most of them marched at dawn, bypassing the far end of the French trench. At dawn, the Spanish troops were transformed from marching into battle columns, facing the French at right angles. The Spanish march is reminiscent of the march of Gonzalo de Córdoba across the Garigliano River. At this point, the Spanish troops stopped to organize their defenses, because they knew that the French army would definitely attack them in order to prevent the Spanish from passing through and cut off the communication line between the French army and the Milan base. The French feared that the Spaniards would suddenly attack their scattered forces, which had not yet formed a battle formation. Therefore, the king of Francis wisely launched an immediate attack with heavy cavalry to cover the assembly of other troops and form battle formations. This decision led to successive assault battles of several units of the French army.

The Spaniards deployed arquebusiers on the flanks of the formation, with heavy cavalry and German mercenary spearmen in the middle. Francis I himself led a detachment of French heavy cavalry and successfully stormed the Spanish heavy cavalry, but when attacking the two heavy infantry groups in the depths of Spain, a protective wall of dense spearmen blocked the onslaught of the French heavy cavalry. The Swiss spearmen in the French army then carried out another charge, pointing at the flanks of the arquebusiers. The Swiss spearmen did not cross the Spanish light infantry formation, but stopped in the face of the continuous fire of the arquebusiers. The Spanish light infantry, assisted by a small number of spearmen, defeated the attack of the Swiss pikemen. In the Battle of Bikka, the firearms and the breastwork played a large role, making the Swiss attack weak. One historian of the time wrote that after the Battle of Bikka, "the Swiss spearmen were reduced in number, but above all, they were no longer bold and reckless." They returned to the Swiss mountains. To be sure, the casualties of the Swiss soldiers at the Battle of Bicocca greatly influenced their operations in the years that followed. They don't have the same momentum as they used to be. ”

The last action of the French army was to attack the German mercenary infantry in the Spanish army by their German mercenary infantry. As the two mercenary groups collided, the Spanish light infantry began firing at the French spearmen. At the same time, a second phalanx of German mercenary infantry attacked the French units from the flanks. After defeating the German mercenary infantry units of the French army, the Spanish heavy infantry dispersed the last assault of the rest of the French infantry on the day. The Spanish army surrounded the brave King of France and his group of cavalry, and finally defeated the French army and captured the King of France.

This battle greatly increased the prestige of the arquebusiers. However, this is not because they withstood the onslaught of Swiss soldiers. If the Swiss had the same determination as they had done in the past, or if the German mercenary infantry spearmen on either side of the arquebusiers had shown determination in battle, the heavy infantry would have been able to break up the light infantry formation. However, the Spanish arquebusiers used the traditional small detachment tactics of light infantry, using bushes or woods as cover to evade the French cavalry, and maintained a continuous fire against the French cavalry and heavy infantry with slow speed.

Later generations believed that the arquebus became one of the greatest heroes in this battle. And this battle also seems to have laid the foundation, and the arquebus gradually became the basis for the mainstream infantry combat weapons at that time.

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In the East, in the same 16th century, muskets were introduced to Japan, and muskets were called "iron cannons" in Japan, and Japan developed "Kunitome Barrel" and "Sanlian Barrel", "Sakai Barrel", "Satsuma Barrel" and so on on the basis of European muskets. The relatively 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 to produce the "iron cannon" in large quantities. Due to Japan's lack of resources, 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 Tendon (22nd year of the reign of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty, 1543), when a ship carrying more than 100 people docked at Tanegashima 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 gate) next to it, which was a way to open fire, loaded with gunpowder and small lead pellets, which were ignited with the arquebus, which could shoot the lead pellets, hit the target, and emit fire and thunderous explosions when fired. The Japanese Shi Yao (a local warlord) saw it and regarded it as a rare treasure and called it an iron cannon. Later, he bought it with a large sum of money, and sent his minister, Koshiro Jokawa, to learn from the Portuguese how to use arquebuses and how to make gunpowder, 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)

The main characteristics of the bird gun are, first of all, the front end of the gun tube is equipped with a crosshair, and the rear part is equipped with a light door, which constitutes an aiming device; secondly, a curved gun holder is designed, and the launcher can aim and shoot at the side of the face close to the gun stock; thirdly, the gun tube is relatively long, the ratio of length to caliber is about 50:1~70:1, and the slender gun tube makes the gunpowder burn fully in the chamber, produces a large thrust, and the muzzle velocity of the projectile after the discharge of the chamber is larger, and obtains a low extension trajectory and a longer firing range; and finally it is the difference of the ignition machine, 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 record of "Daming Huidian Firearms", 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 to use 10 catties of crude iron to smelt 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, 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 flintlock pistol around 1700, 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 was always in the possession of the Qing Dynasty aristocracy, 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 pistols.

In order to understand the practice of bird guns, this has to start with the craftsmanship of the Ming Dynasty. Song Yingxing's "Heavenly Creations" said: "Where the hammer bird is hammered, the iron is first made of a piece as big as a chopstick, and it is wrapped in a red iron hammer. The first is three connections, the interface is red, and it is trying its best 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. This is the production process of the bird gun that has been used for hundreds of years, although the ignition technology of the fire gun in China has been improved several times, but the manufacturing process of the traditional gun body has been completely abandoned until the rise of the Westernization Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, from the first arquebus to the second war for hundreds of years, it can be said that it has a long history; the early Ming Dynasty used riveting, because of the inconvenience of manufacturing, the later use of two sections of copper hoop fixation, although the cleaning is inconvenient, but shortened the production time of the bird gun, the Qing Dynasty learned the Turkish method, the fixed gun pipe is tied with a thin rope, and a firm thin cotton rope is tied on a gun divided into several sections, and the gun tube can be removed as long as the rope is untied when cleaning the gun pipe, it's just that the rope is easily burned by the blazing gun tube after the shot.

And among the people, the arquebus is also a fairly popular weapon. According to the "Laws of the Great Qing Dynasty", "the deep mountains and valleys of the provinces and the nearby mountain dwellings to expel the beasts of prey, and the Gansu, Lanzhou and other prefectures are adjacent to the inhabitants of the wrong place of Fanhui, and the coastal places that should need shotgun guards, must be reported to the magistrate, and the detailed investigation is clear, and it is really necessary, and it is allowed to be made according to the size of the battalion shotgun, and the name and number are engraved on it, and the register is checked quarterly." In other words, in order to prevent thieves and wild beasts, the people can have shotguns, but they must report to the government and obtain a certificate of possession of a gun. [To be continued.] ]