Fire Yao:

At that time, the propellant had already used granular fire yao, instead of the previous powdered fire yao, and its composition ratio was 1 tael of nitrate (accounting for 75.75%), sulfur 1 qian 4 cents (accounting for 10.6%), and willow charcoal 1 qian and 8 cents (accounting for 13.65%), which had basically reached the optimal ratio of black fire yao (nitrate 75%, sulfur 10%, and charcoal 15%)

Types of firearms in the Ming Dynasty:

Until the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the military institutions of the Ming Dynasty also spared no effort to develop a wide variety of complex forms of tubular firearms (muskets, artillery). For example, in the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), in the "Illustrated Description of Weapons" written by Bi Maokang, the right attendant of the household department in Nanjing, it is recorded that there is a "self-generated firebolt", which is a kind of flintlock pistol, which is the earliest flintlock pistol recorded in China; The standard equipment of the three major battalions of the Beijing army - rifled guns (straight line rifles), the Portuguese presented the rifled guns to the Ming government in 1637, and the firearms experts of the Shenji battalion praised the guns for their long range, high accuracy and easy loading. When the traitor Wu Sangui was the guard of Daming Mountain Customs, he had made a large-caliber iron core copper cannon, which set iron and copper toughness, and improved the performance of the cannon, which can be said to be a big innovation at that time, and this cannon still has a display in the Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shenyang. It shows that the firearms technology of the Ming Dynasty has developed rapidly in the past few decades, but it is a pity that the country is dying and there is no batch equipment. In addition, the manufacture of jet firearms (ancient rockets) is also quite sophisticated, with dozens of styles and varieties; Explosive firearms are also quite developed, and there are two major categories: one is landmines, which have a wide variety, including dozens of stone mines, ceramic mines, pig iron mines, etc.; The other type is mines, which include weapons such as underwater mines, underwater dragon cannons, and mixed river dragons. According to a large number of historical facts, China was the first country in the world to invent and use the "two mines".

Hongyi Cannon:

The most prominent advantage of the Hongyi cannon is its range, which is an important part of the performance of heavy artillery, even today. The maximum range of the Ming Dynasty's homemade iron fire gun did not exceed three li, and it was at the risk of exploding; And the general three-thousand-pound Hongyi cannon can easily hit seven or eight miles away, and the historical records can reach as far as ten miles! Ten miles is equivalent to more than five kilometers in modern times, which is quite far away, and there were doubts about this data, but the performance of the same type of artillery in the West proved that this data was accurate (at that time, Western European countries already had the concept of territorial waters, and the territorial waters at that time were determined by the range of coastal artillery, and the territorial sea at the end of the 16th century was three nautical miles, about 5.5 kilometers). The long-range Hongyi cannon combined with flowering shells became the strongest weapon against the Later Jin Tieqi at the end of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the tactics were: lure the cavalry of Houjin into the range of the Hongyi cannon at the head of the city, and then use the flowering shells to concentrate the fire, the effect was very significant, and even Nurhachi was killed. For a long time, the Houjin cavalry did not dare to attack strategic places such as Ningyuan, Jinzhou, and Shanhaiguan, which were equipped with Hongyi cannons.

The Hongyi cannon performed well in actual combat, which attracted the attention of the Ming Dynasty, and a large number of imitations were made in addition to imports, but at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the national strength was not good, and it was impossible to cast and import more expensive Hongyi cannons. However, the Hongyi cannon gradually became the backbone of the heavy firearms in the Ming Dynasty army, and the original heavy large-caliber firearms were eliminated.

Ming Dynasty Flowering Bomb:

The Ming Dynasty flowering bomb was widely used in the war with the northern nomads, and here is an excerpt from the news:

"Cultural relics workers in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region recently excavated more than 20 early Ming Dynasty mines in Tuoketuo County, which is said to be the first time that Ming Dynasty mines have been unearthed in China. The mine unearthed this time is an iron cast sphere, the size is divided into two kinds, the large diameter is 11 centimeters and weighs 1.7 kilograms, the small diameter is 8.5 centimeters and weighs 0.8 kilograms, there is a protruding platform on the surface of the sphere, about 0.6 to 0.7 centimeters high, about 3 centimeters in diameter, there is a circular hole with a diameter of about 0.4 to 0.5 centimeters in the middle of the table, which is used to hold the fire yao and detonate the fire yao twist, when the small hole that has been corroded is opened, the fire yao inside can also be poured out. The fires are all black, and one of the larger ones is earthy gray, and some of them are grains the size of a grain of rice.

According to Xinhua News Agency, Tuoketuo County (called Dongshengzhou in ancient times) in Inner Mongolia is located on the Shanliang Plateau on the bank of the Yellow River, and plays an important role in guarding the Yellow River. At that time, the water and land transportation was convenient, and the border trade was prosperous. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, peasant uprisings broke out in various places, and after the Yuan army was broken by the Ming army in 1368 AD, in order to level the Yuan army in the north, the Ming army had a fierce battle with the Yuan army here. The mines unearthed in the city are the weapons used by the Ming army to attack the city at this time, and more than ten kilograms of iron projectiles were unearthed near the mines, which were the projectiles fired by the Ming army with cannons at that time. ”

"Landmines" of the Ming Dynasty? According to the "General Essentials of the Martial Arts", at that time, the mines were first dug in a large pit on the enemy's inevitable path, buried in the fire, covered with gravel, and detonated with incense. These so-called "mines" are simply flowering bombs! "More than a dozen kilograms of iron projectiles were also unearthed near the mines, which were fired by the Ming army using cannons at that time" is the evidence, what they dug up was an artillery ammunition depot! The iron cast sphere is divided into two sizes, the large one has a diameter of 11 cm and weighs 1.7 kg, and the small one has a diameter of 8.5 cm and weighs 0.8 kg.

There is a protruding table on the surface of the sphere, about 0.6 to 0.7 cm high, about 3 cm in diameter, and there is a small circular hole with a diameter of about 0.4 to 0.5 cm in the middle of the table. Only artillery requires shells to have such accuracy, because everyone knows: if the shell is larger than the caliber of the artillery, it cannot be fired, and if it is smaller than the caliber of the artillery, it will cause gas leakage, and the range and accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Thanks to these data let us know that at that time there were at least two types of artillery there, one with a caliber of 85 mm and the other with a caliber of 110 mm. From these data, we also know that there is a difference between the Eastern and Western flowering shells: the Western flowering bombs are made with an opening in the cast iron projectile body, plugged with a wooden "letter tube", and detonated by a slow-burning fire in the "letter tube"; The flowering bomb of the Ming Dynasty is "a protruding platform on the surface of the sphere, about 0.6 to 0.7 cm high, about 3 cm in diameter, and there is a small circular hole with a diameter of about 0.4 to 0.5 cm in the middle of the table", which is estimated to be detonated by inserting a "medicine twist" in the small hole. Therefore, the "letter tube" and "medicine twist" are the ancestors of modern artillery shell fuses, which also proves that the East and the West independently developed flowering shells. At that time, the artillery of the Ming Dynasty army was equipped with solid shells (also known as "grapeshot shells") and shotguns in addition to flowering shells. Solid bullets are made of iron or lead, a small amount of stones are ground into spheres, this kind of bullets are mainly used for siege holes through the city wall fortifications, the range is long but not very powerful for anti-personnel personnel, unless it is directly hit, and once it is directly hit by a solid bullet, it will either be dead or disabled, but Nurhachi did not break his limbs, so it can be ruled out that he was killed by a solid bullet. Look at the shotgun again, the shotgun was a high-power type of field artillery at that time, composed of several liters of lead and iron pellets, which can form a barrage when shooting, and the lethality is extremely great, but the shotgun has a fatal weakness, the range is too close, generally not more than a mile, Nurhachi will not set up the military camp so close to the city wall, so the shotgun can also be excluded. In this way, only the flowering bullet is the "real murderer" who killed Nurhachi, and the flowering bullet is an iron shell, which can reach far and has great power when exploding. It is speculated that a flowering bullet landed near Nurhachi and exploded, and he was seriously injured by shrapnel and shock waves, and died.

Ming Dynasty Muskets:

In the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1548), the Ming army captured some Japanese and iron cannons who were good at making iron cannons in the battle to recover Shuangyu (now southeast of Yinxian County, Zhejiang), which was occupied by the Japanese and the Portuguese. Ma Xian, Li Huai and others learned the method of making arquebuses, and on the basis of them, they studied and improved them. In the 37th year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1558), the first batch of arquebuses in China was created, which was "more exquisite than the Western Fan", and the handwriting was very large, and it was 10,000 at the beginning, which shows that the Ming Dynasty government attached great importance to the army's equipment with firearms. If it weren't for the end of the Ming Dynasty, which was really extremely corrupt politically, plus three "unlucky" emperors in a row, the Manchu Qing would have the reason to enter the Central Plains!

China has created a successful arquebus, called the "bird gun", "Wu Bei Zhi" said: "the back hand does not abandon the handle, ignition is not moving, so there are eight or nine out of ten shots, that is, the birds in the forest, can be shot down, because it is named", and because of the curved butt it is installed resembles a bird's beak and is called "bird's beak", some people also call it a bird gun, become the "sharp weapon" in the battle of the Ming army at that time. The Ming army is equipped with a bird gun with a firing range of up to 120 meters, the barrel is made of wrought iron, there is a fire hole at the bottom and is connected to the fire yao pond (set fire yao), the pool is covered with a copper cover, which can shield from wind and rain, and the cane (through strip) is inserted on the wooden support under the barrel for filling ammunition, and the bottom of the barrel is sealed with bolts to facilitate the removal and scrubbing of the barrel.

At about the same time, the Rumi State (now Turkey) sent an envoy Duo Sima to China to pay tribute to the arquebus, Zhao Shizhen, a famous firearms expert in ancient China, grew up on the seashore, less experienced the troubles, knew the importance of strengthening national defense strength and improving weapons and equipment, and was determined to develop sophisticated firearms and equipment for the officers and soldiers, to defend the country and protect the people, in the 25th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1597), to the emperor presented the "Eight Evils of Soldiers" article Chen, suggesting the manufacture of the Lumi State tribute of the bird gun, and the Ministry of War discussed and handed over to the Beijing camp for trial production. (Bubble language: Mr. Lu Xun's doctrine of taking it earlier.) ）

Zhao Shizhen was afraid that the Beijing camp would "make and release the two is not as good as the law", so he came to the door to ask Duo Sima, explained in detail the manufacturing and use methods, and funded himself (Zhao Shizhen was a scholar from the seventh rank at the time) to convene craftsmen for trial production, and finally in the twenty-sixth year of Wanli to create an arquebus with a longer range than the beak gun, called the "Lumi gun". This kind of gun has a longer barrel (4 feet 5 inches), weighs slightly more than the bird gun (6-8 catties), has a long range (150 meters), is powerful, and is better than the bird's beak gun in structure. Therefore, "Wu Bei Zhi" said: "Bird milling: Wei Lu Mi gun is the farthest and most poisonous." At the same time, the latest firearms at that time, the "electric switcher" and the "thunderbolt", the former had the advantages of both Western guns and Franc machines, and the latter had the advantages of bird guns and three-eyed guns. In June of the 30th year of Wanli, the firearm developed by Zhao Shizhen passed the test of officials from the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Criminal Affairs and other departments. The review report suggested that the emperor should send Zhao Shizhen's "style of chariot gun with the Beijing camp and make it according to law, and order the officials to teach and give instructions to all sides, so as to investigate the use of border prevention and capture."

Compared with the arquebuses equipped in European countries in the 15th and 16th centuries, the structure is basically the same as that of the Ming army, and the technical parameters are roughly the same, but the Ming army's bird guns are lighter than these guns. Spain's heavy arquebus, the Mushket gun, has a caliber of less than 23 mm, weighs 8-10 kg, the projectile weighs 50 grams, and has a range of 250 meters, which can ensure that it can shoot through any armor.

At the beginning of the 15th century, bronze cannons with a cannon body and a chamber appeared on the battlefields of Europe, and soon there were wheeled cannons, using granular fire, and France first cast iron cannons in the mid-15th century, and soon spread this technology throughout Europe; Around the 16th century A.D., Nuremberg, Germany produced a kind of linear rifled arquebus - "Mauser gun", because the English transliteration of the word "rifling" is "repeated", so the rifled gun is also called "rifled gun", this rifled rifled rifle shooting accuracy greatly exceeds the smoothbore gun.

From the 17th century onwards, European gun manufacturing technology developed rapidly, and the French invented the flintlock pistol with wind and rain resistance, and its appearance marked the end of the purely mechanical ignition era technology. The basic structure of the flintlock pistol is similar to that of a musket, that is, the flint on the batter is used to strike to produce sparks and ignite the fire. With its fast rate of fire, light weight, long range and other advantages, the arquebus was gradually abandoned; The Swedes made an epoch by putting the projectile and the propellant in the same paper tube, tearing (biting) the cartridge when loading, and loading the propellant and the projectile into the chamber together, which not only simplified the loading process, but also ensured the quantitative loading of the propellant, which heralded the emergence of a new type of fixed gun cartridge.

Because these advanced European firearms were superior to Chinese firearms, the Ming government did not hesitate to spend money to import firearms technology from the cannon foundry built by Portuguese artillery casting expert Peter Bogaro in Macao, and made a large number of imitations, and used them in actual combat, making huge gains in actual combat, and then equipping the army in batches. "Chinese Military History, Weapons Volume" records that the artillery of the Ming army in the late Ming Dynasty was cast with fine iron, which was close to the level of the West in technology, and the number ranked first in the world, the maximum firing range of field artillery could reach 10 li, and the naval gun also reached more than 4 li......

The history of the humiliation of the late Manchu Qing Dynasty:

In the late Manchu Qing Dynasty, several famous figures made jokes, which illustrated the ignorance and ignorance of the Manchu Qing Dynasty at that time, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang were a few famous people in the Manchu Qing Dynasty who also knew a little about ordnance and Westernization, among which there were even advocates of the Westernization movement, and they were the most insightful figures who could represent the Manchu military science and technology, but they actually joined together to make a joke......

During the Opium War, Ding Gongchen, a firearms expert in the Manchu Qing Dynasty at the time, did not know what the flowering bullet was;

Zeng Guofan set up the Anqing Ordnance Institute and reintroduced Western-style flowering bombs;

Li Hongzhang actually ordered "flowering bombs" from the German Krupp Arsenal;

In the 70s of the 19th century, Zuo Zongtang supervised the westward expedition to Xinjiang, and carried out an "archaeological excavation" in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi, and excavated more than 100 flowering bombs from a Ming Dynasty fort site. ”

This was the level of military science and technology of the Manchu Qing Dynasty at that time, is it possible not to lose to the foreigners?

However, it is worth mentioning that Zuo Zongtang, who ruled the Manchu Qing Dynasty for many years, was also ignorant to the point of pitiful, and the flowering bomb of the Ming Dynasty was not introduced, but developed by itself.

In the West, the flowering bomb made an opening in the cast iron projectile body, plugged it with a wooden "letter tube", and installed a slow-burning fire inside the "letter tube" to detonate it; The flowering bomb of the Ming Dynasty is "a protruding platform on the surface of the sphere, about 0.6 to 0.7 cm high, about 3 cm in diameter, and there is a small circular hole with a diameter of about 0.4 to 0.5 cm in the middle of the table", which is estimated to be detonated by inserting a "medicine twist" in the small hole. Therefore, the "letter tube" and "medicine twist" are the ancestors of modern artillery shell fuses, which also proves that the East and the West independently developed flowering shells.

Zuo Zongtang's lament is very sympathetic: "The entry of sharp weapons into China for 300 years made some people pay attention to this at that time. ”

However, he was even more pitifully wrong, the "sharp weapon" (flowering bomb) is not "three hundred years into China", but simply something that has been invented by the Ming Dynasty, and the later golden-headed Nuerhachi was killed by the flowering bullet.