GBP Chapter 24: Firearms
Chapter 24: Firearms
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Having successfully refined low-carbon steel, the next step is to manufacture muskets. Muskets have always been something Liu Ye has dreamed of since his transmigration. Only with a gun can he contend with various potential enemies; a wooden-shafted, iron-tipped spear clearly doesn't give him the same confidence as a musket.
The reason why the project has been able to expand so much is entirely due to the remote location of Qiongzhou, where the emperor is far away and the county government of Lingao has been lavishly funded by the government, so no one is supervising it for the time being, allowing all the projects to proceed simultaneously.
Inland, let alone iron smelting and shipbuilding, even opening a large-scale textile factory would attract the attention of the government. Even without being accused of inciting unrest, extortion and exploitation would be inevitable. Not to mention manufacturing guns and cannons, which would certainly be considered rebellion and lead to arrest and execution. But safety is only temporary; only with weapons can the development of one's business be guaranteed.
Following the Bairentan Steel Plant, the Bairentan Arsenal began construction. Due to the need for infrastructure development in various places, the arsenal could only build a few prefabricated houses to make do with the existing facilities. Large-scale factory buildings would be constructed once manpower was available.
Iron smelting expert transforms into arms expert – veteran military enthusiast Liang Xiaoming is about to prove his worth, with Liu Ye personally overseeing the process.
Blacksmiths and apprentices were gathered together for on-site instruction, and a master-apprentice pair, recognized as having the best skills, was selected to test-make firearms.
The blacksmith who was chosen was surnamed Wang. No one remembered his real name, but they remembered him as Wang Yichui (Wang the One-Hammer), because his skill in hammering iron was so superb that he had this nickname.
He and several apprentices followed Lin Weiye's instructions, first forging the gun barrel, then making the other parts of the gun body, and finally assembling them.
The first step was to manufacture the gun barrel.
Prepare a cylindrical steel core as the frame. First, heat the wrought iron for the gun barrel until it's red-hot. Then, remove the blank and hammer the hot wrought iron onto the steel core, rolling it into an iron tube. During the wrapping process, continuously pull out the steel core and cool it with water to prevent the steel core from welding together with the wrought iron. The rolled iron tube should be about one centimeter thick. Wang Yichui was very skilled at this step; he had also been assigned to make matchlock guns for the soldiers in Guangdong, so he was very familiar with this process.
If we follow the Ming army's method of manufacturing muskets, the second step would be welding.
During the Ming Dynasty, there was a lack of knowledge about ballistics. People believed that the longer the matchlock gun, the greater its power. As a result, in order to increase the length of the matchlock gun, the gun barrel was made by rolling a single tube and then welding it section by section. This evolved into the matchlock gun of the later Qing Dynasty, where the barrel could even reach two meters in length. Gun barrels made using this welding method were very prone to shattering. Craftsmen regarded whether the gun barrel was welded seamlessly as the key to the success or failure of gun manufacturing.
During the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, Ming army craftsmen resorted to shortcuts, causing numerous accidents. Records state: "Recently, few understand the problems involved, and instead of holding craftsmen accountable, they allow them to roll iron tubes unevenly in thickness, sometimes even single tubes, which explode upon handling." The more prone to explosions, the more soldiers resisted using them. As a result, while the Ming Dynasty manufactured tens of thousands of arquebuses, very few were actually used in combat; even the elite Guan Ning cavalry still used primitive three-barreled muskets.
Liang Xiaoming's method is a completely different double-layer composite gun body. Unlike the single-tube welding method, it wraps red iron around the steel core. After the first layer of iron is wrapped, another layer is wrapped on top of this gun body, so that the joint of the inner gun is tightly wrapped by the outer gun body to form a composite.
Technically speaking, the double-layer composite gun is more scientific than the single-barrel welded gun, and the gun body is more robustly joined. Although this type of gun barrel cannot be made into a very long bird gun barrel, the caliber can be made larger than that of the first type of bird gun, thus having greater power within a limited distance.
Liang Xiaoming's model was the Brownbes flintlock musket, the standard firearm used by the British Army to dominate its global colonies. This musket had a shorter barrel, used less material, was cheaper, and was easy to mass-produce. The only difference was that it used a double-layered composite barrel, while the original Brownbes was a single-barreled musket.
Considering that China's iron ore quality was inferior to that of the West, and its smelting technology was not as advanced as that of the 18th and 19th centuries, and that it did not need to pursue cost control as much as Britain, this change was made.
During the process of making the gun barrel, Wang Yichui believed from his past experience that a short barrel could not shoot as far as a long barrel, but since his employer said so, he did as he was told.
The third step is the same both in China and abroad: to repair the inner bore. At this point, the barrel is still a rough blank, and the core is not straight, and the inside of the bore is also rough and uneven. In addition to polishing the outside of the barrel smooth, the most important thing is to use a drill bit to drill the bore to make it smooth.
During the Ming Dynasty, drill bits were generally made of dropper steel, which was not very hard. Moreover, the bore was drilled manually, so half the time spent making muskets was spent drilling the bore. Only one inch could be drilled per day, and the process could take up to a month. Records state: "The original hole was very small, so a steel drill was used. It took about an inch a day to drill to the bottom, and it was best to drill it completely in a month."
In Liang Xiaoming's view, the production efficiency of Ming Dynasty arquebuses was shockingly low. There were two solutions: one was to improve the drill bit, and the other was to change the drilling method.
Tool steel for drill bits is easy to produce; it can be made much harder than drill bit steel using the crucible steelmaking method.
This method was first applied by the Englishman Hunzman in 1742. He cut carburized iron into small pieces and placed them in a sealed clay crucible. He heated the crucible from the outside, and the iron continued to absorb carbon from the graphite, melting into high-carbon steel. This was then cast into small ingots and forged into the desired shape. While the steel was melting in the crucible, the graphite carbon also acted as a reducing agent, removing oxygen and allowing various inclusions to float to the surface and be removed. Therefore, the quality of this steel was superior to that of other metals at the time, making it suitable for manufacturing tools for processing metal materials.
The crucible method was the first method in human history to produce liquid steel, but the production volume was extremely small and the cost was high. For Lin Weiye, who only needed tool steel, these drawbacks were not a problem. Since large-scale mass production was not required, it was enough to have steel harder than drill bit steel for making drill bits. In the future, tool steel obtained by this method could also be used to bore the inner bore of cannons.
As for the drilling method, Liang Xiaoming's method is to use a simple water-powered lathe.
The so-called simple lathe is simply an enlarged horizontal hand-cranked drill, but powered by water instead of hand crank. Previously, drilling was done manually inch by inch, vertically, which was time-consuming and laborious. With the simple lathe, the gun barrel is horizontally fixed on a rotating frame and rotates on its own, while the drill bit is fed horizontally. This increases drilling efficiency several times over; what used to take a month to drill a gun barrel can now be produced in five or six days, producing a high-quality gun barrel with a smooth bore.
The successful manufacture of the barrel can be seen as an improvement on the existing process; the next step, the manufacture of the bolt, was a revolutionary improvement.
The arquebus of the Ming army was a matchlock gun. Its structure was that there was a metal hook on the gun, one end of which was fixed to the gun and could rotate around an axis, while the other end held a burning match. When firing, the metal hook was pushed into the touch hole by hand, so that the match ignited the gunpowder, and then the bullet loaded in the barrel was fired.
Compared to flintlock muskets, matchlock muskets had many drawbacks. The most obvious was that the firing process was very complicated and slow. Qi Jiguang recorded 10 procedures for using a matchlock musket in his book, while in Europe, a book published in 1607 described the firing steps of a matchlock musket in 25 steps, which was very cumbersome. Secondly, it could not be used in rainy, snowy, or windy weather. Rain would wet the ignition powder in the powder chamber, and strong winds would blow the ignition powder away.
The flintlock musket overcame the aforementioned shortcomings of the matchlock musket. Its ignition mechanism consisted of a flint held in the jaws of the hammer, with an anvil located next to the flintlock hole. When firing, pulling the trigger caused the flint to strike the anvil under the action of a spring, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder. This greatly simplified the firing process, improved the firing rate and accuracy, and made it convenient to use.
As a mature standard flintlock musket, the Brownbes features an improved wheel wedge mechanism compared to earlier, rudimentary flintlock muskets. This new mechanism became the standard design for flintlock muskets in all countries later on. The wheel wedge has two locking grooves that form a fixed mechanism and a braking damper, creating two safety mechanisms. The first is the motorized ready-to-fire state when black powder is loaded into the priming pan, and the second is the firing ready-to-fire state. The braking sear linkage mechanism can slide up and down to lock and fire.
To forge this breechblock, Liang Xiaoming specially drew three-view diagrams, visually depicting its structure. Wang Yichui, a skilled blacksmith, had never encountered such drawings before, but he understood them at a glance. After a few attempts, he successfully forged the breechblock.
With the barrel and mechanism assembled, the main body of the gun is complete. The next step is to further refine its performance. For example, brass is used to make gun body parts to enhance the musket's sturdiness and durability; a wooden stock and handguard are made, with the stock designed as a rooster neck joint, extended and smooth, and fitted with a brass base plate to prevent the two pieces of the stock from falling apart, making it easy to grip and aim with the cheek rest; the handguard has a smooth, easy-grip design; a new, more prominent, simple front sight is designed at the end of the barrel to help the shooter aim; two movable sling swivels made of brass are added for soldiers' convenience during long marches; and two small brass tubes are made and fixed to the lower edge of the handguard as storage for the cleaning strip.
The final highlight is the bayonet mount, which features a sliding latch for the bayonet and bayonet lug at the muzzle, ensuring the bayonet stays securely in place without interfering with firing. Although a suitable material for the bayonet has not yet been developed, reserving a mount for the bayonet is a wise precaution.
The bayonet was a revolutionary invention of the flintlock musket era, its significance no less than that of flintlock ignition replacing matchlock ignition. The advent of the bayonet meant that musketeers no longer needed the protection of pikemen, gaining some close-combat capability while maintaining ranged attack capabilities. They were no longer as vulnerable to cavalry as before. From then on, pure musketeer infantry replaced the combat style of combining muskets and pikes, and the once-prevalent Spanish tercio disappeared, giving rise to line formations and hollow square formations.
Under Liang Xiaoming's guidance and through Wang Yichui's craftsmanship, a knock-off version of the Brown Bess flintlock pistol was created a century ahead of schedule. The gun is 1.4 meters long and weighs about 4 kilograms. It is estimated that the total length can reach 1.9 meters after the bayonet is attached, which is almost the length of a spear. It can be used as a spear for close-range stabbing.
Lin Weiye was captivated by this famous gun, which was born in the 18th century and used until the 19th century. The low-carbon steel barrel gleamed with a metallic luster, the brass accessories made the gun look radiant, and the ergonomic stock looked so harmonious. The whole gun was simply a work of art!
Liu Ye has no artistic sense to appreciate craftsmanship. He snatched the gun and said, "Let's fire a shot and see what it's made of."
Liang Xiaoming took back the gun with dissatisfaction: "You spoil the mood. This gun is the crystallization of modern craftsmanship, it's a work of art. I'll keep this first gun. If you want to test it, find another one." Actually, there was no way to test it, since the gunpowder hadn't even been prepared yet.
Liu Ye dared not offend the chief designer, so he chuckled and let it go, but he was itching to test the power of the new gun once it went into mass production.
At Liang Xiaoming's suggestion, the entire process was divided into four major stages: barrel manufacturing, bolt manufacturing, bayonet manufacturing, and complete gun assembly. The division of labor was based on the modern factory assembly line operation method, instead of the traditional method where a blacksmith was responsible for the production of the entire gun, which greatly improved production efficiency.
Next came the preparation of black powder. The gunpowder workshop couldn't be located too close to the gun and cannon production workshop, so for safety reasons, it was chosen on the shore of Bairentan, some distance from the musket and future artillery workshops. Actually, black powder in this era wasn't very powerful; without a sealed container, it would only burn and not explode. This arrangement was just in case.
Liu Ye recruited some older people from Lijia Village to work in the gunpowder workshop. Gunpowder preparation did not require much skill or physical strength; all that was needed was to add saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal powder in the correct proportions, which they were perfectly capable of handling.
按梁小明的指导枪用发射火药的最佳配比为硝、硫、炭各为75、10、15，炮用发射火药的最佳配比比率为78、8、14，这是1825年英国化学家歇夫列里根据试验得出的黑火药最佳化学反应方程式计算出来的。