There is no such thing as the Kangxi and Qianlong eras

Chapter 156: Rifled Guns and Minié Bullets

Firearms Workshop.

"Meet the General!"

"Haha, no need to be so polite, brother!"

Nie Yu stepped forward and affectionately took his cousin Nie Hong's hand, helping him up.

This cousin Nie Hong is the son of his uncle Nie Lin. Like Nie Yu, he has the same surname Nie and is considered a member of the Nie family. He is a blood relative who can be executed in the event of a rebellion.

Nie Yu was not appointing people based on personal connections. This was purely a matter of core rebellion secrets, which had to be kept in the hands of his own people who could not betray him.

After a few brief pleasantries, Nie Yu got straight to the point and asked, "You reported earlier that the craftsmen at the Firearms Bureau had already developed a bolt-drawing machine?"

Jingzhou Firearms Workshop, as the earliest firearms workshop of the Han army, is also the headquarters of the firearms workshop. It has grown very large and has been divided into three production and R&D divisions according to the different types of firearms:

Firearms Bureau, Artillery Bureau, and Ammunition Bureau.

As the name suggests, the Fire Gun Bureau was responsible for the mass production of the Han army's main flintlock rifles, as well as research on how to further mass-produce rifles with rifled flintlocks.

The Artillery Bureau specializes in manufacturing artillery. The most powerful siege cannons of the Han army were produced here. There are also new mortars (modified tiger squat cannons) that have been improved by craftsmen and are equipped in large quantities by artillery.

The Ammunition Bureau has the largest number of craftsman apprentices among the three bureaus, because their work is relatively simple, but also more complicated and tiring.

The massive amounts of bullets consumed by flintlock rifles, the solid shells used in various types of cannons, and the explosive shells needed for new mortars were all produced by the Ammunition Bureau.

The Han army didn't have the technology to manufacture explosive shells suitable for modern cannons. Because steel production technology wasn't up to par, they could only wait until new steel furnaces were fully operational. While they couldn't produce explosive shells for cannons, they were more than capable of producing them for mortars.

As a typical mortar, the chamber pressure of the mortar is inherently low. In addition, the mortar has a small caliber and a small amount of explosives, so the pressure requirement for the shell material is even smaller.

Come to the backyard of the Firearms Bureau.

The venue here is very spacious. Because the machine to be placed is so large, it almost takes up most of the space in the yard. There are more than ten craftsmen busy at work.

There were both craftsmen from the Firearms Bureau and craftsmen responsible for the development of steam engines.

The huge machine that the craftsmen were tinkering with in the yard was divided into two parts, the front part was the steam engine, and the back part was the wire drawing machine.

"Officer Nie, the debugging is almost done."

"Then let's get started! Demonstrate it to the General."

Nie Hong gave the order, and the craftsmen immediately started the machines. The apprentices picked up shovels and began to add coal.

"Dong dong dong dong!"

The steam engine began to work in a reciprocating cycle with a dull and continuous movement. Through the connecting rod and pulley structure, the generated force was continuously and uniformly transmitted to the wire drawing machine in the other part.

The structure of the wire drawing machine looks complicated, but it is actually very simple. There is a steel file inside, which is the main structure of the wire drawing machine. The back of the file is aligned with the connecting rod pulley. The pulley is driven by the steam turbine to rotate, which drives the connecting rod to pull the file to do reciprocating motion.

The fixing structure of the file is welded with an iron ruler, the surface of which has evenly cut racks and is connected to a slope structure on the top.

Whenever the file is driven to reciprocate at a constant speed, the iron ruler will also follow the slope structure and reciprocate up and down, driving the rack that fixes the file, so that the file can reciprocate while also rotating back and forth at a constant speed in a spiral.

The front end of the file is the gun barrel that needs to be rifled. A larger iron gear structure is set at the fixed part of the barrel, which is linked to the steam engine pulley through a connecting rod.

Every time the file makes a reciprocating motion, the iron gear fixed to the barrel pushes the barrel to rotate one-fifth of the circle.

After repeating this process five times, the rifling of a gun barrel was perfectly done in less than half a minute.

"General, please look!"

Nie Hong took the gun barrel from the craftsman and could still feel the heat on the surface of the barrel.

Nie Yuzhen looked at the inner wall of the gun barrel in the sunlight. It was covered with evenly spiral rifling. "Not bad, not bad. Do you have a finished rifle?"

Nie Hong was well prepared. He took a brand new rifle from the craftsman and presented it to him with both hands: "General, please move to the shooting range!"

The Sichuan Shooting Range is located on the outskirts of Jingzhou City. It is actually the testing ground of the Han Army Firearms Workshop. All the houses here have been relocated and emptied, and those who have land and property have been redistributed.

Nie Yu raised his rifled flintlock rifle, aimed at the target a hundred steps away and fired a shot.

"Bang!" A gunshot came, a ring.

Nie Hong immediately clapped his hands and praised: "General, your spearmanship is excellent!"

He has such great marksmanship that he can hit a target even at a distance of 100 steps with a rifle.

With this shooting skill, if you put it in the recruit camp, you'd be lucky if you didn't get scolded by the instructor.

However, Nie Yu did not feel embarrassed at all. Instead, he was very happy because he had already witnessed the power of the rifle.

As a general of the Han army, Nie Yu had naturally touched a smoothbore flintlock rifle, but not many times. In terms of marksmanship, he was a complete rookie.

Now, even a new recruit like him can hit a target a hundred steps away when he uses a rifle for the first time.

This hit rate is already quite good. If it were a smoothbore rifle, let alone one shot, it would be very difficult for Nie Yu to hit even one ring out of ten shots.

For a smoothbore rifle, without rifling, the accuracy of the bullets depends entirely on luck, which is why there is a three-stage firing and dense fire coverage by line infantry.

Nie Yu asked, "What is the range of this rifle?"

Nie Hong replied: "Because of the added rifling, it has an effective range of 300 meters."

In fact, this is still a conservative estimate by Nie Hong and the Firearms Bureau. The actual range should be around 500 meters, which is comparable to the mortar, or even slightly higher.

"However, this rifled flintlock also has a flaw," Nie Hong added.

Zui Yu was stunned: "What shortcomings?
"Bullets," Nie Hong said seriously, "used to be, whether it was a matchlock or a musket, because they were both smoothbore, so the production requirements were that they only needed to fit into the barrel. But now, with muskets like the line brand, the inner wall of the barrel is rifled. This means that bullets that could easily fit into smoothbore muskets before are now difficult to use in rifled guns because of the rifling."

This was also the problem Europe faced when promoting rifled guns. The range and accuracy of rifled guns made it difficult for Europeans to give up, but the difficulty in inserting bullets was also a problem.

As a result, the British initially refused to equip rifled guns and continued to use smoothbore guns as their regular equipment.

The French are different. They will use the equipment that the British don't use.

It's just that the bullet can't be put in. Just hit it with a hammer twice and it will be fine.

Yes, you read that right. The French solution was to have soldiers carry hammers with them on the battlefield. If the bullet couldn't be loaded, they would use the hammer to hammer the bullet in.

The consequence is that loading the bullets violently like this will make it more likely for the barrel to explode, but if it explodes, it explodes. Compared with the range advantage of rifled guns, it is just a few guns exploding, which is nothing.

Nie Yu didn't refer to the French experience of "pitting soldiers". He thought for a moment and said, "Do you know about conical bullets?"

Nie Hong was a little confused and asked, "Are you talking about the special shells used by our Han army's cannons?"

Nie Yu nodded and said, "Almost the same, but my bullet is different. Tell the Ammunition Bureau to make the bullet into a cone-shaped front, but leave a hole inside the back half. See if they can use the power of gunpowder to make the bullet expand and fill the gap in the gun chamber?"

Good guy, can this still happen?

Mr. Nie's comprehension ability was not bad to begin with, and he had worked in the Firearms Bureau for such a long time that he instantly understood what the general was trying to do.

The key seems to be that it is really feasible to hollow out the back half of the bullet and then use gunpowder to create an explosion.
The expanding air impacts the bullet, causing it to expand on its own, quickly filling the barrel and coming into close contact with the rifling of the barrel.

In this way, there is no need to worry about the bullet being too large to fit into the barrel, nor is there any need to worry about the bullet being too small to make contact with the rifling, rendering the rifling ineffective.

"I will go to the Ammunition Bureau and ask them to make this new type of bullet." Nie Hong said with excitement on his face.

"I'll take this rifle."

Nie Yu smiled and said, "All the craftsmen who participated in the manufacture of the wire drawing machine will be rewarded handsomely. Also, tell the craftsmen to brainstorm more and not be afraid of failure."

"There aren't enough steel tubes and gunpowder. Let me solve that problem. Now that we have rifled guns, can we find a way to turn a muzzle-loading rifle into a breech-loading rifle?"

"Besides breech-loading rifles, can we develop rifles that can fire farther and with higher accuracy? Also, can rifles be converted from single-shot to continuous-fire?"

Nie Yu was so excited when he was talking that the craftsmen from the Firearm Bureau, including Nie Hong, were also excited when they heard him.

They didn't understand the significance of inventing firearms, but they knew that if they invented a new type of firearm, the general would reward them generously and they might even have the opportunity to become officials or nobles.

No one could resist the temptation of becoming an official, let alone these craftsmen whose social status was lower than that of ordinary people.

(End of this chapter)