Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 45 She has been waiting for this day for too long!
After meeting Oda Nobunaga, Harano felt that there would be no problem for him to survive in Owari Province for a long time. After all, he had the reputation, the military force to protect himself, bodyguards, and he had also met the lords of both the Arako Maeda family and the Oda Danmasatada family. Nothing could pose a threat to his personal safety.

Of course, if something like a meteorite fell from the sky and killed him, it would be force majeure and had nothing to do with his personal efforts, so he would have to accept it.

As long as he was not killed by the meteorite, his survival problem would be solved, which was much earlier than expected. He suddenly felt a little confused and didn't know what to do for a moment. He felt a little empty in his heart.

He couldn't help but start thinking about what else was urgent and whether he should start pushing forward the life improvement plan in advance, but Aman had already entered the jumping up and down mode - Oda Nobunaga only threw down the cannon, and there were no other things like projectiles, matchlocks, primers, gunpowder, etc. If she wanted to use this cannon and wanted to practice the "Equality Cannon for All Beings", she had to get all these things.

She was very good at doing things and would do things as soon as she said she would. She immediately persuaded the Taojing brothers to go to the manure pit to scrape some saltpeter for her. She ran out to ask the villagers for things and came back with some pottery jars, thin linen ropes, castor oil, and black vinegar. Without stopping for a moment, she peeled the ropes and took the threads and immersed them in the black vinegar and castor oil with saltpeter added.

"Can you also make tinder?" Yuanye saw her coming in and out, making the house smell bad, which completely disrupted his train of thought. He couldn't help but come over to take a look.

"Of course!" Ah Manzhi was very proud. These hemp ropes could be made into tinder after being soaked for seven or eight hours and then twisted together. One foot could burn slowly for an hour, which was enough for the cannon. She wanted to practice the "Equality Cannon" not just thinking about it. She had figured out all the technical details. She just couldn't afford the cannon before, but now she could twist some consumables with her hands, which was like a dung beetle pushing a dung ball upside down. It was natural!
Yuanye was not too surprised. After all, this was not a high-level technology. He just took a look and started to point fingers, trying to improve the process. "You should purify the saltpeter and filter the black vinegar first. This way, you don't need castor oil and can save soaking time or soak the whole thing. The effect will be better than now."

"As long as it works, why bother about so much!" Aman didn't listen, soaked the hemp rope and went out again.

She had some black gunpowder, so she took some out and mixed it with some sulfur powder to make explosive ignition powder. Sulfur powder was available at Yuanye Pharmacy, and he would sometimes use it to fumigate medicinal materials. Just take some and use it. However, the lead blocks for making projectiles were a little difficult to get, so she had to go out and look for some.

Well, she also has to make the "Zaohe Bottle" and get some more bamboo. Anyway, she is very busy and has no time to take care of Yuanye.

She has been waiting for this day for too long!
…………

Aman is very capable and has a strong execution ability. After tinkering with it for a while, she got all the things needed to fire the cannon together by the next afternoon. She immediately started practicing her "Equality Cannon".

Yuanye still admired her for this. After all, if you caught a child of 11 or 12 years old in the future, he would definitely not be as troublesome as her.

Of course, in order to avoid accidentally killing villagers and ruining her reputation, Yuanye stopped her attempt to set off two cannons in the yard - people in this era have no sense of safety at all, it's really amazing - and took her out of the village to practice far away to avoid disturbing others with noise or scaring the chickens in the village to stop laying eggs.

Aqing, Yayoi and the Momoi brothers were also very curious. After all, the iron cannon was still a super new thing in Owari at that time, so they followed behind to watch the fun.

When they were far away from the village, Aman also determined his target, which was a small forest about thirty steps away.

She watched silently for a moment, recalled the steps, and then took out a pointed bamboo tube, wanting to pour the primer into the fire pan, but she hesitated, thinking that this iron cannon seemed different from the information she had heard before, and it seemed that she should load the propellant first...

"Are you able to do this?" Yuanye walked over and took a look at her, worried that she would do something reckless and end up killing herself.

"It should be OK, I'll think about it, we can definitely get it going today!" Ah Man said this, but her expression was hesitant. In the past, she just yearned for this powerful advanced weapon, and she would go around in circles and ask all kinds of questions when she had the chance, and got a lot of relevant information, but she had no chance to actually use it. Now the shape of this iron cannon didn't match the information she got, and she was a little at a loss.

"Let me do it!" Yuanye had never played with a matchlock gun, and he felt itchy after watching it. He couldn't help but take the cannon and planned to fire it himself to see how it goes.

A-man didn't object. After all, Yuanye was a "master of iron cannon". She thought it would be a good idea to learn from him first. So, before the practice even started, she changed people and let Yuanye do the actual practice while A-man watched carefully from the side.

Yuanye took another careful look at the inferior cannon and became more and more certain that it was a copycat product, that is, it had gone through multiple rounds of imitation, with some parts changed each time it was copied, some details missing each time it was copied, or, if he thought about it maliciously, perhaps someone had hidden some details when teaching others, and the result was a fake cannon like this one with a missing cover.

Anyway, I don't know which idiot modified it. In order to save some iron, they removed the lid of the fire pan. It is definitely not possible to load the primer first. If the iron gun is upright and then the propellant is loaded, most of the primer will fall out. Even if the primer is loaded later, without the lid to cover it, the fuse will be of poor quality when it is clamped, and sparks will fly randomly, which can easily lead to premature discharge - it becomes an "automatic weapon" and you don't even have to pull the trigger.

It is no wonder that Oda Nobunaga threw away the expensive iron cannon worth 160 kan. He probably felt something was wrong when he used it.

Yuanye pondered for a while, then erected the iron cannon and asked Aman to load the gun barrel with the early-closed bottle. When loading the gun, he shook the early-closed bottle vigorously. Aman was humbly learning from the "iron cannon master" and suspected that it was a mysterious ritual before firing. He immediately asked with concern: "Why do you shake the bamboo tube?"

"Because you are using crude black gunpowder, it has not been wet-granulated, and it has been shaken around on your body, so the gunpowder may be stratified. If you don't shake it to remix it, it will easily cause incomplete combustion after a while, affecting the power and range." Yuanye answered casually. The amount of gunpowder was also estimated by him last night, so it is impossible for it to explode. Now you just need to pour it carefully and don't spill the gunpowder. It's very easy.

Ah Man didn't understand, but that didn't stop her from learning. She had to shake the early-closed bottle before pouring it into the barrel. But she was trying to memorize it. Yuan Ye glanced into the barrel again and asked curiously, "How much lead did you put in the early-closed bottle?"

"One big and two small." "Why do you put so many?"

"Others all fire this way, I didn't fire enough!" Ah Man had first-hand information and had equipped his ammunition according to the information. He was a little surprised and said, "I heard from others that some iron cannons use one large and five small ones to ensure they hit the target. Is there anything wrong with that?"

Yuanye was stunned, pondered for a moment, and then he remembered that it seemed that this was indeed the way the bullets should be matched.

Many people in later generations simply relied on inertia to think that the matchlock gun had poor accuracy, no rifling, and generally could not hit people. But in fact, the matchlock gun had a hit rate of up to 192% on the close-range battlefield, mainly because of the ammunition - no one had ever stipulated that the matchlock gun could only fire one projectile at a time, and most modern weapons fired one bullet at a time.

The data in this regard have been tested in modern times by restoring the matchlock rifle, including some flintlock rifles. All of them have been tested after restoration. Within a distance of thirty meters, the hit rate of classical firearms is not only not touching, but extremely high. They are qualified battlefield weapons and are much better to use than bows and arrows.

There were also many related records in the era of classical firearms, such as the ability to hit the target within a hundred steps and to shoot down flying birds.

Of course, the hit rate of the long-range matchlock gun is really poor, and the hit rate drops a lot every ten meters. Beyond a hundred meters, it drops to more than 2%. The lethality drops even more sharply, and it starts to be less useful than the bow and arrow.

Yuanye was almost misled by inertial thinking and instinctively thought that he should fire one bullet at a time. Now, after hearing Aman's reminder, he remembered that there was no problem with this way of ammunition, so he didn't say anything more.

He followed the steps and used a cleaning rod to compact the ammunition, laid the cannon flat, poured in the primer, clamped the lit match, and aimed... He didn't dare to aim. There was also a problem with the sealing of the rear of the cannon barrel. He didn't dare to aim. Then he held the cannon horizontally and pulled the trigger directly. The serpentine rod moved, and the match was inserted into the fire pan. The primer exploded and the propellant was ignited through the fire hole. With a final loud bang, the projectiles were blown away by the force.

It was just a huge cloud of white smoke that choked Yuanye and made him cough continuously. It was mostly caused by gunpowder and there was no way to avoid it. The smell of sulfur was very strong and long-term use of the matchlock would definitely cause respiratory diseases.

But other than that, it feels OK to use.

Yuanye waved away the whistle smoke and went to take a look at the woods. He found that the hit rate was fine. Two of the three bullets hit the target, and the hit rate of one shot was as high as 200%, but it missed a tree. The most crooked bullet flew far away. If it were placed on the battlefield, it would be considered to be aimed at A, and killed Ding.

A-man was very excited when she saw the large pieces of bark being blown off. She was very satisfied with the power of the matchlock gun. She dug at the tree with a kunai and recovered the bullets that had turned into lead blocks due to the high temperature impact. She was going to melt them down and use them again. She was very economical. Then she snatched the cannon back from Yuanye, wiped it with her sleeve lovingly, and began to look at A-qing with malicious eyes - she was invincible in the world, and now with the "Equality Cannon" in her hand, no matter how talented A-qing was in martial arts and how good she was at fighting, she had to kneel down and call her dad.

Ah Qing stroked the large piece of bark blown off by the lead bullet and the charred black holes. The expression on her little face was very cold. She probably didn't expect the power to be so great. She seemed to instinctively feel some kind of threat - the power of gunpowder bullets can only be blocked by heavy armor. If it were someone without armor like her, she wouldn't even have to think about it. Once she was hit by a big bloody hole, she would have to lie down immediately.

Yuanye just watched and didn't care. Aman wouldn't really do anything to Aqing. They were still very close. And even if she really wanted to do something to Aqing, she couldn't do it - even if Aman practiced hard, she would be considered good if she could fire a shot every twenty seconds with this inferior iron cannon. Twenty seconds was enough time for Aqing to run over from a hundred meters away and stab her to death three times.

The iron cannon is not a weapon used in fighting competitions, and it cannot even be considered a self-defense weapon. It is stupid to use it alone, and anyone who uses it is an idiot.

Aman didn't care about all that. After learning the "art of iron cannon", she started practicing. She didn't care even though the iron cannon had many flaws. After all, it was better than using a small axe to chop people up - she could load ammunition and light the fire outside when her opponent was squatting in the pit, then reach in with the gun barrel and blast her opponent to death in the pit.

Since her opponents were all dead, they definitely couldn't be present at the competition, so they were considered to have forfeited. So she naturally won, which was very reasonable!

She fired two more rounds there, "bang bang". While getting familiar with the feel, she also used her brain to try to simplify the operating steps, resulting in a lot of smoke, which was almost choking.

Yuanye no longer had the patience to watch the fun. He just reminded her to pay attention to the temperature of the barrel, clean up the gunpowder residue in the firing pan and barrel in time, and not to get hurt or burned when filling the gunpowder. He then prepared to go home to continue reading his book, and make some plans to start a life improvement plan - now that he had no problem staying alive and had established himself in this strange era, it was indeed time to improve his daily life.

He could not adapt to the "hard life" of that era and could not integrate into the times at all. Everything had to be stewed and roasted, and he could hardly swallow it. Moreover, there were too few seasonings, so he could not make anything delicious. The food tasted tasteless in his mouth.

There are many other problems, including food, clothing, housing and transportation, which are too numerous to mention at once. In the worst case scenario, at least the crude salt should be purified. Eating salt with excessive heavy metals all day long makes him feel a little weak and feels that he will age prematurely, and it is not good for the health of his stupid son.

Anyway, there are a lot of things to do, and he needs to go back and plan it carefully. Maybe he needs to set up a small chemical laboratory first, and the issue of confidentiality also needs to be carefully considered.

He was walking towards the village while thinking about something in his mind, when suddenly Ah Qing gently tugged at the corner of his clothes from behind. He turned around and saw Maeda Toshiie riding a horse and strolling towards him, followed by a group of people on foot.

(End of this chapter)