The Song Dynasty on the Sand Table

Chapter 217 Heavy Fire Gun
Just as they were chatting here, a guard suddenly came in from outside and reported, "The Hu Immortal Craftsman wants to see you."

Yue Wenxuan: "Huh? Something must be wrong. Let him in."

Soon, Caspar Korner was brought in, followed by an interpreter.

Seeing this group appear, even Wu Jialiang became interested, knowing that it must be related to firearms.

As soon as he saw Yue Wenxuan, Kaspar Korner started talking excitedly. He chattered on for a long time, and no one understood a word he said.

The translator said, "He said that through scientific calculations, he believes that we cannot defeat the Iron Pagoda at the moment."

Yue Wenxuan asked curiously, "Huh? Who told him about the Iron Pagoda?"

Translation: "The firearms workshop's craftsman told him this! In recent days, the craftsman has become a disciple of Mr. Kaspar Korner, learning firearms technology from him. During a break, he casually mentioned the Jin army's Iron Pagoda to Mr. Kaspar Korner and even drew a blueprint for him to see... After Mr. Kaspar Korner reviewed it and performed some scientific calculations, he concluded that our current bird guns would not be able to penetrate the Iron Pagoda's armor. In a head-on encounter, the chariot formation would be broken."

This sentence was really a bit scary. Wu Jialiang and Gong Er Niangzi almost exclaimed "Ah" at the same time and stood up nervously: "Really can't penetrate it?"

Translation: "Li Tiezhu and his men were somewhat unconvinced, believing that Caspar Körner had exaggerated the Jin bandits' combat power. So they found an iron plate, roughly the same thickness as the Jin army's iron pagoda armor, and placed it 30 meters away, testing it with their birdcage muskets... Just as Mr. Körner had predicted, the musket bullets were blocked by the iron plate and could not penetrate it."

Madam Gong Er: "Ah, this is terrible!"

Wu Jialiang also became nervous all of a sudden: "If we can't defeat the Iron Buddha, then everything will be over."

Yue Wenxuan laughed: "Why are you so nervous? Since Caspar Korner has come to ask for an audience, he must have a way to deal with it. Just listen to him."

Madam Gong Er: "Ah, yes, does Caspar Korner have a solution?"

Caspar Körner began to talk again...

The translator said, "Mr. Caspar Korner says that to penetrate armor reliably, a heavy musket must be made."

Wu Jialiang: "Heavy musket? What is that?"

The translator said, "It was a larger musket than the ordinary bird gun. It was called the Mushket. It was about 1.8 to 2.0 meters long and weighed about 8 to 11 kilograms. The bullet weighed about 32 to 50 grams and had a caliber of less than 23 mm. Because it was too heavy, musketeers could not hand-fire it and had to place it on a fork-shaped stand. The maximum range was 250 meters. Only with it could it penetrate the armor of heavy cavalry."

The translator is a modern person and all the units of length and weight reported are modern.

Wu Jialiang and Madam Gong Er were both confused when they heard this, and had no idea how big this thing was.

But Yue Wenxuan understood. He thought to himself: A 1.8 to 2 meter long musket? This is too much, almost as heavy as a spear, weighing 8 to 11 kilograms. A musketeer really can't hold it horizontally and shoot.

No wonder when I watched the movie "The Three Musketeers" that year, I didn't understand why the musketeers used a fork-shaped bracket to hold up their muskets, but now I understand.

Yue Wenxuan didn't know much about this area before, so he quickly went to look up information.

After some research, I finally understood. When muskets were first invented, they really couldn't threaten heavy cavalry.

The plate cavalry in Europe, both men and horses were covered in heavy plate armor, and were not afraid of muskets at all. They could still charge forward under the hail of bullets and chop the musketeers into pieces.

Until the Battle of Pavia in 1525, the French heavy cavalry at that time did not take the Spanish musketeers seriously at all and continued to charge forward proudly. However, they did not expect that the Spaniards would suddenly take out heavy muskets from their pockets, aim them at the French cavalry, and start firing indiscriminately.

The French heavy cavalry's plate armor could not stop the bullets from the heavy muskets, and they were brutally massacred!
It is no exaggeration to say that it was not ordinary muskets but heavy muskets that forced heavy armor to exit the stage of history.

After heavy armor became a thing of the past, people simply stopped wearing armor and went to the battlefield in cloth clothes. As a result, heavy muskets had no place to be used and had to withdraw from the stage of history... and the world became dominated by light muskets again.

Heavy Armor later wrote a song for Heavy Musket: "You took my woman away, and you won't be happy for long. One day you'll feel the same as I did, innocent, helpless, and without sympathy."

After Yue Wenxuan had thoroughly researched the information, he came up with a plan: "Caspar Korner, since you believe that only heavy muskets can deal with the Iron Pagoda, then quickly teach the craftsmen how to make them. We will allocate all our resources to prioritize the mass production of heavy muskets."

Caspar Körner was delighted.

The translator said, "He said he was delighted that you were the wisest king he had ever met, and that you didn't regard his technology as the devil's. God knows how much he had been ostracized and condemned by the church... It was so painful not to be recognized."

Yue Wenxuan had no choice but to spread his hands: There is really no comfort for this kind of thing.

Caspar Korner returned to the workshop and immediately began arranging the mass production of heavy muskets...

The manufacturing process of this fire gun is not much more difficult than that of the bird gun, except that it is larger in size and requires more raw materials!
The several iron mines controlled by the rebels began to dig desperately.

There weren't enough people, absolutely not enough, but fortunately, the rebel army had gained a lot of prestige after defeating the Jin army last time. Refugees continued to pour in from Weizhou and Mizhou to join the rebel army.

Some of these refugees were assigned to unowned land, while others were arranged to work in mines.

Most people still want to have land and are reluctant to work, but when they hear that mining can produce 300 kilograms of food a month, they change their minds... Wouldn't it be great to divide the land into two parts at home, let the eldest son farm, and the second son go mining?
The bald labor camp led by Wang Hong and Li Cui also rushed to reinforce the mine and tried their best to help the rebels dig up ore.

Time flies...

April of the third year of Jianyan (1129 AD) arrived.

In mid-April, a friend came from the sea, the little pirate Gao Jin, and once again came to Guanhai Salt Field to transport salt.

After more than a year of transactions, Gao Jin brought a lot of money to the rebel army. At the same time, Gao Jin himself also made a lot of money. When he came before, he only brought one boat, but now he has a small fleet of five boats.

In the past, only the Guanhai Salt Field in the Jiaoshui area used the new salt-making technology. However, over the past year or so, the new salt-making technology has been promoted to the six salt fields in the Jiaodong area. The salt production in the entire Jiaoshui area has doubled. Gao Jin's five ships can all be filled with salt, and he can easily sell them all when he arrives in Jiangnan, making a fortune.

But this time, Gao Jin came not only to transport salt, he also brought earth-shaking news.

(End of this chapter)