After coming out of the drilling workshop, the assembly workshop is below. Here is the last procedure for the musket. The gun barrels coming out of the drilling workshop, plus the gun support in the woodworking workshop, as well as triggers and other components, thus forming a musket.

Ma Cheng picked up a finished musket. This newly-made Lumi gun was much stronger than the shoddy things in Zhang Guozhu's army. Ma Cheng looked around and asked, "Ambassador Liu, how many of this Lumi gun can you produce per month?"

After hearing Ma Cheng's question, Liu Benzhong smiled bitterly: "Sir, this kind of precision firearm can only produce more than fifty poles per month, mainly because there are too few skilled technicians." After Liu Benzhong said that, he was afraid that Ma Cheng would be angry, so he quickly said: "There are sufficient firearms such as bird guns and three-eyed guns."

Fifty poles, too few! As for other bad guys, Ma Cheng doesn't want it, that kind of thing is not powerful even if it exceeds fifty meters. What are you going to do? Will you set off fireworks for Manqing to see?

Ma Cheng looked at the Lumi gun in his hand, fiddled with the fuse clamp with his hand, and asked, "Amistant Liu, are there anyone here who can make the Flang machine flintlock rifle?"

Flintlock rifle? Liu Benzhong thought about it and shook his head, saying that he had never heard of it.

Ma Cheng couldn't help but frown when he heard this. The flintlock rifle had been invented in Europe for more than a hundred years and should not have been passed down to the Ming Dynasty.

"Ambassador Liu, he just doesn't use flint, but uses flint to ignite the musket! Haven't you heard of it?"

After hearing what Ma Cheng said, Liu Benzhong suddenly realized: "So what the lord is talking about is self-produced muskets! We have this kind of musket!" Liu Benzhong quickly asked someone to go to the arsenal to take the inventory of self-produced muskets for Ma Cheng to watch.

After hearing what Liu Benzhong said, Ma Cheng knew that the flintlock rifle was called the self-successful musket in the Ming Dynasty, and this name was very realistic.

After a while, the servant brought a musket similar to that of the Lumi gun. Ma Cheng took it over and saw that the musket did not have a fuse rope, but clamped a flint with a clip. There was a one-strike anvil next to the fire transmission hole. When shooting, the flint strikes the anvil and emits sparks, and then ignites the gunpowder in the fire transmission hole, and finally ignites the gunpowder in the barrel to complete a firing.

Ma Cheng tried the trigger, and it was very strong. It seemed that the Ming Dynasty could already imitate elastic steel sheets.

"Yes, did you imitate this flintlock rifle?"

"Sir, this self-produced musket was built by Bi Maokang, the Minister of War, in the eighth year of Chongzhen. We can also produce it here, but the shrapnel inside is too difficult to produce and requires a thousand beats to make it, so we can only make ten shots a month!"

Ma Cheng was shocked when he heard Liu Benzhong say this. Unexpectedly, a capable person developed a flintlock rifle in the Ming Dynasty. Why did he still use a comb-rope rifle until the end of the Qing Dynasty?

There is still a difference between this self-generated musket and the European flintlock rifle. For example, there is no windshield plate, so the combat firepower will decrease in wind and rainy days. In addition, mature European flintlock rifles use springs. The Ming Dynasty craftsmanship is not good, but only elastic steel plates can be used. Although the force is larger than the spring, the durability is not good. However, although there are differences, this self-generated musket has all the basic characteristics of flintlock rifles, so the shooting speed is far greater than that of the medlock rifle.

At that time, Bi Maokang was in office as the Minister of War, and felt that the shooting speed of the combs was too slow. In the field, the Mongolian cavalry could only fire one or two shots. Therefore, Bi Maokang worked hard to develop a musket that was not fired with a fuse, and recorded the manufacturing method in the "Military Weapon Pictures" he wrote. However, it was already the eighth year of Chongzhen, and the entire north was in disarray by bandits. In addition, the Qing Dynasty in the northeast was also making trouble. The court really had no money to replace such powerful weapons for the army in large quantities, so this self-generated musket has always existed on the design drawings.

After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty occupied China. The Qing rulers were afraid that the Han people with a large population would regain this weapon, so they burned down the "Military Weapon Pictures" and opened the ban on books until the Daoguang period, and then published the book again. However, China was too far behind the West at that time, and it was not possible to catch up with one or two advanced weapons.

Ma Cheng was overjoyed when he heard Liu Benzhong say this. Unexpectedly, these nerds in the Ming Dynasty were not all bullshit. During the Wanli period, Zhao Shizhen invented the Lumi gun, and Bi Maokang invented the flintlock rifle. I wonder if this old Bi is still there.

"Where is this oldbi now?"

Liu Benzhong heard Ma Cheng say this and quickly replied: "Mr. Bi has resigned from his post in the tenth year of Chongzhen, and I don't know if he is still alive."

OK, it would be great if you are alive. Ma Cheng turned around and said to Chang Fang: "Chang Fang, this is a retired cadre of your Ministry of War. Go back and ask me if Lao Bi is still alive!"

Chang Fang didn't know what the retired cadre meant, but after Ma Cheng said that, he didn't dare to refute, so he had to nod and agree.

Ma Cheng has visited most of the Weapon Bureau so far. Although he has not visited other woodworking workshops and other secondary places, Ma Cheng has already had a basic impression of the weapons manufacturing industry in the Ming Dynasty, that is, pure manual. Although simple machine tools can be used in some places, the basic power source is still manual. Ma Cheng is confident when he sees this, and there is no need to improve the process. As long as the power source is replaced with a stronger steam engine, musket production can reach a new level immediately.

In the end, Ma Cheng asked dozens of craftsmen from Liu Benzhong, whom he wanted to take back for experiments. After simplifying the process, he took over the weapon bureau in full.

Ma Cheng went to his sugar workshop on the way back to the city. After half a month of construction, he could produce sugar. The more than 1,000 kilograms of sugar produced in Fengyang have been sold. The market response is very good. Many merchants have booked the next batch of sugar.

Ma Cheng looked here and handed over all the craftsmen who came from the Weapon Bureau to Ma Shun, asking him to assist these craftsmen in building an iron plant in the sugar workshop. Ma Cheng had already thought about it and needed sufficient raw materials to supply everything. The most important cylinder of the steam engine requires a large amount of steel. Another point after Ma Cheng asked about it, in the Ming Dynasty, ironmaking could not be made into iron, but could only be made into paste, so the steel stir-frying method was born.

Ma Cheng asked these blacksmiths to build an iron factory first and then see if there is room for improvement. Steel output is crucial. If steel cannot be guaranteed, Ma Cheng's industrialization is completely a dream.

In the early years of Hongwu, the annual output of iron was reached in the early years of Hongwu, which was the first in the world at that time. However, although the iron output in the Ming Dynasty was the first, some high-precision materials were not as good as those in the West.

The steel smelting process in the Ming Dynasty has reached the point of continuous production of raw and cooked iron. This is to connect the iron furnace and the stir-frying furnace together, allowing the pig iron liquid refined from the iron furnace to flow into the stir-frying furnace, stirring it with willow sticks to oxidize the carbon in the pig iron liquid and mature the iron. This continuous production process has begun to have the systematic idea of ​​combining production, which not only improves production efficiency but also reduces energy consumption.

The iron stirring furnace described in the Ming Dynasty "Tiangong Kaiwu" is actually the stirring furnace invented by Europeans in the second half of the 18th century. The difference is that the European stirring furnace usually uses cooked iron rods or steel rods to stir it to burn away the carbon from the pig iron and finally obtain low-carbon cooked iron. China uses willow sticks to stir, and it will gradually burn off the willow sticks while stirring. This can mix carbon into the pig iron, or reduce the speed of carbon removal of pig iron. Through this step, skilled iron stirring hands are more likely to control the ingredients, and can directly stir-fry steel with carbon content lower than pig iron but higher than cooked iron, and even have the opportunity to stir-fry medium and high-carbon steel.

At this time, the definition of iron types in China was different from that in the future. At this time, the so-called cooked iron frying from the iron furnace was all iron with a carbon content of less than 2%. In other words, according to the definition of cooked iron and steel in later generations, the meaning of cooked iron also included cooked iron and steel in later generations. It was just that the temperature was insufficient. Whether it was stir-fried steel or stir-fried iron, the fried iron was all semi-solid paste steel blocks and iron blocks.

The only thing China had not reached at that time was the degree to which liquid steel was smelted and finely prepared ingredients. Because only by heating the steel to the liquid state could the ratio of carbon to other elements be freely and accurately controlled. Forged steel, poured steel, and even wrought iron carburized steel were impossible to achieve precise control.

Finally, only by making liquid steel can other alloys be mixed to make alloy steel, and steel can be produced quickly by casting or rolling. During the Ming Dynasty, China had reached the world's cutting-edge level of steel smelting, but it was still a short time to melt the steel into molten steel.

Ma Cheng handed these craftsmen to Ma Shun and returned to his home with a tired body.

Ma Cheng was exhausted because of the new army these days, and the entire new army was invented. Everything, from soldiers' training to military camp renovation, from weapons and equipment to military uniforms and caps, from logistics supplies to what he ate every day, is Ma Cheng in charge of everything. Fortunately, in the past few days, grassroots officers at all levels in the military have adapted to their roles, and Ma Cheng can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

I stayed in the Weapon Bureau for a day today, and it was almost dark when Ma Cheng returned home. This was the first time Ma Cheng went home in recent days. At the door, Ma Cheng asked the servants guarding the door: "Is the master at home?" Ma Cheng is his son, and filial piety was the first priority in the Ming Dynasty. No matter how tired you are, the first thing you do when you go home is to pay your respects to your parents.

"Second Master, the master is in the study!"

Ma Cheng nodded and handed the horse over to the servants, and then went to the study to pay homage to his father.

In the study, Ma Shiying didn't know what she was thinking, but when she saw her son Ma Cheng come in, she smiled and said, "Cheng'er is back, how are the things in the military camp arranged?"

Ma Shiying knew that his second son was very tired these days, but seeing that the second generation ancestor who had been doing things before was finally willing to calm down and do some serious things, Ma Shiying was very pleased.
Chapter completed!