Chapter 512

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In the firearms workshop, Song Changping was diligently teaching a craftsman how to rifle a barrel.

A burst of noise came, and he looked out the door. Seeing Xiao Ming, Song Changping was startled and turned to walk towards Xiao Ming.

“Your Highness.” Song Changping bowed to Xiao Ming, smiling. “I have been eagerly awaiting Your Highness’s return during this time.”

“Is that so? So your rifled gun must have made progress, otherwise, I would scold you upon my return,” Xiao Ming said with a smile. Before he left, he had told Song Changping about the flaws of the rifled gun and asked him to improve it. He wondered how Song Changping had improved it in the past two months.

Song Changping was also a taciturn person. He chuckled twice and said to Xiao Ming, “I haven’t been idle. Your Highness, please see, this is the current rifled gun bullet.”

Song Changping spread his hand, and at this time, on his palm was a conical bullet, which was the Minie ball of later generations. It was the invention of this type of bullet that changed the disadvantage of flintlock guns being difficult to load.

“Minie ball, you’ve manufactured it?” Xiao Ming said in surprise.

Song Changping nodded, “With Your Highness’s guidance and the drawings in the books, if I still can’t produce it, I can go home and farm.”

“Hmm, that’s true. After such a long time, there should be progress.” Xiao Ming said, “Now, bring a rifled gun. I want to test the power of the rifled gun with a Minie ball.”

Song Changping immediately had his craftsman fetch a rifled gun for Xiao Ming. Holding the rifled gun, Xiao Ming went to the military machinery department’s training ground.

In Zeelandia, Claire had used a rifled gun to intimidate him, and now his rifled gun was much more advanced than theirs.

Placing the rifled gun vertically on the ground, Xiao Ming loaded the gunpowder in order, and finally smoothly inserted the bullet, whose caliber was slightly smaller than the barrel, into the barrel.

The advantage of the Minie ball over the lead ball lay here.

After loading the ammunition, Xiao Ming raised the rifled gun. Like cannons, the current rifled guns also had a front sight and a rear sight. Through the rear sight and front sight, he could aim at the target ahead.

“Your Highness, our rifled gun can fire a distance of five hundred meters, and its effective range can reach three hundred meters, so Your Highness can directly shoot at the target three hundred meters away,” Song Changping said confidently.

“Five hundred meters.” This number pleased Xiao Ming. This range was already half the distance of a Minie rifle. He was very satisfied with this data.

“Bang.” Aiming at the target, Xiao Ming pulled the trigger. After a flash of fire and white smoke, the bullet flew towards the target three hundred meters away, drilling a hole outside the bullseye.

After the gunshot, the craftsman responsible for verifying the target quickly signaled with a flag: one ring.

Song Changping then said, “Your Highness, how is this rifled gun?”

“Quite interesting.”

Xiao Ming picked up a bullet and reloaded it, saying this, but he was already extremely pleased. The biggest difference between a rifled gun and a smoothbore gun was accuracy.

Compared to the deviation of smoothbore gun bullets, soldiers could accurately kill enemies with rifled guns after training, which was absolutely terrifying in this era.

“Bang.” Xiao Ming’s shot this time was more accurate, the bullet landing outside the seven-ring target.

“Your Highness, are you satisfied with this rifled gun?” Song Changping’s face grew more confident.

Xiao Ming nodded. It had to be said that this rifled gun had met his required standards. Although the range was a bit short, before progress was made in gunpowder, the range could only be this much.

After all, the more gunpowder exploded, the higher the demands on the barrel’s endurance, and for this, alloy technology still needed to be improved.

Satisfied with the gun, the next focus was the production speed of the rifled gun. He said, “The gun is good, but how about the production of the bullets and guns?”

At this, Song Changping’s face looked a little unnatural. He said, “Your Highness, the bullets are nothing; they can be made by pouring into molds. But rifling is really arduous. In these two months, I have only produced one hundred and twenty rifled guns.”

“Smoothbore guns can produce four or five thousand a month,” Xiao Ming said. With the increasing orders, the number of craftsmen in the firearms workshop had increased significantly, which also greatly boosted the production of the firearms workshop.

Compared to the number of smoothbore guns, the number of rifled guns was really too small.

After a pause, he continued, “But don’t worry, you’ll overcome the rifling problem soon.”

“Overcome?” Song Changping asked, puzzled, “Does Your Highness have another method?”

Xiao Ming nodded. He was naturally talking about the steam engine, but he didn’t want to mention it yet, as the application of the steam engine still had to wait.

He said, “The specific method will come soon. How about this, you send all these rifled guns to the Qingzhou Army. In addition, how many flintlock guns are still in the warehouse?”

“Reporting to Your Highness, since the last time three thousand flintlock guns were sent to the Youzhou Army, I have been stepping up production as per Your Highness’s instructions. Currently, there are already nine thousand flintlock guns accumulated in the warehouse.”

“Five thousand for the Youzhou Army, three thousand for the Dengzhou Army, and the remaining one thousand for the Yunzhou Army,” Xiao Ming divided them according to priority.

Now, the armies of various prefectures were clamoring for weapons, and the military machinery department’s current output couldn’t keep up. Thinking of this, he felt that he needed to get the steam engines running as soon as possible, otherwise the enfeoffed territory’s production capacity would soon be out of sync with demand.

As the two were discussing firearms, Chen Qi, seemingly attracted by the gunshots, walked out of the artillery workshop.

“Your Highness.”

Seeing Xiao Ming and Song Changping together, Chen Qi immediately ran over.

Compared to two months ago, Chen Qi looked a bit haggard. Xiao Ming asked, “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve been working very hard these past two months.”

“Your Highness, it’s all because Song Changping forced me. The rifled guns he produces now have a range of up to five hundred meters, which is almost catching up to cannons. How can I lose to him? So, during this time, I’ve been thinking about how to increase the range of cannons,” Chen Qi said.

“Oh? What ideas do you have?” Xiao Ming said.

Chen Qi continued, “Your Highness, I think that if gun barrels can have rifling, why can’t cannons have rifling? If cannons had rifling, would it be able to increase their range?”

“It definitely can increase it,” Song Changping said to Chen Qi, “Rifled guns have already proven that.”

Chen Qi then looked at Xiao Ming again.

Being stared at by Chen Qi, Xiao Ming said, “You can research in that direction. It might succeed.”