Chapter 228: Developing the Hand Cannon (1/2)

While Berengar was taking advantage of this era of peace and stability that he had established to implement his agricultural and educational reforms, his enemies were on the move. In the county of Caernarfonshire within Wales, a group of Knights was gathered.

They were covered head to toe in Churburg pattern plate armor and wore a white and green tabard with a red maltese cross emblazoned upon it. These Knights were recently established as one of the new military orders of the Catholic Church. They were known as the Order of the Red Dragon.

The Order of the red dragon made Caernarfonshire their home and began constructing a mighty castle near the coastline. With near-unlimited funding by the Catholic church to raise their forces, the Order of the Red Dragon had spared no expense in building their fortress.

Currently, an exceptionally tall man who stood well over six feet and six inches was standing next to a man of average height; in doing so, he appeared to dwarf him. This tall man was clad in iron plate armor from head to toe, in the style that was popular in the region.

This man was none other than the Grand Master Gwythyr Bowell, he was standing next to a relatively talented blacksmith who was introducing him to the progress he had made to the task he was assigned.

The blacksmith was eager to show off what he had accomplished and led the tall knight into his workshop, where he had two long poles, each of which had a long metal tube at the end. This tube acted as the barrel of the weapon.

It was an exceptionally crude and primitive firearm, but it was a firearm nonetheless. As such, the Grand Master picked up one of the weapons and observed it for a few moments before asking the question on his mind.

”This is the legendary hand cannon?”

The blacksmith nodded his head with an excited expression on his face.

”I purchased one from a trader who claimed he acquired it from a group in Bohemia. Afterward, I reverse engineered it and manufactured a few of them on my own. Would you like to see how it functions?”

The Grand Master had a stoic expression on his sturdy and scarred face. He merely nodded silently, indicating to the blacksmith to present the weapon. After doing so the man grabbed a spare sheet of iron that had the same thickness as a common breastplate and dragged it out to the courtyard.

The blacksmith placed the iron sheet in front of a hay bale before walking away ten steps, where he began the loading procedure of the hand cannon. The loading of a hand cannon was similar to any other muzzleloading firearm. Albeit far less streamlined.

One would load the powder into the small tube at the end of the stick that acted as a barrel with their powder flask, where they would then add the projectile followed by some form of cloth wadding. After doing so they would pack it down with a stick. Yes, a stick, not a ramrod, these weapons had yet to develop a self-contained ramrod, so they used a separate stick to pack down the powder and projectile.

The firing sequence was completely different from later designs, though. Similar to the flintlock and earlier firearm designs, one would put a bit of powder on the pan. However, that is where the similarities ended.

On this weapon, there was no such thing as a trigger, so what the hand-gunner would have to do is hold the stick under their armpit and use their free hand to light the powder with a slow-burning match. That would then ignite the powder in the weapon and send the projectile flying.

As such, this sequence took a significant amount of time, nearly a minute, to do so. The projectile that was used was nothing more than small rock, instead of a lead or iron ball, because of this it did not achieve as much accuracy as the weapon was capable of, not that it was capable of much.

After firing the weapon, the projectile completely missed the target where the blacksmith began to curse under his breath.

”Mother fucker!”

After venting his frustrations, the blacksmith began the reloading process once more, where he missed his target for a second time. It was only after firing a total of three times that the stone projectile hit its target and bust through the iron plate. The moment it did so, the blacksmith began to cheer aloud.

”Haha!”