549 Discussing Firearms Again (1/2)

After he walked out from the Silver Prayer House, Ouyang Shuo turned around and left the imperial city, heading toward the south city region.

The south city region was the expanding military region.

A month had passed since the Black Snake Guards found the Ming Dynasty Firearm Making Manual in the king's palace. Who knows how the research of Liu Mo and the others had progressed since then.

Since he had returned to Shanhai City, Ouyang Shuo naturally needed to go and take a look.

Firearms represented the highest level and the main direction of their future weapons technology.

The Ming Dynasty firearms had two types. Firstly, handguns and arquebuses; they had small sizes and were usually equipped with iron or lead bullets with a ten to two hundred step range.

If converted into meters, the maximum range would be around two hundred to three hundred meters.

Out of the handguns, the more famous ones included the Three Eyed Gun, Guaizi Gun, Lianzi Gun, Thunder Gun, and Wulei Shenji.

Amongst these guns, one had to mention the Guaizi Gun.

It was an arquebus with a curved handle that could be fired in bursts. It had length of 37.5 centimeters and had a reload style similar to a western gun. It could fire three shots consecutively with a range of 150 meters. The Ming Dynasty termed it as a gun that would win against the western styled guns in ten thousand battles.

The second type would be the guns fixed onto frames, the large-sized cannons. These cannons would use large rocks, iron, lead, or simply solid bullets as ammunition. A small number of them would be equipped with explosive spherical bullets. These cannons had a range of a few hundred miles to two to three thousand miles. It was mainly used for defence and sieging cities and was used in land, water, and sea battles.

Hong Xiuquan had mainly focused on the second type of firearms from before.

The cannons in Tianjing City were transported over to Shanhai City for the No.7 Research Institute to research.

The more famous types of Ming Dynasty cannons were the short barreled mortar, the western style cannon, and the Hongyi Cannon.

Amongst these cannons, the Hongyi Cannon was called the General Cannon. It was built with western technology at the end of the Ming Dynasty. It had trunnions and aiming distance. It had an adjustable range, and the cannon would last for a long time. The large ones weighed 1.6 tonnes and could shoot up to 1.9 kilometers.

Apart from handguns and cannons, there was one more type of firearms—missiles. Missiles included the Cluster Missiles, the Flying Crow, and the Fire Dragon Comes Out of the Water.

The Flying Crow had a crow-shaped body filled with explosives. The gunpowder had a connecting gunpowder line to the gunpowder box, which was in charge of sending the missile into the air.

When shot, the gunpowder string would ignite and make the middle section fly, causing the missile to fly toward the enemy. Then, the gunpowder inside the crow would explode. It was an excellent weapon for sieging and destroying enemy formations, as it would help to destroy troops and burn their horses.

As the name Fire Dragon Comes Out of the Water suggests, this weapon was exceedingly effective in water battles. It was a missile with many layers. The first layer missile was wrapped around with paper, while inside the mouth of the dragon, there was a second layer that increased the range of the missile. It was used during water attacks and had a range of up to 1.5 kilometers.

It seemed like the Ming Dynasty firearms were really advanced and could be used in real battles. However, when compared to the standards of west, they were not even on the same level.

Let us talk about the handguns.

The Three Eyed Gun was the primary handgun of the Ming Dynasty, but its real killing range failed to even reach ten meters. Only in a four meter range did it possess a higher killing ability. Moreover, it was not accurate, and it could only serve as a stick to hit the opponent if you missed.

The Guaizi Gun was a handgun taken from the west. Unfortunately, the limits of their own technology meant that they could not replicate and produce it.

Even if they could, be it in terms of safety or strength, it would be significantly reduced.