Chapter 188: Matchlock Muskets and Black Powder

The ninth year of Chongzhen, the fifth day of the first month.

Gossip-mongers claimed that purple clouds shrouded Ji'an Prefecture, a black dragon appeared in the north with five-colored clouds trailing behind. That night, a red light burst from the Regional Commander's residence, tiger roars and dragon chants sounded without cease, and the weeping willows along the river all sprouted new branches...

Very well, enough of that. Fei Rulan safely delivered a son.

Across the two prefectures and thirteen counties, officials and commoners alike rejoiced. They were genuinely happy — their lord now had an heir, and the great cause of rebellion grew more secure.

Of course, countless gentry cursed and hoped that Zhao Han's son would die young.

Yet even Heaven itself seemed to be celebrating. This spring brought favorable weather, with two timely spring rains falling early, finally breaking the spring drought pattern of recent years.

Just after the Lantern Festival, the sky suddenly cleared. Zhao Han carried his child for a stroll around the garden.

A guard came in to announce: "Regional Commander, Director Song of Works requests an audience."

"Show him in at once!" Zhao Han handed the child back to the wet nurse.

As for Fei Rulan, she was indoors observing her postpartum confinement. At first the doors and windows were shut tight — they said she must not be exposed to drafts. Zhao Han had window gauze hung and forcibly opened the windows to let in fresh air.

Song Yingxing strode in briskly, a subordinate following behind him carrying a brand-new matchlock musket.

Zhao Han said with delight, "The matchlock musket is complete?"

Song Yingxing cupped his hands and said, "Thirty have been made. Last year many blacksmiths were forging waist sabers and spearheads. Recruit some this year to hammer out musket barrels, and we can produce at least five hundred matchlock muskets a year."

"Still too few," Zhao Han said.

"We can only train apprentices gradually. Once there are more craftsmen, it will improve," Song Yingxing said.

Zhao Han thought for a moment and said, "The iron plates for cotton armor and such can be contracted out to private ironworks. Let official craftsmen focus entirely on manufacturing firearms."

Although Song Yingxing headed the Works Bureau, he devoted most of his energy to manufacturing matchlock muskets and gunpowder, residing long-term in Fenyi and Xinyu counties. Tian Younian had already been reassigned as deputy of the Works Bureau; it was Tian Younian who now handled the bureau's day-to-day affairs.

At present, Zhao Han had three armories.

One was established outside Ji'an Prefecture, mainly producing long spears, bows and arrows, leather armor, and wooden shields.

One was set up at the Fenyi County ironworks, mainly forging waist sabers, spearheads, and arrowheads.

One was set up at the Xinyu County ironworks, mainly forging iron plates for cotton armor — they could not produce chain mail, as Song Yingxing did not know the technique for drawing wrought iron wire.

Zhao Han had not seized all the iron mines. He allowed those local gentry who had voluntarily submitted to continue operating their mines and ironworks. To concentrate blacksmiths on making firearms, some simpler work could be contracted out to private ironworks — especially the iron plates for cotton armor, which posed no technical difficulty whatsoever.

Over the past few months, the armories had already produced more than three hundred sets of cotton armor on their own.

Cotton armor could defend against slashes and arrows. According to Qi Jiguang, at forty to fifty paces it could stop a musket ball; at thirty paces it would certainly be pierced. The thing was essentially a specially made padded coat — the cotton was repeatedly pounded and compacted by a special method, with iron plates embedded in the lining or on the surface, making it much lighter than traditional armor.

At the same time, Tian Younian had also proposed recruiting bamboo weavers to make helmets.

These woven bamboo helmets could defend against arrows and sword slashes. Though their effectiveness was limited, they had the advantage of extremely low cost and very rapid production. To strengthen their defensive properties, a few iron plates could be woven in during the weaving process.

Zhao Han took the matchlock musket and said with a smile, "Come, follow me to the drill ground outside the city."

As he walked, he examined it. This matchlock musket was nearly a meter long. The barrel was thick at the front and tapered toward the rear, and it even had a trigger — pulling the trigger moved the ramie cord.

Zhao Han pulled the trigger a few times and immediately understood how it worked.

The ramie cord could burn slowly, functioning much like incense. With this mechanism, a matchlock needed no separate ignition — pulling the trigger would ignite the powder.

This type of matchlock musket should actually be called a Malacca matchlock.

Zhao Han asked curiously, "How is the barrel made?"

Song Yingxing explained, "First forge an iron mandrel, then wrap red-hot steel around the mandrel and hammer it continuously. After multiple joinings, it becomes a tube. Then use a four-edged steel awl, insert it into the tube and rotate to grind and polish, until the inner wall is smooth as a mirror — then the powder and shot will fire without any obstruction."

As they neared the drill ground, Zhao Han could not help asking, "It won't easily burst the barrel, will it?"

Song Yingxing could only say, "A matchlock musket will burst its barrel sooner or later, but the ones I make are certainly a hundred times better than the court's. First, using charcoal-fired furnaces is superior to coal-fired furnaces. Second, the barrels are all forged from steel, not wrought iron. Of course, if too much powder is loaded, it may still burst."

Song Yingxing did not know how to smelt Su steel, but he understood the Guangnan puddled steel method — the sort of ball steel produced around Foshan.

"That's too troublesome," Zhao Han said. "Without long-term training, soldiers will struggle to gauge the correct powder charge. Could we first fix the proper charge, then wrap it in oiled paper cartridges? In peacetime they'd be moisture-proof and rainproof. In battle, the soldier would hold the paper cartridge, tear it open with his teeth, and pour the powder inside into the barrel?"

"An excellent method!" Song Yingxing said with delight.

Reaching the drill ground gate, Song Yingxing asked again, "Regional Commander, there is another type, the bird gun — do we need to make those?"

"Is the bird gun different from the matchlock musket?" Zhao Han did not understand.

Song Yingxing explained, "The bird gun is shaped like a long spear and requires two men to operate. The matchlock musket loses its force at a hundred paces — its maximum range — but the bird gun can shoot beyond two hundred paces."

Zhao Han now understood. The bird gun was the jingal used during the Opium Wars — its barrel was taller than a man.

"No need," Zhao Han instructed. "Only make matchlock muskets. The bird gun is too difficult to operate."

Song Yingxing added, "There is also the 'Ten-Thousand-Man Foe,' a formidable weapon for defending cities."

Zhao Han asked, "What is this Ten-Thousand-Man Foe?"

Song Yingxing described it in detail: "Take a hollow clay ball dried in the shade, pack it with gunpowder, and add poison fire, divine fire, or the like. After inserting the powder and fuse, encase the outside with a wooden frame, or use a wooden tub molded with clay. When the enemy attacks the city, light the fuse and hurl it down from the walls — neither man nor horse below will escape."

Poison fire meant adding arsenic, cinnabar, excrement, silver rust — the residue from refining silver ore — and other substances into the gunpowder.

Divine fire meant adding cinnabar, realgar, orpiment, borax, magnetic powder, chili powder, and the like into the gunpowder.

It must be said, the Ming dynasty tinkered up many bizarre firearms. As early as Zhu Di's Jingnan campaign, landmines had already appeared — Zhu Di's Yan army nearly collapsed after stepping on them, though how those landmines were detonated remains unclear.

Zhao Han understood at once — this thing was essentially an oversized hand grenade.

However, the outer casing was made of clay, and to keep the clay from shattering, it was bound with wooden strips.

Using a wooden tub as the casing was even more insane — it could no longer be called a hand grenade, but a bomb the size of a barrel.

It certainly could not be thrown far and could only be used for defending city walls.

Zhao Han asked, "Could we use ceramic for the casing? The hills under my rule abound in white clay, suitable for firing ceramics. Make some smaller Ten-Thousand-Man Foes that can also be thrown in field battles — the ceramic shrapnel from the explosion could also wound the enemy."

"This method is feasible," Song Yingxing nodded.

If European missionaries saw grenadiers using ceramic bombs, they might think Zhao Han was wantonly wasting precious resources.

Porcelain was so expensive in Europe!

Arriving at the military camp, the officers immediately came over to pay their respects. Zhao Han told them to go drill their troops on their own.

Reaching the archery training range, Zhao Han opened a powder bag and found it contained granular black gunpowder. He could not help asking, "Why is this powder black and granular?"

"All gunpowder for muskets and cannons is of this type," Song Yingxing replied.

Granulated black powder was born at the end of the Tang dynasty, an accidental creation of Daoist priests refining elixirs.

But its truly large-scale use in actual combat began in the Yuan dynasty. Yuan-era bronze cannons unearthed at Wuwei contained granulated powder. Landmines from the late Yuan and early Ming excavated at Hohhot were also found with residual granulated black powder.

Zhao Han grew more astonished and asked, "Is all the gunpowder produced by the court of this kind?"

Song Yingxing sighed. "Much of the gunpowder the court issues to officers and soldiers is unusable. Commanders have to spend their own money to purchase powder."

According to Xu Guangqi's records, because of poor powder quality and crudely made matchlock muskets, Ming firearms units sometimes could not even pierce the heavy armor of the Tartars.

Zhao Shixin, Governor-General of the Capital Training Divisions, also said: "The powder made by crafty, deceitful artisans is crude and worthless, done in a perfunctory manner. When the various army officers receive their powder, they all sell it off cheap and buy good powder themselves."

Was it really the artisans being crafty and deceitful?

Not at all!

Officials embezzled and skimmed the powder-production funds at every turn. Even the finest artisan cannot make bricks without straw.

The Great Ming truly did not lack the skill — its official administration was simply rotten to the core.

Zhao Han withdrew to fifty paces, asked Song Yingxing how to load the charge, then aimed at the archery target ahead.

Bang!

The smoke cleared. The target stood untouched.

As for that bullet, no one knew where it had flown off to.

The onlookers were all rather embarrassed, but too polite to laugh.

Song Yingxing said, "For a man first learning the matchlock musket, missing the target is entirely normal."

Reloading the charge, Zhao Han advanced with a smile, stopped at thirty paces, and pulled the trigger to fire again.

Bang!

This time he actually struck the edge of the target.

The crowd cried out that he was a crack shot, and Song Yingxing said in surprise, "To hit the target on only your second shot — the Regional Commander is a natural prodigy."

Second shot, my ass. Before he crossed over, Zhao Han had been something of a marksman in his company, trained on countless rounds of ammunition.

Still, that a smoothbore gun like the matchlock musket could achieve this level of accuracy rather surprised Zhao Han.

It was mainly thanks to the very long barrel, nearly a full meter.

Of course, the musket Song Yingxing presented was a meticulously crafted top-quality piece. If they increased manpower and raised output, even with the strictest quality control, overall quality would drop considerably.

With this type of matchlock musket, you still had to fire in volleys; individual shooting would hardly achieve results.

Zhao Han laughed. "This matchlock musket is quite good. From now on, it's mine."

Among the army's senior officers now, the troops with the strictest discipline and best order were those trained by Li Zheng.

Zhao Han decided to put Li Zheng in command of the firearms battalion. For now they had only a few dozen muskets, but in another year they would have several hundred.

"Are you still short of gunpowder ingredients?" Zhao Han asked.

Song Yingxing replied, "Saltpeter we must purchase from Ningdu County. The other ingredients are all in sufficient supply."

Ningdu County bordered Yongfeng County to the southeast. Saltpeter merchants could transport goods into Xingguo County by back roads, then follow the Gan River and ship the cargo straight to Ji'an.

There was also a more convenient route: ship all the way to Ganzhou by water, then from Ganzhou by water to Ji'an.

But Ganzhou kept a tight watch and forbade the transport of strategic materials like saltpeter.

Zhao Han enjoined him, "Press on with building muskets. Artisans who do good work and work fast should be promoted, rewarded, and given important tasks. If any artisan can improve the craft, reward him handsomely as well!"

(End of chapter)