Chapter 487: Improvement

"Please, Your Highness, give your instructions."

At the entrance of the Technology Academy, Wang Ying cupped his hands toward Zhao Xu.

"Last time, I had you perform bore reaming on the artillery, which greatly increased the power and range of the cannons," Zhao Xu said slowly.

"Indeed." Wang Ying nodded; even now, he remained full of admiration for Yan Wang because of that matter.

This modification had made the artillery of the Prince's Personal Army significantly superior to the artillery sold to the powerful clans.

And it was said that the artillery produced by the Northern Barbarians was no better than the artillery they sold to the powerful clans.

Thus, if the Northern Barbarians were to start a war with Yanzhou again, they would surely suffer a great loss.

"This time, I want you to modify the flintlocks by adding rifling to them." Zhao Xu's eyes narrowed.

Since the barrels of the flintlocks were drilled by a drill bit in the first place, he did not need to cut them again at all.

The only way to increase the range and power of the flintlocks was to carve rifling into the smoothbore guns.

"Rifling?" This was the first time Wang Ying had heard this term, and as with many times in the past, he fell into confusion.

Zhao Xu then explained the concept of rifling to him.

At present, the flintlocks they used were called front-loading smoothbore muskets.

Because they were smoothbore, when a bullet was fired, it would inevitably strike the inner wall of the barrel before flying out.

And during the process of striking, it was impossible to determine exactly where the bullet's trajectory was pointing.

This was the reason why smoothbore flintlocks could only rely on dense formations to increase their lethality.

A single flintlock infantryman was not even as threatening as an archer.

But it would be different if rifling were carved into the inner wall of the barrel.

Due to the effect of the rifling, the bullet would move in a spiral after being fired.

This would stabilize the bullet's trajectory, not only improving accuracy but also increasing the shooting distance.

"Carving rifling into the inner wall can actually have such a miraculous effect?" Wang Ying was astonished.

Zhao Xu nodded. "Facts speak louder than words; you just need to produce a rifled musket according to my requirements."

Having said that, he squatted down and drew something like a hook on the ground.

"This thing is called a broach. Like the boring tool of the hydraulic boring machine, it is a cutting tool. After you go back, first grind out the broach, then carve the rifling. As for how to carve the rifling and what the spacing should be, I will have someone send it to you later," Zhao Xu continued.

"Yes, Your Highness." Wang Ying stared straight at the pattern on the ground, then reached out to smooth it over so no one would discover it.

After giving these instructions, Zhao Xu turned back to the Prince's residence.

In the study, he took out a pen to draw a diagram of the rifling inside the gun barrel.

Generally speaking, the larger the caliber of the gun, the more rifling it had.

The caliber of the flintlock was still quite large, so he drew six grooves of rifling.

And contemporary machine guns only had eight grooves of rifling.

In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, six grooves of rifling appeared on the drawing in front of Zhao Xu.

Between the rifling,

he also marked the distance; this was the twist rate of the rifling.

Thus, when Wang Ying pulled the rifling, he only needed to follow this distance.

Next, he wrote down the steps for pulling the rifling.

Because the rifling was spiral-shaped, one naturally could not pull straight back and forth when pulling the rifling.

Instead, the broach had to be pulled at an angle, while keeping the six grooves of rifling parallel; only then, after completion, would they be distributed in a spiral overall.

After finishing the drawing, Zhao Xu had it sent to Wang Ying.

He waited for the birth of the first rifled musket of Great Song.

In the contemporary era.

Rifled muskets appeared in the fifteenth century and were called rifles at the time.

In the seventeenth century, the Danish army was the first to be equipped with rifled muskets.

But during this period, the armies of most countries were still unwilling to equip rifled muskets on a large scale, only allowing a small number of skirmishers to use them to harass enemy formations.

This was not because other countries were stupid, but because the existence of rifling reduced the airtightness of the barrel, so the size of the bullet had to be increased.

The consequence of this was that loading became difficult, sometimes even requiring the help of a hammer.

However, due to the superiority of rifled muskets, American militiamen still equipped them in large numbers during the American Revolutionary War in the eighteenth century.

It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, with the appearance of the Minié rifle, that smoothbore guns were officially phased out and completely replaced by rifled muskets.

Because the special bullet of the Minié rifle solved the drawbacks of the rifled musket.

This type of bullet was a conical lead bullet, easy to load, and hollow at the bottom.

When the gunpowder exploded, it would first enter the bottom, expanding the bullet and protecting the airtightness.

This time, in having Wang Ying improve the flintlock, he was prepared to adopt this type of conical bullet.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the range of the Minié rifle was over nine hundred meters, and it could maintain accuracy within five hundred meters.

However, at that time, the gunpowder used by flintlocks was no longer black gunpowder, so it was more powerful.

At present, he did not yet have the ability to produce gunpowder more powerful than black gunpowder.

But even so, it would be no problem to increase the range of the improved flintlock to four hundred meters and maintain a certain degree of accuracy within two hundred meters.

Such a front-loading rifled musket was enough to make the Northern Barbarians suffer a great deal.

This was also the reason why he had agreed to compete with the Northern Barbarians.

Confidence came from this.

Although the Prince's Personal Army lacked mobility and could not yet drive out the Northern Barbarians on the Grassland, relying on the Lengbao and Yanguan would definitely be enough to crush the Northern Barbarians.

Thinking of this, he felt much more at ease.

"Your Highness, Captain Bai Shang requests an audience." Just as Zhao Xu was deep in thought, Feng'er arrived at the study door.

"Bai Shang?" Zhao Xu frowned.

Generally, apart from Chang Wei, other generals rarely requested a private audience with him.

Signaling for Feng'er to let him in, Zhao Xu sat at his desk and waited.

Before long, Bai Shang strode into the study with long, swift steps.

After performing a salute, he said, "Your Highness, I have not come this time for my own sake, but at the request of Yang Zhen."

"Yang Zhen?" Zhao Xu was taken aback.

Bai Shang looked somewhat embarrassed, "Logically, Yang Zhen is now merely a common soldier, and his personal affairs should not need to disturb Your Highness, but..."

Having said this, he did not continue.

Zhao Xu understood what Bai Shang meant; Yang Zhen was indeed somewhat special right now.

After all, besides being a defeated general of the Ningjin Dusi, he was also the son of Yang Feng.

Thus, he said, "It is no matter, what does he wish to say to this Prince?"

"Yang Zhen begs Your Highness to submit a Memorial to protect General Yang Feng; he says that after the disastrous defeat in the Northern Expedition, Dou Wei and other powerful officials will surely pin the blame on his father," said Bai Shang.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Xu's brows suddenly knit together.

He had actually forgotten about this matter.

Although the peace negotiations were successful this time, the aftershocks brought about by the failure of the Northern Expedition seemed to still be lingering.

It was necessary for him to pay attention to what would happen next in Jingshi, including this matter regarding Yang Feng.

"It is fortunate that you came, otherwise this Prince would have been careless; I shall submit a Memorial immediately to do my utmost to protect General Yang Feng," said Zhao Xu.

In his view, Yang Feng was indeed foolishly loyal.

However, he could not deny that Yang Feng, like Mo Di, was one of the few remaining good generals of the Great Song.

If he were to die due to being framed, it would truly be hard to accept.

Thinking of this, he immediately drafted a Memorial and had someone send it out.

He then summoned Xu Ke and told him to continue keeping a close watch on the Northern Di and Jingshi.

And only eight days later, Xu Ke sent over a piece of intelligence that surprised him.