Chapter 15 Section VII matchlock gun

In the 15th century, European firearms developers made a matchlock gun with a front sight and a rear sight on the barrel, which was fired with a matchlock. In the early 16th century, this gun was introduced to Japan and China.The Military Weapons Bureau and Bingzhan Bureau of the Ming Dynasty called them bird guns, bird beak guns and shotguns, and imitated and remade them to make various matchlock guns such as bird guns. Bird blunderbuss is composed of blunderbuss, front sight, rear sight, trigger, blunderbuss bed, curved blunderbuss support and other parts (see Figure 21), and is fired with a matchlock.

The trigger of the blunderbuss is shaped like a metal hook, one end is fixed on the blunderbuss holder, and the other end is a faucet-shaped head that clamps the matchlock, referred to as the faucet.When firing, the shooter first lights the match as the fire source, then pulls the trigger, the faucet turns downwards, the matchlock head falls into the medicine chamber to ignite the gunpowder, and the projectile is shot out. Since there is a sight in front of the barrel of the bird, a rear sight, and a curved butt, the shooter puts one side of his face close to the butt when shooting, and uses the shooting principle of "three points and one line" to shoot: Look at the door with one eye, aim at the sight through the rear sight, aim at the target with the front sight, hold the blunderbuss with your left hand, and pull the trigger with your right hand to shoot out the projectile.Then reload the ammunition and shoot continuously, thus improving the rate of fire and accuracy of hitting, increasing the range and lethality. People in the Ming Dynasty said that it can shoot a hundred steps away.Because the bird guns are far superior to the hand guns, in the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing (1558 A.D.), the military battle bureau of the Ming Dynasty used refined steel to make 10,000 bird guns for use by the Ming army.Since then, the military industry department has organized firearms developers to carry out continuous research, and made various new types of matchlock guns such as mother and child guns.

The mother-child gun is an individual matchlock gun composed of a mother gun and a child gun. It has been used since the 40th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1561).The length and thickness of the female gun barrel, the gun bed, the curved bracket, the trigger, and the main accessories are basically similar to those of the bird gun.According to the regulations at that time, each bird gun was equipped with four sub-guns.The gun is seven inches long and weighs one catty. An has a small iron plate as his specialty.There is a small hole on the iron plate, which is aligned with the front sight at the front end of the female gun barrel, and matches the rear sight of the female gun barrel.The mouth of the sub-gun must be closely connected with the groove of the mother gun to prevent the gunpowder smoke from leaking out after firing and injuring the shooter.The front end of the female barrel can also be equipped with a dagger. The blade is one chi three inches long and the handle is five inches long. Aiming at the star, the whole gun and sword are five feet long.When firing, put the four child guns into the mother gun in turn, and shoot in sequence, the rate of fire is greatly improved.If the guns are used up, insert the short sword and fight with the enemy.Therefore, the mother and child gun is actually the earliest individual gun equipped with a standard gun bayonet in my country.

Lumi was the territory of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. In today's Turkey, it was called Lumi or Lumi in the Ming Dynasty.The Lumi gun was a kind of matchlock gun equipped by the Turkish army at that time, and it was introduced to my country during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.Zhao Shizhen, a firearms developer, succeeded in imitating it in the 26th year of Ming Wanli (AD 1598).The gun body is six to seven feet long, weighs six to eight catties, and has a short steel knife at the end.Its basic structure is similar to that of the bird gun, but the trigger has been improved.The trigger and rail of the Lumi gun are made of copper and steel respectively, as thick as a copper coin.Both the machine head and the machine rail are installed on the gun handle, and a small steel piece more than one inch long is placed close to the engine to increase the elasticity, so that the trigger can be squeezed and then fall, and it will bounce after shooting, which has a good rebound. elasticity.Lumi guns are loaded with more gunpowder, which is more powerful than the European matchlock guns of the same period, and lighter than Japanese matchlock guns. Therefore, the military industry department of the Ming court imitated a large number of them and equipped them for the Ming army.According to Xu Guangqi’s statement on February 17th in the first year of tomorrow’s Qiyuan (1621 AD), when he organized the training of the Ming army, he had received 2,000 Lumi guns. After several months of use, only a few were damaged, and the rest were damaged. In perfect condition, a good quality matchlock.

In order to enable the Ming army to better grasp the shooting method of the Lumi blunderbuss, Zhao Shizhen also published all the shooting procedures he obtained from Duo Sima, an official in charge of firearms in the Lumi Kingdom, in the "Shenqipu" with graphics To illustrate.The procedure is as follows: firstly, pour the gunpowder, that is, pour the gunpowder from the medicine tank into the gunpowder tube, and each tube of gunpowder will fire exactly one bullet; secondly, load the gunpowder, that is, pour the gunpowder in the gunpowder tube from the gun mouth into the gun chamber middle; the third is to load the gunpowder with solid medicine, that is, to use the 搠〔shuo〕 (slender rod for cleaning the gun bore) stick to compact and compact the gunpowder loaded into the gun bore, and then take out the projectiles and load them into the gun bore , use a stick to press the projectile into the gunpowder to make the projectile shoot out powerfully; the fourth is the door charge, that is, pour the gunpowder in the propellant tank from the fire door into the medicine chamber until it is full, so that the propellant and The gunpowder in the gun chamber is connected, and then the fire door is covered; the fifth is the fire rope, that is, put the fire rope into the faucet clamp of the trigger, and prepare to ignite.After the above-mentioned loading procedure is completed, the shooter is in a state of waiting for orders, and chooses different shooting postures according to the positions of the two sides at the time of the battle.Among them are: squatting and kneeling shooting posture, that is, when the enemy is in a low-lying position and I am in a high place, I will stand on the front foot, kneel on the back foot, hold the blunderbuss with my left hand, lean on my right arm on the knee, and clamp the tail of the blunderbuss tightly under the right armpit to aim and shoot; The standard shooting posture, that is, when the enemy is on a high ground and we are in a low-lying area, the front feet are slightly straight, the rear feet are slightly curled up, and the gun is raised to face the enemy, aiming and shooting; the melee shooting posture within ten steps, that is, when the enemy is relatively close, It's too late to aim, just put the tail of the blunderbuss tightly on the right rib cage and under the nipple, hold the blunderbuss with your left hand, and pull the machine with your right hand, and start an emergency shot; within five or six steps, the melee shooting posture means that you are very close to the enemy and it is too late Light the matchlock, and then ignite directly from the fire door for emergency shooting.The above-mentioned loading process and shooting posture are basically applicable to all kinds of single-barreled matchlock guns used at that time, and have distinctive characteristics of the times.It plays an important role in our understanding of the use of matchlock guns in those days.

The electric gun is more than six feet long and weighs six catties.It looks like an arquebus gun and is suitable for individual soldiers to use; because it is equipped with sub-guns, it can be fired in turn.The female gun tube is placed on the gun bed, and each female gun is equipped with five sub-guns.The blunderbuss is six inches long and weighs twelve taels. It has a fire door and contains gunpowder and projectiles. It is usually packed in leather bags, and each bag can hold four.Judging from the structural characteristics, the electric gun is the best one among the matchlock guns created by Zhao Shizhen.

In addition to the above-mentioned matchlock guns, there were sword guns, large chasing wind guns, and matchlock guns such as Yingyang guns, Sanchang guns, and shock stack guns created by Zhao Shizhen in the late Ming Dynasty. Bingding shotgun is a kind of matchlock gun used by the Qing army in the early Qing Dynasty (that is, before the Opium War). The barrel is made of iron. The length of the gun is 2013mm. .The soldiers of the Manchu and Han Eight Banners used yellow butts, while the Han army used green butts.Soldier shotguns have been used for a long time, but there is no improvement in the shape and structure of the gun body and the firing device. During the Opium War, its backwardness has been fully exposed.

Carrying guns appeared in the Daoguang period of Qing Dynasty, also known as two people carrying and carrying guns.According to Qiying's statement in March of the 21st year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1841), the gun used at that time was 7.5 feet long, the wooden sheath was 5 feet long, filled with 3.5 taels of gunpowder, and fired five-coin-heavy lead balls. It is fired with a matchlock, with a range of about 300 steps (about five feet per step), and a rate of fire of one round per minute.It can be seen that the carrying gun is actually a heavy-duty matchlock gun. Up to now, a carrying gun used by the Qing army is still displayed on the Shanhaiguan City Tower.