King of German Mercenaries

When the emperor was almost ready, he sent someone to Aurich to inform Marin, get ready, and take two Mongolian doctors to Switzerland to "rescue". So, Marin began to prepare...

And Marin was choosing his men and horses, and when he was about to set off, Da Vinci, who had been immersed in the research of revolving guns in Denburg, suddenly came to Aurich...

"Oh, it's Ada! Long time no see, how are you? By the way, do you still keep that fat girl?"

Da Vinci rolled his eyes, Marin really can't open a pot and mention it. As for the fat girl, she was sent away by Da Vinci long ago. After all, it was just a whore.

"Lord Baron, I came back this time because I completed the task you gave me..."

"Mission? What mission?" Marin didn't react at once. But soon, he was full of surprises:

"You mean, your revolver was successfully developed?"

"Uh-huh - of course..." Da Vinci's face was full of pride. But soon, Marin's blow came:

"Why so slow? It's been a year..."

"You kid, do you think it's so easy to develop a machine? Just testing it will take several months. During this period, I also blew up a lot of barrels. Just the selection of the barrel has been tested for a long time..." Da Vinci said angrily. , no need for honorifics.

"The barrel is so difficult to develop? Wouldn't it be safe to make it thicker?" Marin was a little puzzled.

"Isn't it the trouble you're looking for? You said that this is a cavalry-equipped gun. Naturally, the lighter the better. So, I had to try my best to control the thickness of the barrel. It's really troublesome. You asked for the length of the barrel to be 50 cm, and the weight of the gun is not enough. More than 3 kilograms... If it weren't for your harsh conditions, the musket would have been developed in a few months..."

"I forgot to mention these conditions..." Marin was also a little embarrassed. At the beginning, these conditions were all proposed by Marin in order to form the "Black Knights". Cavalry guns, of course, pursue lightness. Because the "black knight" has to carry several of these guns. If one were so heavy, the warhorse would not be able to bear it.

In addition, Marin had Leonardo use the more powerful granulated black powder. Therefore, if the barrel is thinner, it is easy to blow the chamber.

Fortunately, Da Vinci was more cautious. When testing the barrel, he sent prisoners in the prison to test it, and he did not go into battle in person. But this also led to seven or eight criminals being bombed and disabled in the barrel testing stage...

However, in the early days, Leonardo da Vinci and his craftsmen used a barrel made of pig iron, which was frequently blasted. Later, Marin remembered that he had a team of wrought iron ingots for Old John's gunsmith. Therefore, Marin arranged for the team that processed the pig iron ingots imported from the UK to reprocess mature iron ingots, and also provided wrought iron to Da Vinci, which solved the problem of easy explosion of the barrel.

As for the creation of a steel spring, it has always been a top priority. Although Marin sent Kohler to Venice to find a supplier of pyrolusite from Hungary, but has not actually made a purchase. Even if the pyrolusite came, Marin couldn't make 65Mn spring steel right away. That thing can't be done all at once. Even if Marin knew the composition of this spring steel, he couldn't figure it out all at once. After all, he is not a steel engineer and does not know the process of making spring steel. It is said that the quenching of spring steel is also very particular. It is also divided into water quenching and oil quenching. Now quenching, but also use quenching chemicals to strengthen the metal.

Marin definitely didn't have quenching chemicals, and he didn't understand the principle. He could only choose between water quenching and oil quenching, or find a balance. This requires craftsmen to try slowly, and God knows when it will happen. Just controlling the manganese content of spring steel will take a long time.

Therefore, at this stage, Marin can only choose Da Vinci's plan - let a few clockwork masters invited and tied from Italy, hand-made stainless steel clockwork. The materials of all the mainsprings are made by the masters, using pig iron bars, and repeatedly forging, and the scrap rate is still very high...

finally,

The finished sample gun that Da Vinci brought to Marin costs as much as 5 gold coins...

"Five gold coins?" Marin exclaimed in surprise. One gold coin is worth 60 pfennig, 5 gold coins, that is 300 pfennig, which is equivalent to 150 days of wages for ordinary people!

"This is still the cost that we have been studying for a few months before trying our best to control the cost..." Da Vinci also felt depressed, the small fine steel clockwork, the labor cost is too high.

In fact, the reason why the cost of the steel spring is so high is because the people who build it are master craftsmen, ordinary craftsmen, and it is difficult to create a qualified steel spring. This life is very level...

But how high are the labor costs for the masters? They spend a lot of time there repeatedly forging the clockwork, can the cost be reduced? Therefore, the cost of a revolving musket is as high as 5 gold coins, and the selling price is estimated to reach 10 gold coins...

Marin was a little dizzy. In his imagination, the knights in black shirts would have to carry five of these revolving guns. The cost of 5 gold coins, isn't it that each person carries 25 gold coins? This is still the cost price. Converted to the selling price, the muskets each person carries are worth 50 gold coins—a luxury!

As for the performance of the gun, with the efforts of Ada and several master craftsmen, it is very good. After all, the original revolver had a steel head rubbing against a clockwork steel sheet. If the steel head rusted, it might not be able to fire. However, Marin asked Da Vinci to directly use the front section of the steel base to sandwich the flint, and the clockwork steel plate rubbed the flint. The Mars supply was very stable and the natural performance was good.

Moreover, Da Vinci also added a copper shield to the medicine pool outside the fire hole, which can effectively prevent rain. This medicine pool, very similar to the flintlock gun, is also pressed by an iron piece to prevent the powder from being lost in the bumps. But when the mainspring of the big musket starts to rotate, there will be gears to pull the iron pieces apart, exposing the gunpowder in the medicine pool, waiting for the sparks generated by the steel pieces and flint to sputter in, thus igniting the medicine pool and passing through the fire hole, Ignite the charge in the barrel...

Because of the copper cover, as long as the charge is not damp, even if it rains, the gun can shoot freely...

After all, Da Vinci was a rigorous scientist. When the gun was delivered to Marin, it had already been tested for several months, and there would be almost no dangerous situations such as explosions.

Moreover, because it uses granular gunpowder, even if it is a short gun, the effective range of this gun has reached 50 meters, not the 20 steps (30 meters) used by the black knights in history... After all, Originally, the black knights in history used powdered gunpowder with much less power. And what Marin used for the black knights was all pellet-processed gunpowder, with very different powers.

Like the early muskets, the effective range was less than 100 yards. But when it came to the war, because the gunpowder was fully granulated, and it was all finely processed, the effective range reached more than 200 meters.

Of course, this effective range refers to the effective killing distance, not the distance that can be aimed. Because the bullet of the musket, as long as it exceeds 100 meters, will fly in the sky and the ground. Those who were hit by a musket at a distance of 100 meters were all unlucky bastards.

If you use powdered gunpowder, Marin tested it, and the effective range is indeed 30 meters (20 steps). Even so, it is sufficient.

Because the main targets of the black knights are those heavy armored knights who are inconvenient to move, or those platoons of spearmen. After all, these two arms are slow runners and stand there as targets.

Even if they wanted to chase, the black knights would go into battle lightly (as opposed to the plate knights), and even if they chased, the plate knights wouldn't be able to catch up. Those spear infantrymen were even less able to catch up.

The black knights, on the other hand, could face the plate armored knights and calmly shoot the 30-gram projectiles from five loaded revolving guns at the cumbersome plate armored knights. You can even run away and shoot back at the same time.

Mongolian cavalry archers play "manguy" tactics, which may require superb archery skills. But the black knights play this trick, but the requirements are not so high. Because, when you turn back and shoot the plate armor knight, as long as you aim at it, you don't need too strong pulling force or anything. At most, it will suffer from the recoil of the pistol, but it can also withstand it. Unlike the Mongolian cavalry archers, they need hundreds of pounds of pulling force to pull the bowstring, which is very demanding.

When the black knights first came out, relying on wretched tactics, they directly abused the French knights into dogs, and they still attacked when it was raining. After the French suffered a big loss, the best countermeasure they thought of was to hire German black knights to fight...

Playing with the revolver in his hand, Marin can already foresee the scene of using the black knight to rage against the French plate knight in the future. However, thinking of the French's anger and possible revenge afterwards, Marin shuddered again, and his heart was very contradictory...