After hearing what Pan Wenmao said, Yang Zhen first sighed, and then remained silent for a while, not knowing what to say.

From all aspects, Songshan City is indeed not a suitable place to establish a good foothold. The city is small and has no population. In terms of resources alone, it is far inferior to the now-abandoned Yi.

Zhoucheng.

Apart from the advantage of being close to the coast, this place really has nothing else to offer. There are no serious iron mines, and it is not easy to buy iron materials from Yongping Prefecture, where Guanli is rich in iron materials.

First of all, there is no need to think about taking the land route. Firstly, the iron material is very heavy and difficult to transport. Secondly, the journey is long and full of dangers. Thirdly, there are not many people and horses, and the capital is not strong, so it cannot pay the cost.

At the same time, even if you take the relatively easy sea route and use your own fleet for transportation, it is very time-consuming and full of many uncontrollable risks.

Of course, you can try taking the sea route to Guanli to buy iron materials, but you can't put your money on this purchase route.

If the future survival of the advance battalion, and even the future survival of Songshan City, depends on such an unreliable iron transport route, then my foundation in Songshan City will be too fragile.

But after Yang Zhen listened to Pan Wenmao's words, he thought about it in his mind for a long time and couldn't find a better solution, so he had to smile bitterly, shake his head, and said to Pan Wenmao:

"What you said is correct! Songshan City is small and there is no iron ore. The source of our iron materials is indeed a big problem! If there is really no other way, then we have to use the black tin lead you mentioned.

!After all, it’s better to use the existing iron materials to make flying generals and blunderbuss!”

After Yang Zhen said these words, he felt lonely again. This was not simply because the musketeers he relied on would have to switch to heavy and soft lead bullets from now on.

What made him look lonely was more the foothold in Songshan City, or the choice of base area.

However, now that the matter has come to this, what can he do? Can he still abandon the city and leave now?!

This place is not a good place, not even a suitable place to focus on development, but fate has arranged for him to be here and put him in this position now, what can he do?!

In this short period of time, Yang Zhen recalled the choices he had made since he first arrived in Ningyuan. He had no choice in every step. It was a blessing to be here today.

Seeing that Yang Zhen still looked solemn and lonely after saying those words, Pan Wenmao coughed and then said: "Sir, don't be so disappointed! Although the black tin lead is soft and heavy, when paired with our new gunpowder, it will

The power is not necessarily much worse than iron bullets of the same size!

"We have repeatedly tested it. Although lead is a little softer than iron pellets, it is easy to deform when hit on iron armor and is difficult to penetrate. However, the texture of lead is much heavier than iron. A projectile of the same size will not only shoot out

The accuracy is better, and the lethality seems to be greater in short distances!"

Yang Zhen was pondering the power of lead in his mind. When he heard Pan Wenmao say this, he immediately asked him: "So if you use lead, how far can a general shotgun hit?! Have you ever tried it with Tatar cotton armor?"

The power of armor?!"

The barrels of ordinary shotguns in this era were much shorter than those of Lumi guns, so the range of ordinary shotguns was much lower than that of Lumi guns.

If the effective range and lethality of ordinary shotguns using lead are sufficient, then using it on Lumi guns will not be a big problem, and the effect will only be better.

"It has been tested! Paired with the fine-grained No. 2 gunpowder refined by our ammunition factory, and using the ordinary modified shotgun left in the camp, it can penetrate a layer of Tatar cotton armor within sixty steps, and within fifty steps,

Then you can penetrate both layers of Tatar cotton armor!

"If we take the flint-haired Rumi gun currently used by the musketeers as an example, I would expect that there should be no problem in penetrating a layer of Tatar cotton armor within eighty steps! Within sixty steps, even if a Tatar is wearing two layers of cotton armor,

A, I expect it can be penetrated! It’s just——”

"Just what?!"

Yang Zhen was already conflicted, but when he heard Pan Wenmao say this, he suddenly became hesitant. His heart tightened and he hurriedly asked him again.

The caliber of the musket has not changed, so the size of the lead bullet must be the same as the original iron bullet, so the lead bullet of the same size will be heavier than the iron bullet of the same size.

If gunpowder fails and the iron bullets are replaced with lead, the range will immediately decrease and the power will naturally be greatly reduced.

However, if the gunpowder is powerful, the lead bullet, which is heavier than iron and softer than iron, will deform at the moment when the gunpowder explodes, so that it will fit more closely with the inner wall of the barrel.

Once such a situation occurs, its range may not only not be reduced, but may even be increased.

At the same time, the relative weight of the lead will also allow it to maintain flight stability within the same range, and the accuracy will be greatly increased.

This truth is not difficult to understand. Yang Zhen, who has lived in two generations, will understand it after thinking about it.

Yang Zhen's only worry now is the armor-breaking ability of lead bullets, and this is the biggest weakness of lead bullets.

In the era when lead bullets really became popular in later generations, things like armor, especially steel armor, had already been eliminated with the advent of the era of hot weapons, so there was no need to consider the armor-piercing effect of lead bullets.

question.

But this era is different!

The reason why the Manchu Tatars were not afraid of the Ming Dynasty's firearms was because their armor was strong.

Especially among the Manchu Tatar elite Garbush Xianchaoha and Bagala camp, many of them wore two layers of cotton armor when charging into battle.

The cotton armor they wore was embedded with pieces of iron. Ordinary shotguns and muskets from the Ming Dynasty might not be able to penetrate even with iron bullets, not to mention the lead bullets that were softer than iron.

?!

Yang Zhen was originally happy when he heard Pan Wenmao say that he could penetrate Tatar cotton armor, but suddenly he heard a change in his tone and immediately became anxious.

At this time, Yang Zhen heard Pan Wenmao reply: "It's just that I tried repeatedly and used black tin and lead. Although it can penetrate the Tatar cotton armor, no matter it is a range of 60 steps or a distance of 50 steps, the lead

After passing through the cotton armor and iron pieces, they will be severely deformed!

"Compared with the sharpness of iron bullets that can penetrate Tatar cotton armor, the effectiveness of black tin lead bullets in penetrating cotton armor is obviously insufficient. It seems to be more than enough to hurt the enemy, but it seems insufficient to kill the enemy with one blow!"

Yang Zhen was full of anxiety, fearing that he would hear some unfavorable or bad news from Pan Wenmao, but after being anxious for a long time, he heard that this was what Pan Wenmao was worried about, and he laughed out loud.

Yang Zhen laughed, let out a long breath, and said to everyone: "What did I think was going on, but it turned out to be the case! It doesn't matter! As long as you can penetrate the Tatars at a distance of about fifty steps,

Cotton armor, it doesn’t matter if it changes shape or not!”

What Pan Wenmao was worried about, Yang Zhen was not worried at all.

As long as one or two layers of Tatar's cotton armor can be penetrated within a certain distance, and the thin iron leaves wrapped inside the cotton armor can be penetrated, then Yang Zhen does not have to worry about the rest.

Because one of the reasons why lead bullets were eventually eliminated hundreds of years later was not that lead bullets were ineffective, but that they were too poisonous because lead was poisonous.

If it can penetrate the iron leaves inside Mantazi's cotton armor and kill Mantazi with one blow, that would of course be the best. But if one blow cannot directly kill him, that doesn't matter, as long as it hits Mantazi's body.

, just hurt him, that’s it.

A few hundred years later, lead bullets were eliminated. One reason was that lead bullets were poisonous and extremely harmful to the human body, and did not meet the so-called humanitarian requirements that people put forward to both sides of the war hundreds of years later.

Of course, there will definitely be other reasons why lead bullets will be eliminated after hundreds of years. However, since humanitarian considerations are also one of the reasons, this makes Yang Zhen feel relieved.

How can we talk about humanity when dealing with enemies, especially enemies like Mannu? If we take this into consideration, it would be more appropriate to use lead bullets instead!

As for the disadvantage of the lead bullet's poor penetrating power, if it is coupled with the advantage of being poisonous, then its disadvantage will not be so intolerable.

Precisely because lead is poisonous, in the 17th to 19th centuries when medical care was relatively backward, once a lead bullet hit a person's torso, the victim would basically die.

Even if a limb is hit, there is only one way to save life, which is amputation.

Therefore, compared with projectiles or warheads made of other materials, lead bullets are indeed a bit more vicious, just like some people in the cold weapon era fed poison to their weapons, which seems less humane.

Of course, this is an idea that only came into being in the era of humanitarianism, and this idea obviously has no reference significance for the current Yang Zhen.

Using iron bullets kills people, and using lead bullets also kills people. The lead bullets are a little blunt, but using a dull knife to cut flesh, as long as the enemy can be killed, he doesn't care so much.

Moreover, considering that it is early summer now and summer is coming soon, the weather will be relatively hot from now on until at least September or even October.

So, under such climatic conditions, even the most cautious Manchu Tatars would not be able to wear double layers of cotton armor and come to fight in the Songshan area.
Chapter completed!