Matchlock

"Yes, Your Majesty, this is a proud invention of our Nuremberg craftsmen. Over thirty years ago, a blacksmith in Nuremberg discovered that if a few straight rifling grooves were carved into the inner wall of a firearm, it could increase the loading speed of the projectile."

Laszlo was puzzled. Was it the loading speed that increased, not the accuracy?

What he didn't know was that the initial reason for rifling was a sudden idea by a Nuremberg blacksmith who thought that carving rifling could reduce friction when loading projectiles, thereby speeding up the loading process.

However, later, people discovered that rifling did not significantly increase the loading speed of projectiles, but it could improve the stability of the projectile upon exit, thereby greatly increasing the shooting accuracy of firearms.

Historically, around 1470, spiral rifling, which evolved from straight rifling, appeared in Italy, and its improvement to firearm accuracy was even more significant. Only then did people gradually begin to discover the true marvel of rifling.

This involves the relationship between angular momentum conservation and flight stability. Laszlo had studied rigid body mechanics in college physics, but he had long since forgotten it all.

However, the widespread adoption of rifled firearms still had to wait several centuries, precisely because in this era, the cost of processing rifling was simply too high. The large amount of time and labor costs required were not proportional to the minuscule benefits.

Smoothbore is fine, as long as the firepower is dense enough, there's no fear of not hitting people.

Thinking this, Laszlo said to Smith, "There's no need to process rifling. I will wait here for half a month. Can you produce two samples of the new firearms?"

"Leave it to me, Your Majesty," Smith was already prepared to work overtime. He was skilled at forging and polishing gun barrels, and the necessary equipment was already available here. However, to meticulously assemble the entire firearm, fine polishing of each component was required, which was the most time-consuming and labor-intensive part.

Such a challenging task instead ignited the master blacksmith's fighting spirit. As long as one firearm could be handcrafted, the standardization of workpiece dimensions and the teaching of the process for mass production would quickly follow.

If he couldn't produce it even with the blueprints provided, it would truly make people look down on Nuremberg's forging craftsmanship!

The Innsbruck Arsenal began working day and night. During this time, Laszlo enjoyed sightseeing and admiring the beautiful scenery in Innsbruck, feeling completely at ease.

Days passed, and Laszlo was almost tired of the snowy scenery of the Alps. On the tenth day, the arsenal finally sent someone to the royal castle to invite Laszlo to visit the arsenal again. Smith had completed the production of the so-called "new firearms."

"Matthias, let's go! I'll take you to see something fun."

Laszlo excitedly pulled Matthias all the way to the arsenal.

When Laszlo received a matchlock gun, built according to his blueprints, from Smith, he couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

The gun barrel was made of repeatedly forged refined iron. The barrel looked octagonal, which made it easy to embed into the wooden stock. The finely polished inner wall of the barrel was very smooth.

The front end of the barrel had a basic foresight, while the rear had a powder chamber and a flash pan, and was equipped with a flash pan cover.

The wooden buttstock and gun body were almost identical to firearms of later generations, making it easy for shoulder firing.

The ignition mechanism consisted of a serpentine, a trigger, and a matchcord.

One end of the serpentine was fixed to the gun and could rotate around an axis, while the other end held a burning matchcord. Controlled by the trigger, when the trigger was pulled, the serpentine pressed down, the matchcord touched the priming powder in the flash pan, thereby igniting the propellant in the gun barrel.

There was also an important component—the ramrod, which was a tool used for loading bullets.

"Are there gunpowder and bullets here?" Laszlo eagerly asked Smith.

Smith nodded. To test the performance of the newly produced cannons, they would conduct test bombardments nearby, and there was still plenty of gunpowder stored in the warehouse. As for bullets, the casting and production of lead bullets required almost no special skill and could be mass-produced easily. He had made dozens of projectiles with diameters slightly smaller than the firearm's caliber.

"Go get them quickly, I want to test the power of the new weapon." Laszlo was eager to try out the accuracy and power of this firearm himself.

These words startled Smith and Matthias beside him. Smith quickly advised, "Your Majesty, although this gun was meticulously crafted by me, the power of gunpowder is always difficult to control. If a barrel burst accident occurs, it would be bad if you were injured."

Only then did Laszlo remember that barrel bursts were a common occurrence with firearms of this era. If such an accident happened, he would have to say goodbye to his fingers.

"Alright, find a suitable person to test it. I want to see its power."

Laszlo handed the firearm back to Smith.

Smith, of course, would not test it himself. He called two apprentices, and each of them received a sample firearm. They stood ten meters away and shot at a plate armor breastplate.

Under Smith's guidance, the two apprentices cleaned the powder chamber and flash pan, loaded the gunpowder and projectile, added a small amount of priming powder to the flash pan, closed the flash pan cover, then used the serpentine to hold the matchcord, locked the serpentine in position, braced the buttstock against their shoulder, aimed at the target, opened the flash pan cover, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang." A loud noise accompanied by a crisp metallic clang. The bullet fired by the first firearm successfully penetrated the plate armor. This was followed by the second one, which also had no accidents and successfully penetrated the plate armor breastplate meticulously crafted by Milanese artisans.

When Laszlo looked at the two robust apprentices, they were both covering their shoulders in some pain. The recoil from the recent shooting had made them uncomfortable.

Their shooting posture was far from standard, and they had no protection on their shoulders, so it was normal for this to happen.

He then turned his gaze to the breastplate, where two prominent dark holes silently spoke of the terrifying penetrating power of this weapon.

The advent of firearms would undoubtedly change the form of warfare.

Although current firearms are still very primitive, many of their performances already exceed that of crossbows, especially their armor-piercing capability.

Crossbows are extremely effective against unarmored or lightly armored targets, but they are not very effective against plate armor.

Firearms, however, are different. Regardless of the armor, they treat all equally, penetrating them all.

The effective range, rate of fire, and safety of firearms still cannot match bows and crossbows, but they win in terms of large quantity, ease of learning.

A musketeer can be sent directly to the battlefield after a month of training in marching in formation and shooting movements, while the training period for archers is much longer.

Training for crossbowmen is also simple, but in terms of cost, matchlock guns are cheaper than crossbows. Most importantly, there is the aforementioned advantage in armor-piercing capability.

Perhaps in the past, the penetrating power of ranged weapons was not as important, because there wasn't much plate armor then. However, with the Milanese applying blast furnaces and water-powered hammers to the mass production of plate armor, what was once a rarity—knight's plate armor—soon became commonplace.

Now, even robbers blocking roads might be wearing a knight's plate armor, which leads to crossbows inevitably facing an awkward situation when operating in Europe.

The emergence of firearms can perfectly fill this gap.

Taking advantage of the rare period of peace, Laszlo planned to re-equip his troops with matchlock guns.

However, a huge problem stood before him: where would the large quantities of gunpowder consumed by the army come from?

Although gunpowder is not as expensive as it was last century, it is far from cheap.

There are many small workshops in the German region that refine saltpeter and sulfur to make gunpowder themselves, but the production capacity of those workshops is extremely limited.

If large quantities of gunpowder are to be produced, the biggest problem is saltpeter. Charcoal and sulfur are not lacking, but saltpeter mainly relies on imports from Eastern countries.

And this import channel is now completely monopolized by the Venetians.

The Venetians would certainly restrict Austria's import of saltpeter, and the Venetians themselves also sell saltpeter at very high prices, almost no different from robbery.

Under these circumstances, how to break free from the current situation of being choked by the Venetians became a question Laszlo had to consider.

The construction of gunpowder manufacturing plants also needs to be put on the agenda. Although saltpeter mineral deposits are relatively scarce in Europe, people still tried every means to develop saltpeter fields to extract saltpeter from human and animal urine.

So if you see someone carrying human and animal excrement on the road in the 15th century, don't rush to mock them; they might be a gunpowder maker. If a soldier always smells of urine, he is probably a musketeer.

Combining production and import, raising both the output and reserves of gunpowder will further reduce the cost of using firearms and cannons.

"Smith, you did very well. Matthias."

Laszlo waved his hand, and Matthias immediately presented Smith with a heavy bag, filled with gleaming florins.

"Thank you for Your Majesty's generous reward." Smith was overjoyed; this bag of gold coins was worth several years of his work. He could now bring his family from Nuremberg to settle here.

If he had been hesitant about his decision to venture to Austria before, he now had nothing to worry about.

"I want you to first manufacture two hundred such firearms. The quality must be strictly controlled. I will send officials to rigorously inspect the quality of the finished products. If you complete it well, I will bestow further rewards."

"Yes, Your Majesty. However, the price of this firearm..."

"These firearms will not be sold externally for now. This technology will remain here, understand?"

Smith immediately understood and replied, "I understand, Your Majesty."

After getting a satisfactory result, Laszlo set off without delay to return to Vienna.

News from Vienna a few days ago suggested that Leonor seemed to be showing signs of pregnancy again, which filled Laszlo with joy.

What he didn't know was that an extremely chaotic war of succession was waiting for him ahead.