Zhu Cijing has been considering the question of why the Ming army with thermal weapons could not defeat the backward Qing army. At the beginning, he thought it was caused by the range, penetration, accuracy and other reasons. After he became emperor, he saw more things, and the analysis of the reasons for the Ming army's defeat became more comprehensive.

He found that range, penetration and accuracy are not the main reasons. The biggest reason is that the weapon quality is too poor!

For example, Qi Jiguang recorded in "The Real Document of Military Training":

"Only firearms are my strengths, but firearms are also sick and painful... The mouth is originally a crooked evil, the lead is originally not in the mouth, the pointed and oblique are also different in size, some are temporarily installed but not in the mouth, some are only on the mouth, some are large and small, and some are flowing out when the mouth is released, some are twisted the medicine line and cannot be twisted with guide saliva, and those who have extinguished the fire line, there are already twenty poles. Those who release the height and the bottom are not accurate, and they are wet and not burned, and there are more than forty poles. Those who get the middle are only twenty poles. There are legs and horse legs inside, which are not fatal, and they cannot be beaten to death. Among them, there are only dozens of people who die in the fatal place. How can they kill more than ten people? Can you kill them? Now, I and you and I have not yet left the door and have not seen the enemy, and we have already lost."

This record truly reflects the quality of gunpowder weapons in the Ming Dynasty:

Some gun barrels often have different sizes from the projectiles, which leads to soldiers being unable to put the projectiles into the barrel when they are about to fight; some engine devices are problematic and often cannot be lit no matter how they are ignited; some fire is unstable, and they are often at a low speed, and they fail if they are slightly watered.

There is no real problem at all. There are only twenty shots in one hundred shots, and only ten shots can guarantee power in these twenty shots. In other words, the pass rate of each gunpowder weapon in the Ming Dynasty is only about 15%! Moreover, this 15% cannot guarantee accuracy. Most of them are hit on horse or human legs, and they cannot kill people at all!

The actual situation on the battlefield is that thousands of enemies rushed over, and the Ming army roamed in one round, killing only more than ten people. Then, the enemy rushed in front of him! How can we fight this battle? What's the use of such gunpowder weapons?

Even Qi Jiguang said: Now, I and you guys have not yet left and have not seen the enemy, so I have already lost!

Therefore, the quality of gunpowder weapons is the key to the Ming Dynasty's inability to defeat the Qing army, which also led to the fact that the Qing Dynasty did not pay attention to the development of gunpowder weapons after its establishment. In their opinion, gunpowder weapons are just a joke, and the actual combat effectiveness is so poor that it is not as realistic as bows and arrows!

Zhu Cijing naturally won’t let gunpowder weapons become jokes on the battlefield, so while increasing production, quality is also the focus of his consideration.

Someone is asking, since you attach importance to the quality of weapons, why don’t you set up a quality inspection department? In fact, there are quality inspections. Each gun must be tested after being assembled. This testing process is a quality inspection process. But good products are made rather than inspected. At most, quality inspection can ensure that unqualified products do not flow to the users. To truly improve the quality, you still have to work hard in all aspects of production.

Someone is asking again, isn’t it a contradiction to increase the output and quality? In fact, it is not, sometimes output and quality complement each other, and there are many ways to improve both yield and quality.

For example, after this modern factory management system has established a management level, each leader only needs to manage five people, so that they can effectively supervise their subordinates' work. Not only can each of their subordinates arrange their work well, but they can also urge them to do the quality of the parts. If someone is watching behind them, the workers will never be lazy. If this person comes to see what they are doing from time to time, even if they are not done well, they have to find a way to do it.

There are many ways to increase both yield and quality. Zhu Cijiu's preparation for promoting some improvements this time is not difficult and has a faster effect.

For example, during the design stage, many designers like to copy manuals or ready-made things, and use them after a slight change of size, without considering the processing issue. This is actually wrong. There must be no problems with the design in the past, but it is also designed based on previous processing equipment. The processing equipment has been updated and copied, which will not only affect production efficiency, but may also cause quality problems.

Zhu Cijing carefully studied the parts drawings of the new flintlock rifle and found that many parts were copied and copied. Although they did not affect the function, they invisibly affected the processing efficiency and the quality of the parts. It is possible that the designers of Miracle Company did not understand the ancient gunpowder weapons at all, so they could only piece together, copy and organize all the graphics and information, and put together the matter.

There are many parts that can be punched and molded in one go on the punching machine, but they have to be designed with strange shapes and can only be made by hand. The speed of punching with a punching machine and hand forging is imaginable. Maybe ten of them have been stamped here, but one has not been created there yet. Moreover, the parts that punched by the punching machine are punched out of the same mold. As long as the mold is fine, there will be no quality problems; manual forging is different. Ten people can create eleven patterns for you, and it is conceivable how high the pass rate can be.

Zhu Cijing was going to find a few typical parts to inspire Bi Maokang and others, and let them try to slowly improve the drawings of the parts, try to make all the parts processed on existing equipment. If you can do not have manual processing, don’t have to process it manually. Not only is it time-consuming and labor-intensive, the quality is not guaranteed.

For example, in the production stage, if there are many machine tools, you should pay attention to the subdivision of parts and try to make every worker who starts the machine tool only process a certain part, and don’t think about making every worker make all the parts of the flintlock rifle. This is a problem of practice making perfect. A flintlock rifle has dozens of parts, and a part may become proficient in one month. It is impossible to be proficient in every part within a few years.

There is also workwear. The workwear mentioned here is not the uniform of the worker, but the auxiliary equipment for processing parts. For example, a part has three key sizes. If you use a ruler to measure it carefully for each processing, the quality will be guaranteed and the efficiency will be low. It takes time to look at the size. It takes ten seconds to look at it once, and ten times will be 100 seconds. It will waste 30,000 seconds to make such parts a hundred times a day, which is more than eight hours! Well, at most ten to twelve hours a day. If you count it like this, you don’t have to do anything, just look at the size.

If you do three workpieces, it just happens to be the three sizes. Process and jam, and you don’t need to look carefully. The size is just right when you jam in. If you jam in, or the loose size is wrong when you jam in, you can measure the size at most for three seconds at a time, and you can save nearly six hours in a day!

Therefore, this workwear must be available, and the more the better, don’t be afraid of trouble. Compared with the time saved, the little time to make workwear is nothing at all.

Zhu Cijiu listed all these methods that can both increase production and quality, and was preparing to take some time to train Bi Maokang and Song Yingxing.

Seeing these familiar methods, he couldn't help but think of his job, which is: preparing a process flow list. That is, who designs a part, which workshop is responsible for producing it, what materials are used, what machine tools are used, size requirements, appearance requirements, etc.

As soon as this order was released, the work assignment became even simpler. Zhu Cijiu was very skilled and picked up a familiar part. He drew a simple form on rice paper and filled in the contents one by one. The world's first process flow list was born.
Chapter completed!