Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 75 - 45: She has waited for this 1 day, for far too long!_2

Chapter 75: Chapter 45: She has waited for this 1 day, for far too long!_2

No wonder Oda Nobunaga casually tossed aside this iron cannon that cost a whopping 160 kan. He probably sensed something was off whenever he used it.

Harano pondered for a bit, stood the iron cannon upright, asked Ah Man for the Early Union Bottle, and began pouring the propellant into the barrel. Before pouring, he gave the Early Union Bottle a good shake. Meanwhile, Ah Man was right beside him, humbly eager to learn from the "Iron Cannon Pro," suspecting that this shaking was some sort of mysterious pre-firing ritual. She immediately asked with concern, "Why do you shake the bamboo tube?"

"Because you’re using crude black gunpowder. It hasn’t been wetted and granulated, and you’ve jostled it around while carrying it. The powder might have separated into layers. If you don’t shake it to mix it up again, you’ll easily get incomplete combustion later on, which messes with power and range." Harano answered offhandedly. He’d also estimated the powder charge last night, and there’s no way it would blow up the barrel. Now he just had to be careful pouring it so it wouldn’t spill—not hard at all.

Ah Man didn’t quite understand, but that didn’t stop her from learning: you’ve gotta shake the Early Union Bottle before pouring it into the barrel. She was dutifully committing this to memory when Harano glanced into the barrel again and asked in confusion, "How many lead balls did you put in the Early Union Bottle?"

"One big, two small."

"Why did you put so many?"

"That’s what everyone else does! In fact, I put in less than most!" Ah Man had first-hand intel and loaded the ammo accordingly. She was a little puzzled, "I heard some iron cannons use one big and five small balls. That’s the only way to guarantee a hit. Isn’t that right?"

Harano froze for a second, thought about it, and realized that actually was the standard way to load ammo.

A lot of people in later eras just run with their gut instincts and assume matchlock guns have lousy accuracy, no rifling, so you can’t hit a thing. But actually, on close-range battlefields, matchlock guns had a hit rate as high as 192%, mostly because of how ammo was loaded—No one ever said you could only fire one bullet per shot with a matchlock. Firing a single round per shot is a modern weapon concept.

On this point, there’s modern data from restored matchlock gun testing, plus some flintlocks too. After restoring these old guns and testing them, at a distance under thirty meters, classical firearms don’t just have decent accuracy—they actually hit with astounding precision, making them perfectly viable battlefield weapons. They’re way better than bows and arrows.

There are also lots of historical records from the classical firearm era about things like "never missing within a hundred paces" or "knocking down birds in flight" and so on.

Of course, matchlock gun accuracy does tank at a distance: every ten meters, the accuracy drops a lot, and beyond a hundred meters it drops straight to just over two percent. Lethality nosedives too. At that point, bows and arrows are better again.

Harano almost got tripped up by inertia, just instinctively thinking one gun, one bullet. Now, thanks to Ah Man’s reminder, he realized this way of loading was fine, so he didn’t say anything else.

Following the steps, he rammed down the ammo with the rod, leveled the iron cannon, added priming powder, clamped the lit matchcord, aimed... well, didn’t really dare aim. The sealing at the back of this iron cannon’s barrel was problematic, so he didn’t dare, and just held it steady and pulled the trigger. The serpentine lever moved the matchcord into the flash pan, igniting the priming powder in a flash, which in turn set off the main propellant through the touch hole. With a thunderous bang, the bullets exploded out of the barrel.

But there was an enormous cloud of white smoke, which choked Harano into a fit of coughing—mostly from the priming powder. There was no way to dodge it; the sulfur smell was overwhelming. If you used matchlock guns a lot, you’d definitely get respiratory diseases.

But other than that, it felt pretty good to use.

Harano waved the smoke away and went over to the woods to check. Accuracy seemed fine: out of three bullets, two hit—a hit rate of 200% in a single shot! It’s just that they didn’t all hit the same tree. The crookedest one veered off way to the side. On a battlefield, that’d be like aiming at Jack and accidentally taking out Steve.

Ah Man was super stoked to see the big chunks of bark blasted off. She was extremely satisfied with the matchlock’s power and used her shuriken to dig out the lead balls, which had already mashed back into lead lumps from the heat. She was planning to melt them down and recast them for reuse—so frugal! Then she snatched the iron cannon back from Harano, lovingly wiped it down with her sleeve, and proceeded to give A Qing a mischievous look—Now that she was "invincible under heaven" with the All Living Beings Equal Cannon in hand, no matter how talented or skilled A Qing’s martial arts got, she’d have to get down on her knees and call Ah Man "daddy."

Meanwhile, A Qing was running her fingers along the patch of bark blasted away by the lead balls and the black, scorched pit. Her face looked deathly calm, probably not expecting such power. She instinctively felt a sense of threat—the force of these gunpowder bullets could only be withstood by heavy armor. For someone like her with no armor, don’t even think about it—one hit, one gaping wound, and down you go.

Harano took a look at the scene but didn’t interfere. He knew Ah Man wouldn’t actually do anything to A Qing—they were pretty close. Besides, even if Ah Man wanted to, she couldn’t—Even if she practiced super hard, if she could even get off one shot in twenty seconds with this crappy iron cannon, that’d be a feat. And in twenty seconds, A Qing could sprint over from a hundred meters away and stab her three times before she even finished reloading.

The iron cannon just wasn’t made for martial arts bouts. It can’t even really count as a self-defense weapon. Using it solo is dumb—whoever uses it is an idiot.

Ah Man didn’t care about any of that. She’d just mastered the "Iron Cannon Technique" and immediately ran off for more practice. Never mind all the flaws—she didn’t care, because no matter what, it beat running up to someone with a little axe—Now she could just wait for her opponents to go take a dump, load and light up outside, and stick the barrel through the door to blast them off the toilet.

Opponent dead—can’t show up for the match. That’s technically a forfeit, so, she wins! Makes perfect sense!

She promptly "bang-bang"ed off two more shots by herself, getting a feel for the gun while brainstorming ways to simplify the operation, pumping out clouds of smoke thick enough to asphyxiate someone.

Harano didn’t have the patience to watch the spectacle any longer. He just reminded her to be careful of the barrel temperature, to promptly clean the priming pan, powder pan, and inside of the barrel for any leftover powder, and to avoid burning or blowing herself up when loading. Then he got ready to head back home and keep reading his book, plus do some planning, preparing to kick off his daily life improvement plan—now that he’d gotten the hang of surviving, was rooted in this strange era, it was time to start living better.

He just couldn’t get used to the "hard life" of this era, couldn’t fit in at all. Everything had to be boiled or roasted. He was getting sick of it, and there weren’t nearly enough seasonings to make anything actually tasty, so everything he ate was bland and flavorless.

There were plenty more issues—food, clothing, housing, and transport—all of it. Too many to list. At the very least, he had to purify some coarse salt. Eating salt with heavy metals off the charts every day was making him anxious—he’d grow old early at this rate, and it was definitely not good for his silly son’s health either.

Anyway, he had tons to do and needed to go make a plan. Maybe setting up a small chemistry lab should come first, and then there was the matter of secrecy—he’d have to really think that over.

He was mulling things over in his head as he walked back toward the village, when suddenly A Qing tugged lightly on the corner of his clothes from behind. He turned his head and saw Maeda Toshie riding his horse over for a stroll, with a Lang Faction guy following on foot.