Steel Dynasty - Chapter 159

[Chapter 159 Looking for saltpeter in the manure pit]

“Exceptor Liu, how powerful is this artillery?”

Xiao Ming’s voice reached Liu Chuang’s ears through the smoke of burning gunpowder, which made him despair.

Can King Qi still be defeated with such a murderous weapon? This thought flashed through his mind, but was quickly shattered.

In front of the city gate, Liu Wei suddenly heard his hoarse begging for mercy. The fear of passing death almost made him go crazy.

“I think Liu Wei will be more willing to tell the source of the gunpowder now, but if you still want to die with dignity, I will give you this opportunity.” Xiao Ming’s voice was as smooth as ever, as if he had a chance to win.

Liu Chuang laughed deeply. He was defeated. The moment the artillery exploded, fear filled his whole body.

“The recipe for this gunpowder was handed down from the ancestors of my Liu family.” Liu Chuang said decadently, “I hope King Qi can give me a whole corpse.”

Superstition is prevalent among the people of Dayu, and all the people believe in reincarnation. Said, many people believe that only a complete body can be reincarnated again, so death without a complete body is a vicious curse here.

The potholes within half a meter of the city wall made Liu Chuang understand that if this shot did not break off an arm and a leg, I am afraid that the whole person would be beaten to mince.

“I’m asking where the saltpeter comes from.” Xiao Ming asked. This is what he really cares about now.

Regardless of whether the King of Shu was causing trouble or not, the problem Xiao Ming faced now was the shortage of gunpowder materials, which would result in him not having enough gunpowder to deal with the barbarians.

“Hehe, if your Highness wants it, just dig in the cesspit.” Liu Chuang laughed.

Frowning, Xiao Ming was disappointed after all. He originally thought that Liu Chuang and others had the location of the saltpeter mine, but he didn’t expect that they would obtain the saltpeter through this method.

He waved his hand and said to Niu Ben: “Kill them all and leave their bodies intact.”

Niu Ben nodded and signaled to Lu Fei and Luo Xin.

The two understood each other, the sword flashed, and Liu Chuang fell into a pool of blood.

The surrounding soldiers looked indifferent. It would not be a pity if a thousand or ten thousand of such a wealthy family died.

After test-firing the artillery and relieving the siege of Ubao, it was time to withdraw the troops and return to the city.

Now Xiao Ming must find a way to solve the saltpeter problem. Now it is impossible to find a saltpeter mine immediately, but Liu Chuang’s words made him determined to find saltpeter from the manure pit.

Asking Chen Fu to personally escort the cement to Cangzhou City, Xiao Ming said to Niu Ben: “Old General, although the wealthy families in the six states have been wiped out, there are still many remnants in rebellion. I hope the old general will go to encircle and suppress them to avoid causing trouble in the six states.”

“Your Highness .

, This matter can be left to the general. It is our duty to raise troops for a thousand days and use them for a while.” Niu Ben said with fists in his hands.

Xiao Ming nodded. Zhan Xingchang was originally responsible for this matter, but the barbarians went south and broke his plan. Now Zhan Xingchang is mainly responsible for the repair of Cangzhou City.

After the troops stopped and returned to the city, more than ten days passed in order to encircle and suppress Liu Chuang’s group, but at least the artillery test firing was successfully completed, and then the Equipment Department could go all out to produce artillery.

And he has to continue to solve the problem of saltpeter. This artillery is one of them. He also needs a large amount of bulk gunpowder to make gunpowder cans.

Originally, he had a glimmer of hope, thinking that Liu Chuang knew the location of the saltpeter mine, but now his hope was shattered.

However, he was not without gains. At least Liu Chuang proved that it was feasible to make saltpeter from saltpeter and then make gunpowder, and the saltpeter was found underground in the pit, but the amount was very small.

But now, no matter how small the mosquitoes are, they are still meat. When he returned to the palace, he immediately asked someone to call Lu Tong over.

“Is there saltpeter in the pit?” Lu Tong blinked, looking in disbelief.

For Xiao Ming, there are still many ways to extract soil saltpeter in the science and technology library, and the principles are also very clear.

Generally speaking, the soil near pig pens, toilets, etc. in rural areas often contains a large amount of organic matter.

After these organic matter are putrefied, nitric acid is produced through the action of nitrifying bacteria.

Nitric acid further reacts with arsenic, calcium, and magnesium in the soil to produce potassium nitrate and its calcium and magnesium nitrates, which are fire nitrates.

Generally speaking, the fluffy white mold that precipitates on the earthen walls of pig pens and toilets has a high potassium nitrate content, sometimes as high as 75%.

After explaining the formation principle of saltpeter to Lu Tong, Lu Tong nodded slowly as if he had some understanding.

“This method is a little more troublesome, but that’s all it can do now? Let’s get over this difficulty first and then talk about it.” Xiao Ming said.

If saltpeter mines were available, no one would go looking for saltpeter in the toilet, and he was forced to do nothing.

In addition to directly looking for saltpeter on the surface of the latrines and pig pen walls, Xiao Ming also asked Lu Tong to dig out the old soil and plant ash under the toilet and cook it, so that the saltpeter crystals could also be extracted.

“Your Highness, this is no problem. When you said this, I remembered that there was something like this on the latrine in my house, but it was just a little bit too little. How many latrines would it take to find it?” Lu Tong asked.

Xiao Ming already had an idea in mind, and now he could only mobilize the masses of people.

After Lu Tong went back to prepare the utensils, Xiao Ming asked Fan Zeng to come to the palace, and he personally wrote a manuscript and published it in the newspaper.

The content of this manuscript was to mobilize the people to search for fire salt from the latrines and hand it over to the local government. Anyone who provided fire salt would be paid one penny per catty.

The next day, the news spread immediately along with the newspapers, and reporters from various states were dispatched at the same time to the counties and villages to convey the contents of the newspapers to the people.

“Can the white hair growing in this pit still be sold for money?”

Zhu Wuliu asked the people who had just finished reading the newspaper in Zhujia Village in surprise.

His brother Zhu Sansi has already gone to Qingzhou City and successfully joined the Qingzhou Army. Now the eldest brother Zhu Yier, Zhu Xiaomei and him are still left in the family.

Now that the food will be harvested soon, the family is full of hope. However, before the food was harvested, his family was still very poor, but it must have been much better before.

Moreover, after Zhu Sansi entered the Qingzhou Army, the local government sent a stone of grain and a piece of cloth to his family.

These things made many people in the village envious. No one would have thought that the military government would give food to them. In the past, they were all directly recruited to serve as soldiers.

Because of this, many hesitant people in the village joined the army, because every time the government delivered something to their home, it was an honor and a bright thing.

In addition to his second brother, his eldest brother is currently on the dock unloading and loading cargo for the merchant ships coming and going.

In the past six months, the number of merchant ships traveling to and from Qingzhou Wharf has increased sharply, and a lot of people are needed to transport goods. Naturally, the wages have continued to rise.

Zhujiacun is not far from the pier, and most of the young men during the slack season go to the pier.

Compared to his eldest brother and second brother, Zhu Wuliu has been helping look after the fields at home, but he also wants to make some money.

Therefore, he was immediately moved.

(End of chapter)