234 gunpowder problem

(Today's chapter is presented, it's the end of the month, brothers, please ask for a monthly pass!! ）

With the White Dragon Army accepting the imperial court's recruitment, Li Zixiao also settled down temporarily, and it was not easy to come out to do things again.

Moreover, the summer harvest has just ended, and Li Zixiao is busy sending people to collect grain from the people of Yongcheng, Xiayi and Suzhou!

In such years, food is comparable to gold, especially a military general like him with soldiers and horses in his hands, and he can not panic in his heart when he has food in his hands.

All, in the area occupied by the White Dragon Army, he ordered all the people to pay 30% of the tax, and the remaining grain, each family left a year's ration for their family, and sold the rest to the White Dragon Army.

And the White Dragon Army bought these grains from the people at a price two percent higher than the market price, and then hoarded them, how much grain is not too much in these years!

The local people were grateful to the White Dragon Army at this time, and they were also very reluctant to give up food for this order, but every household still obeyed Li Zixiao's order.

Anyway, if you keep enough food rations for the whole family for a year, you won't have to go hungry for the next year, and the grain purchase price given by Bai Longjun is also fair.

With some money in hand, they can buy some new clothes for the children and buy some meat for the children to eat and replenish their bodies.

Incidentally, at this time, the people also knew that the White Dragon Army had become an official army.

At first, the local people were all terrified, thinking that the White Dragon Army had also become lackeys of the court and would take back the land in their hands.

But Li Zixiao still promised them that even if the imperial court they served to, the land in their hands would not be taken back.

Li Zixiao is also ruthless enough, he basically killed the local landlords, even if he escaped by luck, he was killed and did not want to come back.

Those landlords are not coming back, who can go back to these lands, of course, they still continue to stay in the hands of the people, and in this way, the people still continue to support the White Dragon Army.

In these years, the people do not have a strong sense of national consciousness, and they can't even fill their stomachs, let alone study, they haven't read, they have been educated, and they have been brainwashed, so they don't talk about national righteousness.

At this time, the poor people at the grassroots level, they just asked for a simple life, to be able to eat a full stomach, to support their wives and children, and to do this, they could work day and night.

And the White Dragon Army reluctantly brought them such hope, and the tax of thirty percent was actually not low at this time.

If he could, Li Zixiao really wanted to exempt all these people from land taxes, but not at this time, he had such a little land in his hands, and he had to rely on these people to feed his army.

But the people are still grateful to Li Zixiao and the White Dragon Army, because the thirty percent tax demanded by the White Dragon Army is much more than the five or six percent land rent of the landlord's family in the past.

In addition, in the past few months, Li Zixiao arranged for Qian Guangyuan to gather and resettle displaced people, distribute farm tools and even ploughing cattle, and vigorously reclaim wasteland, so that a large amount of wasteland in Yongcheng has been reclaimed.

Not only have there been several new villages and towns formed by displaced people, but even the land in the hands of the original people has increased a lot, and they can produce more grain by working a little harder and planting a few acres of land.

At this time, the enthusiasm of the people was fully mobilized, because they knew that they were growing food for themselves, and some even lived in the fields all day long.

At this time, the population of the entire Yongcheng County was only a hundred thousand, and even if half of the county seats of Suzhou and Xiayi were added, the population of Li Zixiao's territory was only about 200,000.

At the same time, the land cultivated this year has reached 3 million mu, nearly twice as much as in previous years, and this year's rain is barely enough, and the harvest is also okay.

After the summer harvest was over, the White Dragon Army's grain depot was all stuffed, making Old Master Wei's beard tremble all day long.

But Li Zixiao was sad, because his purse was deflated a little, and he spent more than 100,000 taels of silver just to buy grain.

He feels that the money in his hand seems to be a lot, but it seems that he wants to do a lot of things in the future, which is not enough!

After the summer harvest ended, Qian Guangyuan was still busy organizing the people to grow in summer, and now he was in charge of all the government affairs in the territory of the White Dragon Army.

In the following month, Li Zixiao arranged all kinds of affairs in White Snake Village.

He began to focus on the industries that he valued as gunpowder, firearms, weaponry, iron mining, and iron smelting.

After all, these industries are all related to the development of the White Dragon Army, which can be described as a life-threatening industry, Li Zixiao didn't have time to pay attention to it before, and there was no war at this time, so he was determined to catch it personally, so as not to drop the chain at a critical moment.

Li Zixiao was concerned about the new bird gun, and after a few days of testing, the brand-new bird gun finally exploded after an overload of charge, and it was declared scrapped.

In this way, it can be regarded as figuring out the maximum charge of this new type of bird gun, and after reducing it, Tie Pingliang set a standard charge for it.

The power of the new bird gun has been increased compared to Li Zixiao's test launch that day.

At least after facing the enemy who is also holding a bird gun, the White Dragon Army's firecrackers can basically shoot at them without fear.

However, when Li Zixiao arrived at this time, he began to be dissatisfied with the charging method again.

Because in the past, their fixed ammunition was packed in some sawn small bamboo tubes.

Although this is possible, the local bamboo resources are limited and more labor-intensive, so Li Zixiao felt that it was necessary to improve it again, and he decided to use paper shell ammunition.

The invention of paper-shell ammunition was an important event for the development of muskets, but it would take a long time to take this step.

But now Li Zixiao is determined that he will shorten this time and let the paper shell ammunition appear early.

In this era in the West, in fact, such a charging method has begun to appear, and the principle is the same as that of bamboo tube fixed ammunition.

It's just not, it's rolled into a small paper tube with wax paper, and the divided gunpowder is packed into it according to the required amount, and then a projectile made in advance is put in.

Usually stored in the soldier's skin, it will not get damp when it rains, and when it is used, the firecracker takes out one of these fixed-mounted paper-shell ammunition.

Bite one end open, pour gunpowder into the chamber of the gun, and finally put the projectile into the chamber, then use the cane to tamp it, and then pour it into the medicine pool, and the remaining bit of gunpowder is used as a primer.

In this way, the Gunner can greatly reduce the time it takes to reload, at least twice for the time it takes for the enemy to reload.

And there is no need to worry about reloading or overloading gunpowder, so the safety of the gunners is also guaranteed.

Housekeeping materials, wax paper, are not hard to find here.

Although they are now in contact with the Xie family in Xuzhou, as the White Dragon Army becomes an official army, the transaction between them can be above board.

Entrusting the Xie family firm to buy these wax papers, there is no problem at all, in fact, even some local firms can buy this kind of wax paper.

Even if you don't have wax paper, you can buy ordinary paper and make it yourself, and the conditions are already completely available.

There is no need to let Tie Pingliang take care of this kind of thing like paper shell ammunition, now Li Zixiao has ready-made talents under him, and this kind of thing is most suitable for Wu Yao, who has been making fireworks since he was a child.

Wu Yao is now in the White Dragon Army, and was given a nickname called 'Cannon' by everyone, and on the side of the White Snake Village, Li Zixiao specially built a workshop for him in the back mountain for him to fiddle with gunpowder.

Today, Li Zixiao came to Wu Yao's gunpowder workshop on this day, and it is still the old rule here, no fireworks are allowed, and no idle people are allowed to enter.

As soon as Wu Yao saw Li Zixiao coming, he hurriedly came out to greet him, Li Zixiao patted him on the shoulder and said, "How is this time?" I'm too busy to come over to you to see how it's going, tell me about it! ”

Wu Yao scratched his head and smiled and hurriedly replied: "It's pretty much the same, the kind of paper mines that the general came up with at the beginning, his subordinates made a hundred and ten."

And his subordinates tried many times, and found that the iron slag was mixed into the gunpowder, and after it exploded, it was not very powerful.

The subordinates figured out a way to roll the paper shell into two layers, stuff iron slag in the middle of the two layers, and then put gunpowder into the hole in the middle.

After trying this a few times, the iron slag that exploded was more powerful and more evenly dispersed. Unfortunately, I can't continue to do it right now, and I've been down for two days! ”

Li Zixiao was overjoyed at first, because the method Wu Yao said was really effective, and it was basically a kind of grenade with preset fragments.

This can indeed make the fragmentation density of iron slag more uniform after the explosion, and the lethality will naturally be much greater.

Li Zixiao admired this guy's intelligence a little, and was about to praise him, but he heard him say that he couldn't continue to do it.

So he was stunned for a moment, and immediately asked, "This method is not bad, so why did you stop?" ”

Wu Yao frowned and replied, "What else can there be?" Now that there is no gunpowder in the army, there is naturally no rice for subordinates. What can I do without gunpowder! ”

Only then did Li Zixiao understand that after this period of time, they fought again and again, and after arriving here, they fought several big battles one after another, and the gunpowder that was originally reserved and captured in the army had basically been consumed.

The only remaining emergency gunpowder, all equipped in the Bird Gun and Artillery Corps, cannot be used for combat readiness.

The purchase of gunpowder is not an ordinary commercial transaction, it needs to be concealed, and it cannot be traded too much at a time, at this time, the White Dragon Army completely relied on the Xie family in Xuzhou to provide them with gunpowder.

So he immediately frowned, thought for a moment and comforted Wu Yao: "I see, it seems that I have ignored this matter for this time, this is a big deal!"

It seems that we have to think of more ways to solve this problem quickly, gunpowder is a lifeline, our lifeline cannot be held in the hands of others, and we still need to make the best gunpowder ourselves! ”

Li Zixiao decided to solve the problem of gunpowder manufacturing at this time, and no longer relied on mining.

Because of this incident, Li Zixiao didn't have the heart to talk about his paper shell bullets, and after sitting down, he asked Wu Yao: "Let me ask you, do you know the method of boiling soil nitrate?" ”

When Wu Yao heard this, he immediately nodded and patted his chest and said, "Of course I know, I followed my father when I was a child, and I boiled it myself." How could it not be known?

As long as the general gets me enough nitrate, I can boil it out, and as for the sulfur, I can't do anything, so I can only go to the pharmacy to buy it.

In addition, get me some willow charcoal, and with these three things, I can make gunpowder myself! ”

After Li Zixiao heard this, he also acted immediately, and instructed Quartz: "Shi, you send someone to find Dong Zhuo immediately and ask him to inform his subordinates."

In the local village, I bought a large amount of soil and nitrate around the manure heap of the pig house for me, and the price could be a little wider.

In short, this matter should be grasped as soon as possible, and an industry should be made in the future, which can also earn some money for the people. ”

Quartz was stunned, he didn't know what earth nitrate was.

Li Zixiao led Quartz and a few guards to run to a pigsty in White Snake Village, next to a large pile of dung.

He pointed to a layer of pale yellow soil on the ground, scraped some of it, put it on a tile, and folded it with fire, and some small sparks immediately appeared from these yellow soils.

"Stones, do you see? This thing is soil nitrate, what I want is this thing, let Dong Zuo quickly arrange someone to collect it for me, the more you collect, the better.

But remember, no one is allowed to adulterate, otherwise, don't think about letting us take their soil in the future! Li Zixiao clapped his hands and stood up and said to Quartz.

Quartz immediately understood what this was, and quickly ordered two of his guards to do it.

Counting the surrounding villages, it is estimated that after mobilizing the villagers, a large amount of soil nitrate can be obtained in a short time, at least the current saltpeter problem can be solved.

As for the matter of sulfur, there is no way, so I can only go to the big pharmacy in the county to purchase it, there is no sulfur in this area, and he Li Zixiao can't do it.

Fortunately, now that the White Dragon Army has plenty of money, it can still solve this kind of problem with some money. In the future, when the amount of demand is large, you can only think of other ways to obtain it.

As for the willow charcoal, it is even simpler, there are many willow trees here, just find some people to burn the willow charcoal, and then crush it and hand it to Wu Yao.

As for how to prepare gunpowder, Li Zixiao knew that Wu Yao knew more than him.

In fact, the formula of gunpowder was quite mature in the Ming Dynasty, and it basically reached the most reasonable level.

The reason why the quality of gunpowder in the hands of officials and soldiers is unstable is that the manufacturers are not careful, the supervision is not effective, and the craftsmen try to save trouble and do not completely prepare it in accordance with the reasonable formula.

Second, because the raw materials are not completely purified, or completely crushed, especially there are many impurities in the nitrate, of course, there is no need to think about it, the power of gunpowder is exerted to the greatest extent.

In addition, a lot of gunpowder, which is not made into granules, is stored for a long time or after transportation, and the heavy raw material powder in the powder barrel sinks.

The light raw material powder floats on it, and even the well-proportioned gunpowder becomes the gunpowder of the uneven formula, so that the quality of the gunpowder can be imagined.

And granular gunpowder is not the invention of Li Zixiao to this era, the Ming Dynasty has already used soju to wet the gunpowder, and then rub it into granules.

It's just that this process is not used in many places, so that the quality of gunpowder in the hands of the Ming army is quite unstable.

On the side of the White Dragon Army, there will be no such problem, and the various departments of the craftsmen have formulated detailed processes. All craftsmen must follow the established process.

Wu Yao is also a very serious person, and the quality of the gunpowder produced will be more than one grade higher than the quality of the captured gunpowder that they used in emergency situations before.

Therefore, even if the White Dragon Army uses the bird guns and artillery of the previous shape, after being equipped with their self-produced gunpowder, the power will increase to a new level.

Since there is a shortage of gunpowder at the moment, the matter of fixed ammunition for paper shells can only be put on hold for the time being.

Li Zixiao has already arranged the things that should be arranged, and when the gunpowder begins to be produced in batches, at least until the sulfur is bought back and the soil is purified.

After the gunpowder problem was solved, Li Zixiao believed that Wu Yao had made paper mines and paper shell ammunition, but it was not a matter of time, so he urged Wu Lei and left. (To be continued.) )