As Xiao Yao expected, Chen Xu sent people to investigate the defeat of Chen Jun in Xuzhou, and immediately sent people to the General Casino, to immediately summon Xiao Yao into the palace again, but the round and chubby Zu Yuan was like Maitreya Buddha, blocking all the people in the palace at the door, according to the excuse Xiao Yao said, he said with a smile: "Father-in-law, I'm sorry, because I heard the news of our Chen army's defeat in Xuzhou, my former comrade General Xu Jingcheng was martyred, which made him very sad. And I am angry and bloody, and now I am sick again, and I am recuperating now, and I am not here in the general casino, so I can't follow your father-in-law into the palace to meet Your Majesty, please go back! ”

So, no matter how hard these people from the palace persuaded them, all kinds of soft grinding and hard entanglements, and even threats and temptations, Zu Yuan still looked at them with a smile, but he didn't let them step into the general casino!

This also made this group of eunuchs helpless, after all, some time ago, Xiao Yao took dozens of guards of the General Firm, and easily defeated the ambush of hundreds of Qi killers, which made the guards of the General Firm's reputation for a while, so scared that no one dared to make trouble on the territory of the General Firm!

And this time Emperor Chen Xu asked them to invite Xiao Yao into the palace, and Chen Xu did not give them any privileges, he could order Xiao Yao to follow them to attack and meet His Majesty, so they didn't expect Xiao Yao to give Emperor Chen Xu so much face, and dared not to enter the palace with them under the pretext of illness, but they didn't dare to be rude now, so they could only keep saying good things like "The emperor's order cannot be violated" and "Your Majesty must see Xiao Yao", but Zu Yuan just refused to take a step back!

As a result, after the stalemate between the two sides for most of the day, this group of eunuchs could only return to the palace in a stupid manner, and made all kinds of small reports to Chen Xu, saying how Xiao Yao was disrespectful to His Majesty and dared to disobey His Majesty's orders! He also said how the general trading house was domineering and rude, and did not take the imperial power in his eyes!

But after Chen Xu heard the words of these eunuchs, he didn't have a long face angry, nor did he ask Xiao Yao and the general business firm Xingshi about the crime, but he kept frowning, not knowing what he was thinking about!

And what Zu Yuan said was also true, now Xiao Yao is not in the general casino, because he has secretly come to the well-guarded laboratory of the general iron workshop outside the city, conducting various experiments!

Since the successful conclusion of the poetry conference, Xiao Yao has successfully turned Ren Yuanyuan into a new generation of Jinling figures, so that the people in Jinling City have shifted their attention from Xiao Yao's side to Ren Yuanyuan! Moreover, Xiao Yao experienced that Gao Changgong sent a group of killers who used muskets and even artillery to ambush and assassinate Xiao Yao, which made Xiao Yao know that Gao Changgong might have developed black powder and could use those cannons that were taken from his hands, which made Xiao Yao start to think about how to deal with the Qi army that could already use firearms!

Even if the quality of the gunpowder made by Gao Changgong is not as good as that produced by General Firms according to Xiao Yao's method, after all, these are also called black powder, and they can burn quickly and produce violent explosions, so that those artillery pieces can produce great power, and the fiasco suffered by the Chen army in Xuzhou this time is a good proof, so Xiao Yao must not take this lightly!

As the producer of these artillery, Xiao Yao knew very well that if he wanted to deal with these powerful artillery, he would use artillery that was more powerful than them!

But now that the General Commodity Bank has been taken over by Chen Xu, Xiao Yao can no longer easily order Zu Yuan to mobilize all kinds of materials for him as before! And now Jiangzhou is no longer Chen Shuling's territory, since Chen Shujian, who has been replaced by a prince's camp, is in charge of Jiangzhou, which has greatly restricted the actions of Li An and Zhou Chao, and the general iron workshop in Jiangzhou can no longer mobilize a large number of ore raw materials from mines all over Jiangzhou as before, and then concentrate a large number of craftsmen in the iron workshop to carry out various metal smelting and artillery casting!

The most important thing is that Chen Xu has not clearly realized the power of artillery and the importance of these artillery on the battlefield, so he did not vigorously support Xiao Yao to recast various artillery pieces and the heavy forward brigade, a unit that uses firearms. 360 Literature Network

Therefore, now Xiao Yao has no artillery in his hands, even if it is a musket, that is, those twenty Mauser rifles and hundreds of Mini Sui muskets, which is completely insufficient to accommodate a thousand-strong army, and if it is only a musket, it is impossible to defeat Gao Changgong's copycat artillery unit that uses inferior gunpowder!

Because there is no artillery in hand, and even if Chen Xu suddenly supports himself to rebuild the forward brigade that uses firearms, it is difficult to cast a large number of artillery in a short period of time, so Xiao Yao's idea is to avoid the number of artillery, and then start from the gunpowder, as long as the gunpowder is more powerful, then even if there are not many artillery pieces in his hand, he can also defeat Gao Changgong's copycat artillery unit with dozens of various artillery pieces with one enemy of ten!

Black powder is a first-generation gunpowder, the raw materials are common, and the production is simple, its power is still very amazing in this era of cold weapons, so Xiao Yao's first choice was to make black powder! But now that Gao Changgong has successfully researched the formula of black powder, which means that he can no longer monopolize black powder, Xiao Yao decided to develop the second generation of gunpowder!

The second generation of gunpowder includes nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin and yellow explosives, etc., but because cotton, the raw material of nitrocellulose, has not yet been introduced to the Central Plains in this era, it is impossible for Xiao Yao to go to Tianzhu to bring cotton back like Journey to the West, so this option can only be ruled out.

Although nitroglycerin is simple to make, as long as glycerin is extracted from vegetable oil or animal oil, and then nitrified can be produced, but the disadvantage of nitroglycerin is that it is too sensitive, and a slight collision can produce a violent explosion, even if Xiao Yao knows how to reduce the sensitivity of nitroglycerin, but Xiao Yao feels that it is still too dangerous, and now it is just to deal with Gao Changgong, Xiao Yao is not worth taking this danger for him, so in the end, Xiao Yao chose a yellow explosive that is dozens of times more powerful than black powder!

Yellow explosives, also known as picric acid, are a kind of explosives with a bitter taste, but with great power! And as early as the eighteenth century, it was synthesized by chemists at that time, but at that time, everyone did not know much about this yellow powder, and even used picric acid as a yellow dye in a big way, resulting in picric acid being buried for nearly a hundred years!

It wasn't until a dyeer in the nineteenth century who, by chance, struck the vat of yellow dye with a hammer when he couldn't open a vat of picric acid, and the worker used his own life to uncover another use of picric acid, the explosion!

The power of picric acid in yellow dynamite is even greater than that of black powder, and it is a bit troublesome to make in this era, because in addition to concentrated sulfuric acid and nitric acid, there is also an important substance, which is phenol!

Phenol was not refined in coke oil until the nineteenth century, so even if Xiao Yao knew how to refine phenol in cokerose, it was still very difficult to make these yellow explosives in large quantities due to the objective conditions of this era!

But now Xiao Yao wants to deal with the artillery troops with high skills, so no matter how difficult it is, he has to develop this yellow explosive!

If there are no conditions, then create the conditions yourself! If you don't have raw materials, then make your own!

So Xiao Yao plunged into the laboratory, and then carried out various experiments: using various primitive tools, dry distillation of coal, and then obtained tar kerosene; Then the coke kerosene is refined to produce phenol mixed with many impurities; Then these impurities of phenol continued to be purified, and finally after a series of arduous experiments, Xiao Yao finally made phenol that could be used to make picric acid!