Zhang Xiaowu once studied some of Shenghan's scientific and technological products, that is, where the scientific and technological tree in Shenghan's history developed, and looked for whether the four major inventions appeared, and he successively found that Shenghan had papermaking, printing and Sinan, but there was no gunpowder.

The so-called firecrackers burned at weddings and funerals during the New Year's holidays are really empty bamboos thrown into the bonfire, and the bamboo will make a popping sound after being heated and expanded, instead of using black powder as a blasting material.

Later, Zhang Xiaowu figured out one of the reasons why Shenghan did not invent black powder, that is, the lack of sulfur in the Shenghan Empire, and the lack of sulfur was due to the fact that there were almost no volcanoes in the Shenghan Empire.

The lack of sulfur made it difficult to make black powder, and the absence of black powder also led to the fact that St. Han did not enter the age of firearms. But with such a violent explosion and such a strong smell, Zhang Xiaowu was sure that it must have been caused by the explosion of a large amount of gunpowder.

Zhang Xiaowu liked to play with fireworks when he was a child, and this hobby gradually disappeared when he grew up, but the smell of fireworks and firecrackers still exists in his memory, and the air is filled with the smell of burning sulfur, and he is more sure that there is gunpowder here, because it is difficult to burn in large quantities of pure sulfur.

"Could it be that the Fuso people mastered gunpowder technology before Shenghan?" Zhang Xiaowu was surprised in his heart, and then worried that the Fusang people would overtake in a corner and conquer the Central Plains with firearms. Of course, early gunpowder could not greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the army, and even the Ming army, which mastered cannons and muskets, could not defeat the Manchu iron cavalry who rode horses and shot arrows, and firearms really replaced cold weapons because of the improvement of gunpowder formulas and the invention of bullets.

Zhang Xiaowu wanted to find clues to the gunpowder, so he ordered the Jintian Hall to be surrounded layer by layer, and all the survivors were captured back to the Yinyi Guard Yamen, where they were tortured to finally get an unsatisfactory answer.

According to their accounts, a few days ago, a group of guests from Gunma on the Fuso Islands had arrived at the hall with several large wooden barrels. Since there were not many people from Fuso who came to the Central Plains, the Fuso people generally gathered in several guild halls, and this Kaneda guild hall was one of them. Even if the guest is not from Jintian, the innkeeper will not turn him away.

But the shopkeeper was very curious about what was in the barrel, so he asked his man to inquire, and the man replied that the barrels were the goods ordered by the guests of the Central Plains. That night, the people of Fusang drank alcohol, but the people of Fusang did not drink much, but the wine was very poor, and when they got drunk, they would fight and make trouble and molest women. Because wars often occur in 100 countries on the Fuso Islands, the war between more than 200 people on both sides is called the Battle of XX and the Battle of XX, and the perennial war has also led to a large number of deaths of men. As a result, Fuso countries have introduced policies that Fuso women are not allowed to wear obscene pants when they wear skirts, and samurai and men can forcibly have sex with women, and no matter whose child the woman is pregnant, they are not allowed to induce labor. The so-called lower women refer to all women except noble women, even including the king's maids, and the king's samurai can do whatever they want.

That night, the group of Fuso from Gunma and Fuso from another place got into a fight over a woman, and it turned out that the two gangs were drunk and wanted to take the woman, and the two sides got into a fight. When the two sides were almost finished, the keeper tied them all up and threw them back to their respective rooms.

The innkeeper learns from a drunken and sturdy-bound Gunma guest that the barrel contains flint powder invented in Gunma.

Kaneda didn't produce flint powder, and he didn't know what flint powder was, so the guy was very curious, so he asked back to the roots. In order to let him loosen himself, the drunken Fuso guest took out some flint powder and lit it for everyone to see. Immediately after the flint powder was lit, it produced dazzling sparks, and the guest said that it was a guest from the Central Plains who came to Gunma by accident and found that the flint powder could burn fireworks of various colors, so he thought of setting fire to it at festivals.

But as for other information, they did not know, and the story of flint powder was known to the other Fuso people who were drinking in the hall that day, and they did not know whether it was an explosion caused by flint powder. The shopkeeper of the guild hall also died in the explosion, but although the man was not dead, his entire back was burned by the fire.

However, some guests suggested that the flint powder must have exploded, because what they saw was a large spark soaring into the sky.

Zhang Xiaowu immediately returned to Beidifang to look for the flint powder that Fusang said he was talking about, and finally found some surviving items underground. He sniffed it carefully, and was immediately shocked that these black powders turned out to be black powder, and his speculation was correct, these Gunma people of the Fuso Islands invented black powder before the Shenghan people.

Then he immediately took the remaining black powder to find the group of Fuso Jintian people and asked the story of this flint powder, but unfortunately the Gunma people were all burned to death in this explosion, and they were just hearsay, patchwork news.

"We don't know, but we know the sulfur, we call it the medicine stone, which came out after the eruption." "Because there are many volcanoes there, it is easy to find medicinal stones at the foot of the volcanoes, and we use medicinal stones to make soap, and the soap made from medicinal stones can clean the body and kill lice and fleas and other insects." Your Excellency, we Fuso people like to take a bath the most, and we have to take a bath almost every day, so we use medicine stones to make soap materials, but we never treat him as an explosive, and we don't have this kind of flint powder in Kaneda Province. ”

"Are there any survivors of the Gunma people who sent flint powder?"

"All dead, burned or blown up."

"Do you know who they're going to sell the flint powder to?"

"I don't know, it's a trade secret, we have no way of knowing."

Transporting so much flint powder (black powder) to Longdu City and selling it to the people of the Central Plains, either the Fusang people are lying, or someone has ulterior motives and even uses it to kill people.

No matter which kind of speculation it is, it is a huge harm to Longdu, Zhang Xiaowu asked people to inform Jin Yiwei of this, but Jin Yiwei actually started to take a holiday.

It turned out that Jin Yiwei saw that Yin Yiwei was on vacation at the end of the year - and the special mother's year-end bonus, and he suddenly couldn't sit still, people have to die more than people, and goods have to be thrown away! Jin Yiwei didn't have much money to reward everyone, so they could only take more vacations, and they had a full month off from the twentieth day of the lunar month to the twentieth day of the first lunar month.

In the Jinyi Guard's Yamen, except for some guards, all the managers are on vacation for a month, and they are not here.

Emperor Dade urgently summoned Zhang Xiaowu into the palace to inquire about the huge explosion sound last night, Zhang Xiaowu explained black powder to Emperor Dade, explained that black powder can develop and evolve into a hot weapon, and analyzed the huge role and development potential of black powder. When talking about the excitement, Zhang Xiaowu said: "Whoever masters the gunpowder technology will master the world, and the small country of Fanbang has gunpowder, and can even enter the Central Plains." ”

Emperor Dade was dumbfounded when he heard this, but he only regarded it as a fantasy, because he had never seen black powder at all, and he did not believe in the power of black powder.

Zhang Xiaowu knew that the emperor did not believe him, so he had to take out the last surviving black powder for experimentation, but the experiment failed, because the black powder did not explode, but did not even burn.

Zhang Xiaowu was very embarrassed, how could this black powder still fail.

Emperor Dade smiled and asked, "This is something that can explode, doesn't it look like it?" ”

Then there were rumors in the market, saying that God punished the faint king, first there were fairies in the south of the Yangtze River, and then there was a thunder in the sky, the Holy Han Dynasty had a faint monarch in charge, and there were corrupt officials and corrupt officials rampant, and within three years, the Holy Han would die.

The rumor reached the ears of Emperor Dade, who was furious and ordered Jin Yiwei to immediately return to his post to inquire about the case.

Zhang Xiaowu immediately handed over all the clues to the Jinyi Guard, and the deputy marshal of the Jinyi Guard, who had been elusive, even went to the Yinyi Guard's Yamen in person to express his gratitude, he was a relatively hermit person, and he would not easily appear in front of everyone, but he did not expect to visit Zhang Xiaowu in person because of the big explosion this time, and Zhang Xiaowu was immediately entertained.

Regarding the explosion in Beidifang, Zhang Xiaowu told the Quartet about the conjecture in his heart, and the Quartet said: "You mean that black powder, that is, flint powder, will become a sharp weapon on the battlefield in the future?" ”

Zhang Xiaowu nodded and said: "I am the commander of the border army, and I am more sensitive to weapons and war than anyone else, I think that once the flint powder is developed and used in large quantities, it is very likely to be a siege weapon, and even the impregnable Two Wolf Pass may be destroyed." "He's certainly not alarmist, but it's hard for others to understand what a large-scale lethal weapon is because they haven't seen a thermal weapon.

In everyone's eyes, the weapon that does the most damage is the chariot. But the battlefield has long been outdated, and the progress of the war has also led to the battlefield is no longer a weapon, but a tool of honor, there is a chariot display in the palace, but the emperor is just a seat when inspecting the forbidden army.

For Zhang Xiaowu's concerns, the Quartet attached great importance to it and began to supervise the case, but at the same time he also said: "Jinyiwei is indeed stronger than Yinyiwei in investigating the case, but Yinyiwei is stronger than Jinyiwei in news investigation, so we also need to learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses and cooperate with each other." In this case, you are investigating it openly, and we are investigating it secretly, and the two ways are advancing together. ”

Zhang Xiaowu became interested and asked, "How to go together?" ”

Sifang said: "On the grounds that the flint powder has not been taxed, you have traced the causes and consequences of the flint powder, and thoroughly investigated the undeclared items in Longdu, so as to blatantly look for flint powder in other places and startle the snake." And we secretly searched for the Central Plains merchants who were connected to the Fuso people to see what their purpose was, and I was worried that this matter was related to the Heavenly Fire Sect. ”

"This--the deputy marshal of the Quartet, you must know that two-thirds of the silver-clothed guards are on vacation now." Zhang Xiaowu smiled bitterly, "And it's the Chinese New Year, and it's the New Year, so much fanfare is to thoroughly investigate Longdu City, I'm afraid that it will cause public resentment to boil." ”

Quartet patted his head, forgetting that the current season was really forced by the emperor, but if he didn't investigate so hard, how could he find the truth about the explosion. But fortunately, Zhang Xiaowu promised to help Jin Yiwei investigate the case as much as possible, and would never let people disturb Longdu City again.

After sending off the Quartet and others, Zhang Xiaowu came to Beidifang again, in the ruins of the Jintian Hall, Zhang Xiaowu looked for possible clues, Wang Yijin followed behind him, and asked, "My lord, what are you looking for?" ”

Zhang Xiaowu said: "I don't know, maybe it's useless at all." ”

Chen Guanxi asked: "Wasn't this case transferred to Jin Yiwei?" ”

Zhang Xiaowu said: "I'm not here for the case, I'm looking for flint powder, looking for clues about flint powder." ”

Wang Yijin asked, "My lord, do you want to make flint powder?" ”

"Yes."

"But what kind of sulfur does flint powder need, yes, it's called sulfur." Wang Yijin said, "So I have to go to the Fusang Islands, and I wonder what this sulfur is." ”

Zhang Xiaowu squatted on the ground and rummaged through, and suddenly found something pressed under a piece of burnt wood, and he looked through it, it was a piece of rag that had been burned to ashes. He flicked it with a purple gold mace, and the rag immediately turned to ashes, and among the ashes was a somewhat distorted piece of iron. He picked up the piece of iron and saw that it had melted to the point that it was not in shape, but the corners of the iron still felt a little familiar.

The cold feeling spread from the tips of his fingers to his brain, and Zhang Xiaowu felt a thrill, but he smelled a strong fragrance along the wind at this time. He looked upwind and saw three beautiful and tall Beiyi women standing not far away, Beiyi women are generally tall, because Beiyi women have long legs and body proportions are far better than those of Shenghan women.

"The nose is so smart, I can smell it from so far away, am I mutated?" Zhang Xiaowu praised himself in his heart, and then got up and walked over.

When the three Beiyi women saw Zhang Xiaowu coming, they were immediately excited, and under the leadership of the woman in the middle, the three of them immediately bowed: "My lord, I will thank you for saving your life." "All three women can speak Chinese, but there is some accent and stiffness in the Chinese, these are the Beiyi people who fled south with the Li royal family, they insist on their own language and culture, but they are not averse to learning Chinese. However, the Li royal family demanded that all Beiyi children only speak Chinese after the age of eight, lest their mother tongue become Chinese.

After the three of them approached Zhang Xiaowu, he realized that it was not his nose that had mutated, but that the smell of the three Beiyi women was too fragrant, a little excessive, and the smell was comparable to the perfume sprinkled on the Russian woman. And whether it was in the previous life or in this life, this too strong fragrance made him stay away a little, kept a certain distance, nodded and said, "You're welcome, get up." ”

The woman in the middle asked, "I don't know what the adults are looking for, can we help?" ”

Zhang Xiaowu replied: "I'm just taking a casual look, it's the first time that such an explosion has occurred in Longdu City, and there are people who deliberately spread rumors, I hope to find the reason." Actually, I don't know what I'm looking for, all the clues have been found, I'm just looking to see if there's anything missing. By the way, is your home next door? ”