After Li Xiao returned to Iron Dragon City, the first thing he did was to ask Zhao Jie, the chief of firearms, how many earth-shattering thunders had been made with granular gunpowder. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It turned out that as early as the end of last year, with the full support of Li Xiao, Zhao Jie and a group of workers finally developed granular gunpowder quite smoothly.

In fact, granular gunpowder is not an unusual thing.

In Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Ji Xiao", there is a method of making granular gunpowder, but unfortunately few people know about it. Now most of the military towns in most places do not use granular gunpowder, they still follow the old method, the sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal three into powder mixed at will, the formula is also handed down by the ancestors, one nitro, two sulfur and three carbon, that is, one catty (sixteen taels) of nitrate, two taels of sulfur, three taels of carbon.

This method of producing gunpowder without advancing and retreating leads to the poor quality of the black powder produced, and the effect is also very unstable when used.

The reason for this result is mainly due to the following two points.

First, because of such a powdered mixed gunpowder, no matter how evenly mixed it is at the factory, when it is handled, because of artificial shaking, it will cause the nitrate and sulfur with a specific gravity of 2 to sink to the bottom of the barrel, and the charcoal with a specific gravity of 1.3 will run to the surface, resulting in uneven mixing.

Second, because charcoal powder is easy to absorb air moisture, in a humid environment, it is easy to absorb too much water and affect the performance.

Before Qi Jiguang used granular gunpowder, some people also thought of a solution, that is, the sulfur saltpeter charcoal was shipped separately and distributed to the soldiers before going to the battlefield, and the soldiers prepared it themselves, but it was obviously stupid to do so, the soldiers did not have a scale, and they could not accurately prepare gunpowder.

Like Li Xiaojun's reckless guns, why there are guns that cannot be released every time has a certain relationship with the fact that the soldiers are not reloaded, but more importantly, it is because of the uneven mixing of gunpowder powder and moisture absorption, which leads to a high rate of dumb fire when discharged.

After more than two months of research by Zhao Jie and others, this granular gunpowder that can be used for military purposes has finally been studied.

Moreover, they also improved the formula of gunpowder, from the ancestors' sixteen taels of nitrate, two taels of sulfur, and three taels of carbon, to fifteen taels of nitrate, two taels of sulfur, and three taels of carbon, which is close to the current ratio of black powder, although it is only a small change, but the power has increased a lot.

And the method of making it, to put it bluntly, is actually very simple.

That is, add water first, knead the proportionally prepared gunpowder into a wet dough, mix it evenly, take it out and spread the flatbread, piece by piece of wet gunpowder cake, put it in the drying room with blast furnace exhaust gas in the pit at the bottom of the house, and dry it at more than 40 degrees. When it dries thoroughly, it is broken through a fine sieve and becomes a stable and reliable granular gunpowder.

According to Li Xiao's earlier suggestion, the granular gunpowder now produced, if it is used for Lu Mi gun's shooting, is a kind of fixed bullet wrapped in oiled paper and wrapped in lead bullets.

In this way, every time a soldier fired a firearm, the gunpowder was filled with a certain amount. It can also prevent soldiers from forgetting to add lead bullets or adding lead bullets once more in a tense battle.

The specific method of use is that the gun hand first lights the fire rope, bites open the paper shell of the end of the cylindrical fixed bullet with his teeth, pours out a little gunpowder into the primer pool, and then pours most of the remaining gunpowder into the barrel mouth, and then pours over the fixed load, and the end of the lead bullet is stuffed into the muzzle, and pushes it to the bottom of the chamber with a push lever, lubricated by that layer of oil paper, this step will be much smoother than the original. Next, it's time to aim and shoot.

This method is convenient and efficient, greatly saves the shooting preparation time of the Lumi gunner, and also greatly reduces the failure rate, so it is welcomed by the gunners.

And what Li Xiao is most concerned about is not actually the improvement of Lu Mi Gong, in the current situation that the conditions for making guns and cannons are not yet mature, he hopes that these granular gunpowder can be better used to make earth-shaking thunder.

Two days before the Chinese New Year last year, when Li Xiao was about to return to Chifengwei from Iron Dragon City, Zhao Jie and the workers worked overtime, and finally quickly produced a sample of the earth-shaking thunder.

The sample of this earth-shattering thunder is a round iron lump the size of a watermelon, with a slightly protruding platform on the sphere, and a small hole on it, in which a medicine twist is inserted.

When Zhao Jie introduced this iron guy to Li Xiao, Li Xiao's blood was surging.

"Lord Li, this is a sample of the Heaven-Shaking Thunder, which is completely manufactured according to the standards of the Great Ming Fire Weapons Bureau. It was made of fifteen catties of pig iron as a shell, and twelve catties of gunpowder in it. When it is launched, the sound shocks the heavens and the earth, and the people are invincible, so it is called the earth-shaking thunder. Moreover, this earth-shattering thunder was filled with evenly mixed granular gunpowder, but it was much stronger than those made by other military towns. Zhao Jie held his own black and majestic looking big killing weapon, and introduced it to Li Xiao with a proud face.

Unexpectedly, Li Xiao was not satisfied.

"This iron shell is too smooth, no grooves have been opened, it is difficult to produce fragments when exploding, which will definitely affect the explosion effect, in addition, this medicine is too short, in case the burning speed is too fast, it will blow up itself, but it is not possible."

After Li Xiao finished speaking, after Zhao Jie and the others improved, they brought it back to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao didn't say much to him, and immediately began to test the explosion effect.

Outside the Iron Dragon City, at a selected test site, soldiers drove a large number of curious onlookers, and in order to avoid accidental injury, they were ordered to retreat to ten zhang away.

The large iron watermelon with a groove was placed in the center of the test site, next to several cloth figures sewn from pieces of cloth to test the effect of the explosion.

Zhao Jie held a burning incense stick, walked over and put the incense head on the long medicine twist, and lit it with a bang, the medicine line burned quickly, and Zhao Jie immediately escaped at the fastest speed in his life.

Soon, like a small worm, Mars crawled into the projectile along the lead.

"Bang!"

There was a deafening explosion, and the earth-shattering thunder exploded smoothly.

People felt that everything around the earth-shattering thunder seemed to be pulled by a strange force, shrinking towards the center, and then rapidly expanding in all directions.

There are many people, and there is even an illusion, that is, the moment it feels like Mars drilled into the bomb body, time seems to stop, just like the super slow motion in the movie, this earth-shattering thunder seems to have exploded after a long time.

Twelve pounds of black powder produces 500,000 liters of gas at the moment of explosion, reaches a high temperature of more than 1,000 degrees Celsius, and produces 4 million joules of energy - if concentrated in one direction, this energy can allow a person weighing 50 kilograms to climb Mount Everest directly from sea level, or kick a Santana sedan from the ground to the roof of the Empire State Building, even a 60-ton M1A1 Abrams main battle tank will fly 7 meters into the air.

The shock wave of the explosion rushed through the ground, sweeping through everything that stood in their way, and in the deafening roar, people felt the earth tremble up and down, and the billowing black smoke of the explosion spread in all directions, and finally rose into the air under the resistance of the ground, forming a small mushroom-shaped cloud.

The few cloth people used for testing have long been blown away without a trace by the shock wave.

After the explosion, the world became so quiet that nothing could be heard except the sound of their own heartbeat, and it was only after a while that people noticed that their eardrums were buzzing, and it was only then that the innate sense of fear came to mind. The soldiers and civilians who were watching all felt that their legs and feet were weak, they couldn't move a step, their throats were dry, they couldn't say a word, and their brains were blank...... Even the bravest and most fearless warriors will feel weak and insignificant in the face of such an explosion that cannot be resisted by manpower.

Li Xiao rubbed his ears that were shaking his ears and smiled, while Zhao Jie, the producer of this earth-shattering thunder, was pale and full of shock.

In Zhao Jie's impression, the earth-shaking thunder used by the officials and soldiers in the past was usually a loud bang, and the big iron lumps exploded into seven or eight iron blocks of all sizes, flying in all directions, and the farthest place was only more than three zhang away. And put the iron lump on the ground, and blew up a shallow pit in the basin earth.

Unexpectedly, this improved gunpowder, which depicts the earth-shattering thunder of the fragment trench, can increase the power to such a powerful extent.

Li Xiao, who was in a happy mood, rewarded Zhao Jie with one hundred taels of silver on the spot.

Among these people, only Li Xiao understood the value of possessing these powerful earth-shattering thunderbolts best.

Think about the last time he defended Jinjiazhuang Fort, when he only fought with cold weapons, how difficult it was for Li Xiao to win. If there were these earth-shattering thunders at that time, how could those Tartars dare to run rampant!

Now that I have such a sharp weapon, I will no longer be as embarrassed as before.

So, after receiving the order from the imperial court to go south to rescue Fengyang, Li Xiao not only ordered the artillery team of Chifengwei to be moved to Iron Dragon City, but also issued another urgent order, which was to request that from now on, the construction of other artifacts in Iron Dragon City should be stopped, and all efforts should be made to produce earth-shaking thunder immediately.

Counting up, from Li Xiao's southward journey to the present, the Iron Dragon City has worked overtime day and night to take turns in production, and in the past month or so, the number of sky-shaking thunders in the Iron Dragon City has reached more than 6,000!

In other words, every day, more than 200 sky-shaking thunderbolts are created.

Li Xiaojun's ability to have such an astonishing production speed is also indispensable to the hydraulic forging hammer he has invented now.

In today's forging mills, each forge has a hydraulic forging hammer next to it, under which is a thick anvil with thick oak piers, and below it is a base for mixed cast iron and stone. The multi-layer composite stress structure can withstand the huge impact force of the forging hammer falling.

These hammers are controlled by a large reservoir for water supply, and there is a special water diversion channel built from the Daxing River to lead water into the reservoir, and when the amount of water accumulates to a certain extent, the hammer can be lifted to strike. After the blow is struck, the water is quickly re-impounded, so that the entire hydraulic hammer can be carried out in a cycle.

There are two types of forging hammers designed by Li Xiao. One is weighing 250 pounds, with a stroke of three feet, and 20 drops per minute for rough machining.

The other small one weighs 80 pounds, has a stroke of 2 feet, and drops 50 times per minute for fine processing. With this technology, the efficiency has been greatly improved compared to the previous blacksmiths, which has improved the efficiency and reduced the labor intensity of the workers.

It was much more convenient to forge hammers to make iron shells that shook the sky and thunder, and to crush sentinel charcoal and other materials to make granular gunpowder, and the production speed was nearly ten times faster.

When Zhang Xianzhong's troops finally arrived at Shanxian County, Li Xiao had already made all preparations.

However, in the few days after he came back, there was one thing that pressed on Li Xiao's heart.

That is, until now, Li Dingguo has not expressed any intention of surrendering at will.

Li Dingguo, who was held alone in a secret room, only ate a small bowl of rice and drank a few mouthfuls of soup every day. He didn't speak, he didn't make trouble, as if he was cultivating in his room.

Li Xiao successively sent a number of officials to persuade him to surrender, but Li Dingguo either did not say a word or directly refused.

At this time, Jin Tongwu, who was smashed and broke his leg bone, is now recovering well in his leg because of Li Xiaojun's careful treatment all the way. Grateful to him, as soon as he arrived in Shanxian County, he immediately expressed his determination to be loyal to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao was very happy, and hurriedly sent him as a lobbyist to talk about Li Dingguo. Unexpectedly, the final result was that Jin Tongwu was scolded by Li Dingguo with a blushing face.

Facing this Li Dingguo, who was a bit stubborn like Wen Tianxiang, Li Xiao finally made up his mind to talk to him by himself.

That evening, Li Dingguo was facing the window in a daze, and suddenly heard the room behind him squeak open.

"Let's go! Besides, I only eat once a day, and I will send food to do it! ”

Li Dingguo thought that it was the soldiers who delivered the food coming in again, so he turned his head impatiently and shouted.

Soon, the expression on his face froze.

Because it was Li Xiao who came in with a rice basket in his hand and a smile on his face.

"Dingguo, why don't you always eat, don't you think our army has bad food?" Li Xiao put down the rice basket and smiled teasingly.

Li Dingguo's throat surged a few times, but he didn't speak, just twisted his head out of the window hatefully.

"Li Xiao, you are on leave, I only ask you, what do you do with my soldiers?" Li Dingguo looked out the window, but he threw a sentence at Li Xiao with a stubborn voice.

"Well, you don't have to worry, the official didn't kill them, and they have all been arranged." Li Xiao said lightly: "A total of more than 2,000 captured rogues, and now this official has selected 500 strong new annexes to be used as auxiliaries, and the rest are all punished as hard labor, and they are mining to atone for their sins together with other rogues who were captured by our army earlier." ”

Hearing that Li Xiao was lenient with his soldiers, Li Dingguo's face showed a faint lightheartedness, but he frowned, and then said to Li Xiao: "Li Xiao, I, Zhang Dingguo, will not descend to you, and besides, my father-in-law will definitely come to save me!" ”

When Li Dingguo said this, he turned around suddenly, his face was already full of ferocity, and he shouted: "Li Xiao, my righteous army has been invincible since it started, if it weren't for your clever tricks, I would have been captured by you!" Now, my father-in-law must have led an army to rescue him, and you, a little Iron Dragon City, will definitely be unable to stop the attack of my righteous army! “

"Oh, is it? What if your father-in-law, who has done all kinds of evil things, can't take Iron Dragon City and can't save you? Li Xiao still had a mocking smile on his face.

(Thank you for the monthly pass of the shadow and cold wind, and thank you for your support) (To be continued.) )