What needs to be refined is not only sulfur, but more importantly, soil nitrate, although those soil nitrate is the people of Shandong, Beizhili, Henan and other places, after sweeping out thousands of square kilometers of saline-alkali land, hard work, but its purity can not meet the needs of medicine.

Even during the Wanli period, the gunpowder workshop really put a lot of effort into the purification of nitrate and sulfur, and then milled it into powder to make medicine. However, unlike the purification process used in Wang Gongchang and other places, such as dissolving soil nitrate, adding some alum and gum, and then boiling with radish, Shi Yiwen uses ash frost, that is, potassium carbonate, to extract ash frost from plant ash, that is, potassium carbonate, and then use it to precipitate and remove magnesium salts, calcium salts and iron salts in soil nitrate, which is better than the radish method and is very close to the method in the modern chemical laboratory. Even then, it is re-filtered and recrystallized again to guarantee the purity of potassium nitrate.

The purity of the raw material is a prerequisite for ensuring the power of gunpowder, and according to the information found by Shi Yiwen in the magazine "Explosives", even the variety of charcoal will have an impact on black powder.

Every time he came to the gunpowder factory, Shi Yiwen had a feeling of fear, after all, the "hazardous chemicals" produced here.

"I guess it won't explode."

Looking at the raw material mill driven by the water wheel, when the raw materials under the tamper were crushed, Shi Yiwen muttered to himself, although he knew that the raw materials being milled in these water mills could not have exploded at all when they were not mixed, but he would inevitably be a little worried.

"Boss, don't worry, when we first built the gunpowder factory, according to what you said, we built a one-zhang thick explosion-proof earth dam outside the mixing workshop, and there was an earth dam blocking it, which is over there...... Anyway, the strength is leaking upwards, and it won't have any impact on our side. ”

Perhaps seeing that the owner's face was a little abnormal, Wang Qidong said softly on the side, he was a pharmaceutical expert from Wang Gong's factory in the factory, and his family had never had an accident with pharmaceutical products for generations. Although the production here is different from manual production and the recipes are different, the production safety is the same.

"Well, that's not what I'm thinking."

The gunpowder factory cannot be mixed with the factory, which is the minimum safety common sense. Therefore, after Shi Yiwen trial-produced a batch of granules, he instructed Xu Siyuan to build a new gunpowder factory by the river more than a mile away from the factory, specializing in the production of gunpowder.

Nodding silently, Shi Yiwen disguised.

"Qidong, how much medicine can we give a year now?"

"The owner, in Wang Gong Factory, our production is all manual, pounding medicine is a stone mortar, and medicine is a wooden trough, but we use a waterwheel, we use water mill materials, even the medicine sieve is also a waterwheel, and with a waterwheel and a drum of medicine, and then with a large stone roll with a water wheel and the powder on the mill, rolled into a medicine block, and then use the granulating cylinder to make the gunpowder block into uniform size of the medicine granules...... Even if in the end, the surface of the medicine particles is polished and filled with the pores on the gunpowder particles with a grinder made of charcoal, and the process is extremely cumbersome, but even so, there are less than 40 workers in our factory, and at least 50 loads a day......

Unlike the handicraft workshop of Wang Gong Factory, the gunpowder made here with "advanced" industrial equipment, replaced by manual operation with hydraulic and mechanical operation, this kind of mechanized production of modern factories is by no means comparable to Wang Gong Factory, which not only increases the power of gunpowder, but also prolongs the storage period of gunpowder. Of course, the production has also increased exponentially.

"Have you ever calculated how much gunpowder we produce in a year? Do you need how much of it is needed over there? ”

Listening to the sound of water pounding medicine in his ears, Shi Yiwen asked rhetorically.

"You just said that if you change the stone mill, you can produce 200 quintals a day, and the raw materials must be no problem, just one place in Shandong, three or four hundred thousand quintals of soil nitrate will be produced a year, as for sulfur, our sulfur factory will build a few new furnaces, and the output of sulfur can also come up, but ......"

Turning his head to look at Wang Qidong, Shi Yiwen's brows furrowed.

"Where is all this gunpowder going to be used?"

The owner's inquiry made Wang Qidong, who was originally preparing to expand the output of the pharmaceutical factory with great fanfare, suddenly realize this problem - this is not Wang Gong's factory, not the medicine shop of the Ministry of War, the medicine shop of the Ministry of War produces tens of thousands of loads of gunpowder every year, and people have a place to go, but what about here? There is nowhere to go except for thistle.

Pursing his lips, Shi Yiwen's expression became a little dignified, the problem of overcapacity is the problem just faced, not only the gunpowder factory has such a problem, but even the output of the iron factory is a little overloaded. The increase in production capacity brought about by advanced industrial equipment has directly led to this situation.

This was something that Shi Yiwen had not expected before.

On the way home from the factory, Shi Yiwen, who was sitting in the carriage, thought about it all the way, his brows frowned, and there was only one problem left in his mind - how to sell the surplus product.

That night, Xu Siyuan of the iron factory and Wang Qidong of the pharmaceutical factory came to Shitaizhuang, and in the study, in addition to Wu Cai, Liu Yu, the steward of the village, also came to the study.

"The situation, probably this is the case, the factory does not raise idlers, this is the foundation of doing business, there is no problem on the yarn factory, after all, the Liu family father and son downstream are contacting several nearby ones, and are building a weaving factory, in the short term, the iron factory relies on looms, shuttles, and flintlock pistols, it is not a problem, but in the long run, it is always necessary to think about it, please come over today, it is to discuss this matter."

As soon as he finished speaking, Shi Yiwen picked up the teacup and waited for them to express their meaning by drinking tea.

"What Childe said is very true, although the iron factory is not worried about working now, but I think it will not last long."

Xu Siyuan broke the silence first.

"After all, whether it is a loom or a shuttle, there will always be a day when the market is saturated, and these things are simple in technology, there are many skilled craftsmen in Beijing, no one knows now, it is because the cloth village of the Liu family has not yet made money, and when they earn money, when Lugou cloth is sold all over the capital, there will naturally be someone to set up a new factory, and at that time, in addition to the craftsmen in our city, they will definitely follow the trend to make looms and shuttles. As for the "Thunderbolt Gun", we can't just rely on it to keep it, right? Besides, except for the Jimen side, it is still a matter of whether to buy it in other places,"

Like Jimen, Xu Siyuan also likes to call the flintlock pistol a thunderbolt, because the name sounds more imposing, which is also the habit of the iron factory. As the director of the iron factory, he naturally knew the reality of the iron factory, and the musket made money, but it did not necessarily last long.

Originally, he was worried about this, but now that Shi Yiwen asked, he naturally came up with his thoughts one by one.