For the sake of safety, Ma Cheng was more than 300 meters away from the test site, but he still felt a wave of air rushing towards him. Ma Cheng saw a burst of firelight, and then a puff of black smoke rose into the sky, and the sound could be heard for several miles.

It's almost dark now, and although Beicheng is not a densely populated area, there are many farmers living here. Suddenly, there was such a loud noise here in Beicheng, which naturally attracted the attention of the patrol inspection department stationed there.

No matter what era gunpowder is a prohibited item, not to mention that this is still in Nanjing City, the Beicheng Inspection Division quickly sent a team of 100 people to arrive, but Ma Cheng's firearms workshop has the approval of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry, and the inspection department that took the lead saw that the procedures were complete, so he warned and left with people.

At this time, Ma Cheng was taking the craftsman to watch the power of this thunderbolt, and the thunderbolt filled with gray gunpowder could no longer be called a thunderbolt, it could already be called a bomb. Ma Cheng came to the test site and saw a large pit on the ground half a meter deep and two meters wide, and a strong smell of gunpowder smoke filled the surrounding air.

In addition to the craters on the ground, the unlucky test parts were scattered all over the place, and the two pigs were a little better, one was pierced by broken porcelain pieces and a hedgehog, and the dead could not die again. The other head was not injured, but he was spitting blood from his mouth, probably from the internal injuries, and it seemed that he could not live. The chickens were even more unlucky, because they were too close to the point of explosion and were completely reduced to parts.

Ma Cheng looked at half of the chicken's butt a few meters away and said, "Wang Lin, what do you say about the power of this new type of gunpowder?" ”

Wang Lin has been engaged in gunpowder all his life, and it is the first time he has seen the power of this perfect ratio of gunpowder, and when he heard Ma Cheng ask, he quickly bowed down and said: "Second master, this new type of gunpowder is too powerful, about three times larger than the gunpowder configured by the villain, if it is used to defend the city, it will definitely be able to shock the enemy!" ”

Ma Cheng shook his head when he heard Wang Lin say this, this Wang Lin is too short-sighted, why does he only think about defending the city? The real use of this gunpowder is for muskets and guns, and with the blessing of this gunpowder, the range of muskets must far exceed that of its kind.

"Okay, Ma Shun, write a document to report the new gunpowder to the Ministry of War, and the inventor will say that it is Wang Lin!"

Although the officialdom at the end of the Ming Dynasty was corrupt and incompetent, the military merits of any dynasty were the heaviest. This new type of gunpowder must be able to bring benefits to Wang Lin, so when Wang Lin heard it, he quickly knelt down and thanked the second master for his grace.

This new type of gunpowder was completely completed by Ma Cheng alone, but Ma Cheng was the son of Shoufu, and this kind of honor could be seen there, so he could only cheapen Wang Lin.

"Wang Lin, get up, this little work is for you, just serve the second master and me well in the future." The second master is very satisfied with this gunpowder experiment, you have worked hard tonight, and you are making some of it, and the second master will use it tomorrow! ”

Wang Lin heard Ma Cheng say this, and hurriedly promised that he would complete the task even if he didn't sleep at night.

Ma Cheng's potassium nitrate is completely purified from nitrate, but this gunpowder workshop also has a large number of saltpeter in addition to nitrate, which is the best saltpeter transported from the northwest, Ma Cheng told Wang Lin not to use these saltpeter first, Ma Cheng kept them for an important purpose, that is, to produce nitric acid.

Saltpeter dry distillation can get nitric acid, pyrite dry distillation can get sulfuric acid, lard can add caustic soda to get glycerin, three parts nitric acid plus three parts sulfuric acid in addition to four parts glycerin, you get a simplified version of nitrified * glycerol. (Of course, it's not so simple to make nitro*glycerin, but novels all have gold fingers, just take a look, don't dig deep!) ）

Nitro*glycerin is dozens of times more powerful than gunpowder, but Ma Cheng doesn't plan to do it himself, nitrified *glycerin is very unsafe, and a slight shock can detonate, so this kind of thing should be handed over to Wang Lin and them to get it.

Ma Cheng lacks everything now, there is no shortage of people, such a dangerous thing Ma Cheng will definitely not take risks in person, and finding a few homeless people for them to do is the right way.

Because there was a weapon test tomorrow, Ma Cheng didn't go home at night, but stayed in the workshop, and the two unlucky big fat pigs were beaten. After eating, Ma Cheng used the rest time to write out the production process of a simplified version of nitrified glycerin.

Ma Cheng has never done this kind of thing, and it is completely transplanted into the travel novels seen by later generations, Ma Cheng is just painting a tiger according to a cat, so whether it can be produced Ma Cheng is not guaranteed. In fact, the new gunpowder has been far ahead of the times, until 1860 when Nobel invented nitrification * glycerin fried * drug, this gray gunpowder has always been the main gunpowder of the British army, so the gunpowder of the 19th century can completely beat the Manchu cavalry in the 17th century.

This night, Wang Lin took more than a dozen gunpowder craftsmen to work all night, and finally deposited all the more than 200 catties of nitrate in the inventory into potassium nitrate, and because of the proficiency of the process, the purity of the last batch of potassium nitrate can reach ninety, which has reached the peak of the Ming Dynasty technology.

Wang Lin used more than 20 catties of potassium nitrate to make a total of more than 30 catties of gunpowder, waiting for Ma Cheng's experiment the next day.

The next day, Ma Cheng got up and finished eating, accompanied by Ma Shun to the test site, Wang Lin had already taken a group of craftsmen to wait here.

Ma Cheng saw that one side was full of various standard firearms of the Ming army, such as thunderbolts, three-eyed guns, bird guns, etc., and even the small Franc machine got one. This is the first time Ma Cheng came into contact with the artillery of the Ming Dynasty, in the past, it turned out that this Franc machine was made of bronze, probably the iron performance of Nanjing was not good, and the Ministry of Industry Ordnance Bureau used bronze to produce artillery.

Ma Cheng picked up a Lumi gun that he was most familiar with, skillfully loaded the lead bullet gunpowder, and stuffed a thick piece of paper into the muzzle of the gun to ensure that the gunpowder gas could completely act on the lead bullet.

Ma Cheng raised the reloaded Rumi Gun and aimed it at the target in the proving ground. Today, three wooden targets were set up at a distance of 50 meters, 70 meters and 100 meters respectively on the test site, and each wooden target was equipped with a full set of chain mail to simulate the most elite armor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Ma Cheng first aimed at the wooden target fifty meters away, and after pulling the trigger, the fire rope ignited the gunpowder in the fire pool, and then the gun body shook, and the lead bullet was fired. This charge uses a new type of gunpowder, and the amount used is also a standard type of three coins, so Ma Cheng obviously feels that the recoil is much greater than the old gunpowder.

Fifty meters of the wooden target is very close, it is easy to see the lead bullet hit the target body, someone took the wooden target and handed it to Ma Cheng to watch, the new gunpowder is huge, in addition to penetrating the chain mail in front of it, through the one-inch thick wooden board and the chain mail behind it penetrates, if this is a person, it is basically not alive.

At a distance of fifty meters, it can penetrate two layers of armor, which is very powerful. Ma Cheng nodded and began to experiment again, and after dozens of shots, the experimental data came out quickly. It's okay to penetrate two layers of armor at fifty meters, and it's okay to penetrate two layers of armor at seventy meters, but at a distance of a hundred meters, you can only penetrate one layer of armor. As for the longer distance, Ma Cheng didn't try, the smoothbore gun used now can still maintain accuracy within a hundred meters, and more than a hundred meters can only depend on luck.

However, it is this kind of power that also makes Ma Cheng very satisfied, you must know that the effective range of the Ming Dynasty firearm is only 30 meters to 50 meters, and some shoddy gunpowder cannot kill people at all, but can only cause a burst of fire to scare the horses.

After trying the musket, the next step is to experiment with the Franc machine, which has a lead bullet the size of a fist, and the whole gun is only 100 catties, which is very light. Ma Cheng experimented and found that the firing distance of the new gunpowder could reach 500 meters, and if the old gunpowder was used, it was only 150 meters. Ma Cheng is also very satisfied with this data, the Ming Dynasty's tens of thousands of catties of Hongyi cannon has a range of only three miles, you must know that that kind of thing is placed on the city wall, and it can't be moved casually like this kind of small cannon.

It was already noon after the weapon test was completed, and Ma Cheng said to Ma Shun, Wang Lin and other craftsmen: "Very good, from now on, the gunpowder workshop will be fully engaged in the production of this new type of gunpowder." Ma Shun, you go to recruit people and collect nitrate, and do your best to ensure the production of the gunpowder workshop. ”

After Ma Cheng finished speaking, he took out the nitrification * glycerin production process written last night from his arms, and then said to Wang Lin: "Wang Lin, this is a new type of gunpowder, and the power is very huge, but you have to remember that this gunpowder is very unstable, you must ensure safety, and you must follow the procedure I wrote when processing it in the end, and you must not be sloppy at all, do you know?" ”

Wang Lin has been engaged in gunpowder all his life, so he naturally knows that this kind of thing is very dangerous, so when he heard Ma Cheng say this, he hurriedly promised that he would pay attention.

Ma Cheng sighed and didn't know if he listened or not, in fact, this kind of nitroglycerin didn't need to be done at all, and he could use new gunpowder to deal with the cavalry of the Manchu Dynasty, but Ma Cheng's strength was too small now, and there was no possibility of winning against the hundreds of thousands of cavalry of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so he had no choice but to pin his hopes on this weapon that transcended the times.

The matter here in the workshop is basically over, the next step is to wait for the transformation of the steelmaking furnace, Ma Cheng told Ma Shun to send a letter to himself after the transformation of the steelmaking furnace was completed, and then Ma Cheng rode on the horse and left Beicheng and returned to the Nancheng barracks.

Now 3,000 people have been recruited in the barracks one after another, because the training is in full swing, the daily consumption is more than 100 taels of silver, and half of the 10,000 taels of silver allocated by Ma Shiying has been used. Ma Cheng didn't expect the army to spend so much money, it seems that it is not unreasonable for the ancients to say that the cannon is ten thousand taels of gold.

Ma Cheng devoted himself to training in the next half month, and now the Ordnance Bureau has sent 2,000 Lu Mi guns, so Ma Cheng has begun to let the soldiers contact the guns.

On June 21, Ma Cheng was supervising the contact with the soldiers, and a herald outside the camp came to say that a member of the Ma family had come to find the chief soldier.

Ma Cheng thought that something was going on at home, but when he came over to ask, he found out that Ma Shun had completed the transformation of the steelmaking furnace, and asked Ma Cheng to open the furnace to refine the first furnace of steel.

Ma Cheng has been training for more than half a month, but he didn't expect the days to pass so quickly. Ma Cheng got up and changed out of his military uniform, then handed over the affairs of the military to Gu Changwei and Xu Dahu, and rode out of the camp to the Beicheng workshop.