At this time, Jiang Qian opened another package, and there were purple-black grains inside, a bit like coal, but it was definitely not.

"Wei Xianfeng is well-informed, can he know what this is?"

Bailiyan (Wei Xian) took the purple-black particles, approached and smelled it, there was no taste, the feel was a little slippery, and I couldn't help but be a little shocked when I looked closely:

"This thing is not coal, where did the young master come from?"

"Governor He Dadu found this kind of black stone from the traitor's army warehouse yesterday, but the strange thing is that this kind of black stone burns when it encounters water, and it is extremely fierce, burning many soldiers.

When my son heard the news, he took some of them, and found all the craftsmen in the army to identify them, but no one knew about it, so he had to ask Wei Xianfeng to come and identify it, but I didn't know if Wei Xianfeng could recognize it. ”

Bai Liyan frowned, and said sharply in her heart:

"This is, calcium carbide!"

Jiang Qian was puzzled and hurriedly asked:

"Calcium carbide? What is calcium carbide? ”

The appearance of calcium carbide is very unexpected, because calcium carbide is a synthetic substance, and there are almost no mineral deposits in nature, so there is almost no possibility of obtaining calcium carbide through mining, and it can only be synthetic.

Calcium carbide is obtained by coal, lime, heated to 2,000 degrees by electric furnace, pure calcium carbide should be gray and white, industrial calcium carbide and calcium carbide with low purity is white purple, purple black.

Calcium carbide will burn violently and even explode when exposed to water. Nowadays, there is no electricity, and the only way to produce calcium carbide is to put coal and lime into a closed furnace, and build another furnace outside the furnace to smolder the coal and lime, and raise the temperature to 2,000 degrees in the air, so as to prevent the re-ignition of the innermost layer of coal and air, and at the same time let the lime and coal have a chemical reaction to form calcium carbide, which is calcium carbide [Note 1].

To say that with the current technical conditions, it is not impossible to obtain calcium carbide by chance, the furnace often needs lime as a refractory material to repair the furnace wall, and there is a probability of producing calcium carbide in the process of burning firewood or coal, and it is not excluded that the calcium carbide was discovered by today's people under unexpected circumstances.

But is this chance possible?

Bai Liyan felt more and more that there was a shadow of a modern man behind the Black Turban Army, like him, parasitic in this world, otherwise where could he get oil, how could he know that the use of air convection to create a blizzard, now that the calcium carbide is available, this possibility is not impossible.

But if you think about it carefully, why bother so much, just make guns and cannons directly, and it wouldn't be more convenient to match black powder.

Moreover, the calcium carbide made by the earthen process of furnace smoldering is more expensive than the electric stuffy method, the quality is difficult to guarantee, and the industrial-scale production cannot be realized, and the output cannot be very large.

The biggest feature of calcium carbide is that it burns when exposed to water and produces acetylene and carbon monoxide gas to support combustion. The city of Chenling is also the number one fortified city in the Xian country, it is obviously not possible to storm it, and it is not realistic to persuade it to surrender, so the only and fastest way is to break through the city gate and enter the city directly.

At that time, as long as the calcium carbide is piled up at the gate of the city and a big fire is placed, the Xian army defending the city will not have to desperately pour water, and this water will only be poured down, and the fire will only burn bigger and bigger.

At that time, the city gate will not be breached, and the 500,000 black turban troops can easily break through the city gate, and even the unnatural phenomenon that calcium carbide cannot be extinguished with water can also cause panic among the Xian army and accelerate the collapse of the city defense of Chenling.

Thinking of this, Baili Yan felt a chill on his back, the Black Turban Army had been invincible in attacking the city before, and it must have used the method of pouring water with calcium carbide to break through the city gate within a day or a few days.

The exception is Xiaocheng, which has a three-zhang deep pit in the city gate cave, and the pit has a raceway, which can send the corpse into the underground cave dug in the city. The pit is usually covered with huge copper logs, and the pit is supported by giant logs, so that it can be passed unimpeded. In wartime, the copper plate was removed, even if the city gate was broken, the pit could prevent the Black Turban Army from entering the city, otherwise Xu Song would not be able to hold out for more than ten days.

After a moment of silence, Bai Liyan said:

"Young master, this calcium carbide is fierce, it burns when it encounters water, and it cannot be extinguished with water, so it can only be covered with soil and buried to isolate it from the air."

Bai Liyan explained the physical characteristics of calcium carbide in detail, but Jiang Qian was still skeptical:

"If it's like firewood and coal, the Black Turban Army wants it to do something."

"Young master, the siege battle is based on breaking the door, followed by attacking the wall, and breaking the wall below. Breaking the door and dividing the collision, rushing, destroying, burning and other tactics, in which the casualties of the collision are very large, and the effect is difficult to last, but the damage is the greatest. The burning of the door is slow and has minimal casualties, but it is easy to be extinguished by the enemy with water.

However, this calcium carbide is different, as long as it is piled under the city gate, a basin of water is poured, and then it can burn violently. At this time, if the defenders of the city were to extinguish the fire with water, it would not be counterproductive. ”

"Shhh...... Isn't it witchcraft? ”

Jiang Qian asked rhetorically, Bailiyan didn't know what to say, where in the world is there any witchcraft.

"The last general dares to ask the young master, if the young master doesn't know that this stone can be burned in water, and the young master encounters such a dangerous situation on the battlefield at first glance, do you think it was done by the black turban army's demon magic."

Jiang Qian hesitated for a moment, didn't nod, maybe he was embarrassed to nod, and deliberately diverted the topic and said:

"Wei Xianfeng really has extraordinary knowledge, I don't know if Wei Xianfeng can prepare this calcium carbide for our army."

"I can't." Bailiyan decisively refused, even if he knew the manufacturing process, he couldn't do it.

Once the calcium carbide is popularized in large quantities, it is an inexplicable existence for the current defenders of the city, and anyone only needs to put the calcium carbide to the city gate, so that the water is poured and waiting for the city gate to burn through, unless it is an iron city gate, how to burn can not burn through.

Thinking of this, Bai Liyan began to worry about the production capacity of the Black Turban Army and how much calcium carbide it could produce per month.

With the current technical conditions, the furnace stuffy method can not produce calcium carbide in large quantities, and the quality is difficult to guarantee, the black turban army wants to produce a large number of coal, must have enough coal, enough human resources, must let the furnace temperature control above 2,000 degrees to produce calcium carbide.

If ten catties of coal can only make one catty of calcium carbide, then what is the point.

Therefore, the black turban army's calcium carbide cannot be too much, and can only be used for local siege battles, otherwise it should not take the tomb directly at this time, but has already won more counties and cities, obviously the number of calcium carbide is insufficient, and it can only be used for key battles.

The Black Turban Army is also a human being, if it can't win a higher-value strategic goal at the lowest cost and create an apotheosis that cannot be warned, where can more peasants be gathered to fight for them.

The appearance of calcium carbide undoubtedly accelerated the speed of their initial siege of the city, and with minimal casualties, they annihilated and forced down the regular army that was several times stronger than them, so as to continuously concoct the miracle of the deification of the Black Turban Army's high-level power.

Jiang Qian wanted to get the process of manufacturing calcium carbide, obviously wanting the Guangxin Army to also have the ability to produce calcium carbide for conquering the city. Seeing that Bai Liyan refused neatly, Jiang Qian did not have any doubts, or he would not believe that Bai Liyan had the ability of the Black Turban Army to conjure calcium carbide.

"That's it, I will report this matter to my father, and ask Wei Xianfeng to explain the inside story in detail, so that our army can prepare in the future."

"The last will obey."

"In addition, this fake gold was given by Governor He, and my son was embarrassed to return it, it is believed that Governor He Dadu copied more than 4,000 inches of gold last night, and the Black Turban Army is really generous."

Jiang Qian's words were sarcastic, but he didn't mean to complain about He Meng's kindness.

"Young master, the matter of fake gold should be reported to the three governors of He, Guan, and Xiao as soon as possible, so as not to disturb the morale of the army."

"Well, but this son thinks about it, this matter will inevitably lead to the dissatisfaction of He, Guan, and Xiao, so it is better to let Zhao Shuai personally intervene."

"What the young master said is extremely true."

Jiang Qian wisely chose not to wade into this troubled water, obviously worried that the fake gold would arouse the dissatisfaction and suspicion of other meritorious generals.

In addition to the part of the spoils handed over, in fact, many of them were filled by the generals, and the army basically acquiesced to this unspoken rule.

Leading troops inevitably has to encircle lower-level officers and soldiers, and occasionally have to pay out of their own pockets to improve their food. In principle, as long as it is not excessive, the commander will not care about the amount of loot, especially if he wins the battle under the extremely depressed morale, let alone the loot, presumably He, Guan, and Xiao must have taken a lot of fake gold in private.

They don't have many opportunities to contact gold on weekdays, and it is human nature that whoever has seen so much gold can't hold it to fill their pockets for future troubles.

However, fake gold is related to the lifeblood of the economy, and a large amount of inflow into the market is extremely harmful, and the huge logistical supply of the Black Turban Army may be due to fake gold.

Now that the things that fill their pockets are said to be fakes, what will everyone think in their hearts, they will only think that whoever provoked this matter will be happy and dissatisfied when they see the money. Fortunately, Zhao Xun had already known about the fake gold earlier, and it was easy to deal with this matter.

After that, he went to the Ruitian military warehouse with Jiang Qian to learn about the situation of calcium carbide, and He Meng transferred a thousand people after occupying the military warehouse, and He Meng's warrant was required to enter and exit.

The calcium carbide is stacked in a pre-dug pit, and there is a canopy on the pit, and the canopy is covered with oilcloth.

There are two piles of calcium carbide, roughly estimated to have more than 1,000 catties, the amount is not too big, the siege of the city in wartime is calculated by carrying 20 catties per person, 1,000 catties can be carried to the city gate as long as 50 people, and the entire wooden city gate is burned.

But obviously Ruitian is not the only military warehouse of the Black Turban Army, and there should be more military baggage battalions in the Black Turban Army. At five times, there should be at least five or six thousand catties, enough to burn the four gates of the Lingling, and also capture the palace.

He Meng got calcium carbide for the first time last night, because of the water on fire, so he took a "water coal" nickname, which is also appropriate, and then asked someone to pull a few catties and send it to Zhao Xun for inspection.

In the afternoon, Zhao Xun and Jiang Min personally rushed to Ruitian to reward the three armies for arranging defense, and at the same time there was a more tricky matter waiting to be dealt with.

Yesterday, the Black Turban Army captured 34,500 prisoners, captured 17 commanders, and 10,000 commanders, which was the first time that the Black Turban Army captured 10,000 commanders since the incident.

Among the 34,500 people, 50% were from Sun Guo, 30% were from Xianguo, and the rest were from Changsun, Zhiguo, Xu, Yan, Liang, Weiguo and other countries, which was basically the same as the situation explained by the previous captured enemy soldiers.

[Note 1] Calcium carbide was first discovered in 1836 by David Edmond, a British chemical valence in the study of acetylene, high-temperature heating of charcoal and potassium carbonate, and later due to the development of electric power technology and electric heating, the more inexpensive formula of coal, lime formula calcification process to achieve industrial production.