Fang La couldn't understand the true horror of gunpowder, but it couldn't be said that Fang La didn't have insight.

After all, Fang La was confined to the overall environment of the Great Zhou, and his mind was full of ideas that the Great Zhou had spent two hundred years not solving the various restrictions on firearms, so it would definitely not be able to solve it in a short period of time.

Jump out of the real conditions and make assumptions.

Suppose a firearm becomes very safe, ten times more powerful, ten times more range, and ten times more accurate. Not only that, but it has also become very easy to transport supplies, all soldiers can use firearms, and their own combat skills are no longer an important factor in determining victory or defeat on the battlefield......

What would that look like?

Fang La would not think about it, nor would he imagine the world after the high development of firearms, nor would Yu Yunwen, an important minister of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

If someone said in front of Fang La or Yu Yunwen that the future was a world of gunpowder and steel, they would definitely laugh until their stomachs hurt, and then torture all that person's thoughts in horror.

Gunpowder and steel are the only ones that show their true power.

Even if Fang La and Yu Yunwen could imagine the true power of gunpowder, they didn't know what direction to work intowards, because the steel of the Great Zhou Dynasty was not up to the mark, and the combination with gunpowder had just begun.

Li Xiang knows very well what kind of gunpowder is the most powerful, how to use gunpowder to be the most powerful, and how to combine gunpowder and steel, and he has been working hard.

After the first month of Shengxi's third year, Li Xiang's personal income soared again, but his money was still tight, and the expenses for preparing for the big wedding were cut out little by little.

Where did Li Xiang's money go?

There are too many places to spend money, but the back mountain of Mingyuezhuang consumes half of Li Xiang's income. According to Li Xiang's statement, the dozen or so top-secret workshops in Houshan, or laboratories, have just begun to spend money.

The back mountain of Mingyuezhuang is very large, with a downward depression in the middle, and it is rare that there are still a few small streams. The guards are carefully selected, the coolies who work here can never get out, and the craftsmen and protégés who work here are busy every day.

The back mountain never stopped, and bricks, lime and stones were constantly brought here, and this process lasted for an unknown amount of time.

The school field with the highest degree of secrecy in the back mountain does not make a roaring and popping sound for a day, and I don't know how long it will last.

Four-Eyed Boy, Tang Guohao, Carpenter, and Thunder Blacksmith, these four people stood on the edge of the school yard, staring at a huge wooden instrument more than six meters high.

Behind the four-eyed boy were a dozen young men dressed in uniform robes, holding pen and paper and a rope ruler, ready to record and measure.

The four-eyed boy was very worried because he wanted to speed up the progress and present a gift for his master's wedding.

"Fifty-third, start!"

Hearing the order, Zhuang Ding, who had a big waist and a round waist, shouted, picked up the big mallet and smashed it at the handle in front of him. Then the fellow quickly threw away the gavel and ran away with his head in his hands.

A large cuboid wooden box sank, and the iron shaft attached to it made a loud grinding sound, despite being coated in oil. The massive wooden structure was overwhelmed and made a "squeak" sound, which was the ironwood components squeezing against each other.

As the wooden box weighing 2,000 catties sank, the long wooden arm at the other end of the lever was quickly raised, driving two long ropes through the bottom of the instrument.

Two long ropes are connected to a net bag, and inside the net pocket is a black iron ball. When the long arm is raised to a certain height, the iron hook of one of the long ropes falls off from the long arm, and the iron ball in the net pocket "sizzles" whistles diagonally upward.

First, there was the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground, and after a dozen breaths, a huge roar came.

"Landing distance, three hundred and thirty meters!"

Hearing this achievement, the young man holding the paper, pencil and rope ruler cheered, the carpenter stroked his beard and smiled, and the blacksmith Lei clapped his hands and applauded, Tang Guohao was very proud. Not very satisfied, it is estimated that there are only four-eyed boys.

Four-Eyed frowned, took off his glasses, which were still fresh in this era, and took out the silk cloth and wiped them carefully.

The others were inconvenient or afraid to ask, but the old and old carpenter came over, "What's the matter, boy, are you still not satisfied?" This is much farther than the last throw, more than 300 meters. ”

The four-eyed boy didn't dare to be presumptuous in front of the carpenter, put on his glasses three or two times, bent over with his crossed hands and said, "Grandpa Cao, I didn't mean that it was not good to throw it farther." ”

"But the counterweight stone throwing machine is a new instrument, and the important thing is to have stable performance and accurate data."

"According to the prior calculation, the length of the long arm, the short arm, the hook rope, and the weight of the counterweight wooden box and iron ball are counted, and the landing point should be 280 meters, but now it is 330 meters......

In terms of ordnance, Li Xiang attaches the most importance to standardization, in order to minimize the influence of the personal experience of the sergeant. For example, when the counterweight trebuchet that had just begun to be studied, Li Xiang asked to make a parameter table in advance, so that the sergeant who operated the trebuchet could point where to fight.

After spending thousands of pounds of good iron and a lot of fine wood, the Four Eyes finally made the first counterweight trebuchet according to the owner's sketch, and immediately began to test it.

The iron shaft was deformed several times, and it was not until Li Mengkong specially approved Tang Guohao to enter the back mountain that the problem of low hardness of the iron shaft was alleviated. After joining the quenching and annealing process that Tang Guohao relied on, the iron shaft can withstand huge forces.

Some of the young people who taught in Mengxue were also recruited into the back mountains to calculate the flight process of heavy objects. They tried to find a way to determine where the heavy object would land in advance, so as to complete the owner's task.

The calculation process involves gravitational force, air resistance, parabolic motion, motion decomposition, material properties and errors, and the self-proclaimed all-powerful young Mengxue is abused to the point of incompleteness. But the young people of Mengxue did not lose their fighting spirit, and one young man, who was thin and short, had already begun to consider whether the air had weight.

There is a long way to go, and this sentence is not false at all for the four-eyed boy.

As soon as the problem of small batch production of simple ironwood lathes was solved, Four-Eyed began to work non-stop on counterweight trebuchets, and even his favorite arithmetic stopped.

After making significant progress in the black gunpowder caught by the radar master, he followed the owner to the south of the Yangtze River, leaving only the four-eyed boy to take the lead. Responsible for several projects at the same time, and also staring at the progress of more than a dozen projects, the four-eyed boy was tired to the point of collapse many times before lying down.

But every time Four-Eyed Boy thinks of the master and the owner of the village, that is, the ridicule he received before Li Xiang took power, and then thinks about the scenery of being young and rich and respected now, my heart is full of pride: What the master's sketch draws, I will make Four-Eyed Boy!

Sometimes the four-eyed boy is very strange, why does the master think that no matter what novel things he draws, after exploring them, he thinks it is very reliable?

The owner's idea did not fail once, it was so strange that it was simply terrible. In the end, the four-eyed boy can only be attributed to the fact that the owner of the village is a natural sage, otherwise how can the people of the village live a good life?

After a few Zhuang Ding made sure that it was safe, Four-Eyed Boy and Carpenter stepped forward to check the effect of the explosion of the iron-shelled gunpowder ball.

After several days of careful preparation and dozens of drills, the four-eyed boy dared to launch the test of throwing gunpowder in advance. Judging from the large crater at the center of the explosion and the scattered rubble, the gunpowder sealed in the iron shell was very powerful once it exploded.

Four-Eyed and Carpenter looked at each other, nodded in satisfaction, and continued to test the counterweight trebuchet.

Four-Eyed Boy wiped his sweat and swallowed his saliva as he turned around. The reactions of those who saw the effects of the explosion were strikingly similar.

There were few gunpowder iron balls, and all the next throws were stone bullets. After throwing twenty-four stone projectiles, one side of the trebuchet collapsed, the long arm bent, and the iron shaft fell to the ground, completely scrapped.

In the evening, the four-eyed boy, who rarely rested in advance, watched "Xiahou Yang Sutra", so he relaxed his eyes and didn't dare to look at it again.

The owner of the village has reminded him not to read at night if his eyes are not good, and Four-Eyed has always been very careful.

"The owner of the old village was rescued by the master, and I don't know if Zhuang Ding and the people of Deqing County have successfully suppressed the epidemic? In the event of an outbreak, Master must pay attention to safety. ”

"I don't know what the war situation in Jiangnan is, when will the master come back......"

In the mountain behind Mingyuezhuang, in a wooden building located on the edge of the stream, the four-eyed boy looked at the moon that was close to perfection and prayed sincerely for Li Xiang.

The carpenter and the blacksmith Lei still had something to do in the village, and after the test of the past few days, they went down the mountain overnight.

On the path, Lei Cheng took a torch, motioned for a few Zhuang Ding to stay away, and asked the carpenter in a low voice: "Black gunpowder, as well as a counterweight trebuchet, these two taboo things have been seen by Tang Guohao, is it okay?" ”

The carpenter tugged at his sleeves and whispered, "Do you think he has any other way to go?" It's easy to get on the boat, but it's hard to get off the boat. ”

"With his intelligence, he can definitely see a lot of things in the village. I haven't run before, and I won't run in the future, so don't worry. ”

Laughter echoed on the mountain road.