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Sending Zeng Shuiyuan away, Feng Shaoguang couldn't help but feel a sense of crisis! History has deviated from the existing track, and now many things are unpredictable, and everything must rely on its own true strength to stand on the world. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info thought he had become independent, but he didn't expect to be affected by the Taiping Army, all because his strength was not strong enough!

Early the next morning, Liu Youqing, the acting secretary of the temple, reported that the saltpeter mine and nitrate smelting factory on the side of Jiuzhi Mountain had been put into operation, and the first batch of refined nitrate powder had been sent to Guiyang.

Feng Shaoguang hurriedly came to the gunpowder factory next to the sulfur mine in the Baoshan mining area in the west of the city. This workshop was left by the original Qing Dynasty government, and when Luo Xuan led his troops to fight, he specially sent troops to occupy the sulfur mine and this gunpowder factory. The door to the workshop was open, and several holy soldiers stood guard at the door. Outside the door, dozens of people surrounded the carriage and a large pile of goods, but the leader was Zhou Shengfu. It turned out that they brought nitrate powder from Jiuzhi Mountain, but they were not allowed to enter when they arrived at the gate of the gunpowder factory, so they had to find Liu Youqing, not wanting to alarm Feng Shaoguang.

Chen Shuitai came over, and the guards at the door let him go. The rigor of the gunpowder factory and Chen Shuitai made Feng Shaoguang very impressed. Chen Shuitai thought that he had delayed the time of the Holy King, and he was worried in his heart, so he hurriedly called for help and moved the gunpowder powder to the gunpowder factory together, which was a bit of a sense of making up for the merits, Feng Shaoguang saw this, patted him on the shoulder, and said that he was very satisfied. Chen Shuitai was at ease at this time.

It was the first time Feng Shaoguang had come to this old-fashioned gunpowder preparation workshop.

At the forefront, in the hall, there are several wooden ramps, the top of the ramp is a conical funnel, with scales inside, and the lower part of several ramps is aimed at a large vat in the middle at the same time. Nitrate, charcoal, sulfur and other substances are placed in the funnel, and they can be automatically slid into the vat through the wooden ramp, mixed together, and prepared into gunpowder.

Further in the middle, there is a large patio, a greenhouse is set up above, and several large stone mills are below, which can be pulled by oxen or manually pushed and milled, with black and yellow. Obviously, the black one is often used to grind charcoal powder, causing the stone mill to turn black, and the yellow one is used for grinding sulfur.

Further back, there is a ceramic steam cylinder with a lid and a hole underneath. Feng Shaoguang didn't know what this ceramic jar was for. However, Chen Shuitai found several craftsmen who were originally in the gunpowder factory and explained that it was used to steam sulfur.

It turns out that the hot sulfur ore, although the sulfur content is higher, but there are still more impurities, gravel waste ore is inevitable, if it is mixed into the gunpowder, it will definitely affect the power and detonation effect, so there is such a process of processing sulfur, called distilled sulfur.

Feng Shaoguang thought about it, and he was right. The melting point of sulfur is not high, it seems to be only more than 100 degrees, with this ceramic cylinder filled with sulfur ore, heating, after reaching more than 100 degrees, the sulfur in the ore will melt into sulfur water, and the impurities of the stone and so on do not move at all, and then open the hole plug in the lower part of the ceramic cylinder, and the sulfur water flows out, which is clean pure sulfur.

I can't imagine that the ancients who had never studied physical chemistry would be able to apply this knowledge better than me, who had studied physical chemistry. Feng Shaoguang couldn't help but secretly admire.

Guiyang lacked a person in charge of gunpowder allocation, and the arrival of Zhou Shengfu just solved the problem of lack of personnel. Although Chen Shuitai is temporarily in charge of taking care of this gunpowder factory, he is not very familiar with the gunpowder configuration after all, and many mines around Guiyang also need him to send people to keep an eye on them, and now that Zhou Shengfu is here, Feng Shaoguang asked him to concentrate on taking care of the mine.

Zhou Shengfu didn't have any opinions. The saltpeter mine on the side of Jiuzhi Mountain has been put into operation normally, and the nitrate refining workshop has also begun to operate, according to the process method Feng Shaoguang said, some craftsmen there are also reliable people such as the old brothers in Guangxi, and there is no problem if he is not there.

Since it was decided that Zhou Shengfu would be in charge of the Taiping Holy Army's first gunpowder factory, Feng Shaoguang told him the best black powder formula he knew.

For a long time, from the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, although the formula of black powder is composed of nitrate, sulfur and charcoal, the power and effect are still very different according to the different proportions. Either there is too much sulfur or too much charcoal, and when it is used to fire muskets, the power is greatly reduced. Feng Shaoguang remembered that the best formula for gunfire black powder was the ratio of 15, 2, and 3, that is, the ratios of nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal were 75%, 10%, and 15% respectively, and it was used as gunpowder for firing gunpowder. The gunpowder fired by artillery was 78%, 8% and 14% respectively.

Zhou Shengfu hurriedly recorded with a pen that he and Zhou Shengkun, the two brothers, were the first batch of old people who were personally introduced to the Holy Sect by Feng Yunshan, and they were the most loyal to the Holy King. This is also the reason why Feng Shaoguang had to take their brother away in the first place, and it is precisely because of this that Feng Shaoguang will tell him this secret gunpowder formula.

After explaining the formula, Feng Shaoguang instructed Zhou Zhou Shengfu to arrange craftsmen separately for gunpowder configuration, and the proportion of the formula could not be revealed, and Zhou Zhou Shengfu himself could control it, and he could not tell others. At the same time, try to add some nitrate and sulfur powder to the old gunpowder from the former holy treasury to achieve the optimal ratio of the formula.

After finishing the affairs of the gunpowder factory, Feng Shaoguang led Zuo Zongtang, Huang Yiyun and Liu Youqing, the acting secretary of the temple, and then selected a few trustworthy Guangxi old brothers smelting craftsmen to come to the edge of the stone mountain in the north of Guiyang City.

The area around the mountain is named because it is full of limestone. Feng Shaoguang came here because he saw that the city wall of Guiyang was made of stone and blue bricks, which reminded him of one of the most commonly used building materials in later generations--- cement!

The preparation of cement is very simple, this is actually a layer of window paper, which is not pierced. The key is whether you can think of this recipe for preparing cement. In fact, as early as the beginning of the 19th century, Britain had invented a cement material called "Portland cement", but compared to the backward and closed Manchu Qing Dynasty, this is still a magical thing.

What Feng Shaoguang is preparing is also an ordinary Portland cement similar to Portland cement, but it is much better than it. He thought that the best found limestone, clay and a small amount of iron ore and coal as the basic raw materials, put it into the kiln to calcine the mature material, and then add a small amount of finely ground gypsum, to become Portland cement higher grade than "Portland cement".

Feng Shaoguang still remembers that although it is not very clear, it is roughly limestone accounts for seventy percent, clay accounts for five percent, coal accounts for one percent, and the remaining bit is iron ore. It doesn't matter if these ratios are more or less, but the hardening time and hardness of the cement produced are different.

The specific things will be organized by Zuo Zongtang. Because the largest raw material for making cement is limestone, Feng Shaoguang wanted to build a cement factory near Shishan to save transportation. Clay is available everywhere, and iron ore is a small percentage, so the biggest trouble is the transportation of coal. At present, in the southern Hunan area, inconvenient transportation and difficult official roads are the biggest difficulties restricting the transportation of materials. However, these are easy to solve after the cement is manufactured. Therefore, Feng Shaoguang instructed Zuo Zongtang to let craftsmen mine limestone reserves while building an earthen kiln for firing cement, and at the same time to transport coal and other materials as soon as possible. In this way, the cement can be manufactured as soon as possible.

Feng Shaoguang regretted a little why he didn't think of making cement earlier! It's really not that hard. However, when I thought about it, I was busy escaping fate from time to time, and then in order to occupy a piece of territory and establish my own power, I didn't stop, and I didn't have the opportunity to think about how to develop at all. It seems that it is time to think carefully about how to use your advantages ahead of the times.