Many people in later generations have heard of the flintlock pistol, but in everyone's eyes, it is a legendary antique.

However, at this time, in the Ming Dynasty, there was no more advanced thermal weapon than the firecracker, and the earliest flintlock pistol could not be introduced to China by Western missionaries until several years later.

To make a flintlock pistol, there are two difficulties, one is flint and the other is spring.

Flint, that is, flint, has disappeared in the era of developed modernization in later generations, many people have never seen it in their lives, and Tang Xidong has never seen it in his previous life, but when he came to Daming, he found that flint that could not be seen everywhere in later generations can be seen everywhere here, and every household will prepare two pieces for ignition and oil lamp.

Flint is not a very rare object here, and for Tang Xidong, flint has long been placed in front of him, as long as limestone appears, it must be mixed with a large amount of flint.

And the spring, after having steel, can also be made, but the performance is a little worse.

With these two things, the rest is good to do.

Although the blacksmith of the cottage is skilled, after all, he has already contacted and built the firebolt as the craftsman in the army, and has a certain amount of experience, and now the entire Pingyang Mansion is in the palm of his hand, and the Pingyang Guard is also controlled by him, and the craftsman in the army has many experience in making the firecracker.

If you don't need a ready-made master, how can there be such a reason?

With a single order, dozens of craftsmen who could make firebolts were summoned up the mountain and placed under the name of the blacksmith.

The newly recruited artisan households are separated separately, accompanied by their families, equipped with new houses, welfare for exemplary craftsmen, and dedicated artisan workshops.

The bearded clips were also transferred to serve as stewards of this group of craftsmen.

Before officially starting to develop the flintlock pistol, Tang Xidong had to do a good job of secrecy to be in good probe.

The development of weapons is different from steelmaking and iron, which is what really determines strategy.

The entire craftsman's workshop is isolated separately, and all daily necessities must be arranged and supplied by a special person, and all needs are met as much as possible, but outsiders are not allowed to enter without his permission, and the craftsmen inside must be accompanied by a special person when they come out.

A mysterious location on Luoliang Mountain has appeared in a secluded corner.

In addition to the research and development of flintlock pistols, there is also the research and development of artillery, and the research and development of artillery is relatively simple, after all, there is no knowledge of artillery Tang Xidong.

But there is one thing, which is definitely an epoch-making product, and it is a killer feature with great lethality.

But the premise of the killer is that another treasure needs to be made first, and that is gunpowder.

For Tang Xidong, among these things, the most familiar is probably gunpowder, because in his previous life when he was a child, he had seen others make it with his own eyes, and when Tang Xidong was young, almost all adult men in the village had used to use it.

As long as you have a pot, a shovel, and the ingredients, then you just have to endure the pungent smell.

But obviously, the raw materials of later generations have been extracted very pure, and they only need to be made according to a certain recipe.

And Tang Xidong is now facing raw materials that have not been purified.

From ancient times to the present, saltpeter and sulfur have been used as medicinal materials, and alchemists often use formulas close to the recipe for making gunpowder to add other materials to seek ethereal immortality, Tang Xidong of course knows that these people are actually a group of chemical researchers who are misled by superstition.

Before the Ming Dynasty, there was an emperor who liked to gather the world's famous alchemists to refine the elixir that could live forever for himself, but in the end he died under the pill with excessive heavy metal content.

The era of the nation's great alchemy collapsed and destroyed with the holy decree of the emperor who succeeded to the throne.

But the matter of alchemy and refining medicine for immortality has never stopped among the people, and after the father of the current Chongzhen Emperor ascended the throne, there was once again a "red pill case" that shocked the government and the opposition.

The red pill is the elixir of life refined by alchemists.

It can be seen that the people of the Ming Dynasty have never stopped alchemy activities.

In addition to saltpeter as a medicinal material, there is also a use, that is, to make ice, in the summer heat, saltpeter to make ice, can solve the heat, large households will generally store a lot of saltpeter, for summer heat.

Now in the early years of Chongzhen, the climate of the Xiaoice River has just emerged, and it has not yet been shrouded in severe cold, and the climate change is drastic, with no rain and drought in summer, and dry and cold cold winds in winter, and extremely low temperatures.

Large families in Binh Duong Province tend to prepare two things early in order to spend the summer and winter seasons comfortably, one is saltpeter and the other is charcoal.

In addition to saltpeter, sulfur is often stored in large quantities in medicinal herb stores.

Then there is charcoal, which can be fired by yourself.

To make black powder, Tang Xidong is imperative, and if there are no weapons and no gunpowder, he still can't improve the armed forces in his hands.

Therefore, in addition to the mysterious craftsman's workshop at the top of Luoliang Mountain, there is also an equally mysterious pharmacy.

Pharmacies are used to make gunpowder.

Saltpeter stored by large families in the city was collected in large quantities, transported to cottages, and sulfur in drugstores, and then looked for felled willow wood for charcoal.

Saltpeter and sulfur are raw materials that need to be purified, the method principle is the same, boiled in water for purification, repeated many times to obtain pure potassium nitrate and sulfur crystals, charcoal is easier to do.

And the formula of black powder is not worth scrutinizing and studying in later generations.

The pharmacy is like a craftsman's workshop, and you can't enter and leave at will, but one thing that can be trusted is that all of them are old people in the original cottage, and Tang Xidong also specially added that group of teenagers to it.

The most important thing for the whole pharmacy is safety precautions, and finally a process equipped with gunpowder must be far away from the pharmacy, and a vacant land is set aside to build a house to dispense medicine, and each dispensing needs to be quantified.

The prepared gunpowder is stored in the hidden cave in Shanyang, the cave is paved with bricks, the second is to spread lime, and the third is to cover the entire cave with bricks and stones, which is guarded by special personnel.

In addition to ready-made saltpeter and sulfur, it was taken into account that a large amount of gunpowder might be needed later as a reserve for a war that could occur at any time.

Tang Xidong also expanded a material production reserve workshop on the periphery of the pharmacy.

The source of the material is the desulfurization process in the process of ironmaking and coking, and the residue and sewage of coking ironmaking are collected and extracted by boiling and extracting sulfur many times to purify the sulfur.

Although it is cumbersome, and it is often proposed that a little sulfur crystal requires more than 100 times more residue and sewage, as long as it persists, it can inevitably be used as the main source of raw materials for gunpowder production.

Regarding the extraction of nitrate, Tang Xidong has also taken corresponding measures.

The public toilet model of the cottage is transferred to Pingyang City, there is a special person responsible for cleaning the public toilet regularly, and everyone has the psychology of taking advantage, and there is a toilet that does not need to clean up the dirty manure by themselves, and the common people have no reason not to take advantage of it, so tens of thousands of people in Pingyang City not only do not have too much to do, but are a little "in short supply".

There is so much demand that the number of public toilets has increased repeatedly.

Public toilets can provide a large amount of nitrate, so that people are regularly sent to clean and purify it, and there is a source of nitrate.

The dirty manure from public toilets can also be used to fertilize the cultivated land.