Chapter 4: Gunpowder

Bidding farewell to Changsun Xu, the three of them continued to go south along the Bao River, all the way with birds and flowers, the road was along the river, occasionally needed to cross the river, sometimes it was a wooden bridge, sometimes it was to cross the river by stepping on stones. At this time, the river is not polluted, it is crystal clear at a glance, and a few small fish swim freely in the river.

In the past two days, the eldest grandson has also been diluted by the scenery along the way because of the suppression of bandits. The emergence of gunpowder means that human warfare is advancing from the age of cold weapons to the age of hot weapons, but all this is not as easy as imagined, otherwise China would have unified the world long ago with the invention of gunpowder hundreds of years ahead of the world.

First of all, the power of gunpowder is limited, otherwise he would not just risk scaring those bandits, and 50 catties of TNT in the future would be enough to seal the hole. You must know that China was the first to use gunpowder for war, not as some people say, the Chinese will only use gunpowder to make fireworks, and during the Yuan Dynasty, there were even earthen tanks driven by manpower in the early days, and it is said that during the Opium War, the eight-nation coalition army found well-preserved Ming Dynasty muskets from the warehouse of the Shenji battalion, which were more advanced than the standard weapons of the eight-nation coalition forces at that time. This shows that gunpowder is not a panacea.

Secondly, limited by technical conditions, the purity of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, the main components of gunpowder, is not high, especially saltpeter and charcoal, Changsun Tang can purify saltpeter in a simple way, but there is nothing to be done about the purification of charcoal, and the gunpowder in the Ming Dynasty even stipulates that wicker charcoal in a certain place is also because of the purity.

We modern peasants can build submarines and airplanes, because the development of society has reached this point, and we are thrown into a place where different networks are not connected to roads, even if the principle is understanding, he cannot build airplanes.

Therefore, the appearance of gunpowder will be applied to the military, but there are many restrictions on the conditions, manufacturing, preservation, transportation, power, etc. are all factors that need to be considered, and it is basically impossible to use it for opening mountains and blasting stones, so the ancients can only use it for entertainment.

Shaking his head, trying to get these thoughts out of his mind, Changsun Tang is a person who likes nostalgia and has his own opinions on these things.

At this time, inside the Wude Hall of Taiji Palace.

"Are you saying that the sixth child of the eldest grandson family let that group of Wang Shichong's men go down the mountain and surrender by pretending to be a ghost?" A man stopped his pen.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Although he pretends to be in the name of Taishang Laojun, he does not waste a single soldier. A man hunched over and said without a hint of emotion.

"You Zhao Rui have also been working in the Baiqi Division for so many years, is there really an immortal?" Known as His Majesty, it is naturally Li Shimin, the first emperor of the ages, but he frowned slightly at this time, and he really didn't believe in any immortals at all, although he pulled Lao Tzu as his ancestor.

"I don't know the secret, but I think it has nothing to do with the gods, it's just a pretext. But there was a thing in his hand that was incredibly powerful, and he used it to frighten the people to surrender, and it was called gunpowder. Zhao Rui opened a packet of powder and presented it.

"Well, but I don't know how powerful this thing is."

"You can open the mountain and crack the rock."

"Where are the people now?" If you ask urgently, you will answer more urgently.

"I'm going to Shuzhong. However, the formula and so on are all handed over to the eldest grandson's family, and the children of Hanzhong Zhichong Mansion Guoyi are the captain of the eldest grandson, Sun Xu. ”

"The eldest grandson's family, that's it. Let this eldest grandson Xu take the position of commander and set up a new mansion to take charge of gunpowder. Changsun Tang, Changsun Tang, why is this name so familiar? ”

"Pile up snow, stand up for snow, and keep filial piety." Zhao Rui briefly summarized everything about Changsun Tang in six words, which was very simple, but the vast majority of people's evaluation did not even have six words.

"Oh, he, this is not easy, let's see first!"

"Yes, the ministers will arrange it." The leader of the Hundred Horsemen went into hiding.

Li Shimin didn't continue to review the folds, rubbing his swollen head, a little bored, I don't know when it started, but his headache was getting worse and worse. The matter of the eldest grandson and gunpowder was nothing more than a tiny pebble cast on the surface of a calm lake in his heart, and a few ripples were cast, but they quickly returned to their original state.

Many times, things that are very important to us and very difficult, go up a level or change an attitude, everything will be solved, not that we are not working hard and not excellent, but that opportunities are more important.

The three of them continued to walk south, and a small river joined the Bao River from the right hand side, and a sandy beach stretched into the river at the confluence of the two rivers, which was as clear as the bottom. The eldest grandson knew that going upriver along the unknown river was not far from the burial place of Zhang Liang. In the history of China for thousands of years, the overt or covert struggle for power, wealth, beauty, etc. has never stopped, and Han Xin, who was at the same time as Zhang Liang, was killed in vain, while Zhang Liang, who knew how to advance and retreat, had to die a good death.

The eldest grandson originally planned to go to worship, but he was disturbed by the gunpowder incident and lost his interest, but he just felt that human beings have been fighting since their birth, first fighting with the sky and the earth, and fighting with people from the beginning of the three emperors and five emperors, a human history is a history of struggle, so the old man Taizu said in later generations: Fighting with the sky is endless, fighting with the earth is endless, and fighting with people is endless.

A person's life is also full of all kinds of strife, so the sixteenth chapter of Confucius's "Analects of Ji" says: Do not suffer from widowhood but suffer from inequality.

The eldest grandson didn't want to participate in the fight, but when he came to this era where he could eat and wait for death, he couldn't help but feel that he was not enlightened enough to do these things again.

The eldest grandson of Yixing Langshan walked on the road, and it seemed that even the horse knew that he was not in a good mood, and he kept arching his head on the shoulders of the eldest grandson, and the thick snort of the eldest grandson was itchy.

led the horse down the river, the horse lowered his head to drink water, the eldest grandson noticed the situation at this time, but the plank road in front was broken for some reason, and several planks that paved the plank road were hung messily on the cliff. Several workers with thick ropes tied to their waists are roasting the cliff with torches, tilting slightly, the person at the top of the cliff uses a winch to carry a bucket of water, and the other person pours water on the place that has just been burned, which is the use of the principle of thermal expansion and cold contraction to dig out a stone hole in the hard stone, insert the log, nail it with a wedge, and pave the plank road to complete.

It's very simple, but for a long time, it was only a few shallow indentations in the steep mountain wall. It seemed that it would take three people five or six days to dig such a hole for inserting logs, and Changsun Tang looked at the plank road that disappeared into the river bend, and he could imagine how much manpower it would take to complete it.

If only there were explosives. The eldest grandson stared at the workers on the cliff and thought to himself, maybe I could try to improve the formula of gunpowder and see if I could help them. Immediately, Changsun Tang denied himself, whether it was gunpowder or explosives, the first use of these things was war, and unless there were more advanced things, these things would not be used to open mountains. Maybe I still have a longer way to go.