As Zhang Pingbo said, the dragon king goes to sea, the heavy snow is coming, after a storm, Qinghai is cold around a day, the cold wind on the sea is howling, the wind cuts people's faces like a knife, on the eighth day of October, the sky floats a piece of goose feather like heavy snow, and the first snow in the seventh year of Tianbao is coming.

Overnight, the island was a white world, with a long mountain range stretching out like a giant snake with a white spine reaching out to the gray water, and dozens of soldiers were carefully sweeping the road up the mountain, sprinkling coarse salt to melt the snow and spreading a layer of hay.

On the top of the mountain, Yinglong City, which had already begun to be built, was also covered with snow, and more than a dozen soldiers were busy clearing the snow on it, revealing a large area of green and faint ashlars.

Yinglong City has been built for a month, there are already two people high, but they have now encountered a bottleneck in the construction of the city, that is, the lack of stone, the granite on Longju Island is extremely strong, it is difficult to mine, and although there are stones on the side of Shenwei City, but the Tubo army is eyeing the side, unable to transport on a large scale, due to the lack of stones, resulting in intermittent repairs, since the third day of October, has been suspended for five days.

More than 100 tents at the foot of the mountain are also covered with heavy snow, and the number of soldiers stationed on Longju Island has increased to 2,000, and another 1,000 people have not come here for the time being because the castle has not yet been built, but there are two temporary stone houses in the westernmost part of the tent, and several soldiers are coming and going in and out of the stone houses, and everyone has a serious face, which makes the stone houses even more mysterious.

At this time, the stone house was steaming, the vents had been opened above the left and right of the wall, and the north wind whined in, but despite this, the room was still filled with a choking stench, and a large clay pot was placed in the middle of the room, and the red charcoal fire was burning under the clay pot, Li Qing'an, the owner of Longju Island, had turned into a chemist, he was wearing a wooden gas mask, his eyes were red, and he was constantly stirring in the clay pot with a wooden stick, and from time to time he looked at the objects in the clay pot.

At the other end of the stone house, there was also a large clay pot, under which a charcoal fire was burning, the boiling water in the clay pot was boiling, and the white bubbles were bubbling with pulp, and several soldiers were busy around the clay pot, and like Li Qing'an, they also wore wooden gas masks, and endured the stench, and added the nitrate swept from bird droppings to the wheat straw grass ash in a ratio of eight to one, and then poured it into boiling water to dissolve and boil, and after about a quarter of an hour, a soldier shouted, "It's okay!" ”

The other soldiers immediately opened a piece of linen cloth and pulled the corners tightly, under the linen was a large wooden barrel, three big men wrapped the edge of the clay pot with cloth, lifted the clay pot, and slowly poured the boiling white slurry water into the linen cloth for filtration, the slag remained in the linen, and the slurry water was filtered into the wooden barrel.

"Alright, come again!"

The soldiers put another clay pot on the fire, poured the slag into the clay pot and heated and stirred it for another quarter of an hour, then filtered it again, and finally mixed the original white pulp obtained from the two filters and sent it to Li Qing'an.

"General! This bucket is ready. ”

"Okay, I'm almost ready here."

Li Qing'an's stirring stick was a little difficult, the clay pot was filled with the original juice of white pulp, and most of the water had evaporated away, becoming a syrup-like viscous liquid, at this time, Li Qing'an handed the wooden stick to the soldier next to him to continue, he took a long-handled wooden spoon, scooped out a spoonful of colorless viscous slurry from the clay pot, poured it into the bowl, as the temperature dropped, a cloud of gelatinous substance quickly appeared in the slurry.

"It's okay, filter again!"

Immediately a few soldiers came up and lifted the clay pot, cooled it slightly, and then filtered it again in the white cloth, leaving a clump of jelly-like colorless glue in the white cloth, and the brine was filtered out, and after several times of heating and dissolving and then filtering, as the temperature decreased, finally a full bucket of purified white crystals was obtained.

Li Qingan stood up and gently tapped his squatting legs, with a smile of joy on his face, this is the potassium nitrate crystals he boiled with the traditional soil method, commonly known as soil nitrate.

"General, does this thing work?" One of the soldiers asked curiously.

Li Qing'an smiled, took a small piece of solidified crystal, twisted it into powder, and threw it into the fiery charcoal, and the surrounding of the charcoal suddenly crackled and sparks splashed, and the soldiers were so frightened that they hurriedly jumped away.

Li Qingan smiled a little proudly: "See, this is a good thing." ”

Several soldiers sighed in unison, this thing can actually explode.

"That's it! Carry it next door and everyone continues. ”

The soldiers carried the purified soil nitrate to another stone house, and Li Qingan carried a small bucket of soil nitrate crystals back to his camp, in order to solve the difficulty of quarrying, he thought of black powder, black powder was invented as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but it has always been used in elixir medicine, no one thought of its other effect.

But Li Qing'an knew the effect of gunpowder very well, but he had not had time to calm down and think about it, and this time the quarrying was blocked and reminded him that maybe gunpowder could help him solve this problem.

It was not very difficult to get the formula of gunpowder, Li Qing'an got it from the hands of a monk when he was in Qiuzi, saltpeter was sixty percent saltpeter, sulfur was two into five, and charcoal was five percent into five, and they were crushed into powder, and mixed together to become black powder.

There is guano accumulated over hundreds of years on Longju Island, there is everything in the nitrate, and charcoal powder is easily available, and now the key is sulfur, there is no sulfur on Longju Island, and he still found two catties from the belongings carried by a soldier.

How many stones can two catties of black powder made of sulfur make him collapse? This made Li Qingan very worried, he sighed softly, put down the freshly mixed paper bag in his hand, and paced back and forth in the tent with his back, but the problem now is that there is no sulfur, which makes it difficult for him to cook without rice.

Li Qing'an opened the curtain, suddenly a large white bright snow light shot in, the north wind was unusually cold, wrapped in snowflakes falling all over the sky, from him you can look at the distant sea, the sea is boundless, no ships arrived, Li Qing'an was a little anxious, half a month ago, he heard the monk Fahai in the monastery say that sulfur is abundant in the middle of Datong Mountain, and it is natural sulfur, it is very easy to mine, he ordered He Yanming to lead more than 100 people to take two ships to look for mines, it has been half a month, but there is no news at all, Li Qing'an was worried that they had encountered the Tubo army, so he really couldn't do it, so he sent someone to Shanzhou to buy it.

He went back to the tent and carefully poured the packets of black powder that had been mixed into the small clay pot, which he had made from only one pound of sulfur, and although he had obtained the recipe from the alchemist, he did not know the intensity of the explosion, for which he prepared several kinds of gunpowder, gradually increased the nitrate content, and labeled the pot.

At this time, a report from a personal guard came from outside, "General! The grounds have been cleared. ”

"I'll go."

Li Qing'an picked up a few small cans of black powder and walked out of the tent quickly, the snow had completely stopped, and the island had become a white world, as if wearing a thick white coat, Li Qing'an took a few soldiers and rode away towards the south of the island.

There are three huge cols on the south side of Longju Island, two of which are used to store horses, and the other smaller col is idle and useless, just for him to test gunpowder, when Li Qing'an arrived at the col, several Tang soldiers were already waiting there, the col is not big, twenty zhang long, five zhang wide, black granite on both sides, the snow inside has been swept away, although the north wind is howling, but the col is very quiet, and the cold wind is not felt, which is very beneficial to the test of gunpowder.

There were a total of 20 Tang soldiers who participated in the test with Li Qing'an, all of whom were Li Qing'an's henchmen selected from the Jiangdu Battalion and the He'an West Army, and this gunpowder test was of great significance, and Li Qing'an confirmed that it was a top military secret, and ordinary soldiers knew nothing except a few generals.

The test platform is located in the innermost corner of the col, is a five-foot square bluestone, Li Qing'an personally put the clay pot on the bluestone, the clay pot is about the size of a grapefruit, and with a long rope soaked in fire oil to make a twist, the long drag out of a zhang, the other end into the clay pot.

"General, are you going to start?" A soldier who lit the fire asked in a whisper.

"Wait a minute!"

Li Qingan took a small wooden box and carefully covered it on the clay pot, looked left and right, and then nodded and said, "It's okay, let's start!" ”

Everyone quickly retreated to ten zhang away, curiously waiting for the miracle that Li Qing'an said, Li Qing'an was a little nervous, this clay pot is sixty percent of gunpowder, intuition told him, I'm afraid the effect will not be too good, the ignition soldier lit the oil rope, the fire burst into flames, the fire was extremely fast, in the blink of an eye, the ignition soldier was so frightened that he ran away, but he was tripped and fell to the ground all of a sudden, he held his head tightly, and did not dare to move, the sudden accident made Li Qingan's heart hang, at this moment, 'Bang! There was a muffled sound on the ground, and the wooden box was shaken up a foot high, and a puff of black smoke rose into the sky.

Everyone exclaimed in unison, and they ran forward one after another, talking about it, and the first time they saw gunpowder, although it was not as thrilling as Li Qing'an portrayed, it still startled them.

Half of the clay pot has been blown to pieces, and the other half has not moved, the bluestone slab is sprinkled with black powder that has not burned, which is obviously due to the gunpowder compacted too tightly, and it has not been fully burned, and most of the exploded pottery shards are embedded in the inner wall of the wooden box, but there are also several fragments bursting out, one of which is shot on the leg of the ignition soldier, making a bloody hole, and the wooden box is also shaken loose, but it does not fall apart.

"Shichiro, is this gunpowder?" Li Fei Shouyu asked curiously.

"That's right! This is gunpowder, how does it feel? Li Qingan asked with a smile.

Li Fei Yuanli next to him pursed his lips and said, "It doesn't feel good, it's okay to scare the horse, I'm old Li!" Just eyelids jumped. ”

"I'll do it again."

Li Qing'an took another jar of black powder, and the composition on the label was seventy percent nitrate, two percent sulfur and one percent charcoal, he couldn't remember the composition of black powder in later generations, but he vaguely remembered that the nitrate was seventy percent.

"Come on! Try this can again. ”

Just now the gunpowder was stuffed too solidly, this time he poured out a part, and shook the clay pot loose, then put it on the bluestone, covered the wooden box, this time Li Qingan did not use people to ignite the fire, but used rockets, they stood fifteen zhang away, slowly pulled the bow, a fire in the arrow burning, the string loosened, the rocket shot high, drew a parabola, accurately nailed to the oil rope, the oil rope burned, quickly burned to the wooden box, like a fire snake, 'whoosh! The ground disappeared into the wooden box, and before everyone could react, they heard an earth-shattering explosion, and the gunpowder exploded violently, and a puff of black smoke rose into the sky, and the wooden box was blown to pieces, and the debris of the wooden box flew high in all directions.

Li Qingan knelt down slowly, his eyes were full of excitement, and he suddenly smashed his fist on the dirt, seventy percent nitrate! Seventy percent of nitrate is the formula for gunpowder, and it took a few people next to him to react from the shock for a long time, Li Fei Yuanli's eyes widened, and he said to himself: "My mother, this is simply the power of the Thunder God!" ”

"Shichiro, let's do it!"

Li Fei Shouyu, who has always been calm, couldn't hold back the excitement in his heart, he struck with both fists, and said in a deep voice: "With this kind of heavenly thunder weapon, why worry that the Tubo army will not be destroyed, it is time for our Anxi army to make meritorious contributions." ”

Li Qing'an nodded and smiled at everyone: "This gunpowder still needs to be slowly perfected before it can become a weapon, but for the time being, I only think about how to blow up the rocks." ”

At this moment, there was a fierce sound of horses' hooves outside the col, and someone faintly shouted: "General! Checkmate! ”

Li Qing'an walked out of the mountain col quickly, only to see a soldier riding on a horse, pulling the war horse back and forth.

"What's the matter?"

"General, Captain He is back!"

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He Yanming did not disappoint him, and under the guidance of a local Qiang person, they found a high-quality natural sulfur mine in the middle of Datong Mountain, and they got thousands of catties of natural sulfur.

When Li Qing'an arrived at the beach, the soldiers were carrying a basket of sulfur ashore from the boat, He Yanming saw that Li Qing'an had arrived, he hurriedly walked two steps quickly, stepped forward and knelt down to give a military salute, "I am fortunate to have found the sulfur mine." ”

"I didn't encounter the Tibetan army!"

"No, there are local Qiang people as guides, avoiding the patrols of the Tubo people."

"Well done, I'll credit you this time."

He Yanming was overjoyed, he hurriedly moved over a basket of sulfur, and said with a smile: "I heard from the Qiang people that there is more sulfur on the side of Qilian Mountain, if the general is not enough, I can go again and get his mother's tens of thousands of catties of sulfur back." ”

Li Qing'an looked at the long-awaited pieces of red-yellow sulfur crystals, and his heart suddenly bloomed, with them, his black powder could be born.

He nodded, turned around and smiled at everyone: "With these thousands of catties of sulfur, our Yinglong City will be able to be repaired soon." ”

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With sulfur, Li Qing'an's black powder came out successfully, but how to turn them into a powerful Kaishan general, but Li Qing'an spent a lot of brains, black powder is not like explosives, a little bit can exert great power, it needs to be used in large doses, after thinking about it for a long time, Li Qing'an decided to make a simple and effective children's gadget, he was injured by a firecracker when he was a child, and left a deep memory on him.

Artillery is to wrap gunpowder layer by layer with paper, wrap it into a cylinder, and finally wrap it with a layer of iron sheet, when it explodes, the impact gas it produces is enough to break the hard granite.

It only took half a day's work for Li Qingan to get three cannon battles that were one person high and two feet thick, like the plastic cannon model hanging at the entrance of the mall in the festival, but it was a real thing.

This time, Li Qing'an did not do it secretly, under the watchful eyes of hundreds of Tang soldiers, three soldiers hung a cannon weighing nearly 100 catties with ropes, and carefully placed it in a huge rock crack halfway up the mountainside, the rock in this area was broken and relatively easy to mine.

After placing the cannonball, the soldiers dragged out the crack in its five-zhang long fuse and fixed the ignition end on a wooden plank, everything was ready, all the soldiers retreated to four hundred paces, blocked their ears with their fingers according to Li Qing'an's instructions, and left the rest to Li Qing'an to complete.

Li Qing'an rode a horse and stood a hundred paces away, slowly pulled the bow away, a ball of fire jumped in front of his eyes, he took a deep breath, the string loosened, and the rocket shot out according to a parabolic trajectory, flying away with an open flame guide cable.

'Click! The rocket was pinned to the wooden plank, the flame lit the fuse fixed on it, Li Qing'an turned his horse's head and galloped backwards, he only ran more than two hundred steps, only to hear an earth-shattering explosion, the whole island seemed to shake, his war horse was frightened, a long neigh, the front hooves raised, and knocked him to the ground.

Li Qing'an hugged his head, dense small stones flew all over the sky, crackling and hitting his body, slowly, he looked back with a side face, only to see a puff of black smoke rising into the sky, forming a mushroom cloud, the huge impact force collapsed the cliff, large rocks collapsed, and then looked at the soldiers, almost all of them became sculptures, standing or kneeling, everyone's mouth was wide open, and there was a look of horror in their eyes.

With the help of gunpowder, the stone for building the city came in a steady stream, and the morale of the soldiers was high, and they started to build the city together, and only twenty days later, the prototype of Yinglong City, which was three feet high, appeared.

In the afternoon of that day, Li Qing'an, as usual, inspected the progress of the construction of the city in Yinglong City, which covers an area of more than 20 acres, is tall and sturdy, and can accommodate 2,000 soldiers.

More than 1,000 soldiers were busy in the city, they used lime and flour to mix mortar, and built up pieces of polished and smooth granite ashlar, leaving no gaps, when the mortar dried, the city wall was extremely strong, the whole city wall was about one and a half zhang wide, and the middle was tamped with loess.

Li Qing'an walked up to several soldiers and asked with a smile, "How long will it take to build the city?" ”

The soldiers hurriedly saluted, and the sergeant led by the sergeant was Luo Han, the leader of the Han slaves who was rescued in Haixi, his injuries had fully recovered, and he rejoined the Tang army, he had rich experience in building cities, and was currently the commander-in-chief of Yinglong City.

He arched his hand and said: "General, in another half a month, the main body of Yinglong City can be completed, and the rest is some finishing work, at most there will be another month." ”

Li Qing'an nodded, "The progress must not only be fast, but more importantly, ensure that the castle is strong and can withstand the impact of the storm." ”

"General rest assured, there is absolutely no problem!"

At this moment, someone suddenly shouted, "General, look, beacon fire!" ”

Li Qing'an rushed to the city wall, only to see a thin wisp of black smoke rising at the end of the sparkling sea, which was the three reef beacon towers thirty miles away in the south, and Li Qing'an's heart tightened suddenly.

The Tibetans are coming!

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(To be continued)