After the news spread, it caused a lot of sensation in Daye County, many mine owners who did this business have heard about it, and they have come to inquire about the news, and soon determined that there is indeed a copper and iron mine here, so there was an uproar immediately, some people tried to seize this land, ran to the county government to want to take down this mountain, but after inquiring only to know that two years ago, this mountain has been taken down by the Gao family, so each beat their chests and feet, and can only say that the Gao family is lucky to go shit, and actually buy a barren mountain, and can find a copper and iron mine.

So these people didn't give up and wanted to cooperate with the Gao family, but they were all politely rejected by Gao Huaiyuan, making it clear that the Gao family was going to eat alone this time, and some people still didn't give up, seeing that the Gao family was a layman in mining and metallurgy, so they privately connected together, and did not allow the miners in their own fields and pits to jump ship to do things for the Gao family, trying to technically block the Gao family.

It's a pity that Gao Huaiyuan had prepared in advance, in addition to recruiting these miners from the army, and before he started, he recruited one or two dozen old miners from several mines, and when the mine owners in Daye and the area jointly wanted to block him, he had already prepared manpower.

And after the news reached Liu Zhixian's ears, Liu Zhixian also shook his head and smiled bitterly, saying in his heart that Gao Huaiyuan was really a capable person, and he didn't say anything in advance, and at such a low price, he bought such a piece of feng shui treasure land in the hands of the government, at the beginning he didn't understand why Gao Huaiyuan wanted to take down this barren mountain, but now he finally understood the taste, it turned out that Gao Huaiyuan had long known that there were mines in the mountain, but there was no public news!

If it is replaced by other rich households, Liu Zhixian has to turn his head and knock him down, but for Gao Huaiyuan, he still didn't dare to do it, some time ago because Gao Huaiyuan was sent by him to serve in front of the army, Gao Huaiyuan's father didn't give him less trouble, and he secretly exercised to drag him down from the position of Zhixian, and now if he knocks on Gao Huaiyuan's bamboo bar, wouldn't it be tantamount to finding himself bored? What's more, Gao Huaiyuan is a person in his eyes, and now he is also a figure that he can't provoke, from the mouths of those who returned to his hometown, he heard a lot about Gao Huaiyuan's murderous people in front of the battle, as soon as he thought of this, he gave him a boldness, he didn't dare to find trouble with Gao Huaiyuan, so the government put on a silent posture on this matter, and after some inquiries, the other rich people who were doing copper and iron ore business also died down and did not dare to take the initiative to provoke the Gao family, so after a period of time, the matter also calmed down, Anyway, there are more copper and iron mines in Daye County, and I don't care about the Gao family.

Since Gao Huaiyuan made up his mind to open a mine, he privately purchased a large number of saltpeter sulfur and other materials, and selected good wood in the mountains to burn charcoal, specially circled a place at the back of the compound in a secluded place where idlers could not enter, and ordered Zhou Lao Wu to build a special workshop, and then transported soil nitrate, sulfur and other materials into it for storage, only took Jiang Peng into it alone, and worked until dark every day before coming out, and the two people mysteriously did not know what they were doing.

Anyway, Gao Huaiyuan's ghost ideas are endless, and people are gradually getting used to it, but this time Gao Huaiyuan seems to attach great importance to this matter, and strictly no one in the Zhuangzi is allowed to enter, and he takes out the young Zhuang Ding to be on duty in shifts, and there is no open fire to enter within ten zhang of the vicinity.

Fortunately, Huang Zhen also came back some news from outside from time to time, according to the news that Huang Zhenda heard that the battle of Zaoyang is now over, Meng Zongzheng led the army to garrison Zaoyang County, and Hu Zaixing led the army to join forces with Meng Zongzheng, which greatly strengthened the strength of the Zaoyang Song army, and firmly dragged the Jin army outside the city, and was not allowed to advance half a step.

It dragged the Jin army for three months, dragged the Jin army to a sleepy horse, and paid a heavy price for casualties under Zaoyang City, and at this time Liu Shiguang suddenly led the army from Suizhou to march and stabbed the Jin army in the back, Meng Zongzheng seized the opportunity, waved the army out of the city, assaulted from the front, under the attack of the two sides, the Jin army fell into a big defeat, and retreated to the Tang River again with its tail between its legs, and even Xinyang was not able to go, tens of thousands of Jin troops were chased and killed by the Song army, and the Jin army lost more than 10,000 yuan, and ran back to their control area all the way, This ended the Second Battle of Zaoyang.

And what made Gao Huaiyuan happy was that although he failed to participate in the final battle, Huang Yan and more than a dozen of his subordinates participated in this battle in Meng Hui's army, and no one was killed, and each of them made a lot of achievements, and immediately after the war, he sent a letter to Gao Huaiyuan to report safety, although Gao Huaiyuan did not know the process of the entire war, but he knew that the matter was far from over at this point, and the Jin State would not stop there, I am afraid that it would soon be necessary to attack Zaoyang and Xiangyang.

But he also expected that it would be impossible for the Jin army to cross the river to the south, and Daye County would at least have a long time to live in peace, so he replied to Huang Yan, asking him and those brothers to be very careful, not to be brave, the first task is not to make meritorious contributions, but to train themselves through the battlefield, and saving life is the first priority, these people are his seeds, and anyone who loses Gao Huaiyuan will be painful to death!

The news of the Song army's victory over the Jin army soon spread to Daye, and a group of villagers who went out with Gao Huaiyuan for the first time also returned to Daye County, Liu Zhixian in the county can not be regarded as an absolute clean official, but also a good official, as agreed to distribute the bereavement pension to the families of those who died, and did not deduct the money from the dead, which Gao Huaiyuan was very pleased to learn about, and immediately sent someone to Liu Zhixian to send a generous gift, on behalf of the families of those who died, thanked Liu Zhixian, and the rest of the county government officials Bo and others also had a gift, which can be regarded as Gao Huaiyuan's reward for their rejuvenation of the countryside this time.

With the passage of time day by day, the various projects of Crouching Tiger Village are proceeding step by step, the three dams were finally built with the efforts of everyone, and the waterwheel was also built by a group of carpenters led by Zhou Laowu, everyone worked together to install three large waterwheels on the dam, after the water storage, the water flow pushed the waterwheel to begin to squeak and rotate, it was really easy for someone to do things, this time they jointly built the three waterwheels The performance is quite good, although they have not been able to use the bearing, However, the bronze bearings made in Zhuangzi are used, which greatly reduces the friction of the waterwheel and makes the waterwheel run quite smoothly.

The first waterwheel was installed with a large stone mill chiseled by the stonemasons, and the squeaky ones were also put into operation, and they began to crush various raw materials all day long.

Gao Huaiyuan watched the progress of these projects every day, and saw that the hammer also began to be hidden in place with the efforts of everyone, and finally connected to the waterwheel.

In the afternoon, a group of people happily gathered in the blacksmith's shed, each with a look of anticipation, looking at the strange appearance of the large machine in front of them, only to see that this guy had eight hammers, and an anvil was placed under each hammer, which was quietly parked in mid-air, and the waterwheel temporarily lowered the baffle, and also stopped rotating, and a log was connected to the pestle as a transmission rod, and the newly made pestle hammer could be operated experimentally when the water gate was opened.

Gao Huaiyuan also looked at the big guy in front of him with the same excitement, this thing also condensed a lot of his efforts, although he had never seen what a real hydrodynamic pestle hammer looked like, but with the knowledge of machinery he learned in his previous life, he still worked hard to design this Gao pestle hammer, and with the joint efforts of many craftsmen, it was built.

As for whether it can work, although he has a certain foundation in his heart, he is still a little uneasy before he sees the real operation, and if it fails, it will be a big shame.

After some inspection and confirmation that all the parts had been installed correctly, Gao Huaiyuan took a deep breath and shouted, "Lift the sluice!" Water! ”

The muscles of the two blacksmiths standing on the dam were raised, and immediately slowly pushed the winch, and slowly lifted the sluice gate that blocked the water, and the crystal clear water immediately gushed out of the water gate and slapped on the waterwheel flap, only to hear the squeaking sound of the waterwheel, and then began to rotate slowly.

Eight hammers mounted on the rotating shaft also began to be driven by cams as the waterwheel turned, and they struck the anvils below them one after another, making a roaring sound.

As the speed of the waterwheel accelerated, the speed of the hammer also increased, and several young blacksmiths pulled out the red-hot iron bar from the charcoal stove next to the anvil, and put it on the anvil with large tongs......

Zhou Botong's excited lips trembled a little, although he had heard of such a fresh object, but when he really saw it, he still felt full of shock, and he trembled for a long time and said: "Okay! What a baby! ……”

With the operation of the pestle hammer, the work in the blacksmith workshop is much smoother, the original iron that relied on manual forging, now began to switch to the use of pestle hammer forging, both in strength and speed are more than manual a lot, and the blacksmiths now only need to control the iron on the anvil, you can easily strike iron, and these blacksmiths are happy.

Just after finishing the matter of the pestle hammer, Gao Huaiyuan plunged into the small courtyard in the corner of the backyard again, and continued to drum with Jiang Peng.

When he came to the open space outside the courtyard with a handful of black powder, Jiang Peng carefully handed over a fire fold, Gao Huaiyuan reached out to the small pile of black medicine scattered on the stone slab, only to hear a snort, the pile of black medicine surface burned, but the speed of burning was not very fast.

"Damn! Still no! Gao Huaiyuan angrily blew out the fire, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it vigorously, his head was full of sparks, and he didn't know who to find to put out the fire!

These days, he has been mixing gunpowder with Jiang Peng, and with him, a person who has a lot of knowledge in later generations, he originally thought that the configuration of * was definitely a matter of hand-to-hand capture, not to mention that he was still a policeman before, and he had no less contact with gunpowder and other things, so he didn't pay attention to this matter at all.

But what he thought was the simplest thing was in trouble, no matter how he adjusted the ratio, the * that was configured was unstable in combustion, and the results of several tests were not ideal, not to mention that the gunpowder burned insufficiently, and even could not be detonated normally.

Gao Huaiyuan sat on the ground, wondering what was wrong, anyway, now it seems that even ordinary can no longer be ordinary*, and it is not as simple as he imagined, he has already configured it according to the conventional proportion, but it is so unsatisfactory, it really makes his head a little big!

It's not a way to be in a hurry, Gao Huaiyuan pondered for a while, then walked back to the small courtyard, grabbed a handful of soil nitrate, held it in his hand, and suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, and he almost found a piece of tofu and knocked it down.

"Damn! It's the purity of the raw materials that has gone wrong! Look at my pig brain! The purity of the earth nitrate is not high, and if this can be configured with a usable gunpowder, it will be hell! Gao Huaiyuan patted his head and said to Jiang Peng beside him with a wry smile.

Jiang Peng looked at Gao Huaiyuan in confusion, but he vaguely seemed to understand something, so he asked, "What the young master said is that this kind of earth nitrate can't be used to configure gunpowder?" ”

"Hmmm! Yes, the ingredients in the nitrate are more complex, if you don't use it after purification, it won't have a good effect at all, I just forgot about this before, so I failed so many times in a row! It seems that the first thing we have to solve is the problem of soil nitrate purification, otherwise, relying on this kind of thing, we won't want to make good gunpowder for another hundred years! After Gao Huaiyuan found the problem, his mood suddenly improved a lot, and he stood up and explained to Jiang Peng.

"So how do you purify it?" Jiang Peng scratched his head and asked again.

"This is not difficult for us, go get a pot over, let's clear a place in the yard and boil the soil and nitrate......" Gao Huaiyuan began to beckon Jiang Peng to get busy again. (I won't go into detail about the manufacturing method of * here, and I was invited by the bureau to eat electric batons before the cold wind was written in the province!) ）

After a few days of busyness, the first batch of gunpowder in Crouching Tiger Village was finally born in the hands of Gao Huaiyuan and Jiang Peng, this gunpowder is configured according to the mature * formula of later generations, what is needed is its explosive power, when a dazzling flash of light was followed by a stream of green smoke rising up on the stone slab, Gao Huaiyuan finally laughed loudly in the backyard.

"Haha! That's the real thing! Let's test it! Gao Huaiyuan laughed while holding a wooden barrel filled with gunpowder, found a few small porcelain bottles, and beckoned Jiang Peng to walk outside.

Jiang Peng also followed Gao Huaiyuan towards the outside of the courtyard, but after a while, Gao Huaiyuan ran back with a depressed face, muttering inside: "Damn! I'm dizzy with joy! I didn't actually make a lead, if I had to point it by hand, I wouldn't have blown myself up! It's so busy these days! Looks like it's time to take a break! ”

Having said that, he still couldn't suppress the excitement in his heart, and immediately found some light cotton paper, sprinkled some gunpowder, kneaded it into a cannon twist, stuck the medicine twist with rice milk water, and drummed it up after drying.

In the afternoon, he made a few cannon battles in porcelain bottles, with fuses inserted on them, and then beckoned Zhou Hao and other close people to run to the back mountain outside Zhuangzi, and found a small mountain pass that was inaccessible to test his results here.

Although these people have also heard of gunpowder, and some people have seen firecrackers, Zhou Hao even saw fireworks once when he was in Shaoxing, but in their eyes, this kind of thing that will explode is full of mystery, this time I heard that Gao Huaiyuan actually made this kind of gunpowder himself, so the two of them ran to watch it with great interest.

When Gao Huaiyuan dug a nest under a stone, he put a small porcelain bottle filled with gunpowder under the stone, then exposed the lead to the stone, stretched out his hand to ask for the fire fold, turned his head to see several guys with their heads together, and stretched their necks around him to watch, and was startled on the spot.

"Looking for death, you guys? Don't let me stay away, find a place to hide, if this thing explodes, it can blow us all into the sky! Get out of here and find a place to hide, I'm on fire! Gao Huaiyuan reprimanded a group of guys with serious excess curiosity.

A few boys hurriedly ran to a distant place to hide according to Gao Huaiyuan's instructions, but one by one they still stretched their necks long, and even the timid Liu Er couldn't help but run with the corners of her skirt, standing behind a small tree and looking at Gao Huaiyuan.

After Gao Huaiyuan saw that the distance between everyone was almost not dangerous, he reached out and lit the medicine twist with a fire fold, and the medicine twist wrapped in gunpowder immediately hissed, and a puff of green smoke came out, Gao Huaiyuan and the rabbit turned around and pouted their buttocks and ran towards the place where Liu Er was standing, shouting while running: "Liu Er hurry up and lie down, don't hurt you!" ”

said that it was too late, Gao Huaiyuan jumped to Liu'er's side a few depths, grabbed Liu'er's arm, and fell behind a big tree.

At this time, the medicine twist was burned out, and everyone first saw a flash of white light under the stone, and then felt a sudden shock under their feet, and then a loud sound sounded in their ears.

After hearing a loud bang, the basin-sized stone immediately flew into the sky, and a thick cloud of smoke enveloped the place where the explosion occurred, and the sand, gravel and earth flew into the sky, and soon the sky was scattered like rain.

A group of people were all scared and fell to the ground......