Duke doesn't know much about the chemical synthesis method of gunpowder, but he has a certain understanding of the development of the process, and it can even be said that if he improves gunpowder a little according to Duke's method, there will be a qualitative change!

"Flint, have you ever thought about drenching gunpowder and turning it from its current powder form into small particles?"

"Wet, into small particles?"

After hearing Duke's words, Flint was like listening to a book from heaven, because in the field of gunpowder, moisture prevention has always been the top priority. And once the gunpowder is damp and becomes a block, not to mention increasing the power, it may be difficult to even ignite the fire, so neither the alchemists nor the dwarven craftsmen in this world have ever thought of wetting the gunpowder.

However, Duke knew that after the gunpowder was wet and made into small particles, it would not only not affect the combustion and power of the gunpowder, but also doubled the combustion efficiency.

The original practice of making gunpowder by wet was very dark. Some workshops drenched gunpowder with spirits, while others collected drunken urine from bishops, priests, and priests to stir the ingredients. But no matter how much condiment is added, the damp gunpowder will eventually be slowly dried. The unexpected effect appeared, due to the agglomeration of water, the gunpowder dried up and turned into particles, and the combustion power became greater. This is because the gaps between the gunpowder particles allow for the spread of flames, in the same way that a straw pile or cotton wool burns quickly, while dense sawdust burns slowly. The flame burns in the gaps between the particles, creating a violent explosion, unlike powder gunpowder, where a significant portion is ejected out of the muzzle before it is ignited.

After this discovery, the gunpowder particles behind are all made by hand, but there are inevitably errors in the circle of human hand, and if some particles are of different sizes, it will lead to negative time such as jamming the gun chamber. As a result, the human copper sieve appeared, and the use of shaking and rolling and the fixed size of the round hole of the copper sieve can make the gunpowder particles more uniform, avoiding the defects caused by the different sizes of the particles before.

And the surprise is not only so much, slowly the soldiers found that the granular gunpowder is not as easy to get damp as powder gunpowder, and it is more aspected when loading, and because of the great increase in power, the boring pressure when firing is also very high, so the amount of gunpowder can also be reduced to powder when loading, if it is still added according to the amount of powder gunpowder, there will be a great risk of exploding.

On the other hand, granular gunpowder can reduce the amount of gunpowder used by 50%, which greatly reduces costs. If there is any defect in granular gunpowder, it is only one point, that is, it is a little difficult for granular gunpowder to ignite in the musket, and it is best to use it in conjunction with powder gunpowder, so that granular gunpowder becomes the propellant and powder gunpowder becomes the ignition agent.

When Duke told Flint about the historical process of the development of granular gunpowder in the future, he was simply in a state of bewilderment, and it can be said that Flint never thought that the power of gunpowder could change from powder to granules. Even he still had a half-believing attitude, if this kind of thing was not said by Duke, it is estimated that he would not believe it.

"My lord, does what you said really work?"

"Of course, if you go further, after the copper sieve has made the gunpowder particles, then use a drum to rotate and polish, which can grind off the edges and corners of the particles, and further increase the convenience of gunpowder transportation and the explosion risk caused by the powder. As long as this gunpowder particle is successfully made, the power can be at least 30% the same or even doubled without changing any process and formula. ”

Duke replied with confidence, because these things were not made by him, but the results of countless wars in history, so he was very confident in the granularization of gunpowder.

In the face of Duke's affirmative words, Flint even if he didn't believe it now, after all, it was an order given by the lord himself. At the same time, Flint is still a little curious in his heart, that is, can he really increase the power so much by just turning the powder into small particles without changing the result composition of the gunpowder itself, as Duke said?

Practice is the only criterion for testing the truth, and if you want to prove whether this is the case, then you have to rely on the results of the following experiments. And the cost of this kind of experiment is very low, it is nothing more than making two copper sieves, which is much simpler than imagined.

After informing Flint about the direction of gunpowder granulation, Duke then went to Serra's metal lab. During this period of time, Serra has been working on improving the metal composition ratio of Storm Keep's weapons, whether it is the Storm Armor or the latest spring steel plate, in fact, there is Serra's effort behind this, making these metals more suitable for the position it needs.

However, this time Duke did not find Sierra for metal reasons, because the current metal craftsmanship of Storm Castle is actually enough to meet his needs. Even the development of firearms has reached the point where it can be used completely, and then the next step may not be ferroalloy, but towards the lightweight development direction of aluminum alloy.

However, compared to iron, which is chemically stable, aluminum is much more dangerous, and a slight accident can cause serious fire and explosion. Before the development of basic physics and chemistry, forcibly surpassing the development of the times is actually equivalent to pulling out the seedlings and helping them grow, and it is not a sustainable thing.

Therefore, Duke came to Senna this time to give him another task, that is, to develop more powerful gunpowder, even smokeless gunpowder! Because the current so-called gunpowder reform by Duke belongs to the kind of reform that treats the symptoms but not the root cause, and in essence, the current gunpowder is still a mixture, not a synthesis of later generations.

So the upper limit of power is already here, and now it's good that Hans smoothbore guns can be poured into them with gunpowder particles, and if Minnie bullets are used in the future, or more advanced modern firing bullets, then the mention of granular gunpowder and guns is still amazing, almost the same as the caliber of shotguns, and it can't be made into the standard rifles of later generations.

Without the standard barrel and caliber bullets of standard rifles, not to mention the problem of range, the most basic logistics cannot achieve a unified standard, after all, the amount of ammunition and guns loaded by each soldier cannot be exactly the same. This is the essential difference between a mixture and a synthetic gunpowder, and Duke wants Sierra to use his strengths as an alchemist to really make the synthetic gunpowder of the future!