Pu Zhen detained Mu Lingfeng, intending to force Lu An and Chu Yin to bow their heads, which finally triggered Lu Fa's strong retaliatory action, and then completely changed the nature of this operation, speeding up the speed of Chu Yin's restoration in disguise, and finally attracted the essential capital power of the four great families to go down in person, and united Xia Gang to participate in the feast of strangling Lu An!

As Wang Yuanliang said, the main reason why Lu An went north and went all the way unimpeded was the powerful power of the little black ball he mastered.

And after Xia Gang realized this, he seized the opportunity to crack the method of making the little black ball before Lu An solved Pu Zhen and turned his head to pounce on the capital.

It's a pity, just like the original snowflake salt formula, the method of making the little black ball is more important, how can Lu An easily let people crack it?

Since the order was issued, Xia Gang had to check the progress almost every day, and after five consecutive days, Zhao You, Sun Yue and Wu Zhongda had not improved at all.

Among the three, Sun Yue, the only one who has seen the power of the little black ball, only roughly knows the size of the little black ball, and he doesn't even know what the appearance is made of, let alone the ingredients used in it.

The more this is the case, the worse Xia Gang's mood becomes.

Every day that passes, it means that Lu An is one step closer to the capital with the little black ball!

Fortunately, five days later, Zhang Heming, on behalf of the four great families, finally arrived in the capital and expressed his sincerity to Xia Gang's full help.

The four great families clearly expressed their support, which finally made Xia Gang breathe a sigh of relief.

Xia Gang knew very well how terrifying the power of the four families of Qinghe Lu, Pingyuan Zhang, Gaoyang Wang, and Fuyang Zhang was terrifying.

In terms of financial resources, it contributed more than half of the imperial court's tax revenue!

The salt industry, mining, porcelain, mulberry silk weaving, and tea industry are almost all monopolized by the family!

One-third of the country's arable land is completely in their hands for a long time, and continues to expand!

You must know that in the Central Plains civilization, which is based on agriculture, there is only so much arable land, and one-third of the arable land is controlled by the family, which means that the family has decided the lifeline and policy direction of the imperial court!

In addition, there are also states, counties, counties and towns directly controlled by the Maison, and the number is also very large.

For example, Dongping County, the land of Longxing of the Zhang family in Fuyang, no matter how many dynasties have changed, its county guard has always been in the hands of the Zhang family!

The influence of the family is so great that the successive monarchs of the past dynasties have actually become the ultimate defenders of the interests of the family!

- Don't you maintain it?

Xia Gang also knew the harm of the family to the rule of the imperial court, and like the monarchs of previous dynasties, he also wanted to eradicate this cancer as soon as possible, and then strengthen the centralization of power.

But he has just been sitting on the dragon chair for a few months, and before his ass is stable, he has to face the trouble of Lu An, let alone deal with the family.

Sometimes when he calms down and thinks about it, Xia Gang hopes to be like Lu An, regardless of it, and beat the master to death with a random punch, and see that the Helu clan is not pleasing to the eye, and directly exterminate him with a clan!

But he is not Lu An.

There are so many gains and losses to consider.

At critical moments, the Maison's help is also needed.

This creates a vicious circle.

Knowing the danger of the family, they have to use each other, which is like drinking to quench their thirst!

However, seeing that Lu An's existence has become his number one threat at present, the family took the initiative to come to the door to express his help, Xia Gang couldn't ask for it, so he naturally readily agreed.

In fact, since Chu Yin actually controlled Jiangnan, the imperial court was no longer able to reach out to Jiangnan, and even if he wanted to investigate Lu An's method of making the little black ball, he couldn't do it.

But the family is different.

Just like what Mrs. Chen said, the Plains Chen family has been operating in Yangzhou for hundreds of years, even if they have to give up their ancestral business and move north, their influence has always existed, and it is naturally best to have the Chen family willing to help.

The current life of the little black ball was based on Chu Yin's reluctance to send troops to help, and Lu An had no choice but to do it.

However, he knew better than anyone what terrible consequences the method of making the little black ball would cause once it flowed out.

Therefore, every step of the purchase from the raw materials of the small black ball to the manufacturing process is cautious, and even after the raw materials are purchased for this purpose, the purchase record is directly destroyed!

But even so, it is inevitable to leave clues.

The Zhang family, represented by Zhang Heming, and the Wang family, represented by Wang Yuanliang, provided financial resources, and the Chen family used their connections in Jiangnan to devote all their attention to Jingyue Villa in Danyang County in the shortest possible time and carried out a carpet reconnaissance operation.

It only took ten days to basically master all the materials that Lu An had purchased before making the little black ball!

Half a month later, all the information finally gathered in front of Xia Gang.

In the imperial study, Xia Gang, Zhao You, Sun Yue, and Wu Zhongda, the four of them, took turns looking at the information submitted by Zhang Heming, and began to scrutinize intensively.

"5,000 catties of coarse cloth, 1,000 catties of hemp rope, 5,000 catties of talcum powder, 5,000 catties of borax, 5,000 catties of sand and 200,000 catties of charcoal, and countless broken iron nails ......"

"Your Majesty, if this list collected by the Chen family is true, I believe that there must be materials to confuse others, such as hemp rope, coarse cloth, and charcoal, it actually costs 200,000 catties, obviously impossible!"

"As for other talcum powder, borax, sand and so on, it should not be wrong, and when we test it later, we can also mix it according to the proportions of the materials purchased on this list."

"In addition, according to General Sun's description, after the explosion of the small black ball, there are indeed things like broken iron nails, I believe it should be used to increase the lethality, and it can also be used as appropriate at that time."

"And here, the four great families finally jointly deliberated, and as early as after Lu An returned to the Central Plains from the Western Regions, they purchased a large amount of sulfur."

"At first, Qinghe Lu thought that Lu'an needed sulfur to produce snowflake salt, but it turned out to be completely wrong."

"According to the investigation, in the past two years, in addition to buying a large amount of sulfur from the Western Regions, Lu An has also traded a large amount of sulfur with the Turks, and the amount is huge, I don't know how many."

"Besides, Lu An is the prince of the previous dynasty, maybe he has the intention of recovering the country, so the four great families boldly deduce that Lu An should have the intention of making small black balls, and purchased a large amount of sulfur in advance."

"In addition, sulfur has always been an extremely important military substance, and it has flammable properties, thinking that the small black ball mentioned by General Sun will produce flames after exploding, therefore, the ministers also think that there must be sulfur in Lu An's small black ball, and the proportion is not low!"

"Based on these factors, the minister and others finally concluded that the materials required for the manufacture of small black balls are very likely to include sulfur, borax, charcoal, clay, and talc, and the proportion of each material should also be reduced in turn."

"As for the final ratio, it can only be adjusted slowly."

Xia Gang nodded impatiently and said, "Immediately hand over Aiqing's conclusion and the information submitted by the Zhang family master to the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of War to co-organize, and strive to crack the method of making small black balls in the shortest possible time!" ”

Don't worry!

Nearly a month has passed since Sun Yue returned from defeat, and the spies sent by the imperial court to Suizhou have no news at all.

Xia Gang felt that the dragon chair under his ass was becoming more and more unstable!