"I heard you worked at the Roswell Armory?" The manager pinched his nose and asked.

"Yes, sir."

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Production of smokeless gunpowder and explosives, sir."

In the Q&A, the manager had a preliminary understanding of the situation of the Italian in front of him.

This man did work in the production of smokeless gunpowder, but was responsible for one of the precursors.

For the whole process of this step, you say that he understands, but to many key places, such as what stabilizer is used and what the ratio is, has been vague.

But you say that he doesn't understand, but he can tell the general logic and principles, and he talks endlessly.

The manager guessed whether this person was hiding his personal interests and waiting for the price to sell, deliberately hiding a lot of details.

Managers are cautious about hiring the person.

He came to Ramon's laboratory and reported the specific situation to Ramon.

Ramon listened to the manager's explanation, especially after talking about some of the principles that the man had said, and thought for a moment.

"I think he deliberately hid something about it, should we?"

Before the manager could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Ramon.

"I see!" He turned around and walked towards the lab, leaving the manager alone at the door, "I don't need that person to say everything, I'll be able to make smokeless gunpowder in no time!" ”

"What about that Italian?" The manager asked, looking at Ramon's back.

"Didn't he make explosives? Let's go to the explosives workshop first and do what he used to do. ”

After saying these words, the door to the laboratory was shut.

Italian Barco Pinault was temporarily placed in a nitroglycerin production workshop.

At that time, nitroglycerin was mainly produced by mixing nitric acid with double the mass of sulfuric acid at a time.

After cooling, add glycerin drop by drop, pour the liquid after the reaction into the water tank, and then separate the white oily nitroglycerin from the water surface, and the temperature of the solution must be kept at 20~30 °C.

The Italians, on the other hand, were assigned the task of monitoring the final cooling process.

Baco Pinault has one of the characteristics of an Italian, which is that he is very sociable.

Soon, he was integrated into the original group of workers on the workshop.

And his business, from the very beginning, was very skilled.

After a while, the workshop leader became more and more comfortable with the Italian, and even let him start working the night shift alone.

And on this day, Baco Pinault was on night duty in the workshop as usual.

It was early in the morning.

Today is a good day.

Ramon Dupont, the eldest son of the DuPont family, is said to have made a breakthrough in smokeless gunpowder.

Many of the technicians at DuPont's parent company came from Delaware.

They live in the factory nearby.

This morning, Ramon DuPont will show them the results of his smokeless gunpowder.

There was no one in the workshop except Baco Pino.

He walked around the workshop, casually glancing at the readings of the thermometers in the various tanks below.

The temperature is maintained perfectly.

After looking at the dozens of water tanks in front of him in a row, and looking at the dozens of water tanks left in the back, Barco Pino was a little irritated for no reason.

His leg hurts.

Pinault glanced again at the thermometer hanging from the pillar of the workshop.

The temperature in the workshop is also not too much of a problem.

There shouldn't be much of a problem in the future.

The Italian moved a stool and sat down at the door of the workshop, looking at the starry sky.

The starry sky on the Delaware River is truly beautiful.

Yesterday the manager approached him and told him that if the boss's smokeless gunpowder was successfully developed and decided to mass production, he could go to the new workshop.

The treatment there is a little higher than here.

Life seems to be getting better and better.

A smile tugged at the corners of Pino's lips, and he recalled the time when his manager interviewed him.

That manager asked a lot of questions about smokeless gunpowder.

Fortunately, I was smart, and I was fooled by a lot of details.

Now, it seems that this incident did not affect his joining DuPont.

It's not that he doesn't want to answer those questions, but he really doesn't know!

Italians have always been incomprehensible about these things.

Theoretical things, it's about enough to know about it, it's really unnecessary to figure it out, it's too tiring.

Now change to a new smokeless powder workshop, and the salary will rise; The salary went up, and I was soon able to save a sum of money and marry a beautiful Sicilian girl and have a bunch of children.

Looking at the starry sky, Pino's eyes gradually became misty.

He fell asleep.

However, in the workshop behind him, there was a thermometer in a cylinder that was reading well above the safety line.

Ramon Dupont was busy all night in the lab.

His mood was excited.

Smokeless gunpowder was finally developed.

He couldn't wait to show the engineers of the parent company how big the gap was between smokeless gunpowder and black powder.

Today is the day of his Ramon Dupont fame.

All doubts about him will dissipate.

Future! It's smokeless gunpowder and yellow explosives!

It's just a pity that his uncle Henry Dupont can't come.

Ramon Dupont stretched and walked out of his lab.

The horizon has begun to whiten, and the rising sun is about to rise from the Delaware River to illuminate the earth.

But Ramon Dupont's gaze was fixed on the factory not far away.

His heart suddenly tightened.

There seemed to be a fire shining there.

A worst scenario came to his mind.

Near that factory, there is more than a ton of nitroglycerin!

In the next moment, however, Ramon Dupont's image became reality.

That morning, residents living in the upper reaches of the Delaware River in New Jersey were awakened by a loud noise that had never been heard before.

Fishermen who got up early to fish on the river saw a mushroom cloud rising from the place where the "Repano" explosives factory was located.

The entire explosives plant was flattened by an explosion caused by the detonation of more than a ton of nitroglycerin.

Within the factory area, no one survived.

Including Baco Pino, who dozed off.

This included DuPont technicians and several members of the DuPont family who came to see the smokeless gunpowder display.

And, of course, Ramon Dupont, the next generation of the ambitious DuPont family.

Henry Dupont, who was recuperating in his estate due to illness, did not wait for the news of his few thugs sent out, but waited for the news of the explosion of the "Repano" explosives factory.

The veteran, who had been tough all his life, fell straight off his horse.

The white-haired man sends the black-haired man, and Henry DuPont is not only saddened by the death of his nephew, but also by the future of the DuPont family.

"Check! Check it out for me! ”

Henry Dupont, on the hospital bed, yelled excitedly at his subordinates, in exchange for a few violent coughs of his own.

He suspected someone was doing it!

Because that's how he used to treat his competitors.

The most likely is that Roswell's Chinese businessman!

But the results of the investigation soon came out, and the cause of the explosion was because the crew had forgotten to cool the nitroglycerin the day before, and the officer on duty that night did not find out.

The facts have been confirmed, the evidence is conclusive.

A month later, in Henry Dupont's villa.

"Boss, the products of the Roswell Ordnance Factory are rapidly seizing the market in the west, and even their products have appeared in gun shops in some states in the east!"

"Boss, according to our information, there are many members of the Gunpowder Association who are secretly in contact with Roswell's Ordnance Factory, trying to introduce smokeless gunpowder technology."

"Boss, there's a message from the federal side, hoping that we can give a professional opinion on the new smokeless powder bullets on the market."

One bad news after another came out of the mouths of the heads of various parts of DuPont.

They gathered around Henry Dupont's bedside, staring at the current head of the Dupont family, eager to get a turning point from his mouth.

Henry Dupont sat on his hospital bed, looking out the window.

His servant stuffed his back with a gorgeous cushion so that the old man could sit comfortably.

This West Point veteran has been at the helm of the family for more than 40 years, and the family business has grown in his hands.

He has experienced countless winds and waves in his life, so this time, he still has a way.

"Guys, please don't worry, I'm not dead yet, the DuPont family is still the DuPont family." The old man said slowly.

"Atkinson, in the name of the association, you are going to contact all the upstream raw material suppliers in the United States, and tell them that from today onwards, there will be a raw material embargo on that ordnance factory in Roswell."

Henry glanced at the managers in front of his bed, his eyes stoic and cruel.

"Although I don't know what the specific composition of that smokeless gunpowder is, I do know that without saltpeter, you can't make explosives!"

He looked around at the crowd, and there was a decisive majesty in his voice:

"From now on, I don't want a drop of nitric acid, a saltpeter mine, to appear on Roswell's land!"

"I'm tired." After saying these words, the old man waved lightly at everyone in the room. "Lester Berner stays, and the others go out first."

When the group had left the room, Henry called the man named Bernard to his side:

"You go and entrust the Pinkerton Detective Agency to find out where the people we sent to New Mexico have gone."

(End of chapter)