Early the next morning, Liu Yan and Zhao Yan rushed back to Wangjiazhuang together, and in the gunpowder workshop of the Firearms Supervision Office, Liu Yan didn't care about resting, so he asked people to prepare a lot of sulfur, saltpeter and charcoal, and began to try to produce granular black powder.

The gunpowder used in later generations of bird's gun bullets was all granular gunpowder, which could achieve a higher muzzle velocity after the bullet was discharged under the same chamber pressure. Bird guns that use granular black powder will greatly increase their power. In order to fight against the Qing army with multiple layers of armor, it is important to increase the power of the bird gun.

Not only that, granular gunpowder is more fully burned because of the larger air strike between the gunpowder particles, and the residue after the granular gunpowder is burned, which is conducive to the cleaning of the gun chamber by the bird. Cleaning the chamber of the gun is made easy, and the rate of fire of the musket can be increased.

Liu Yan first ordered people to take ten parts of the bird gun and use black gunpowder, put the gunpowder on the wooden grinding plate and crush it repeatedly until the black gunpowder was rolled into white and gray. Then Liu Yan took a little soba noodles with good water, added some water to the soba noodles with synthetic mud, and then thinned them a little. Then he poured all the buckwheat noodles on top of ten parts of ground black powder, and the black powder and soba noodles were combined into a white-gray ball.

During this period, Zhao Yan was dumbfounded, he didn't expect that the granular gunpowder that the defense lord said would actually do this, and even add water and soba noodles!

Then Liu Yan asked the blacksmith to make a porous iron plate, scrape the gunpowder dough with the holes in the iron plate, scrape off the gunpowder particles one by one, and put them into the basin. The particles of different sizes are then screened out with a sieve prepared in advance, leaving only the particles of uniform size.

After screening, half of the particles are different in size and need to be kneaded into balls and scraped into grains. The remaining half of the gunpowder particles were about the same size. Liu Yan divided the particles into five parts and dried them in the sun to obtain a kind of granular gunpowder.

Liu Yan didn't know how big the gunpowder particles would be for his bird. So he made ten kinds of black powder with different particle sizes, made five parts of each, and then took them to the shooting range to test them one by one.

After drying these black powders, Liu Yan used different granular gunpowders to target them.

Most granular gunpowder has a mediocre effect, and some particles are too large or even inferior to powdered gunpowder. But there were several small particles of gunpowder that showed themselves well, piercing two layers of armor at ninety meters. One of them, in particular, pierced two layers of armor over a hundred meters.

Zhao Yan was dumbfounded when he saw this, he thought that the gunpowder added to the soba noodles had been abolished, but he didn't expect that after processing, instead of being abolished, these gunpowders became more powerful, which was really incredible.

Seeing the effect, Liu Yan returned to the gunpowder workshop, used the best-performing particle gunpowder as a template, fine-tuned the particle size around the size of the template, and finally made ten kinds of particle black powder with slightly different sizes, and did the target test again.

Liu Yan was pleasantly surprised by the results of this experiment:

The best granular black powder pierced two layers of armor at a distance of one hundred and twenty meters, and three layers of armor at eighty meters.

The performance of this new type of granular gunpowder meant that Liu Yan could fire at the Qing cavalry before the most elite Qing army could shoot arrows.

Liu Yan immediately said to Zhao Yan: "Director Zhao has seen it, from now on, the gunpowder will be followed up according to this method, all of which will be made into this granular form, and this granular gunpowder will be used to make a new type of fixed ammunition." ”

Seeing the performance of the new gunpowder, Zhao Yan was very excited: "My lord! It's really admirable that new things are constantly being invented! ”

Liu Yan smiled and said, "I'm just reminding you on some key points, and in the future, you will have to rely on you craftsmen to explore on your own and constantly bring forth the new." ”

Zhao Yan respectfully received the order.

Later, Liu Yan ordered someone to take pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, and wrote down the best ratio of gunpowder for the special launch of the bird's gun: nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal are each 7 into 5, 1 into 1, and 1 into 5.

After Liu Yan finished writing, he handed the piece of paper to Zhao Yan and instructed: "Director Zhao, this recipe must be kept confidential and must not be known to outsiders. Moreover, the women and craftsmen in the gunpowder workshop could not know this ratio, they could only be responsible for the production and purification of nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, and the final preparation must be carried out by you yourself. ”

"This new ratio of gunpowder can greatly increase the power of gunpowder, and in the future, the fixed ammunition produced by the gunpowder workshop should be reformed from the source, and the granulated gunpowder will be produced with a new formula, and then a new type of fixed ammunition will be made with kraft paper, so as to maximize the power of the bird's gun!"

Zhao Yan was excited, Liu Yan was able to teach such an important technique directly to himself, what a lot of trust this is.

"Don't worry, my lord, within fifteen days, my subordinates will definitely let all the chief bird guns use enough new fixed ammunition!"

"Well, that's good."

In fact, Liu Yan also knew the best ratio of gunpowder for artillery launches, and the ratios of nitrate, sulfur, and carbon were roughly seven into eight, eight points, and one into four.

But now that the new army of Xiahezhai has a new type of bird gun, it can run rampant in all directions, so Liu Yan has no plans to cast artillery for the time being, and there are no professionals in his hands to cast artillery, after all, making bird guns and making artillery are not the same thing at all.

And at this time, Liu Yan had already checked all kinds of artillery on the head of the city in front of Xiahe Village.

The number of these guns is still quite large, and there are more than 30 guns of various types combined.

However, after Liu Yan checked it, these more than 30 artillery pieces were no longer usable, without exception.

These cannons are either rusty and corroded, or they were originally flawed, and at a glance they know that they are "cannon battles" that will explode, and Liu Yan even saw that the two mountain splitting cannons have not moved for a long time, and the rusty and deformed cannon bodies have been petrified together with the masonry at the head of the city, and it is estimated that they need to be chiseled with a chisel to move!

Therefore, Liu Yan was still ready to replace the new fixed ammunition as soon as possible, so he did not put forward the formula of the new gunpowder.

Then Liu Yan asked: "Now Director Zhao has a very heavy burden, if there are any requirements, you can put them forward now, and I will try my best to solve them." ”

Zhao Yan thought for a while and said: "The subordinates are okay with everything else, whether it is sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal or kraft paper, the supply of materials is not a problem, and the biggest problem now is the shortage of manpower." ”

Liu Yan nodded and said: "In this way, I will talk to Mr. Chen Bai in a while, it really can't be done, first mobilize some new army soldiers to come over for emergency." ”

Zhao Yan was overjoyed and said, "This is the best, and my subordinate Lord Xie supports it." ”

After the matter on the side of the gunpowder workshop was over, Liu Yan explained to Chen Xun and asked him to fully support Zhao Yan's production task, and then hurriedly returned to the city of Qianhu in front of Xiahe Village.

According to the course of history, if there are not too many deviations, there is not much time left for Liu Yan, but Liu Yan still has a lot to do to arm the new army.

After returning to the Qianhu Official Hall, Liu Yan found Yue Ming and Song Gongming of the Baihu households, and then asked Song Gongming to find all the leather merchants, grocers, and cloth merchants in the city, and held a "meeting" in the main hall of the Qianhu Official Hall.

Song Gongming was very quick to do things, and it only took more than half an hour to find more than a dozen merchants, all of whom were merchants who distributed leather, cloth and groceries in the city of Qianhu.

Liu Yan looked at the nervous crowd, smiled and greeted everyone for a while, and when everyone relaxed, he took out a few drawings and handed them to everyone for circulation.

"Look at the first one, called a belt, which is tied horizontally around the waist of the soldier, perforated evenly and inlaid with iron rings. Everyone, take a look, now give the official a price, the official will purchase 4,000 such belts. ”

The belt that Liu Yan wanted to purchase was to make it easier for soldiers to hang ration belts, water bladders, ammunition bags, medicine bags and other bits and pieces, and the style was the same as the belt of later generations, but there were many small rings on it for hanging items.

One of them, surnamed Zhao, said respectfully: "The belt drawn by the adult is actually similar to the leather belt popular in the Tang and Song Dynasty armies, it is not difficult to make, and the materials are not much. ”

At this price, four thousand belts are five hundred and forty taels of silver.

Liu Yan smiled and said, "One price: five hundred taels." At this time tomorrow, you send me a sample first, if the quality is qualified, I will pay you half of the silver tomorrow, and deliver it within ten days, how about it? ”

The merchant pondered for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, it's five hundred taels!" Tomorrow, the villain will come to deliver samples. ”

"Good!"

"Then you'll look at the second drawing."

"Adults drew shoes?"

Liu Yan said: "It's shoes, but it's a different shoe." These shoes are made of hardwood soles, wrapped in thick cotton cloth on the inside, and made of leather on the outside. ”

A businessman specializing in groceries said: "My lord, this kind of shoes is much stronger than ordinary shoes, and there are many lines on the hardwood soles, which should be non-slip." Then use thick cotton cloth and leather, which is not only beautiful, but also comfortable to wear. ”

Liu Yan smiled and said, "You are an expert, what you said is very right." ”

"I don't know how many pairs adults are going to order?"

"It's still four thousand. I don't know if you can do it, and how much does it cost? ”

The merchant said: "The villain can do it, but the price is higher, and it costs 300 wen per pair!" ”

If it is three hundred wen and one pair, it is one thousand two hundred taels of silver.

"One thousand taels. If you can, you will also come tomorrow to send samples, and the delivery will be delivered within ten days, how about it? ”

The merchant said with a bitter face: "My lord, don't be too ruthless in bargaining, a thousand taels of villains will lose money." ”

Liu Yan smiled and said, "Really? How much will a hardwood bottom and thick cotton cloth cost, and how many pairs of shoes can a piece of cloth make? The main cost is leather, but how much leather is used for a pair of shoes? Three hundred wen a pair, which is already a high price, and one thousand taels of silver, you still have some to earn. ”

The merchant didn't expect Liu Yan to be so good at settling accounts, so he smiled wryly, and then said: "Okay, according to what the adults said, the villain will go back today and make samples overnight, and come back tomorrow." ”

"Good!"

Liu Yan said: "Everyone, please look at the last pattern, in fact, it is a long cloth belt, you need to use a very strong cloth, one end is flat, and the other end is fixed with a cloth belt rope, the width and length are shown in the figure." I also want to order 4,000 pairs of this long cloth belt. ”

In fact, the cloth belt that Liu Yan wants is leggings, which can effectively help soldiers march long distances, which is of great significance in the new army that lacks war horses.

It can be said that from ancient times to the present, and even to the War of Resistance against the United States ~ Aid Korea in later generations, the main forces of the Chinese army are infantry, and the way of marching is on foot.

This situation will be reduced or even avoided after the leggings, and the soldiers will feel lighter during a long march, which can effectively extend the distance and time of the march, which is of great significance for war.

In addition, the leggings can also effectively prevent the bites of mosquitoes and leeches, and once the soldier is injured, the leggings can also be used as first aid, and in general, the role of the leggings is very extensive.

A cloth merchant said: "The long cloth belt that the adults want to make, the villain can supply it, the price, fifteen wen a pair, how about it?" ”

"Ten pieces and a pair."

"Oops! My lord, this pair of ten is too low, so let's add some more. ”

Liu Yan smiled and said: "You will also bring samples tomorrow, if the fabric used is strong and durable, I will give you the price of twelve wen a pair, how about it?" ”

The cloth merchant smiled and said, "The villain obeys! ”

Some people died, but not completely......