Since the news of the capture of the two deserters became clear, Ganquan Fort's war preparations began to intensify. Thousands of pine trees were cut down and transported back. The two mountains that were originally covered with pine trees finally became bare, and the next one was covered with pine trees.
The mountain of trees must be at least seventy or eighty miles away.
This can be regarded as a disguised form of clearing the country, including that some farmers living nearby either moved to the city or moved to other counties hundreds of miles away.
In addition to logging, mining coal and boulders is also a way to prepare for war. Needless to say coal, thousands of tons were mined in just half a month and piled up in the northwest corner of the city, enough for the soldiers and civilians in the city to use for a year. The Song army immediately stopped
After starting coal mining, they began to excavate large stones with all their strength. They quarried large stones from the stone mountain thirty miles to the south and returned to the city. This was to prepare defensive weapons.
Before dawn, thousands of soldiers ran out of the military camp, ran directly along the corridor to the city wall, and began physical training along the city wall. These were all soldiers who failed the physical fitness test. There were 6,000 soldiers in total, including 2,000 from Huyantong.
Soldiers, they were all good long-distance runners in the past, but in the past few years, they have been pampered and stopped training. Their physical strength has seriously declined, and none of them have reached the standard.
The soldiers were originally training outside the city, but they were worried that the Jin soldiers would come to kill them at any time. Starting yesterday, the army started training on the top of the city instead.
Although Ganquan Fort is called a castle, it is actually a county town. The perimeter of the city wall is fourteen miles. If you run around it three times, it will be more than forty miles.
At this time, Chen Qing was also on the top of the city. He had nothing to do with running training. He was inspecting the Song Army craftsman camp to test the fire kite. The fire kite was in charge of two master craftsmen, one was Hu Zhen, the master craftsman of the crossbow workshop, and the other was the master craftsman of the equipment workshop.
Xie Changzhi, these two people have their own strengths.
Hu Zhen is the chief craftsman of the Shaanxi Road Ordnance Bureau. He originally followed Wang Yan of the Eight-Character Army, and later Chen Qing. He is good at making crossbows. He made the giant crossbow gunpowder cannon installed on the big ship, and he also designed and made the small trebuchet.
.
Xie Changzhi was good at making large-scale instruments, and he was also good at making flying machines, that is, wooden birds, and the fire kite was one of the wooden birds.
Xie Changzhi and Hu Zhen were doing two things at the same time. The first was to install the second Thousand-Step Cannon, which was a super-giant trebuchet. Chen Qing had already obtained the detailed production album for the Thousand-Step Cannon throwing rod from the Ordnance Supervisor, and was just making
It would take five years at the fastest to make a throwing rod, and they didn't have time to mass-produce it.
However, Zhou Kuan, who was far away in Zitong County, accidentally discovered a throwing rod of a thousand-step gun in a boat shop in Chengdu. It was no longer known how it came to be in the boat shop. Zhou Kuan immediately bought it for twenty guan.
This time the army moved northward, and the throwing pole also went north together.
There is already a thousand-step gun in Ganquan Fort, and this is the second one.
The Qianbu Cannon was almost completed, and the finishing work was left to other craftsmen. Hu Zhen and Xie Changan began to go all out to prepare the Fire Kites.
The Fire Kite can be said to be a firearm with the highest technical content. It must always maintain a stable flight attitude, even after being propelled by gunpowder, and finally land accurately. This is not an ordinary difficulty.
Ganquanbao has conducted hundreds of improvement tests, and has basically solved the problem of accurate landing and normal flying posture. However, the biggest problem is that it deviates from the flight path and always flies off. The reason for this problem has never been found.
It has never been resolved.
Xie Changzhi has been conducting experimental research for three days. He is worthy of being the chief craftsman of the Tokyo Ordnance Supervision. After more than a dozen test flights, he found the reason.
"Reporting to the capital, the reason for the deflection of the fire kite is the kerosene loaded on the belly of the fire kite. The instability of the kerosene makes the flight of the fire kite unstable, so sometimes it flies straight, but more often it flies sideways. In addition, the wings
The size and thickness are also a bit of an issue.
I tried to fly the Fire Kite without kerosene, and after making slight improvements on the wings, I succeeded five times in a row."
Chen Qing asked in a deep voice: "Is there any solution?"
"The solution is to go back to the original, instead of loading kerosene, ignite the fire kite itself, and then explode over the enemy, and the burning fragments will scatter and fall."
Next to him, Hu Zhen added: "Another way is to soak the fire kite in kerosene for a few days, and then take it out to dry, so that the fire kite itself becomes kerosene, or find a way to make the kerosene into a slush.
Apply it to the fire kite"
Chen Qing said with a smile: "The solution of oil immersion is OK, that is, the raw wood is immersed in oil, not the fire kite, otherwise it will deform after drying, and the oil sludge is not applied properly, but the oil sludge is a good idea and can overcome the problem of liquid oil.
There are many disadvantages, such as it can be thrown directly after being lit, so there is no need to throw kerosene barrels."
"We can experiment!"
"As soon as possible! If it's too late to immerse the oil in oil, we can slowly improve it later and make the fire kite usable first." "I understand!"
At this time, a soldier rushed over, knelt down on one knee and reported, "General Zheng has something urgent at the East Gate. Please go there quickly!"
Chen Qing encouraged the craftsmen a few more words, and then hurried down to the city.
A group of merchants came outside the east city gate, consisting of more than two hundred strong mules. Each mule carried four large wooden barrels. Zheng Ping was leading the soldiers to check the supplies in the large wooden barrels.
"What's this?"
Chen Qing came down from the Dongcheng corridor and happened to see the caravan.
"It's the treasure we need most!"
Zheng Ping said excitedly: "Guess what it is?"
Chen Qing saw the black liquid in the seam of the barrel and laughed: "It can't be kerosene!"
Zheng Ping gave a thumbs up, "It's a good guess, absolutely right!"
Chen Qing was suddenly surprised and happy, and quickly asked: "Who sent this?"
The short and fat caravan proprietor stepped forward and saluted: "This is a small man's small contribution to the Song Army. We sincerely hope that Ganquan Fort can remain standing so that we northern Han people can still see hope!"
Chen Qing was really moved and quickly returned the courtesy: "Excuse me, what is your surname, the proprietor, and where are you from?"
"I am Han Dongtang, a native of Fushi, Yanzhou, and I am engaged in the wine business!"
"It turns out it's Dongzhu Han, please come to the military camp to talk!"
The soldiers drove the mules to the military camp and unloaded all the kerosene, a barrel of fifty kilograms, a total of eight hundred barrels, a total of 40,000 kilograms. Of course, this is not fire oil, just crude oil, and a few more impurities need to be filtered.
Only then did we get relatively pure Menghuo Oil, and in the end we could get about 30,000 kilograms of Menghuo Oil.
Chen Qing asked Han Dongtang to sit down in the Chinese army tent and asked, "How did you get this batch of kerosene?"
Han Dongtang leaned forward and said: "This kind of high slave oil is produced in some ditches near our Fushi County. It pops out from the ground. It used to be the exclusive power of the imperial court. There were troops stationed in more than a dozen oil-producing areas. Ordinary people were not allowed to secretly harvest it.
, but still couldn't control it, everyone used it to light oil lamps at night, and it could also treat scabies. Later, when the Jin soldiers came, no one took care of these high slave oils, and then every household collected them and sold them to pharmacies and groceries everywhere.
Shop, mainly used for lamp oil.
About the year before last, the puppet Qi government once again controlled the kerosene, but it was far less strict than the Song Dynasty, and there were loopholes. I planned to start this business because I knew the people in the government, but I heard from a friend that it was also a very powerful city defense.
Weapons, I’m thinking about getting some for Ganquan Fort.”
Chen Qing suddenly became interested and asked with a smile: "The kerosene is not under military control?"
"No, it's just the Fushi County government that manages it!"
"If I want to buy more, can I still get it?"
"More than a thousand barrels per month is fine, but any more may not be enough."
"I just heard you say that there seems to be a lot of it in the hands of the common people."
Han Dongtang smiled and said: "There is indeed a lot of inventory, but it is easy to collect it in the hands of ordinary people. The key is money!"
"How much does a fifty-pound barrel of kerosene cost now?"
Han Dongtang thought for a while and said: "The cost of getting oil for a humble job is one thousand two hundred cents per barrel, of which two hundred cents is the price of the barrel. The market price is two cents per barrel, including the barrel money."
“Are wooden barrels easily available?”
"Wooden barrels are produced in Suizhou and Yanzhou. They are easy to buy. Small barrels are cheap, but large barrels are a little more expensive."
Chen Qing nodded and asked: "Will you encounter checkpoints along the way?"
"There are checkpoints, but I am very familiar with the road conditions and can completely avoid them."
Chen Qing was overjoyed and ordered the soldiers: "Go get one hundred and fifty taels of silver, and then go find General Hu Yanyun!"
Of course Chen Qing would not miss this opportunity. They had a thousand camels. Each camel could carry 500 kilograms, which is ten barrels of kerosene. They could transport 10,000 barrels of kerosene in one trip!
Chen Qing said to Han Dongtang: "Please ask Mr. Han to collect folk kerosene for me. I will pay Mr. Han the usual commission for each barrel of kerosene. I would like to get 10,000 barrels of kerosene first."
Han Dongtang never dreamed that his trip to Ganquan Fort with the idea of helping Song Jun would actually earn him 10,000 yuan.