Zhang Xiaowu once studied some of Shenghan's technological products, that is, where the technology tree in Shenghan's history has developed, and looked for the emergence of the four major inventions. He successively discovered that Shenghan possessed papermaking, printing and Sinan, but only
There is no gunpowder alone.
The so-called firecrackers burned during festivals, weddings and funerals are really made by throwing empty bamboo into the bonfire, waiting for the bamboo joints to expand when heated, and then make a popping sound, instead of using black powder as the explosive material.
Later, Zhang Xiaowu figured out that one of the reasons why the Holy Han did not invent black powder was that there was a lack of sulfur in the Holy Han Empire, and the lack of sulfur was because there were almost no volcanoes in the Holy Han Empire.
The lack of sulfur made it difficult to make black powder, and the lack of black powder also prevented the Holy Han from entering the age of firearms. But with such a violent explosion and such a strong smell, Zhang Xiaowu was certain that it must have been caused by the explosion of a large amount of gunpowder.
Zhang Xiaowu liked to play with fireworks when he was a child. This hobby gradually disappeared as he grew up, but the smell of fireworks and firecrackers still existed in his memory. The air was filled with the smell of burning sulfur. He was even more sure that there was gunpowder here, because simple sulfur is very powerful.
Difficult to burn in large quantities.
"Could it be that the Fusang people mastered gunpowder technology before the Holy Han people?" Zhang Xiaowu was surprised, and then worried that the Fusang people would overtake others in a corner and conquer the Central Plains with firearms. Of course, early gunpowder could not greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the army, or even master it.
The Ming army with cannons and muskets could not defeat the Manchu cavalry of the Qing Dynasty who were riding horses and archery. The real replacement of cold weapons by firearms was the improvement of gunpowder formula and the invention of bullets.
Zhang Xiaowu hoped to find clues to the gunpowder. He ordered the Jintian Guild Hall to be surrounded layer by layer, and captured all the survivors back to the Silver Guard Yamen. After being tortured, he finally got an unsatisfactory answer.
According to their description, a few days ago, a group of guests from the Gunma Kingdom on the Fuso Islands came to the guild hall with several large wooden barrels. Since not many people from Fuso came to the Central Plains, the Fuso people usually gathered in several guild halls.
Among them, Jintian Guild Hall is one of them. Even if the guests are not from Jintian country, the innkeeper will not turn them away.
But the shopkeeper was very curious about what was in the barrels, so he asked his clerk to ask. The clerk replied that those barrels were ordered by guests from the Central Plains. That night, everyone in Fuso drank wine, and the people in Fuso drank.
He doesn't drink much but his wine is very poor. When he's drunk, he gets into fights and makes troubles and molests women. Since there are frequent wars among the hundreds of countries on the Fuso Islands, a war involving more than 200 people from both sides on the Fuso Islands is called a so-and-so battle.
, so-and-so fought together, and the years of war also resulted in a large number of male deaths. So Fuso countries invariably issued policies that Fuso women were not allowed to wear skirts and obscene pants, and samurai and men could forcibly have sex with servant girls.
No matter whose child a woman is pregnant with, she is not allowed to induce labor. The so-called servant girl refers to all women except noble women, including the king's maids and the king's warriors. They can do whatever they want.
That night, a group of Fusang people from the Horse Kingdom and a Fusang people from another place got into a fight over a woman. It turned out that the two groups were drunk and wanted to take the woman. As a result, the two groups fought together. When the fight ended,
When it was almost over, the innkeeper tied them all up and threw them back to their respective rooms.
The innkeeper learned from a drunken guest from Gunma Country that the wooden barrel contained flint powder invented by Gunma Country.
Jintian Country does not produce flint powder and does not know what flint powder is. The waiter was very curious and asked more questions. In order to get him to untie himself, the drunk Fuso guest took out some flint powder and lit it for him.
You see, the flint powder produced dazzling sparks immediately after being ignited. The guest said that he was a guest from the Central Plains who accidentally came to Gunma Kingdom and found that the flint powder could burn fireworks of various colors, so he thought of using fire in festival celebrations.
Stone powder sets fire.
But as for other information, they did not know. As for the story of flint powder, other Fuso people who drank in the guild hall that day also knew it. As for whether the explosion was caused by flint powder, they did not know. The shopkeeper of the guild hall also knew
He died in the explosion, but although the guy didn't die, his entire back was burned by the fire.
But some guests suggested that the flint powder must have exploded, because what they saw was a large spark shooting straight into the sky.
Zhang Xiaowu immediately returned to Beidifang, looking for the flint powder that Fusang said, and finally found some survivors underground. He smelled it carefully and was immediately shocked to find that these dark powders were actually black gunpowder.
His conjecture was correct. The Gunma people of the Fuso Islands invented black gunpowder before the Seohan people.
Then he immediately took the remaining black powder to the group of Fuso Jintian people and asked about the story of the flint powder. Unfortunately, all the people were burned to death in the explosion, and they only heard and pieced together the information.
"We don't know, but we know about sulfur. We call it medicine stone. It comes out after the volcano erupts." This group of Fuso Jintian people said, "Because we have many volcanoes there, it is easy to find medicine stones at the foot of the volcano. We use medicine stones."
Make soap. Soap made from medicinal stones can be
To clean the body and kill lice, fleas and other insects. Sir, you know, we Fuso people like to take a bath almost every day, so we use medicinal stones to make soap, but we never regard them as explosives.
We don’t have flint powder in Jintian Country either.”
"Are there any survivors among the horsemen who sent flint powder?"
"They're all dead. They were all burned or blown up."
"Do you know who they are planning to sell the flint powder to?"
"I don't know. This is a commercial secret and we have no way of knowing."
For transporting so much flint powder (black powder) to Longdu City and selling it to the Central Plains people, either the Fusang people were lying, or someone had ulterior motives and even used it to kill people.
No matter what kind of speculation it was, it would be a huge harm to Long. Zhang Xiaowu had someone tell Jin Yiwei about the matter, but Jin Yiwei actually started to take a vacation.
It turns out that Jin Yiwei saw that Yin Yiwei had a holiday at the end of the year - and even gave out a year-end bonus. He couldn't sit still. He was trying to compare people to death, and he had to throw away goods when comparing goods! Jin Yiwei didn't have any money to use to reward everyone.
, so they could only take more holidays. They had a full month off from the 20th of the twelfth lunar month to the twentieth of the first lunar month.
In the Jinyiwei Yamen, except for some guards, all managers are on vacation for a month and are not here.
Emperor Dade urgently summoned Zhang Xiaowu to the palace to inquire about the huge explosion last night. Zhang Xiaowu explained black gunpowder to Emperor Dade, explained how black gunpowder could evolve into a thermal weapon, and analyzed its great role and development potential.
When talking about excitement, Zhang Xiaowu said: "Whoever masters gunpowder technology will control the world. If a small country has gunpowder, it can even conquer the Central Plains."
The Emperor was stunned when he heard this, but he only thought it was a fantasy because he had never seen black powder and did not believe in its power.
Zhang Xiaowu knew that the emperor did not believe him, so he had to take out the last surviving black powder for an experiment. However, the experiment failed because the black powder not only did not explode, but did not even burn.
Zhang Xiaowu was very embarrassed, why did this black powder fail?
The Emperor smiled and asked, "This is something that can explode. Doesn't it look like it?"
Later, there were rumors that God was punishing the foolish king. First, a fairy appeared in the south of the Yangtze River, and then thunder struck Longdu. In the Holy Han Dynasty, a foolish king was in power, and corrupt officials were rampant. In less than three years, the Holy Han Dynasty would surely
Death.
The rumor reached the ears of Emperor Dade. The emperor was furious and ordered Jin Yiwei to return to his post immediately to investigate the case.
Zhang Xiaowu immediately handed over all the clues to Jin Yiwei. Jin Yiwei's deputy commander Sifang, who had always been elusive, even went to the Yin Yiwei Yamen in person to express his gratitude. He was a relatively reclusive person and would not appear in front of everyone easily. He did not expect this
The first time I personally visited Zhang Xiaowu because of the big explosion incident, and Zhang Xiaowu immediately treated me well.
Regarding the big explosion in Beidifang, Zhang Xiaowu told Sifang his conjecture, and Sifang said: "You mean, black gunpowder, that is, flint powder, will become a weapon on the battlefield in the future?"
Zhang Xiaowu nodded and said: "I am the commander of the border army, and I am more sensitive to weapons and war than anyone else. I think that once flint powder is developed and utilized in large quantities, it is very likely to be a weapon for siege, and even the indestructible two wolves.
It may be destroyed." Of course he was not an alarmist, but others had never seen thermal weapons, so it was difficult for them to understand what a large-scale destruction weapon was.
In everyone's eyes, the most damaging weapon is the chariot. However, the battlefield has long been outdated, and the progress of war has caused the battlefield to no longer be a weapon, but a ceremonial tool. There are chariots on display in the palace, but
It was the emperor's vehicle when he inspected the Imperial Guard.
Regarding Zhang Xiaowu's concerns, the four parties took Zhang Xiaowu's concerns very seriously and began to supervise the case, but at the same time he also said: "The Jin Yiwei are indeed better than the Silver Yiwei in investigating the case, but the Silver Yiwei are better than the Jin Yiwei in gathering information.
Therefore, we still need to learn from each other’s strengths and cooperate with each other. In this case, you will investigate it openly, and we will investigate it covertly, so we can work together.”
Zhang Xiaowu became interested and asked: "How can we advance together?"
Sifang said: "You used the excuse that the flint powder has not declared taxes to trace the causes and consequences of the flint powder, and thoroughly investigated the undeclared tax items in Longdu, so you blatantly looked for flint powder in other places and alerted the snake. But we secretly searched for connections with the Fusang people.
Contact the Central Plains businessmen to see what their purpose is. I am worried that this matter is related to the Sky Fire Sect."
"This - deputy commander of the Quartet, you must know that two-thirds of the Silver Guards are on vacation now." Zhang Xiaowu smiled bitterly, "and it is the Chinese New Year, so conducting a thorough investigation of Longdu City with such a big fanfare will probably cause public resentment."
Sifang slapped his head and forgot about the current time. He was really pressed by the emperor. But if he didn't conduct such a painstaking investigation, how could he find the truth about the explosion. Fortunately, Zhang Xiaowu agreed and would definitely help as much as possible.
The Jinyiwei will investigate the case and will never let anyone disrupt Longdu City again.
After sending Sifang and others away, Zhang Xiaowu came to Beidifang again. In the ruins of Jintian Guild Hall, Zhang Xiaowu looked for possible clues. Wang Yijin followed him and asked: "Sir, what are you looking for?
"
Zhang Xiaowu said: "I don't know, maybe it's of no use at all."
Chen Guanxi asked: "Didn't this case be transferred to Jin Yiwei?"
Zhang Xiaowu said: "I'm not here for the case, I'm looking for flint powder and clues about flint powder."
Wang Yijin asked: "Sir, do you want to make flint powder?"
"right."
"But flint powder needs some kind of sulfur, yes, it's called sulfur." Wang Yijin said, "So I have to go to the Fuso Islands. I also doubt what this sulfur is."
Zhang Xiaowu squatted on the ground and rummaged around, and suddenly found something underneath a piece of burnt wood. He looked through it and found that it was a piece of rag that had been burned to ashes. He plucked it with a purple gold mace, and the rag immediately
It turned into ashes, and among the ashes was a somewhat deformed iron block. He picked up the iron block and saw that the iron block had been melted to the point of being disfigured, but the corners of the iron block still felt familiar.
The cold feeling spread from his fingertips to his brain. Zhang Xiaowu felt a thrill, but at this moment he smelled a strong fragrance along the wind. He looked up the wind and saw three tall and beautiful Beiyi people.
The woman Pinpin Tingting stood not far away. Beiyi women were generally tall because Beiyi women had long legs and their body proportions were much better than those of Sage Han women.
"My nose is so sharp that I can smell it from such a distance. Am I mutated?" Zhang Xiaowu praised himself in his heart, then got up and walked over.
When the three Beiyi women saw Zhang Xiaowu approaching, they were immediately excited. Under the leadership of the middle woman, the three of them immediately bowed: "Your Excellency, we thank you for saving your life." All three women can speak Chinese, but
Chinese has some accent and stiffness,
These are the Northern Yi people who fled south with the Li royal family. They insist on their own language and culture, but they do not reject learning Chinese. However, the Li royal family requires that all Northern Yi children can only speak Chinese after they are eight years old.
To prevent their mother tongue from becoming Chinese.
After the three of them got close to Zhang Xiaowu, he discovered that it was not his nose that had mutated, but that the smell of the three Northern Yi women was too fragrant, a bit too fragrant. The smell was comparable to the perfume sprinkled on Russian women. Regardless of whether it was the smell of the former
Whether in life or in this life, this overly strong fragrance made him stay away from it. He kept a certain distance, nodded and said: "You're welcome, get up."
The woman in the middle asked: "I wonder what you are looking for, can we help?"
Zhang Xiaowu replied: "I just took a look. It was the first time such an explosion occurred in Longdu City, and some people deliberately spread rumors. I hope to find the reason. In fact, I don't know what I am looking for. All the clues have been found. I just
Let's see if there's anything missing. By the way, your home is next door?"