After squeezing out the crowd, Wu Xiu was even more happy when he heard that he had won the first place "Jie Yuan" exam.
The three of them returned to Wujia Village happily. Feng Niang was very excited when she heard that he had won the first place in the interpretation test. In the evening, their whole family celebrated happily.
At six o'clock the next day (9 a.m.), Wu Zhi was reading in the small study. Jin Lian came to him with the little maid and servants. He quickly put down the book and went out to greet them.
Jin Lian also looked very happy. Today she was wearing a short-sleeved light green gauze dress with a silver hairpin in her hair, which made her look particularly radiant.
Over the past year or so, she has grown taller. Standing side by side, she is only half a head shorter than Wu Zhi. She should be about 1.68 meters tall. After reaching her age, she also looks more charming.
Feng Niang was even more happy to see Jin Lian coming over. She also liked Jin Lian very much and had long regarded Jin Lian as Wu Zhi's daughter-in-law.
Jinlian's eldest brother Pan Wei returned to Huanghuangzhuang yesterday to report the good news to Mr. Pan. When he heard that Wu Zhi got first place in the exam, Mr. Pan smiled from ear to ear and she was also very excited. So today she came over happily to talk to Wu Zhi.
Happy planting.
Although passing the examination only qualifies you to participate in the provincial examination, which is far from being a Jinshi, this qualification is not that easy to obtain. The admission rate of Enzhou is only one in twenty! And Wu Zhi is now
After all, you are only eighteen years old, so there are still many opportunities to pass the provincial examination and become a Jinshi, and you have a bright future!
Wu Zhi thanked her and then took her around the village, chatting with her.
The environment of Wujiana Village is beautiful, peaceful and comfortable. Wu Zhi likes it, and she also likes it. Especially being able to stay with Wu Zhi makes her even happier. She found that Wu Zhi now has become more tolerant and energetic, not only
Sunny and cheerful, easy-going and considerate, polite and witty, he has an indescribable charm.
Nowadays, every time she faces Wu Zhi, Jin Lian always feels like she is in trouble. The girl is pregnant. Wu Zhi is mature and clearly understands her thoughts, so he cherishes the time with her and tries his best to make her happy.
.
The good times passed quickly, and after Jin Lian and his party reluctantly left, Wu Zhi regained his mood, returned to the small study, and thought about things.
Ranking first in the examination, he is already qualified to take part in the provincial examination. He must rush to the capital to report before the end of the year, so he can only leave early. It is now the end of August, and there is not much time left for him.
What should be prepared should be prepared first, and the rest should be done step by step. At that time, the provincial examination was presided over by the Ministry of Rites, and all the Gongsheng students who passed the national examination were gathered in the capital to take the examination.
At that time, although the peaceful and peaceful Wu Jia Na Village seemed like a paradise, it was very uneventful outside, with bandits running rampant and chaos endless.
Wu Zhi remembered that in September of the third year of Shaosheng (i.e. the seventh year of Xixia Youminan), the Xixia leader Li Qianshun and the Queen Mother Xiaoliang, because they failed to demarcate the border with the Song Dynasty and compete for land, gathered a so-called 500,000 Xia army to attack the Song Dynasty's Yan Road.
, several villages were captured in a row, and the imperial court and Xixia would fight near Hengshan on Fuyan Road, and the fighting would last for a long time. During this period, bandits took advantage of the chaos. Hebei East Road was close to Fuyan Road, and Hebei was not peaceful either. There were water villages in the mountains.
Bandits often appear and seek wealth and death.
This time he went to Bianliang, Tokyo to take the exam. The journey was long and safety along the way was a big problem, so he had to take precautions and take measures to prevent risks along the way.
First of all, you need to have a sharp weapon for self-defense, such as a dagger, etc. that can be hidden on your body. You can buy this in Qinghe County. The second is to get gunpowder and make some self-defense weapons.
The gunpowder at that time was all old gunpowder, consisting of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. It was useful but very weak. Most of the time, people only used it to make fireworks and firecrackers to watch the sparks and listen to the sound. They were not used to kill enemies on the battlefield.
Although there were already firearms using gunpowder in the Song Dynasty at that time, such as thunder cannons, fire blunderbuss, rockets, etc., the lethality was too small. Sometimes they could not even penetrate the enemy's armor or injure the enemy. This sounds scary in fact.
Not of much use.
The new gunpowder Wu Zhi wants to make is very different from this old gunpowder.
Based on his memories during his lifetime, Wu Zhi knew that the saltpeter in the old gunpowder could be replaced with high-purity potassium nitrate. When combined with sulfur and charcoal, the explosive power would be much greater. The higher the purity of the potassium nitrate, the greater the explosive power.
, and if the gunpowder is made into granules, the explosive power will be even higher.
Pure potassium nitrate can be extracted from saltpeter. As for how to extract it, he clearly remembers it, so this is not a problem for him.
Wu Zhi wants to use new gunpowder to make grenades or grenades for self-defense!
Hebei is rich in saltpeter, which can be learned from ancient books.
There is a clear record in "Tiangong Kaiwu": All saltpeter is produced in China and barbarians, and China specializes in the northwest. If the southeast seller does not introduce it to the official, it will be considered as private goods. Nitrate and salt have the same parent, and they are the origin of the earth.
The moisture evaporates and appears on the ground. Those near water and thin soil become salt, and those near mountains and thick soil become saltpetre. It dissolves when entering water, so it is called "nitrate". Chang, north of Huaihe River, celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival, that is,
In the living room, sweep the floor every other day and take a small amount for cooking.
"Compendium of Materia Medica" also mentions: Saltpeter is produced in all brine areas, especially in the counties of Qingyang, Hebei and in Sichuan. It grows white everywhere in autumn and winter, and it is made by sweeping it and frying it. The goods are sloppy and mostly unclean.
, it must be decocted in water, poured into a pot, and formed overnight. The clear one at the bottom is like saltpeter, also known as raw saltpeter, which means the saltpeter produced after refining. The one that is knotted on top may be sharp like Glauber's salt, or may have a gui.
The edges are like horse's tooth saltpeter, so saltpeter is also called Glauber's salt, which is the same name as saltpeter's awn and tooth, but the properties of water and fire are different. Therefore, Wu Zhi does not have to worry about not having raw materials and can get them anywhere.
Just do it. Saltpeter is generally found in toilets, houses, cattle pen houses, old walls of the courtyard, cliff edges, caves and the ground that are not easily washed by rain. Wu Zhi scraped from the old walls of the courtyard and the corners of the cattle pen houses.
I took a lot of saltpeter, pulled out a lot of plant ash from the kitchen, and ran to the utility room to start tinkering.
He first crushed the nitrate soil and plant ash separately, grinded them finely and sieved them, mixed the nitrate soil and plant ash at a volume of three to one (the weight ratio is about seven to one), put them into a ceramic jar, and then poured them into a ceramic jar at about 75 degrees Celsius.
About 50% hot water (just cool it for about five minutes after boiling) until the mixture is immersed. Stir continuously with a wooden stick for about a quarter of an hour. Filter with a cloth. The filtrate obtained will be used for later use. Transfer the filter residue to the ceramic jar again and continue to add 70% of the mixture.
Immerse in hot water of about 15 degrees Celsius and stir for about a quarter of an hour. Filter again with a cloth. Combine the two filtered liquids and pour them into a large iron pot. Slowly heat and simmer. Stir constantly with a wooden stick while heating to prevent contamination.
When the liquid has evaporated three-quarters of its volume and you see a small amount of solid precipitating in the pot, stop heating and filter with a cloth while it is hot. The crystals left on the filter cloth at this time are sodium chloride. Replace with new ones.
Use the filter cloth. When the filtrate cools to about 30 degrees Celsius (not hot to the touch, nor cool to the touch) and you see a large number of crystals precipitating, he filters it again. As the liquid is filtered out, it remains in the filter cloth.
The crystal clear solid on the cloth is potassium nitrate! The filtrate is recovered and used to dissolve the mixture of nitrate soil and plant ash. Pour the crystallized potassium nitrate solid into a large iron pot and immerse it in hot water again, stirring to completely dissolve it.
, heat and concentrate until the solution turns white and bright, stop heating, filter and transfer to a large vat, cool and crystallize, and the crystals obtained by filtering again are high-purity potassium nitrate. The filtrate can also be recovered and reused.
It was his first operation and he was sweating profusely.
When he finally saw the crystals on the filter cloth, Wu Zhi knew that he had really extracted high-purity potassium nitrate and was very excited. He tried it several times in one go and was successful every time.
Finally, looking at a small pile of crystal potassium nitrate in front of him, weighing about four or five kilograms, Wu Zhi's eyes lit up and he felt relieved.
Xiao'e was busy helping him from beginning to end. She didn't understand what Brother Dalang was doing. When she asked, Wu Zhi only said it was useful. Although she was confused, she still followed him enthusiastically. When she saw Wu Zhi coming from
When the "water" (she thought it was water) produced crystals like a magic trick, she was so surprised that her eyes almost popped out: Brother Dalang is so awesome!
After drying the potassium nitrate and grinding it into powder, Wu Zhi made a special trip to Qinghe County and bought enough sulfur and charcoal from the grocery store, as well as some fir sawdust powder. At the same time, he also bought
He tried out a fine dagger and leather sheath. It was very sharp and easy to use, but it also cost him a tael of silver. Good things are expensive.
After returning home, Wu Zhi also needs to stir-fry potassium nitrate with sawdust powder. The method is to build a simple stove, put a large iron pot on it, and burn wood underneath. The fire should not be too high and add an appropriate amount of sawdust.
Powder is used as a leavening agent. It needs to be stir-fried slowly and carefully. When stir-frying, be careful not to come into contact with an open flame, otherwise it will easily catch fire and explode. Stir-frying over low heat and drying can reduce the moisture in potassium nitrate and increase storage.
time and increased explosion intensity.
After frying the nitrate, Wu Zhi crushed the sulfur and charcoal into fine pieces. He first calculated the dosage on paper according to the ratio of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.
Since some cedar powder was added to the potassium nitrate when frying the nitrate, Wu Zhi appropriately reduced the amount of charcoal (i.e. the amount of cedar powder) when calculating, weighed out a handful of them with a scale, and then mixed them
Put them together, put them on a piece of paper, roll them into a ball, find an open place to put them, and try to light them on fire. They found that the deflagration effect was pretty good, and it was better than the old gunpowder at that time.
Wu Zhi constantly adjusted the mixing ratio and conducted comparative experiments. After countless tests, he finally found the combination ratio with the best deflagration effect of the new gunpowder, which was 74.5% potassium nitrate and 100% sulfur.
No. 12, charcoal plus fir powder is about 13.5%. And he also found that adding more sulfur can make the gunpowder deflagrate more powerful. Gunpowder with better deflagration effect can be made with it.
The bomb, the stronger the explosion effect will be.
Wu Zhi recorded the ratio of potassium nitrate to fir powder when frying saltpeter and the optimal ratio of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal in the new gunpowder one by one for future reference.
Stirring while the iron is hot, Wu Zhi mixed the remaining potassium nitrate (fried potassium nitrate), sulfur, and charcoal together according to the optimal ratio obtained from the experiment. After stirring evenly with a wooden stick, he put it in a dry jar and sealed it.
Good jar mouth, hide it in a safe place and store it.
This new type of gunpowder is extremely dangerous. It cannot be left around. It must be stored properly. It must be kept away from sources of fire. Fireworks are strictly prohibited!
After careful consideration, Wu Zhi decided to make part of the new powdered gunpowder into granular new gunpowder to see if the explosion effect of the granular new gunpowder was better than that of the powdered new gunpowder.
Working hard, Wu Zhi found some alcohol, took out half of the new gunpowder from the jar, poured some alcohol into it to make a paste that could be kneaded into a ball in his hand, then found a fine-hole bamboo sieve, and spread the gunpowder paste on the bamboo.
On the sieve, wet grind it with a wooden stick, and the small gunpowder particles will naturally fall from the sieve holes into the receiving tray. After the gunpowder particles are dry, Wu Zhi puts them into another dry jar and seals it.
The mouth of the jar should be placed in a safe and cool place and stored well.
Just like that, the new gunpowder was finally made!
What remained was the question of how to use the new gunpowder, for which Wu Zhi already had a well-thought-out plan.