After Li Xiao returned to Tielong City, the first thing he did was to ask Zhao Jie, the chief firearm, that he had made a lot of thunder with particulate gunpowder.

It turned out that as early as the end of last year, with the full support of Li Xiao, Zhao Jie and a group of workers finally successfully developed a granular gunpowder.

In fact, granular gunpowder is not a rare thing.

In Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Ji Xiao", there is a method of making granular gunpowder, but unfortunately few people know it. Nowadays, most military towns in the area do not use granular gunpowder, but still use the old method to grind sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal into powder and mix it at will. The formula is also passed down by our ancestors, one nitrogen disulfide and three carbons, that is, one pound (16 taels) of nitrate, two liang of sulfur, and three liang of carbons.

This method of gunpowder production that does not advance or retreat causes the quality of the black gunpowder produced to be very poor and the effect is unstable when used.

The reason for this is mainly due to the following two points.

First, it is because such powder-like mixed gunpowder, no matter how uniformly mixed it is when leaving the factory, due to artificial shaking during transportation, the nitrate and sulfur of specific gravity 2 will sink to the bottom of the barrel, and the charcoal of specific gravity 1.3 will run to the surface, resulting in uneven mixing.

Secondly, because charcoal powder can easily absorb moisture in air, it is easy to affect performance due to absorbing too much moisture in humid environments.

Before Qi Jiguang used particulate gunpowder, some people had thought of a solution, which was to ship sulfur saltpeter charcoal separately and distribute it to soldiers before going to the battlefield. The soldiers prepared it themselves, but it was obviously stupid to do so. The soldiers did not have a balance scale and could not accurately prepare gunpowder. If the gunpowder ratio was uneven, it would be a trivial matter. What was even more terrifying was that the firearm could not be fired, and the gunner or gunner was killed or injured, which was really too harmful to morale.

Why do Lumi gunmen like Li Xiaojun have muskets that cannot be fired every time? It has something to do with the soldiers' inadequate loading. But more importantly, it is because of uneven mixing of gunpowder powder and moisture absorption, which leads to a high fire silence rate during the beating.

After more than two months of research by Zhao Jie and others, this particulate gunpowder that can be used for military use was finally studied.

Moreover, they also improved the formula of gunpowder, from the ancestors' sixteen tiny tin, two tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny

The method of making is actually very simple, to put it bluntly.

That is, add water first, knead the proportioned gunpowder into a wet dough, mix evenly, take it out and spread the cake, piece of wet gunpowder cake, put it in the drying room where the blast furnace exhaust gas is opened in the tunnel at the bottom of the house, and dry it at more than 40 degrees. After it is dry, break it through the fine sieve and it becomes a particulate gunpowder with stable and reliable properties.

According to Li Xiao's earlier suggestion, if the granular gunpowder produced is used for Lumi Gunner's shooting, it is a fixed-loaded bullet wrapped in oil paper and wrapped in lead bullets.

In this way, every time a soldier sets a firearm, the gunpowder he holds is charged. It can also prevent the soldier from forgetting to add lead bullets or adding lead bullets once in a tense battle.

The specific method of using is that the gunner first lights the fuse, bite open the paper shell of the cylindrical fixed-loading bullet with his teeth, pour the gunpowder a little into the medicine guide pool, then pour most of the remaining gunpowder into the barrel, then turn the fixed-loading bullet, stuff the end wrapped in the lead bullet into the muzzle, use the push rod to push it to the bottom of the chamber, and lubricate the oil paper. This step will be much smoother than before. Next, you can aim and fire.

This approach is convenient and efficient, greatly saves the shooting preparation time of Lumi gunners and greatly reduces the incidence of failures, so it is very popular among gunners.

What Li Xiao is most concerned about is actually not the improvement of the Lumi gun. When the conditions for making guns and artillery are not yet mature, he hopes that these particulate gunpowder can be better used to make thunder.

Two days before the Chinese New Year last year, when Li Xiao was about to return to Chifengwei from Tielong City, Zhao Jie and the workers worked overtime and finally quickly made a sample of the thunder.

This sample of the thunder made is a round iron lump the size of a watermelon. There is a slightly protruding platform on the sphere, with a small hole on it, and a medicine twist inserted into it.

When Zhao Jie introduced this iron guy to Li Xiao, Li Xiao was so excited.

"Mr. Li, this is a sample of the thunder that is completely manufactured according to the standard of the Great Open Fireworks Bureau. It is made of fifteen kilograms of pig iron as a shell and contains twelve kilograms of gunpowder. When it is activated, the sound of the thunder that shakes the world and the person in charge is invincible, so it is called the thunder that is called the thunder. Moreover, the thunder that is contained in this thunder is all mixed with evenly mixed particles, but it is much stronger than those made by other military towns." Zhao Jie held his black and majestic killing weapon in his hand, and introduced to Li Xiao with a proud look.

Unexpectedly, Li Xiao was not satisfied.

"This iron shell is too smooth and has no grooves, so it is difficult to produce fragments when exploded, which will definitely affect the explosion effect. In addition, this medicine is too short, so if the burning speed is too fast and it will explode to itself, it is not possible."

After Li Xiao finished speaking, Zhao Jie and others improved, they took it back to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao didn't say much to him and immediately began to test the explosion effect.

Outside the Iron City, at a selected test site, soldiers drove away a large number of curious onlookers. In order to avoid accidental injuries, they ordered them to retreat ten feet away.

The large iron watermelon with a groove was placed in the center of the test site, next to it were several cloth men sewn with cloth pieces to test the explosion effect.

Holding a burning fragrance, Zhao Jie walked over and put the incense head onto the long medicine twist, lit it with a squeak, and the medicine line quickly burned, and Zhao Jie immediately escaped at the fastest speed in his life.

Soon, Mars crawled into the bullet body like a small insect along the lead.

"Bang!"

A deafening explosion, and the thunder exploded smoothly.

People felt that everything around the thunder seemed to be pulled by a strange force, contracted to the center, and then expanded rapidly in all directions.

There were many people, even having the illusion that the moment Mars drilled into the bullet body, time seemed to stop, just like the super slow release in the movie, and this shocking thunder seemed to have exploded for a long time.

Twelve kilograms of black gunpowder produce 500,000 liters of gas at the moment of explosion, reaching a high temperature of more than 1,000 degrees Celsius, and producing 4 million joules of energy - if concentrated in one direction, this energy can allow a person weighing 50 kilograms to climb Mount Everest directly from sea level, or kick a Santana sedan from the ground to the roof of the Empire State Building. Even the 60-ton m1a1 Abrams main battle tank will fly into the sky at a height of 7 meters.

The shock wave formed by the explosion rushed forward on the ground, sweeping across everything that hindered their progress. In the deafening roar, people felt the earth tremble for a while, and the billowing black smoke of the explosion spread around, and finally rose into the air under the influence of ground resistance, forming a small mushroom-shaped cloud.

Those cloth men used for testing have long been blown away by the shock waves.

After the explosion, the world became particularly quiet. Nothing could be heard except for the sound of their heartbeat. After a long time, people realized that their eardrums were buzzing. Until this time, the innate sense of fear came to their hearts. The onlookers and soldiers all felt their legs and feet were weak, they could not move a step, their throats were dry, and they could not say a word. Their brains were blank... Even the bravest and fearless warriors would feel weak and extremely insignificant in the face of such an irresistible explosion.

Li Xiao rubbed his ears that were tinnitus and smiled, while Zhao Jie, the producer of this shocking thunder, had a pale face and full of shock.

In Zhao Jie's impression, the sky-shaking thunder used by the government army in the past was usually followed by a loud bang, and the big iron lumps exploded into seven or eight iron pieces of large and small fields, scattering in all directions, and the farthest was only more than three meters away. The ground of the iron lumps exploded a shallow pit on the basin and earth.

Unexpectedly, this improved gunpowder, which carved the thunder that shrouded the fragmented groove, could increase its power to such a great extent.

Li Xiao, who was in a very happy mood, rewarded Zhao Jie with 100 taels of silver on the spot.

Among these people, only Li Xiao understands the value of these amazingly powerful thunders.

Think about how difficult it was for Li Xiao to win when he had only cold weapons to fight last time. If there were these thunders that shook the sky, wouldn't those Tartars dare to be so rampant!

Now that I have such a powerful weapon, I will no longer be as embarrassed as before.

So, after receiving the order from the court to go south to rescue Fengyang, Li Xiao not only ordered the Chifeng Guard's artillery team to be moved outside the Iron City, but another urgent order was to demand that from now on, the construction of other objects in the Iron City would be stopped and the production of the thunder was immediately made with all his efforts.

In summary, from Li Xiao’s way south to now, Iron City has been working overtime day and night to produce in turn. In the past month, the number of thunder reserves in Tielong City has reached more than 6,000!

In other words, every day, more than 200 thunders are created.

Li Xiaojun's ability to have such an amazing production speed is also indelible to the hydraulic forging hammer invented now.

Now in the forging workshop, there is a hydraulic forging hammer next to each forging furnace. Under the forging hammer is a thick anvil, and a thick oak trough is placed under the anvil, and a base with mixed casting of cast iron and stones is below. The multi-layer composite stress-bearing structure can withstand the huge impact force of the forging hammer.

These forging hammers are controlled by a large reservoir, and have water guidance channels specially built from the Daxingdi River to divert water into the reservoir. When the water accumulation reaches a certain level, the forging hammer can be lifted to hit. After the impact is continued, the water will be stored again soon. In this way, the entire hydraulic forging hammer can be carried out repeatedly.

There are two types of forging hammers designed by Li Xiao. One is that they weigh 250 kilograms, have three feet strokes, and have a hammer drop 20 times per minute, which is used for rough processing.

Another small one weighs 80 kilograms, has a stroke of two feet, and has a hammer drop of 50 times per minute, which is used for fine processing. With this technology, compared with the past, it can only rely on blacksmiths to hit each hammer, which has improved the efficiency a lot and reduced the labor intensity of workers.

It is much more convenient to create a thunderbolt shell, and crush whistle stone charcoal and other substances to make granular gunpowder, and to produce granular gunpowder, and the production speed has been nearly ten times faster.

When Zhang Xianzhong's troops finally arrived at the foot of Shan County, Li Xiao was already ready.

However, in the few days after returning, there was something that had been weighing on Li Xiao's heart.

That is, until now, Li Dingguo has never expressed his intention to surrender arbitrarily.

Li Dingguo, who was detained alone in a secret room, only ate a small bowl of rice and drank a few sips of soup every day. He did not speak or made trouble, as if he was practicing Taoism in the room.

Li Xiao sent several officials to persuade the surrender, but Li Dingguo either did not say a word or refused directly.

At this time, Jin Tongwu, whose leg bone was broken, was now well recovered because Li Xiaojun was carefully treated all the way. He was grateful to him, and as soon as he arrived in Dan County, he immediately expressed his determination to be loyal to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao was very happy and quickly sent him as a lobbyist to surrender to Li Dingguo. Unexpectedly, the end result was that Jin Tongwu was scolded by Li Dingguo with a blushing face.

Facing this Li Dingguo who was a bit stubborn like Wen Tianxiang, Li Xiao finally made up his mind to talk to him well.

That evening, Li Dingguo was staring blankly outside the window when he suddenly heard the room behind him open with a squeak.

"Let's go! I won't say that I only have one meal a day, why are I still sending food to cook now?"

Li Dingguo thought that the soldiers who delivered food came in again, and turned his head impatiently and shouted.

Soon, the expression on his face froze.

Because the person who came in was Li Xiao, who was holding a rice basket in his hand and smiling.

"Dingguo, why don't you eat? Do you think our army's food is not good?" Li Xiao put down the food basket and smiled teasingly.

Li Dingguo's throat surging a few times, but he didn't say anything, but turned his head out the window hatefully.

"Li Xiao, don't be hypocritical. I'll just ask you, what are you doing with my soldiers?" Li Dingguo looked out the window and threw a word at Li Xiao.

"That's right, don't worry, I have all arranged it before I kill them." Li Xiao said lightly: "A total of more than 2,000 captured bandits. Now I have selected 500 strong new affiliated troops as auxiliary soldiers. All the rest are punished and laboured. They are mining and atonement together with other bandits who were captured by our army earlier."

Hearing that Li Xiao was lenient to his troops, Li Dingguo showed a faint look of relaxation on his face, but he frowned and then said to Li Xiao: "Li Xiao, I, Zhang Dingguo, will not surrender you, and my adoptive father will definitely come to save me!"

When Li Dingguo said this, he suddenly turned around, his face full of fierceness. He shouted: "Li Xiao, my rebel army has been invincible since the rebel army. If it weren't for your clever trick, I would have been captured by you! Now, my adopted father has led his army to rescue him. Your little Iron Dragon City will definitely be unable to stop my rebel army from attacking!"

"Oh, is that right? What if your adopted father who did all his evil deeds can't capture Tielong City and save you?" Li Xiao still had a sarcastic smile on his face.
Chapter completed!