Chapter 5: Making gunpowder by yourself and fried fish ()

After a night of hard work, a bunch of sea salt was turned into bags of fine salt wrapped in oil cloth. This pack of salt could match the price of a bunch of salt, and this bunch of salt had more than twenty packs, and the profits could be imagined.

Although everyone was so tired that they couldn't straighten their waists, they were still so happy that they couldn't stop.

Li Bosheng wiped the sweat beads on his forehead and patted the soil on his chest. When the fire was burning, his chest was covered with wood ash.

Suddenly, my hand touched something hard, which made my chest hurt.

"Look at my memory," Li Bosheng patted his forehead and said, "I went home last night and searched myself. I brought all the sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal left after I was refining the alchemy. I forgot about it just now."

"Have it? That's great!" Zhang Yang patted Li Bosheng on the shoulder. "Hurry up, take it out and show it to me."

Li Bosheng reached into his pocket and took out a tart cloth bag.

When I opened it, I saw that the colors inside were different. The yellow block was sulfur. The white crystalline one was saltpeter, and the black block was charcoal.

"Good job!" Zhang Yang said. "But the amount is too small. The more I need, the better. Pay attention to observation and see where these things are."

"Okay, but, you want so much sulfur, saltpeter, what's the use of charcoal? How many pills can you make?" Li Bosheng asked.

Alchemy? I don’t have that time. Besides, even if these things are refined into some elixirs, I dare not eat them. I used to eat milk containing melamine, blood soaked in formalin, and pork containing clenbuterol. Haven’t I eaten enough?

It’s still an alchemist, and I don’t even understand this, so these things are naturally making black gunpowder.

In the chaotic times, if you have a gun, you are the king of grass. If you want to survive in the late Yuan Dynasty, it is impossible to have no self-defense weapons. If you want to gain an advantage in this era of cold weapons, your own major will naturally be useful. If you have a Maxim heavy machine gun, you can sweep the entire Yuan Dynasty cavalry by one person.

According to Zhang Yang's original intention, he actually wanted to make some smokeless gunpowder. When black gunpowder was used, a stream of black smoke, accompanied by many indestructible small solid particles, would cause a lot of inconvenience. But after thinking about it for a long time, it was the simplest to make this black gunpowder. Let's solve the problem of whether it exists or not!

Zhang Yang looked at the raw materials that were still blocky and suddenly had an idea.

"Do you guys want to eat fish?" Zhang Yang asked.

"Of course I think about it." Everyone said, they usually eat simple food, so it would be great to be able to eat enough. At most, they could only eat a meal of pork during the Chinese New Year.

Although it is relatively close to the river and although everyone is a boatman, everyone is limited to the boatman transporting salt.

Without fishing nets, you can’t fish. Whenever you look at the fish swimming around by the boat, although you really want to have a tooth sacrifice, there is no way. In the water, it’s the world of fish. It’s too difficult to catch fish.

"You help me grind these things into pieces separately, and I will catch fish for you." Zhang Yang said.

"Really?" Several people didn't believe it.

"How can you doubt your elder brother? Get started quickly!" Zhang Yang said.

Although they were all tired after working all night, when they thought about the tender fish, everyone was energetic. They each took a piece of it and put it on the side of the pot and grind it.

Shid and Shiyi each took a piece of yellow, and Shixin took a piece of white.

Li Bosheng picked up the remaining black blocks.

The three of them each used their tricks, pinched with their hands, smashed with stones, and crushed them with crocks. Finally, under the stimulation of the fish, they all turned into powder.

"No, continue grinding, it must be turned into powder like flour." Zhang Yang said.

"Is it still necessary to be beaten?" Everyone really didn't want to do it anymore.

"Don't you want to eat fish?" Zhang Yang asked back.

Everyone was speechless, let's continue grinding! This time I had to use a round rolling pin and finally grind into tiny particles.

"Okay, let's see me do magic now." Zhang Yang said.

In the old Chinese saying, 1 nitrate, disulfide and 3 charcoal, but after countless practices, this ratio is not the best. It has been mentioned in university textbooks that the best ratio is 75% of nitrate, 15% of sulfur, and 10% of charcoal.

Zhang Yang meticulously mixed the three raw materials evenly according to this ratio. Although not much, it was about two pounds. This little black gunpowder is enough to use it several times by himself.

In fact, as early as the Song Dynasty, black gunpowder had been used in military affairs, and there were fireworks among the people, but it was not very popular. None of my brothers knew that there was such a powerful thing in the world.

"Let's go, take Flint and go out with me." Zhang Yang said.

“Where to go?”

"Of course I'm going to catch fish."

"Just catch fish like this? Do you catch it with your hands?" Shixin asked disbelief.

"Of course not." Zhang Yang looked around and there was an old broken urn in the corner.

"Shixin, bring this with you." Zhang Yang pointed to the broken urn.

"Take this twister on again." Zhang Yang poured a small amount of gunpowder on the remaining window paper just now, rolled it up, and made a gun twister.

"Twisting?" Shi Xin looked at the things in Zhang Yang's hand. Why did the eldest brother suddenly make so many strange things?

When I opened the dilapidated door, it was already dawn. A red sun slowly rose in the sky.

Zhang Yang took a breath of fresh air and was in a good mood. He strode towards the river.

When he was in college, Zhang Yang and a few classmates secretly took the gunpowder used for the experiment and ran to the Minxin River to fry the fish. As a result, he blew the floating garbage to the sky, and there was no fish the size of a thumb.

It's different now. There is no pollution, the river water is clear and the fish are wandering happily inside.

Looking at the fish inside, what appeared in Zhang Yang's mind was the pot of boiled fish with red peppers floating on it.

I have been here for almost a month and haven’t even seen some meat and fish. The birds have faded out of my mouth. Let’s eat some fish to replenish it!

Zhang Yang opened the package on his chest and carefully poured the gunpowder into the jar brought by Shi Xin.

The gunpowder should not be filled too much, otherwise the few people present would be reimbursed with a rumbling sound.

After filling about four taels, Zhang Yang stuffed the twist into it, exposed it to the outside, grabbed a few handfuls of sand and put it inside.

"Flint!" Zhang Yang stretched out his hand behind.

Suddenly, something was wrong.

Shi Xin had already started to knock on the flint, and the spark of the flint just ignited the twist.

Damn it, I want to kill everyone!

Looking at the smoke-filled flames, everyone was watching curiously, without knowing that the disaster was coming.

Before Zhang Yang could think about it carefully, he grabbed the urn and threw it into the river with all his strength.

Then, he shouted: "Get down!"

As he said that, he set a demonstration first, threw himself forward, lay on the ground, and hugged his head with both hands.

"Boom!" A loud bang came, and even the ground felt trembling.

Why is it so powerful?

I felt a little hot and painful on the back of my hand. Maybe the explosion just now broke the jar and the fragments flew over and scratched myself.

If I haven't eaten the fish, I will be glorious first.

What about my younger brothers? Will there be something wrong?

"Brother! So many fish!" A voice suddenly sounded in Zhang Yang's ears.

Zhang Yang opened his eyes and was shocked.

A dazzling white light floated on the shimmering water surface, shaking up and down as the water surface was.

Those were fish! The fried fish!

"Sin! Sin!" Zhang Yang muttered, wanting to kill three or five fish to satisfy his cravings, but if he threw down this explosive bag, he fryed dozens of fish. It can only be said that there is no pollution in this era and the fish are growing too vigorously.

"What are you still stunned? Go down and catch fish!" Zhang Yang said.

"There are fishes to eat!" Several people took off their coats and jumped into the water.

Fish were thrown to the shore.

Zhang Yang picked up the fish together, and it became a small pile in a while.

There are so many fish that I can’t finish, so I will give it to the salt workers in the salt farm! Their life is very difficult, so let them improve their food, Zhang Yang thought.

After fishing all the fish, everyone felt like they had drunk honey.

No need to give instructions, everyone has started weaving straw ropes, and use the straw rope to tie the fish's mouths up and hang them together.

Most of the fish were shocked and started to jump around after a while, but they had left the water and were destined to become a delicious food on the dining table.

A few fish that were affected by the fragments of the jar or sand were carefully washed away, no longer bleeding, and were also worn.

"We can't finish so many fish ourselves. I decided to give each household in our village one fish." Zhang Yang said.

"Yes, many people haven't eaten meat for a long time, I agree." Shi Xin said.

Everyone expressed their approval.

Li Bosheng didn't say anything, but his heart became even more excited.

He saw the fried fish just now and remembered it in his heart. Several common alchemy ingredients have become such a powerful thing in his hands. If used on people, it would be a killer weapon. When did Zhang Jiusi know so much knowledge? What is even more commendable is that he has a chivalrous heart. With so many fish, he immediately decided to share it with everyone, just like the timely rain Song Jiang in Water Margin.
Chapter completed!