saltpeter

Chapter 77: Nitrate

At the evening banquet, the two new adults ate in silence.

Halfway through the meal, the two realized that this way of eating made them look like they had never seen the world and was not decent at all. They looked at each other and tacitly slowed down their eating speed.

Chu Huaibei had a smile on his face the whole time, eating at a moderate pace, and occasionally chatting with others.

Yes, she did it on purpose.

Anyone who comes to the North for the first time has to travel by boat or on horseback, and they certainly don't have enough food or rest on the way.

Prepare a resting place in advance and have a table full of delicious food in the evening, and the tone of conversation when you meet later will be more friendly.

After eating and drinking to their heart's content, everyone went back to their respective places to rest.

Chu Huaibei also stayed in the military camp tonight, hoping to leave a good impression of diligence on the new military inspector.

She knew that Fan Liang had reported her to the emperor many times, and the military inspector could submit memorials directly to the emperor without going through the cabinet first.

As for Fan Liang's collusion with the eldest prince and the disgusting replacement of military rations with gravel, Chu Huaibei could only say that Fan Liang was too narrow-minded.

It was he who first occupied the people's land, but now he blames her for upholding justice for the people. It is totally unreasonable.

Now he is being dismissed and investigated, which is what he deserves.

The next day, Chu Huaibei got up at dawn as usual. He had just finished practicing two sets of boxing on the training ground when he saw Jin Hongye walking towards the training ground, stretching his limbs.

This boy is really diligent in practicing martial arts.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!!"

Jin Hongye shouted loudly while running, as if Chu Huaibei would disappear if he ran slower.

Chu Huaibei was helpless when he met Jin Hongye's sparkling eyes.

"Speak softly. I am still young and don't have any hearing problems. I can hear you."

"Oh, I was wrong~"

"Your Majesty, can I practice with you? Your Majesty, I would like to have a sparring match with you~"

"Your Highness..."

Chu Huaibei stopped playing with the gun and sighed secretly. It was difficult for her to concentrate with someone talking in her ear like this.

Also, although Jin Hongye is tall and strong, when he looks at others seriously and talks, he always speaks in a coquettish tone. I don’t know if it’s because of his Yangzhou accent or for some other reason, but he himself can’t feel it.

"Stop, don't talk yet. Go pick a weapon that suits you. I will practice with you."

"Ah... Hey!!! Okay, Your Highness, wait for me!"

Jin Hongye quickly ran to the weapons rack, pulled out a big knife and weighed it in his hand. Feeling it was suitable, he immediately turned around and ran back to Chu Huaibei.

"Your Majesty, I have made my choice!"

Chu Huaibei glanced at the spear in his hand and raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, you make the first move."

"Your Majesty, I won't be polite then. Be careful!"

As he spoke, he raised his knife and chopped it vertically. Chu Huaibei took a step to the left and pressed his spear against the blade, deflecting it. Jin Hongye took advantage of the momentum and turned the knife to chop to the lower right.

The two men fought back and forth. Finally, Chu Huaibei calculated that it was almost noon, so he shot the sword out of his hand and put the tip of the gun against Jin Hongye's Adam's apple.

"You lose. That's all for today. Get ready. It's time for breakfast in the barracks."

Chu Huaibei retracted the spear and threw it casually. The spear flew into the weapon rack in a perfect parabola.

Jin Hongye was still immersed in the excitement of the sparring session. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to fight with him for so long. It turned out that the prince was really powerful!

My blood was boiling inside: Ahhhh, the prince is so nice. He knew that I was no match for him, but I was still willing to practice with him for so long!

The prince's figure was reflected in a pair of big almond-shaped eyes, and his eyes were so eager that Chu Huaibei couldn't bear it.

Is this kid so happy to get a beating? She didn't show much mercy just now, and he probably has a lot of bruises on his body.

"Okay, Your Majesty. I'll pack it right away. Please go and have your meal first."

"Okay, I'll leave first."

"Okay, take care, Your Majesty~"

Hey, kid, Chu Huaibei turned and walked towards his tent. Qin Feng probably had brought back breakfast by now.

As soon as I left the training ground, I heard a soldier complaining, "Oh, today I'm squatting in the big dry toilet to clean the white lime off the bricks. There are more than a dozen big dry toilets, and my feet are numb from squatting there."

"You're better off than me. At least you don't have to scrub the seat. I scrubbed it all over, and now my hands stink too."

It turned out that it was their turn to clean the dry toilet today, and they were complaining that the dry toilet was not clean. With so many people using it, there would always be some unclean people who made the dry toilet dirty.

Chu Huaibei set the rules, taking turns one by one, with each household as a unit, and drawing lots to decide the order. In any case, every team would have a turn.

Wait, whitewash on the wall?

"The two in front, stop."

"Who is it... I'm here to greet the prince!"

The two were so frightened that they started kneeling on one knee and then kneeled on both knees to bow.

"No need to be so polite. I want to ask you, where did you throw the white ash you scraped off?"

"Your Highness, I have poured it out with a dustpan near the wall closest to the dry toilet."

"Get up and take the king over there quickly."

The two of them got up and left.

"Ah, come back and take your dustpan!"

Are these two people going there empty-handed to get something from their clothes?

Both of them felt sad, but they didn't say it.

About ten meters away from the wall, Chu Huaibei had already seen a small pile of white powder in the corner.

He walked quickly forward, picked up a small handful with two fingers, looked at it carefully, and was ecstatic.

"Come on, use a dustpan to pick it all up. Don't leave any behind. Scrape the ground clean!"

The two looked at each other. My goodness, the prince treats this as a treasure! This was scraped off the bricks of the dry toilet! Maybe someone was in a hurry to pee and didn't have time to take it out and spilled it on it...

The scene was so beautiful that they didn't dare to mention it to the prince who was kneading white ash with his bare hands.

The two men quickly gathered the white ash back into the winnowing basket, even lifting a layer of the ground, and followed behind the prince as if they were carrying a piece of gold.

Chu Huaibei was very upset. Why didn't she think of this? She was so busy asking people to look for the damp and dark caves in the mountains that she forgot about the place that was easiest to find!

This is nitrate!

Chu Huaibei took the two of them back to the tent.

"Just put the dustpan here, you can go down now."

"Yes, Your Majesty. I'll take my leave."

The two entered the prince's tent for the first time. When they took their leave, they took a quick look and saw only a few ordinary pieces of furniture without even a single carved pattern.

Qin Feng waited in the tent for a long time, and the breakfast was already cold.

"You are back, my Lord. The breakfast is cold. I will heat it up."

"It's okay. It's okay to eat cold food in this weather."

"Hurry up and eat. After you finish eating, I have something important to tell you."

"Yeah, okay."

Qin Feng wiped his mouth and waited for the prince to put down his chopsticks.

Chu Huaibei called his personal guards to remove the dishes and asked Qin Feng to come and look at the contents of the dustpan.

"My Lord, what is this?"

"It's saltpeter."

"oh."

"You sound calm now, but once the product is ready, I guarantee you'll be stunned."

"What a pity, we only have so much stuff. We can only make some flares for the beacon tower."

Qin Feng didn’t know what the prince was going to do, but whatever the prince did was right!

"What does the prince need from me?"

"I need your help to buy some sulfur from the pharmacy. The demand is very high, so you need to distribute it to several stores."

"Okay, I'll go right away."

"Um."

Sulfur already existed at that time, but it was used by people to treat diseases. It was a legitimate Chinese medicinal ingredient. She had seen it in Uncle Deng's pharmacy.

Seeing that it was almost time, Chu Huaibei called two personal guards to go with her to Censor Yuan's tent.

When they were halfway there, Censor Yuan came towards them.

"I was just about to go find Censor Yuan, but I saved myself a few steps. These are my personal guards. They will take you to the Censor's Mansion."

Chu Huaibei turned sideways and motioned to the two personal guards behind him to help lead the horses and lead the way.

"Thank you for your thoughtful consideration, Your Highness. I will take my leave now."

"Okay, you two take care of Censor Yuan on the way."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Master Censor, please come this way."

"Thank you both."

The guards personally helped Censor Yuan onto his horse. Well, this gentleman's elbows are so skinny they could kill someone.

The two men jumped on their horses at the same time, then grabbed the censor's reins and led the horses slowly towards the censor's mansion.

Chu Huaibei had a new tent set up next to General Li's original tent and dismantled the original one.

Where to place the new General Gong.

After Chu Huaibei saw off Censor Yuan, he went to General Gong's residence.

"How did you sleep last night, General Gong? Are you used to it?"

As soon as Gong Que finished his breakfast and went out, he saw Zhenbei King walking towards his residence, so he went forward to greet him.

"Greetings, Your Highness. I slept well, Your Highness. Thank you for your concern."

"Okay, as long as you can get used to it, I will arrange for someone to hand over the official business to General Gong today."

"I obey your command."

Gong Que didn't expect that the King of Zhenbei would hand over the military affairs to him so quickly. He thought that just like the Ministry of War, newcomers would always have to sit on the bench for a month.

"Okay, I'll go back then. Come back to me if you have anything else."

"I understand. Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Um."

After Chu Huaibei gave the instructions, he nodded to Gong Que and turned to leave.

Fortunately, this guy has some knowledge. If there was another person like Jin Hongye, Chu Huaibei would be upset to death.

After Jin Hongye finished sparring with the prince in the morning, his heartbeat has never been steady and he has been in a state of excitement.

He jumped and opened the tent door.

“Ah…”

"What? How disgraceful! You are now a general with military achievements!"

"Yes, Master."

He lowered the tent door, straightened his posture, and walked towards the desk.

When the lawyer saw this man walk towards the desk on his own initiative, he looked at Jin Hongye with a look of surprise.

Finally, he asked people to have breakfast first.

"You don't have to be so proactive. I'll handle military affairs after you finish breakfast."

As soon as Jin Hongye heard this, he knew that his advisor had misunderstood him, but he couldn't tell him directly that he didn't want to deal with military affairs, but just wanted to write a few letters to his friends in Yangzhou to tell them that he had practiced martial arts with the prince today!

I had no choice but to turn around and quickly finish the breakfast on the table.

Then he lingered behind the desk, sat down, and began to deal with military affairs with a distorted expression. The master would definitely not allow him to write a letter first.

After finally finishing it, I showed it to my master for review. Seeing that he didn't get scolded today, it meant that I didn't make any mistakes, and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Seeing that he was so obedient today, the master must have other reasons. After sorting out the military affairs, he did his own things on the side.

Seeing that his master ignored him, Jin Hongye immediately took out some sheets of letter paper and started writing.

The content of the letter, of course, was to show off to his friends his sparring session with the prince. He boasted about himself to the skies, and the prince to the skies. Just reading the letter, one could tell that this person was a boastful and eccentric person.

The master had been standing behind Jin Hongye and watching him silently for a long time.

In the past, with Jin Hongye's kung fu, he would have noticed it long ago, but now it is not his brain that controls his body, but the dopamine in his body.

The master looked at the letter written by Jin Hongye and felt it was an eyesore. How could this kid become so shameless? Look at what is written in it!

How could someone boast of being extremely talented, a martial arts genius, and the second best person in the world in terms of civil and military affairs? How could he say such words?

It's too irritating to the eyes, so Master, out of sight, out of mind. Go back and read your own book.