Pei Shaozhu's words made Yelü Junba's tightly furrowed brows relax considerably.
In the following days, Yelü Junba did not rush to attack, but instead sent most of his soldiers out to cut timber and build siege weapons.
He also ordered his men to quickly capture the Persians who had previously done business with him from the grasslands to be responsible for building catapults, which Yelü Junba preferred to call "cannon carts."
For a moment, the entire city of Fuling seemed to fall into an eerie calm, but everyone knew that this was just the calm before the storm.
What awaits everyone next is an even more brutal and bloody battle.
Meanwhile, Mu Zian in the city was not idle either.
Now that we have the gunpowder formula, we should naturally start making it.
At present, the research on gunpowder in Dali is very backward.
Both the imperial court and the common people only knew about it through fireworks and firecrackers.
It's important to know that even in official history, gunpowder was discovered in the Western Han Dynasty but wasn't actually used on the battlefield until the Tang Dynasty, eight hundred years later.
The development of gunpowder has gone through many iterations, mainly divided into three stages: improved black powder, smokeless powder, and nitroglycerin powder with powerful destructive force.
The latter two require extensive experimentation even if the formula is known, before they can be put into use.
Moreover, there are simply not enough materials available in Fuling City at the moment, so the improved gunpowder is the most suitable method at present.
To make gunpowder, you need three basic things: charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter.
Charcoal is the easiest to obtain; the large amount of wood piled up in Fuling City can be used to make charcoal simply by building a kiln with bricks and tiles.
Sulfur was also a very important substance in ancient times. Initially, sulfur was used for medicine, not gunpowder.
Ancient people extracted sulfur from pyrite containing coal. This ore was also called "Nieshi" and because it was the raw material for making green vitriol, it was also called alum stone.
Because of its location on the front line, Fuling City had many medical clinics.
After the Xiongnu invaded Fuling, they looted all the gold, silver, grain, and cloth, but they did not touch the sulfur stored in the medical clinic.
After all, this kind of thing is neither edible nor practical; it's just a burden to them.
Therefore, Mu Zian ordered Jia Xu to lead a group of people to conduct a thorough search of the city, and after two days, they actually found quite a lot of residual sulfur.
As for the last material, saltpeter, although there wasn't a large stockpile of saltpeter in Fuling City at the moment, this was no problem for Mu Zi'an.
When Mu Zian was a child living in the countryside, he often saw a kind of white frost on all the old walls.
This white frost is actually saltpeter, which is usually found in alkaline soil.
For example, on the walls of old buildings like toilets and pigsties.
So at the same time that Jia Xu was scavenging sulfur in the city, Mu An also ordered Han Shizhong to lead men to scavenge saltpeter in the city.
Everyone was puzzled by Mu Zi'an's order, given the formidable enemy at hand.
Instead of thinking about how to defeat the enemy, Mu Zi'an, the commander-in-chief, started playing around in the city.
Despite their confusion, everyone worked enthusiastically.
In just a few days, they almost scraped off the old walls of the entire Fuling city.
The scraped saltpeter contained a lot of mud, so Mu Zian had to purify it first.
Because the current conditions are too rudimentary, Mu Zian can only use solvent extraction to purify it.
They submerged all the saltpeter that Han Shizhong and his men had scraped into water to dissolve it, and then filtered out the impurities in the water.
After the solution has dissolved, put it into a large pot and boil it. Finally, after all the water has evaporated, the remaining white crystals are pure saltpeter.
Mu Zian crushed the purified saltpeter and sulfur charcoal into very fine particles using a stone mortar and pestle, and then filtered them through a fine mesh.
The optimal ratio for the improved gunpowder is: 10% sulfur, 15% charcoal, and 75% saltpeter.
The Ming Dynasty manuscript of the Yuan Dynasty firearms treatise "Ke Di Wu Lue Ying Huo Shen Ji" contains the proportions of thirty kinds of gunpowder.
The inferior gunpowder used in the artillery consisted of 8% sulfur, 14% charcoal, and 78% saltpeter.
Don't underestimate this seemingly small numerical difference; as the saying goes, a small error can lead to a huge difference in the end.
Only precise proportions can achieve maximum power; otherwise, it's just a large firework.
Following the proportions provided by the system, Mu Zian mixed the three materials according to the ratio.
To further enhance the power of gunpowder, some white sugar can be added.
However, producing enough white sugar at the moment was harder than climbing to heaven, so Mu Zian simply chose to give up.
Wait until the nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur are fully mixed.
Mu Zian then added readily available egg whites to the gunpowder and stirred it continuously.
Finally, the nearly dried gunpowder is pressed into a mold with a mesh to form granules.
To maximize the power of gunpowder, granulation is an absolutely essential step.
Powdered gunpowder can easily clump together under pressure, preventing it from burning completely.
Unlike powdered gunpowder, granulated gunpowder does not form a cohesive whole.
The presence of air between gunpowder particles helps to provide oxygen, which in turn aids in the combustion of the gunpowder and greatly increases its power.
After successfully producing the granular gunpowder, Mu Zian directly filled it into the earthenware jar.
Furthermore, iron nails and iron sheets were placed in the earthenware pot to further enhance the lethality of the gunpowder.
After three days, the first bomb of the Great Li Dynasty was officially unveiled!
Mu Zian found an open space in Fuling City to conduct the experiment.
Zhao Yun was in charge of digging the pit, while Mu Zi'an was responsible for installing the fuse into the clay pot bomb.
Han Shizhong, Luo Cheng, Liang Hongyu, and Jia Xu, who were standing to the side, couldn't understand Mu Zi'an's actions at all.
Mu Zi'an didn't know how much of this first bomb should be used.
So he simply filled the earthenware jar to the brim, stuffing in a full five pounds of gunpowder pellets all at once.
As for its specific power, Mu Zian had no idea.
A moment later, Mu Zian finally finished the preparations.
Mu Zian alone set up the fuses over a distance of several dozen feet, since no one knew exactly how far this thing could kill.
Such a long fuse is enough for the person who lit it to run more than a hundred meters away.
After finishing all this, Mu Zian coughed lightly and then said to Han Shizhong, who was idly playing with ants to the side.
"Ahem, Liangchen, come here, I'll show you a great treasure."
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