A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 143

The beautiful Qujiang River has become a noisy construction site.

Officials such as the general supervisor, the Shaofu supervisor, and the military supervisor, the supervisor, Dianshi, Fu, and Shi, drove the royal slaves, government slaves, and recruited artisans and strong men to be busy.

Very unpleasant.

One hundred Qianqi from the right battalion of Shenji battalion are also building temporary barracks.

Huaiyu took Fatty Wu around, while the ancestor Cucumber Hou who raised pigs was obviously unwilling to flatter and didn't bother to follow. He stood alone on the construction site, but he didn't know where to start. He stood here and looked there. , and even felt that the construction site was very dusty, which stained his robe.

"Brother, go and tell Wei Changshi, let him go and get the rations for our brothers in Shenji Camp Youying, firewood, salt, oil, rice sauce, vinegar, and horse feed. .In addition, there must be a lot of pots and pans, and it will be noon soon, so we can’t keep everyone hungry, can we?”

He gave an errand to the idle Wei Siren and sent him away.

"Erlang can just ask the leader of the team to go. If you tell him like this, I'm afraid it will make him unhappy." The fat man reminded.

"It's okay, since he is my subordinate, I can't confess him in the future?"

Wei Siren called his entourage, and called a group of thousands of horsemen, and he really went to the city to get the food. This guy was efficient and brought the food back very quickly.

Wei Siren handed over a list to Huaiyu, and it seemed that he took some credit for it.

Huaiyu looked through it, and he went to the Taicang office to receive a month's ration. The ration for each thousand riders was one stone of millet per month, a little more than three liters a day, but what was given was not all millet, but barley, wheat, and buckwheat. , Millet, rice, millet, millet, hemp, soybean (soybean), adzuki bean (red bean), Wandou (pea) and other grain conversions.

Salt is five liters per person per month.

War horses have nine liters of horse salt in January, one bucket of millet a day, and two bamboo shoots.War horses consume at least [-] catties of dry feed a day. The greater the amount of exercise, the more beans and millet concentrates are added, and at most half of the concentrate is added.

There was no embarrassment for the Taicang Bureau.

Everything was given according to the regulations, without deduction, and the amount of one month at a time. If the officials in the late Ming Dynasty saw it, they would have to call them a stick, and they should not deduct half of it first?
In addition to the one hundred thousand riders from the right battalion, the officers also gave extra.

But only grain and salt were given.

"As for the vegetables, don't you have any oil, sauce, or vinegar?"

Wei Siren said directly: "They said that Tunying Youba gave us the farmland and the capital of the farm, and let us solve it ourselves."

"General Zhou promised to give us five hectares of farmland, but it hasn't been seen yet. Even the 15 hectares of food profit capital has not yet been in place. The hundred brothers of Qianqi can't eat nothing, right?"

Wei Siren said proudly, "I also brought some vinegar cloth back."

"What?"

"Vinegar cloth, can be served with soup."

When Huaiyu was in the Longyou Army, he had seen vinegar cloth. A piece of coarse cloth was repeatedly soaked in thick vinegar, and after being dried in the sun, he could carry it with him. Soybean brewed and dried sauce is a good condiment, easy to store and carry, not easy to spoil.

When there are no conditions, eat some dry food and add some sauce cubes, which have both salt and taste.

Vinegar cloth can be used to wrap sauce cubes, and can also be fried in porridge or soup, which will have a vinegar flavor. Vinegar cloth has even been salted and can be used instead of salt.

But when it comes to the taste, it's really hard to describe, it's purely a helpless emergency item.

Now that I am in Chang'an, can I still use this thing?

But when Wei Siren asked someone to fetch the vinegar cloth from the car, he realized that the vinegar cloth was not the vinegar cloth he imagined, but obviously kelp.

Or it should be called Kumbu.

This is a good thing, it can be used as both medicine and food, even for many people in the capital city of Chang'an, it may be the only seafood they have ever eaten.

Dry in the sun, rolled into balls, taupe, with a layer of hoarfrost on the surface.

However, it is said that kombu and kelp are cousins ​​at best, but they are not the same thing. There is no such kind of kelp in the coastal areas of ancient China.

But this thing actually tastes the same, thicker.

In particular, this kind of kombu that is simply harvested and dried is covered with salt and frost, which can replace vinegar cloth.

It is convenient to take with you, and you don’t need to wash it when you eat it. What you want is the salty taste. Cut a few pieces and throw it in the pot for cooking. The taste of the sea!
This stuff is rare in Chang'an, and it is a local product that is a coastal tribute. Wei Siren asked Taicang for pickles, but the other party refused to give them. Finally, when he saw kombu, he insisted on a cart.

If there are pig's feet, kombu stewed pig's feet are quite delicious.

Looking at these dry kelp, Huaiyu had a headache.

When he looked up, he happened to see the water surface of the large Qujiang Pond in front of him, and there were large lotus leaves in the water along the bank.

If there are lotus leaves, then there are lotus roots.

Since there is such a large piece of water, there must be fish.

"Xu Erzhu."

"Erlang,"

"You go to the city right away and buy some fishing nets. We'll get some fish out of the nets and have fish soup tonight."

He also called other Qianqi, and asked them to carry all the food, horses and grass they had brought into the account and store them, and then went into the water to dig lotus roots.

It's already August, and the lotus root is already tender.

Seeing Wei Siren standing there again, Huaiyu felt that it was an eyesore. The arrogance in this guy's upturned nostrils really made people uncomfortable.

If he was like Lu Huairang, he would still be willing to make friends, but this guy is obviously another Chai Zhewei.

Huaiyu didn't bother to curry favor with such a person.

"Wei Changshi has worked hard, so, please go to the Beimen camp again, go to General You Tunwei and get the 15 gongs promised to our camp, and then go to General Zhou to ask for some pots and bowls Pots or something, we Qianqiying Xinli, we can't just let us buy them ourselves, right?

Shall we eat with our hands in hand? "

"I also want some charcoal with soy sauce and vinegar."

Wei Siren didn't want to go.

Stand there and refuse to take a step.

"Wei Changshi, you are Qianqi Battalion Commander Shi, who was the chief judge of Cao Wu."

"How about I go and tell General Zhou that our Qianqiying Temple can't accommodate Mr. Wei? That's right, the majestic Cucumber County Marquis, the Dianzhong Province is a servant of the courtiers. It is true that he came to our place to hang out with these rough people. Disgraceful."

As soon as these words came out, Wei Siren's face was not very good-looking, he was young after all, although he looked down on Wu Huaiyu, but on the first day of his appointment, it would be very bad for his boss to report like this.

"I'll go." Wei Siren endured it, "If you have any other orders, let me tell you, so I won't run back and forth."

"That's all for now, let's go."

Seeing this guy leave angrily, Wu Fatty said, "Erlang, you offended him the first day, how will you get along with him from now on?"

"Afraid of a bird, I am the Shangguan."

After finishing his work on Qianqiying, he went to Yanbo Island, where Xu Jingzong had been busy all the time. Compared with Wei Siren's long history, Xu Jiancheng showed much more effort.

Really able to bend and stretch, a majestic bachelor from the Qin Palace, now reduced to dealing with a group of slaves on the construction site, but they have no emotions at all.

"Erlang, I have already prepared all the materials and tools you want."

"Well, thank you for your hard work, Scholar Xu."

Huaiyu called the ten royal slave artisans and took them to a smaller island not far north of Yanbo Island.

Huaiyu took ten people to the island by boat. This small island will temporarily serve as his firearms teaching point.

A small island covering an area of ​​at most [-] square meters.

There is a three-story pavilion on the island.

After boarding the island, Huaiyu first went up to the third floor of the attic. Standing here, you can see the surrounding scenery of Qujiang in your eyes. It is a good sightseeing spot.

Ten old craftsmen have been following from afar, and they are very excited.

Although he is a royal slave, he is also very old, but if he can really master the secret method of palm thunder that is now rumored outside, then he can pass it on to his descendants in the future.

"Let me introduce myself, everyone."

The ten old men took turns to introduce themselves. They are all royal slaves, and they are all master craftsmen. There are ironsmiths, armormakers, bowmakers, and even alchemists and pharmaceuticals. Li Shimin doesn't know where to get them. People.

In fact, making gunpowder is quite simple, but the difficulty lies in application, especially large-scale application. What really restricts this thing is the output and improving the purity and quality of black powder.

After the ten people introduced themselves, they seriously wanted to pay homage to Huaiyu.

They bowed respectfully and called Master Huaiyu.

Wu Huaiyu can be regarded as the founder of the sect. He also told Li Shimin before that the gunpowder was obtained from the secret alchemy method of his teacher.

Looking at these gray hairs, the youngest is estimated to be almost fifty, and the oldest is over 60.

"Get up quickly. Since you all worship me as your teacher and learn the method of refining gunpowder, I will also explain to you that my master Lou Guandao Xiaoyaozi founded the Longmen School. I am the second generation disciple of the Longmen School. The current head, you worship me as your teacher, from now on you will be three generations of disciples of the Louguan Longmen Sect, from now on you will concentrate on learning the method of refining gunpowder,

In fact, this gunpowder can penetrate at a little bit, and it is nothing unusual to pierce the layer of paper.

All gunpowder is mainly composed of saltpeter and sulfur, supplemented by charcoal.

The nature of nitrate is yin, and the nature of sulfur is yang, and the two gods of yin and yang meet in a seamless space. "

Huaiyu didn't intend to hide anything from these ten apprentices. To be honest, it's better not to have this thing in the world. Now that it's in the world, it has to be handed over completely. Otherwise, even a great emperor like Li Shimin probably won't be able to sleep well.

Every husband is not guilty, and he is guilty of his crime.

The old man took it very seriously.

The prince once summoned them and asked them to learn the law of gunpowder, but he also asked them not to reveal half a word of the secret recipe of gunpowder, neither to record it in writing, nor to tell anyone.

"In fact, the stability and power of gunpowder are all related to the purity of its extraction. Especially the saltpeter in it, the production of nitrate is also called boiled nitrate..."

"For charcoal, cedar charcoal works best, and ordinary plant ash is much worse..."

Huaiyu didn't hold back any professors, and after teaching the basics, he started the experimental class directly.

There are ready-made saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, etc. Huaiyu inspected the saltpeter and found that the saltpeter belonged to hair salt and needed to be purified.

"First pick out the impurities in the nitrate manually, and then put it into an iron pot. For a catty of nitrate, we add half a catty of water, and we can boil [-] catties of nitrate at a time. Heat it to boil, and add a small amount after two minutes. Cold water, stop when it boils."

One teaches with heart, ten learns with heart.

"Look, after the second boiling, most of the impurities are floating on the surface, and we can pick up these impurities,

Pay attention at this time, we need to add a small amount of swim bladder glue on the surface, which can increase the viscosity of the surface of the solution, so that it is easier to remove impurities. Repeat this operation several times to remove all impurities, and then let it stand.

After the solution is clarified, put it into a ceramic jar and allow it to cool down and crystallize naturally. "

The old men studied very seriously.

There are many ways to refine gunpowder, and what Huaiyu knows is relatively simple.

Crystallized nitrate, which contains water of crystallization, needs to be dehydrated again.

"We put the crystallized nitrate into a large iron pot and heat it to evaporate the water. The crystallized nitrate in a molten state will evaporate quickly. You must immediately use an iron spoon to put the nitrate on an iron plate or a stone plate. Let it cool naturally again, and you can get anhydrous fine nitrate.”

After cooling, the refined nitrate becomes lumpy, and then it is broken into pieces with a copper hammer, and finally it is pressed into a fine powder with a roller, and filtered with a sieve to make the particle size consistent.

The pulverized fire nitrate needs to be dried again to reduce the water content, but it cannot be directly heated by fire. A fire wall type drying room must be used, and the partition wall is heated by fire outside. Dry it at a high temperature for three or four hours. After drying, it needs to be screened with a specific sieve, and then it can be prepared.

"If we will make more firearms in the future and need a large amount of nitrate, then we must find natural nitrate holes to increase the supply of nitrate, otherwise it will be difficult to make gunpowder without nitrate..."

On the first day, Wu Huaiyu basically taught everything he could teach.

Huaiyu has already explained the key to the next step of dispensing the medicine, and they just have to figure out the preparation slowly.

The old men felt as if their heads were going to explode, but they didn't expect this master to not hide anything, and taught them all at once.

It was both exciting and somewhat skeptical.

"I have taught you all the secret methods. Next, you can refine and prepare them in groups of two or three, or individually. As long as you can master the method proficiently, you can develop and apply it to weapons.
Gunpowder is fundamental, but purification is more important. Although the preparation ratio is also very important, the purity will affect the ratio and effect. "

Huaiyu rowed a boat to leave the island, and the ten old men stayed on the island, where they would digest the knowledge they had just learned, conduct experiments there, and explore the formula.

No one is allowed to land on the island, let alone contact them.

Every day their food is sent to the shore by a few soldiers of the Shenji Battalion, and then they come back directly. They can only pick it up after the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion have left.

The sent meals, the returned lunch boxes, etc. have to be checked by a special person.

Huaiyu rowed the boat back to the shore, and found that the second pole Xu Jizu had bought fishing nets from Chang'an City on horseback, and he was fishing with some Qianqi in the water, and many Qianqi soldiers took off their clothes and were in the mud in the water Dig lotus root.

"Erlang, I have already caught a lot of fish and shrimp, and I have also dug up a lot of lotus roots. Tonight, there are fish, shrimp and lotus vegetables. It's great!"

(End of this chapter)