Lord Harland.

Chapter 291 Chemical Development
Many people in the Harland Mage Association have successfully advanced. Now, in addition to the three middle-level mages Richard, Sophia, and Wendy, the Mage Association already has Annie, Butler, Heath, and Roentgen, four three-ring mages as the backbone. .

Anne is the grand-niece of the housekeeper Gibson, and a member of the Harland family branch. She has a moderate talent for magic and has been learning magic for more than ten years.

Butler and Hiss came from the Tower of Death and were incorporated by the Harland Mages Association.Heath is more than 40 years old, and his talent is relatively average.Butler has a good talent, but it takes time to deduce the creative meditation method, and the speed of advancement may not be as fast as Annie.

Anne's meditation method is the same as that of Sophia, Richard, Wendy and others, all of which are highland meditation methods.There are twelve levels in this meditation method, which can be cultivated to nine rings.

Before the Nine Rings, Annie, like Wendy, didn't need to worry about meditation, because the more talented Sophia and Richard walked ahead of them.

With Richard and Sophia leading the way, the difficulty for Wendy and Annie to learn magic is slightly lower.

Roentgen is a wild magician. When she was young, she accidentally found a meditation book recorded by an ancient magician. This meditation book is quite complete and can be used to meditate up to the five rings.

After Roentgen became a mage through meditation, he has been living in Nolan.She originally wanted to join the Grant Mage Association, but the Grant Mage Association is very conservative and doesn't recruit outsiders very much.After the wild mage joined, they were very restricted and could only become cannon fodder. It was extremely difficult to obtain magic knowledge.

Compared with the Grant Wizards Association, although the Harland Wizards Association is weaker, it has a very open atmosphere. As long as a certain contribution is made, most of the knowledge can be copied and read.

When the magician wanted to leave, the Harland Mage Association would not stop him.

Relying on the loose conditions, the Harland Mage Association has recruited seven magicians and more than a dozen mage apprentices in recent years. These wild mages have also brought a lot of magic materials to the Harland Mage Association. Contributed to the growth of the Masters Association.

When Rontgen joined the Mage Association last year, he was still a second-ring magician. After being exposed to a lot of novel knowledge from the Harland Mage Association, he successfully advanced in March this year.

In December of this year, another important research in Harland's territory also had a breakthrough.

The research, called the Searing Ray Gun, is an energy gun that doesn't have a trigger and doesn't rely on gunpowder bullets.By consuming the magic power inside the magic crystal, the second-ring magic scorching rays can be released.

This kind of firearm uses the lowest-end blood steel material, which can be welded on the gauntlet, engraved with the scorching ray rune, and then connected to the magic crystal through the magic pattern pipeline.

Because of the loss of magic power conversion, a magic crystal can only emit four scorching rays.

Li Cha came to the Harland Mage Association, fiddled with the scorching ray gun in his hand, the magic power surged in his hand, and aimed at a distant target and fired a scorching ray.

A crimson ray shot out from the red steel pipe on the gauntlet, blasting the target 30 meters away.

Looking at the exploding target in the distance, perhaps his expectations were too high, Li Cha said dissatisfied: "The spells released by using magic devices are slightly weaker than standard magic, and the destructive power is only about [-]% of that of alchemy bombs. It takes multiple hits to pose a fatal threat to the snake body. The power is not as powerful as the enchanted bow and arrow."

The scorching ray gun was mainly researched by Wendy and Roentgen, and the project team was established only two years ago.Wendy has done a lot of research on the efficiency of mana conversion, and it took a year to make a breakthrough.

"Of course the ray gun has advantages, at least it doesn't require long training to use this weapon.

To train an ordinary soldier into a third-tier shooter with every shot and every shot requires not only talent, but at least ten years of training.With the ray gun, as long as the eyes are not blind, you can shoot scorching rays at the enemy. "

Seeing that Li Cha dismissed the scorching ray gun as worthless, Wendy immediately retorted.

After hearing Wendy's rebuttal, Sophia agreed with her very much, and continued to add: "In fact, this weapon has another advantage. Like the enchanted armor, soldiers of the warrior profession can also use it. If equipped with several scorching ray guns What kind of scene would it be like to launch hundreds of scorching rays together on the battlefield?"

Seeing that Wendy and Sophia were very satisfied with this kind of magic item, Li Cha knew in his heart that his request was too high.After thinking about it objectively, Li Cha said: "The cost of this kind of magic item is higher than that of the alchemy bomb, but its power is much weaker than that of the alchemy bomb. Go to the gauntlets. If there is a surplus of blood steel at the end of the year, you can try to make some."

Hearing what Li Cha said, Sophia immediately answered: "Since we are going to manufacture a scorching ray gun, the consumption of magic crystals may be very high. Although we have a lot of magic crystals in stock now, we should save some in the future. Those messy things Most of the magic crystal research should be stopped."

Sophia was very dissatisfied with the messy research done by magicians and research institutes wasting magic crystals.

As of December this year, Harland Territory has used more than [-] magic crystals for scientific and magical experiments, some of which are very unscientific.In Sophia's perception, magic crystals are very precious resources and should not be wasted in worthless research.It's just that Richard attached great importance to the institute, so Sophia didn't publicly express her dissatisfaction.

Hearing Sophia's complaints, Richard nodded and said: "Research with no progress and no direction can be stopped first, but research with progress and prospects, we should still support it.

Fort William's Mage Tower is about to be completed, and we will have a third artificial magic well. The charging technology Wendy researched this year has improved again, and the efficiency has increased to about [-]%.

The magic crystal we will recharge next year will be about 200 yuan, which is enough for us to use. "

The three of Li Cha discussed for half an hour, and they left the shooting range together, and came to the Wizard Tower of Fort William.

Fort William's Master's Tower was built near the Earl's Mansion, about 70 meters away from the west city wall.

After more than ten years of operation, the urban area of ​​Fort William has tripled. A large number of institutions and residential buildings have been built outside the city walls, especially the area of ​​Nancheng, which has expanded the most. Now the civilian area of ​​Nancheng has more than 4 people living there.

The buildings in the West End are mainly government offices and the Earl's Mansion. Although they have expanded a bit, they are mainly official institutions and are not very chaotic.

The territory of Harland controlled the two mage towers, and he was familiar with the internal situation of the mage towers. Because of the legendary dragon crystal as the energy room, the construction of the mage towers was not too difficult.

Since his return in July, Richard has mobilized more than 6000 contract slaves, plus a dozen low-level mages to provide assistance. It took nearly four months to successfully build the mage tower.

Fort William's mage's tower has five floors underground and six floors above ground. On the top of the mage's tower, six rings of magical petrified ray spells are inscribed.

Because the magic power of dragon crystal is more abundant than that of legendary monsters, the energy room of this mage tower can release sixteen petrification rays a day.Compared with the two mage towers in the swamp basin, Richard arranged single-body defense spells in the mage tower of Fort William, focusing on attacking elite personnel.

After the completion of the Fort William Wizard Tower, the Harland Wizard Association immediately moved its headquarters.After all, magicians are people too, and they like to live in prosperous places.

Although the swamp basin is well-developed, it is not as prosperous as Fort William and has rich entertainment activities.

Today, there are more than 30 mages living in the petrified tower of Fort William, and more than [-] people live in the two mage towers of Flame and Lightning.The remaining more than [-] magicians were incorporated into the army.

Relatively speaking, the treatment of magicians incorporated into the army is higher, and the conditions are more difficult.

Li Cha and others are in charge of the petrified tower, and the two mage towers in the swamp basin are temporarily managed by two third-ring mages, Roentgen and Hiss.Less than three years after joining Harland's territory, he was able to manage a mage tower, and most of the magic knowledge had reading authority.Such a change made Roentgen feel extremely happy.She kept writing letters to her wizard friends, recruiting members for the Harland Mages Guild.

In mid-December, good news came from the Institute of Chemical Engineering. After years of exploration, researchers extracted aniline from coal tar.Aniline was mixed with sulfuric acid to make sulfate, and potassium sulfate was added to make the first synthetic dye, aniline violet.

This discovery represents a pioneering discovery made by the Chemical Research Institute of Harland Territory.

The dyes on the Dawn plane are all natural dyes, mainly from plants and minerals in nature, such as extracting blue dyes from indigo and woad, extracting red dyes from cochineal and safflower, and extracting purple from moss and snails. dye.

Due to the limitation of raw materials and extraction process, the output of dyed cloth is relatively small, and the price is very high, so it can only be used as a luxury item, and the market scale is relatively small.Compared with chemically synthesized dyes, the disadvantages of natural dyes are very obvious, such as incomplete chromatogram, poor printing and dyeing fastness, especially after being rinsed and exposed to the sun with soap, color mixing and fading will soon appear.

Once the chemically synthesized dyes are successfully developed in the Harland Territory, all naturally dyed cloth can be swept into the garbage dump.

But should aniline violet be produced on a large scale?Li Cha still needs to think carefully for a while.

The Grant royal family is also engaged in the manufacture of dyed cloth. Before they have enough strength, the Harland family must avoid making enemies everywhere.

Because of the brown sugar industry, the Harland family has offended the Earl of the South, and the steel industry has squeezed the interests of Duke Edward.

In a world where big fists make sense, powerful forces covet the interests of others.Sometimes it can be coordinated through negotiations, and sometimes conflicts will break out. This often depends on the relative strength of the two sides, geographical location, external situation and many other factors.

Moreover, Li Cha is still a vassal of King Roger. According to the simple values ​​of the Chenxi plane, vassals cannot compete with the lord for power and profit, and the lord is naturally superior in righteousness.A conflict with King Roger would be very troublesome for the Harland family.

If Richard lowers the price on a large scale and grabs the market, conflicts may break out with other nobles.

Once a business conflict breaks out with the Grant family, they may be surrounded and beaten, giving up more benefits, and the rapid development speed will be interrupted

The best way is to avoid impacting the original market, develop new markets, and sell to other countries.But in this way, it will offend the local nobles who control the dyed cloth.

As an outsider, it is impossible to compete with the local nobles.

The only thing Harland can fight for is the market of the Grand Duchy of Stanik. Through the relationship between the Church of the Goddess of Wealth and the Watson family, a large amount of profits have been made to impact the market of the Hughes family.

Whether there is a prospective market or not, laboratory research must continue.Even if laboratory products are still very far from industrialized products, it may take ten or eight years.In order to get rid of the technical troubles.

Coal chemical industry is a crucial field for industrial development, and research in this direction cannot be interrupted.

After discovering aniline violet, the chemical department couldn't help but get excited, and their backs straightened up a little.

The Institute of Chemistry has been established for more than ten years, with very few achievements. The only thing worthy of praise is the establishment of a small-scale sulfuric acid factory, which uses the lead chamber method to produce sulfuric acid.

There are salt lake mines in the territory of Harland, which can produce potash ore, salt, soda ash, etc. Relying on natural minerals, the chemical industry has begun to make progress.

Now that aniline violet is extracted from coal tar, it means that a new path has been opened.

The Harland Territory has built a coking oven for more than ten years, and has developed from an ordinary earthen kiln to a coking plant. Coal tar is a by-product of coal coking.

This kind of thing is regarded as black paint by the chemical industry department, and it is completely reckless in Li Cha's eyes.

Li Cha knows in his heart that coal chemical industry is a very important branch of the chemical industry. Coal tar can be extracted to produce various substances such as benzene, aniline, asphalt, and fuel oil, each of which has great uses.

There are coal mines in the territory of Harland, and a coking factory has been established, which has been gradually improved from an earthen kiln to a coking oven.

After the coal mines are mined, they are cleaned, screened, and crushed in a coal washing plant. After being pulverized, they are made into clean coal powder and sent to the coke oven. After high-temperature dry distillation, coke is produced, and then sent to the steelmaking plant for steelmaking.

In the first few years, the gas produced during the dry distillation of pulverized coal was directly discharged into the atmosphere, which not only polluted the environment, but also wasted gas and coal tar.

At the request of Li Cha, the coking plant began to increase the gas condensing device and set up a cooling tower to separate and collect the coal tar in the carbonization gas of pulverized coal.

How to build cooling towers and collect coal tar is a very difficult task.

Because of Li Cha's previous life, he was also unclear about the structure of the cooling tower.

Without Li Cha's guidance in the general direction, the engineers in Harland's territory were completely blinded, and could only continue to ponder and improve the process.After several years of continuous experimentation, the technology for separating a large amount of coal tar is not yet mature.

It was not until the discovery of red gum and the availability of sealing materials that the technology gradually matured and the coking plant produced coal tar stably.

This time, the extraction of aniline from coal tar and the synthesis of aniline violet are actually laboratory achievements, and there is still a long way to go before industrial production.When the process is mature, Li Cha estimates that it will take at least six to ten years of work.

(End of this chapter)