back to prehistoric savage

Chapter 281: Boil saltwater and tame thunder
After the autumn gathering, Zhang Tian led Xiao, Hutou and other men to dig soil in the saltwater hole they had discovered.

Nitre is the most important raw material for preparing gunpowder.

At that time, the incident of Yellowstone not being taken away had not happened yet. Zhang Tian was purely considering mining in the future.

Finding mineral deposits is only the first and simplest step. The subsequent mining, crushing, smelting, and forging... are all extremely difficult major projects.

Everything is difficult at the beginning. With the existing tools and technical level, the mining of the first batch of mines is not optimistic. Zhang Tian has already formulated a new round of "Five-Year Plan" - in the first five years of settling in Taoyuan, it will basically be realized. In order to achieve self-sufficiency in food, we will strive to cultivate a group of outstanding miners in the next five years.

The discovery of malachite shows that the copper mine is not buried deep, whether it is in the mountains or underground.

If you are in the mountains, you may need to blast the ore and explode the big rocks. Of course, you can also use the most primitive "fire-induced water pouring method", which is to heat the rocks and then pour cold water on them, using the principle of thermal expansion and contraction to make the rocks bigger. The block splits, but this method is certainly far less efficient than gunpowder.

Later, Wolf Boy and his party encountered changes, which further strengthened Zhang Tian's determination to prepare black powder, or in other words, to make "explosive packs."

Sooner or later, I will have to go to the Star Tribe. Because the journey is far away, large troops cannot accompany me, so it is necessary to upgrade the weapons. The difference between hot and cold weapons is enough to make up for our numerical disadvantage.

Zhang Tian planned to try to prepare relatively pure soil saltpeter first. After all, he only knew the theory and had never practiced it, nor had the opportunity to practice it. Modern society has very strict controls on guns and gunpowder. Once discovered, it would take three years to start.

Zhang Tian is actually very interested in this traditional technology. He remembers watching "Landmine Warfare" when he was a child, and there was a classic line about making black powder: "It's not rare, it's nitrate, disulfide, and charcoal."

Mononitrate, disulfide, and charcoal refer to the main components of black gunpowder and their proportions. This is an experience summed up by our ancestors based on long-term practice. It is very close to the black gunpowder prepared by modern industry.

One nitrate refers to one pound of saltpeter, that is, 16 liang of the old one, two sulfur refers to two liang of sulfur, and three charcoal refers to three liang of charcoal. The mass ratio of the three is 16:2:3. The three qualities of black gunpowder that meet industrial standards The ratio is 15:2:3. Considering that the soil salt produced by the ancient people's native method of boiling salt contains more impurities, it is reasonable to use slightly more soil salt.

Charcoal can be fired through the kiln firing method and is the most readily available of the three raw materials.

The soil in the nitrate cave has a very good nitrate content, and a thick layer of white crystals even precipitates on the wall. The purity is visible to the naked eye, much higher than the excrement in the toilet.

Mining is more laborious, requiring you to crawl through a narrow tunnel, and transportation can only be carried out bit by bit.

Zhang Tian also spent 20 faith points to exchange for a solar-powered portable searchlight for lighting. After all, the phosphorescence of the luminous stone was dimmed, which was not conducive to the work in the cave.

When the bright light of the searchlight filled the cave, the men all took a breath and exclaimed: "The sky has given us the sun!"

When I ran out of the cave, I saw that the sun was still hanging steadily high above my head, and my heart suddenly dropped into my stomach.

Zhang Tian laughed dumbly and said: "This is a kind of lamp, similar to the oil lamp we use."

Everyone looked at each other, thinking that this was much brighter than an oil lamp!
"What does it burn to glow?"

"Why don't you see the flames?"

"Why is the light white?"

Questions are thrown out one after another, and the sky priests seem to have an inexhaustible supply of new things, and they can always come up with novel gadgets when they least expect them.

Zhang Tian dealt with the curiosity of his tribe members patiently. Curiosity is a good thing.

He tried his best to explain in a language they could understand: "Although it is not the sun, it does have some blood relationship with the sun. It can be regarded as a descendant of the sun. Its light comes from the sun, so it is white. It also gets tired like the sun. When it stops lighting up, it means it needs to rest. At this time, you need to put it under the sun and let it rest for a while.”

Everyone exclaimed that it was a miracle and welcomed the descendants of the sun enthusiastically. They thought that this little guy looked quite unique and looked exactly like its ancestors.

The collection and purification of nitrate soil is troublesome, but it can be overcome in the end.

The hardest thing to get is sulfur, which is in lowest demand.

Sulfur is mostly an associated mineral of volcanoes and is a specialty of the mountain tribes. When we left, the mountain people enthusiastically gave us many ritual gifts, including not only obsidian, which is regarded as a sacred stone by the mountain people, but also many bright yellow colors and shapes. Beautiful sulfur.

Zhang Tian regrets now that he did not take more at that time.

However, it is not yet time to prepare black gunpowder on a large scale. After getting back the Yellow Stone, it will not be too late to return to the mountain tribe.

Zhang Tian did not tell the public what happened to the Wolf Boy and his party, but told them in a dream to keep a low profile, and the sky would watch them and help them avoid danger.

Year-end summary, sacrificial ceremony, the fourth sports meeting... the lives of the tribesmen are still going on step by step.

At the opening ceremony of the winter semester, Zhang Tian announced the new rules of the school: starting from next year, there will be a new summer semester, and all students are not allowed to be absent.

A group of foreign students suddenly mourned, and they were actually very happy. Now they had a valid reason not to return to the tribe. It was so tiring to travel back and forth, and the life in Taoyuan was rich and stable, so they were happy to stay.

Zhang Tian assigned more teaching tasks to Xiao and others. He was only responsible for teaching advanced classes. He only taught simple addition and subtraction, but he taught the children one head and two heads.

However, they have made rapid progress in writing symbols, and some children can even become teachers and teach adults a lesson when they return home.There is no shortcut to language learning, the only thing is to write more and remember more, practice makes perfect, and when it comes to hard work, these children do not lose to anyone.

Lin Yu created more symbols and began to try to teach children to write and understand slightly more complex sentences.

This winter, the adults have not been idle either.

The Sky Priest said that next spring, he would take some people to attend the gathering in Hedong.

You need to prepare some supplies in advance for this.

The women took out the linen material from the warehouse and weaved it into cloth, while the men boiled the saltpeter under Zhang Tian's command.

Similar to the method of boiling salt, the nitrate soil is placed in water, filtered, clarified, and exposed to the sun to obtain a solution with a higher concentration.

Pour the nitrate water into a pot and bring it to a boil. Add the alkaline water made by burning the straw into ashes and then mixing it with water. Boil over high heat to evaporate the water, because the solubility of nitrate changes drastically with temperature, which is much higher than that of salt, magnesium chloride, and sulfuric acid. Magnesium and other impurities are violent, so after the solution is cooled, nitrate will precipitate and precipitate first, forming white crystals.

Of course, one crystallization is not enough. After filtering it out, the above operation must be repeated to purify the soil salt.The purity of soil nitrate can be judged by the flame color reaction. Because plant ash is rich in potassium, the precipitated soil nitrate is mainly potassium nitrate. The so-called potassium purple, barium yellow-green, sodium yellow, lithium purple-red, Zhang Tian used a wooden stick to dip it. A little saltpeter, ignited with fire, explodes immediately!
Purple flames!
Everyone had never seen such a strange flame color before, and their expressions changed. Their two bodies were fighting, and they almost fell to their knees.

Xiao Xiao found that this thing seemed to be easy to ignite, and couldn't help but ask: "Should we use it as fuel?"

Zhang Tian shook his head and said, "No, we need to use it to tame the thunder beast."

"Tame...the thunder beast?"

Everyone was stunned, and Xiao swallowed hard. He knew that Tian was very smart, but taming the thunder beast was too bizarre, and it was simply a fantasy.

"Yes, tame the thunder beast." Zhang Tian said firmly, "It's like taming wild boars and bison. I want to make the thunder beast be used by us."

Over the years, they have seen many incredible things, but all the things before combined are not as incredible as taming the thunder beast.

In the tribe's perception, the thunder beast is the most powerful beast in the world. Compared with the thunder beast, wild boars and bison are as weak as ants.

Can Ultralisk really be tamed?Just these inconspicuous white powders?
The more incredible it is, the more it arouses their great interest and curiosity. They can't wait to witness the miracle and work harder.

They believe that the Sky Priest can do it. After all, he has never failed before. He has been creating miracles since he received the guidance from the sky.

After boiling the saltpeter, the remaining solution is brine, which is rich in potassium and minerals. A small part is used to make tofu, and the rest is poured into the ground to fertilize the fields.

Although the saltpeter soil in the saltpeter cave is stronger than the dung, it is still not as good as the saltpeter mine. On average, every five baskets of saltpeter soil produce one basket of soil saltpeter, making a total of more than ten baskets of soil saltpeter, weighing forty or fifty kilograms.

As a hands-on work, the output is very good, and Zhang Tian is very satisfied.

Compared with boiling saltpeter, burning charcoal is much easier. Because the amount is small, even the dragon kiln cannot be used. Just dig a hole, stuff it with firewood, straw and other firewood, and light it.When the fire is hot enough, quickly seal the hole, making sure it is airtight so that the firewood inside will be carbonized under the high temperature and lack of oxygen.

When the temperature naturally cools down and the cave is dug, black charcoal will be obtained.

Sulfur is readily available, brittle, and can be easily pounded into powder.

With nitre, sulfur and charcoal, you can prepare black powder.This is the most dangerous stage in the entire production process, and a little carelessness may lead to tragedy.

Zhang Tian, ​​a primitive primitive man, was worried about leaving this matter to him. He shut away everyone, chose a secluded place, and studied it with concentration.

……

The hard-working and brave Taoyuan people are using their own hands to promote the changes of the times. The old things are being replaced by new things that are constantly emerging. It can be said that there are almost no traces of the wildness in the thousands of acres of land in Taoyuan.

But wilderness is still the main theme of this era. Not to mention compared to the entire world, even in this mountain basin, there is still a lot of land waiting to be developed, and there are many resources for them to seize.

For example, the huge rocks beside the Xiaonan River.

These huge rocks are one of the main sources of stone for the clan.

Mining stones is the hardest work, and men have spent many difficult times on these stones. Xiao remembers that tiger claws often hit water here. Another time, tiger heads competed with boa constrictors, pine needles and others to see who could urinate in the wind. Further afield, it was so windy that day that everyone peed on their legs.

Xiao has not been here for a while. He is now a "senior intellectual" in the clan and no longer has to do such hard work. In the words of the Sky Priest, he should do something more valuable.

Now, he stood in front of these huge rocks again.

Not only him, almost everyone came. They heard that the priest was going to tame the thunder beast, which was an event that could be passed down through the ages. Even if they forgot to eat, they would not miss the moment of witnessing history.

But only Xiao and Lin knew that Tian was going to try out a new weapon. It was said that this weapon had part of the power of the thunder beast and was very powerful!
Three days ago, he and Tian boiled the hemp rope in a solution of vinegar and nitric acid and dried it. It is said that it was called match rope.It was then that he learned the truth, even though it was not easy for him to understand.

Can you get the power of the Ultralisk just by mixing several powders together?What's the point?
Hunters clear snow from near rocks.

Zhang Tian looked around at the dark crowd and thought that it was human nature to watch the excitement. He ordered Hu Tou: "Tell them, no one is allowed to come near!"

The tiger head took the order and left.

Zhang Tian opened the cloth covering the backpack. The nearby hunters could not peep openly, so they secretly peeked into the backpack and found that there were several ordinary clay pots inside. The openings were small and all were covered with yellow mud. It was blocked, and a thin black hemp rope stretched out.

The ancients called explosives fire caltrops, and it was one of the top concealed weapons in martial arts novels. However, in fact, all dynasties strictly prohibited civilians from making explosives. This weapon was exclusively used by elite troops. It is similar to modern grenades and is made of ceramics. Porcelain tribulus was also popular for a while.

Zhang Tian fumbled and fumbled out a few porcelain caltrops, but he didn't know whether they would work or how powerful they would be.

He placed the clay pot containing black powder against the rock wall, even pretended to analyze the force, and carefully selected several explosive points, hoping that it would explode in one fell swoop, and everyone's eagerness to wait would be worth it.

When he was a child, he watched Anti-Japanese War movies. Zhang Tian never understood why bombed bunkers had to be placed close to the wall, and why couldn't they be thrown over like grenades?
Only when I grew up did I realize that this kind of earthen explosive was not powerful enough, and air is a medium that is easily compressed. The shock wave of the explosive explosion attenuated very quickly in the air. It was impossible to penetrate the bunker with fragments, so it was necessary to Placed close to the blasting object, it relies on the almost incompressible solid to efficiently conduct shock waves and destroy its internal structure.

Zhang Tian took out a specially made match rope that could smolder slowly and tied it to the twist of the earthen explosive. He lit the match rope and led his tribe members to retreat tens of meters away.

"The Thunder Beast is coming! Everyone, cover your ears!"

Is it so sudden?

Everyone was shocked to see that the Sky Priest and the Wizard had covered their ears, and they quickly followed suit.

The burning speed of the match rope was much slower than expected. Everyone covered their ears, opened their mouths, and waited with bated breath for a long time. They were all a little impatient. The brave ones quietly put down their hands. At this moment, a rapid squeaking sound suddenly sounded!

The next moment, there was a loud bang on the ground!
boom!
There was a blazing flash of light accompanied by a violent sound, and countless rubbles were thrown high into the air!

The Thunder Beast is coming!

(End of this chapter)