Late Tang

Selling Shenhuo to Li Lingfu, Li Jing was not worried that the secrets would be revealed.And he didn't sell it cheaply. Li Jing asked for a hundred high-quality Liaodong war horses for a hundred cans of Shenhuo.Li Jing was a little embarrassed to ask for this price, but Li Lingfu bought it without any hesitation.He has already heard that in the Battle of Tieshan Port, Fengzhang's squadron had not even docked at the port, and was directly sunk by this extremely powerful divine fire. Nine warships were directly defeated. of.

The biggest enemy of Qingnipu is Duli Town, and the strongest thing in Duli Town is their joint fleet. If this Shenhuo is really so powerful, it is worth buying no matter how expensive it is.What's more, Li Jing only wanted horses. Liaodong was short of food and money, but there was no shortage of war horses.Li Lingpu, who was born as a horse thief, has many connections in Liaodong, and he has been doing war horse trafficking business in normal times.

"I heard that this divine fire was taught by the Dragon King of the East Sea in the general's sleep?" Li Lingfu asked.

Li Jing smiled slightly, without saying a word.

The so-called Shenhuo, or Dragon King's Wrath, Ocean's Fire and other names are just some of the more deterrent ones he came up with.In fact, there is no such thing as a dragon king granting divine fire in a dream.God fire, in fact, the real name is Greek fire.This is a secret weapon that the Eastern Roman Empire in the West has been able to protect the country for thousands of years, also known as wildfire.It was first inadvertently invented by a construction worker named Galinikos who believed in Christianity and liked alchemy.

100 years ago, Caliph Muawiya I, the Arab empire that flourished in Central Asia, launched a joint land and sea attack on the Byzantine Empire. After the land battle was blocked, he concentrated his sea power and captured the southeast coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara. Kizkos, as a base for launching a large-scale naval offensive.Then the Arab fleet launched a general attack on Constantinople.The Byzantine navy dispatched small boats equipped with Greek fire to launch a fire attack on the Arab warships carrying siege equipment and soldiers.The commander-in-chief of the Arabian fleet, Fadalas, ordered the fleet to evacuate, but about two-thirds of the ships were burned.

In order to avoid the counter-siege of the Byzantine navy, Mu'awiyah ordered the remaining Arab ships to retreat south.However, the Byzantine navy took advantage of the victory to attack and once again used Greek fire near Silefkia, almost annihilating the Arab navy.The Byzantines were ecstatic, so they called the mysterious flame that saved their own destiny "the fire of defense" or "the fire of the sea".

50 years later, the Arab Empire once again sent troops to attack the Eastern Roman Empire in two ways. Byzantine Emperor Leo III immediately ordered the fleet to fight and burned the Arab fleet with Greek fire. In this siege, the Arab army used a total of 2560 ships. Only 5 ships returned to Syria and Alexandria.

From then on, the Eastern Roman Empire called this secret weapon the fire of defense, the fire of the sea, and the fire of Rome, and the Arabs who suffered from it called it Greek fire.

However, although these things happened within a hundred years at this time, because the distance is too far away, not many people in Datang know about this mysterious and frightening wildfire.Li Jing also only heard it when he overheard a few Hu merchants talking in a private room in Gongsun Lan's Sword Dance Pavilion in Changjie, Shamen Town. He immediately awakened all kinds of Greek fire in his memory.

This discovery made him very happy, and after returning, he began to secretly create this kind of wildfire.The Eastern Roman Empire kept the flame that protected them extremely secret, and never revealed the secret, and its formula was not handed down until later generations.However, later generations of scientists have conducted research on its ingredients, and analyzed that its formula is composed of naphtha, saltpeter, quicklime, phosphorus, and sulfur, and is also mixed with a certain proportion of flammable substances such as sulfur, asphalt, rosin, and resin. It dissolves into a liquid with excellent combustion performance by heating, can float and burn on the water surface, and is easy to attach to enemy ships or soldiers who fell into the water.

The most important material among them is naphtha, which is the substance after petroleum has been distilled, and there is also a common name called gasoline.

The entire formula is very complicated, and the light materials include naphtha, saltpeter, quicklime, phosphorus, sulfur, asphalt, rosin, and resin.However, this did not bother Li Jing, because Li Jing happened to read a record report of a successful experiment by a German scholar to restore Greek fire in later generations.In his experiment, besides the fire that Li Jing is currently using that needs to be ignited manually, there is also a formula that does not need to be ignited, but burns when touched with water. The ingredients of this Greek fire contain a certain amount of phosphorus Calcium, probably composed of limestone, bone char or even urine.However, the extraction of calcium phosphide is difficult, which is not conducive to mass production. In the end, Li Jing chose ordinary Greek fire, but the power was astonishing when he used it for the first time.

It can be said that this is a weapon belonging to this era, but it is also a power beyond the era.This is even more amazing than the power of black powder, and it is more suitable for naval warfare.

The Eastern Romans never disclosed the secrets of such weapons, because the production process was very strict. The development and production of Greek fire were carried out deep in the palace, and the entire operation was controlled by the Galinikos family, who was granted imperial orders and was firmly controlled. system.Everything about this weapon is kept strictly confidential and is not even allowed to be written down.They even seldom use it for fear of leaking secrets. Many times, they would rather let soldiers step forward to fight recklessly than use it easily.

However, Li Jing didn't have too many worries in this regard. This kind of weapon with a complicated formula cannot be easily controlled by the enemy.In particular, naphtha, the main material, is quite troublesome. You must first own petroleum, and then you must master the technology of distillation.What's more, Li Jing has now set up the workshop for the production of Shenhuo in the new city, and it is a secret underground workshop. A small strong bastion was specially built outside, and he was guarded by heavy soldiers. The formula was given by him. Personally grasp, the entire production process is divided into dozens of processes, which are carried out separately, and no one except him has the complete formula.

Li Jing could tell Li Lingfu that the divine fire was indeed given by the Dragon King, because he was the only one who had this formula in the entire East.In the whole world, only the Eastern Roman royal family, which is more suitable for the West, holds this secret.

It is impossible to tell who will lose and who will gain when Shenhuo trades war horses, but at least the two people who traded are very satisfied.Li Lingfu even proposed to buy more Shenhuo, and even asked for a price of two horses for one pot. Li Jing was very moved, and immediately reached an agreement with him again. After Li Jing went back, he rushed to make [-] cans of Shenhuo and exchanged it for green clay. There are a thousand war horses in the city.Later, some deals were discussed, mainly to establish a long-term trade relationship between Qingnipu and Shamen Town.

Qingnipu has a large number of cattle, sheep, horse mules, and even military materials such as cowhide and tendon. It even has several large mines under its jurisdiction, and it also has a mature slave trading market.Li Jing, on the other hand, guards the most prosperous port in the north of the Tang Dynasty, and also owns an armory workshop and several commodities that are in high demand.From then on, Qingnipu regularly traded war horses, slaves, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules, livestock, prisoners of war, slaves, and various ordnance materials, as well as iron ore, tin ore, copper ore, lead ore, phosphorus, lime, and sulfur to Li Jing. , saltpeter etc.

And Shamen Town will trade grain, cloth, prisoners of war, weapons and even warships and special products of Shamen Town to Qingnipu.

After the transaction was concluded, both parties were very satisfied.Li Lingfu also took out the trick of horse thief, and made a blood alliance with Li Jing on the spot, slaughtered a fine white horse to sacrifice to heaven, and drank the blood together as an oath.Sign a maritime alliance and establish an offensive and defensive alliance.

Before dawn, both parties returned home satisfied.On the second night, Li Jing's fleet loaded with more than 1 captive slaves, 1 pots of divine fire, and other items, and replaced [-] captives, [-] young and strong male slaves, and [-] There are a total of [-] young and strong female servants.In addition, there are two hundred war horses to exchange for the god fire, one hundred of them are the payment for the goods, and the other hundred are his return gift to Li Jing for his birthday gift.After a busy midnight, I finally completed the first transaction.There are still a lot of transaction content left, but the preparations are not complete, and the next transaction time will be set separately.

Standing on the wharf of Wuhu Island, Li Jing was very satisfied to see that more than 1 captives were replaced by a total of [-] prisoners of war and young and strong male and female slaves from Liaodong.Those captive soldiers in Daxie Village are still hot potatoes in their hands, so it will be easier to change them directly.Among the people in Daxie Village, apart from Zhang Lie and Wu Qian who were left behind, about a thousand soldiers who chose to surrender were also left behind.The only ones left were Feng Ming and other officers.Li Jing, the one-eyed dragon's pirate, sold them all, not even keeping Zheng Mo. These pirates had a deep-seated relationship with them. Although they were forced to surrender, Li Jing didn't want to keep such a group of people by his side.

"General, what about the people on Wuhu Island?" Li Zuoshi asked. Li Jing had people gather all the people on the archipelago except for the merchants since yesterday.These people have more than 2000 households, more than 8000 men, women and children.Most of them were fishermen and ordinary people. There were originally more than 1 people on the island, but many of them were family members of the garrison army. Li Jing directly took them to Qingnipu to replace them.For the rest, Li Jing didn't plan to replace them.

"Let them bring their luggage and board the boat. We will bring all of these people back to Shamen Town."

"Take them all away?"

"Take them all away, take everything you can take on Wuhu Island, and let's leave an empty island for Feng Zhang."

In the early morning of the same day, Li Jing finally set sail with [-] prisoners of war slaves exchanged from Liaodong, more than [-] people taken from Wuhu Island, and more than [-] surrendered soldiers from Daxie Village who surrendered.Standing on the three-story battleship deck of Li Jing's new flagship Iron Mountain, Li Jing leaned on his sword and thought.

The first step has been taken, and it has been won.Now the most critical thing will be the second step, and the news of this battle will not be blocked for a long time, and Feng Zhang will know when he returns to Shamen Town.At that time, how Feng Zhang reacted, and how he would deal with it.

Will the war he provoked achieve the result he expected in the end?

Li Jing didn't have much confidence in his heart, but he was ready for an all-out war with Feng Zhang.

(To be continued)