The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 485 Black Oil Mountain

It's only 600 li away from Tianzi City, which is really not far.

With a Mustang, I can travel from morning till night!
The Gobi Desert under the setting sun has a touch of desolate beauty and loneliness.

As you get closer to the target hilltop, you can smell the pungent, rotten egg-like odor in the air.

Led by the herdsman, the group arrived at Black Oil Mountain, where he had previously extracted asphalt.

Gan Minglan walked around the black oil mountain and realized that it was completely different from the rocky or muddy mountains she usually saw.

It is estimated that the earth cracked due to crustal movement millions of years ago!
Oil buried underground is seeping up through cracks.

The oil that seeps out, after being exposed to wind and sun, eventually solidifies into asphalt hills.

Almost nothing grows around these small hills.

The herdsman pointed out the oil leak to everyone, covered his nose, and refused to stay any longer. After confirming that he had completed his task of leading the way, he rode away.

Only after his figure disappeared completely did General Gu finally unable to hold back his question:

"General, have we found something good this time?"

After her suspicions were confirmed, Gan Minglan felt her lips and tongue were dry and couldn't help but swallow.

There was an excitement in her voice that she herself was unaware of:
“We’ve really struck gold! This black oil is called petroleum! The ancients also called it: stone lacquer, stone oil water, mud oil, and fierce fire oil. During the Song Dynasty, Shen Gong named it petroleum in his ‘Dream Pool Essays’.”

General Gu and others only learned a few hundred characters in the last few years through literacy classes.

How could they possibly know anything about Shen Gong from the Song Dynasty? And about "Dream Pool Essays"?
Someone asked:

"Is it this man named Shen Gong who writes down his dream experiences every morning and then compiles them into a book?"

The others suddenly realized:
"Master Shen is indeed remarkable; he knows astronomy and geography even in his dreams!"

"Those who leave their mark on history are indeed extraordinary!"

"The Great General is truly awe-inspiring! He can even remember the contents of such an obscure book!"

Everyone: Another day of worshipping the Great General!
Gan Minglan: "Shen Gong was born into an official family in Jiangnan. He was intelligent and studious from a young age and studied many fields such as astronomy, geography, meteorology, and agriculture. He also served as a Hanlin Academician and Minister of the Three Departments during the Northern Song Dynasty."

In his later years, he resigned from his official post and retired to Runzhou, where he named his residence "Mengxi Garden." As is customary for scholars, he never associated with commoners, so he recorded his conversations with friends in the garden, compiled them into a book, and named it "Mengxi Bitan" (Dream Pool Essays).

Before the Northern Song Dynasty, when the state of Bei was still in power, this book not only continued to be printed and sold in the previous dynasty, but also appeared in multiple versions.

One of them is in Zuo Wenkang's collection of books.

Gan Minglan was bored during her postpartum confinement period, and she had only just finished reading it a few days ago.

All the soldiers: Wow, the general is really amazing! He not only knows the contents of the book, but also the origin of the title!
Gan Minglan then proceeded to provide this group of semi-literate individuals with a science lesson:

"The most distinctive feature of petroleum is that it ignites when it comes into contact with fire, and the fire is extremely fierce! Just imagine, if this oil were made into incendiary bombs, or into a weapon that can spew fire, how lethal would it be?"

Soldiers:
"hiss"

"For city defense? Splash it on the enemy soldiers climbing the wall?"

"It can also be used for sieges! Drop hundreds or thousands of incendiary bombs into the city, and it will definitely burn the entire city down!"

"Huff... I'm really eager to see how powerful this incendiary bomb is."

"It sounds like a very powerful new weapon!"

"..." The crowd looked at the oil, which they had just complained about for its stench and its dark color, with eyes that burned with more desire than when they looked at gold.

Gan Minglan continues to popularize science:
"In his Dream Pool Essays, Shen Congwen mentioned that the soot produced when petroleum is burned can be used to make ink, which is called 'Yanchuan Stone Liquid' and is of higher quality than traditional pine charcoal black ink. In addition, petroleum can also be used as a waterproof coating when heated to a certain concentration."

The jaw that everyone had just lost couldn't help but scream again upon hearing this:
"This petroleum can be used to make ink sticks? It's even better than pine soot ink! I just bought a box of six sticks of pine soot ink for my third brother at a stationery shop, and it cost me ten taels of silver!"

"Can heating really make it a waterproof coating?"

"My goodness! This isn't just black oil, it's more precious than gold mines!"

Gan Minglan then went on to explain the wonderful uses of petroleum to them:

"All kinds of substances in petroleum must be used, and the oil and water inside can also be extracted by distillation. The extracted oil and water can be used to make incendiary bombs with even greater power."

The refined asphalt residue is the raw material for melting asphalt stone. It is a highly viscous, gel-like substance. By mixing sand, gravel, and sulfur into this gel-like substance, it can be used for road paving.

Soldiers:
"what?"

"what!"

Their thought processes are completely out of sync with such a technologically advanced topic.

There were no official roads connecting the ten guards of Kansai.

It was because these stationed troops made so many trips that they forged a path through the Gobi Desert.

However, these dirt roads are often damaged by sandstorms during the spring and winter, and people who don't use them often can easily get lost.

Kansai now has a grid-shaped city and a octagonal city, and there will be more merchants traveling along this route in the future.

They also wanted to rival the prosperity of Jiangnan, and the imperial highways absolutely could not lag behind!

However, their concept of imperial roads was still limited to the existing stone slab roads, blue brick roads, dirt roads, and gravel roads.

General Gan has now proposed paving the road with asphalt and gravel. They don't know whether to believe him or not!

General Gan spoke with absolute certainty:
"It's still scorching hot around noon, so the conditions for construction are suitable."

Why pave asphalt roads under the scorching sun?

This was from her previous life, when Gan Minglan learned about science through the CCTV Evening News.

I remember one summer when the heat reached new heights. A reporter interviewed several workers who were laying asphalt on the highway during the sweltering heat.

To illustrate how high the temperature was in that work environment.

The workers buried several sweet potatoes wrapped in tin foil in the asphalt gravel they were mixing. Not long after, the sweet potatoes were dug up and roasted.

The reporter asked, "Why pave the road in such high temperatures?"
The road workers explained that under high temperatures, asphalt becomes more viscous and fluid, making it easier to spread and compact.

It also involves many factors such as heat loss and durability.

Watching the news occasionally can be quite useful.

Now that we've reached a critical moment, it's come in handy!
As for the problem of asphalt roads softening easily when exposed to high temperatures, it can be alleviated by timely watering to cool them down, or by planting a large tree that can provide shade on both sides of the road next spring.

There aren't many perfect solutions; we can only solve problems as they arise.

With Gan Minglan's repeated assurances, the group immediately carried sacks and picked up a large pile of asphalt stones, taking them back as treasures.