Chen Xu came to the kitchen and pushed open the door of the laboratory. A smell of dust came to his face.

Everything in the room was as old as before, and all the decorations were exactly the same as when he left early summer. On the long wooden table in front of the windowsill, the rough pottery bowls and pottery basins were placed in a mess, and there were also ore and crystals of various colors. There was also a piece of plaster on a wooden board, which was left after making tofu.

The beams and windows were covered with spider webs, most of which were broken and swayed gently in the cold wind blowing in.

It took only half a year to leave, but when I come back, it feels like a different life.

Shui Qingrou left, her father came back, married the princess and Meng Wan, and had another half-sister and a half-brother.

The moon has phases and waxing, and people have joys and sorrows. This is a matter that is difficult to complete in ancient times.

Without enough experience and life insights, great poets would not be able to write such lingering and lonely poems.

After two lifetimes, Chen Xu finally realized the loneliness and helplessness of a great poet.

After a long time, Chen Xu picked up the broom and cleaned the laboratory inside and out. He went to the kitchen to find the remaining charcoal last year to light the fire. As the smoke emerged from the chimney on the roof, a hint of anger began to appear in the room that had been silent for a long time.

After the fire was born, Chen Xu arranged for his servant to move the saltpeter sulfur and charcoal sent by Liu Po ​​into the laboratory, and then found out all the clay pots and mortars that needed to be made of gunpowder, so he asked someone to go to the next door to find Niu Dashi.

"Brother Xu, what's the matter with me?" After a while, Niu Dashi walked in while holding a few fried chestnuts in his hand.

Chen Xu didn't care whether his hands were dirty or not, and dug a chestnut from Niu Dashi's hand and threw it into his mouth. He bit his shell and spit it into the stove and said, "From today on, you can learn how to make gunpowder..."

Niu Dashi's face turned twisted and his heels were as if he was horned when he heard this. He took a few steps back and said, "You spare me, do you want me to cook your shit and urine for you again?"

Chen Xu almost choked into the ventricular tube with a mouthful of chestnuts, and coughed for a long time before saying, "No, I won't cook urine this time!"

"Are you sure? I'm a Lidian now. If it's reported that I'll be full of face if I'm cooking urine!" Niu Dashi's face was full of distrust.

Chen Xu kicked Niu Dashi's butt and twitched his face, "I was still Lidian at the beginning, and you shouted all over the village to cook urine and drink it!"

"Hehe, you can't blame me for that, you want to cook it yourself!" Niu Dashi laughed dryly.

"Don't eat it, go wash your hands and prepare. The gunpowder is very simple to make, but you have to be very careful, otherwise it will explode. After it is made, I will make a few divine thunder fireworks and go to the town to set off in a few days to celebrate the New Year!"

"Divine thunder fireworks, are they the colorful flames mentioned in the newspaper?" Niu Dashi was very surprised.

"Well, that's the kind..."

"Okay, then let's start making it quickly!" Niu Dashi's chestnut stopped eating, stuffed it into his pocket to wash his hands. After washing, Chen Xu threw him a coat. After both of them were dressed, Chen Xu opened all three raw materials for making gunpowder.

Both saltpeter sulfur and charcoal Niu Dashi have known each other. Chen Xu took out a small scale and weighed them according to the proportion. He explained the proportion of ingredients while doing it. After weighing, he picked up the wooden pestle and carefully said on the wooden platform, saying: "Salpeter is extremely easy to explode, so remember not to be close to the fire, you cannot use a stone mortar or an iron mortar. Any bit of Mars may burn and explode. In this way, slowly pestle into pieces and stir and add a little tung oil..."

To make gunpowder into qualified granular gunpowder, it is necessary to repeatedly pound and pestle hundreds or thousands of times, and the three ingredients must be completely integrated evenly. When it feels almost done, pour it out and spread it in a dustpan to dry.

The tung oil dries faster. If it is placed on the warm kang, it will dry faster. After half dry, it will be finely rubbed with your hands to form a relatively uniform particle state and dry it thoroughly. However, it is not in a hurry at the moment, so after finishing, Chen Xu handed the small scale to Niu Dashi and asked him to make it according to his previous process.

A day passed by. After several repeated productions, Niu Dashi had fully mastered the method of making gunpowder. The two of them made a total of more than 30 kilograms of gunpowder in one day.

The next day, Chen Xu pounded the remaining metal salt crystals in the laboratory with obvious flame reactions into powder, and added them to gunpowder to make them into pea-sized gunpowder particles.

On the third day, Chen Xu asked several servants to help roll the fireworks and paper tubes with hemp pulp and paste, then plug it tightly with yellow mud at the bottom of the paper tube and then put it on the kang to dry.

Four days passed in a blink of an eye, and Chen Xu and Niu Dashi secretly made more than 20 fireworks in the laboratory. The production process was exactly the same as the method of the two mute slaves. According to Chen Xu's idea, he would definitely be able to explode successfully.

In addition, Chen Xu also used the remaining gunpowder powder to specially make more than ten fountain fireworks.

The gunpowder of this kind of fireworks is relatively small and loose. Just put it on the ground and ignite it. Even if it is an explosion, it is not very powerful and there is no big problem with safety.

It is already mid-December. Although the weather is still cold, winter is almost over. In more than ten days, it will be January and spring is about to begin.

Qinghe Town is still bustling because the cold winter is too quiet. All the workshops are still busy, and merchants are still coming and going.

In the chilly cold wind, a large number of farmers have already started to work in the farmland on both sides of the Xiaoqing River, preparing for the spring sowing after the beginning of spring.

Chen Xu has rarely gone to Wild Wolf Valley recently because he has taught what he should say and has to let his father Chen Hu go to train repeatedly.

In the blacksmith shop in the town, the fire in the iron smelting furnace burned red under the whistling bellows, and a pot of steel juice in the crucible in the iron smelting furnace was also red and boiling.

The iron craftsman directed several helpers to lift a pot of iron juice out of it with a swingable crane, and then carefully poured it into the sand turning mold.

Now that gunpowder and fireworks have been made, just make the cannon barrel again.

Chen Xu and Niu Dashi have been busy recently, and Chen Hu and Han Xin have been staying in the Wild Wolf Valley almost all day long.

Chen Jiang and Han Tian are now as close as sisters, and they are digging a vegetable garden with a group of servants at home to prepare to sow vegetables, fruits and melons.

Ying Shiman and Meng Wan were too pampered to do these jobs since childhood, so they basically stayed in the room and watched the story Shui Qingrou originally wrote, and they were very fascinated.

The three girls Xinger, Yu Ji, Xiaomi and a group of girls in the village either played shuttlecocks, sandbags and games in the yard, or ran around the village to play wildly. A few puppies of shakuba were following a group of children and were having fun all day long.

The two dogs I had originally raised had indeed been eaten by Yu Wuya's hot pot after coming back, but he was prepared for it, so he asked Niu Dashi to catch a few puppies from the town. After the two little girls came back and cried, they quickly forgot the two dogs, and then they were fed up with the new and old ones and soon fell in love with the new group of new dogs.

In the evening, Chen Xu and his father Chen Hu, Niu Dashi and Han Xin came back from Qinghe Town together. More than a dozen guards were huddled in front of each other, and the sound of horse hooves could be heard clearly from several miles away. This high-profile and domineering scene was already very familiar to the entire Xiaohe Village.

Ying Shiman and Meng Wan welcomed the yard with a group of servants and maids.

"Dropping off the two iron tubes on the horse's back first!" A group of people turned over and got off the horse. Seeing the groom taking the horse to the stable to feed him, Chen Xu quickly ordered.

"Yes, Marquis!" Several servants came forward together and took off a vine basket tied behind the saddle, and placed two iron pipes as thick as two arms.

"Husband, why does this look like something that sets off divine thunder and fireworks?" Ying Shiman asked in surprise.

"This is the device I plan to use to set off the divine thunder and fireworks. There was also a fireworks in Xianyang the last time, but we have come back and haven't seen it. Today we will put it at home to open our eyes to the villagers of Xiaohe Village and Qinghe Town!" Chen Xu said with a smile.

"Yeah, we can watch the divine thunder and fireworks again!" Xing'er and Yu Ji jumped up excitedly, then ran out of the yard with a few puppies to go to the village to promote. Xiaomi also followed behind and chased after them, and the three children disappeared in an instant.

"Husband, Xiaohe Village is surrounded by mountains, and you can't see the people in the town where you can set up the divine thunder and fireworks!" Meng Wan looked at Chen Xu in confusion.

"Today we will only put a few at home and let us go to Qinghe Town to let everyone see..." Chen Xu said while directing several servants to take out the iron pipes and assemble them.

The three little girls were promoting it very quickly. Chen Xu had just washed his hands and had not had time to take a break. He heard the noise outside the yard. A large group of children had rushed into the yard and chatted around two iron tubes fixed with tripods. In addition, there were faint sounds of men and women joking loudly from afar.

"Come on the rice!"

Chen Xu was amused and cried and quickly ordered the rice to fill his stomach. It was estimated that the whole village would be coming later.

So the family didn't care about etiquette and quickly picked up their bowls to eat. Sure enough, before the bowl of rice was finished, Niu Dashi ran in with a steamed bun dipped in sauce, and said while eating: "Hey, Brother Xu is still eating, hurry up, it's already dark!"

Chen Xu glanced out the window, twitched for a few seconds and said, "It's so bad, at least wait until the end of Youth..."

"Brother, brother, go and release the divine thunder and fireworks. Everyone in the village is here!" Xing'er ran in and shouted loudly.

Chen Xu had to finish the food in the bowl in three mouthfuls, threw the dishes and slapped his mouth and went out. Han Xin followed closely, wrapped his mouth with his mouth and pulled a chicken leg to catch up with him.

Ying Shiman and Meng Wan naturally had no intention of eating, so they put down their dishes and hurried out with them.
Chapter completed!