With a gun, gunpowder is naturally needed.

Black gunpowder has been widely used in the Song Dynasty, and firecrackers have become common items, and firearms have long been used in the army.

There is a firecracker workshop in Yanggong Town. When Zhao Qi bought firecrackers a few days ago, he went in to watch it. The conditions were simple and fire prevention measures were messed up, and the production method was very primitive. It was hand-packed with waste paper purchased. The gunpowder leads were no different from those in later generations. The only thing is that the gunpowder was purchased from a gunpowder factory in Yin County. The formula was unknown. The owner of the shop also told Zhao Qi that the gunpowder formula was strictly confidential. If there was no permission to privately distribute gunpowder, he would be beheaded.

Although the formula and production process are confidential, Zhao Qi also looked down on the gunpowder of the Song Dynasty. In fact, the so-called gunpowder used sulfur, nitrate and charcoal in the Song Dynasty, and it was often mixed with iron slag, arsenic, spices and other messy things. Therefore, the explosion power is not strong. Sometimes it is made into poisonous smoke cartridges, which are similar to fireworks, and have almost zero lethality, and can only be used to scare and disrupt the enemy's attack. Moreover, the ratio of the three main components of gunpowder in the Song Dynasty was also very chaotic, far from reaching the power of pure black gunpowder in the late Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, although the Song Dynasty had begun to develop and use firearms, the scale was very small and played a very small role in the battlefield. It was far from becoming the main weapon to dominate the victory or defeat on the battlefield.

The only successful firearm battle in the Song Dynasty should be the Battle of Huang Tiandang.

But it was also this battle that made the Jin people fear and great interest in firearms. They recruited a large number of Han craftsmen from the north for research and development, and soon all kinds of firearms were higher, even more powerful than those in the Song Dynasty. Later, the Mongols killed the Jin Kingdom. Then these craftsmen and gunpowder formulas and firearm making methods fell into the hands of the Mongols. The Mongols began to conquer the West with gunpowder, and thus China's gunpowder was also spread to the West.

If Zhao Qi wants to make gunpowder on a large scale, he must register a regular gunpowder factory before starting construction. But he does not need to do this at the moment. He only needs to buy sulfur and saltpeter can configure some of it in the abandoned brick kiln next to him.

The real formula and proportion of black gunpowder have been searched on the Internet in later generations, but what is missing now is just raw materials.

It is easy to say that sulfur is sold in the town, but it is not expensive. Japan and some countries in Southeast Asia also export sulfur as goods to China. These sulfur is also an important source of the raw materials for the Great Song Dynasty gunpowder, but there is no control. You can buy it at any time if you want to buy it. However, if you want to buy it in large quantities, you have to order it from merchants in these places in advance. It will be as fast as three to five months, and it will be indefinitely slow. These wooden boats are swinging on the sea, and they may sink.

Nitr is a little more troublesome.

Saltpeter mines are widely present in nature, but most of them are sodium nitrate. Potassium nitrate is rarely found in the form of ore because of its strong instability. Moreover, most of the production areas are in remote places with high saline and alkali, which are very difficult to mine, so it is also very troublesome to buy. There are some medicine shops, but very few.

But our ancestors had long discovered that they could extract fire and salt from the nitrite soil.

The sources of nitroso soil are very wide, including cesspools, stables, toilets, pigpens, and some salt-healyzed areas, especially those with heavy saline and alkali, and under cool and humid caves or cliffs. White nitroso crystals can be found.

The messy components in these nitroso soils are quite complicated. In addition to potassium nitrate, they also contain a large amount of metal salt impurities such as calcium, magnesium, and sodium.

The method to remove impurities is to rinse the nitroso soil with wood ash water and stir it. Heat it and react with the calcium and magnesium plasma and the carbonate ions in the wood ash before precipitating. The melt left after filtration continues to evaporate and crystallize, and a relatively pure pyrogenic acid will be obtained.

If there are more precise temperature-controlled crystallization equipment, the chlorides inside can be removed to produce potassium nitrate with very high purity. However, relatively speaking, the power of black gunpowder is just like that. It is better to find a way to make nitrosized cotton than to make purer potassium nitrate.

Now we have to start from scratch to develop firearms with huge lethality. Everything has to start from scratch and be sneaky. If the news of his development of powerful firearms is revealed, it is probably arousing the attention of the court. It is not that he does not want to contribute the firearms to the court, but that the current situation in the Song Dynasty is very chaotic and cannot strictly keep such firearms secret. Once they fall into the hands of the Mongolians, they will be able to make it soon with the help of the strong R&D and manufacturing capabilities of the Han people in the north. In that way, it will be more difficult and troublesome to drive the Mongolians away in the future.

Although he has never seen some so-called firearms in the Song Dynasty, they are just like the glass of a big man, and are nothing different from garbage.

When he did not have absolute power to protect these secrets, he tried to keep a low profile and remain low-key. However, no matter how low-key, these things still need help to make them. He told Yang Dahu the structure of the musket, but he would never tell him the best proportional formula of black gunpowder. Only when these two are combined can the firearm exert its maximum power.

Therefore, he plans to make gunpowder by himself, and after obtaining the best data, he prepares in advance for the future manufacturing of gunpowder.

"Laifu~" Zhao Qi returned to his yard with a bowl of nitro earth.

"Young Master, what are you calling me for?" Lai Fu quickly got off the apartment building with a series of boys and girls all over the place.

"Everyone comes here, line up!" Zhao Qi pulled away the young master's airs and stood in the yard. A group of kids of all sizes rushed over quickly, including Baoer, and they stood in line from tall to short.

"Report to the young master, line up, please give me instructions!" Lai Fu stood attentively and bowed with fists.

"After a moment!"

Zhao Qi looked at a group of girls who were only five or six years old and only twelve or twelve years old, and nodded seriously and satisfiedly and said, "I will arrange a task for you to go to the village to see which cow pen has this white powder on the wall of the pigpen. I will scrape it down and collect it for me to bring it back. I have an important role."

"Young Master, is it the white powder growing on the wall behind the brick kiln?" Lai Fu asked quickly after seeing the nucleic soil in the bowl.

"It's that kind, but I want a lot, the more the better. You can find some pottery bowls, bamboo tiles and tiles at home to search for them from house to house in the village. Generally, there are many corners of the toilet in the cow pen. Remember not to get the pig dung and cow dung back..."

"Don't worry, young master, we promise to scrape back all the white powder in the village, find something quickly and set off..."

Lai Fu waved his hand with a general style, and the group of little kids immediately scattered. Soon they went to find some messy tools and rushed out of the yard like wild dogs, and then headed towards different villagers' homes from all directions.

It turns out that they are a group of kids who have been self-reliant since childhood. They are all experts in life, and they can do anything quickly.

Zhao Qi was very satisfied with these children.
Chapter completed!