At the end of December, good news came from the scientific research team.
The magical ants of the scientific research team responsible for the experiment on the fluorescent bacteria extract finally figured out a way to purify the liquid. The physical and chemical properties of the liquid purified by this process are the same as those of the liquid in the mysterious ball, and can be confirmed to be the same substance.
The protagonist was overjoyed, which once again proved that his guess was correct.
The results of this research mean that the Divine Envoy King's Legion has the ability to produce mysterious liquids that can be used as gunpowder.
Gunpowder is a substance that can burn rapidly and regularly under the influence of appropriate external energy, and at the same time generate a large amount of high-temperature gas. It is mainly used in the military field, such as the propellant of bullets and artillery shells, the propellant of rockets and missiles, and the energy source of other driving devices. It has strong lethality. Gunpowder is also one of the important inventions of an ancient country in the human world that changed the world.
After the protagonist came to this world, he thought about inventing gunpowder and bringing the Divine Envoy King's Legion into the era of hot weapons.
However, although black gunpowder is simple and only requires three substances: charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur, the Divine Envoy King's Army can only produce charcoal on its own and lacks the key saltpeter and sulfur.
Saltpeter and sulfur are widely distributed in the world, but the range of activities of ants is limited. The huge ant country that the protagonist has seen is only a few villages or a township. With such a small range of activities, there really may not be saltpeter and sulfur resources.
For the production of gunpowder, the most irreplaceable resource is saltpeter. Although saltpeter can also be prepared by local methods, for example, the ancients scraped soil and saltpeter next to the toilet, but the protagonist does not know this method.
The protagonist even gave up on the idea of making gunpowder until he discovered a mysterious liquid that would explode.
Although the mysterious liquid has similar properties to gunpowder, it is prone to spontaneous combustion and explosion, and is more unstable than early nitroglycerine. The protagonist does not dare to use this thing as a substitute for gunpowder.
Although a method was invented to prevent spontaneous combustion by using grease to isolate air, the mysterious liquid was still difficult to store for a long time and could only be kept in the mysterious ball for later use.
In addition, the mysterious ball must be obtained from the corpse of the Destroyer, the quantity is limited, and the supply has been interrupted. The protagonist is only willing to use a few mysterious balls on very necessary occasions.
At present, the more than two thousand mysterious balls in the inventory of the Divine Envoy King's Legion will not be used for long if they are really open to use.
But now it's better. After the invention of the technology of extracting and purifying mysterious liquids with fluorescent bacteria, the God's Envoy King's Army was able to produce this substance on its own. The technology of mixed adsorption was invented before, and it achieved stable long-term storage of mysterious liquids.
The last obstacle for the Divine Envoy King's Army to enter the gunpowder era has been overcome! ! !
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A gunpowder liquid production workshop was quickly built in [Xinyangcheng].
Gunpowder liquid is the new name given to the mysterious liquid by the protagonist.
This workshop is a high-risk unit. Although there are already technologies to prevent spontaneous combustion and explosion of gunpowder liquid, there must be various hidden dangers in the actual preparation.
In previous scientific research, gunpowder liquid spontaneously exploded and ignited many times, causing accidents. More than a dozen ants died in the accident, and some were experienced ant researchers.
Gunpowder liquid must be produced. The protagonist intends to establish a gunpowder center in the northwest of [Xinyang City] on the road from [February Lan City] after the beginning of next spring.
There are not many ant colonies there and there are no other particularly important industries. Even if a major accident occurs, it will not have an impact on other nests and key industries such as metallurgy. Moreover, this lair is also located on the edge of the planned canal, very close to [Xinyang City], and the transportation is also convenient.
But now, the protagonist plans to build an experimental workshop in the corner of [Xinyang City] to produce gunpowder liquid in small quantities while researching and improving production processes and safety processes.
This workshop is far away from the main urban area of [Xinyang City]. Deep underground, there is a lonely passage to the north, extending more than three meters away, where are the several nest rooms where this workshop is located.
During the construction of the workshop and combustion chamber and the manufacture of the required equipment, the research team continued to study charcoal that adsorbs gunpowder liquid, grease, and lime mixture.
This substance is named "Gunpowder Greed" by the protagonist and is an excellent substitute for solid gunpowder.
First of all, gunpowder charcoal is stable when stored under normal conditions and will not spontaneously ignite or explode. The earliest gunpowder charcoal test sample has been stored for two months, and its appearance and properties have not changed significantly. It seems that it is not easily oxidized in the air.
Secondly, gunpowder charcoal, like black powder, will burn quickly when ignited and will explode in a confined space. The scientific research team had two previous accidents where gunpowder charcoal fell into the evaporation fire, causing explosions.
This property allows gunpowder charcoal to be used as a propellant, which is essential for thermal weapons such as guns.
In order to prevent explosions during the production of gunpowder charcoal, the gunpowder liquid distillation and extraction workshop in [Xinyangcheng] requires fire, and the gunpowder charcoal preparation workshop, which must not have fire, must be separated and separated by a certain distance. This arrangement will also be adopted in other workshops or factories.
However, gunpowder charcoal cannot be detonated by collision, unlike guncotton or nitroglycerine. This means that if the Angel King's Legion only has gunpowder charcoal, their firearms can only use the open flame ignition method of matchlocks and flintlocks, and cannot directly jump to the era of firing pins.
But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. As a military history enthusiast, the protagonist knows that even matchlocks and flintlocks are far ahead of cold weapons.
The Divine Envoy King's army had just realized the transformation of iron weapons, and they did not expect that they would soon enter the age of firearms.
Of course, it will take some time to expand the production capacity of gunpowder liquid and gunpowder charcoal, and related firearms must also be researched from scratch.
But the protagonist feels that this speed can be gradually increased. Maybe starting next year, some of the Divine Envoy King's legion will be able to gradually replace firearms.
Currently, the firearms that the protagonist has in mind for the army are mainly large firearms.
For example, artillery with a caliber about the thickness of a mung bean is used to replace the ballista on the "tank", and city defense cannon with a larger caliber (red bean caliber) is used to replace the current city defense ballistae, etc.
As for distributing individual muskets to the army, it seems premature.
On the one hand, the six jointed limbs of ordinary ants are not as flexible as human hands. Whether it is a flintlock gun or a matchlock gun, the firing steps are very complicated and cannot be completed by a single ant.
On the other hand, the technology of manufacturing muskets is actually more complicated than that of cannons, and the requirements for metallurgy and finishing are also high. The Divine Envoy Army is still short on finishing, and has never cast a very thin hollow barrel.
Before technological advancement, the Divine Envoy King's Army could only advance to the stage of sharing hot and cold weapons, using artillery as long-range firepower and jaw knives as melee weapons!
