Chapter 64: Explosive Method
He Xi said: "Is this the explosive method?"
A craftsman said: "Exactly."
He Xi saw them stuffing a large amount of firewood into the mine. Then light it. Fan it inside heavily. There seemed to be a draft vent somewhere else. In short, it was very prosperous inside, and flames came out of it, protruding for more than a meter.
It looks spectacular.
After the fire was extinguished, a strong man rushed in with buckets of water and poured water on both sides of the mine.
After burning it with fire, hit it with cold water. The stone suddenly became brittle. Then someone would use it, and with a clanging sound, pieces of stone would crack and fall to the ground layer by layer. After a while, several carts of ore were pushed out.
This is very different from what He Xi thought. But we have to admit it. This is also their secret method.
Without him, the demonstration for He Xi was an old abandoned mine. But when it is really needed, it is often deep in the mine. After all, it is impossible for every mine to be that shallow. This is a method used when encountering difficulties and obstacles and manpower cannot dig.
But don’t mention it yet, you can try lighting a fire deep in the mine. Not enough ventilation. The oxygen is burned out. The first thing that matters is the lives of those who work in the mines.
They don't understand this and can use this method to mine underground. It can be seen that he has some skills.
He Xi asked the craftsmen around him: "No one uses gunpowder to mine?"
The craftsman said: "It has been used, but it is difficult to control underground. It has killed people, so I don't dare to use it again."
He Xi nodded and said, "Safety comes first too."
This sentence was told by He Xi herself. He didn't know if explosives were used in underground mining in later generations. He Xi thought that they probably did, and there were technicians who could make good use of explosives. But He Xi was not prepared to do this.
He was going to do the simplest thing. That's strip mining.
This is also the conclusion He Xi came to after visiting many mines in Taiping Prefecture in the past few days. This conclusion is that the mines mined in ancient times were not deep. It can be said that they are all relatively shallow. After all, under the working efficiency of ancient times, digging ore hidden hundreds of meters underground was a bit laborious and the cost was too high.
Even He Xi saw many abandoned mines, not because there were no mines in them. But digging too deep. It is already losing money financially. In this case, who is still mining?
Therefore, in He Xi's eyes, most mines can be blown up. At least it can be exploded layer by layer. Perhaps it cannot directly correspond to the mineral veins at first. But once the ore vein is blasted out, the next thing will be much easier.
So, He Xi made up his mind. Immediately write a letter to Zhu Yuanzhang in Nanjing, requesting the allocation of gunpowder. The more the better. The more the better.
And He Xi is also looking for a mine suitable for blasting.
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Zhu Yuanzhang obeyed He Xi's advice. The same is true for this matter. I just told him not to go too far. The flag adjusters guarded a thousand households and transported hundreds of thousands of kilograms of gunpowder. It's almost half of the capital's inventory.
After He Xi knew this number, he couldn't help but smile bitterly.
Hundreds of thousands of kilograms is a lot. But it's only a few hundred tons. This is still gunpowder, not explosives. This is half of the inventory of the Ming Dynasty Capital. This made He Xi sigh again, what is the pre-industrial era? It was an era when all materials were scarce.
There was no material item that He Xi wanted that would not make He Xi worry.
"The production of gunpowder must be expanded in the future." He Xi just had this idea, and then thought that if the production of gunpowder was to be expanded, the amount of sulfur would also have to be expanded. However, although there was sulfur in the Ming Dynasty, it was not as good as that in Japan and Ryukyu.
Many things affect the whole body.
He Xi only felt that there were countless things in the world that she had to do by herself.
Throw these unrealistic ideas aside. He Xi began his own blasting and mining plan.
He found a copper mine.
This mine has been abandoned. I heard it was mined in the Song Dynasty. He Xi also went down to check it out personally. The opening of this mine was at the top of the mountain. A shaft was dug straight down from the top of the mountain. There are still traces of the pulley bracket on it.
He Xi could see that after the people below filled the basket, they pulled the ore up through the pulley, and if it passed the iron lock on one side, the basket was hung on it and slid down.
The reason for choosing this mine. That's why it's easy to mine. Not in the mountains, but on the edge of the Yangtze River. You can start directly. And the mountain is also a small mountain, not big overall. The amount of gunpowder is also sufficient.
He Xi did what he said.
Under his command, the masons were asked to dig stone cellars one by one at the foot of the hill. Then fill it with gunpowder. They were connected with a fuse and used 10,000 kilograms of gunpowder at one time. More than a dozen explosion points.
In fact, he had no idea how mine blasting was done. But he knew how Li Zicheng, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and other rebels used gunpowder to blow up the city.
I heard that this siege technology was extended from mining. And it was the miners who first invented this engineering technology. He Xi can only use it in reverse.
He waited several miles away and watched carefully. With a fire command. Explosion points exploded under the foot of the mountain.
"Boom, boom, boom." A series of more than a dozen explosions, connected together, raised countless smoke and dust. The explosion stirred up a gust of wind. Covering all sight. He Xi couldn't see clearly either. What is this mountain like?
Suddenly a gust of wind blew over.
Some smoke was blown away.
He Xi's heart tightened. Looking from a distance, this kind of hill was still motionless in place. The smoke and dust at the foot of the mountain were surrounded and it was difficult to see clearly. However, the vegetation on the top of the mountain seemed to have remained unchanged.
He Xi secretly thought: "What's the problem? The amount of gunpowder used is too little. Or the power of the gunpowder is insufficient."
Before He Xi could think of anything, a crisp sound suddenly came.
One of the craftsmen said loudly: "The mountains have opened. The mountains have opened."
He Xi said: "What's wrong?"
The craftsman said, "Sir, there is a crack in the mountain wall."
He Xi was stunned and said, "Where?"
Maybe He Xi's eyesight was really bad, or the movement was too small. In short, before He Xi could see where the so-called crack was, he heard that the entire Tongshan Mountain was like peeling off a shell, and a whole layer of rocks fell down with a loud crash. The noise was no less than the blast just now. . In an instant, there were countless large and small rocks on the originally flat ground.
Even if He Xi is far enough away. I also saw from a distance, a stone shaped like a thunder, rolling down hundreds of meters before stopping.
The situation was so spectacular.
When He Xi saw this, he let out a long sigh of relief and said to himself: "The first step is done."
Although, He Xi didn't know whether the next blast would be successful. After all, there are a lot of technical details that need to be summarized. But it finally proved that his method was effective and his thinking was correct. The next thing is for other people. After all, He Xi gathered so many people to do something.
Shouldn't the School of Engineering be responsible for the development of new technologies?
As long as the road is passable.
After a while, when the smoke and dust cleared and everything settled, He Xi followed the craftsmen into these troubled times. In fact, there are still some dangers here, and many people advised him not to go. But He Xi still felt that she had to go there in person.
Soon, someone found a lot of ore among the gravel. There is even some beautiful malachite.
He Xi chose a few pieces as gifts to bring back to Princess Anqing. But when he looked at it from a high place, he had a different feeling in his heart. Everything in front of me seemed to be a landscape painting that had been torn open with a crack. And this crack is the mine that He Xi just exploded.
This kind of mining field is called the scar of the earth in later generations.
It looks very ugly. Now this is just the beginning. It is estimated that this hill will be razed to the ground in the future. And his technology spread. It is estimated that countless mountains and rivers will become what they are today.
All He Xi could do was sigh lightly.
Everything in the world has its pros and cons, and that's all it can do now. Things in the future can only be discussed in the future.
