As the day of the scientific examination approached, Chen Mu began to study hard day and night from the second day after he returned home.
Compared with the examinations in previous lives, the ancient imperial examinations were much simpler, but also much more difficult.
It's simple. That's because most of the questions tested in ancient times were from the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism, and they were all dead questions and there were very few live questions.
It’s complicated because if you really want to pass the exam with a 100% chance, you must memorize the contents in these books thoroughly. How difficult is it to memorize all the contents in so many books?
Otherwise, there would be no such thing as ten years of cold windows. Fortunately, the original owner had memorized a lot of books in bits and pieces. Otherwise, no matter how strong Chen Mu's memory was, it would be very difficult to memorize so many books quickly.
Disaster.
At noon that day, Chen Mu consciously memorized the strategies of the Longxia Dynasty, stretched his waist, and walked towards the dragon kiln in the back mountain.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The sound of hammering iron tools was heard continuously from the dragon kiln.
After hearing the message from the veterans in Bajun, Liu Jingtang, leading the veterans and gangsters, had almost annexed the gangs around Sichuan Gate in less than five days.
Now the sphere of influence has expanded to eight streets, and the number of Chuanmen's minions has grown to nearly a hundred in less than five days.
The power of Sichuan Sect has begun to show its scale.
Chen Mu was very satisfied. After all, he was right about the person. This kid did have the talent to hold power.
But at the same time, I am also quite worried. With such rapid expansion, it is difficult not to be noticed by the big gangs.
Therefore, in order to give Liu Jingtang one more back-up card, Xiahou almost never even left the dragon kiln in the past few days. He had been casting Tang Hengdao in it and sending it to Bajun.
"How's it going? How many times did you hit today?"
Xiahou stopped the hammer in his hand and sighed and complained: "Hey, Brother Mu, although this Tang Hengdao is good, your steel takes too long every time. If you can hit three in a day, it is considered good. According to this
If this continues, we will be exhausted."
The temperature of the dragon kiln is not high enough. Every time steel is made, Xiahou almost relies on constantly pulling the bellows to raise the temperature. Not only is it tiring, but the output is also pitiful. It is indeed a problem.
But if he asked someone to help, Chen Mu was worried about being exposed.
After thinking about it, Chen Mu said: "I do have a way to mass produce steel."
Xia Hou frowned: "Then why didn't you say anything?"
Chen Mu smiled bitterly: "We only have one concept in mind. I will draw a picture for you later. Then I will use your professional vision to perfect it and see if it can be done."
In previous lives, most steel was made using the blast furnace forging method. Chen Mu had seen it once, but he only took a few curious glances and was not clear about the details.
Therefore, I can only draw a sketch based on my impression and see if Xia Hou, a professional, can figure it out.
"Okay...Okay, I'll try my best, but...Brother Mu, shouldn't you be studying at the moment? Why are you here?"
"Has the cellar been dug?"
After hearing this, Xia Hou waved his hand and said with a smile: "This matter was settled a few days ago. According to your instructions, it is in the shade of the back mountain. But then, why does Brother Mu need such a deep cellar?
It's really cold inside, do you want to put potatoes in?"
Hearing that the digging had already been done, Chen Mu nodded, and then took out the things he bought in Bajun that day from home.
For Chen Mu, these days he has long wanted to see if he can produce gunpowder and explosives.
However, there has never been a suitable place to make it. Gunpowder is fine, and nothing will happen as long as it is not exposed to open flames.
Especially dynamite, let alone making it, just nitrocellulose will burn quickly if it encounters even the slightest high temperature.
Even when Nobel built this thing, he had his whole family killed before he built it.
Without a low-temperature environment, Chen Mu would not dare.
Following Xia Hou's lead, Chen Mu soon arrived at the cellar entrance.
On weekdays, the sun cannot shine on this place. Without the coverage of Yang Qi, the Yin Qi between heaven and earth will condense here and stay there for a long time. Even in the middle of summer, this place is not very hot.
Now that autumn is about to begin, I feel chilly all over my body as soon as I arrive here. When I enter the cellar, it becomes even colder.
As for the various utensils needed, Xiahou has already prepared them.
At that moment, Chen Mu took out three items: saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.
Black gunpowder is easy to make. It requires a large amount of nitrate, a small amount of carbon, and an even smaller amount of sulfur. I won’t go into details.
For better black powder, in addition to charcoal and sulfur, the saltpeter needs to be purified, that is, the impurities in the saltpeter are removed to obtain potassium nitrate.
However, for Chen Mu, the black powder was just to make a ignition device for things like detonators and bombs in the future, and he didn't bother to do it in detail.
Immediately, Xiahou and I started grinding it with an iron pestle.
As for whether Xiahou was curious or confused about these things, he didn't know what Chen Mu was using them for.
A quarter of an hour later, the three objects were finally almost polished.
Chen Mu added three more powders to a pile and started hammering them with the pestle again.
For gunpowder, the longer it takes to grind, the better. The finer the powder, the faster it burns.
Chen Mu can be said to be tireless in making these things. Grinding gunpowder takes at least two hours. Xiahou almost fell asleep beside him, but Chen Mu still grinded it carefully with hammer after hammer.
His arsenic, my sweet rain, interest can dispel all fatigue.
In the end, a bowl full of black gunpowder was crushed out by Chen Mu.
Seeing how Chen Mu regarded it as a treasure, Xia Hou finally couldn't help but ask: "Brother Mu, what do you do with this thing? This guy is more tired than me from blacksmithing."
Chen Mu said with a mysterious face: "Hehehe, this is a weapon a hundred times more powerful than Tang Hengdao."
"This thing... is a weapon?"
At that moment, Chen Mu didn't bother to explain to him and walked out of the cellar with the gunpowder in hand.
When he arrived at the Long Kiln again, Chen Mu took out the firecrackers he had prepared.
The firegun is very easy to make. It consists of an iron pipe in the front, a long iron rod welded to the back, and a hole at the end of the iron pipe for passing the wire. It is the simplest firearm.
Chen Mu first pushed the projectiles and gunpowder in with a wooden stick, then looked at Xia Hou and said with a smile: "Did you see the bird on the tree? How confident do you think you can hit it with a bow?"
Seeing what Chen Mu was pointing at, which was a hundred steps away and a small sparrow, Xiahou thought for a moment and said, "It's not even one level away."
"I said, I am ten levels sure."
After that, Chen Mu took some sparks and ignited the fuse. As the fuse burned out quickly, a fiery snake emerged from the front of the gun, and more than a dozen pieces of broken iron shot out in an instant.
"Bang!"
Suddenly, Xiahou was frightened and took a few steps back. Who could have expected that the black thing in Chen Mu's hand could make such a loud noise!
Looking at the still smoking iron pipe, and then watching the sparrow on the tree fall to the ground.
Xia Hou couldn't help but said in shock: "Mu...Brother Mu, what are you..."
"This firearm can also be called a fire gun. A fire gun is the fastest at a distance of a hundred steps. Within a hundred steps, a fire gun is accurate and fast."