Chapter 195 Your semi-finished product is also a big step for mankind
When Chen Shuren arranged tasks for the arsenal in Daye half a year ago, of course he also provided some ideas to Fang Yizhi and Song Yingxing.
In particular, he selected some military technologies that he was relatively familiar with and seemed easy to implement in later generations, and let the researchers find ways to tinker with them. After thinking about it for the past six months, Song Yingxing and the others certainly did not gain nothing at all.
So when faced with Shen Shuren's question, Song Yingxing just said: Of course there are other breakthroughs, but they are not in metallurgy and forging, and they will not be displayed in this ironmaking and forging plant. Master Futai wants to see it, you can do it tomorrow
Go to inspect the newly built "pharmaceutical refinery" not far outside the city.
Chen Shuren knew that the "pharmaceutical refinery" mentioned by Song Yingxing was actually a chemical plant that was just built in the second half of this year. However, there was no professional term "chemistry" in the late Ming Dynasty, so Song Yingxing and Fang Yizhi just used the original
Some gunpowder bureaus have set up a "powder refining factory" as a team, responsible for the improvement of gunpowder formulas, and other strange chemical raw material technology optimization.
Chen Shuren was of course very interested in this.
…
The purpose of the inspections at steel plants and forging plants was to brainwash and establish authority among the homeless miners, and this was done by the way.
Since there were not many novel weapons and technological breakthroughs to see here, Chen Shuren took a short rest that night and continued his journey to inspect the pharmaceutical refinery the next day.
It was his first time coming to this place, but he had known about the existence of this new factory a few months ago.
Because at that time, Song Yingxing asked him for a large amount of funding in order to conduct research. The first batch of funds was tens of thousands of taels. When applying for scientific research funding, of course, he had to explain the purpose. After Shen Shuren learned about it, he readily
approved.
Song Yingxing was also shocked at the time. To be honest, when he came to ask for money, he did not expect that the donor would approve the funds so readily. He was also worried that Shen Shuren would be like the rotten scholars in the past, treating the study of material transformation as the evil magic of alchemists.
What about research?
Only Shen Shuren knew that spending tens of thousands of taels to let Song Yingxing do whatever he wanted in chemistry would definitely not be a loss if he could produce some results. The money was well spent. Besides, Song Yingxing was not looking for a random research direction at the beginning.
It is propositional research, and everything revolves around upgrading and optimizing gunpowder technology. This is a result that can be used in actual combat immediately.
The pharmaceutical refinery is located in Tao Shimu, in the east of Daye County, where a small river on the nearby Tieshan Mountain finally merges into the Yangtze River. There is a certain drop and a small waterfall. When it flows into the Yangtze River, the water will form a whirlpool and undercurrent. The environment is very beautiful and also
Convenient for sewage discharge.
These days, the scale of the chemical industry is very small, and there is no theory and technology for sewage treatment, so it can only be discharged directly.
If it is stagnant water, or at least lacks fluidity, it may still cause adverse hazards if it is placed in a small ditch or lake.
However, if this amount is directly discharged into the Yangtze River, it is not a problem at all. It has long been naturally purified, and it is located at the most downstream of a nearby river, so it will not pollute the upstream water source.
When Chen Shuren arrived, he also saw a stele pavilion at the entrance to the village where the pharmaceutical refinery was located. Inside was a stone with a poem engraved on it: "When the rocks in the river are in danger and have no roots, they are about to fly but suddenly they are already squatting."
Looking down at the secluded palace for thousands of feet, the migratory currents are rushing east and west."
After Chen Shuren read it once, he didn't think the poem was very well written, so he casually asked Fang Yizhi, who accompanied the inspection: "How can someone of this level be inscribed on a monument?"
Fang Yizhi smiled: "My dear brother, if you look carefully at the inscription on the back, you won't have such a question - this stele pavilion was erected decades ago, and this poem was written by Zhang Juzheng, describing the scenery of this place.
In the early days of the Wanli Dynasty, Zhang Juzheng was extremely powerful. He was from Hubei, and the gentry from all nearby provinces would fawn over this fellow scholar. Although he was later liquidated, the Huguang gentry would not push down Zhang Juzheng's poetry stele pavilion. Anyway,
No one cares about it, just keep it."
Chen Shuren nodded and read it again. Since it was written by Zhang Juzheng, he did not have such high requirements for literary talent. He was not known as a poet in the first place.
After slowly walking into the village, Shen Shuren noticed that the entire village was very secretive and well-defended. The entire village was surrounded by fences with sharpened wooden stakes on rammed earth walls, leaving only the road entrance and exit facilities.
For the gate, all we have to do is build the city wall directly.
As soon as you enter the wall, you can see that the village is almost under military management. The only local villagers are all employed by the government, and there are no idlers.
At the outermost edge, there are rows of gunpowder workshops. It is obvious that Daye has moved all the original gunpowder production facilities of the Bingzhan Bureau.
In every yard, there are craftsmen grinding various raw materials, carefully weighing, proportioning, and mixing. Occasionally, you can see secretaries recording the data of each operation, and they have accumulated a thick stack of account books.
.
Obviously, improvements in gunpowder formulas and mixing techniques have been ongoing. Shen Shuren asked them to control variables and carry out scientific control experiments. There is no end to the experience summary in this area.
Even if it is just traditional black gunpowder, with Shen Jiajun's current technology, it cannot be said that the best formula and technology have been exhausted. Historically, black gunpowder was used in the West until the 1870s. There will definitely be room for improvement in the next two hundred years.
.
Being able to create black powder with a faster burning rate and faster gas expansion rate can continuously moisturize the substance and silently enhance the Shen family's firearms combat effectiveness.
However, these are also manual tasks that require trial and error. They all rely on time. The further you study, the more diminishing the marginal returns. It is impossible to give any big surprises. Shen Shuren inspected the other party for a while and confirmed the other party's method of doing things.
The attitude towards doing things was fine, so I didn’t look any further and went directly to the next stop.
After wandering around the village for about half a stick of incense, Chen Shuren gradually came to the core area of the village, a workshop located in the Taoist Scenic Area. Outside the house, you can see small waterfalls and rapids, rushing into the Yangtze River.
The nearby buildings have also turned into a decent and plain look with whitewashed walls and neat blue tile roofs, and they no longer look like gunpowder workshops.
When Chen Shuren entered a neat courtyard, the first thing he saw was several small spinning machines and flying shuttle looms, where cotton yarn and cotton cloth were made.
Chen Shuren was also surprised when he saw it, almost thinking that he had gone to the wrong place.
Of course, he was no stranger to these machines, because they were all built under his guidance a few years ago by Fang Yizhi and Dong Xiaowan.
Fang Yizhi did not seek to be named, and he only provided theoretical support. It was Dong Xiaowan who started to tinker with the practice. The world only knows that this machine is called Xiaowan Spinning Machine, which was invented by a concubine in Shen Futai's house.
Chen Shuren couldn't help but ask: "Brother Fang, is this a technical itch? Did you feel that the flying shuttle loom was not enough? Or have you thought of a better optimization? How come you are here to tinker with the loom in this pharmaceutical refinery?
.”
Fang Yizhi pointed and explained: "Optimization, there is indeed some optimization that can be continued, but it is just piecemeal and cannot increase the spinning and weaving efficiency by 10% or 20%.
However, the original intention of moving these machines here is that when tinkering with gunpowder materials according to the idea explained by Xiandi before, we accidentally produced other materials. We thought about it, conducted experiments, and found that they can be used to make bandages.
The cloth of wounds.”
With that said, Fang Yizhi motioned to a craftsman who was spinning and weaving in the courtyard to bring over some semi-finished materials and show them to Chen Shuren.
When Shen Shuren saw it, it was just gauze and cotton balls. He had seen these before. The Shen family had a very large textile business in Susong. They also cooperated with the Xuge family in Songjiang and owned more than a million acres of cotton fields.
Therefore, the penetration rate of cotton products in the Shen family army is very high, and ordinary soldiers have sufficient daily expenses. Cotton balls and gauze have long been common among the medical supplies for wounded soldiers.
However, when Chen Shuren took a closer look, he noticed that the feel of this kind of gauze and cotton balls was very different from the original ones. He thought about it again and couldn't help but blurted out: "Is this absorbent cotton? Use both gauze and cotton balls.
Degreasing treatment?”
Fang Yizhi was stunned and did not directly admit it: "Absorbent cotton? This name is easy to understand. Indeed, this is cotton that has been treated with some alkaline plant ash and other powders, and then dried and removed.
Part of the oil has also removed the things in cotton that are prone to decay, acidification and deterioration, leaving only clean pure velvet.
Originally, this was based on what you told us half a year ago. When we were working on 'acid collodion', we found that it was difficult to do because the cotton contained impurities and was unstable. So we thought of many ways to pre-process the cotton and remove various impurities. The results were among the results.
One idea led to this.
After making it, I suddenly thought that although the military originally used gauze to wrap wounds, and the cotton balls sucked blood to promote healing, the cotton balls were still easy to be contaminated with pus and blood and then gradually became rotten. It must be the substances contained in the cotton balls themselves, which were easily contaminated by pus and blood.
dirty use in.
So I thought about recycling waste, and used this half-finished product that had gone astray in making 'acid collodion' to make gauze to wrap the soldiers' wounds. In the Daye mine, there are indeed some injured people in accidents from time to time, which is just right.
There are ample opportunities for experimentation.
Finally, I found that the cotton washed in this way is the cleanest and can be used to bandage wounds. The chance of worsening of soldiers' pus and blood can be reduced by 20 to 30%!"
Chen Shuren was quite emotional after hearing this.
It turned out that before he went on the expedition half a year ago, he also shared some ideas for improving gunpowder with Song Yingxing Fang Yizhi. And what he thought of at that time, which was the easiest to implement and the most well-known in later generations, was naturally the development of "guncotton" or "gunpowder"
"Nitrocellulose" to replace black powder as musket propellant.
After all, collodion is something that anyone in later generations who knows a little bit about history knows that its manufacturing method is very easy-throw the cotton into concentrated nitric acid, wait for the concentrated nitric acid to react with the cotton naturally, and then burn the cotton.
Carefully take it out and crush it to make nitrocellulose.
After this thing was invented by the French in the 1870s, it immediately replaced black powder, creating the first generation of smokeless gunpowder, and then there were modern self-priming bullets.
Nitrocellulose was used as the warhead charge of artillery shells to provide explosive damage, and the effect was quite doubtful. But as a propellant, it was more than sufficient, and it was certainly much stronger than black powder. Until World War II, American and Soviet rifle bullets contained
Still using nitrocellulose primer.
However, although Chen Shuren knows this common sense and knows how to make the last step of nitrocellulose, he does not know how to make the intermediate raw materials required for nitrocellulose. This is why he has been tinkering with black powder for four years now and has not dared to
He wanted to make smokeless gunpowder - he knew that adding concentrated nitric acid to cotton would produce nitrocellulose, but he couldn't produce concentrated nitric acid!
Until big names such as Fang Yizhi and Song Yingxing were accepted by him, he felt that these people had certain self-research capabilities, and he could point out the general direction, and then the people below would strictly organize the experiments themselves.
The direction he gave at that time was also very clear. He said, "I heard from the Red Mao Yi people that in recent years, some of the top Red Mao Yi scholars in the far west have invented a concentrated liquid made of saltpeter."
Acid, combined with the strong gunpowder produced after cotton is acidified and charred, is smokeless and highly explosive."
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Then Fang Yizhi and Song Yingxing were asked to figure out how to create this "concentrated acid that can react with cotton." This task was assigned half a year ago. A considerable part of the tens of thousands of taels of scientific research funding given to Song Yingxing at that time was also used for experiments. Secondly,
It was the Taoist priest who built another gunpowder station here.
It now seems that regardless of whether Fang Yizhi created concentrated nitric acid or not, he at least created absorbent cotton as a by-product, which can improve the medical conditions in the military.