The next morning, Yan Liqiang got up early as usual, completed morning exercises and practiced the Yi Jin Xi Sui Jing. Then he went to the canteen of the craftsman camp to have breakfast. Then he returned to the yard, carrying the horn python bow given to him by Zhou Yong, a pot of arrows across his body, and in his arms were the gunpowder he had prepared long ago, the flint for starting the fire, and three bags of ground carbon powder, sulfur powder and saltpeter powder, and then he walked out of the yard.
"Master Yan, what's going on? Do you want to practice archery?"
Not long after he walked out of the door, Yan Liqiang met a team of fully armed soldiers who were also walking towards the ash forest. When the soldiers saw Yan Liqiang coming out, they all greeted him with a smile.
"Yes, it would be a waste if we leave the good bow that Brother Zhou gave me yesterday. We can't let Brother Zhou down..." Yan Liqiang said with a laugh, "By the way, why are you guys going to patrol the ash forest today?"
"Captain Qian just gave instructions that we should be alert these few days, be more vigilant, and walk around the camp more often!"
Yan Liqiang was slightly stunned, and immediately thought of Qian Su's intention - once what he had done at the Lu family yesterday spread, he would probably not be able to hide what he had done in the Artisan Battalion, so Qian Su asked the soldiers of the Artisan Battalion to strengthen patrols, which was also indirectly protecting his own safety.
Thinking of the cold gaze hidden in the darkness when he returned to the camp last night, Yan Liqiang gritted his teeth secretly.
In his previous life, he always felt that working hard to make money every day was the most stressful thing. At that time, he lived in a peaceful and stable environment, had never suffered any personal threats, and had never experienced the feeling of being insecure. So he didn't know that such a peaceful and stable environment was hard-won. This time, after just a few days of experiencing this world, the crisis like a leech made Yan Liqiang feel the tremendous pressure of survival all of a sudden - this had nothing to do with making money, but that his life and personal safety were threatened.
Yan Liqiang and the team of soldiers talked as they walked, and when they came to the ash forest near the hillside of the craftsman camp, the two sides separated.
Yan Liqiang was heading up the mountain, while the team of soldiers were patrolling the outskirts of the Artisan Camp and the ash forest - because if someone really wanted to break in, they would come in from outside the courtyard wall of the Artisan Camp at the bottom of the hill, and it would be impossible for them to run down from the top of the mountain, because the only way up the mountain was through the Artisan Camp.
Yan Liqiang estimated that the man who was secretly spying on him last night did not have the courage to break into the Artisan Camp to cause trouble. You have to know that the Artisan Camp is an important military base and a part of the country's professional violence agency. It seems peaceful here at ordinary times, but as long as a little thing happens, it may cause an uproar. Not to mention the people invited by the Hong family, even those most powerful desperados would not dare to break into these important military bases casually. That would simply be asking for trouble.
Therefore, as long as I am in the Artisan Camp, that person can't do anything to me.
Carrying a bow and arrows on his back, Yan Liqiang followed his usual route up and in no time he arrived at the place where he practiced every day near the top of the mountain.
At this time, the sun had just risen, and the mountains and forests were full of vitality. Everything had just woken up, and the mountains and forests were filled with birdsong and the fragrance of flowers.
Putting the bow and arrow on his back against a huge rock, Yan Liqiang looked around carefully and found that there was no one around. He felt relieved and turned to behind two huge rocks under the mountain wall not far behind the open space.
The area behind the boulder is both sheltered from the wind and hidden, and there is no grass or trees on the surrounding ground, just some earth and rocks. Even if the gunpowder is successfully configured, it will not cause any fire. Moreover, the water source of the stream is not far away, and if a little smoke is created, it will be blown away by the wind on the top of the mountain in an instant, and people at the foot of the mountain will not see it.
Yan Liqiang squatted down behind the boulder, took out the tinder and flint that he had prepared long ago, and started trying.
To be honest, if he was still living on Earth in his previous life, Yan Liqiang would not worry at all about the gunpowder being unusable after preparing it. But in this world, Yan Liqiang was unsure, because there were too many things in this world that were difficult to explain with the knowledge in his head.
For example, the Dharma images and visions that appeared when practicing, the huge palm shadow that appeared on Hong Tao's body when he used the Iron Sand Palm, and the light shadow of the Rhinoceros Horse that appeared when he passed the Horse Stance. Damn, all the martial arts and secret techniques in this world have their own light and shadow effects, and can resonate with the aura and energy between heaven and earth, and those light and shadow effects are strange and different, even more exaggerated than the light and shadow effects of the exploding microcosm in "Saint Seiya". Who can use scientific principles to explain to myself the principles behind this, and tell myself what chemical changes have occurred between my practice of martial arts and the energy of heaven and earth
The tool used to start a fire is a flint. For people who are used to using lighters, it is too inconvenient to use a flint to start a fire. But there is no other way, because in this world, in addition to the flint, there is another tool for starting a fire called a tinderbox. The tinderbox is time-consuming to make and is not cheap. It is used less each time, so generally only a few wealthy families, such as the Hong family and the Lu family, use it on a daily basis. The relatively cheap and easy-to-carry flint is used to make fire in the military and most ordinary people's homes.
Yan Liqiang opened the waterproof leather lid of the flint pouch and took out the flint and tinder inside. Then he held the flint with his left hand and pressed the tinder between the flint and his fingers. He held the flint pouch with his right hand and struck the flint with the sickle blade. Sparks came out from the flint with every strike. After a few clicks, the sparks finally ignited the tinder, creating a bright flame.
After taking a deep breath, Yan Liqiang placed the fuse he had made on the open flame of the tinder.
The tissue paper outside the fuse was ignited immediately...
In just a blink of an eye, less than two seconds, the burning tissue paper finally burned the place where the gunpowder he made was mixed.
Yan Liqiang held his breath and widened his eyes...
There was no hissing sound of gunpowder igniting!
No violent chemical reactions!
There is no possibility of any explosion!
Because the tissue paper was burning, the fuse was also burning, burning very slowly, just like lighting a stick of incense, only slightly faster than the lit incense.
The burning match produces smoke, but the smoke is filled with a strong smell of sulfur, which is the smell of burning sulfur.
Yan Liqiang was looking forward to a flash of lightning that would create the world, but what he finally waited for was a muffled fart under the quilt.
After a while, the fuse burned out, leaving behind ashes, among which there were unburned carbon powder and saltpeter powder...
Yan Liqiang was stunned. Could it be that the formula for gunpowder didn't work in this world
He took out another fuse and tried it again, and found the same problem.
The carbon powder and sulfur powder came from the Artisan Camp. There was no problem with the raw materials. I had already inspected the saltpeter when I bought it, and there was no problem with it either.
There was nothing wrong with the raw materials, there was nothing wrong with the recipe, but what came out of it was just not gunpowder.
Yan Liqiang did not give up. He took out three bags of carbon powder, sulfur powder, and saltpeter powder that had not been mixed together in his arms and started to try different combinations. After nearly a whole morning and more than four hours, Yan Liqiang finally confirmed a fact - although he did not know why this was the case, he was sure that it was indeed impossible to prepare gunpowder in this world.
Not only that, as far as Yan Liqiang knows, there are almost no natural magnets and magnetite in the world.
This world has compasses, but the magnetic needles on the compasses of this world are made of a material called star iron. The so-called star iron is a kind of meteorite iron that fell from the sky. There are not many of them and they are expensive. Only a small piece can be found occasionally. The price of the same weight of star iron is almost twenty times that of gold.
What does this mean
Without gunpowder, there would be no hot weapons, and so-called guns and cannons would never appear. Without enough natural magnets and magnets, it means that the world may never be able to produce electricity in the future.
What will dominate this world will always be cold weapons and force...
(End of this chapter)