Chapter 449 - Bom Bom Bakudan!

"According to the demands and needs stated by his majesty, I have been dedicated to work on a safety kind of storage for gun powders in the last three years ago with my employees and disciples. As you all know, the previous gun powders must be used within a time span of eighteen months after being composited, if not it might pose a severe safety hazard when being kept for too long either becoming hard to control or might lose its functionality. Most importantly, the old gun powders must be used through those metal shells, a bit of violent shaking or misbehaviour during carrying can spoil its mood and detonates its content…."

"Thank you Jacob, please leave the introduction to me." Antonius interrupted the long winded speech Jacob is going to give regarding his master piece and described the true purpose of these things. "From our earlier scouting of the battle field, we ought to realise that the difficult terrain, hard road condition that is constantly under Ottoman assault and elevated angle make it difficult for us to station large calibre artilleries in large quantities to break through their walled defence at once, and the smaller ones would not be able to do the trick."

"So, we had an idea, why not we just make use of man power to transport the gun powder beneath the wooden walls, detonate it through a fuse and with enough explosives, we can blow the entire thig upside down!"

"Indeed, all of this could happen is because we managed to find a resolution on how to safe keep ammunition and explosives." Jacob took another of his master creation, emptied the black powder in to a container and showed it around while explaining. "Before this we had numerous cases coming in almost every single month that there are safety accidents coming from our products, forcing us to restrict the number of explosives that can be stored and strictly forbidden to an under ground storage only. This buffered me for almost five years because I knew that our products had no quality problems, at least not the ones that went through my hands."

"So, I tried with it myself and what the camps reported are indeed true from my own discoveries. Hence I began a two year span of research I found out that there are two reasons behind this unusual accidental detonations of explosives;

One is that there is no unified composition formula for the explosives, it has been years and the market still does not have a standardised composition ratio and material used for gun powder. I know for us, we use a simple formula with around sixty nine to seventy one percent fermented cow dung, ten percent charcoal, eight percent sulphur, one to two percent of asphalt, and the rest are the combination between melted rosin and tar. While some others, from I know, prefer to replace the seventy percent fermented cow dung with sixty five percent fermented human fasces and urine, there are those workshops who would like to add other additional stuff like hair, wax, and dried blood clots believing that this will increase the powder's explosive power."

Fisnik standing by the side instantly threw the gun barrel back on to the cart, adding a bit more paleness to his face under the moon light. He certainly did not feel good touching and smelling on those gun powders after hearing from Jacob regarding their ingredients.

"The second issue that I have found leading to the sudden jump in safety hazard, is that there are iron minerals being added inside the gun powder storage. Before this they loved tying the barrels and woods together to make it tighter instead of the other metals as iron, due to the fact that iron is the cheapest kind of metal they can acquire in mass quantities in our state, some even added iron inside their gun powder to increase the fatality in their blast and advertise it to the arty corps. But after two years of research I found out one strange phenomenon, that is gun powder kept with iron usually has a higher risk, which I do not understand why also."

"So we changed this by adopting a brand new design for each of the barrel, using Juglan wood for the keg tied up with brass casks, and we removed any iron particles from our gun powder as much as possible. But still we have no solution on how to standardise the procedures of production and the formula percentiles they use. But anyways, this batch of gun powder should be sufficient for your use this time round, your majesty."

"Thank you Jacob for the detailed explanation, if possible next time may you please umm… put it as short as possible." Antonius did not seem to mind the ingredients mixed inside the gun barrels at all as he opened one up, dipped his hand inside, scooped out some gun powder and smelled it under his nose before pouring it back again and sealed the lead.

"I have already had my hypothesis as short as possible." Jacob grumbled folding his scarf.

After the inspection Alexios pulled Jacob to a side while the others went back to their central command tent. "You see, I know that you want to spread your formulas around to the others…"

"No I don't." Jacob's eyes looked as bright and truthful as the moon shining in the sky. "I hope that they shall stick to their original formulas which produces gun powder with weaker detonation and generate more safety hazard, so the military shall stop purchasing gun powder from them and turn to me, I shall in turn build more workshops and monopolise the market to earn big money…."

"…. I know that you want to spread your safer and more effective formula to others." Alexios repeated his words in a more firm tone this time round.

"No I don't…"

"Yes you do." Alexios did not give him any more chance to retort this time round. "So I shall help you to organise an expo after this, and try my best to strike a deal, a business contract between the different parties of workshops to implement this formula and barrel manufacturing method, of course, after you have convinced them that your method is considerably more efficient and safe than theirs. Don't worry, the government shall make sure that the deal is fair giving you a considerably big amount sum of ducats."

Jacob seemed to be happy again hearing the sum of reward, but only Alexios knows that he is just trying to prevent another monopoly due to technological iteration.

…

The first confrontation between battalion sized forces started in the middle of January of the year 1462, more than half a year after the declaration of war, and a month after both sides started mustering their troops across this valley. Antonius sent his pioneer battalion in to the valley during a clear mild winter weather to open a path way for the subsequent siege equipment, which instantly alerted the Ottoman higher ups in the major camp beside the lake of Kastoria miles away. It is clear that the Ottomans treated this activity by the Romans with utmost surveillance and attention, as from the moment the Roman pioneers stepped their boots in to the valley, Ottoman rangers and scouts started appearing by their sides, followed by reconnaissance towers lighting up their smoke signals one by one, soon this valley is full of smoke.

Hüseyin Çelik , the Sanjek Bey of Yanya treated this Rumelian intrusion with utmost caution. He sent ordered repeatedly asking the front line troops to hold their ground, avoid any possible confrontation, and ordered the pre prepared elite troops he chose from his veterans in to the various ambush spots along the woods. Then he made another order, making a small group of two hundred Ottoman conscripts, armed with wooden spears and shields, to come in to contact with this bunch of Rumelians, with the specific instruction that they do not need to win, instead they must lose deliberately while keeping their casualties as minimal as possible.

All of these plans as mentioned have been practised for times after times within their internal military exercises. Just as what the senior Sanjek has expected, his decoy troops carried out his orders perfectly, giving the Rumelians a good show before their eyes and scattered back towards their camps, throwing their weapons and flags all over the place. But instead of chasing, the Rumelians held their foot, and gradually fell back from this place, leaving the Sanjek and his advisors baffled. Though this would not last too long for them.

The Sanjek stood there for another twenty minutes and turned back feeling disappointed. But just as he turned around, he felt some thing tearing through his ear drums, followed by what it seems to be a crack as loud as any thunder burning across the sky.. For that second he had the apprehension that he is nothing but a helpless piece of straw, with the mass ground beneath his feet trembling and splitting itself in to two parts.