Chapter 166

Although Shi Xiong has never seen the mine accidents in the small coal mines in his previous life, he has heard and seen the relevant reports.

Once a mine accident happens, almost all the miners will die. As long as the miners go down the well, they can hardly escape the reaping of death's scythe.

Obviously, the mining time of this saltpeter mine in Xiaohe tribe is not very long, and with the present pure manual mining method, the mine is not deep enough.

Therefore, the most basic support now can at least avoid large-scale landslides.

This saltpeter mine is really very important for the stone bear. At least, the stone bear thinks that before taking over the western plateau of the new world, if there is no accident, this saltpeter mine will have to support its own plan for more than ten years.

Naturally, he didn't want to see a mine disaster in this saltpeter mine.

Firecracker is the key to hot weapons in the future. Without it, hot weapons will be a burning stick.

Although the main way to obtain pyrotechnics in Europe has now become nitrate field method, that is, using human and livestock urine to make potassium nitrate, stone bear really does not want to use nitrate field.

On the one hand, the most important thing is the taste. As long as you think of the gunpowder made by yourself, its main raw material is extracted from the urine of human and livestock, you can forget the disgust.

In other words, as long as they use nitrate fields to extract nitrate, the stone bear will surely take the lead in taking the first batch of nitrate, which is something that the stone bear can't stand.

Moreover, the output of this kind of natural saltpeter ore is much higher than the quantity of pyrolite obtained from the nitrate field.

Therefore, it is the key to preserve this saltpeter mine as much as possible.

Lei Ying obviously heard what Shi Xiong said. After he came out, he kept asking how to fight the guard and how to take some safety measures.

Although the stone bear doesn't know much about this knowledge, he hasn't eaten pork. Haven't he seen a pig run? Thanks to his previous life in the era of information explosion, he knew something about it.

For example, how to do support, for example, the mining face should not be too large, for example, don't carry out mining when there is a rainstorm and so on. Shi Xiong told the future father-in-law a lot.

Because a lot of saltpeter was involved in the shipment, it must be impossible to load the boat in one day, so they lived in Xiaohe tribe for two days.

It seems that Hongyun, the high priest of kabulu, likes the Xiaohe tribe very much. Although most of the people in this tribe are chekasa people, it is hard for Hongyun to hate these chekasa people who are tired of war and do not hesitate to hide in the mountains and forests.

Despite their status as chekasa people, these simple people are almost no different from the people of gaoshu tribe. Are the same yellow skin, black hair, black eyes, say almost the same words, what's the difference?

At this time, Hongyun understood why his guardian had a high look at the Xiaohe tribe.

Not only the woman he valued was the princess of this tribe, but also the main raw material for making gunpowder in Xiaohe tribe. What Dali Xiong valued most was the people in this tribe!

Although Hongyun doesn't know anything about social economics or demographic dividend. However, as a kabulu sacrifice, she knows the importance of population to a tribe and even to an ethnic group.

If the Cherokee had a larger population, they would not have been driven out of the Great Lakes region by the Iroquois and the delavais. In the same way, if there were more powatans, the later Cherokees would not drive away the powatans who have lived in this mountainous area for hundreds and thousands of years.

Similarly, if the gaoshu tribe wants to return to its heyday and even surpass the glory of the Cherokee high priesthood, then its people are indispensable.

In any case, a tribe of 300 people can't be compared with a tribe of 3000 people, just like the chieftain of the Cherokee court. The population is just a few thousand people, and no one else can shake the chieftain.

If, according to the plan of Dali Xiong, through trading and in laws, Xiaohe tribe is firmly tied to gaoshu tribe, and then slowly integrates with this tribe, and then calls back those tribal people who were separated before, even if they can't see the light of Xiaohe tribe, But the scale and influence of kabulu sacrificial clan can be immediately promoted to the level of being side by side with the chief clan.

It's just around the corner to restore the glory of kabulu people in the past!

The purpose of Hongyun is to investigate the life of the people of Xiaohe tribe.

Now it seems that these people are very satisfied with Hongyun.

A lot of saltpeter was transported out of the valley by the people of Xiaohe tribe, and then loaded on the boat batch by batch. This process lasted for two days.

The refined salt and ironware that the tribal leaders brought from the gaoshu tribe make the people in the Xiaohe tribe very high in quality. They have never seen such exquisite salt or used such tough steel knives. Therefore, these people like to keep a long-term trade with the gaoshu tribe from their heart.

Twenty thousand pounds of saltpeter were loaded on four ships on average, which was the first thing to be traded.

When the boat was loaded, leader Lei Ying led the high-level of the tribe to have a good dinner for Hongyun and his party. Although they were all ordinary barbecues and stews, the success of this transaction made the people of the two tribes very happy.

Some people of Xiaohe tribe even spontaneously performed their tribal dance, which made the atmosphere of the scene more fiery.

In the face of the soon to leave love Lang, white cloud this girl is also reluctant to part. But there is no way, she knows that the future will become his big man, there are many things to be busy, he should not become his fetters.

However, after the banquet, they found a corner where there was no one. They had been courting each other for a long time

Early the next morning, with the gloomy weather, four inland river armed transport ships set sail again and went down the haiwoxi river. However, as they enter the Tennessee River, they will sail upstream, so they will return to the high tree tribe in four to five days.

And after returning to the gaoshu tribe, the stone bear can't stay idle.

After these nitrates are transported back, they need to go through certain treatment methods to extract the real nitrates from these nitrates.

This kind of naturally formed niter can not be directly used to make gunpowder. It needs to be purified before it can be used to make gunpowder!

Chinese ancestors invented black powder a long time ago. It is precisely because the invention of black powder has changed the world war pattern, so black powder is also recognized as one of the four great inventions of China all over the world.

The origin of black powder can't be studied, but there's no doubt that when those Chinese alchemists were thinking about how to make pills, they inadvertently put the purified potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal together, and the proportion of these three raw materials was quite similar. As a result, the world's first black powder broke out.

Among the three raw materials of black powder, nitre is undoubtedly the most important. The niter used to make black powder is actually potassium nitrate.

However, there are a lot of impurities in both the nitrate soil produced in the nitrate field and the nitrate stone produced in the nitrate mine. If these impurities are not removed, the power of black powder will be greatly reduced.

Maybe a few hundred years ago, this kind of black powder had little power, but now, before other kinds of powder were invented, the power of black powder was directly related to the range and power of muskets and artillery. Therefore, at this time, when making black powder, we should not only strictly follow the best proportion, but also purify the raw materials, Only in this way can the power of black powder reach the maximum.

It's like the rock salt in xiaoyanshan. If it's not purified, people will die if they eat it.

If the niter produced in this kind of niter ore is not purified, the black powder will become a joke.

After the nitre came back, the stone bear began to command the people to purify nitre.

In fact, it's not difficult to purify high-purity potassium nitrate from niter. As a puppet fan, Shi Xiong knew how to purify niter.

The first thing to do is smash. This is similar to salt making, that is, first crush the saltpeter, and then grind the crushed particles to be finer, the finer the better.

At the same time of crushing the saltpeter, we also need to prepare plant ash.

This plant ash is the key thing. Whether we can purify high-purity potassium nitrate depends on plant ash.

Because there is no chemical experimental instrument, the stone bear can't identify whether these nitrates from Xiaohe tribe are sodium nitrates or potassium nitrates, but it's absolutely right to add a certain proportion of plant ash when purifying them, no matter whether they are sodium nitrates or potassium nitrates.

Because the main components of the plant ash are potassium carbonate and potassium sulfate, the potassium ion in the plant ash will replace the sodium ion in the nitrate soil after the plant ash and the nitrate are put together to form potassium nitrate. In addition, carbonate ion and sulfate ion in plant ash combine with calcium and magnesium ion in nitrate soil to form insoluble salt and precipitate, so as to remove calcium, magnesium and other impurities.

In fact, the process of purifying sodium nitrate is a series of basic chemical reactions.

Of course, plant ash can not be used casually. The best plant ash is the ash obtained by burning buckwheat stalk, cotton hull, cotton stalk, broad bean stalk, vegetable stalk, tomato stalk, sorghum stalk, corn stalk and other plants, and the potassium content can reach 10-15%. Although other plant ashes can also be used, the effect is not ideal.

There's a lot of corn stalks in the tribe, so it's just a big fire.

Put the ground powder and black plant ash into a large pot at the ratio of 8:1, and then add water. When you add water, you can't add cold water. Instead, you need to add hot water with a temperature of about 75 degrees centigrade. The amount of water can't exceed these materials.

After hot water is added in, the material begins to dissolve. Because of plant ash, a pot of water is black.

The people of the tribe are very happy for the guardian to "change the play" with the people of the tribe, because all the people know that once the guardian starts to change the play, the tribe can get a good thing.

The first time the guardian changed his play, there was a lot of refined salt in the tribe

This time, the guardian wants to change his play. Naturally, the people of the tribe respond with a bang.

Therefore, although there is a pot of black hot water now, there is nothing strange about them. The reason why changing drama is changing drama is that it is a process of making the impossible possible. In this process, all kinds of unpredictable phenomena will naturally appear.

After adding hot water to the pot, the stone bear asked the two people to keep stirring with spoons, so as to fully dissolve the plant ash and saltpeter in the water.

Stirring takes at least 15 minutes. After mixing, the dissolved in water are dissolved in water, insoluble in water will naturally become sediment.

Then the black water starts to filter.

There are many such things as funnel and filter cloth in xiaoyanshan. Any one of them will be enough to cope with filtration.

The black water is filtered out through the filter cloth and funnel, and the remaining residue is isolated. This black water is nitrate water.

Pour the nitrate water into another large pot and start to boil. This step is also called boiling nitrate.

When boiling nitrate, keep stirring to prevent bottom sticking and splashing.

With continuous heating and stirring, the nitrate water in the pot will continue to evaporate. When about two-thirds of the water evaporates, the solution has become viscous.

At this time, the stone bear sticks with a bit of sticky solution, the result of this solution out of the pot immediately condensed into a ball. The change made the bear nod with satisfaction, and then ordered the pot to be lifted aside to cool naturally.

In the process of boiling nitrate, the temperature is always very high, and at this temperature, the solubility of potassium nitrate will become very large, so it will not precipitate. On the contrary, impurities such as sodium chloride and potassium chloride are precipitated because of their low solubility at high temperature.

However, the solubility of potassium nitrate solution will decrease rapidly with the decrease of temperature until it is naturally cooled to 30 ℃. At this time, the solubility of potassium nitrate agriculture will change the most due to the influence of temperature, and the decrease of temperature will make a large amount of potassium nitrate precipitate rapidly. However, at this temperature, the solubility of sodium chloride and other salts will become very small and will not be separated out.

At this time, the solid obtained by filtration is potassium nitrate crystal.

In fact, this process is a chemical reaction + physical change process. Potassium ions in plant ash are used to replace sodium ions, and then potassium nitrate is formed. With the help of different solubility of various salts at different temperatures, pure potassium nitrate crystals are finally precipitated.

Of course, the purity of primary purification may not be so high, but it doesn't matter. It's a big deal to carry out the same operation on the precipitated potassium nitrate crystal again and carry out secondary purification.

As long as it is not too troublesome, potassium nitrate crystal with high purity can be obtained by this method.

In fact, in this era, Europeans also used this method to purify potassium nitrate on a large scale. It's just that they don't use saltpeter, but they use the saltpeter mixed with human and livestock urine in the saltpeter field to purify