Chapter 1119： Desalination of saltpetre and solar stoves in Chile

However, the difficulty of wanting to be a Portuguese this time is completely different from the last time. The last time I sent a gun to the Kingdom of Malacca, it can be said that it was inadvertently lost. If Malin sent a warning to the Malacca Kingdom this time, if the Portuguese knew it, it would mean tearing his face.

If there is a duel on land, Marin is confident to beat two Portugals. But at sea, Marin is still unable to confront Portugal. After all, people started prince Enrique for decades of sailing. The whole of Portugal has become a nautical country. However, Marin has a limited number of warships and is still unable to fight against Portugal at sea.

Although, Marin's main fleet artillery has a larger caliber. Although the number is small, the combat effectiveness is very strong. However, Marin's battleship has a huge disadvantage, that is-a serious lack of gunpowder, can not be released to fire. If the artillery bombardment is released, the reserves of the ignition powder in Beihai will not last long. The shortage of gunpowder is mainly due to the shortage of saltpeter.

Originally, Indian saltpeter was a good source. But the problem is that now that the world has just entered the artillery era, the production capacity of Indian saltpetre has not been expanded due to strong demand, and the average annual output is only hundreds of tons of saltpeter. What's more, these hundred tons of saltpeter are not for the Marin family. Because of the promotion of gunboats, Spain and Portugal are now buying saltpeter in large quantities in India. Even, Turkey sometimes purchases some saltpetre in India. Therefore, it is good for Malin to share 20 tons of saltpetre in India every year.

And what can 20 tons of saltpeter do? A 20-ton saltpeter can produce 26.7 tons of gunpowder, which is equivalent to 58,000 pounds. The one-sided artillery of Marin's 500-ton battleship cost dozens of pounds of gunpowder in a single round of salvo. There are currently 20 warships in the Beihai Kingdom. One round of salvo is more than 1,000 pounds of gunpowder ... 58,000 pounds of gunpowder, which is also the consumption of dozens of rounds of single-sided artillery from the Marin fleet ...

Therefore, even if Marin had advanced warships and artillery, he did not dare to chaos. Because gunpowder is really not enough. Think about the later British Empire. In order to maintain the hegemony at sea, the British king often bought saltpeter from the British East India Company, which controlled India, once a few hundred tons. Otherwise, the British could not sustain the huge demand for Royal Navy gunpowder.

In addition to the shortage of gunpowder, Marin is actually short of battleships. Although those 250-class armed merchant ships are also equipped with artillery, the cost performance is too low. Because the sides of those armed merchant ships were not thickened and could not withstand the bombardment of enemy ships. Therefore, if you want to fight naval battles, you have to rely on professional warships.

And Marin is not short of shipbuilding craftsmen, and even less wood for shipbuilding. What he lacked was materials such as tung oil and paint used in making ships. Of course, there is sisal that has not yet been harvested. Although the seeds of the tung tree and sumac have been ordered to be grown in Savannah, sisal has also been grown in Cuba for a long time. But it will take several years to wait for the harvest.

Therefore, Marin intends to go to Daming this time to purchase tung oil for shipbuilding (Europeans used linseed oil and other dry oils to coat ships for waterproofing at this time, which is very expensive), raw paint and copper nails. . As long as one or two ships are pulled back to China, dozens of warships can be exploded. At least, this saves time compared to waiting a few years later to rebuild ships from the tung trees and sumacs of the American colonies.

...

Before the North Sea navy can hang Portugal, Marin did not want to publicly offend Portugal. Therefore, this time he does not intend to send people directly to remind the Malacca Kingdom, but intends to circle around to remind the Malacca people ...

The specific method is-Marin intends to send a ship to India, quietly find a prince who has hatred against the Portuguese. Then, under the pretext of them, use them to warn the Malacca ...

Even, the ships sent to India this time, Marin did not intend to use the name of the North Sea, but the name of the Venetian ...

The Venetians were hostile to the Portuguese, pretending to be Venetians, and the Portuguese were not easy to prove. Even if someone in the Kingdom of Malacca leaked the news, the result of the investigation was that the Venetian ordered a prince of India to remind the Kingdom of Malacca ... Both are enemies, and it is reasonable to find fault with Portugal ... Even with their relationship with Portugal, even They didn't do it, they smiled and admitted that they did it themselves. In this way, you can defeat the enemy in one breath, and at the same time strengthen your own momentum ...

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Before leaving, Marin finally made up his mind to develop Chile's saltpeter mine. Earlier, the merchants sent by Malin to the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt had already bought a batch of slaves and camels there.

These slaves, all Bedouin prisoners of war captured by the Egyptian Mamluk cavalry on the Arabian Peninsula, are well adapted to the tropical desert climate. Not to mention the camel, the desert boat ...

Marin intends to send all these Egyptian slaves and camels to Iquique, a coastal city in the desert of northern Chile. Of course, there is no city there. However, Marin's previous life had specially learned about the city of Iquique because of an evening rumor that "the remnants of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom participated in the Saltpetre War" and remembered its coordinates. Therefore, now Marin only needs his men to find the place according to the coordinates, and then build the port.

Then, after the Bedouins and Egyptian camels that had adapted to the desert climate arrived, they could use Iquique as a starting point to find saltpetre in the desert.

However, the northern desert of Chile is the driest desert in the world. Send people over, but also give them the solution to the problem of fresh water supply.

Originally, Marin planned to send the fleet to the fresh water area to fill the fresh water, and send the oak barrels for fresh water to Iquique. If the method of high temperature cooking and quick mud sealing is adopted, it can reach the original canned standard, and it will not be bad for at least a few months.

However, the labor cost is too high, and it is necessary to separate a boat to get fresh water ...

Thinking of the desalination project of later generations ~ www.novelhall.com ~ Marin suddenly thought of a brilliant idea ...

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What is this idea? Marin ’s idea was to use a solar stove to transform a very economical desalination system ...

The principle of this system is very simple-first make dozens or even hundreds of solar stoves with tinplate, and then use these solar stoves to cook seawater on the seaside of Iquique ...

At the same time, a pipe made of white iron is used to guide the water vapor after the sea water is boiled above the black-bottom iron pot, and it is led into the pool to cool down ...

After the pool cools, the water vapor in the tinplate pipes condenses into water droplets, which are eventually exported and then packaged. Of course, the packaging method of cauldron cooking is used again to ensure that the fresh water is not damaged for several months. Finally, let the camel carry it to the mining area in the desert ...

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The most indispensable part of the desert in northern Chile is sunshine, where it has not rained for hundreds of years. There is absolutely great power to use the solar cooker there. Instead of using a solar stove to cook seawater, you can continuously obtain fresh water through vaporization-condensation. If dozens or even hundreds of solar stoves are started at the same time, processing hundreds of barrels of fresh water a day is effortless.

Perhaps, desalination of seawater with solar stoves in other regions may encounter cloudy days, which prevents the production of fresh water. But the desert in northern Chile is the driest region in the world that hasn't rained for hundreds of years. It is absolutely appropriate to use the solar cooker to desalinate the sea water there.

A few hundred barrels of fresh water per day may be small in scale, but in the early days Marin only planned to send a few hundred people to explore the way, looking for the saltpeter mine first. Hundreds of people with dozens of camels and hundreds of barrels of fresh water every day are definitely enough. When the saltpetre mine is discovered and large-scale mining begins, then find a way to transport fresh water from elsewhere ...

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