Chapter 74: Gunpowder

After seeing the powder that Tie Yi and several miners had carefully taken out of the clay jars, Zhou Shixiang recognized at a glance that it was black powder made from a mixture of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal.

Compared with the modern gunpowder in the bullets he had used as a soldier in his previous life, black powder was not very powerful, produced a lot of smoke, and had less killing power, but this black powder still made Zhou Shixiang excited, because he knew what gunpowder meant.

After scooping up a handful of powder with his own hands and sniffing it back and forth, Zhou Shixiang asked Tie Yi how much powder there was in all. The answer he got was that there was not much — only a dozen or so jars, less than two hundred jin altogether.

A miner standing nearby chimed in, saying that a few years earlier the mine had still had a great deal of powder, but when the Ming army attacked Xinhui the year before, people came from Zhaoqing Prefecture and took away more than half of the mine's powder, saying it was to be sent to the provincial capital for the troops under the Prince of Pingnan.

The troops under the Prince of Pingnan, Shang Kexi, were Han Banners and possessed large numbers of firearms soldiers.

He, Kong Youde, who had burned himself to death in Guilin, and the former Prince of Jingnan, Geng Zhongming, who had killed himself out of fear over the fugitive-slave affair, had all been subordinates of Mao Wenlong, the former Ming Regional Commander of Liaodong, and all had come from mining backgrounds.

They had also been exposed to the new army that Sun Yuanhua, the former Ming Governor of Denglai, had drilled using the firearms techniques of the white barbarians (the Portuguese), so they had a certain knowledge and mastery of gunpowder.

After the Manchu Qing entered the pass, the Han Banner troops under the three men were almost uniformly firearms soldiers, and they had contributed greatly to the Qing conquest of Jiangnan.

In the sixth year of Shunzhi, although Dorgon issued an edict strictly forbidding Han troops from possessing firearms, it was aimed only at the Green Standard; the Han Banners under Shang Kexi and the others were not included.

There were not many saltpeter mines in Guangdong, so when Li Dingguo attacked Guangdong for the second time, Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao sent men one after another to seize the powder stored in every prefecture of Guangdong for use in defending the cities.

Hearing what the miner said, Zhou Shixiang inwardly thought it a pity, and after the pity came worry. There was not much powder, but there were still about two hundred jin of it. Yet what use was powder alone, without firelocks?

Could he find a way to get some firelocks from the Ming army? Those things could not compare with the guns of later ages, but having them was better than not having them.

Perhaps he could even improve them, and if he improved them well, they would become a sharp weapon against the Qing army. Although weapons were not the key to deciding victory or defeat, having weapons more advanced than the enemy's was still better than not having them.

As he thought this over, Zhou Shixiang casually opened a jar with a seal pasted on it, reached inside, and felt a chill. He pinched out a handful of powder and looked at it — the powder had actually gone damp.

"How did water get in?"

Tie Yi frowned and also reached in for a handful. Looking at the powder that had clumped into granules, he felt quite pained; once powder went damp it was useless.

He was about to blame the men who had been keeping the powder when Zhou Shixiang suddenly widened his eyes, abruptly grabbed another handful of the damp powder, held it in his hands, and stared at it fixedly.

After a long while, the corner of his mouth suddenly curved into a smile, and he said something baffling: "I'd forgotten about that."

Forgotten about what?

Everyone was confused, not knowing what nonsense this Battalion Commander Zhou was muttering.

Zhou Shixiang smiled without explaining. He simply ordered someone to take the jar of damp powder outside, spread it evenly on a cloth on the ground, and then, after the sun had dried it, bring it back to show him.

No one knew what the purpose of such instructions was, but Zhou Shixiang was a battalion commander and the commander of the whole camp, so naturally no one dared disobey his words. At once some miners went off to do as told.

During this interval, Zhou Shixiang, guided by Tie Yi, met the miners. Every one of them was a fine, sturdy fellow, though they showed some signs of malnutrition. A few of the miners, having just eaten their fill, were now belching one after another without stop, their faces full of satisfaction.

They had done heavy physical labor down in the mines for years, so their foundations were all there; with a little care and nourishment they would be full of vigor again.

Zhou Shixiang was very pleased by what he saw. After speaking a few words of encouragement to the crowd of miners, he announced publicly that from now on they were members of the Taiping Camp, to be organized immediately as the Taiping Camp's Engineer Battalion.

Tie Yi was to serve as probationary company commander of the Engineer Battalion, and the remaining platoon leaders and squad leaders were to be appointed by the probationary company commander himself.

Originally Zhou Shixiang had planned to break up the miners and distribute them among the units in order to strengthen each unit, but after carefully considering the greatest use of these miners, he abandoned his original idea.

Using these engineers the same way as other troops would be a complete waste; only by employing the miners together could their greatest strength be brought into play.

"Many thanks, my lord battalion commander!"

Although he did not understand what an engineer battalion meant, Tie Yi was inwardly happy that the brothers could stay together and that he himself would be given an important role. Under Master Liao's guidance, he gave Zhou Shixiang a full military salute.

His posture still looked a little unpracticed, but presumably with time he would fully adapt to this new identity.

Ge Zheng, who had come with Zhou Shixiang, saw that Tie Yi, a newcomer, had been made a probationary company commander, and could not help feeling resentful.

He had no objection to Zhao Sihai being a probationary company commander, because Zhao Sihai was one of their own brothers and was in charge of everyone's money and grain; if his position were not high enough, it would be hard to command respect.

But what gave this Tie Yi, who had just joined, the right to become a probationary company commander, and to take command of more than three hundred men at once? Was this Engineer Battalion even more important than the public treasury?

Zhou Shixiang saw Ge Zheng's dissatisfaction but said nothing about it for the moment. While Tie Yi went off to select platoon leaders and squad leaders, he explained to Ge Zheng what the Engineer Battalion did.

As soon as Ge Zheng heard that the Engineer Battalion would in the future be specially tasked with digging and burying powder charges, and that one careless moment could cost a man his life, his dissatisfaction vanished at once.

He thought to himself that this dangerous job was not one he should go angling for; without a diamond drill, one does not take on porcelain work. There was good reason for Tie Yi to be made probationary company commander.

Besides, with these men specially assigned to bury powder charges, the prospects and lives of his own brothers would gain a little more protection, so giving the man a probationary company commander post was no loss.

Once Ge Zheng's thinking was straightened out, the others would naturally come around too, and Zhou Shixiang set his mind at ease.

Before long, Tie Yi brought in the Engineer Battalion's seven platoon leaders and more than thirty squad leaders to report back to Zhou Shixiang, and Zhou Shixiang naturally offered them kind words of encouragement as well.

The sun was strong that day, and the damp powder did not take long to dry. In front of Tie Yi and all the platoon and squad leaders, Zhou Shixiang set fire to the powder, which had now formed into granules.

Although it did not flash as fast as the powdered form, after it burned there was not a trace of residue left, which greatly astonished everyone — especially Tie Yi, who found it incredible.

From the time he had first gone down into the mine with his master, he had always learned the work of burying powder charges, but he had never imagined that powder which had gone damp and then been dried again could burn so completely.

Zhou Shixiang then had someone bring a small sealed jar. After twisting a fuse, he buried the jar in the earth.

When it exploded, there was a boom, and a hole several chi wide was blasted in the ground. When they tested with gunpowder that had not been exposed to water, the hole blasted out was much smaller.

This experiment naturally made everyone even more amazed, and they all looked at Zhou Shixiang as if he were a divine being. But to Zhou Shixiang it was nothing, because the principle behind the experiment was actually very simple.

He had known since his time as a soldier that powdered gunpowder had an extremely strong capacity to absorb moisture, and that gunpowder with a water content above 2 percent was basically unusable.

Therefore, whether powdered gunpowder would detonate, and what form the explosion would take, was entirely a matter of fate, beyond human control.

Granulated gunpowder, by contrast, had a greatly reduced capacity to absorb moisture, and its explosive power could to a certain extent be controlled by human effort — far superior to the fate-dependent detonation of powdered powder.

Of course, this test was still not very thorough or complete. Zhou Shixiang had only demonstrated to the miners the simplest and most direct visual effect.

Later, he would teach these miners how to press gunpowder powder into high-density cakes of uniform composition, then break the cakes to obtain granules, sift out the powder and overly fine particles, polish them, sift again, and finally obtain granulated gunpowder of essentially uniform size.

This kind of granulated powder was the safest and most powerful black powder. The process was not difficult; what mattered was care and attention to detail.

He stayed in the Engineer Battalion for two full days. After two days of teaching, a jar of fully granulated gunpowder was buried beneath the broken wall of Luoding.

Zhou Shixiang naturally did not expect one jar of gunpowder to blast down a city wall; he was only using this to demonstrate to the Engineer Battalion the explosive effect of granulated gunpowder.