Chapter 505: Suspected Saltpeter Mine

Lu led the Soldiers to carry the processed pork, then returned the way they came; after they left, the wolf pack cautiously approached the pile of entrails, and upon confirming it was safe, they gorged themselves.

The amount of meat Lu and the others brought back was enough for everyone to eat for several meals; although many were small piglets and a single Soldier could eat a whole one if they really tried, it was impossible for everyone to eat only meat now. Meat was merely a pleasant embellishment to a dull life and bland food; although there was Soybean Oil to eat, making the food less bland, everyone still longed for animal fat in their bones.

After everyone was full and rested, they continued their journey in the afternoon. Lu really wanted to see what a rhinoceros looked like at zero distance during the day, but unfortunately, he never got his wish; he did not discover any traces of rhinoceroses even until he reached the place suspected to be a Saltpeter Mine.

After everyone arrived at that place, their first feeling was that it was very white here, a vast expanse of white, looking like a salt lake; however, looking closely, it was still different, as the white substance was mainly Earth Saltpeter floating on the surface of the soil.

Tianli now also knew why the King suspected this was a Saltpeter Mine, because the quantity of just this surface layer of Earth Saltpeter was very large, and the area was also very vast. However, one could not conclude that this was a Saltpeter Mine just by looking at the surface, because Huaxia City was originally built on saline-alkali land, and this kind of Earth Saltpeter was also very abundant there; if this place were the same as Huaxia City, it could not be counted as a Saltpeter Mine, as the land would return to its original state after some artificial modification.

Tianli had already prepared for a protracted war; he had to figure out the land here, because no one knew the importance of saltpeter to Huaxia better than he did. Saltpeter was not just as simple as being used to make Gunpowder; it was also used for tanning furs and making ice.

However, although it was widely known among the high-level officials of Huaxia that saltpeter and Sulfur were indispensable for making Gunpowder, some Artisans had secretly tried it, and these two things simply could not be used to make Gunpowder directly; there must be other materials, but these materials existed in Huaxia and were abundant. However, the detailed matters were very secretive, and no one knew; they also dared not spend their thoughts on this, as this was Baifeng's bottom line. They were curious and could try with the two materials, but after already knowing that their guessed answer was wrong, if they still wanted to obtain the real answer, I am afraid that no matter what their status was, they would not have a good end.

This area could also be considered a Wasteland, but it was crisscrossed with gullies, with a slope here and a ditch there, not flat at all, and there was no vegetation; not a single tree could be seen, only some Grass that was very tolerant to saline-alkali soil growing there.

There was no shelter here, and everyone felt insecure, so the Workers immediately began to take action; with the help and protection of the Soldiers, they began to cut down trees. They could also select dead wood that had fallen; this kind of wood had no moisture and was better for building houses, as houses built with wet wood would not last long.

Because there were not many tools and materials, the Workers chose to build semi-subterranean houses; although it seemed that there was a lot of rain here, for temporary living, this was all they could do. They only needed to choose a place with a slope where water would not collect.

Tianli led his apprentices to begin collecting the Earth Saltpeter here; they wanted to first see how much saltpeter could be refined from the Earth Saltpeter here and see if the saltpeter content was high.

They also found a water source, a spring full of silt; the water was slightly salty, the taste was not great, and it was very small, the kind that wouldn't drown a person even if they jumped into it, with an area of only four or five square meters.

This bit of water was completely insufficient to supply the lives of so many of them, let alone the work of refining saltpeter, so they continued to look for water. At the same time, some people began to dredge the spring, which was to clean out the silt in the spring, open the spring eye, and make it larger so that the water output would be higher.

Then they trimmed the waterway to let the spring water flow down along the small ditches washed out by the rain, flowing all the way to their Battalion. The site selection for their Battalion was as close to this spring as possible; after all, the water source was the most important thing.

After the efforts of the Soldiers, the water output of the spring eye indeed surged, but it still could not be considered large; however, it was still enough to supply the lives of so many of them. The amount of water flowing into the ditch could only cover the top of a person's feet, so it could only be used by making do.

With water, Tianli's work proceeded very smoothly. After the first day of trying, he concluded that the saltpeter in this soil was much more than that in Huaxia City; even if there was only this saltpeter on the surface, the overall quantity was still very large.

Afterwards, he thought that in the coming days, he would take people to carefully observe how large this saltpeter land was. It would be best if it were really a Saltpeter Mine; although he didn't know what a Saltpeter Mine looked like at all, he understood a very simple principle: as long as there was enough saltpeter, then it was a Saltpeter Mine.

The Workers were still constantly building houses; because there was enough manpower, in one day, the pits for several houses had already been dug, and it could be said that they were taking shape, but for now, they still had to live in Tents.

Moreover, because everything had to start from scratch these few days, the food was all Dry Rations; they could not spare the energy to go hunting.

On the second day, Tianli took people and began to walk towards a farther, more central location. The further they walked towards the center, the more the saltpeter on the surface, which looked like wool, there was, and Tianli's heart was even more excited.

Once they saw a white expanse that looked like a salt lake, he could no longer suppress his excitement and began to quicken his pace, jogging over.

When his feet stepped on that white area, Tianli squatted down and tapped the ground with the small hammer he carried with him, discovering that the ground here was not as hard as a salt lake, and it was mixed with a lot of soil, not clean at all.

Whether looking or touching, it did not look like salt; of course, perhaps there was salt in it, but Tianli did not care about these. He only felt that this was definitely a very large Saltpeter Mine.

So he knocked down a relatively clean white clod of earth, the thickness of which exceeded a finger, and underneath it was still a substance suspected to be saltpeter, only that there was more soil mixed inside.

Tianli, who had collected the specimen, hurriedly rushed back; he first had to refine this thing, and then see whether the final product was saltpeter or salt. If it were salt, then they would have been happy for nothing.

After Tianli brought a large white clod back to the Battalion, everyone looked on very excitedly, and then even those Workers who should have been building houses were staring at Tianli.