Chapter 738: Flintlock

Those Artisans now had a dedicated living area, were married, and had children; they could be considered truly integrated into Huaxia, no longer Slaves meant to be treated as consumables.

The reason Baifeng did this was still because he cherished his life; while the formula for Gunpowder was certainly important, his own life was even more important. If he stayed alive, he could create things even more powerful than Gunpowder, so letting others go and produce Gunpowder was an imperative.

Of course, Baifeng did not trust the Workers making Gunpowder that much either; their movements and outings were subject to very strict restrictions. Their children could go to school normally, but the work content of these parents had to be kept strictly confidential and could not be revealed to their wives or children in the slightest.

To ensure they had sufficient awareness, Baifeng utilized the power of his intelligence system. The Artisans could take turns going out for two days a month to engage in activities, whether it was wandering around Huaxia City, going outside the city to see the scenery, or visiting relatives and friends; Baifeng did not restrict this.

However, after they returned, when Baifeng spoke with them, he would "inadvertently" mention things they had said while outside, whether interesting or relatively important. Even if it did not involve the content of their work, Baifeng was perfectly clear about it.

The group of Workers, discovering they had not a single secret before Baifeng, felt cold sweat flowing from the tops of their heads to the soles of their feet when they heard Baifeng repeating the things they had said. They understood completely that no matter how far away they were, they could not escape Baifeng's palm. They did not know how Baifeng knew the things they had said; was it the birds outside the window, or perhaps the insects on the ground?

No matter what told Baifeng, they would have to keep their mouths tightly shut from now on and could not say another word outside, because Baifeng had stated that as long as the formula was leaked, the person who spoke it, as well as the person who heard it, would never have the chance to step out of that small factory again. If the circumstances were serious, they would be executed immediately, with no room for negotiation, even if you had accidentally revealed it in a dream.

As for the long stick Baifeng gave to Xiong, it was naturally the gun they had been secretly manufacturing for a long time. The appearance of the gun was now inevitable; Huaxia could not always just pile up the equivalent of Explosives, as the waste caused would likely not be small.

The most important part of the gun was the barrel. Currently, their technology could only achieve casting and then grinding the barrel. The rifling was also scraped open bit by bit using tools. Manufacturing one barrel was more strenuous than forging several high-quality Iron Swords.

The people in the Ministry of Works had been trying to find a way to use a waterwheel to build a lathe so that they could easily dig out the rifling, but their current forging capability meant the Iron Knife heads they created had almost no difference in hardness from the barrels, making it very difficult to perform cutting.

Regarding this, Baifeng did not have many solutions. He did not know how to refine other metals either. If he wanted to make better steel with higher hardness, he could only keep trying. Baifeng's understanding of this lay in carbon; perhaps more or less carbon could produce iron or steel of different hardness.

Currently, Huaxia's barrels were all made of the best iron; making better steel was not an easy task.

The metal parts and wooden parts of the gun were made separately by two departments. Baifeng marked out the dimensions, and they forged them meticulously; after they were finally produced, there was no problem at all during assembly.

As for the firing issue, Baifeng could only choose flintlock. He knew nothing about primers. He also knew that primers should use nitrocellulose, but there was no cotton, and he did not know how to produce nitrocellulose.

Flintlock combined with buckshot was already powerful enough in this era, and just picking this thing up and having it make a sound was enough to scare enemies out of their wits. However, limited by craftsmanship, Baifeng knew that in his generation, it would likely be difficult to produce many. If he could assemble one elite troop, that would be enough.

After the Gunpowder was granulated, its power was even greater, and they also packaged the Gunpowder in paper, making it into a small paper tube. When using it, one just tore it open and then stuffed it down from the barrel.

The bullets were the same; there was no need to pour them in one by one. It was just a thin paper tube the size of the barrel, containing round iron beads inside.

This loading speed was much faster than using a bamboo tube to pour Gunpowder into the barrel, then pouring in steel beads, and then using a ramrod to poke it a few times to pack it tight. The only thing to consider was that the paper might clog the barrel, affecting accuracy; if it clogged too much, it might even cause the barrel to burst.

However, after many experiments, it was discovered that it was still difficult to clog it completely. Only after firing a dozen or so times did one need to clean the barrel. Under Baifeng's design, the disassembly of the barrel was also relatively easy, and cleaning it was quite simple.

This experiment had been conducted in secret the whole time; it could be said it was prepared to be used as a secret weapon. If you hold a Crossbow or a bow and stand in the distance, the people opposite might be afraid and try to dodge, but if you hold a thin black stick, who would be afraid?

In this era, the gun's main purpose was to be unexpected. This work was known to only a few people: Baifeng, Yulong, Changle, several Marshals of the Ministry of War, and the rest were some people from the Gunpowder factory.

Because the cycle was very long, the Blacksmiths and Carpenters now had likely long forgotten that they had made such a thing. Currently, Huaxia only had two finished pieces.

For this outing, Baifeng considered that there might be a battle with the Wulengge Tribe, so he brought a gun as a deterrent, which could be considered insurance for Xiong. While the gun was important and should be kept strictly confidential, in Baifeng's view, Xiong's safety was even more important.

As long as one could ensure that when the gun fired, a person fell, then the gun could serve as a mysterious artifact to terrify those savages still in the barbaric era. Even if Xiong and his men were at a disadvantage and could not complete the mission, as long as they had the gun, it was possible for them to return safely.

They were also made to carry some Explosives, but because the power was too great, they did not dare let them carry too much. After all, they had to use fire everywhere, and if they were not careful in storage and came into contact with a spark, their entire team would die in the wilderness without anyone knowing why.

The Gunpowder used in the gun did not have such great power; a tube of that explosive, in the worst case, would only blow off a few fingers, and it certainly would not take a life. By comparison, it was still very necessary to bring the gun.