Throne of Vientiane Civilization

Before leaving, Li Gan mentioned that the remaining fire crystals were not enough to make weapons for all the soldiers in the Xianzhen Camp, so he needed more fire crystals.

Zhou Xu had a good idea about this situation.

In fact, the first batch of fire crystals sent over were all dug from the walls of the Red Snake's nest. Rounding it off, they were all ready-made and easy to obtain.

After digging all the fire crystals, if they wanted to get more fire crystals, they would have to dig them slowly by themselves.

Under this premise, considering the distance from the volcanic island to the Black Moon City, even if we don't consider the mining efficiency, but only the transportation efficiency, it would be good if a batch could be delivered in half a year.

Speaking of weapons, we have to mention sulfur, another important resource he found on the volcanic island.

Zhang Xuemei was in charge of the whole process, and the mining of sulfur had been carried out smoothly long before he left the volcanic island.

At the same time, potassium nitrate was also collected across the country after receiving his order.

He had basically already dealt with the raw materials. To put it bluntly, the research and development of gunpowder was a process of trial and error of material proportions. It required manpower, energy, and time. It was essentially the same as the forging department trying to smelt new alloys and conduct various proportion tests.

Due to the shortage of manpower in various departments, not many people were transferred to the gunpowder department. In addition, once the raw materials were lost during the research and development of gunpowder, they would be gone.

Sulfur could only be obtained from the volcanic island for the time being, which undoubtedly increased the time consumption.

This also allowed Zhou Xu, who was aware of this, to give them more time for research and development.

It was not until late autumn this year that the gunpowder department sent him good news.

"Boom!"

With a loud bang, the ground shook, and even Zhou Xu, who had been mentally prepared, couldn't help but twitch his heart at this moment.

With the detonation of the explosive barrel, a large piece of rock was directly blown away!

At this moment, they were in the Gobi area on the other side of the Black Moon City.

They have a copper mine here, and this is also the largest quarry in this area of ​​their Great Zhou.

Due to the special nature of gunpowder research and development, and the fact that it is quite dangerous, it naturally cannot be placed in the city, so when Zhou Xu set up this department, he specially arranged them in the Gobi area.

While testing the gunpowder, they can also blow up the stone wall to improve the work efficiency of the quarry here.

Looking at their research results, the people in the gunpowder department couldn't help dancing and cheering!

Zhou Xu was not surprised by this, but showed a happy expression.

He is now researching gunpowder, not for the development of muskets, but for making explosives!

In Zhou Xu's view, the performance of the early matchlock guns was too poor, and it could not replace the position of individual crossbows on the battlefield.

This musket must at least be developed to the stage of matchlock guns and flintlock guns to show its value.

Of course, it is not good, but it should be developed.

For things like muskets, they have to do it step by step, and the experience of the relevant R\u0026D departments has to be accumulated slowly through this process. Basically, there is no shortcut.

But the problem now is that he is a serious and good citizen living in China!

How can a good citizen like him have the opportunity to come into contact with firearms?

At most, he occasionally glances at it on the Internet, but it is limited to a few glances. He himself is not a fanatic of firearms, and he will not stare at those videos and pictures to study over and over again.

This makes him really have no idea about the design of these firearms.

However, there is someone in their Great Zhou who may know something.

With this idea in mind, Zhou Xu turned around and looked for Qin Fen.

"Guns? I have played with them."

Qin Fen nodded and admitted it generously.

After all, he has been studying abroad for so many years. Firearms are strictly prohibited in China, but they are legal abroad. People have already gone abroad, so there is no reason not to play with them, even if it is to try something new?

"I have been to the shooting club and have assembled guns. I have a general understanding of the various parts of the pistol, but I don't know more specific details."

"It's okay, just draw what you know first, and let the department study it slowly later."

For this matter, Zhou Xu couldn't be anxious even if he wanted to.

In the absence of relevant professional talents, even if there is a general design drawing, it will probably take a lot of time to develop it.

Fortunately, Zhou Xu's mentality was also very calm about this matter.

As mentioned before, what he wanted was explosives, and as for guns, he would take his time. He was not in a hurry.

After finishing a round of work, Zhou Xu went directly back to the Qinzheng Hall. It was still two o'clock in the afternoon.

Because of the autumn harvest in autumn, there are quite a lot of documents sent to the Qinzheng Hall every day recently. Even at this time, some documents are still sent one after another.

"Your Majesty, the report just sent from the volcanic island."

Taking the report, Zhou Xu quickly flipped through it.

To put it simply, this report roughly reports the current situation of various departments on the volcanic island.

During this period, the agricultural department also reported on the results of this year's autumn harvest.

In order to make the population on the volcanic island completely self-sufficient in terms of food, and also to save the transportation costs within their Great Zhou, Zhou Xu had already allocated a piece of land for them as a farm as early as last winter, and then reclaimed the land to prepare for the cultivation in the spring of next year.

However, at this stage, the main work on the volcanic island is still to mine fire crystals and sulfur, as well as to carry out some internal construction on the island, so the manpower that can be allocated to the agricultural department is really limited.

In this way, although the soil there is fertile, the crops planted in spring have a good harvest in autumn, but due to limited manpower, the area of ​​reclaimed fields is also limited, and the output of food is naturally limited.

This amount of food is not enough for the whole island, and it still has to be shipped from the southern border.

In response to this situation, Zhou Xu naturally knew it in his mind, but there was no way.

With limited manpower, the mining of fire crystals and sulfur on the island has the highest priority. At this stage, he cannot reduce this part of the manpower and let them go to farm.

In comparison, they have a surplus of grain in the Great Zhou, and the most they have to do is to increase the transportation cost.

This made Zhou Xu feel fortunate that he had established the South Border Farm a few years ago. The distance from the volcanic island was relatively not that far, so the transportation cost was not unacceptable.

But in the future, if this cost can be completely saved, it would definitely be better.

With this idea in mind, after reading this report, Zhou Xu planned to transfer a few more oxen to the farming department of the volcanic island.

Although there was no manpower, adding a few more oxen could also effectively improve farming efficiency.