Da Ming started to ascend the throne

Chapter 888 Testing New Weapon Performance
After Zhu Youjian inspected the arsenal, he decided to see the effects of machine guns and hot air balloons, so he said to Song Yingxing:
"Let your subordinates prepare, I want to test the quality of your new products."

"According to the purpose"

Song Yingxing led the order and immediately ordered the test soldiers of the arsenal to transport the heavy machine guns and hot air balloons to the training ground.

As the Ming Dynasty Arms Manufacturing Bureau, they must have a group of test soldiers under their command, just like the test pilots of later generations, only after rigorous tests can the newly developed weapons be formally mass-produced.

The first demonstration was a hot air balloon. The main body of the hot air balloon was exchanged by Zhu Youjian from the system, but other materials were produced by Daming himself. As an important part of the hot air balloon, the fuel was also produced by Daming himself. It is oil.

China is the first country in the world to discover and utilize oil.

The earliest mention of oil was in Ban Gu in the 1st century AD.He recorded in "Hanshu? Geographical Chronicles" that in Shangjun of the Western Han Dynasty, "Gaonu has water, which is flammable." The old city of Gaonu County in Shangjun in the Han Dynasty is in Yanchang County, Shaanxi.It can be seen that oil was discovered in the Yan'an area of ​​northern Shaanxi during the Han Dynasty in my country.

In the Jin Dynasty, oil was also discovered in Jiuquan, Gansu today, and the locals called it "shiqi".

According to Zhang Hua's "Natural History": "The spring water from the Nanshan Mountain in Yanshou County, Jiuquan, is as big as a scorpion, poured into the ground as a ditch, and the water is as fat as gravy. Take it in a vessel, it turns yellow and then black as a gelatinous paste, but it is very bright. It’s the same as ointment.” Water has fat like gravy, and this “fat” is oil.The former government of Yanshou County, Jiuquan County is located in the southeast of Yumen County, Gansu Province.

However, the oil that was first discovered was naturally spilled out of the ground. Later, as oil was used more and more, people began to drill wells.The earliest oil wells in my country appeared in the Yuan Dynasty.

According to the "Dayuan Yitong Zhi": "Drilling an oil well in Nanying River, Yanchang County, the oil is flammable..." It can be seen that our country has already drilled oil wells in the Yuan Dynasty.

But the West is carrying out cruel killings, because they need to use whale oil, which was not dug in the United States until 2000. Look at the history of using oil in the West more than [-] years later than China.

Oil was found in many places in ancient China, not limited to these two places.For example, during the Ming Dynasty, oil was also discovered in Sichuan and Kuqa, Xinjiang.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, Zhang Han of Hangzhou traveled westward to Shu and described the artesian salt wells and fire wells between Neijiang and Fushun at that time, and also noticed oil wells.He said that in these places "there are oil wells, and the water in the wells is like oil, which can only be used to burn lamps, but it is unbearable to eat."

In fact, the discovery of oil wells in the Sichuan Basin is not accidental.People in Sichuan have eaten well salt since ancient times, and oil and even natural gas were discovered during the process of digging wells to extract brine and fry salt.Although the original purpose of drilling the well was to find brine for frying salt, oil was found in oil-bearing rock formations as a result.

As for the use of oil, it was mainly used for lighting in ancient my country.Originally made into candles, it was later refined into lamp oil.

Later it was also used in the military.According to relevant historical records, during the Northern Zhou Dynasty, the Turkic people besieged Jiuquan. The Northern Zhou army burned the Turkic siege equipment with oil, and the Turkic people splashed water to rescue them, but the fire burned more and more fiercely. To be rescued.

In the fifth year of Zhenming (919) in the Later Liang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties, a flamethrower with an iron cylinder that emitted kerosene appeared in the battle between the Later Liang Dynasty and the Later Tang Dynasty, and was used to burn down enemy ships ("Wu Yue Bei Shi").

During the Northern Song Dynasty, "asphalt production" and "fire oil production" using petroleum as raw materials began to appear in the military workshops of the government's handicraft industry.

When fighting the enemy, the Song army sprayed out the fierce fire oil with mechanical devices such as "tube cabinets" and "cupping pots", which was quite powerful.Later, people also developed asphalt as a delay agent to control the burning speed of gunpowder, which was more than a thousand years earlier than foreign countries.

In addition, people also use oil for steelmaking, medicine, and ink making.

Such as the description of "Weishui" in Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" in the Northern Song Dynasty:

"I know that the smoke is usable, try to sweep the smoke to turn it into ink, the black light is like lacquer, and the pine ink is not as good, this thing will be popular in the world."

It is said that Shen Kuo's "stone ink" was greatly appreciated by Su Shi, an ink-making expert at that time, and it can be described as superior.

The oil used by Song Yingxing and the others was also refined. Although the kerosene and gasoline of later generations were still far behind, they were advanced enough in the Ming Dynasty. We must know that gasoline did not appear until after the Second Industrial Revolution.

Seeing the soldier holding an iron can fixed on the hanging basket, Zhu Youjian knew that it was filled with fuel. He walked over to take a look and found that the inside was yellow. He picked it up with a branch and found that it was still there. Some sticky.

Seeing the emperor like this, Song Yingxing hurried forward to introduce:

"Your Majesty, this is the hot air balloon fuel extracted from graphite by the Royal Academy of Sciences. It doesn't burn very quickly and the fire is not very strong. It is very suitable for use in hot air balloons. We used solid fuel at the beginning, but the firepower of charcoal fire and coal is too small .”

Zhu Youjian nodded. He knew that oil refining is immature now, and it is impossible to extract the gasoline of later generations. In fact, it is not good to use gasoline as fuel, which is prone to accidents.Now this semi-finished product is more suitable.

After everything was ready, the fire was started. About half a stick of incense, the hot air balloon slowly lifted into the sky. When the hot air balloon rose to a height of more than one person, Zhu Youjian reached out to a soldier for a grenade:

"Take this on, find a target and throw it down later to try."

Before he finished speaking, he threw the grenade into the basket of the hot air balloon, making Song Yingxing next to him jump:

"Your Majesty, the hot air balloon cannot be blown up!"

Zhu Youjian smiled slightly:
"I didn't pull the fuse how to explode. If the grenade can explode like this, your Royal Academy of Sciences can be disbanded!"

Song Yingxing blushed, and hurriedly cupped his hands:

"My minister misunderstood, please forgive me..."

After a while, the hot air balloon rose to a height of about 1000 meters. Zhu Youjian saw that the altitude was running out, so he stopped immediately:
"It's ok, no need to go up."

In fact, even if he is allowed to rise higher, the soldiers in the hot air balloon basket do not have that ability. 1500 meters is almost the limit of the hot air balloon.

Zhu Youjian looked back at Zixuan:

"Zixuan, draw a big circle in front and see if it can throw a grenade on the target."

"According to the purpose"

Zixuan took the order and immediately ordered his subordinates to draw a large circle with a diameter of about five meters with lime on the ground under the hot air balloon, and then took out the walkie-talkie:
"See that big circle painted with lime underneath? Throw the grenade down, remember to pull the fuse."

"According to the purpose"

The soldiers led the order, and hurriedly put their heads out of the hanging basket to look at the big circle below. From a height of more than 1000 meters, the target five meters below was very clear. The test soldier pulled the fuse of the grenade and threw the grenade into the big circle below.

"Whoosh..."

The grenade falls with a sound of piercing the air, and then explodes:
"Boom..."

After the grenade exploded, Zhu Youjian waved his hand:

"Zixuan, go and see how far the explosion point is from the target!"

(End of this chapter)