Ji Han Grand Commander

Chapter 161 155. Dust Explosion
"Originally, I didn't intend for what happened last night to be the key to the outcome of this battle. I just wanted to use it as a last resort."

Feng Xi thought for a moment and spoke slowly.

"However, the battle situation is tense, and we have achieved little success in several battles with the Wei army. If our army continues to be besieged by Cao Wei, it will be disadvantageous to our army in terms of time. Can you all understand this?"

Feng Xi looked at everyone and everyone nodded. After all, they were still planning how to go down the river to attack Dongwu, but because Cao Wei intervened, they had to come to Jingxiang to fight Cao Ren.

"Before I came, I asked Gong Heng to dig more latrines in Fancheng. The latrines were connected by nets, and these passages were reinforced with wooden supports. In this way, the dozens of latrines in Fancheng are actually connected to each other."

"After I have Gong Heng finish this, I will start a major project, which is to dig a space similar to a cellar under the prefectural government, and it must have two holes connected to the top."

Huang Quan touched his beard and nodded unconsciously. He felt very strange when he received Feng Xi's order. After all, if Feng Xi wanted to use the network road for street fighting, he would not arrange it like this. Fortunately, although Huang Quan did not understand why, he still carried out Feng Xi's order meticulously.

"Once the space under the prefect's mansion is excavated, it will be connected to the nearest toilets, thus forming a network connecting the entire city. Of course, it is not for hiding soldiers.

On the contrary, since our army withdrew from outside the city to Fancheng, tens of thousands of people have eaten, drunk, defecated and urinated in Fancheng every day, so these dozens of toilets are used very frequently. "

"If you have the good fortune to have seen this, you should know that when filthy things like feces are left to stand for a long time, they will change, just like brewing wine."

Feng Xi said this and looked at the generals below. Many of them were from wealthy families and looked confused, only a few of them seemed to be thinking about something.

"As these filthy things ferment, they produce a gas I call 'marsh gas'. Marsh gas is like gunpowder and is very likely to explode in a confined space.

Of course, this biogas alone is not enough, so after the cellar under the prefectural government was completed, I asked Gong Heng to inject a large amount of purified kerosene and black oil into it. Then I placed two specially made large vats on two platforms that were not submerged by kerosene.

These two large vats are mother-and-child vats. The inner layer is filled with gunpowder, which will explode as soon as it is ignited. You have all seen this, so I will not say more. The outer layer is filled with sawdust powder.

Feng Xi paused here to give the generals time to react.

"Wood...wood chips?"

The generals were all stunned. They were familiar with sawdust, but in their impression, it was still in the construction field, so they naturally didn't understand why it was sawdust powder.

"When the gunpowder in the liner explodes, the sawdust powder will spread throughout the entire underground space due to the explosion. Do you understand this?"

Feng Xi smiled and patiently explained that he dared to use the jar only after he had tested it to see if it could achieve this effect.

"In this case, if the gunpowder in the two large vats exploded, the kerosene underground would be ignited almost instantly, and the sawdust on the outer layer would instantly float like snow in the entire underground space due to the internal explosion.

Then here is the key point. Remember, in a confined space, if this kind of high-density dust appears, as long as the density is too high and there is an open flame, it will almost always cause an explosion. I specifically use sawdust powder because it is flammable and easy to make. "

That is to say, flour is not easy to produce on a large scale now, otherwise it would be much easier to use flour. In the future, a small kitchen can just sprinkle a bag of flour and blow down one or two floors with a stove. Needless to say, it is very convenient. "When the kerosene and black oil below start to burn, and there is enough sawdust in the air, it will... bang! That is what you saw last night. Then the flames will follow the underground network and ignite the oil and methane that spread out of the toilets."

Feng Xi shrugged. He thought that they probably wouldn't understand the specific details of the dust explosion, such as rapid combustion and air pressure expansion, so there was no need to explain them in detail.

In fact, the equivalent was not as easy as Feng Xi said. He had a lot of backup plans, such as secretly adding a lot of kerosene into the pits to cover up the stench of filth. There were also sacks filled with a mixture of sawdust and gunpowder in the cellar of the prefectural government because he was worried about the amount of dust. There is no need to explain these details in detail.

"Uh……"

Naturally, the generals didn't understand a word, but that didn't stop them from feeling the horror of the plan.

Just think about it, it doesn't make any sense that just a small fire would cause an explosion of this magnitude. Even if Sun Wu were alive, he wouldn't have imagined this.

Of course, Feng Xi’s source of inspiration is quite simple. More than two thousand years later, every Chinese New Year, there are always some naughty kids who like to play with small firecrackers such as scratch firecrackers.

Unfortunately, they like to throw them into places like manure pits and sewers. The videos of them blowing up a whole street are shocking. Now Feng Xi is just replicating the same principle, and the effect is exceptionally good.

The most important thing is that people today don't know the knowledge of chemistry and physics. Almost no one would be prepared for this, not even Cao Ren.

Deng Ai, who was the last one to take action, was stunned. He thought he had read a lot of military books and history, and had some ideas about how to use troops, but he just couldn't try them out.

Now Feng Xi's explanation only made him feel confused, as if he was in another world. He could still understand every word Feng Xi said, but he couldn't understand it when they were put together.

Even Huang Quan, who was personally in charge of all this, only understood a little bit. After all, it was impossible for scholars of that era to have studied mathematics, physics and chemistry.

"Is this... is this the thunder and fire from the sky? May I ask the Grand Commander, if the Grand General didn't start the fire, what would have happened?"

Deng Ai digested the information just now and also noticed that the key is that the gunpowder inside the liner must explode before there will be a subsequent chain reaction.

"If Cao Ren is lucky enough not to ignite it, or discovers the mechanism, then I am the one with bad luck. This design was originally based on the hope that we could turn defeat into victory when we finally give up Fancheng. If Cao Ren doesn't fall into the trap, our army can only continue to defend Xiangyang and rule across the river from Cao Wei."

Feng Xi was somewhat relieved and helpless when he said this. This design itself was a gamble, a bet on whether Cao Ren would light the fuses disguised as candles in the hall of the prefect's mansion.

If it was ignited, it would be like this now. The Han army, relying on the legend of gods and ghosts, launched a night attack on the Wei army, which was in panic because of the explosion and fire, and defeated the Wei army overnight. If it was not ignited and the plan failed, the Han army would have to retreat to Xiangyang, leaving heavy troops to continue the confrontation with Cao Wei, and then devote their energy to attacking the Eastern Wu.

Fortunately, Feng Xi's gamble was successful this time. He almost wiped out the main force of Cao Wei in Nanyang area. The main force would have no time to invade the south again in the short term, and the Han army in Jingzhou area no longer had to worry about fighting on two fronts.

(End of this chapter)