Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 63 Purification Materials
Lao Nian went around and cheated people, and in the end he cheated more than a hundred people. The other brothers were not as successful, but they also cheated dozens of people.

In the end, the entire team actually gathered nearly a thousand people. It was naturally impossible to travel across states and counties with so many people.

In order to get so many people back to Chongqing, the only way Lao Nian could think of was to let them become boat trackers, which was also agreed by Chen Gu.

Being a tracker is a simple job. Lao Nian is from Hubei, although not from Yichang. However, he has made a living at the Yichang wharf, so he is quite familiar with the gangs here.

Yes, even the boat trackers actually have gangs. The gang leader is responsible for contacting and negotiating the price with the boat owner, and then summoning the boat trackers needed by the boat owner to help pull the boat.

With so many people coming to work as trackers, they will naturally steal other people's business. If you don't want to get into trouble, you can only buy tracker quotas from others.

It doesn't cost much money. There are nearly a thousand people. Just subsidize their food expenses for one thousand people a day, and then double the amount for the gang leader.

There are many ships going to Chongqing every day, and a thousand people can be absorbed in less than a day.

After Lao Nian paid another twenty taels of silver, he bought the quota for one thousand people.

Even if you get a spot as a tracker, you still have to make a lot of preparations. For example, each person has to buy three pairs of straw sandals, linen for shoulder pads, five days of food for each person, pots, pans, and utensils needed for cooking, etc.

Not only was the work of the boatmen hard, but their logistics were also not guaranteed, as there were very few supply points along the Three Gorges route, and they had to carry enough food for five days.

Assuming two kilograms of food per person per day, each person would have to carry ten kilograms of food.

The total towing work will take about one month, as the boat has to be towed for 1,300 miles, averaging just over 40 miles a day.

Although forty miles may not be a short distance, a person who walks fast can even walk fifteen miles in an hour. But that is with empty hands. Pulling the oars requires effort, and one has to do it continuously for a month.

Even walking forty miles a day is not easy.

The first five days were fine and everyone felt very relaxed, but it became more and more difficult as time went on, especially for some of the fifteen or sixteen-year-old boys in Lao Nian's team, who were simply finding it a bit too much to handle.

Lao Nian had no choice but to spend money to buy some meat for everyone to supplement their nutrition. He also promised to give them all the money for the towing trip, and he would bear the travel expenses himself. This calmed everyone down.

The monthly wage for a boat puller was only five taels of silver. Even if there were a thousand people, the total would only be five thousand taels. Lao Nian thought that Chen Gu would not care about this little bit of money.

Things will be much easier once we arrive in Chongqing. The wealthy families in Jiangjin have close ties with Chongqing and have many business dealings with it. Although one thousand people is a bit too many, it is not impossible to transport them back to Jiangjin.

When Lao Nian was working as a boat tracker, Chen Gu was making bombs in the mountain village.

There were quite a lot of materials this time, so Chen Gu naturally couldn't purify them all by himself, so after handing over all the land reclamation work to Chen Tao, he took Scar, Zhang San, and Roadblock to work together.

The purification of saltpeter is relatively simple. Just melt it with hot water, filter it and then boil it dry.

Sulfur, however, is more troublesome and needs to be distilled like liquor.

But in general, the process is not complicated, but after purification, the power of gunpowder can be greatly improved. If the gunpowder is configured with a relatively more scientific formula in later generations, the power can be further increased.

"Why do we need to add sugar to gunpowder?" Zhang San, who was grinding sugar into powder, asked in confusion.

"To increase the power!" Chen Gu said while beating the eggs. "Will adding eggs also increase the power?" Zhang San asked again as he watched Chen Gu beating the eggs and separating the egg yolks from the egg whites.

"Yes, you can use egg white to solidify the gunpowder and make it into granules. The gunpowder made into granules has more gaps. It's just like when you burn a fire. If you make the stove chamber more empty, the fire will burn bigger!" Chen Gu explained tirelessly.

Although Zhang San is neither good at literature nor martial arts and cannot endure hardship, he is relatively loyal to Chen Gu and is willing to listen to Chen Gu. In addition, his whole family is in the mountain stronghold, so it is basically impossible for him to betray Chen Gu.

So Chen Gu was willing to give him more things so that he could help himself.

The purified saltpeter and sulfur are ground into powder, added with charcoal and sugar that have also been ground into powder, and mixed evenly in the ratio of 7.5, 1.3, 1.1, and 0.1.

Then use egg white to solidify it, and then use a small wooden hammer to break it up bit by bit. Use a sieve to select suitable particles and they can be used. The powder can be used to make bullets, and the particles can be used to make bombs.

Anyway, nothing will be wasted.

Just as Chen Guan had made the first batch of bullets, he said that a grass cutter was bitten by a snake.

Chen Gu ran over to check and saw a group of people gathered together, so he broke off a branch and drove the crowd away in a few strokes.

"Why are there so many people around?" Chen Jue shouted while smoking, "All those who have nothing to do with this should go to work. How can you eat if you don't work?"

When Chen Tao heard Chen Gu's voice, he quickly dispersed the crowd.

"what happened?"

"I was just bitten by a snake. I have already treated it. I sucked out the poisonous blood and applied medicine. Whether I can survive depends on luck." Chen Tao said.

Chen Gu couldn't help but frown and asked, "We also reclaimed wasteland before, why didn't anyone get bitten?"

"There are many of us and it's very noisy. Normally the snakes would be scared away. But the grass is being cut very fast now and we may not have enough time to move them away. And I heard there are snake eggs!" Chen Tao explained.

After the crowd dispersed, Chen saw that the person who was bitten was a woman in her twenties. A man and two children in their teens were crying beside the woman.

"Okay, let's carry him to a cool place to rest." Chen Gu sighed, threw a small silver ingot to the man, and then said, "Hurry up and find a better doctor to take a look. The village will pay for all the expenses.

You and your son don’t have to work these days. Your family of four will still receive their wages, and you can also eat at the village. If your wife is really gone, the village will compensate you.”

Chen Tao tugged at Chen Gu's clothes, winked at him and moved his mouth twice. Chen Gu was stunned. Chen Tao was talking about the human heart, and then he glanced at the man.

Chen Gu narrowed his eyes and said, "Be nice to your wife. If I find out that you have bad intentions, your children will follow me to become bandits, and you will die with your wife."

In this era of food and clothing shortages, women in their twenties and thirties have become old and ugly. After all, only a few still have charm at the age of thirty.

Chen Tao’s reminder made Chen Ke have to be on guard, as human hearts are unpredictable!

(End of this chapter)