No one else knew what had happened, and no matter how anyone tried to coax Xu Shiba, she could not be consoled. Xu Wenwu could only take her back, while Wei Yuan and Yu Zhizhuo went to inspect the latest artillery.
This batch consisted of two types of cannons. One was colossal, weighing tens of thousands of jin, capable of firing a shot fifteen li away. Yu Zhizhuo handed Wei Yuan a sheet of jade paper and said, "The ranges and points of impact are all listed here."
The jade paper detailed what range corresponded to which barrel elevation, and starting from beyond five li, it additionally noted the margin of deviation for impact. At its maximum range of fifteen li, the deviation could reach up to one li.
"Have these all been tested?" Wei Yuan asked.
"Everything beyond five li has been tested. Within five li, the deviation is minimal, so you can just follow the calculated trajectory."
This cannon boasted immense power, firing two-hundred-jin shells, but firing and reloading were exceedingly cumbersome, allowing only one shot every fifteen minutes.
The other new cannon took the diametrically opposite route. It was remarkably lightweight, weighing only around a thousand jin; over short distances, a Dao Foundation cultivator could carry it while flying. Fitted with two wheels, it could be hauled across long distances for half a day by a single cultivator at the pinnacle of Body Casting.
This gun fired five-jin shells and was the first to adopt breech-loading. Its rate of fire was exceptionally fast, loosing a round every few breaths.
Yu Zhizhuo personally wheeled the gun into position on the testing range, aimed at a target one li away, and fired. It scored a direct hit.
In the distance, fire flashed, and a deafening boom rang out. The target shaped like a war behemoth was blasted to smithereens, and the steel humanoid targets within ten zhang were all hurled into the air!
The strike's power far exceeded Wei Yuan's expectations. With a flicker of movement, he appeared at the point of impact to examine the aftermath closely.
The behemoth target modeled a common Shaman war behemoth, constructed from hardwood covered in iron plating, with defenses comparable to the real creature.
The humanoid targets beside it mimicked heavy-armored Shaman warriors. Most of their bodies had been riddled with shrapnel. One special target, however, had been welded from steel three fingers thick to imitate the defense of a Shaman Dao Foundation warrior. A piece of shrapnel was currently lodged in its chest, having narrowly stopped short of piercing all the way through.
After inspecting the targets, Wei Yuan formed an estimate of its destructive power: within ten zhang, it could kill an ordinary Body Casting warrior and lightly wound a Dao Foundation cultivator; within three zhang, even a Dao Foundation cultivator would suffer severe wounds. Although war behemoths were thick-skinned and durable, their enormous size meant they absorbed the blast in full, making their survivability even worse than that of a Dao Foundation cultivator.
The blast was mighty, the rate of fire was blazing, and the range was substantial. In terms of firepower, it offered more than double the power of the existing city defense cannons, and it could also maneuver alongside the army.
Besides, while a single shot might not kill a Dao Foundation expert, a few more certainly would.
Wei Yuan took a closer look at the shell, his nose twitching slightly. "Did you use a new gunpowder?"
Yu Zhizhuo replied, "We just developed it recently. The main inspiration actually came from Brother Wenwu. He somehow remembered a kind of gunpowder made by combining nitric acid and cotton. Once Sun Yu, Henshui, and I grasped the physical principles behind it, we made improvements. We soaked spiritual wood fibers in water from the Thunder Pool and added thunder sand as an auxiliary ingredient. The new gunpowder we produced can already be ranked among Dao Foundation magical artifacts."
A Thunder Pool already existed in Qingming. A small pond had formed around those lightning-struck trees to the north, and within it was Thunder Pool water. Getting more of it was simple enough: just plant a few more thunderwood trees. Saplings of this sort were available in abundance for exchange at the Hall of Merits.
Yu Zhizhuo added, "We've named this powder 'thunder powder.' However, there are two formulas, and we need to make a decision. The primary difference lies in the grade of the spiritual wood fibers. One formula uses fibers from spiritual wood over fifty years old, which significantly boosts its power. The other uses only twenty-year spiritual wood fibers; its power is about seventy percent of the former, but twenty-year spiritual wood is everywhere, whereas the yield of fifty-year wood is far lower."
Hearing this, Wei Yuan checked the estimate already provided by the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Based on current information, the supply of twenty-year spiritual wood was dozens of times greater than that of the fifty-year variety.
Wei Yuan immediately decided: "We'll make both. For the fifty-year wood, produce as much as we have materials for and stockpile it. For standard shells, use thunder powder made with twenty-year spiritual wood."
"Understood," Yu Zhizhuo nodded.
Wei Yuan asked again, "What about shell production?"
Yu Zhizhuo said, "I've drafted a preliminary production process, though before putting it into operation, we'll need to optimize and refine it in the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Let me take you to see the new forging machine first."
That strange feeling washed over Wei Yuan once more. This wasn't the first time someone had spoken to his face about doing this or that within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World.
The issue was that Yu Zhizhuo spoke with such matter-of-fact certainty, as if the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World were one thing and Wei Yuan were another, with no connection between the two.
Suppressing the odd sensation, Wei Yuan followed Yu Zhizhuo to a corner of the Weaponsmith Workshop. This was a newly cleared site surrounded by defensive formations. Although basic, they were sufficient to keep out Body Casting cultivators. If a Dao Foundation cultivator trespassed, the formation would mark them, prompting guard cultivators to arrive swiftly.
In this vast new expanse stood only a single massive machine. Two counterweight bins were strikingly prominent, and inside them was actually nether iron ore. Qingming currently had more nether iron ore than it could ever use, and by volume, it was several times heavier than ordinary iron. Yu Zhizhuo had simply used it for counterweights, which significantly reduced their physical bulk.
This was a forging machine Yu Zhizhuo had specially modified to manufacture shells, its drop hammer counterweighted with one hundred thousand jin. Assisted by formations to supply power, operating it required ten Dao Foundation cultivators or fifty Body Casting cultivators.
With a single drop of the hammer, this forging machine could produce a shell casing. Craftsmen would then finely grind it, fill it with gunpowder, and attach the primer base, completing one shell.
This forging machine could produce fifty shell casings every two hours. Paired with fifty grinding craftsmen and ten assembly craftsmen, it could guarantee fifty completed shells every two hours—six hundred a day.
If continuous, around-the-clock manufacturing was desired, the staffing would need to be doubled for a daily rotation. If Dao Foundation cultivators were used instead, a zero could be knocked off the required number of craftsmen.
In the future, Yu Zhizhuo planned to build several more large forging machines, gather all the grinding craftsmen in one workshop, and place the assembly craftsmen in another. Products would be moved to the next step in batches, drastically increasing efficiency.
As for the specific layout of the workshops and the positioning of craftsmen, that would be left for the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World to optimize.
To tell the truth, Wei Yuan was still somewhat dissatisfied with the shell output.
However, if casing output rose, gunpowder production would struggle to keep pace, necessitating large-scale purchases of raw materials. If gunpowder production caught up, there wouldn't be enough casings.
And by the time both were sufficient, the enemy might not have enough troops left to shoot at.
In the end, Wei Yuan decided to throw full production into the lightweight small cannon. Because it could accompany infantry into battle, he named it the infantry gun.
Once this major matter was settled, a scout came to report that the displaced refugees from Zhao had arrived. Wei Yuan immediately flew to the southern border. There, he saw the Zhao army escorting vast columns of refugees into Qingming territory, the lines stretching out of sight.
Wei Yuan had already prepared brand-new facilities for these refugees. Upon arrival, they were first given porridge to eat. While they queued for food, administrators conducted an initial screening, separating out the able-bodied, those with trade skills, and young women.
A minor complication arose here: every young woman among the refugees was claimed by a man; none traveled alone. Separating them naturally provoked fierce protests from their men. At this point, the realm's cultivators asked the women for their preference: did they wish to maintain their previous relationship, or did they want to part ways and start a new life?
Almost every woman chose to leave.
Those who were strong and possessed good natural talent could bypass the status of guilty commoner if they were willing to join the military, starting directly as soldiers. The same applied to young women and those with specialized skills.
If these unattached young women passed physical checks, they would eventually be matched as wives to unmarried civilian men. This was an important measure Wei Yuan and the cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning had discussed and deemed essential for maintaining Qingming's stability.
Everyone selected was taken to bathe and change. Their old clothes were burned, and recruits were issued uniforms. Craftsmen and women each received two sets of coarse cloth clothing.
Once fed, washed clean, and dressed in new clothes, the ten-thousand-odd chosen people contributed over two thousand strands of azure qi to Wei Yuan.
The remaining tens of thousands were gathered together, where Dao Foundation cultivators cast spells to summon spiritual rain. Bathing in this spiritual rain dispelled sickness and invigorated their vitality. However, Qingming currently lacked enough clothing for them all, so they had to make do in their tattered rags for now.
All the newly arrived refugees were assigned to reclaim new farmland. Qingming currently possessed over four million mu of fields, producing eight hundred million jin of grain every two months. There was no shortage of food whatsoever, so the pace of land reclamation could be tailored to their physical condition. They worked less at first, gradually increasing their workload as they regained their strength.
By now, Wei Yuan was quite experienced in governing the populace. To settle the hearts of refugees, the first step was to feed them, and the second was to give them work so they felt useful; thus, they would naturally settle down.
Moreover, after starving for so long, clearing grain fields made them feel that what they were doing was particularly meaningful.
Sure enough, the very day the bulk of the refugees was dispatched to clear fields, azure qi began flowing into Wei Yuan's account. Over the next three days, it increased steadily, only slowing down after yielding more than eight thousand strands.
After taking in Cui Shutong's two hundred thousand refugees, Wei Yuan entered the Nether Cold Realm once more to check on the progress there.
During this time, a cavern six zhang long and two zhang in both width and height had been hollowed out within Mount Nether, yielding nearly one hundred million jin of excavated nether iron.
Because nether iron was so plentiful, Wei Yuan had long since donated one hundred thousand jin of it to the Palace of Grand Beginning, successfully shutting down the channel for exchanging nether iron for immortal silver. Although Wei Yuan had made a donation, the palace elders took into account his ongoing contributions and decided to wipe out one million taels of his immortal silver debt.
Subsequently, the Hall of Merits opened an exchange of immortal silver for nether iron at a rate of one tael of immortal silver for one tael of nether iron. Nether iron had a wide range of uses, and seeing it so cheap, many Palace of Grand Beginning disciples eagerly lined up to trade for it.
Before leaving, Wei Yuan checked other rare materials that might be produced in the Nether Cold Realm, only to discover that every material's purchase price now had an added note: "Total exchange limit at this price."
Seeing this patch, Wei Yuan felt thoroughly offended.
Chapter 564