"This place is good enough", said Riz while looking around.
He wants to make sure no one is nearby.
"What are you doing, young master?", Charlotte asked even though she knows this is probably one of Riz's weird ideas again.
They are currently in the forest accompanied by a bunch of knights of course.
"Wait over there. I'll show you something interesting", he excitedly said to Charlotte.
Charlotte can only nod and wait.
She saw Riz put something in the jar before placing it near a tree. Riz lit up a rope that came out of the jar and quickly ran away from it.
"Plunged your ears!!", Riz put his hand over his ears.
The other mimics him, not knowing the purpose.
"Boom!!"
The explosion resonates in the entire forest. Except Riz, everyone was surprised by the thunderous sound.
After smoke dissipates, they can see the trees were utterly devastated by the explosion.
Riz feels satisfied by the results.
He finally succeeded after so many attempts to create the ideal ratio of a gunpowder.
He remembers the ingredients to make a gunpowder. It's one of the most famous inventions that changes the world.
As for the ratio, he only has one option.
To keep experimenting.
Explosion after the explosion, Riz appeared to be playing on the border between life and death.
The recipe for gunpowder is pretty simple, basically it's charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur. Charcoal as a fuel for reaction, saltpeter supplies oxygen and sulfur lowered the temperature required to ignite the mixture.
"What is that!!", Charlotte shook Riz's body violently.
"Alright, alright, calm down", Riz tried to escape from Charlotte's grasp.
'Why is she so excited?', Riz questions Charlotte behavior but then he realizes that she is not a normal girl.
Instead of dress and jewellery, she is more inclined to take a fancy on a weapon.
"Hurry up!! What is it?", She asked once again.
The knights calm when seeing this. Usually, it is outrageous to treat a noble like that.
However, they know Charlotte is close enough to do that and their young master wouldn't mind it at all.
"It is called a gunpowder"
"Gunpowder?", she never heard that term before.
"You can also call it black powder. This will change the entire warfare landscape in the future."
"Are you going to supply this jar to the soldiers?", she asked.
"Yes, but also in another way. The problem is I don't have large quantities of raw materials needed to mass produce this powder".
He has a limited amount of sulfur in his hand right now. Sulfur is expensive and difficult to get. It had to be mine in a volcanic area.
Riz spent a lot of money to get people to secretly mine it at Portsbury in Baroks Duchy.
It's been one month since he came back from Coreton, Riz's plan has been fully implemented and production of iron starts to increase.
At this rate, the current iron mine will be depleted if he doesn't find new veins.
Riz realizes the importance of gunpowder in various fields.
Initially, he didn't want to introduce gunpowder and bring the age of firearms to this world just yet.
However, he realizes that even if he didn't want to, others will eventually discover it. If he can't halt the progression of humanity, it is better to be at the forefront of it.
Furthermore, Cerdeauxia is getting restless and many small scale protests have been carried out. It is not long before the large scale protest will be made.
Riz doesn't feel optimistic toward Nicholas I. The merchants through the merchant guild have been pressuring the king.
There's no way the king will sacrifice the economy just to protect one nobleman.
Bagyarosia exports are various foods and grains to several surrounding countries. Giving it the title of breadbasket is not exaggerated at all.
If those excess foods can't be sold, it will only rot away. Any sane merchant will never allow that to happen.
It is only a matter of time before Nicholas made his decision.
Riz needs to prepare for that time to come.
'I'm glad that my late grandfather took over the merchants guild. If not, I am afraid that I will not be safe even in the town'.
After reaching home, Riz cleans himself from dirt and eats dinner with his family.
"Riz, how is the progress in the construction of the school?", Richard asked. He left the education plan completely in Riz's hand. In a way, this can also be considered a test.
"I have selected the location for elementary school in Bideford, Tegrot and Rafoldrod. Those three are the most populated places in our territory.
In the future, middle and high school will be built near an existing elementary school creating an education district".
"The construction has not started yet?", Richard asked.
"Not yet, I am finding a certain construction material first", he received a report about the location of the limestone deposit sixty kilometers east of Rafoldrod.
"How about the personnel?"
"They are currently in training to become a teacher", Riz reported. The number of teachers in training is too low.
"Alright", Richard nodded.
After having dinner, Riz headed directly to his room. He needs to start drawing a design gun.
Weapons are not his best knowledge in his mind. He has only ever flipped through the weapon encyclopedia book in his university's library when he skipped his class.
Firearms are a fascinating invention that give a normal untrained man a power to kill a group of trained knights.
"Which one should I draw? I think the earliest one is either arquebus or musket. The terms 'arquebus' and 'musket' covered a range of weapons.
Sometimes it can be confusing. If I'm not mistaken, the musket is kind of a heavier version of arquebus".
Riz takes a look at the armor he borrowed from the knights. According to the knights, this is an armor that was used by the majority of them across the kingdom.
'It is not particularly thick and it is not even full body armor'.
He decided to draw an arquebus, a form of long gun that appeared during the 15th century.
The length of the commonly used arquebus is about 110cm, it will probably weigh about 4.5 kg, and firing a lead ball of .69 caliber.
The effective range of an arquebus is about 15 to 20 meters.
The most intricate part in arquebus is the matchlock mechanism. When the trigger was pulled, a serpentine was lowered, plunging a slow-burning match into the flashpan and firing the weapon.
"I guess I'll have a sleepless night again", Riz sighed. Once he starts working on something, it's hard to stop until it finishes.
....
Next day, he meets his trusted blacksmith and wood craftsman, Goban and Arnold to order them to make a prototype.
There's a dark circle under his eyes. He ended up not only designing the arquebus but also a cannon. fr(e)ewebnov(e)l.com
The cannon he plans to produce is M1857 12-pounder Napoleon. The weapon is simple to be mass produce and robust. It can shoot 5.5 kg up to 1.5 kilometers at a five degree inclination.
'This will make trebuchets look like a toy'
Once the arquebus is put in use, others will start researching it and the development of firearms will be inevitable.
Since that's the case, let's introduce field artillery and gain weapon supremacy.
He first showed them the arquebus.
"So, how is it? Can you make it?", he asked both of them. freewebn ovel.c om
"Of course, it's structure is quite simple except for this little part", Goban pointed at the matchlock part.
"Then, how about this one...", Riz took out the blueprint of the cannon.
"....", they are speechless. They looked at each other before sighing.
They thought by now nothing can surprise them anymore, yet Riz keeps bringing out new things.
This device structure looks simple but the concept behind it can be called ingenious.
"Give us a month week, we will show you both of the prototypes", said Arnold.
After cooperating with Goban for quite some time, Arnold's knowledge is no longer limited to wood work.
The same goes to Goban. Both of them exchange the knowledge with each other to create Riz's weird machinery and also to reduce a workload among them.
"Can you focus on the arquebus first?", said Riz. He needs that so he can supply his soldiers as soon as possible.
He has written everything information they need in the blueprint.
"Then, give us two weeks", Goban said.
"Alright, see you in two weeks"
In the mean time, he will go and see the limestone deposit and make a production plan for it.
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