Chapter 2830 Big Firecrackers

"Too little!"

"Toluene, oh toluene, my dear Chairman." Qi Chuqin threw up his arms dramatically. "Before, we relied entirely on coal gasification for that pitiful amount. Now, with the light crude from Seria Well No. 2, we can extract toluene through direct heating and fractional distillation. But we can't afford to squander such excellent crude oil. I've spoken with the Planning Commission several times about this. Wu De says there's oil, but no ships to transport it."

The question of how to ship Seria's oil back had become a thorny problem for the Planning Commission. The Senate possessed no oil tankers. Their current method remained positively ancient: packing oil into wooden barrels, then loading those barrels onto cargo vessels. The old-timeline unit "barrel" for measuring oil was, in fact, a vestige of this primitive transport method.

As one might imagine, this approach was pitifully inefficient, with enormous losses en route. On one end, oil accumulated in storage pools with no way to ship it out; on the other, factories sat idle for lack of raw materials.

"If light crude sits in storage pools for more than a few months, the light fractions evaporate away, leaving nothing but asphalt for paving roads and coating roofs. It's like forcibly grinding diamonds into window glass. If that oil could arrive in time, I'd take Fubo Army tomorrow and blast the Forbidden City flat, then drag Zhu Youjian back to Lingao for public exhibition." As he spoke, his face contorted into an expression of bitter anguish, practically accusing Wu De of being a "Kun traitor" sabotaging production.

Wang Luobin suddenly remembered something. "The Planning Commission has a proposal to build a refinery in Seria and process the oil locally. What does the Chemical Department think?"

"We fully support it, of course," said Qi Chuqin. "But distant water cannot quench present thirst. Our Danzhou Chemical facility has been under construction for years and can only be called preliminary in scale—still lacking in every regard. Building a refinery tens of thousands of li away? Even if we had the equipment, the worker and technician shortage couldn't be solved." Noting that Wang Luobin's expression seemed to invite further comment, he quickly added, "Relatively speaking, shipping crude oil is safer. Given our current technical limitations, maritime transport of chemical products would probably be more dangerous."

Chairman Wang turned to a young male naturalized citizen who appeared to be his secretary. "Note this down: prioritize solving the Seria light crude oil transport problem. If necessary, use controlled vessels."

These so-called controlled vessels were the modern ships that Senators treasured, keeping them carefully moored and maintained.

Qi Chuqin's agitation stemmed from the latest composition report he had received from the exploration team at the Seria oil field. The newly extracted oil showed significant changes in composition.

Though Seria's crude was famous for its aromatic content, according to the exploration team's analysis, most of the newly extracted crude fell within the kerosene fraction range, while benzene—found in the light naphtha fraction—was quite scarce. Calculating based on annual production of 50,000 tons of crude, benzene output might amount to less than 500 tons yearly, with toluene under 2,000 tons—only a limited improvement over coal chemistry yields. On a brighter note, the gasoline ratio was reasonably high, which was welcome news for the Senate's engine industry.

Given all this, the aromatic-rich light crude currently being extracted from Well No. 2 was extremely precious. Though that well was presently in its high-output stable-production phase, oil well production had an almost mystical quality—there was no telling how long Well No. 2 could maintain such volumes.

Allowing extracted oil to go to waste would be heartbreaking. Benzene and toluene were, after all, primary raw materials for explosives, disinfectants, and pesticides. Once supply gaps appeared, current equipment production schedules would inevitably suffer. This was precisely why Qi Chuqin had so desperately requested priority shipping of crude from Seria Well No. 2.

"Though controlled vessels have advantages in speed and transport volume, the transfer process still requires barreling and cleaning barrels—extremely labor-intensive, with substantial losses throughout. Can oil tanker construction be put on the agenda?"

"Build oil tankers?" Wang Luobin hesitated. The Senate's shipbuilding industry had made clear progress, but to date, their largest vessel was merely a 3,000-ton iron-framed wooden-hulled ship with mixed propulsion. Building oil tankers seemed rather too ambitious a leap.

"Have the Chemical Department submit a proposal to the Planning Commission. I'll follow up," Wang Luobin said.

"So these are Senator Qi's 'firecrackers,'" Mai Ruibao mused. Recalling the fireworks workshops he had seen in Guangdong's countryside as a child, he could finally understand what those machines were doing when he entered Specialty Chemical's black powder division. Belt-driven drums and ball mills separately ground saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. Most eye-catching were the wheel grinders: two enormous black iron discs suspended in mid-air, rotating continuously. Barrels of saltpeter-sulfur-charcoal powder were dumped onto the material pan beneath the wheels, and the rotating iron wheels rolled and pressed the slightly moistened powder, grinding and kneading it until it gradually compacted into a large powder cake—he estimated it weighed at least a hundred jin. How could such an enormous lump of gunpowder possibly be used? If fashioned into a firework and lit, it could probably blow the entire courtyard sky-high. Mai Ruibao was still wildly speculating when he saw workers lift the cake from the material pan and carry it to a series of wooden mallet machines. The mallets, driven by connecting rods, pounded up and down, crushing the large cake into smaller pieces. Workers then poured these fragments into several step-shaped machines. "Note: this is the granulation process," someone explained. The granulator's bronze rollers made grinding sounds, further crushing, grinding, and sifting the powder cake fragments. Depending on the screen mesh size installed, finished products of different specifications emerged. Hearing Qi Kelong explain that finished black powder was classified by granule size into rifle powder, fuse delay powder, and mining blasting powder—plus a special prismatic shape pressed for artillery propellant—Mai Ruibao recalled photographs he had seen in the newsroom archives. Never mind the Guangdong countryside workshops; even the government-run operations in Guangdong-Fujian used stone mills for grinding, wooden mortars for pounding, and bamboo baskets for sifting. Compared to everything before his eyes now, those facilities belonged to an entirely different world.

The black powder factory enforced strict fire prevention protocols. Even the electric lights were installed in exterior corridors, illuminating the interior through glass windows. To photograph, Mai Ruibao had to constantly move in and out between workshops. It seemed the slightest carelessness—a single spark—would cause a disaster that could level the entire factory. He could not help recalling Senator Qi's bold declaration: "Capture Zhu Youjian alive, blast the Forbidden City flat!"

"To truly flatten the Forbidden City, we wouldn't even bother with black powder." Qi Kelong's high-pitched voice rang out again. "Its position as gun and cannon propellant will soon be completely replaced by smokeless powder."

Mai Ruibao had encountered the term "smokeless powder" in classrooms and in the Lingao Times, but knew very little about it. So when he saw workers in the workshop soaking degreased soft cotton balls into ceramic reaction vessels filled with strong acid, he was shocked. This gunpowder was made from cotton? Miss Sun appeared even more flustered, murmuring to herself, "This... this much cotton—how many jin of yarn could be spun? How many feet of cloth woven?" But Chairman Wang expressed his customary dissatisfaction. "A hundred kilograms daily of smokeless powder—where is that nearly enough? I see the factory's main product is Ballistite double-base powder. That's good. But nearly a third is Schultze powder. That stuff burns too fast—only works for smoothbores. Is there any point producing it? Are we making it for Senators to go bird hunting?"

"Bofang Factory's Remington-copy pump-action shotgun uses Schultze propellant. Special Reconnaissance Teams and the Lingao Garrison Battalion are both equipped with them." The speaker was Ji Tuisi, who was supervising nitrocellulose production. "This type of flake smokeless powder has the advantage of simple processing, and can also be used to fill hand grenades, saving other high explosives."

"The cotton we currently use for nitrocellulose production is mostly waste from Lingao Textile Factory—primarily cotton linters, the fuzz that remains on cottonseed after ginning. It won't compete with the textile industry for materials. But consuming chemical products is unavoidable. Especially the ethanol used for dewatering nitrocellulose. The Planning Commission, citing grain shortages affecting raw materials, keeps trying to cut our allocation every other day. Those bastards—when Light Industry sells liquor, nobody complains about grain! They only think about making money. Where does that leave the Senate's great cause of advancing south and north!" Qi Chuqin angrily chopped his hand downward.

Wang Luobin continued smiling and nodding, offering no comment.

"To be honest, both nitrocellulose and smokeless powder production are labor-intensive and extremely dangerous. I won't allow workers to start until they're properly trained. Safety in production is paramount—it's not something that can be solved merely by increasing raw material supply." Ji Tuisi added, "Never mind completely replacing black powder. Just guaranteeing enough smokeless powder to roll out across the Army and Navy will require at least two more years. Right now, meeting smokeless powder needs for Special Reconnaissance Team training plus Senator personal weapon reloads is already at our factory's limit."

"In 1638, Specialty Chemical's greatest achievement won't be replacing black powder as propellant—it will be eliminating it from artillery shells. Specifically, from high-explosive shell filler!" Leaving the cartridge assembly workshop, Mai Ruibao still felt dizzy. Sunlight pierced through gaps in the clouds, nearly blinding him, casting a halo around Senator Qi as he spoke grandly. "The disgrace of Fubo Army artillery shells producing at most twenty fragments ends here. The era of high-explosive shells has arrived!"

This factory area beneath his feet stood close to Specialty Chemical, reachable directly by the cargo train, yet bore a sign reading "Bofang Arsenal Second Division." Mai Ruibao recalled that the cartridge workshop he had just passed was divided into two sections. One still manufactured paper cartridges for Army-standard Year One Minie rifles, Nanyang-style smoothbores, and Hall rifles. The other assembled metallic cartridges for 1637-model rifles, 1634-model pistols, and similar weapons. The latter especially caught his attention—those gleaming brass casings practically froze his eyeballs in place. Even having studied, Mai Ruibao half-suspected the bullet casings were gold-plated. Making gunpowder from cotton and bullets from gold—now that was Senator style! By comparison, the artillery shell workshop seemed less remarkable. In every corner and between machines stood wooden buckets with lids covered in small holes. Ruibao asked Qi Kelong what these were for—they looked unremarkable, even somewhat superfluous and in the way.

(End of Chapter)