Chapter 7: The Patent for Hand Grenades

  ( Picture of a hand grenade )

  Fu Ming was drenched with sweat and feared for his life. He knelt down on the ground, trembling as he said: "Your Majesty, please calm your anger, Your Majesty, please calm your anger."

  Yang smiled and said, "I'm not going to hold you responsible, I just want to tell you that if you treat the workers a bit better, they will be more willing to work hard on making guns. Do you understand?... So, find a few skilled craftsmen who are good at making firearms, I have something to take care of. Also, re-examine all the firelocks in the armory, and immediately remove any that can't fire or will explode. If even one of the firelocks you give me explodes, I'll make you hold it yourself and fire it."

  Yang's reform smile was absolutely terrifying in Fumingde's eyes. Fumingde's face turned pale, holding a bird gun that could explode, what an exciting game!

  "Haha, Old Fu! I'm not going to take you down, but just want you to understand that the quality of a single weapon can affect the life of a soldier, the life of a soldier can affect the combat effectiveness of a squad, the combat effectiveness of a squad can affect the outcome of a battle, the outcome of a battle can affect the outcome of a war, and the outcome of a war can affect the survival of a nation. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Yang Gaizhang smiled and patted Fu Mingde's shoulder.

  Fu Mingde was stunned.

  ……

  The imperial edict to invite people from all over the world to enter the capital has been issued. Although some members of the Grand Council and ministers opposed it, they did not dare to say much because of the strong demand from Emperor Chongzhen, who had just ascended to the throne. Another reason was that many officials in the Grand Council were involved in the Wei case, and it was said that the emperor planned to accept a ransom for their crimes, so as not to start his reign with bloodshed. They secretly thought they could escape punishment, so they did not strongly oppose these matters. Otherwise, if they had angered the emperor, he would have reopened the Wei case, and many officials in the Grand Council would have been punished.

  Fu Mingde introduced these few old masters of firearms, Yang has been discussing with them for several days. From the initial stiffness to the discussion on the improvement and invention of firearms, most of them were no longer stiff and talked enthusiastically.

  "Zhang Gong, how's your discussion going?"

  "Reporting to Your Majesty, the commoners have already discussed it and have a preliminary result regarding the hand grenade you proposed." An old man, very thin and advanced in age, with years having left enough marks on him, without any excess flesh, was Zhang Gong, the firearms and explosives expert from Yang Reform's mouth. His spirit was still good.

  "Oh, is that so? Let me take a look." Yang Reform took the diagram and indeed it was a hand grenade's disassembly diagram. "What do you plan to use as the explosive?"

  "Back to Your Majesty, we plan to use black gunpowder. However, the explosive force of this black gunpowder is not very high. Moreover, if time goes on for a long while, the powder will settle down and separate into its original components - saltpeter returning to saltpeter and sulfur returning to sulfur. In that case, it won't even be able to explode." Zhang Gong introduced.

  "Hmm, this problem is indeed a bit tricky. Do you have any solutions?"

  "Back to Your Majesty, we listened to the granule method you mentioned and thought it was feasible, so we tried to make some and made a few hand grenades. I'd like to ask Your Majesty to take a look." Zhang Gong was very confident in his handmade grenades.

  "Alright then, let's go to the school grounds." The group of people went to the school grounds in a grand and majestic manner.

  The campus is not big or small, about the size of a football field. Zhang Gong ignited the fuse alone from afar, and it took about half a minute for the fuse to burn to the iron box, only to hear a loud explosion. Smoke filled the air, and the wooden boards that were used as targets had been blown away, leaving many bullet holes behind.

  Yang was the first to applaud. The others were all stunned, and it took them half a day to react. Seeing the emperor clapping his hands in applause, the others also followed suit and applauded together.

  Zhang Gong, Li Gong and the group of people responsible for developing hand grenades were all in high spirits. After all, they had completed the task entrusted by the Emperor and had a taste of being an imperial envoy.

  "Not bad, not bad. It's just a bit long." Yang Gaizhang said.

  "Your Majesty, this letter of introduction can actually be shortened, but for your safety today, it was intentionally lengthened."

  "Hmm, not bad, but it seems that this hand grenade still needs a fuse to be ignited."

  "Back to Your Majesty, yes, this hand grenade weighs about two catties and four taels. The front part is an iron-cast head with granular gunpowder inside. The rear end has a wooden handle, with a hole drilled in the middle for the fuse. The fuse connects to the granular gunpowder. At the very end, there's a lid. Twist open the lid, light the fuse, and throw it out. About four or five breaths later, it will explode." Zhang Gong explained in great detail.

  In the Royal Gunpowder Factory, sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter are all refined and sifted. Judging from the explosion effect, it seems to be okay. Yang's reform also saved the trouble of further refining saltpeter and sulfur, as well as the pain of other travelers who need to carefully handle saltpeter and sulfur. Now you can buy as much as you want and use as much as you want, openly and honestly. However, the current refining method is not very simple and effective, so Yang thinks it's necessary to think of a better way.

  Originally, hand grenades still had a fuse mechanism, but unfortunately, there is no match formula now. If the match can be pulled out, the fuse mechanism of this hand grenade will also be available. Since it's not available, let's use this ignition method for now. As for the fuse, think about it yourself and figure out a way to get the matches.

  Thinking of this, Yang Reform felt that it was not bad either. At least the nitre and sulphur purification were not something he had to worry about himself, as they already existed in the imperial armory, and making them into granules was also something that already existed, so making them into hand grenades could be considered his own contribution.

  "Alright, that's settled then. Zhang Gong, Li Gong, you've all worked hard. So, each of the five of you will receive 100 taels of silver, and the craftsmen from the Armory Bureau will each receive 2 taels of silver. The New Year is approaching, let everyone be happy." Fu Mingde had found five workers for Yang Gaozheng, who were specifically in charge of weapon development at the Armory Bureau. Zhang Gong and Li Gong specialized in firearms.

  "The common people thank Your Majesty for your great kindness. Long live the Emperor, long live, long live, forever and ever!" The grounds were already filled with people kneeling down, almost all of whom were craftsmen.

  Yang Reform thought this was very good, spending little money to gain the loyalty of many people. It's much better than those starving scholars outside.

  "Fú Míng Dé!" Yang Reform shouted.

  "The slave is here." Fumin De hastily stepped forward and knelt on the ground.

  "Rise, I entrust you with a task. I plan to increase the production of this grenade, the more the better, understand? You are in charge of production, for the quality of the grenades, do not be too harsh on the craftsmen, and pay them a slightly higher wage. For every qualified grenade produced, I will reward you one wen (a unit of currency). Don't underestimate this one wen, as it adds up, when you can make tens of millions of grenades, you'll find that you have a lot of money. Understand? Additionally, Zhang Gong and Li Gong, the two of you also enjoy this rule, since the grenade is your invention, you two can profit one wen from each grenade, I call this 'patent', understand?"

  Everyone who heard the emperor's words was shocked, this was an unprecedented rule. To make tens of millions of hand grenades, that would be a profit of tens of millions of dollars. That's also a huge sum of money. More people were thrilled to discover that inventing new things could bring them profits. Patents? It seemed like a great thing.

  "Fumingde obeys the imperial edict. He must not disappoint the emperor's high expectations." Fumingde quickly knelt down and kowtowed to thank him, overjoyed. Zhang Gong and Li Gong were left speechless with their mouths agape in astonishment.

  This matter quickly spread outside, and the ministers were worried about the emperor's behavior, educating the emperor in a flurry of words. Alas, Yang Guifei treated them as NPCs, and their words were like farting.

  Ignition device, match, Yang Reform has been thinking about this thing in his heart.

  The queen is a little loli, this is Yang's reform epiphany. Judging from her attire, she looks like she's in her early twenties. In reality, after stripping off the disguise, she appears to be only around fifteen or sixteen years old.

  Yang reform was discovered when two people were stripped naked in the quilt and ready to communicate. This made Yang reform feel a bit hesitant. No matter how you look at it, it's the story of a weird uncle and a little loli.

  Yang Reform had a feeling that this whole Ming dynasty was a group of lolicon, getting married at 15 or 16 and having children by the handful. Faced with such a young loli, Yang Reform felt a bit unable to do it. Holding such a small loli, Yang Reform felt like he was suffering.

  The person in his arms also clearly felt Chongzhen's strangeness, and twisted his body to say: "Your Majesty, don't you like Yuanyuan anymore?"

  "I don't dislike you, it's just that I think your body is too weak, getting pregnant too early will be bad for your health." Yang also knew that getting pregnant too early was a huge burden on a woman's body.

  "Your Majesty, I won't be able to... In my hometown, many people younger than me already have children. They're all fine." She said with a twist of her body.

  Yang thinks the reform is deadly, to say that a shiny ketone body climbs on oneself without moving heart is definitely impossible. But as soon as I think of Lolita, I feel like I have psychological obstacles.

  The disabled kneel down, but indeed there was a reaction.

  The Queen whispered in his ear: "Your Majesty, it's already... hehe."

  Someone teased him in his ear. Yang Gaofei only felt hot all over his body. He turned over, pinning the little loli under his body.

  ……

  After a good cry, Yang Gao finally fell asleep beautifully. In the middle of the night, he had a dream that was just like his previous one - he was sitting in front of the computer, and as soon as he opened the browser, it was Baidu's homepage. Yang Gao had been thinking about searching for the formula for matches all day, and when he thought of this, he immediately started searching.

  Soon, Yang reform searched for the production method of matches, still safety matches. Looking back, what manganese dioxide, hydrochloric acid, seeing these things made Yang reform dizzy. At this level in the Ming dynasty, it is absolutely impossible to create such things. It seems that his own hand grenade can only use the fuse method. However, for being able to search Baidu in his dreams, Yang reform felt he was too happy. This is a heaven-defying thing! Unfortunately, the time to dream back to Baidu was too short, and he could only search for things on Baidu. Beyond this range, it didn't work. Yang reform also wanted to watch pure movies, but nothing appeared.

  Woke up with some side effects still, head feels a bit dizzy. But being able to use Baidu for searching is good enough.