The Gunpowder

"Everyone stands up. Prince Roland is coming." They had not rested for 15 minutes when Iron Axe clapped and yelled.

Van'er soon returned to his position; the previous special training caused him to have reflexes towards conforming commands. Almost subconsciously, he held up his wooden pole and assembled himself in the preparation posture for thrusting.

Prince Roland and his retinues walked upon the city wall and passed the troop from behind. Through the corner of his eyes, Van'er noticed that His Highness slowed down when passing himself.

Roland groaned in his heart. It was truly the axiom that "getting up late will ruin your morning while getting up early will ruin your whole day." He just finished dealing with the aftermath of the raid on the castle, and then he had to come to inspect the recent training results of the Militia. The poor guy did not sleep all night, and now he was sleepy. But he had to come, for the team had been in the training stage. As the commander, his prolonged absence would lead to a diminished sense of existence and the morale of his team would also become unstable.

[Umm... What do people usually say when inspecting the troop?] Roland pondered for a moment. "Hi, comrades! Good job, comrades! If nobody responded, it would be very awkward after I called out that phrase. Or perhaps it'll be better to have casual conversations with someone. That would help me to express my kindness and also raise my reputation."

He thought to implement his plan and patted a muscular young fellow on the back.

"You were laborious. Did you feel tired? Did you like the meals?"

Depended on the past experiences from reading the news, Roland was expecting the young fellow to answer his questions with a loud and excited response such as "Not tired at all, I feel excellent!" However, the young fellow was so excited that he immediately knelt down on his knee after he turned to Roland, which surprised Roland quite a bit.

Van'er felt that he was being blessed by the heaven that Prince Roland was asking him if he was tired with the training in such a kind tone. Not to mention the royal family, even the ordinary nobles were normally reluctant to talk to plebeians. Almost by reflex, he imitated knight's salutation to honor Prince Roland. He did not care whether if he was appropriate to do such practice. Van'er only had one thought in his mind that after he returned to his hometown, he would be regarded as a substantial figure.

Van'er felt the chaos in his mind after Roland asked him to stand up. Van'er could not even remember how he replied to Roland's questions.

At last, His Highness asked if Van'er had any opinions about the training. Van'er suddenly cleared his head. [This is a great opportunity! If I could make Your Highness believe that the Militia alone wouldn't be able to bear the responsibility of defending the city walls, then perhaps I won't need to worry about whether to stay or sneak away.]

He carefully cogitated his word choice. "Your... Honorable Highness, the number of the members of the Militia is small. If we continue the current alignment training method, when the demonic beasts attack, we at most can only defend one third of the city wall. Will you consider..."

Even if Prince Roland recruited more members, there would not be enough time for training, Van'er thought. Besides, there would be a huge expense for their weapons. It would be arduous to gather enough spears for 300 members within two months in Border Town. It would be difficult to assemble even a hundred spears, therefore, they were still training with wooden rods.

If Prince Roland could realize that, then perhaps he would recruit mercenary from other towns as the primary defense force. At least the mercenary would be able to go on the battlefield without training. They would have their own weapons and armors, except that the price would be a bit high.

Roland pondered for a moment and nodded. "You have good points. It's unrealistic to have the Militia alone guard entire city wall."

Van'er felt delighted. His Highness meant... to agree with his thoughts?

However, Prince Roland did not say what Van'er was expecting to hear. Instead, he called Iron Axe. "In a sense, demonic beasts are just mutated beasts and that they don't have the ability to think, right?"

"Yes, Your Highness. The normal demonic beasts are no different from those wild beasts, and even their habits are almost the same... As for the demonic hybrids, I haven't seen many so I'm not sure."

"That'll be okay. Even though it's almost 600 meters from the Redwater River to the foot of North Slope Mountain, we can lure the demonic beasts to attack the specific areas."

"You mean setting up traps?" Iron Axe asked.

"It's a trap, but not the kind that hunters would typically use. Standard traps capture preys by concealing themselves. Well, I want to do the opposite. I'll set up roadblocks from places far away from the city wall, such as fences, earth slopes, ditches to force the unintelligent demonic beasts to detour. The continuous roadblocks will lead the preys to assigned locations, and at the end gather at the defense area that we prepared." Roland looked at the Iron Axe. "As for how to lure those beasts, I think no one knows better than you do."

Iron Axe thought for a moment. "It'll be fine to guide then, and demonic wolves don't like water, demonic boars are afraid of light, and all the other demonic beasts have their own habits. But Your Highness, in this way, we'll have all the demonic beasts gathered within this area of 600 feet, wouldn't that be too dangerous?"

"It's true if we only have spears and arrows as the weapon," Roland said confidently, "but now, we have a new weapon."

When it was about the time to leave, the prince once again came to Van'er and patted on his shoulder. "You have a good observation. What's your name?"

"Van-Van'er, Your Highness."

"I'll propose to my chief knight to appoint you as the Deputy Force Commander of the Spear Squad. Mr. Van'er, I'm looking forward to seeing your more achievements."

*******************

Roland built a flat house in the yard of the firing room to produce snow powder—in other words, the gunpowder.

This 300-square-meter house only had one entrance and was heavily guarded. There were two knights guarding the entrance. To prevent anyone from bringing flammables to the room, all visitors were required to register and go through the security check.

"This is the new weapon that you talked about?" Carter, who was summoned by Roland, pinched the black powder with his fingers, and sniffed it. "Isn't it the snow powder?"

Perhaps Iron Axe did not know, but Carter often attended the royal ceremonies, and of course, he knew that snow powder was something that people place in the ceremonial barrels. It was the proudest production of the alchemical workshop and its prescription was a confidentiality to outsiders. However, the prince could get whatever he wanted.

"It's snow power, but not entirely the same," Roland said, "and it's the newest modified product of the alchemical workshop. I call it the gunpowder."

Gunpowder was known as the secret weapon for mass production. Its ingredients were easily accessible. The prescription required three ingredients: sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. Gunpowder would be made by just mixing these three ingredients at a 1:1.5:7.5 ratio. It could be easily produced without any technical barriers.

The snow powder in this age consisted of 60% of charcoal, 20% of sulfur and saltpeter, and 20% of other bizarre, inferior ingredients (such as mercury, butter, honey, etc.). It could not function as gunpowder due to its slow combustion speed and insufficient gas release. However, Roland knew that the alchemists were trying to test other prescriptions. In at most 30 years, a prescription similar to the standard gunpowder prescription would be developed.

In history, after the invention of gunpowder, it still took a long time for people to forgo the usage of cold weapons. The reason rooted in the prescription of gunpowder and also the stagnation of the related armament manufacture industry.

However, many people overlooked the fact that gunpowder itself could be an extremely formidable weapon even without relying on firearms.