Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Joyful Staff

Cutting off supplies drove Black Dragon Mountain to its end, but also led people toward a new beginning.

With a wild heart, nothing seemed impossible.

Cao Yao gathered several blacksmiths from among the refugees and instructed them to forge pole firearms for him.

The craftsmen didn’t utter a word of complaint, and soon the clang of their hammers echoed as they began work.

He explained that the gun he wanted was modeled after those from Liao Town: five feet long, mounted on a three-legged iron stand, weighing eighteen pounds, operated by two men, able to fire horizontally for two hundred paces, and named the Great Chasing Wind Gun.

Liu Chengzong, upon hearing this, immediately recognized it as a lifting gun and asked, “Why make such a thing?”

Cao Yao replied that it was particularly effective in street fighting—take the small lane between the front and back courtyards of Wangzhuang Fort, for instance. Just descend from the back mountain, load the firearm with scatter shot, and ten men could be incapacitated in a single blast.

Liu Chengzong curbed his more reckless ideas: in the darkness, one could barely see, and the guards at Wangzhuang were no match for them anyway. If they hurt their own people in the confusion, a single blast could cost dearly.

Gunpowder wasn’t much of a problem.

Black Dragon Mountain already had some, but out of caution, Liu Chengzu advised against using the mechanized troops’ powder.

So they decided to make their own: Cao Yao collected saltpeter from every household in Old Temple Village, Liu Chengzong did the same at Black Dragon Mountain, gathering a significant amount of saltpeter soil.

Shaanxi was famous for its saltpeter, and most of the Shaanxi border troops knew how to refine it, though it was hard work.

Just in time, the refugees assigned by the government were idling at home, so the firecracker maker, known as Old Third Huang, was given a few helpers and they hid in the mountains to work.

Yang Dingrui heard Liu Chengzong needed sulfur and guessed what it was for. He quietly approached Liu Chengzong to ask.

As a teacher, it was impossible to keep secrets from him, so Liu Chengzong revealed the plan.

Unexpectedly, Yang Dingrui’s rage erupted: “He deserves to die! I wanted to kill Zhang Qing back then. The inspector sent by Governor Lü was my friend, Zhao Shou, but he was tortured to death!”

Zhao Shou was a scholar who served under Governor Lü Zhaoxiong in Shaanxi. The governor sent him to secretly investigate the seizure of ten thousand acres of horse pasture by the Qin clan, and Zhang Qing’s men ultimately killed him.

Lü Zhaoxiong reported the case to the court, but the Emperor Tianqi ordered the Qin clan to handle it themselves. The Shaanxi officials were furious but powerless.

But now, with Black Dragon Mountain cornered, Yang Dingrui had no intention of stopping Liu Chengzong. Instead, he took full charge of the sulfur.

He borrowed a helper, then rode out with Guo Zashi on two donkeys.

That night, they returned with four large earthen jars strapped to the donkeys’ backs, containing a total of one hundred ninety-five pounds of sulfur.

At Yuanlong Temple, south of Black Dragon Mountain, the Yan’an prefecture was providing relief work—building glazed towers, mining, firing kilns. Sulfur was a byproduct of alum production, managed by the prefecture’s workshop clerk, who remembered Yang Dingrui and was willing to help.

Their timing was perfect; Yang Dingrui hadn’t planned to take so much.

The relief work was ending, and all that sulfur was to be sent to Yan’an Guard, to be received by Commander Zhang. Yang Dingrui recognized the name—a familiar face.

Better to give it to them than to let the lazy guards have it.

“Take it, then!”

They loaded up as much as they could, taking four jars and one hundred eighty pounds. Guo Zashi stripped off his clothes to wrap another fifteen pounds, and only then did they leave.

When Liu Chengzong woke at midnight, he was stunned, worried that Yang Dingrui’s haul might get the workshop clerk in trouble.

Little did he know, Yang Dingrui was still unsatisfied, saying that if he’d known the sulfur was destined for Commander Zhang, he would’ve brought two carts and hauled five or six hundred pounds.

As for the workshop clerk, Yang Dingrui told him not to worry. The site used more than a dozen large furnaces, each burning a thousand pounds of green vitriol, yielding over thirty pounds of sulfur per batch.

Even if he took six hundred pounds, it was only half a day’s output.

Spread over a month, it could easily be written off as losses from sifting the sulfur.

Everyone was timid about official matters, but on these errands, they were swift and bold. Even if they didn't take it, someone else would steal it to sell in town.

Liu Chengzong never imagined Yang Dingrui could procure so much sulfur.

It was enough to make two thousand pounds of gunpowder. If Cao Yao could dig tunnels, they might really blow up the high walls of Wangzhuang Fort.

Unfortunately, they lacked sufficient saltpeter; blasting the fort was still a pipe dream.

And Liu Chengzong realized that even blowing open the gate latch posed a major challenge.

They could make a powder charge, but securing it precisely opposite the latch was nearly impossible.

One couldn’t just hammer nails into the enemy’s gate.

Even if the guards were so lax as to let them hammer nails, blasting open the thick wooden gate would require several big nails to secure the powder charge.

While Old Third Huang was refining saltpeter, Liu Chengzu focused on burning charcoal at the brick kiln, undistracted.

Only Cao Yao and Liu Chengzong agonized over this issue.

Then, another memory flashed in Liu Chengzong’s mind—a peculiar device: the "Board-Mounted Joy Stick," technically called the Thunder Pierce.

A metal shell, a conical copper cap, filled with a large amount of black powder, fixed to a long wooden pole and pressed against the gate.

With different powder, it could pierce a tank.

Perhaps this could accurately blast a hole through the gate and destroy the latch behind?

But as Liu Chengzong drew the schematic, his unease grew. The device seemed perfectly suited for the starving masses of this era, rather than for breaching a fortress gate.

A mob of hungry peasants, each wielding a blasting pole, crying “When will the days end, we’ll all perish!” charging the dazzlingly armored generals at the gates of the Forbidden City.

It was perfect, almost too perfect.

Cao Yao, like Liu Chengzong’s mechanical cat, could produce whatever was needed from his bag of tricks, only seeking alternatives when he couldn’t.

With the blueprint in hand and a bag of Wanli coins extorted from Cao Yao, Liu Chengzong happily took his hoe and sought out the blacksmiths to place his order.

Both the coins and the hoe would be used as materials.

“Make a sturdy iron tube shell, hammer the coins into a thin conical cap—just like in the drawing. Yes, remember to leave a hole for the pole in the iron tube. Which pole to use? Which is the longest in the mountains?”

The honest refugee blacksmiths, seeing their master suddenly anxious about the pole, could only timidly reply, “The long spear—eighteen feet.”

“Right, use the longest one.”

The pole couldn’t be short; Liu Chengzong valued his life.

Yet this device was much simpler to make than Cao Yao’s Chasing Wind Gun; the blacksmiths finished it in half a day.

Only when Liu Chengzong poured in the powder did he realize he’d forgotten to drill a fuse hole.

He sent the ironworkers back to fix it, had Cao Yao twist a fuse, poured in three pounds of powder, then a group of men carried the long pole and a battered door to the back mountain at midnight.

Time for an experiment.

Liu Chengzu and Cai Zhongpan thought the device was rather foolish, but their manners kept them silent.

Only Cao Yao voiced his opinion.

Cao Yao was quite annoyed with Liu Chengzong now.

The day before, he’d hoped to have some fun with his wife, but had his pants off only to be dragged out for terrain scouting. Yesterday was a day-long march, and today, when he’d just lain down, Liu Chengzong came asking for money.

Tonight, when a rare opportunity finally appeared, he was dragged out again for an experiment.

And the orphan they picked up had been left at his house, supposedly to let him learn how to care for children.

Now he had to light the fuse of this seemingly idiotic device.

Three door panels stood upright in the ground; Liu Chengzong grasped the end of the long pole, striking a heroic pose.

Cao Yao, holding a fire striker, crouched by the conical blasting tube, swallowed nervously, and asked, “Really light it? Don’t blow me up.”

“Or maybe you should go fetch Song Shouzhen from the kiln?”

Liu Chengzong was sincere, but whatever Cao Yao thought, he cursed, “To hell with it! Even the court couldn’t kill me!”

Before Liu Chengzong could react, the flame sparked, Cao Yao dove aside, and a deafening boom followed.

A flash erupted ahead, shaking the ground and sending Liu Chengzong tumbling backward.

He got up coughing in the haze of gunpowder, but otherwise unscathed.

Looking forward, the tip of the long pole had split, the iron blasting tube ruptured like a firecracker.

Beyond that, the three wooden doors had been punched through with neat holes the size of bowls.

Amid the cheers of the others, a different smile bloomed on Liu Chengzong’s face.

Inside, he shouted wildly: It works!

My memories—are useful!