A veteran of the frontier army, after marrying a wife, fought his way through the northern border.

"No, it's okay, I slept very well."

Liu Qinghe ran away awkwardly.

In the morning, everyone ate millet porridge, roe deer meat, roasted rabbit meat, and dried meat.

After being cared for by Luo Yunxiao last night, Qin Hongxiu's complexion was fair and rosy, and she looked radiant.

In a good mood.

She thoughtfully served food to Luo Yunxiao.

She has a straightforward personality and can't learn Su Yushang's submissive and dependent nature.

Despite this, Luo Yunxiao could still feel her unspoken love and care for him.

The two understood each other without saying a word.

After Cuihua brought the food up, she squatted by the stove and ate her porridge silently, as usual.

Luo Yunxiao waved to her, inviting her to sit down and eat with everyone else.

At first, Cuihua didn't dare to look at Li Dakai timidly.

Li Dakai was usually very harsh on her.

Normally, she wouldn't even be allowed to sit at the table to eat.

Luo Yunxiao knew her concerns: "Just listen to me. I told you to sit, so sit down. Come on."

Since the squad leader had spoken, Li Dakai couldn't say anything.

It was the first time Cuihua had eaten at the table, and she was wiping away tears as she ate.

Everyone felt that this squad leader was different from the others.

After finishing her meal, Liu Qinghe went to the stable.

He earnestly said to Qin Hongxiu, who was grooming her warhorse's mane, "Sister Hongxiu, I want to become your apprentice. I want to be as powerful as you and protect Chief Luoshi."

As Qin Hongxiu brushed the warhorse's mane, a smile played on her lips: "It's good that you have this idea."

Learning kung fu from me isn't something that can be done overnight; it requires enduring a lot of hardship. Can you persevere?

"I can!"

"Okay. I'll be very busy these next few days; the squad leader needs me to do a lot of things."

From now on, every night at the hour of You (5-7 PM), you will come with me to the back of the beacon tower.

I'll teach you kung fu.

"Master, please accept my bow!"

Liu Qinghe was overjoyed and immediately knelt down to kowtow and become his disciple.

"Good disciple."

"Now that you've accepted me as your master, the first thing I want you to do is wash your face clean."

Qin Hongxiu joked, "What kind of girl has a dirty face every day?"

She noticed that Liu Qinghe wasn't ugly, but she was always dirty and hadn't washed her face in days.

Liu Qinghe bit her cherry lips and gently shook her head: "Master, when my cultivation reaches the Martial Master realm and I have the ability to protect myself, I will naturally reveal my true form."

Upon hearing this, Qin Hongxiu suddenly felt a sense of empathy.

Looking into Liu Qinghe's determined eyes, he praised, "You have ambition."

Since the fall of Feiru County, the brother and sister have been homeless.

During their escape, they occasionally encountered refugees who coveted Liu Qinghe's beauty.

He even wanted to defile her.

Fortunately, the two ran fast, preventing the bad guys from succeeding.

From then on, she covered her face with black ash to conceal her appearance and never washed her face again.

Even at the beacon tower, it was the same.

During the day, Luo Yunxiao supervised everyone's practice of the Border Defense Technique.

In the afternoon, he gave Qin Hongxiu, Zhou Hanniu, Sun Tieshou, and Wang Shitou three taels of silver each.

He instructed everyone to collect sheepskin felt, pottery bottles, castor oil, linen, and saltpeter from the nearby Luanshi Village, Linhe Village, Shiwa Village, and Xiaoshi Bay.

The more of these supplies, the better.

Li Dakai, Li Ergou, and Liu Honghe and his sister stayed behind to guard the area.

If you encounter Tartars, do not linger in battle; immediately return to the beacon tower.

Luo Yunxiao and Qin Hongxiu arrived at Linhe Village and, after some searching, found a bricklayer.

They purchased twenty earthenware vases and commissioned a batch of narrow-necked earthenware vases, each four and a half inches in diameter and five and four-tenths inches in height.

I paid the deposit and will pick it up in three days.

An hour later, everyone gathered at the designated location.

Seeing that everyone had gained something, Luo Yunxiao was very satisfied.

So he led everyone to the valley where the oil had been discovered the day before and filled earthenware jars with the oil.

The five people filled a total of twenty-seven bottles.

After doing all this, he returned to the beacon tower at Shenshi (3-5 PM).

Luo Yunxiao first made an oil-incendiary bomb.

The earthenware bottle was filled two-thirds with petroleum, mixed with some animal fat to increase its viscosity.

Twist dried mugwort floss into a prepared strip of linen to serve as a fuse, then attach a mixture of saltpeter and sulfur powder and let it air dry.

Pass the fuse through the bottle opening and seal the opening tightly with the remaining burlap strips.

It was reinforced by wrapping it with hemp rope.

After making a sample.

Luo Yunxiao led the group to demonstrate the power of incendiary bombs at the front gate of the beacon tower.

He lit the fuse with a tinderbox and threw it with all his might.

The pottery bottle landed and exploded twenty feet away, with flames rising two feet high and covering an area of ​​about two feet.

Everyone was stunned by the sight before them.

They all gasped in surprise.

"Squad leader, what is this?"

"This is called an incendiary bomb."

"From today onwards, let's do as much as possible."

The more you work, the more you earn; each person receives 300 coins per day.

Wages are settled daily.

Everyone's eyes lit up upon hearing this.

Three hundred coins a day?

You should know that soldiers in the military camp only receive three hundred coins a month!

Who would turn down money?

Everyone was full of energy!

After developing the incendiary bomb, the next step is to prepare the explosives.

Qin Hongxiu and Liu Qinghe were in charge of preparing the gunpowder.

These two are the people I trust the most.

I will not betray Luo Yunxiao.

Li Dakai and Sun Tieshou were responsible for kneading the gunpowder with castor oil and crushing it into granules.

Liu Honghe and Zhou Hanniu were responsible for bottling and inserting the fuses.

Luo Yunxiao is in charge of quality control.

He didn't have much money, so he tried to save as much as he could.

They had to pay six people 1.8 taels of silver per day.

Working for half a month yields nearly thirty taels.

Although Luo Yunxiao had seventy or eighty taels of silver on him, he couldn't withstand long-term consumption.

He knows that every penny he spends now is an investment.

As for the returns, he is confident that he can earn them back a hundredfold or a thousandfold!

Incendiary bombs are very easy to make; the main ingredient is petroleum, and anyone can do it after just one look.

The important thing is the "Wildfire" explosive, which Luo Yunxiao considers a core technology and needs to keep secret.

For example, when preparing gunpowder, the proportions of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, and the amount of castor oil added during kneading and mixing.

How to make granular gunpowder.

How to seal a ceramic bottle to make a bomb.

Each of these three steps can be completed by only one person, to prevent traitors from appearing among the subordinates.

It wasn't that Luo Yunxiao was judging a gentleman by his own petty standards.

Throughout history, many generals did not die in foreign wars.

Instead, they died at the hands of their own people.

This is something we must be wary of.

When making charcoal, Luo Yunxiao instructed Li Dakai to cut down dry pine trees, burn them into charcoal, crush them, and sift out impurities, keeping only the fine powder.

The saltpeter was purchased from villagers in a nearby village.

They were also collected from the base of old beacon tower walls, the corners of outhouses, and near stables.

After scraping it back, mix it with wood ash, add water, evaporate, and filter to obtain pure saltpeter.

The sulfur was previously extracted from a sulfur spring near Shiwa Village.

The formulation ratio is strictly controlled according to 75% saltpeter, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.

One day later, Luo Yunxiao's bomb was tested for the first time.

The moment the explosion occurred, everyone was shocked once again!

The explosion was deafening, flames shot into the sky, and kerosene splattered everywhere.

Although not as powerful as modern explosives from before the time travel, it was still enough to deter the Tartar cavalry.

With such a soul-stirring explosion.

This would startle the Tartars' warhorses and disrupt their cavalry formation.

"Squad leader, what's this called?"

Everyone asked questions at once.

"This is called the Wildfire Thunder, and it will be our magic weapon for victory in the future."

For the next two days, everyone followed Luo Yunxiao's instructions.

Aside from eating, sleeping, and practicing the Border Defense Technique, he spent the rest of his time making incendiary bombs and prairie bombs.

On the morning of that day, a messenger arrived from the Liuhebao camp.

Luo Yunxiao recognized him; he was Li Si, one of Wang Kui's subordinates.

Li Si, holding the military order, addressed the crowd: "General Gongsun is preparing for battle against Liu Youzhou in Tuyin City..."

The rations and pay of the border troops are allocated to the front lines first, while the rations and pay of the border defense battalions are reduced by half.

The entire garrison at the beacon tower was ordered to remain steadfast in their defensive duties for three months!

During this period, you are permitted to cultivate wasteland and raise your own supplies, but you are not allowed to leave the defense zone and disturb the people.

In addition, each person will be given three taels of silver as stipend for spring plowing and hunting.

After Li Si finished speaking, everyone was stunned.

Everyone stared blankly, as if they couldn't believe their ears.

Only Luo Yunxiao and Qin Hongxiu remained calm and composed.

It's time to come.