Chapter 1003 Project 2300

The urgent demand for explosives from every quarter compelled the explosives factory into trial production under the slogan "construct while producing."

Limited by the chemical industry's own technical level and production capacity, from the formal manufacture of the first batch of black powder in 1629 to early 1631, the Senate's explosive types had increased by only three: brown powder, nitroglycerin, and mercury fulminate. Brown powder had only recently entered production, serving as propellant for the increasingly numerous coastal batteries and naval large-caliber cannons—its slower burn rate reduced the risk of bore explosions when used with heavy artillery.

In general terms, the Senate's explosives industry now possessed a complete product range: gun propellants, primers, and high explosives were all available. Though the technical level wasn't advanced, it roughly met current needs.

The most pressing problem was a significant shortfall in high explosives required by both military and civilian applications. The only high explosive they could currently mass-produce was nitroglycerin desensitized through absorption by diatomaceous earth—dynamite.

Nitroglycerin itself required a sufficient-scale glycerin industry, and the glycerin industry in turn demanded a sufficient-scale fats and oils industry for support. Moreover, glycerin quality needed to be quite pure—the glycerin obtained by the Industrial Committee's chemical industry came primarily through saponification, which introduced too many impurities and constrained capacity. To date, dynamite was used only in limited quantities for civilian engineering projects; for military purposes, black powder still filled artillery shells and grenades.

Some argued there was no problem using dynamite to fill grenades—in the old dimension, filling landmines with dynamite was common practice. The problem was that dynamite couldn't be used in artillery shells. The G-force when shells were fired reached several thousand; dynamite would inevitably cause bore explosions.

Black powder's detonation velocity was too low, it left excessive residue, and its sensitivity was too high. As propellant for Minié rifles it remained acceptable, but as military explosive it proved genuinely inadequate. The Industrial Committee's engineers had long sought a suitable substitute to replace black powder's monopoly.

The requirements were clear: manufacturing process as simple as possible, sufficient raw material supply, adequate power, a certain safety level, and suitability for filling artillery shells.

In response to these requirements, personnel from the Chemical Department and Military-Industrial Department proposed two plans: manufacturing picric acid using the byproduct phenol from the coal coking complex; or a black powder power-doubling process.

Picric acid's process was relatively straightforward. In old dimension history, Britain had synthesized it in 1771. Phenol was sulfonated with concentrated sulfuric acid or sodium sulfite, then nitrated with concentrated nitric acid. The difficult point was phenol extraction. Without a coal coking industry, oil cracking or wood tar refining would be necessary. They now had an established coal tar industry capable of providing phenol quite stably, making picric acid manufacture relatively easy.

The picric acid extraction work was codenamed Project 0017—because the extraction process proposed by Xu Yingjie had a final yield of seventeen percent.

The other project besides picric acid was the Black Powder Power-Doubling Plan, proposed by Lin Shenhe. Simply put, it involved improving processing methods to double black powder's power, enabling it to temporarily substitute for some high explosives.

Lin Shenhe's current workplace lay inside a stone-and-earth enclosure in the explosives factory. The enclosure rose only about one meter high, with a circle of willow hedges planted on top. Seven or eight labor reform prisoners were filling stones in the middle. Around the enclosure, artificial and natural forests planted by the Forestry Department provided excellent concealment. From outside, it appeared to be nothing more than forest. An inconspicuous dirt path wound its way to the enclosure. Beside the path ran a water ditch; at every turn stood an earth mound to block shrapnel and shock waves during personnel evacuation. This path was for walking only; transport used another simple railway still under construction—temporarily only hand-cranked railcars and ox-drawn railcars could be used. This enclosure's official designation was Special Chemicals Complex Research Center No. 1, and Lin Shenhe's project was codenamed Project 2300.

At this moment, he wore a dark cotton work uniform, nervously watching several workers unload an unassuming machine from a railcar.

The machine wasn't large, simply wrapped in waterproof canvas. Workers carried it toward the laboratory. Jiang Ye, responsible for installing and debugging machinery, jumped down from the car.

The two exchanged brief greetings, then entered the research center's dedicated laboratory together.

Thick concrete walls enclosed the laboratory, with sandbags stacked inside and outside. The roof was a light wooden structure—essentially a pressure relief panel. Outside the room, two deep explosion-proof ditches awaited—if laboratory personnel could escape in time, they could dive in for refuge.

The laboratory interior was stark and empty. Besides the concrete base for installing the machine, there were only several vats of varying sizes. Lighting relied on natural light from skylights in the roof—to reduce heat from sunlight, the glass was covered with a layer of black shade netting. Rows of copper "heating pipes" lined the walls and ran under the floor, but the cold was biting—the makeshift alcohol thermometer registered only twelve degrees Celsius. What flowed through those heating pipes wasn't steam but water chilled with ice-salt mixtures. Fire being strictly prohibited, their most reliable refrigeration equipment—gas air conditioning—couldn't be used, and ground-source air conditioning's cooling effect would likely prove inadequate. This forced cooling method was the adopted solution.

"Cold enough—" Jiang Ye was sweating profusely and wearing a short-sleeved undershirt; upon entering, he immediately shivered.

Lin Shenhe handed him a jacket. "Put it on. This place must maintain low temperature for safe production."

The canvas was unwrapped, revealing an unremarkable machine beneath. Anyone with slight mechanical knowledge would recognize at a glance that this was a hydraulic screw press.

"Manufactured according to your specifications," Jiang Ye said, directing workers through the installation while explaining. "It's hydraulic screw type—simple structure, stable stroke. Can be manually turned for controlled pressure. Completely meets your technical requirements. The dies, pressing heads, and other components that might generate friction are made of brass to prevent sparks."

Lin Shenhe circled the machine several times. "You must guarantee it completely meets technical requirements. Otherwise, when work starts tomorrow, I'll be reduced to ashes..."

Jiang Ye understood that working with explosives meant risking one's life—there was absolutely no exaggeration in that statement.

"Rest assured. It was manufactured entirely according to the technical materials you provided. From component manufacturing to assembly, the machine was made entirely by Senators' own hands—we didn't dare let naturalized citizens do it."

Lin Shenhe nodded, though he still wasn't completely at ease. His process wasn't difficult, but its environmental requirements were exacting: humidity couldn't fall below sixty percent, temperature couldn't exceed twenty degrees. Otherwise, explosions would occur—even with black powder's relatively modest power, an explosion in this room could kill or injure many people.

Temperature he had roughly addressed with water-based air conditioning. Humidity—Lingao's summer humidity was quite high, sometimes exceeding ninety percent. Even so, he had ordered an air humidifier from the machinery factory for use when necessary. He had also specifically assigned a naturalized citizen to monitor the thermometer and hygrometer.

Jiang Ye was curious. "You're being so mysterious—what magic are you actually going to perform? 'Black powder power-doubling'—are you planning to mix in nitroglycerin?"

"Black powder mixed with nitroglycerin is suicide," Lin Shenhe replied. "What I'll use is pure black powder—nothing else added."

"Then what method?" Jiang Ye's curiosity intensified.

"You should know that the greater an explosive's density in a given space, the greater its power upon detonation." Lin Shenhe said. "Black powder power-doubling uses precisely this principle—maximizing black powder's density."

Project 2300's full designation was Black Powder High-Energy Charge Technology. Lin Shenhe had previously kept this technology secret—he originally hadn't been confident in it. After D-Day, as head of the military-industrial department, he had privately conducted several small-charge experiments using laboratory equipment and materials, then used the pacification operations in Danzhou for live-fire testing. After confirming the results, he formally proposed this plan.

The concept was straightforward: using low-temperature wet-pressing to compress quality powdered black powder into black powder charge columns, creating high-density black powder columns. Due to their extreme density, these columns couldn't be detonated by traditional ignition methods and required specialized detonators—greatly improving safety.

In terms of power, using low-temperature wet-pressing to create black powder columns could increase charge density to over 2.3 grams per cubic centimeter. Such high-density columns required detonators to detonate, achieving detonation velocities exceeding 2600 meters per second. Traditional filling methods produced black powder charge densities not exceeding 1.7 grams per cubic centimeter, with detonation velocities below 800 meters per second—in fact, black powder deflagrated rather than truly detonated. In terms of power, this wasn't merely doubling—this column pressing method could increase equal-weight black powder explosive power by over sixty percent. By detonation velocity, it equaled thirty-nine percent of TNT's effectiveness, thirty-six percent of picric acid's.

What this effectiveness meant, Lin Shenhe understood clearly: it meant they didn't need to expend massive resources developing new technology points on the tech tree, but could directly "upgrade" black powder to double its power. Economically, it was far superior to Project 0017. This was extremely attractive to the Planning Bureau and Executive Committee.

Manufacturing picric acid meant needing large quantities of phenol, building entirely new production workshops, plus additional sulfuric and nitric acid capacity. But black powder power-doubling required simply adding some machines—the originally stockpiled black powder could exert far greater power.

(End of Chapter)