Aegor froze for half a second, then understood before exhaling completely. This was not a groundbreaking new discovery at all, but rather that he had been stuck in a situation where he knew a lot but lacked practical experience, overthinking it.
He only remembered that the snowflakes precipitating on the corners of the walls of privies, animal sheds, and stables were saltpeter, and that the soil in these places contained the bacteria needed for traditional saltpeter production. But he forgot that the saltpeter precipitating on the walls originally came from the soil underneath. While using this soil as a starter for saltpeter production was a sustainable long-term approach, if there was an urgent need for the product, directly boiling this soil to extract saltpeter could certainly solve the immediate problem.
Compared to producing saltpeter, directly boiling it was obviously a temporary measure, with the suspicion of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs and draining the pond to catch the fish. But the situation was now so urgent that they were waiting for the meat of these geese and fish to save their lives. Of course, he could not be limited by habitual thinking, insisting on establishing a complete production chain before giving up.
Damn it, Aegor quickly thought again. The reason he had the Industrial Park produce saltpeter in King's Landing originally was because the Gift's climate was too cold and tools and materials were scarce. But if they were to directly dig soil and boil saltpeter, there would be absolutely no requirement for geographical location. If he had realized this earlier, Crown Town and the entire North would have already started a vigorous campaign of saltpeter production.
The lost time could not be recovered, but it was not too late to mend the fold after the sheep were lost. After inwardly slapping himself several times in annoyance, Aegor did not show his lapse in composure on his face. "There is such a thing? How much saltpeter can be boiled from the soil dug directly from these corners, and what is the quality like?"
"The amount fluctuates, depending on the quality of the dug soil," Qyburn replied truthfully. "After a simple attempt, my assistants and I summarized the simplest method of differentiation. Grind the candidate soil and sprinkle it on red-hot charcoal. If it sparks, it contains saltpeter. We scrape down layer by layer until the quality begins to decline. As for the output, a cart of good saltpeter soil can be boiled down to a small jar. Since we have not been able to find a way to separate impurities like salt from the saltpeter, the quality varies considerably."
"Our merchant caravans sent to various places now have several tasks. When they set off, they take goods from the Night's Watch Industry to sell in various places. Upon reaching a place, the saltpeter prospecting personnel go to work first. The remaining people, after selling a batch of goods, immediately start looking for privies, animal sheds, and stables. The white residue naturally precipitating on the walls is high-quality saltpeter itself. After scraping it off and storing it separately, they then dig several layers of soil from the corners and load it onto carts," Nina was particularly attentive to the orders personally issued by Aegor and was well aware of the specific situation. "Of course, disturbing the soil in the fiefs of nobles, big and small, is often considered inauspicious by the owners. Doing so often requires some compensation to the landowners. Those willing to accept goods are compensated with goods, and those unwilling can be paid with copper or silver coins. It is treated as buying soil with money. As for the small number who want to demand a high price, my instruction is to give up directly. Although high-quality saltpeter soil is often only a thin layer on the surface, in the vast Seven Kingdoms, where are there no privies and animal sheds?"
Aegor's face regained its smile. This was the benefit of collective wisdom. He did indeed possess a vast amount of advanced knowledge and information that people in this world could not imagine, but even the wise make mistakes, not to mention that he never considered himself a sage. Limited by his scientific thinking and the inability to act on paper without hands-on experience, he would occasionally encounter situations like this where he should have understood immediately but got stuck in a dead end for various reasons. At this time, having a group of smart people from this world to fill in the gaps and remind him in time, great things could be accomplished.
"Very good." He did not hide his praise in the slightest. "Where is the saltpeter boiling field? Take me to see it."
"The carriage is outside," Nina had guessed as soon as she saw Aegor that he would want to see it sooner or later, and had already found an opportunity to arrange a series of things.
A moment later, the group arrived at the saltpeter boiling field, which was only about a mile away by carriage. The steaming heat accompanied by the smoke from burning fuel could be seen several hundred meters away. Closer still, the piles of soil, coal, and waste scattered outside the low walls of the saltpeter boiling field made it look like a battlefield from the age of hot weapons. Against the backdrop of war clouds hanging over the Blackwater Rush and the large profit-making departments of the Industry reducing production and tightening their belts to prepare for winter, this saltpeter boiling field, the only project that was burning a lot of money but would not yield any returns for a long time, was working overtime, in full swing, operating from morning to night, supporting a large number of workers laid off from other departments.
The scene inside the factory was nothing special. It was just an expansion of the previous saltpeter testing field by several times, with a large number of pots, pans, stoves, and furnaces for the final saltpeter boiling process recreated and arranged in a certain layout, leaving paths in between. The saltpeter boilers vigorously stirring the hot liquid in the large pots, the porters running around with small carts, stopping occasionally to scoop up a shovel of coal, the collectors scooping out the final product from the bottom of the pots, pieces of yellowish-white saltpeter lumps, crushing them, carefully loading them into earthenware jars, and sending them to the central storage area.
People came and went in a bustling manner, and for a moment, Aegor thought he was in the smelting area of Crown Town.
"Thanks to the dense population of the Crownlands, we transported a large amount of saltpeter soil from various places before the Dragon Queen landed, and there is still a little less than half left. As for fuel, wood is strictly controlled in the Crownlands, so we can only buy large quantities of low-quality coal from the Riverlands. This coal is cheap, but it burns with a small flame and produces a lot of smoke. Very few people use it. Fortunately, saltpeter boiling can be done in a semi-open environment, so we do not need to consider that much."
Qyburn, who had come along, also remembered something at this point and exclaimed with a look of sudden realization. "Ah. The person in charge of the saltpeter boiling field reported a situation to me a few weeks ago, a lot of salt precipitates in the pot during the boiling process. I have been thinking about how to use this to extract the saltpeter separately. Now that I think about it, is this not what the Lord said... Different substances have different solubilities in water, and the solubility of the same substance also changes at different temperatures. I guess if we cool the saltpeter water that has precipitated the salt, maybe we can freeze out the saltpeter."
Smart, even if it was not exactly right, it was close enough. Aegor probably understood that the salt and saltpeter his subordinates were talking about actually corresponded to the chemical terms chloride salts and nitrates, and the latter was the nitre he wanted. Although he did not remember the solubility curves of these two types of substances at all, the method Qyburn proposed at this moment, even if it could not purify the nitre, could at least further remove the impurity chloride salts.
But at the moment, Aegor was not in the mood to praise anyone. He eagerly asked, "Where is the finished product warehouse? How much saltpeter has been produced so far?"
"This way, Lord."
After a series of surprises, seeing the finished products, Aegor could not hide the surprise and disappointment on his face. "Only a few jars? Looking at the output of the factory, that should not be right."
Nina let out a chuckle. "Lord, you have misunderstood. This is today's morning production. You repeatedly emphasized to me how important this is, so how could I dare to pile it up here. The daily output of the saltpeter boiling field is loaded onto carts and sent to Blackwall Keep, stacked on the shelves of the first-class warehouse, which is fireproof, theft-proof, and moisture-proof, for proper storage. I have not been there for several days, but I estimate that a little less than half of the warehouse is already filled. Actually, it should have already been on its way to the Gift, but unfortunately, the Dragon Queen's fleet has blockaded Blackwater Bay, and that eunuch army has cut off the King's Road to the North, so it has been stuck in Blackwall Keep."
"Lord, most of that is semi-finished product," Qyburn volunteered, feeling that he had thought of a method and could not bear to hand over a mixture. "Give me half a month, no, a week, and I can purify all of it."
"No, I do not have that time to wait," Aegor breathed a sigh of relief and waved his hand in rejection. "Pack your things, bring your trusted assistants, and prepare to return to the Gift with me. Saltpeter production cannot be carried out in the ice and snow there, but boiling saltpeter can. Nina, immediately send someone back to Blackwall Keep to arrange for porters to load the saltpeter in the warehouse onto the blackbird as soon as possible. It is too late today. King's Landing will open for half a day tomorrow noon, right? I plan to go see King Stannis or the Hand of the King then, and then immediately set off for the North. The purification can be done by the Pyromancers in Crown Town, and the separated salt can just solve the problem of the salt shortage in the Gift."
(To be continued.)