Chapter 252 (2/2)

“It is because of King’s City Alchemy Association, they have recently purchased all the available saltpeter. Furthermore, they only offer to buy at a low price, but since they have the support of Prime Minister Marquis Wyke, no one has the possibility of resisting. Therefore this isn’t really a simple business transaction. Instead, the merchants think that it would be bad if they did not sell.” Margaret said, “I guess that the order was given by Timothy himself, after all, he is practically blowing steam from his nose out of anger.

“Timothy?” Rowland asked puzzled, “Isn’t he still marching to the South?”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “It seems that Theo has already told you this news. I had heard when he had left King’s City he also brought many men and horses as well as fully loaded military supply wagons with him, their goal must probably be to go and find some trouble for Garcia in the South. Shortly after they had left King’s City, the Alchemy Association had also began to buy all of the saltpeter.”

On hearing of this matter, Roland was even more assured that sending Theo to King’s City was indeed a very fruitful. At the beginning, he had only received the message that Timothy was gathering the rats, so in order to guard against the other side’s sudden invasion, he had specifically asked Petrov to strengthen the defenses of Longsong Stronghold. But when Roland received the next secret letter sent by his personal guard, he could finally feel relieved – this time Timothy had headed straight to the South Apparently, this recruiting hadn’t been meant to go against him.

Regarding the use of the rats, Roland and Theo had basically the same opinion. Which was, since their discipline was even worse than that of the commoners and serfs, they wouldn’t be suitable for use in direct combat. So, the only way to use this group of people would be the same as the last time. First make them become addicted to drugs, and then force them to attack and kill the enemy. It seems that his counterpart was depending on the tactic of repeatedly using armies of cannon fodder, which with taking into regard that he was ruling over 2/3 of Graycastle, was contrary to what one might expect to be a safe strategy.

But why did the Alchemy Association suddenly begin to acquiring a lot of saltpeter? Snow Powder was originally one of their products, but with its huge error rate, it could only be used for salutes during rituals. Could it be, that nowadays, after the appearance of the correct formula for gunpowder, they intended on immediately starting mass production, or were they trying to determine the optimal mix ratio through a large number lot of experiments?

Roland shook his head, trying to get rid of the doubt within his mind, he guessed that it wouldn’t have too great of an impact. After all, the industrial production of three acids and two sodas would soon begin, which would allow allowing him to step onto the path of producing an even more advanced form of gunpowder.

“Then does it mean that you can also not guarantee next month saltpeter supply of three ships?”

“This… I don’t know,” also Margaret looked a bit embarrassed but she still bluntly said, “I already spent a lot of time and effort to bring this one ship into the Western Territory, I had to purchase it from Silver City. And now that we have to face the heat of summer, the demand for saltpeter is enormous, so I’m not sure of how much I can buy. However, if it is any other season, I can guarantee the supply of the three ships.”

“I understand,” Roland took a sip of ice water, “Then try to get as much as possible next month, there is no need for you to try to force it. I also still have some goods that I want to purchase from you.”

“Oh?” Margaret sighed in relief, “What is it? Ore?”

“Washing stones used for washing laundry,” he replied, “They are muddy white and look like a wafer or pillar, but when soaked in water they will give off a soapy feeling, those things aren’t uncommon in the capital’s inns.”

“Sure enough, it’s ore,” said the merchant, smiling helplessly, “You have a big mine in your territory, yet all the goods you acquire are still minerals, that’s really something that’s hard for people to understand. Well, it’s a really common thing, so the price shouldn’t be too high, what are you planning to do with it?”

“Naturally it will be used to make it easier to wash clothes,” Roland smiled.

Washing stones were something he had discovered in the memories of the former 4th Prince, its innate character was a naturally alkali, and its main component was sodium bicarbonate. It had a strong decontaminating effect, and when used together with plant ash and pancreas it was one of three outstanding cleaning tools used in the ancient times. In the absence of an ion exchange membrane, the efficiency of using the electrolysis of salt water to collect sodium hydroxide was extremely low. Furthermore, it wasn’t possible to purchase edible salt at the price of a cabbage either. Because of this, he planned to buy natural soda and make caustic soda. And by the time he had a sufficient amount of caustic soda he could start the large-scale manufacturing of soap… as well as one of soap’s by-products, glycerin.”