Chapter 154 43. Chemical Three-State Application Questions
The originally lively shogunate had now completely quieted down. The samurai who were arguing fiercely began to think about the feasibility of Kobayata's tactics of killing Nirasaki out of thirst and cutting off the water veins. It was not yet the era when there were millions of samurai in the country and pheasants could be equipped with swords. Most samurai were passed down from several generations to dozens of generations. They had basically read books and had the ability to think.
"Nirasaki Castle relies on the wells dug in the city to obtain daily drinking water. There are no other water collection measures. Even if it rains in spring, it can't receive much rainwater. This is the biggest flaw of the entire Nirasaki at the moment, and our army can make good use of it."
Kobayata left his seat and walked in front of Yamanouchi Yoshiharu and his colleagues, holding a bamboo stick in his hand. Pointing to the mountains and rivers outside the tent, he began to talk.
"I just left the camp and followed the river to observe the direction of the Fuebuki River in this generation of Nirasaki Castle. The river has a small turn here because of the existence of Nirasaki Mountain. The accumulated water must have accumulated here under Nirasaki Mountain. This is the source of drinking water in Nirasaki Castle."
"Everyone, a well is deep if it can be dug ten people deep. It is not easy to dig a well from Nirasaki Mountain with hands and shoulders, carrying soil and stones. If the water vein is very deep, it will be difficult for the Takeda clan to dig out the water source when building the city."
"Therefore, the water vein under Nirasaki Castle must be very shallow and easy to find!"
"As long as our army finds the water vein and cuts it off, then Nirasaki will fall without a fight!"
Kobayata said loudly.
"Let's go and check it out." After listening to Kobayata's analysis, Yamauchi Yoshiharu believed in the principle of seeing is believing, and did not say any more nonsense. He stood up and left without any hesitation.
As soon as Yamauchi Yoshiharu moved, the other Yamauchi warriors could not stand there and stood up and left the tent. The attendants hurriedly handed the horses to the Yamauchi family's samurai retainers.
"Go!" The horse under Yamauchi Yoshiharu's crotch was fast, and he rode out of the camp directly. The others did not lag behind and rode their horses to catch up.
"Kobayata, do you know how to find water veins?" Yamauchi Yoshikatsu deliberately slowed down his horse and walked with Kobayata, just to ask in advance.
"I know a little, I know a little." Kobayata replied coquettishly. He wanted to say this for a long time (in that movie, everything is a little known, hahahaha.), but unfortunately he never had the chance to pretend this time. Now he finally caught a chance, and he rode away after saying it.
Yamauchi Yoshikatsu thought to himself, you stinky boy, you are just superficial brothers, and you are still hiding what you say to your family. Hurry up and catch up with Kobayata, and ask him thoroughly and clearly.
Everyone arrived not far from Nirasaki Castle, and the castle was still on high alert, with flags fluttering, watchtowers towering, and foot soldiers patrolling the walls. Yamanouchi Yoshiharu was not here to watch the battle or the castle, so he naturally did not go to see the well-prepared Nirasaki Castle, but observed the water situation across the Fuefuki River.
Kobayata jumped off his horse and pointed at the surrounding terrain with a bamboo stick, explaining one by one, and combined the reason why the water flow might form a water vein under Nirasaki Castle with geographical knowledge (I won’t go into details here, okay, I have already returned all my A-level geography scores in Jiangsu Province in high school to my teacher, and I can’t say anything one, two, three, four, five, six.), and convinced everyone on the spot.
Yamanouchi Yoshiharu was also a man of action. Since the plan had been decided, he immediately called his followers to recruit miners and miners from Shinano Mashino Gold Mine to come.
Kobayata was still immersed in the success of pretending to be great. When he saw Yamanouchi Yoshiharu calling for help, he came to his senses and quickly told him that it was not necessary, and stopped the attendant who was going back to pass on the message.
"There is no need to go back to Yamanouchi to make a big fuss to find the water vein. Just mobilize the soldiers and servants to dig a long trench between Fuebuki River and Nirasaki Castle. The rest of the ministers will have their own way." Kobayata was full of confidence.
Seeing that Kobayata was so confident, Yamanouchi Yoshiharu had no choice but to mobilize the troops and horses, gather tools and mobilize the troops to dig the long trench.
Yamanouchi Yoshikatsu saw the opportunity and pestered Kobayata again, asking for the method. Kobayata only said "the mountain man has his own trick" to get rid of him. He just didn't tell him how to cut off the water vein, which made Yamanouchi Yoshikatsu so angry that he wanted to hit him.
In just one day, a trench nearly 200 meters long and two meters deep was dug. Thousands of people from each team were mobilized to do such a simple job. If there were not too few tools, it might be faster.
Kobayata received a large amount of straw from Kitabatake University, and for the insufficient part, he tried to buy or rob from nearby houses. Anyway, it was worthless and not a big deal. He also ordered the soldiers to collect dead branches and leaves from all over the country. Fuel was not easy to obtain in early spring, so they should get as much as possible, just in case.
Then he arranged for the soldiers to fill the ditch with straw fuel and set it on fire. A big fire burned over with the north wind. Kobayata arranged one person to observe every three or five meters, and soon found the anomaly.
Due to the cold weather, the temperature of the water naturally existing outside was relatively low, and the temperature under the ditch of more than two meters was naturally not much higher. However, after setting a big fire with straw, the high temperature of the fire penetrated the ground with hundreds of degrees, and encountered shallow water veins, and the upper part of the groundwater would gradually boil. As we all know, water evaporates when it encounters heat, and gaseous water passes through a thin layer of soil. When it encounters the cold air of only a few degrees outside, it will condense into small water droplets.
The soldiers only need to observe where water droplets appear on the mud wall in the entire long ditch after the lingering fire, and they can immediately determine the specific location of the underground water veins.
After a while, a soldier shouted loudly. Xiao Pingtai and Yamauchi Yoshikatsu hurried over, and sure enough, many small water droplets condensed on the wall of this section of the ditch.
Xiao Pingtai immediately ordered people to dig deeper here. Seven or eight soldiers took shovels and dug fiercely, and the excavated soil flew everywhere. However, after digging more than one meter deep, the rolling river water continued to gush out from the bottom of the pit.
"You are really amazing. How did you do it?" Yamauchi Yoshikatsu punched Xiao Pingtai, extremely excited. The samurai foot soldiers on all sides also gathered around to watch the gushing river water.
How did Xiao Pingtai explain to him the three states of water and the principle of evaporation and gasification at high temperature and liquefaction and condensation at cold. The three states of matter problem is just an ordinary junior high school chemistry application problem in modern times, which is not difficult, but it is difficult to explain it clearly in ancient times. So Xiao Pingtai just smiled and pretended to be unfathomable.
Yamauchi Yoshikatsu saw that Xiao Pingtai was really unwilling to say more, so he stopped asking.
He just happily informed his father that he could send people into the city again to persuade them to surrender, as the water veins of the wells in the city had been completely cut off.
Brothers, please make arrangements for me!