The brine channels of the Jiading Prefecture salt wells shimmered with verdigris as Shen Xitang’s leather boots crushed the remnants of the *Annals of Well Management*. Xiao Heng’s Xiuchun Saber cleaved through the sealing stone of an abandoned well, and bundles of moso bamboo tubes suddenly ignited upon contact with geothermal fire. What poured from the tubes was not brine, but twelve jars of "Samarkand Thunder," a special explosive from the Timurid workshops. Beside the Chagatai script "Eleventh Year of Yongli" incised on the bottoms of the jars, the dragon-pattern watermark of the Jianzhou Plain White Banner was clearly stamped.
"Lord Thousand-Householder, look at this fuse." Her fingertips brushed over the cotton rope, saturated with saltpeter. "This 'Nine Stars Aligned' braiding technique is a secret skill brought back from Hormuz by Zheng He’s Treasure Ship fleet during the Yongle era. How did it end up here?"
Deep within the salt passages, camel bells suddenly rang. Thirty Sogdian craftsmen, heads wrapped in Muslim-style turbans, surged from the dark channels. The scales on the brass astrolabes in their hands matched the *Kunyu Wanguo Quantu* (Map of the Myriad Countries of the World) presented by Matteo Ricci in the Wanli era, down to the smallest graduation. Shen Xitang used her Silver Silk to shatter a star chart, revealing a page of the *Secret Archives of Salt and Saltpeter*—the half-million-jin production quota reported for well salt was actually sulfur being s…
Chapter 167