She Came to Heal, Stayed to Conquer

”Use a knife to cut open their wounds. I want to see what exactly this ’peanut’ is,” Ashina ordered coldly.

”As you command!”

Bujia immediately responded, then led dozens of returning cavalrymen to cut open the wounds on the corpses, meticulously searching inside each one.

A sound of knives slicing through flesh echoed around them, and the air was thick with the scent of blood.

Though the Turkic soldiers were fearful, none dared to defy Ashina’s command, and they continued to check with gritted teeth.

Before long, one Turkic soldier suddenly shouted.

”Khan, Khan! We’ve found it!”

He stood up, pinching a blood-red bullet head between his fingers, and quickly ran to Ashina Khan, handing it over.

Ashina Khan received the bullet head, wiped it on his robe, removing the bloodstains from its surface.

He raised his arm, carefully examining the small metal object in the bright sunlight, his brow furrowed as he murmured to himself.

”Is this the ’peanut’?”

Actually, peanuts had already appeared in this era, so Ashina and his men always thought that peanuts were what killed their warriors.

However, when he truly held this ’peanut,’ he realized it was not food at all.

This peanut felt cold and hard to the touch, clearly made of refined iron, yet its small shape indeed resembled a peanut.

A glimmer of inquiry flashed in Ashina Khan’s eyes.

He clenched the bullet head, turned, and handed it to the guard beside him, ”Take this to Mudu and see if he can craft something similar.”

The guard, tall and burly, stepped forward cautiously upon hearing the command, taking the bullet head as though it were a precious treasure.

He nodded, turned, and swiftly departed, heading towards Mudu’s tent.

Mudu was one of the few blacksmiths within the Turkic royal court, skilled in his craft. Most of the curved swords and arrows used by the Turkic army were made by him, thus his status in the army was quite high.

Ashina Khan had high hopes for him, hoping he could unlock the secret of this ’peanut’ and replicate similar weapons.

Yet, Ashina Khan did not know that modern bullets are made with lead alloy for the bullet head, along with brass covering the bullet head and a steel cartridge.

Its manufacturing process is not something a blacksmith can mass-produce with manual hammering.

The era’s industry was too backward; even with Mudu’s exceptional skills, replicating such bullets would be as difficult as reaching the sky.

In Han Lei’s world, it was because gunpowder existed first, and with the continuous development of gunpowder technology, people began experimenting by adding various substances to gunpowder to increase its lethality.

Later, the people of Anhui Shouxian modified the bamboo-gun, adding a substance called ”Zike” to the gunpowder, utilizing the pressure from the gunpowder’s expansion to eject the ”Zike” at high speed, thus creating lethality.

This can be considered the most primitive bullet in human history.

Afterwards, it took hundreds of years for bullet technology to continuously develop and improve to today’s level.

Ashina Khan stood in place, his gaze deep as he looked at the Turkic army emerging on the horizon of the grassland, his heart filled with fear and unease.

This small ’peanut’ can kill invisibly; where did it come from? What kind of power does it hide?

These questions hovered like an evil mist over his heart, refusing to disperse.

On the Turkic side, Ashina fretted over such a powerful weapon as the ’peanut.’

While on the Da Jing side, Zhao Zun, not having slept well, rose with deep dark circles under his cool, handsome face.

Last night, after he lay down to sleep, his dreams were constant.

In the dreams, first it was Ma Cheng and the trusted aides with cold, pale faces; then it was Turkic cavalry charging deep, burning, killing, and looting within Da Jing, leaving Da Jing’s people homeless.

At times, it was Cao Xiong and Li Gang’s ugly twisted faces; at other times, it was Han Lei’s spring view soaking in the bath barrel, causing him to lose sleep quality throughout the night.

In the clear morning after the rain, the air carried the fresh scent of earth and grass.

Rainwater lingering on the eaves dripped tip-tap, as if composing a gentle melody for this tranquil morning.