CHAPTER 27 #5
“I’ve brought the person who knows what happened,” Niccolo turned, and a white-bearded old man was brought in by the guards. “He was the first to know about it, and he was hiding not far away when the explosion happened.”
Hedy gestured for the guards to release him, feeling a sense of unease.
Since it wasn’t the leakage of black powder ingredients, and there were no continuing riots or attacks, could it be… a scientific experiment accident?
“Who are you?”
“My lord,” the old man trembled in fear. “I’m the gatekeeper. I was just fooling around with a cat a little further away from the warehouse.”
“What happened?” She asked. “Did you see the explosion?”
“Actually… I almost ran my legs off to escape,” he showed her the burn holes in his clothes and pants, speaking with a hint of grievance. “This whole thing is just baffling—could it be that God was angry or something?”
“Wait,” Leonardo interrupted his rambling. “What happened in the warehouse?”
“Nothing happened, really,” the old man said, still confused.
“It was a nitric acid storage warehouse, and the nitric acid inside was stored in large barrels—according to His Majesty’s previous orders, no flint or anything like that was allowed in or out of such places.
That student followed the rules! He just carried a bag of cotton, saying the other warehouse didn’t have enough space, so he left it here for a while! ”
Cotton?
Hedy paused, a sudden realization dawning on her.
Could it be that when nitric acid meets cotton, it directly becomes an explosive?
“Half of Florence Academy is gone!” The old man was almost in tears. “It’s been completely blown to pieces!”
——
The restoration work at the Florence Academy was progressing very slowly.
It was said that on the day of the explosion, a few instructors had taken their students to the countryside for experiments and collection. When they returned, they found the school had been blown up, and they rushed back in tears to recover the materials.
The explosion itself wasn’t very large in terms of smoke, with more of the damage coming from the burning curtains and wooden furniture.
No one yet understood the cause of the explosion, but after tallying the death toll, there were about six casualties.
At the time of the explosion, people thought it was an attack from enemy forces, and many rushed home to grab weapons.
But when they returned, spears and pickaxes in hand, they found that several nearby streets were unchanged, with only the area around the academy being in disarray.
The student who had been carrying the cotton was completely obliterated in the blast, leaving no remains. Although there was some damage to the documents and materials, the losses weren’t particularly large.
The academy’s old buildings and the nearby experimental fields suffered varying degrees of damage, and what remained was precarious, clearly uninhabitable.
Hedy immediately allocated funds and summoned workers to begin constructing a larger academy to the north of the city, while also sending people to visit the families of the deceased, offering them sufficient compensation and comfort.
She temporarily lent a house from the Medici family, which had been vacant, to the frightened students and teachers, allowing them to continue their studies there until the new academy was completed—but no indoor experiments were allowed.
In the meantime, the students and teachers were still busy salvaging other documents from the ruins.
Leonardo instructed his men to bring lifting equipment to help, and many concerned citizens and workers followed to assist in clearing the site.
Hedy didn’t fully understand the composition of the explosives, but she could sense the connection between the two elements.
What that student had done with cotton and nitric acid solution was now something irretrievable.
For safety reasons, she couldn’t let Leonardo take that risk—convicts and war criminals might come in handy for such tasks.
With these considerations in mind, another question arose—where should they conduct their experiments?
Normally, electrical or biological experiments were carried out indoors, and outdoor experiments were done either in the countryside or in the academy’s courtyard.
But explosives required secret formulas and raw materials.
If others bought or mixed the ingredients, even the Old Palace could turn to dust in one night.
When the Italian Empire was first established, Hedy took over the Medici family’s intelligence network, expanding and merging it.
Lorenzo had managed it very well, with mature and reliable action signals, meeting protocols, and a self-checking and reporting system to prevent external conspirators.
After careful thought, Hedy entrusted Leonardo to establish a new covert organization on her behalf.
It needed to have a sufficiently discreet name and appearance—such as an inconspicuous vineyard that looked no different from the other farms in the area.
At the same time, there should be no idle bystanders nearby—any property within five miles should ideally be purchased and checked, ensuring the organization’s security at a central location.
A linked identity verification system and strict confidentiality regulations needed to be established.
When conducting core experiments such as explosions, no personnel were allowed to leak any information or enter or exit freely.
They found a suitable location between the cities of Luca and Florence.
It wasn’t too far away, but it was also not easily discoverable by others.
From now on, more related experiments would take place there—from gunpowder and firearms to explosives—they could keep many secrets safely hidden in this place forever.
Hedy had to use religious methods to strengthen further control.
Anyone involved in the scientific experiments had to press a blood seal on the Protestant cross and swear an oath before God.
In an era without cameras and listening devices, she could only rely on this primitive method to protect certain core technologies, but it was effective enough.
A group of death row prisoners were secretly brought to this place—among them were demons guilty of molesting young girls and unfilial sons who had tortured the elderly.
The mystery surrounding the reaction between nitric acid and cotton was finally starting to be uncovered.
When combined, they didn’t explode under normal conditions.
But if they were heated with a magnifying glass to a certain degree, or if stored for too long, the mixture would spontaneously ignite.
When storing such chemicals, they had to be kept in the dark, away from heat, padded with non-combustible materials, and kept moist.
The professors recorded the relevant observations and began conducting single-variable explosion experiments.
Black powder was suitable for use in firearms—easy to store and transport but prone to misfires.
After black powder exploded, there would be a lot of black residue on the site, making it very difficult to clean.
However, nitrocellulose, when it exploded, didn’t produce black smoke, and the amount needed to trigger an explosion was far less than that of black powder.
The vineyard was named Lorenzo.
It had a large enough experimental field, with complete emergency and safety facilities, and was hidden with great care.
From this moment on, Florence would no longer feel any tremors. Aside from the fact that there were fewer ‘visiting’ students and teachers at the academy, no one cared about the story behind the explosion anymore.