No, I was just a concubine, how did I become the queen?

Shengjing.

There are many residential houses in Fujinmen, and the population is mixed, and all kinds of people settle here.

Most of the houses here are not big, the houses are of varying ages, and the courtyards are mostly small and messy.

In the narrow alley, half of the house was filled with firewood, and on the other side, a small flower bed was built to grow some vegetables.

If an unfamiliar person enters the alley, he will be dizzy and bump into things.

A young man in gray cloth clothes jumped into the alley skillfully, jumped over a bucket with his left foot, slid to the right and passed over a vegetable garden.

"Dad, I'm back~" His voice had already spread before he reached the gate of the courtyard.

A young man in a long gown stood up in the yard, frowned, and came over to open the gate.

"Where have you been so early in the morning?" He looked serious, and his young face showed the stern look of an old father.

The boy shrank back when he saw him open the door, and crouched down to get in under his arm that was holding the door.

Then, in two or three steps, she jumped behind an old man with white hair and beard in the yard, put her arms around his neck and said coquettishly, "Dad, look at my third brother!"

Dai Zi was fiddling with the parts in his hand when his youngest son grabbed his neck and strangled him, almost making him suffocate.

However, he was very tolerant towards his youngest son. He coughed a few times, smiled and patted his hands.

"Okay, Gao'er, stop making trouble."

Dai Gao winked at his third brother and stuck out his tongue, looking mischievous.

Dai Heng couldn't stand seeing him like this. He wanted to get a ruler and hit his palms until they turned red.

But this kid has been naughty since he was young, and he is thick-skinned and not afraid of pain, so he will be quiet for a while after being beaten.

Soon other evil ideas came up, giving him a headache.

"Have you memorized the two articles from yesterday?" Dai Heng took a deep breath and turned the conversation to the main topic. "If you can't memorize them today, don't go out for the next ten days!"

After Dai Gao was given a house arrest warning, he looked up at his father pitifully and said, "Dad, I'm not going out to play. I'm going to do some serious work."

As he spoke, he took off the pocket hanging around his waist and tore open the opening to show Dai Zi.

Dai Zi leaned over and saw that it was full of white...

"Hiss~~Where did you get so much?"

This exclamation made Dai Heng unable to help but move closer to take a look.

Just one look made him tremble all over: "Are you going to kill our family?"

Dai Gao's pocket is full of saltpeter!

Because it can be used to make gunpowder, the imperial court strictly controlled saltpeter.

You can buy some medicine at the pharmacy, but only in small doses.

If someone reported this big bag of saltpeter, the whole family would go to jail!

Dai Zi was also a little worried: "Gao'er, don't let someone set you up!"

He was framed and exiled here by Emperor Kangxi.

In the 43rd year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, he was granted amnesty and was able to regain his citizenship and live in this small house in Shengjing.

Although he is indeed not a threat now, what if his former enemies want to kill him and frame him again?

Dai Gao looked at the two men, who were frightened and panicked, and said hurriedly: "I collected all this myself, bit by bit, every day before dawn."

He found a cave with saltpeter always precipitated on the wall, and then he collected it bit by bit.

Because he knew that his father was once the famous "General Weiyuan".

But later he was framed by a villain and ended up being exiled to Shengjing.

Now that they were no longer exiled criminal slaves, Dad had started tinkering with these things again, and he wanted to help.

Of course, he himself was also very interested in these things and had already learned a lot secretly.

Dai Zi felt relieved when he heard him say that, but Dai Heng's face turned pale.

"Dad, please don't touch the gunpowder again," Dai Heng said with a grim expression. "Our family really can't withstand another turmoil!"

He had only been in exile for a little over two months when Dai Zi was exiled, and suffered along with him.

When he was a child, he never had a good day and was always worried.

Later, things stabilized, and after my younger brother was born, things got better.

However, his childhood of constant anxiety made him cautious, and he studied hard in order to bring his family back to health through the imperial examination.

His younger brother was very smart and could learn anything quickly. He also placed his hope on his younger brother studying hard and taking the imperial examination.

But the younger brother was obsessed with strange and lewd techniques and was fascinated by gunpowder like his father.

What will this family do without him?!

Dai Zi is already 58 years old, which is considered old. Coupled with the hardships he suffered in middle age, he looks even older.

Facing this third son who has been indebted since childhood and always has a gloomy face, he feels a little insecure.

He smiled ingratiatingly: "Don't worry, Henry, we'll just study it at home, no one will know."

Dai Gao, however, persisted: "Third brother, the Qing Dynasty is now attacking Japan, and I heard that the ships are carrying cannons."

"But the Shenjiying has long been in decline. They might have even forgotten how to build cannons."

"I think this is our family's opportunity!"

Dai Gao is only ten years old this year. He has not yet reached the stage of growth and looks like a child.

What he said at this time was so confident and presumptuous that it made people angry just by looking at him.

"Opportunity, opportunity!" Dai Heng was furious. "If we were Manchus, this would be an opportunity!"

"But we are Han Chinese. The imperial court won't trust us. This is a death warrant!"

When I was a child, I didn’t know this, and I always thought that the Dai family had suffered such a fate because of the harm done by villains.

Later, after reading and gaining more knowledge, he realized that the real reason was Emperor Kangxi's distrust.

With such a powerful weapon in the hands of a Han Chinese, who could sleep soundly?

Therefore, the reason why such a crude frame-up could succeed was simply because it had the tacit approval of those in higher positions.

How could Dai Zi not understand, but he still had delusions.

He murmured, "But the situation has changed now. If I don't give it a try..." How could he be willing to do that?

He was not only fighting for his own career, but more for the fate of the Qing Dynasty.

Everyone knows that gunpowder is a powerful weapon, and more than ten years ago, Nan Huairen had brought their country's cannons to the Qing Dynasty.

No one knows whether that kind of cannon was the most powerful one there at that time.

What if there is something even more powerful?

More than ten years have passed, and the Qing Dynasty's gunpowder weapons have hardly developed. What about the other side?

Comparing the two sides, if other countries obtained such weapons and attacked the Qing Dynasty, it would be a disaster for them.

For the sake of the country, the people and himself, he cannot give up researching gunpowder!

He looked directly at Dai Heng and said, "Some things have to be done by someone. Not only Daddy has to do it, Gao'er has to pass it on too."

Dai Heng was anxious: "Dad! You..."

Before he could finish his words, there was a knock on the door outside the courtyard: "Is anyone there?"