Manuel was quite surprised. The development of gunpowder was supposed to be known only to him and his trusted master craftsmen, so how could this be?
"Don't look at me like that, Manuel," Alexius said with a hint of helplessness. "Your craftsmen are indeed tight-lipped, but you're too obvious in your actions. Collecting high-quality bird droppings and saltpeter, specially sending people to the mountains to gather sulfur, and buying good charcoal at high prices—only the ignorant would be kept in the dark..."
Ah, upon reflection, he really hadn't thought that much when collecting the materials. It was indeed his own carelessness. Manuel was speechless, only able to turn his head away awkwardly, and in his mental notebook, he jotted down N ways to protect privacy. This kind of mistake must be avoided!
Seeing Manuel's silence, Alexius could only instruct the servant to continue leading the horse forward, and he asked, "Well, actually, I just want to know the power of the gunpowder you've made."
Manuel snapped back to attention and, after less than 3 seconds of thought, revealed some of his research findings:
"Father, the gunpowder currently in use can mostly only serve as an auxiliary product for intimidating enemy troops, right? Because it's a powder, it's susceptible to moisture, sometimes even requiring on-site mixing, right? Because its components are impure and mixed with impurities, misfires are common, aren't they?"
"Yes, and that's why we're still using trebuchets now. It's infuriating. I swear, if it weren't for the cannon misfiring and exploding so ridiculously often, I would have thrown those old catapults into the Black Sea."
"But what if the gunpowder is granular? What if the gunpowder is made proportionally from impurity-free raw materials?" Manuel countered.
"My child, you mean... you've found that formula." Alexius stopped his horse in surprise, the oil lamp illuminating the astonishment on his face.
"Yes, according to reports, gunpowder made with my formula can even penetrate iron scale armor," Manuel replied. He then had a servant fetch paper and pen, took them, and quickly wrote a small line of text on the paper. After writing, he handed it to his father.
Alexius took it and greedily read the small print by the lamplight: "3/4 niter, 1/4 carbon-sulfur mixture, with the mixture being 60% carbon and 40% sulfur."
After confirming he had memorized it, Alexius cautiously slipped the note into the oil lamp to burn it away. Then, father and son exchanged a look: clearly, they had reached an agreement on this matter.
"Besides us, only those few master craftsmen should know, right?" Alexius asked carefully.
"Actually, the number of people who know still doesn't exceed five fingers. If my judgment is correct, the rest are trustworthy," Manuel answered prudently.
"That's good." Alexius let out a long breath, then changed the subject. "Manuel, do you know why I'm so cautious now?"
"Spies have infiltrated the city? Is it the Italians, the Tatars, the Greeks, or," Manuel swallowed with a hint of fear, "the Ottoman?"
"Manuel, sometimes I don't understand, what did the Ottoman do to you?" Alexius said with a helpless laugh. "With the Black Sea blocking the way, no Turk can cross, except during the time Kandar could still fight. Not even the currently flourishing Ottoman can do it!"
Can my cheap old dad not have the self-awareness of chicken feed? Manuel was at a loss for words, so he just closed his mouth and continued to quietly listen to his father talk about the internal traitor.
"Manuel, haven't you noticed? This time, as soon as Calamita Fortress was built, and I just had plans for military exercises, Kaffa wanted to dispatch a batch of mercenaries to the Black Sea."
"That's just a coincidence, isn't it?"
"If it were before, I would indeed think so, but now I don't." Just then, the Prince's residence arrived. Alexius and Manuel dismounted and instructed the servants to lead the horses to the stables. Father and son each carried an oil lamp, deliberately avoiding the servants as they entered the house, for they knew that the fewer people who knew the content of their upcoming conversation, the better.
"Before I show you these things, my child, I want to hear your thoughts first."
"My thought is, if an internal traitor truly exists, then he must hold a high position, at least on par with our people stationed in Kaffa. Father, the original plan shouldn't have been just military exercises, right?"
Alexius admired his heir even more. He looked directly at his son and said, "Yes, your instincts are sharp, my child. If this unexpected event hadn't occurred, then I would have been preparing to launch a probing attack on Kaffa in half a month."
He didn't answer his previous question, Manuel sensitively felt this point. It seemed some things he would still have to figure out on his own, after all, he might even have children by the time he officially ascended the throne.
Alexius continued, "Some things have happened in the past three months, and I think it's better to tell you now:
Last month, the Genoese here began to closely monitor the Venetians' merchant fleets. Now, Venetian fleets trading here are often followed by a group of Genoese warships. You know, we've always been in cahoots with the Venetians, or more precisely, at the beginning of the year, we finally achieved a quasi-alliance. The Venetians promised that as long as we drove all the Genoese from the northern shore of the Black Sea, then all the colonies the Genoese had built here would be ours, in exchange for a small trade privilege for them.
Half a month ago, we launched six oar-and-sail warships built with Venetian aid. However, about a week ago, the Genoese dispatched four of their four-masted carracks from their homeland, and they were the ones with cannons.
This isn't right, this is very wrong, so I specifically had that person make extensive inquiries in Kaffa, and finally found some clues."
As Alexius said this, he stood up, reached into a hidden spot in the room for a dark iron cabinet, opened it, took out a secret letter from inside, returned, and re-opened it in front of Manuel, then handed it to him.
The text on the letter was quite awkward to read, as it used Gothic words but with ancient Greek grammar, and was deliberately written in Cyrillic script. Nevertheless, Manuel painstakingly managed to understand it:
"Your Majesty, according to the Kaffa Consul, a foreign dignitary here has been acting as a spy for Genoa for at least three years. This person is deeply entrenched. Although the Kaffa authorities can directly receive intelligence from him, even the Kaffa Consul, Paolo Grimaldi, does not know his true identity. I suspect he likely reports directly to the Doge of Genoa, Simon Boccanegra."