Da Wei Chun

Chapter 64
Seeing that the bronze Buddha entered the iron box and was about to set it on fire, Li Zhang asked in a trembling voice, "Really... is it going to melt?"

This is a god...

Lang Jun and his father, aren't they afraid of the immortals' sins?
Li Chengzhi almost threw the clay in his hand onto Li Zhang's face.

The pants are all taken off, you tell me this?

He glared at Li Song fiercely: How do you do ideological mobilization?

Li Song scolded angrily: "How did I tell you before? If you don't make this bronze statue, where will you get the iron to forge the armor? Could it be that you will be fighting with your shirtless?"

Shirtless?
Li Zhang lowered his head and said in a voice like an ant: "It's not impossible!"

"boom!"

Li Song threw the clay tablet in his hand, and smashed it on Li Zhang's head: "It should make you stupid... It doesn't matter if you die, what about my grandfather, your uncle, and your brother? How many? Can a dead bottle be more important than the life of a loved one?"

Seeing that his father was angry, Li Zhang held his head and didn't dare to say a word.

Still his peers understand him.

Li Liang put his arm around his shoulder, and whispered in a low voice, "My Li family started out with military exploits and only serves as a soldier (Chi You), when did you believe in this mortal body made of clay sculpture and copper? Besides, didn't you shout yesterday that you want to beg your husband? Would you give you a sharp weapon like Fourth Uncle (Li Song)'s horse lance? If you don't melt the copper, what will you use to exchange the iron, and what will you use to buy the mulberry gun barrel?"

Hearing the first half of the sentence, Li Zhang was still indifferent, but when he heard the second half of the sentence, his eyes lit up as if the electricity was on.

Santo's lance?

"Well...then melt..."

Li Songqi's face turned blue.

It sounds as if you said that you don't melt, and it will not melt today?
As Lang Jun said: It's really itchy...

Li Song thought that some people would doubt it, and there were indeed some people who doubted: such as his younger brother Li Bo, and his younger brother Li Feng.

After all, this is a god and Buddha, but all people will have a heart of reverence to some extent, including him.

As for Li Chengzhi?
Most of the time, Li Song treats him as a person...

When Li Song just said, "I can't tell which day, these treasures are the foundation of my Li family's uprising", Li Bai and Li Feng are just like Li Zhang in front of him, his eyes lit up...

If it really succeeds one day, this will be a matter of shining for all generations, and it will be a great honor. Are you afraid to melt a few bottles of Buddha?
But Li Song didn't expect that after talking about Li Bai and Li Feng, Li Zhang, who usually obeyed his words, was reluctant?
Fortunately, I didn't bring Li Xian, otherwise I would have to jump up!
two idiots...

Although Li Zhang has a straight temperament, his mouth is very strict.Besides, with Li Song pressing him, he would definitely not dare to talk nonsense.

Seeing that he didn't talk anymore, Li Chengzhi didn't talk anymore.

He quickly filled the pottery clay, sealed the box, and then instructed Li Zhao and Li Ming to add coke to the furnace.

The process is actually very simple, much easier than making steel, just be careful not to overheat the iron box, don't smelt the iron box, and when the copper juice runs out, don't shatter the pottery fan inside when the iron box is overturned... …

Not long after burning, the burning liquid flowed out from the pottery ditch at the bottom of the blast furnace.

At this time, the furnace temperature is only three or four hundred degrees. Where can the copper be melted?
This is the tin and lead in the copper.

After the pottery clay was dried, the furnace was re-sealed, and after burning for less than half an hour, a large amount of copper juice flowed out.

Li Chengzhi immediately stopped two windmills, leaving only two windmills, blowing the wind evenly.

After two minutes, Li Chengzhi breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the thin iron bars inserted in the chimney stood straight.

The temperature is well controlled...

Li Song took Li Feng and his three nephews to quickly move the steel plate with the mud on it, and carefully let the copper juice flow into it, trying not to waste a drop.

Each steel plate is one foot square, and ten clay molds are neatly adhered to it. The copper ingots cast from each clay mold weigh about ten pounds.

This template can cast [-] catties of copper. Li Chengzhi exhausted all the steel that he had smelted in the past two days and one night, so he barely made [-] sheets.

When these templates are used up, they are only about [-] catties, so he never wanted to leave any copper slag for these monks from beginning to end...

As the flame went out, the surface of the copper ingot in the mud fan slowly turned black.Li Chengzhi asked Li Song and others to quickly smash the mud fan, and poured all the copper ingots into the pool next to them.

The pool boiled for a while, and the sky was filled with fog.

Li Bo asked inexplicably, "Langjun, why does copper also need to be quenched?"

"What quenching, this is copper washing!" Li Chengzhi replied indifferently, "Didn't you see that the copper just burned is black?"

Can it be washed with water?

Everyone just thought it was strange, and they admired Li Chengzhi even more: Lang Jun knows so much!

Li Chengzhi could not explain to them what is called "copper oxide hydrogen reduction".

In fact, washing in this way cannot completely clean the black surface of the copper ingot. Li Chengzhi's main purpose is to make the copper softer, so that people can know that this is pure copper without lead.

When the fog cleared, he instructed Li Zhang to use the claw fence to fish out all the copper ingots, and ten copper ingots were neatly placed in front of Li Chengzhi.

Under the light of the torches, each piece exudes a mesmerizing brilliance.

Except for Li Chengzhi, one of them counted as one, all of them couldn't stop their heartbeats speeding up and their breathing getting heavier.

It's not that they haven't seen copper, they just haven't seen such beautiful copper.

Nonsense, can it be beautiful, there is gold in it...

The melting points of the two are similar, so it is very troublesome to extract them separately, and there is not much gold content in the other one, so Li Chengzhi just did it.

This is called Cai Jin, also known as rose gold...

However, only one side of each copper is this color, and the other five sides are still red and black.

Anyway, it was going to be spent soon, but Li Chengzhi acted very indifferently, orderly instructing Li Song and others to pick up the copper juice, quench the water, and fish for the copper ingots.

An hour later, there was no copper liquid flowing out of the pottery ditch. Li Chengzhi immediately stopped the bellows and counted the copper ingots cast.

The fourth template has just been used up. The copper ingot is about [-] catties, and the mixture of tin and lead is about [-] catties.

Li Chengzhi's face darkened.

This equals just over half the copper content?
A monk with a black heart, even the Buddha lied?

The rest did not speak, just looked at him quietly.

They had persuaded Li Chengzhi before that, regardless of whether he was lead or tin, what would be melted out, wouldn't it be enough to cast it all for him?

It was Li Chengzhi who insisted on refining pure copper.

But the loss is not big.

The color of the copper ingot is so bright, as long as you know the goods, you will know that it is mixed with gold. Even if the price is not double that of the three-seven bronze, it will not be too bad...

Next, is the most critical step: the cast iron statue.

This is related to whether Li Song, Li Bo, Li Feng and other Li family backbones will support him in melting all these bronze statues. Therefore, Li Chengzhi is very serious.

Using iron chains and levers to turn the iron box over, and making sure that the model was not damaged, Li Chengzhi directed Li Zhang and Li Liang to pour the smelted iron juice into it.

The pottery column used as the inner mold was a bit large, so thirteen crucibles were filled, and the iron box was full.

He figured it out, and if he died, it would only be [-] pounds.

Saved a bit...

Half an hour later, when he put down the iron box and smashed Tao Fan and saw the true face of the iron statue, Li Chengzhi laughed nervously.

Not to mention the facial features, even the pattern of the bun and the folds of the clothes are exactly the same...

Li Song and the others were even more excited and could not speak.

As Lang Jun said, it is exactly the same?
This is tens of thousands of kilograms of copper...

……

By the time the second statue was melted, the sky was already slightly bright.

In order to prevent anyone from peeping, Li Chengzhi let a few juniors sleep directly in the hall, and let Li Song, Li Bo, and Li Feng pack the cast copper ingots into boxes.

He counted, and it was just [-] pounds.

According to this ratio, in the end, at most, you can get more than [-] catties of copper.

But it is enough to deal with the current difficulties.

The thing he lacked the most at this time happened to be not expensive.

For this kind of colored copper, at least three stones of corn are exchanged for one catty, and at most three thousand catties of copper are consumed for ten thousand stones.

Coarse iron materials, that is, sponge iron that has just been burned from iron ore, are not expensive. In the past, one stone of grain can be exchanged for more than ten or twenty catties. With this kind of colored copper, one catty can be exchanged for at least fifty or sixty catties. return.

Then there are the horses.

This is the Great Wei, and it is also the most indispensable thing in Longxi.

During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen, the Hexi Racecourse had not been moved to Luoyang. At that time, it was said to raise 200 million horses. In the Wei Dynasty, there were two such large racecourses: the Hanoi Racecourse in Hetao, and the Heyang Racecourse near Luoyang.

Therefore, the price of the Great Wei horse is not expensive. A horse of Xiliang that can be pulled to the battlefield will be worth a good farming ox money: twenty stone millet, or ten catties of copper.

Li Chengzhi's suggestion is to replace all grains with at least [-] stone.

Twenty thousand shi is 240 million catties, plus the existing [-] shi, even if these nearly ten thousand people eat freely, they can eat until the beginning of autumn.

But no one agrees...

Li Bo knelt down on one knee and looked at Li Chengzhi excitedly: "Lang Jun, did you remember the day Yinguang came to cheat the door, the servant told you: If you can give the servant three hundred cavalry, let alone ten thousand Bandit soldiers, even if there is another [-], the servants can break through...

Instead of buying food, it is better to buy iron and horses, and train all these thousand soldiers as armored cavalry. The servant can guarantee that within three months, the servant will be able to take this iron army and drive this group of thieves out of Jingzhou... "

Can [-] heavy cavalry defeat [-] rebels?

Theoretically, the odds are pretty good.

Li Chengzhi also vaguely remembered that there were many such battles in the history books.

But the problem is, even if he doesn't understand it, he knows that a war cannot be won or lost based on the numbers on the paper.

There are too many influencing factors, such as weather, such as geography, such as luck...

Not to mention other things, apart from the [-] veterans of the Li family, the remaining [-] soldiers could not be regarded as having fought on the battlefield. Compared with those refugees, their strength was limited.

Who can guarantee victory every time?
That thief chief Liu Huiwang is not a stupid pig. After suffering a loss, how could he be tough with you after knowing that you are an iron cavalry?
You are only [-], and others are at least [-]. Once you go up the mountain and fight guerrillas with you, how much role can you play as a thousand cavalry?

Nearly [-] people's lives depended on him, and Li Chengzhi really didn't dare to gamble.

What's more, even if you win, there will be many troubles.

Li Chengzhi squinted his eyes and asked in a solemn voice, "One thousand cavalry? Li Bo, don't you know how many 'tiger cavalry' are in the imperial court?"

The tiger cavalry he mentioned is the most elite heavy cavalry in the Great Wei Dynasty.

Dawei claimed to have ridden over [-] tigers, but Li Chengzhi wondered if he had over [-]?
Don't look at the early Sui and Tang Dynasty, the national strength is so strong, Yang Jian's Xiaoguowei and Li Shimin's Xuanjia army did not exceed [-]...

But a small Li family can actually arm thousands of iron cavalry?
What do you let the court think, what do you let the noble family think?
This is not the way to find death...

As soon as Li Chengzhi's words were out of his mouth, Li Bo reacted.

Just thinking about making meritorious deeds, but forgetting whether it will bring disaster?

He blushed and opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say?
Li Song knelt down again: "I want to let Langjun know that because of the rebellion of the chaotic people, the customs defense in Jingzhou is almost non-existent. As long as you are more careful and buy several times, no one should notice that these iron materials and war horses are mine. Purchased by the Li family.

But if we wait for the war to be levelled and the defenses to be reinstated, it will be extremely difficult to find such an opportunity.So the servant thought that even if I didn't use it to deal with this mess, my Li family would never let go of such a good opportunity..."

Li Chengzhi couldn't help but stab Li Song.

good opportunity?

You might as well just say that you are running for rebellion.

But thinking about it in reverse, even if you don't think about rebellion, at least you have to protect yourself.At the very least, it is necessary to ensure that before the chaos in the imperial court, the rogue thieves cannot hit the Kongtong Mountain.

He pondered for a while, then decided directly: "Then half buy food, half horses and iron..."

only half?
Li Bo wanted to persuade him again, and Li Song gave him a fierce look.

Li Songke always remembered what Li Chengzhi told him on the night when Li Chengzhi and Hu Baozong turned against each other: If he dared to mention half a word related to "Li's Dangxing", Li Chengzhi would not spare him...

"The servant will obey the order!" Li Song responded in a loud voice.

(End of this chapter)