I am the king of the dead

Chapter 41 Practice can bring out the truth

"No gift, no gift."

Zhu Qiyu asked with a smile, "Is Yu Shangshu worried?"

"That's not true. It's just that Your Majesty, the minister was just about to lie down when he remembered that he hadn't inspected the gunpowder barracks yet. A little careless storage of gunpowder could cause a catastrophe. Millions of kilograms of gunpowder were stored, and the minister came to take a look."

"It just happens that the furnace will open tomorrow, so I came over to have a look, and I met Your Majesty." Yu Qian said with a smile, then immediately thought of something, and said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, I actually have something to say."

"Oh? What's wrong?" Zhu Qiyu was taken aback, looking at Yu Qian's solemn expression, and asked suspiciously.

Yu Qian hesitated to speak, so he could only whisper: "Actually, Your Majesty, the old masters of Wang Gongchang said, Your Majesty's method is effective, but it may not be able to make steel tomorrow, and what you can get is white iron. not steel."

White iron?
Yu Qian motioned to the craftsman standing next to him to bring a piece of iron and said, "That's it. Most of the burning coal comes from Xishan. Even if it is washed and selected, it is still not hot enough."

"The craftsmen mentioned a method. Some time ago, the walls were clear, and the wood in the city was piled up like mountains. If you can use wood to burn charcoal, and then use charcoal as the base material, it can be hotter."

"This piece of white iron is the white iron obtained by craftsmen using charcoal fired from wood as the base material to smelt."

Yu Qian handed the white iron in his hand to Zhu Qiyu. Zhu Qiyu took it and looked at it for a long time. The fracture was silvery white, but it was still pig iron, not wrought iron.

Wrought iron is actually another name for iron and steel.

Yu Qian sighed and said, "But there is more firewood burning in the city, so how can there be so much charcoal for Wang Gongchang to use? This method is faster, but more expensive."

The craftsmen of Wang Gong Factory are not without pioneering spirit. They have already begun to explore the use of charcoal for steelmaking in the era when there was no thermometer.

Coupled with Zhu Qiyu's bellows, it is possible to directly make steel.

"Then burn a stove with charcoal tomorrow." Zhu Qiyu affirmed Qian's statement. He asked Xing'an to pack him a bag of washed coal and prepare to go back to study.

Yu Qian bowed in front of the Jingtai furnace to say goodbye.

Zhu Qiyu looked at Yu Qian's back.

Similar to Zhuge Liang, Yu Qian was ordered to be in danger when the army was defeated.

When Zhuge Liang was ordered by Liu Bei's army to defeat Yiling and the guest died in Baidi City, the Shu Han at that time was in turmoil.

At this time, Yu Qian was ordered to be in the predicament of the new mourning of the Sixth Division and the capture of the Daming Emperor. Daming was also plagued by disasters, the southeast uprising, the southwest rebellion, and the tile razor.

However, Yu Qian was also looking at Zhu Qiyu's back in the dark. At this time, he came to have a look. It was really a blessing for Daming, and it was the right time for Mingjun.

In the afternoon of the next day, Zhu Qiyu looked at the iron blocks with great annoyance. They were still all white iron. They were a little bit closer to steel, but they were still pig iron, which was not suitable for weapons.

The emperor of the Ming Dynasty ingeniously got along with the idea of ​​hot blasting to further increase the furnace temperature. When the molten iron splashed out from the front bag, the bright yellow that was as hot as the sun made people couldn't help cheering.

When everyone thought that Daming finally had a way to make steel directly, the craftsmen were so enthusiastic, they turned on the furnace and poured cast iron ingots, regardless of the hot molten iron, they were disappointed to find out.

The oven temperature is adequate, but not quite enough.

All iron ingots, without exception, are white iron, of course it is infinitely close to steel, but it is not steel.

They surrounded the iron ingot and looked at Zhu Qiyu blankly. Zhu Qiyu held an iron ingot with residual warmth in his hand.

For white iron, Zhu Qiyu, ignoring the heat, squatted on the ground and checked all the iron ingots, all of which were white iron.

These white irons are better than all the white irons of Wang Gong factory, with very few impurities.

However, changing from iron to steel still requires extremely cumbersome steps, such as thousands of tempering, or re-melting and frying steel. These two methods undoubtedly increase a great deal of cost and time.

where is the problem?

Zhu Qiyu stood up and looked around at the bewildered craftsmen for a week.

For more than ten days, Zhu Qiyu has been studying the matter of steelmaking, and he has put forward a lot of practical opinions. He also has great expectations for this steelmaking. With the amount of information, steelmaking is still not an easy task?
But the reality told him that there was still no steel.

Yu Qian tentatively comforted: "Your Majesty, this white iron is extremely wear-resistant and can be used on farm implements for ploughshares."

"What can we make now? We can make tables, chairs, stools, teapots and bowls, and simple farm tools to grow food. What else can we do?" Zhu Qiyu took a deep breath and asked back.

This is the status quo of Ming Dynasty.

Yu Qian is well-meaning, but Zhu Qiyu is not so indifferent, he is just angry with himself.

White iron is extremely wear-resistant and used on farm tools, and it is indeed a good hand, but it is not the steel he wants.

For a country, steel is its backbone.

"Is the furnace for frying steel on? I'm going to have a look!" Zhu Qiyu refused to do so, he flicked his sleeves, walked into the private house of Wang Gongchang, took off his Yishan crown, and untied the jade bundle. He took off the five-dragon gold woven robe, put on a thick linen shirt worn by the craftsmen in Wang Gong's factory, and walked out the door.

"Let's go and see, I'm going to fry the steel myself today!" Zhu Qiyu firmly believes that the truth can be practiced.

Since you have failed, you must find the reason from the failure, go to the workshop of frying steel to see it, and do it yourself.

When Zhu Qiyu brought Jinyiwei to the Fried Steel Workshop, he shocked the craftsmen who lived there. They knew that this was the emperor. After all, Zhu Qiyu had been running here every day for more than ten days.

But this is the first time they have seen the dress of this burlap shirt.

"See Your Majesty, Your Majesty Wanfu Jinan!" Several craftsmen took the lead to kneel, but Zhu Qiyu stopped them and said, "Continue to fry steel, I want to observe."

The stove was not much different from the one used by Zhu Qiyu. The molten iron flowed out of a square pond made of refractory bricks five feet away. A group of craftsmen threw the mud in the bag into the molten iron and picked up the stick next to it. Stir.

"What is this?" Zhu Qiyu picked up a handful of mud and asked in confusion.

"Dirty tide mud is the powder of iron powder and quartz stone." A craftsman replied stutteringly.

Zhu Qiyu picked up a willow stick, stood on the edge of the bricks in Fangtang, and began to learn how to stir as a craftsman.

The molten iron was very hot, and after standing on the Fangtang for a while, Zhu Qiyu was sweating, and the willow stick in his hand burned away after a while. He picked up another one and continued to stir.

Hot, Zhu Qiyu quickly understood how hot the idiom of sweating is.

He only felt dizzy from being scorched by the molten iron, and even his brain was a little sore.

He even smelled the smell of burning feathers, which Zhu Qiyu knew was the smell of protein oxidation.

He looked at the bright yellow molten iron, stirring like a jelly under the willow stick, and suddenly knew where his problem was.

These molten irons are stirred, why do they not cool, but become hot?That's the crux of the problem.

He put down the stick and walked down the brick edge of the Fangtang.

Daming courtiers have no power to stop the emperor from messing around.

For example, Zhu Zhanji likes to play with crickets, Zhu Houzhao likes the leopard room and beasts to burn his own palace, Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houjun likes to cultivate immortals, and Zhu Youxiao likes carpenters.

But the emperor of the Ming Dynasty is in control, who can persuade him?
After Zhu Qiyu walked down the brick edge of Fangtang, Yu Qian breathed a sigh of relief, it was too dangerous!

Every year, there are craftsmen who slip into the molten iron because of their feet, leaving no bones.

How could your Majesty be so foolish!

"I understand, I understand!" Zhu Qiyu's extremely heroic and handsome face was blackened by smoke, but he didn't care at all.

He figured out what to do, and he found out where the problem was!
"I'll draw you a drawing now, I'll change this front bag today, and tomorrow, let's try again!" Zhu Qiyu said excitedly as he walked.

Although Yu Qian didn't know what the emperor wanted to understand, he still bowed his head and said, "Your Majesty, I stayed up until the end of the night last night, so I don't have to stay up with my ministers today."

"It's okay, I'm still young." Zhu Qiyu said nonchalantly, he didn't even change his clothes, he drew drawings at Wang Gong Factory and modified them on the spot.

(End of this chapter)