please make me king

Chapter 40 Crucible Technology

It is precisely because of these three characteristics that Zhao Lizi rushed to send people to report.When Zhang Shun heard this, he felt that he had encountered difficulties. Originally, he and the others tried to avoid the city as much as possible in this operation, and gathered the rebel army as the top priority.

But this city happened to block the marching route of him and others, not to mention the iron goods that he lacked most in this city.If we conquer this city, one can take its property and use it for me; two, we can smelt iron and build soldiers to increase our strength; and three, we can take the opportunity to cross the river.With these three benefits, Zhang Shun planned to ask the messenger to reward Zhao Lizi so that he could try to sneak into the city and open the city gate.

Unexpectedly, Zhao Lizi's second messenger arrived at this time, and when asked, it turned out that the hero had the same opinion. Zhao Lizi tried to enter the city pretending to be a merchant, but was discovered by the other party in time, and was turned away, unable to enter the city.

It turns out that this place is already relatively close to Qinshui City, and there are many merchants here and there who are well-informed. Due to the safety of the property, they have already prepared, so Zhao Lizi will not be able to make money in the city.Afterwards, Zhang Shun also came to Run City with his army. He saw that the city was huge, and he had neither artillery nor siege equipment in his hands, so he had nothing to do.

Zhang Shun had no choice but to ask his subordinates what to do. Ma Daochang looked at the people in the city and suggested: "These are all merchants, heavy on wealth and light on weapons. General, if you frighten, you can get some Even if they don’t have some benefits, they dare not go out of the city to fight.”

Zhang Shun heard that this was not Chen Jingzhi's old technique, so he ordered the crowd to show off their power under the city, galloping back and forth, and spreading many banners.There are more than a thousand people, but it makes them run out of the prestige of ten thousand people.Sure enough, the people in the city didn't know the art of war, and they couldn't even estimate how many of them there were, so they had to send someone to beg for mercy.

Zhang Shun was overjoyed, so he wanted to force the city to surrender, but in the end, no matter what goods Zhang Shun asked for, the man agreed, but he refused to ask for surrender.Zhang Shun had been coercing and luring people for a long time, and he finally understood the thinking of the big businessmen in the city: it is almost okay to spend money to buy peace, but it is absolutely not okay to open the door and let others slaughter it.

Zhang Shun had no choice but to blackmail hundreds of taels of money, as for weapons and armor.The city claimed that it needed to be rebuilt, and it would not happen in a day, so Zhang Shun had to give up.

Zhang Shun was about to lead his troops around the city, when Chen Jingzhi came over and said to Zhang Shun, "From my perspective, there is a village opposite the city, and there is no fortified city. The city is near the river, but the water is shallow." , just in time to send some soldiers with good water quality to attack. What the lord seeks is not to cross the river, nor the goods and weapons."

"Today's wealth has already been obtained without the effort of swords and soldiers. And this village is close to this city, and there is a lot of smoke and fire. This city has always been famous for its iron goods. If you want to come to this village, you should make a living by smelting iron and making utensils. As the saying goes, "Teaching a man to fish is worse than giving him a fish." If the lord has acquired a few artisans, and Shanxi has a lot of iron, where can we not make utensils? As for crossing the river, the lord should not be in a hurry. Where the water is shallow, the common people will know it if they ask about it.”

As soon as Zhang Shun heard it, he felt reasonable, so he ordered Zhao Lizi to choose a young man in his fifties or sixties with outstanding water skills to swim across Qinshui and capture the opposite village.Most of Zhang Shun's soldiers were recruited by Meng Jin. Originally, the main sources were Meng Jin's boatmen, fishermen, and servants and servants who went to and from merchants.Zhao Lizi is also a local "head snake", and after a while, he picked out fifty or sixty young men, took off his clothes, left only his shorts, and crossed the river with a short gun in his hand.

The village on the opposite side was watching the jokes in Runcheng City along the river, but who would have thought that these "thieves" would miss him again.Suddenly panicked, threatened by Zhao Lizi who was swimming past, they surrendered one after another.

Because of his previous mistakes, Zhao Lizi was afraid that he would mess things up again this time, so he deliberately searched for a few wooden boats from the village, and sent people across the river to ask Zhang Shun and others to command them.Zhang Shun thought to himself: Zhao Lizi has a heart.So he crossed the river with Chen Jingzhi, Wukong, Chen Jindou and others, and the rest restrained the team to guard against possible dangers in Runcheng and other places.

Zhang Shun crossed the river, and asked the local old man to find out that the village is called Liushan Village, and the mountain next to it is Tiantan Mountain, the village is at the foot of the mountain, and the sulfur and iron products are smelted in the village.

Hearing this, Zhang Shun was overjoyed. He came from a later generation. At that time, the country suffered enough from backward technology and deeply realized the profound impact of advanced military technology represented by firearms on warfare.Since joining the army, he has been unable to sleep at night, thinking about how to get an advanced firearm all day long, playing with the method of queuing up and shooting.Now hearing that sulfur can be refined here, why don't you feel happy?

This sulfur is the key raw material for making gunpowder. There is a saying in later mine warfare: one nitrate, two sulfur and three charcoals. This sulfur is sulfur. Zhang Shun hurriedly asked the old man to take him into the village.

The old man was startled and frightened, but under the sword he had no choice but to obey.Entering the village, Zhang Shun found that the houses in this village were very strange, they were built with dark cylindrical objects.There is a hole in the middle of these objects, black and dense, like eyes staring at themselves.

Zhang Shun's scalp was numb from these "eyes", and he asked strangely: "Old man, what are the customs here, why are you using this kind of bricks and stones to build walls?"

"Ah? This is not brick and stone, this is a crucible. Don't joke about it. We make iron and sulfur for our living. We don't have much land. We are so poor that we can't afford brick and stone, so we use the abandoned crucible for iron smelting. Building walls to build a house, that's why this house was built. Although it looks ugly, it is also durable." The old man replied tremblingly.

"Crucible steel?" Zhang Shun was shocked when he heard it.He has only roughly heard of this kind of statement in later online novels. It is said that Damascus steel is a kind of crucible steel.Some foreign slaves even claim that "crucible steel" is an advanced technology, while traditional Chinese cast iron is an inferior method.It is said that during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, China also had this kind of technology, but it was not heard of afterwards.Zhang Shun thought that this kind of technology had long been lost in China, but he didn't expect that there are still relics in this valley.

In fact, this is Zhang Shun’s ignorance. In Shanxi, the crucible iron-smelting technology has a long history, and Jintie is famous all over the world for this reason. It was not until modern times that it was impacted by Western new technology steel, and it gradually declined.

Therefore, Zhang Shun hurriedly urged the old man to watch the legendary "crucible steel" technology.Hearing this, the old man said helplessly: "Iron smelting in a crucible has been done like this for generations. As for 'crucible steel', I have never heard of it."

It turns out that Zhang Shun didn't know much about it. The so-called "crucible steel" technology was invented by the British in 1742. Here, the crucible technology is nothing more than ironmaking.

　Since the author has a lot of things recently, the update time is too tight, and there are many typos in the article. I hope everyone understands that the author will revise it again when he is free in the near future.Everyone is welcome to catch bugs, thank you for your support
　　
　
(End of this chapter)