Chastity Layman 2

Chapter 1241 Alchemy of Turning Iron into Copper

"The price is easy to say. If the quantity is large, the cost will definitely be reduced. If the court purchases a large amount, I predict that this kind of glass mirror should be cheaper than the three-jin bronze mirror. People can also get one or two hundred for the replacement. money subsidies."

"Really?" Yin Anguo was very prosperous, "Then the officials will report this matter to the court when they turn around."

Qin Lang smiled slightly, a huge order of millions of glass mirrors, this is another big profit.

"Of course the Qin family has no problem in this regard, but if they want to produce so many mirrors, build more kilns, hire more workers, etc., I hope the imperial court can give corresponding support. For example, we want to build a mirror in Luzon. More glass kilns and mirror workshops require more manpower, and we are currently limited by the imperial court’s immigration policy, and we have been short of manpower.”

Yin Anguo smiled awkwardly.

"This lower official will make a statement to the court, but I can't guarantee that it will be resolved."

"I'm not greedy either. I'm always a person who wants to exchange conditions. The imperial court's immigration policy is already very good for us in Luzon. I don't want to change it, but I hope that the imperial court can properly consider our needs and relax us a little bit. The conditions for hiring craftsmen and workers from the Central Plains. We only need to recruit and hire, and we will not violate the restrictions on immigration.”

Employment and immigration are two different things.

The imperial court strictly restricted immigration to Luzon. After several negotiations, the conditions were still very strict, and it was difficult to break easily.But it is completely different if people are only hired from the Central Plains to work.

After all, I just came here to work and earn money, and my family is still in the Central Plains.

For Qin Lang, there is no way to immigrate here for the time being. Get people here first, even if they are only here to pan for gold or work to earn money, it doesn't matter, just take your time.

Yin Anguo was very grateful for Qin Lang's attitude.

In the end, it inevitably returned to the beginning.

"Why is Duke Wei able to mine such a large amount of copper from the mines in Japan and Luzon? Is it true that Duke Wei really has the art of alchemy as the rumors say? There are rumors that Duke Wei can turn iron into copper?"

Qin Lang chuckled.

"It's the official's abruptness."

Qin Lang poured him a cup of tea, "I also know that there are all kinds of rumors in the market nowadays, but they are not all groundless. My Qin family has indeed mastered a new copper smelting technique, and can indeed turn iron into copper. "

"It's just that, it's not some mysterious alchemy, but an ancient smelting method."

Yin Anguo's breath became short of breath.

Qin Lang pushed the teacup in front of him, and he came back to his senses.

But that look still revealed his thoughts at this time, and he really wanted to know this mysterious spell.

"In many works of the Han Dynasty, there are records of this method of turning iron into copper. For example, in Jin Gehong's Baopuzi Nei Pian·Huang Bai Yi Shu, there is a record of using Zengqing to coat iron, and the iron is as red as copper. Tao Hongjing of the Southern and Northern Dynasties also said that throwing chicken dung and alum into bitter wine and applying iron will turn it into a copper color."

Yin Anguo was dumbfounded, not knowing why.

From Yin Anguo's mouth, Qin Lang knew that the court definitely knew more about it when he asked about iron turning into copper. It was because he knew a lot of important information that he asked him to ask.

They just don't know some key information yet.

So Qin Lang didn't need to hide it completely anymore, after all, he couldn't hide it anymore.

You know, in the past, the imperial court of the Central Plains only mined hundreds of thousands of catties of copper a year, and the Qin family has produced over one million catties of copper casually in a year, no matter whether it is cooperating with the Japanese country or mining copper in Luzon. Not amazing?
The imperial court has been investigating secretly for a long time, and the imperial court has its eyes and ears all over the world, making inquiries from all sides.

The Qin family has indeed mastered new technology, but it is not a mysterious high-tech. To be precise, it is called gall water copper smelting method, also known as wet copper smelting.

The core principle is actually to put iron into copper sulfate solution or other copper solutions to replace elemental copper. It sounds amazing, but later generations even have such experiments in chemistry classes of middle school students. It is very simple, and the chemical formula is also simple. , the operation is simpler.

From the Han Dynasty, some people discovered this situation. In the late Tang Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty, this copper method flourished. Because of this technology, the Song Dynasty also greatly increased its copper production. Sometimes it can reach more than 1000 million catties, 2000 million catties.

The biggest reason for the increase in copper production is the gall copper method.

Compared with the traditional method of looking for copper mountains and then mining them, the gallbladder copper method is low in cost and high in efficiency.In this era, there are few copper mines, and many of them are poor mines, which are not easy to mine and cost too much.

The bile copper method is much simpler. As long as you find copper mines, you can usually find some bile springs. Slowly forming copper sulfate, this thing was called bile alum or stone gall in ancient times.

It is named because it is as blue as gallbladder.

After the stone gallbladder is poured and dissolved by rainwater, it gathers in the spring water, and this spring water becomes the so-called gallbladder water.

When someone accidentally drinks the water from the gallbladder spring, poisoning may even occur, such as a poisonous hoarse voice, so the gallbladder spring is also called dumb spring.

Ordinary people are terrified of this dumb spring, but they don't know that this thing is actually a treasure.

Because as long as the concentration of copper sulfate in the gallbladder spring is high enough, the pig iron sheet can be put into it, and the iron can be turned into copper after a few days, so the copper immersion method in the gallbladder spring is also used.

Generally speaking, where there are copper mines, there are often such gallstone springs, and even many large poor copper mines are worthless by traditional methods, but the associated gallbladder springs can become a big treasure.

For example, Qin Lang sent people to investigate secretly over the years, looking for Yaquan everywhere, and found eleven Danquan springs with enough concentration, and they were basically near Tongshan.

Although since the Han Dynasty, many people have discovered the situation of turning iron into copper, but most of them regard it as a method of alchemy and gold, without fully understanding the principle, and have not really applied it to copper smelting on a large scale.

Qin Lang is very clear about this principle. He had done this kind of small experiment before, and when he was in Taiping Port, he accidentally flipped through an ancient book and saw the relevant records on it. Then he remembered this, and began to ask people to look for it. Kind of gall spring.

In Luzon and Wa Kingdom, Danquan was found again.

To smelt copper in Danquan, the most important thing is first to have a high concentration of Danquan, second to have a lot of pig iron, and third to need more rain.

Because it is rainy, it is possible to ensure that the Danquan copper smelting method has enough concentration of gall spring water to use.

Basically, two and a half catties of iron, after leaching and refining in Danquan, can get one catty of copper.

Therefore, ordinary people do not necessarily have the conditions to play this. After all, iron, like copper, is a national strategic material and is strictly controlled.

Qin Lang is a big boss in the mining industry, and his family mines all kinds of mines, so he has a lot of copper and iron in his hands. It is quite cost-effective to use pig iron to smelt copper.

Otherwise, the normal copper mining method has high mining costs, and secondly, the mining efficiency is low, so it is impossible to have such a large amount of mining.

Qin Lang admitted to Yin Anguo that he was a bit of an iron-to-bronze technique, but he only said that it was a technique that existed in ancient times, and that he had obtained it by accident from an ancient book.

But how to do it, he didn't say.

In fact, it is a layer of paper. Find the gall spring rich in copper sulfate solution, and then dig a ditch beside it to build the gall spring pool. Then put the pig iron sheet into the pool, soak it for several days, and then take it out for refining. and it became copper.

After immersing a batch of copper, open the pool to change the water.

Therefore, during the rainy season in summer, the bile spring is rich in solution, which is easy to soak copper, but it will be much worse in winter and autumn.

The south is more suitable for the gallbladder spring copper immersion method than the north.

Among the eleven bold springs in the Central Plains that Qin Lang has explored, the largest one is the bitter spring in Qianshan Mountain in Xinzhou, Jiangxi. Shen Kuo specifically recorded this bitter spring in his Mengxi pen talk, and this bitter spring is also It once became the largest Danquan copper smelting field in the Song Dynasty, with an annual output of more than one million catties of copper at its peak.

Compared with the traditional copper mining method, this copper smelting method can be said to increase the efficiency by a hundred times. After all, there is no need to dig mountains or quarry, dig some pools to draw water from the spring, and then as long as there is enough pig iron, it can be impregnated And refining, you can get a steady stream of copper.

One million catties a year is the output of dozens or even hundreds of copper mines in the past.

In addition to this wet method of copper smelting, there is also a dry method of copper smelting, that is, when the bile spring water is insufficient, bile bauxite is used to decoct the solution and then smelt copper.

In comparison, the cost of wet copper smelting is about 40 yuan per catty of copper, and the cost of dry method is about [-] yuan per catty of copper.

Compared with traditional copper mining, this cost is subversive.

After all, the imperial court stipulated that the purchase price of copper was one hundred and sixty yuan per catty. In fact, the cost of mining in the mine must be more than one hundred yuan. , the difference is huge.

But in this day and age, mining does cost more.

In the remote inland deep mountains and old forests, the transportation is inconvenient, and the mining is all manual. Even many copper mines mine copper, which is under the auspices of the government. In order to obtain copper, no cost is considered.

However, the cost of hydrometallurgy is only more than 40 yuan, not more than [-] yuan per catty. If the mine is located along the coast and near the river, the transportation cost can be reduced.

Just like the Qin family, based on the cost of 51 catties, if it is sold to the imperial court for 110 catties, it can directly earn 100 Wen per catty, and if it is 11 million catties, it can earn [-] guan.

But if the Qin family used this copper to make money themselves, there would be a profit of fifteen points. One million catties of copper could cast more than 100 guan coins, which would be a profit of 20 guan. That's 14 million.

The more copper you have in hand, the more money you can mint, and of course the more profit you will get.

Therefore, for the Qin family, from excavating iron ore, smelting iron and steel, and then using pig iron to smelt copper, then casting it into money, and then transporting it to Haidong and other foreign countries, they can make another fortune. An entire industrial chain can bring huge profits beyond imagination.

"Does Duke Wei have any plans to dedicate this method to the imperial court?" Yin Anguo asked a little cautiously. He also knew that if he had such a secret method, he probably wouldn't say it.But I still couldn't help but want to ask, if Qin Lang was interested, wouldn't it be that he made another contribution.

"Actually, I have already started sorting out this new copper smelting method of turning iron into copper. I have already sorted out a very good material, but I don't plan to sell or transfer this technology directly, but plan to invest in technology. Recruit some partners and build a copper mine in the Central Plains together."

Qin Lang plans to buy shares with technology, establish a partnership with the court, the emperor, the prince, etc., and smelt copper together. At that time, the Qin family will have the technology, the local government will have courage, and the court will still have enough iron. , Those who produce technology produce technology, those that produce people produce people, those that produce springs produce springs, and those that produce iron produce iron, all benefits are shared.

Don't worry about someone making a mess.

Qin Lang also knew that since the court had been eyeing this kind of technology, it was impossible to keep it exclusive all the time. The court came to ask, but still insisted on holding on to it. At that time, jealous people would probably take the opportunity to mobilize and attack it.

Qin Lang has never been a person who eats alone, he was like this before, and he is like this now.

He has not moved the eleven discovered bold springs in the Central Plains, because they will attract people's attention when they move, and they will not be able to keep their secrets at that time, so he simply does not move. He will do it in Japan and Luzon first, and he will make a fortune first. , At that time, with this amazing efficiency, it will be more costly to discuss cooperation with everyone with the technology in hand.

After all, it is an indisputable fact that the Qin family can get several million catties of copper a year. Everyone knows how valuable this technology is. The Qin family should take more shares in this partnership business. , everyone can understand.

Copper smelting using the gall copper method requires natural and high-quality gall springs, and secondly, it requires sufficient iron materials. Pig iron is strictly in the hands of the imperial court. It can produce tens of millions of catties of iron a year.

As long as there is enough iron, it is no problem to produce tens of millions of catties of bile copper a year.

The quality of gall copper is far superior to that of most ore copper.

Fortunately, since Zhenguan, the mining industry has flourished, otherwise there would be no iron to use if there was copper.

You must know that during the Han Dynasty, salt and iron monopoly was promoted, and there were 68 iron mines with an annual output of only 500 million catties of iron.At the beginning of Wude, the iron output was only 53 jin, and at the beginning of Zhenguan, it was only more than 200 million jin. In the following 20 years, the mining industry was greatly promoted, and the number of iron mines in the country increased sharply. It has reached an annual output of 850 million jin of iron, more than three times that of the Han Dynasty.This amount is the amount of iron ore self-produced in Datang, not counting the iron ore and iron materials imported from abroad.

There was even a glorious era of producing hundreds of millions of tons a year, ranking second in the world.

However, Datang's current private iron mines accounted for more than [-]%, and the official iron mines accounted for less than [-]%.

Of course, compared with the production of 6000 million tons of pig iron a year in later generations, the output of pig iron in the Tang Dynasty was only [-] tons, which is indeed too little.But today's production technology conditions in this era are there.

In the past, the dynasties emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce. They had a more repressive attitude towards mining, and it was enough. If an emperor was too concerned about mining, he would often be criticized by the scholar-bureaucrats. Even in many dynasties, mining This thing is an industry monopolized by the rich and powerful, so if the imperial court wants to participate in mining, or the emperor collects mining taxes, it will be sprayed with the people to compete for profits, or even extortionate levies. For example, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty levied a mining tax. A few silver coins were used to repair the palace or improve the life, and they were sprayed all over the body.

Even in the Zhenguan Dynasty, there have always been many officials who opposed Daxing Mining, thinking that mining everywhere would exhaust the people, delay the farming season, etc. Anyway, they just said the same thing.

Yin Anguo trembled with excitement.

The imperial court can now produce nearly 2000 million catties of iron a year, but only a million catties of copper. The output of iron is nearly [-] times that of copper, which shows that mining is better than copper mines, and iron smelting is more advanced than copper smelting technology.Now that Qin Lang has the technology of turning iron into copper, he can immediately make up for the lack of copper.

If two and a half catties of iron are used to smelt one catty of copper, if 1000 million catties of iron are used to smelt copper, wouldn't it be possible to directly increase the annual output of copper by 400 million catties?
"It seems that to increase copper production, the key is to increase iron ore mining."

Smelting iron is much easier than smelting copper.

(End of this chapter)