Prosperous Tang Blood Blade

Chapter 405
Chapter One Hundred and Seven
Of course, the landlord Chen Ying did not intend to develop all the more than [-] mu of land into arable land at all, but planned to use two-thirds of it to establish a heavy industrial zone in Chang'an City.

Because of Yang Rong's piece of land in Laohuai, Chen Ying's carriage workshop has been expanded, and the production capacity has been greatly improved. More than 130 apprentices can manufacture more than 600 wheels and corresponding carriages every month. If he is not worried about the overcapacity of high-end carriages and the backlog of four-wheeled carriages, Chen should be able to produce [-] carriages per month.

Although Chen Ying maintains the production capacity of twelve carriages per month, it can bring Donggong [-] guan in revenue.

In this world, there are no permanent friends, only eternal interests.Chen Ying has formed a solid interest alliance with Donggong with all his properties.

Because the income from the four-wheeled carriage was paid, when he learned that Chen Ying was planning to build a steel factory, Li Jiancheng supported him without reservation.Li Jiancheng was worried that the development of the iron and steel plant would make others jealous, and Chen Ying had no way to expand production capacity, so the princess even launched wife diplomacy. Speaking of Yuwen Shi and his wife, the Shouguang County Lord, the land in Yuwen Shi and Jiang Yuhe was almost worthless. The free price was given to Chen Ying.

However, Li Jiancheng could not remain calm. If it is true as what Chen Ying said, this blast furnace can produce more than [-] jin of steel, and the profit alone will be as much as [-] jin, which will exceed [-] jin in a month. Unlike horse-drawn carriages, horse-drawn carriages are a necessity, but steel is different. It is a necessity for people's production and life. It controls Datang's steel production capacity. For Datang, it is simply the lifeline of Datang.

Coke steelmaking is different from charcoal steelmaking. Coke heats up quickly. In just an hour, you can see from the observation hole on the side that the iron ore has turned bright red and turned orange, and gradually there is liquid molten iron. Appears on the bottom of the furnace.

Li Jiancheng watched the bright red molten iron appear in the furnace, and danced excitedly: "The iron is tapped, the iron is tapped!"

Chen Ying smiled wryly and said, "His Royal Highness, it's still early. It will take at least four hours to melt all the nearly [-] jin of iron ore in this furnace. It's still early..."

"It's only four hours, I can afford to wait!"

Li Jiancheng looked at the molten iron in the observation hole with great interest, as if this was the most wonderful scene in the world.

Steel is a very scarce resource for the Tang Dynasty. Because there was almost no moon in the early Tang Dynasty, steel was almost all used in the military field. For example, the common people used money, AI, Lu sickle, push sickle, Tsuen wheat utensils, wok (pick) , Hook and sickle, wedges for mowing and chopping firewood, etc.The equipment used for threshing and cleaning includes flails, rock pans, fan carts, etc.It is definitely more efficient to use steel to make these agricultural tools, but because steel resources are too scarce, in the field of production, farmers have to use wooden woks (picks), iron or stone wedges, and some people even have iron axes. No, primitive stone axes invented in the Stone Age are still in use.

Take the price of steel in this era as an example. In later generations, one mu of rice can be exchanged for one ton of steel. In this era, two mu of rice can only be exchanged for one catty of steel. , the price difference between the two is equivalent to more than 2000 times.

And Chen Ying grew up in the era of cheap steel and severe excess steel production capacity in later generations, so he didn't realize Datang's need for steel at all.

For the next four hours, Li Jiancheng sat in the pavilion next to the blast furnace.No matter how hard Chen Ying tried to persuade him, Li Jiancheng always had the same attitude: "If you don't see the molten steel come out, I won't go anywhere!"

Chen Ying had a lot of things to do at this time. The originally planned attack on New Year's Eve had begun to approach Tongguan. As the commander-in-chief of the Battle of Hangu Pass this time, Chen Ying couldn't sit in Chang'an City and command remotely.

However, the Yuhe Iron and Steel Plant was newly built after all, and metallurgy is a very dangerous industry. If the equipment itself malfunctions or the operation is wrong, an explosion accident is likely to erupt.Once the blast furnace explodes, more than 2 tons of molten steel will form a huge shock wave, which will easily move the steel plant covering an area of ​​more than [-] mu to the ground in an instant.

Even if there is no problem with the blast furnace, but in the condensation process, as long as the mold is not completely dried and contains water, the high-temperature liquid molten steel will explode with water. Fortunately, the blast furnace will emit huge heat, just like a gunpowder explosion. (Old Cheng’s major is metallurgy, so time travelers must be cautious if they play steelmaking, otherwise it is very likely that the steel will not be smelted, but the person will be killed.)
How could Chen Ying rest assured that Li Jiancheng was here? If something really went wrong, Chen Ying would just wipe his neck and commit suicide.

However, because of Li Jiancheng's presence, the craftsmen would be really stupid if they didn't know how to perform. Li Jiancheng has been staring at it for a whole day now. Whether it is the craftsmen or craftsmen present, they are all spinning like a top.

The ancient steelmaking process was just difficult to master. The finished products were mainly iron and medium and low carbon steels. If you were lucky, you might run into one or two pieces of high carbon steel—the probability was about the same as winning the lottery.

Generally speaking, in steel products, the lower the carbon content, the softer, and the higher the carbon content, the more brittle and hard.Medium and low-carbon steel is soft, but not sharp when used to make swords. The ancients also regarded it as "wrought iron". Only high-carbon steel whose toughness, hardness, and strength meet the needs of making weapons was considered "steel" by the ancients.

The level of carbon content determines the softness and hardness of steel.So it is expressed by being hit by a forging hammer.An experienced ironworker will be able to tell that it is a piece of soft iron.It is still a good steel that can make swords and swords.

When Chen Ying installed the furnace for smelting, he had already calculated the ratio of iron to charcoal by means of fortifications. That is to say, as long as the molten iron is smelted within twelve hours, it can definitely be turned into steel instead of iron.It's just that there are some subtle elements that Chen Ying can't grasp. Chen Ying has handed over these calculation methods to Ge Tong, Wei Meng, Yan Shihu and others. Finally, when the furnace was opened, Li Jiancheng looked nervously at the gate of the blast furnace.

Looking at the semi-solidified substance like jelly flowing out of the gate, these orange-red "jelly" slowly flow into the mold, and then, driven by the rolling shaft, slowly flow to the distance, which is a huge cooling pool , The dark red steel billets entered the cooling pool one by one. The high-temperature steel billets and cold water had an encounter between ice and fire, and the entire cooling pool turned into mist, like a fairyland on earth.

When the steel billet enters the cooling pool, there will naturally be cold water for rapid cooling. Of course, the steel billet coming out of the cooling pool has become a blue steel billet.

Li Jiancheng rushed to the side of the cooling pool impatiently, and asked Wei Meng, "How is it?"

Chen Ying didn't have to clink the hammer like Wei Meng, he could tell that it was a very good piece of high-carbon steel just from the color of the steel surface.

Every time Wei Meng's hammer struck the billet, sparks would fly out.But knock out how deep imprint.That piece of iron was tough and hard.Obviously the best pure steel!
"This, this is the real Baosteel!" Wei Meng knelt down excitedly to Li Jiancheng and Chen Ying, kowtowing again and again, his voice trembling: "His Royal Highness, the great general Hongfu Qitian. The Lord is really Nandou Xingjun descended to earth! Refined steel is produced in one furnace. I, Wei Mengda, have never seen it in 20 years!"

Chen Ying said disapprovingly: "Steelmaking, you need to understand the principle of steelmaking. The hotter the carbon in the molten iron, the softer the iron, the higher the carbon content, the harder the iron, and the more brittle it will be. You just need to Control the temperature well, control the ratio of iron ore to charcoal, I can guarantee that every furnace you produce will be steel, not iron. Of course, according to my ratio, if you continue to burn for another hour, the viscous Molten steel will become like soy sauce, and what will eventually come out will be mild steel, and if it is fired for another two hours or even longer, then only iron will come out.”

Ge Tong asked suspiciously: "General, what's going on?"

"Charcoal will burn!" Chen Ying knew that they might not be able to understand when he told them about oxidation reactions at this time, but he taught them in such a superficial way.Chen Ying thought for a while and said, "The smaller the charcoal, the worse the quality of the iron. Therefore, we must control the ratio of charcoal to iron today. This is the most important issue!"

Wei Meng and Ge Tong suddenly realized: "That's how it is!"

Unconsciously, Wei Meng asked his son Wei Qiang to prepare a special mold. This mold is about six feet long and can almost be regarded as a stick.When receiving a mold of molten steel, this piece of mold is not like other molds, each piece weighs a hundred catties, but is equivalent to about twenty catties.Quite a fifth of other molds.

This piece of mold was not cooled with water, but just waiting for the orange-red billet to darken, Wei Meng took a big hammer and put it under the precision forging hammer with his son Wei Qiang to beat it.

The surrounding area was already like a fairyland at this time, filled with mist everywhere, the water vapor met the cold air, turned into snowflakes again, and it snowed one after another.

Li Jiancheng looked at the steel billets piled up on the hill, with a sincere smile on his face.

More than 1 jin of steel sounds like a lot, but in fact it is not much. If it is 1 jin of grain, it can fill a warehouse, but this 100 jin of steel is just more than [-] pieces of billet weighing [-] jin. son.

At this time, Ge Tong also counted all the condensed billets: "His Royal Highness, General, this furnace produced a total of 120 three pieces, about 1 catties, and 46 pieces of pig iron, a total of about [-] yuan." One hundred catties!"

Chen Ying frowned. This result made him very dissatisfied. He was seriously thinking about which link went wrong.

According to the iron ore he put in, this furnace of steel should not be [-] catties of iron, but [-] catties. There is a difference of nearly [-] catties. What is the problem?

However, at this moment, the iron rod under Wei Meng's hands gradually took shape.I saw that this handle has a beautiful arc, it is more than six feet long, four fingers wide, and one finger thick on the back. The cloud patterns on the blade surface are faintly visible, like flowing water, like a star, with cold light shining and sword energy soaring into the sky. .

Li Jiancheng's eyes were straightened: "You built a Mo knife in just a quarter of an hour?"

"His Royal Highness, that's not how the account is calculated!" Chen Ying explained: "If you use a billet to directly forge a Mo knife, let alone a quarter of an hour, I'm afraid you won't be able to forge one in an hour. Now, Master Wei is just using a blast furnace. unrelieved temperature."

Chen Ying felt the need to explain to Li Jiancheng what happened to the so-called hundred steelmaking.

(End of this chapter)