Destiny Only Han

Chapter 139 Ambition of Iron
Chenggu County, Dahan Coal and Iron Trading Company.

Under the protection of a group of soldiers, Liu Ying's four-wheeled carriage slowly came from Tu Dao.

After he jumped out of the car, he looked as far as the eye could see. Compared with the previous depressions, earth-shaking changes have taken place here again.

First of all, the tents for the craftsmen here have been dismantled in sevens and eighties, and replaced by temporary houses built of wood.

Although it is also very simple, it has already made a qualitative leap compared to a tent that sleeps on the ground.

All of this is due to the double lifting saw he first made.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the ecological environment was excellent. In the mountains and forests in the distance, there were big trees surrounded by one person, and it was not an easy task to cut down such a big tree.

Although it is said that Lu Ban had invented the saw, but limited by the smelting industry of this period, he could only make a hand saw with a length of one or two feet at most, and he was powerless to deal with such a thick tree.

Therefore, for a long time, the main method for people to cut down trees was to use axes.

But chopping with an ax is not only laborious, but also too inefficient.

The double-use big saw Liu Ying made is a kind of pull-saw, more than one foot long, two feet wide, and half an inch thick. The saw teeth have been specially modified to deal with big trees.

As long as two strong men cooperate well, half a day is enough to down a big tree surrounded by two or three people!
Although it is not comparable to the chain saws of later generations, it undoubtedly has epoch-making significance in this era.

In the workshop, Pan Gong, who had exhausted his patience during this time and gave up on the white-bearded old man squatting beside Liu Ying, walked out slowly.

He slightly arched his hands: "Master, what wind brought you here?"

Liu Ying returned the gift solemnly: "I came here to build some new farm tools."

Pan Gong was taken aback, with endless remorse on his face: "What? There's something new? Damn it! That guy is so patient, he only shows up when the old man is away..."

What a crime... Liu Ying felt a little sorry, but the powerful genes inherited from Liu Bang made him feel relieved.

He walked straight to the place where the smoke was billowing in the distance. Although Pan Gong muttered, he still followed behind him, step by step.

As a dying person, he didn't care much about most of the new things in this world until he met Liu Ying in Chen County under the arrangement of fate...

The door to the new world is now open!

When Liu Ying passed the canal that provides power for the waterwheel, when she saw the water flow that was slightly turbid due to the heavy rain upstream, she felt a little fortunate in her heart. Fortunately, the bottom of the canal was built with bricks in advance, otherwise the canal would be turbid. It won't be long before it will be refurbished.

While walking, his ears were filled with the sound of hammering, which was the sound of water hammer crushing ore.

Only when the ore is crushed enough can the quality of the smelted metal be better.

And with higher-quality metals, whether it is mining or other things, the efficiency will be further improved.

Gradually, Liu Ying approached the vertical blast furnace billowing thick smoke in the distance.

The water in the canal flows quietly, slowly driving the water row erected on the side of the canal to rotate, blowing a steady stream of wind into the bottom of the burning blast furnace.

It is no exaggeration to say that this alone has saved at least ten times the manpower.

The ancients said that there are three major hardships: taking a boat, blacksmithing, and grinding tofu.

Among them, pushing and pulling the bellows during ironmaking is particularly hard.

The vertical blast furnace that Liu Ying is now building is more similar to the small blast furnace in the steelmaking period.

It is impossible to make steel. Only by refining some low-quality pig iron can we maintain this kind of life...

However, compared to the most advanced block refining method in this period, it is more advanced than I don't know how many times.

The so-called block smelting method is to use charcoal as fuel to smelt iron ore into a sponge-like lump of wrought iron in a furnace, and then put it into a charcoal fire to heat and absorb carbon to increase the carbon content, and then repeatedly forge , Remove impurities and infiltrate carbon, so as to obtain steel.

This kind of steel is also called iron-making carburizing steel.

But it cannot be popularized, and the reason why it is particularly dependent on the experience of blacksmiths is that it is very difficult to grasp the amount of carbon infiltration, whether the distribution is uniform, and the degree of removal of impurities during the iron-making and carburizing steel smelting process.

As for the hundred steelmaking technology that was later pointed out on this basis, it also has the same fatal flaw.

Naturally, Liu Ying will not repeat the same mistakes, but limited by the current conditions, such as steelmaking in crucibles, open hearth furnaces and converters are simply impossible.

He chose to proceed in two steps. First, he used a small blast furnace to smelt iron to produce a large amount of poor-quality pig iron, and then used the steel frying method to smelt the pig iron into usable steel.

The so-called steel frying method is to heat pig iron to a liquid or semi-liquid state, stir it in a furnace, use air blast or sprinkle concentrate powder, etc., to reduce the carbon content by borrowing oxygen in the air, so as to obtain steel.

Because of the continuous stirring during the smelting process, it is like a chef cooking, so it is named fried steel.

At this moment, Liu Ying was standing far away, only feeling the heat wave blowing towards her face, and once again understood the pain of blacksmithing.

The only thing he could do was to instruct the craftsmen next to him to increase the wages and ration standards of all the craftsmen involved in the smelting.

When a new furnace of molten iron was smelted, Liu Ying saw the golden-red molten iron flowing quickly along the built pipes and into two metal vats, one large and one small.

Then, the metal cylinder was hoisted by a pulley and poured into two other furnaces respectively.

Liu Ying knew that a new type of steel, manganese steel, would be smelted in the place where the small metal vat was poured.

In the territory of Hanzhong, the most indispensable thing is manganese ore.

The temper of manganese steel is very weird and interesting. If 2.5-3.5% manganese is added to the steel, the resulting low manganese steel is as brittle as glass and will break when knocked. But if more than 13% manganese is added, If it is made into high manganese steel, it becomes both hard and tough.

The reason why he wants to make manganese steel is not to make manganese steel swords or other weapons and armor, but to make bearings.

To be precise, it is to make the balls in the bearings.

Of course, spherical balls cannot be made, but cylindrical balls are not difficult.

Most of the wheels in the Qin and Han Dynasties used bronze or iron bearings. As for the structure, they were sliding bearings. Compared with the rolling bearings that Liu Ying wanted to make, they were not very suitable for carriages of this period.

Sliding bearings are more suitable for low-speed and heavy-duty working conditions, or operating parts that are difficult to maintain and add lubricating oil.

Like a car engine.

Liu Ying plans to use the bearings made here, except for the use in the workshop, to use all the rest on small carts and carriages.

What he wants to do is to speed up the big man again!
Standing beside Liu Ying, Pan Gong stroked his beard and praised: "Although this is not the first time I have seen such a scene, I am still quite moved at this moment! I really did not expect that there is such a metal smelting in this world. Methods!"

Liu Ying just smiled and said nothing. According to his estimation, the daily steel production capacity of this coal and iron trading company will not exceed [-] jin, and if converted into the data of later generations, it will be [-] ton.

The annual output of steel is only more than 300 tons. With such data, the owner of the steel factory will close down without the Environmental Protection Bureau in future generations...

However, this is impossible.

Today, the biggest constraint on steel production is mainly the speed of mining.

Make bricks without straw.

There are not enough manpower to mine, and no matter how many small blast furnaces are built, there are no raw materials to use!
So Liu Ying planned to discuss one thing with Xiao He after she returned to Nanzheng, that is, if she wanted to be rich, she had to have more children and raise more pigs...

Children are easy to understand, leeks, the more the better.

As for raising more pigs, it is not just about selling pork for money, but more importantly, that the pigs can be eaten and pulled, which means that the more farm manure the better...

Liu Ying watched the steelmaking for a while, reached out to find the engineer, and explained to him the main purpose of her visit this time.

He is going to use part of the good steel to build a new type of plow.

Conventional plow.

This is a kind of plow that the British reformed on the basis of the plow transformed by the Dutch who copied the Chinese Quyuan plow, which can both plow and turn the land.

The conventional plow was one of the most important supporting agricultural implements in Europe and America until the advent of tractors using internal combustion engines in the late 19th century.

Some cynics commented on this that agriculture as we know it (the Angsa gang) would not have existed in northern Europe or the American Midwest without the common plow!
Having said that, the biggest advantage of this kind of plow compared with the traditional curved plow is that the whole is made of steel.

Although several poor horses or cattle are needed to use it, the efficiency has not been improved by a single bit, which is especially suitable for Liu Ying's land reclamation in Nanzheng County.

He turned over the land with a plow, and then used a columbine cart to rush to plant. He was sure to complete the transformation of the [-] mu of wasteland before the end of autumn sowing.

Although he won't harvest many soybeans this year, the biggest benefit of planting beans is raising land.

After the beans are harvested, burn the remaining bean stalks with a fire, spread a large amount of farmyard manure, and then raise the land for another year in the coming year. The [-] mu of wasteland will become [-] mu of fertile land!

…………

Sishui County, Pengcheng, Zhang Liang's guest house.

In the past, the suave, glamorous and unassuming scholar disappeared, and was replaced by a crazy student with disheveled hair, playing the piano and singing sad songs.

"The sorghum is lili, the seedling of the other millet. Walking and swaying, the center is shaking..."

"Those who know me say that I am worried; those who don't know me say what I want. Who is this?"

What he was singing loudly at the moment was "The Book of Songs·Wang Feng·Mi Li".

Yesterday evening, Han Cheng, who had already been demoted to marquis for his lack of merit, was executed by Xiang Yu outside the palace for inexplicable reasons!
"Xiang's family is immortal, and I swear not to be a human being!"

Zhang Liang's face was filled with indignation, his hands playing the piano were already dripping with blood, but the pain in his body couldn't compare to the grief in his heart!
(End of this chapter)