Rebirth of Wu Ba Spring and Autumn

Chapter 941 Cement and Concrete
"Father, this time, my minister has made a new discovery on Wa Island."

"Oh?"

Qingji became interested.

It goes without saying where Wajima is.

The state of Wu has initially established its own rule on Wa Island.

Several cities were built, but county management was not implemented, so it was regarded as an overseas land.

Young Master You asked someone to bring another bundle, and took out a handful of plaster from the bundle.

"Is this volcanic ash?"

"Exactly."

"You'er, what's so special about volcanic ash?"

Qingji was a little disappointed.

Having said that, China is vast and abundant, and it is not without volcanoes.

For example, there are volcanoes in the three Hebei counties of Wu State, as well as the southwest and Lingnan areas, but most of them are in a dormant period and will not erupt.

"Father, this Japanese island always erupts with volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. This volcanic ash is indeed nothing unusual to you, father, but in my son's opinion, it is very useful!"

"Father, please see."

Young Master You took out a piece of cement and handed it to Qingji to have a look.

"cement?"

It was only then that Qingji remembered that volcanic ash did play an important role.

When a volcano erupts, rock or magma is crushed into fine particles, which form volcanic ash.

Volcanic ash is hard and insoluble in water.

Volcanic ash reaction refers to the reaction of these active components with calcium hydroxide to produce reaction products such as calcium silicate hydrate, calcium aluminate hydrate or calcium sulfoaluminate hydrate.

Among them, the calcium hydroxide can be derived from externally mixed lime, or from the calcium hydroxide released during cement hydration.

Volcanic ash can be used in building materials.

Lightweight concrete such as plaster and decorative board filler is 2% lighter than ordinary concrete, and its refractoriness is 2% higher.

Block bricks, building slabs, load-bearing components, hydraulic engineering, thermal engineering, and bridge engineering building components.

Volcanic ash is also a good thing for washing and decontamination, beauty cosmetics.

"Father, this kind of thing you call 'cement' is strong and durable. The cost is much lower than that of glutinous rice, soup, egg paste, and burnt mud. It's just that there is not much volcanic ash, otherwise it will definitely become popular."

Young Master You said with some regret.

cement?

Concrete!
Qingji couldn't help but his eyes lit up.

The words of Young Master You just reminded Qing Ji.

The building materials in this era take wood as the leading role, soil as the auxiliary, and stone, brick, and tile as supporting roles.

In ancient times, the soil used for construction can be roughly divided into two types: the soil in its natural state is called "raw soil" and the reinforced soil is called "rammed earth", which is denser than raw soil.

Therefore, the city walls and foundations of this era are often rammed.

Rammed earth is compacted layer by layer and has a compact structure. It is generally harder than raw soil, but the color of the soil is not as consistent as raw soil.

The most obvious feature is that it can be layered. The plane between the upper and lower layers, that is, the rammed surface can be seen on the rammed surface, and there are often fine sand grains on the rammed surface.

Bread bricks are usually made of glutinous rice, egg paste, soup, etc., mixed with some bamboo strips, which is a bit like sticky concrete.

In history, Qin Shihuang ordered the construction of the Great Wall, which has stood for thousands of years because of the use of precious materials such as glutinous rice.

Only the king can order the use of glutinous rice for large-scale construction, but it makes the common people pay heavy taxes all the year round...

As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads, and cement plays a huge role in Wu Guo.

At least a lot of cost can be reduced, and roads can be strengthened.

cement road!
The straight roads and straight roads in Wu State are muddy roads that are easily damaged by wind and rain. The cost of masonry roads or roads made of glutinous rice with eggs is too high. If they are built on a large scale, it will cost a lot.

The significance of building cement roads is so great.

Communications, marching, grain roads, trade, etc., in a nutshell, the territory of the ancient Wu Kingdom was limited by the range of information radiation, which was too far away for the imperial court to control, and convenient transportation can strengthen the control of the border and increase the radiation range of the regime.

In view of this, in the next few days, Qingji mingled with Lu Ban, Gan Jiang, Gong Ziyou and others to develop cement.

Qingji had some experience, so he acted as the commander.

First of all, Qingji asked people to find a large amount of limestone and clay, grind the limestone and clay into flour, then calcined the clinker, and then ground it into powder with the slag left after ironmaking.

The prerequisite for this is that the temperature should be high enough when firing!
Thanks to Wu Guo's advanced iron smelting technology, it has been able to "smelt into steel", so this is not difficult.

The glass, cement, and steel commonly used in time-travel novels all require furnace temperatures higher than those of that era.

Without the support of a modern industrial system, Qingji can only increase the temperature by adding oxygen to support combustion and changing fuel.

So the furnace came into being.

Oxygen supports combustion, that is, it is very important to blow wind into the stove.

Wu Guo used air bags to blow air in steelmaking before, and later invented water drainage.

After some suggestions from Qingji, Lu Ban invented a new wooden bellows.

To burn cement, the invention of the bellows is the key.

It is worth mentioning that charcoal was mostly used as fuel in this era, and the furnace temperature could reach 1300 degrees Celsius.

With coal, it can reach 1800 degrees Celsius.

It's hard to beat Qingji.

Where are the coal mines?

Hedong, Shangdang!
In modern times, Hedong County and Shangdang County of Wu State are Shanxi...

There are countless open pit mines.

After several days of tinkering, Qingji and others finally developed the cement.

This is not enough, Qingji knows that cement, or concrete cannot be used directly, and steel bars must be added.

Only reinforced concrete can be used for construction.

Because pure concrete, that is, plain concrete, is easy, very easy, and especially easy to crack. Cracking is a characteristic of concrete, so reinforcement must be added.

It is impossible to build modern reinforced concrete buildings in Wu Guo, but it is possible to build brick houses with cement.

It is unrealistic to use cement to build concrete dams and high cities, but it is completely possible to simply use it to strengthen dams and city walls.

"Fire cement bricks and red bricks."

Qingji issued such an order to the craftsmen again.

As for how to fire it, Qingji doesn't know much about it, so it can only come into being after repeated experiments by the craftsmen.

Thanks to Qingji's reward for inventions, in this year, craftsmen in Wu State also invented spinning wheels, keel waterwheels, matches, and improved trebuchets, which were called "Wu Wangpao" (Huihuipao).

……

In the western suburbs of Xianyang City, Jixia Academy.

At this time, a huge debate was going on in the huge square of Jixia Academy.

Qingji issued an edict, ordering Tingwei Deng Xi and Yushi Zhongcheng Botong to be responsible for re-editing Wu's "Fajing", but they did not let them specialize, or Qingji made his own claim, but proposed "sea selection", Bring the matter of enacting the law to the table, and let the scholars of the world have a debate.

Then, it will be up to Deng Xi, Bo Tong and others to decide as appropriate, and finally make a final decision.

(End of this chapter)