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Chapter 165 The Great Song Hand Knife (Second Update)

"By the way, there is another question. Before these coals are used for coking, can they be washed first?"

"Coal washing?" Both Xue Da and Fukang looked at Gao Zhang in bewilderment.He glanced at the coal piled up in the shape of a hill nearby.

Is this coal good or not, no matter how you wash it, can it still be washed white?

Seeing the expressions of the two, Gao Zhang didn't explain much, he only said that it was to wash away the coal dust and sundries.

Anyway, let you give it a try, what's the point of wasting some water?
Seeing Gao Zhang's serious look, Xue Da thought about it, and he should be honest.

When a new batch of coke comes out of the kiln, at this time, both Fukang and Xue Da can naturally see the difference between this kind of coke and the previous fist-sized coke.

Although the coking time is much shorter, the resulting coke feels better than the previous fist coke quality.

"I didn't expect that Xiao Gao Zhuangyuan is so powerful that he even knows how to make coke?"

Fukang laughed happily, with a natural expression, and said happily as he looked at the coke of the finished product.

"My son is born with precocious intelligence, and many things can be understood by analogy. Otherwise, how could he have won the first prize at the age of 11."

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In order to verify the effect, but also to prove to my father why this new type of fuel coke was so praised by Gao Zhang.

Naturally, it is not enough to smelt coke, then use this coke to smelt iron ore together with coal.

As the property of the Taiwei Mansion of the Great Song Dynasty, how could it be done bit by bit and slowly?

Therefore, during the coking period, an iron smelting and manufacturing workshop was built next to this glass workshop covering an area of ​​tens of acres.

More than a dozen skilled old craftsmen and their apprentices began to smelt steel here.

Moreover, in order to verify the effectiveness of coke, coal and charcoal in iron and steel smelting.

They were specially divided into three fuel groups, and each group was further divided into two teams, the fried steel team and the poured steel team.

The reason for doing this may be that some people will argue about the advantages and disadvantages of fried steel and poured steel, or whoever invented it later represents the advanced one.

For Gao Zhang, it doesn't matter whether you are frying steel or pouring steel.As long as your master master has two hands and can make good steel, that's a good way.

As for whether the steel produced is good or not, it is simple, and it can be used to make weapons and tools.

As the saying goes, true knowledge comes from practice, and no matter how beautiful it looks, it is useful, just like the texture of the five thousand guan treasure knife that Lu Qian, the unlucky ghost, is not as tough as a kitchen knife.

These master craftsmen have never used coke, but when they started to use it, they noticed the difference between coke and coal and charcoal.

The first is that coke has no smoke, which is almost the same as that of the best charcoal.

Those lumps of coal will emit green smoke more or less, and as for the bituminous coal, it is not to mention thick.

The second is the high firepower and high temperature, far exceeding charcoal, and also far above coal.

The important thing is that there are no impurities after burning. It is used to smelt steel, and the resulting steel has very little impurities.

It's like an enhanced version of charcoal.

These days, Gao Zhang, who wandered here every day, looked at the smelted steel, and listened to the statements of the old masters.

He expressed his satisfaction, but when the master proudly took out a steel knife that had just been forged for Gao Zhang to appreciate.

Gao Zhang was immediately shocked. He raised his finger and pointed at the short and cute steel knife presented by the master.

"This, this...how is this different from the knife I saw?"

Gao Zhang raised his hand and pointed behind him, and beside Lu Qian's waist was a Tang saber that looked a bit like it.

The shape and blade of the waist knife are quite beautiful. Gao Zhang still remembers the one that Lu Qian went to buy for a swindle, and it is also of the same standard.

"You don't know, Xiao Gao Zhuangyuan, this is called a hand knife, and it is a knife made by the Imperial Army of the Great Song Dynasty..."

Seeing Gao Zhang's shocked expression, the old master hurriedly explained something flatteringly.

"As for the saber on your waist beside you, also known as the Xia Guodao, it must belong to Xixia."

"Brother Lu, are you from Xixia?"

Gao Zhang turned his head to look at Lu Qian. Lu Qian met the eyes of little Gao Zhuangyuan, and quickly untied the knife with its sheath on his waist, and handed it over.

"Exactly, the sword in Xiaguan's hand is the Xia Guodao. It is said that it was forged with iron from the Western Regions. It is very sharp..."

Hearing Lu Qian's advertisement for Xixia's weapon products, the old craftsman suddenly became unhappy.

"This official Lu doesn't know what to think. It's not because I, Song Dynasty, can't forge such a sharp blade, but the court is not happy."

Gao Zhang, who was carefully looking at this Xia Guo knife with beautiful patterns on it, felt that it was very similar to the Tang knife, and couldn't help being taken aback when he heard the old craftsman's words.

"What does the old man mean by this? Is it possible that I, Song, don't like my soldiers holding sharp knives?"

If it was someone else, this old technician might have made a few remarks, but what he faced was a child prodigy who became the No. 11 pick at the age of [-].

As for Wen Quxing, he only knows literature, but not martial arts, which is normal. After all, he is still a child, and he may be a few years younger than his eldest grandson.

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So the old craftsman patiently explained to Gao Zhang.

"The No. [-] Scholar, Gong Mingjian, my Great Song Dynasty has a very large army, so the demand for ordnance is very large."

Here, I have to mention two serious issues. The first one is that the Song Dynasty has a serious redundant army.

There are a large number of Xiang army troops with little combat effectiveness. Even if you give each of them a Tang knife, do you dare to let them go to the battlefield?

However, as for the hand knife, in the words of the master, the old man and three apprentices can hit five or six of this thing in a day without panting.

Because the requirements for hand knives are very low, or the imperial court has very low requirements for this kind of short weapon, it can be made without spending too much effort, so the price difference is cheap, and the quantity is favorable.

This kind of good thing that is not beautiful but very cheap can easily equip the millions of "bear" soldiers of the Song Dynasty court.

Another important reason is that during the Tang Dynasty, charcoal was mostly used for smelting and forging. Charcoal contained less impurities and would not easily affect steel.

But by the time of the Song Dynasty, coal had entered thousands of households and became the absolute mainstream fuel.

Similarly, it is precisely because of the high output of coal that the efficiency of the metallurgical industry in Da Song has been greatly improved.The steel output of Song Dynasty can almost be said to be far ahead, accounting for the peak of this era.

But there is another fatal problem here. Coal contains sulfur, but it only contains more or less sulfur.

Sulfur is an extremely unfriendly impurity to steel, and after infiltrating into steel, it will increase the brittleness of steel.

This is painful, but the problem is that in this era, people don't know, or even know, what sulfur is.

(End of this chapter)