The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 98 Make iron by yourself?

In mid-March, inside and outside Shiping Pass, it was like a big construction site.

The fort wall has been built more than ten feet high, and it looks like a closed city.Relying on a hundred people, a city wall over one foot high and fifty feet wide was built in less than a month. This is not because Song Yingkui used some efficient new technology, but because he cut corners.

Length, thickness can not think of a way, but the material can think of a way.When building the wall, we did not use the standard of official facilities in this era. We used wet soil to ram it instead of mellow soil!

What is the difference between building a wall with raw soil and building a wall with cooked soil?The difference is mainly in the engineering life.Before crossing, Song Yingkui had seen the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty built with mellow soil, and it was still standing firm after hundreds of years.The courtyard walls built by ordinary people with raw soil can only be used for decades.If the two are compared, the raw earth wall is simply a tofu project.

However, the cost of cooked earth walls is two or three times higher than that of raw earth walls, and the construction period is much longer than that of raw earth walls.Steaming the soil requires a lot of iron pots, as well as wood. After steaming the [-]-foot long and wide city wall soil, the fuel alone cannot be solved by a hundred taels of silver.The steamed soil needs to be dried in the air. If it is directly built without drying, it will become a thin mud.Facing the high cost and long cycle, Song Yingkui decisively chose to give up.

Right now, the problem to be solved is whether there is or is not, rather than thinking about a century-old project.As long as the raw earth wall can last for ten years, it is enough.Let's talk about what will happen ten years later.

Facing the guard's style of cutting corners and cutting corners, the deputy guard Yang Shun'an was somewhat puzzled.He didn't understand, he was obviously a capable craftsman, how could he deal with it like this when he organized the project by himself?Other officials can do this, but how can you, a craftsman, do it?After several decades, if the city you built collapses, what will people in future generations think of you?Wouldn't your reputation be ruined?When a prince builds a grave, he has to use cooked soil.

"Master Yang, do you think the wall we built can be used for ten years? As long as it can last for ten years, what we are doing now is not fooling around. In the case of lack of money and people, we should first solve the problem of availability That's the most important thing. It won't last long, and it won't be too late when we have spare capacity." Seeing that Yang Shunan was moaning and sighing every day when he was building the wall, Song Yingkui had no choice but to talk to him about the reason.Why do you have such a great sense of responsibility?The premise of being responsible for history is to be responsible for the present first.

"Ten years? Ten years can be used. But after ten years, the city walls will become unsightly. You can see that the old wall yards in our countryside will become dark, probably because the raw soil will grow grass and moss, and the mature soil will not It will be like this. I haven’t seen the official wall there turn black. The fort we built is likely to become the first in the world. Isn’t this a joke? At that time, everyone who passes by our fort will laugh at you Mine. Besides, the raw soil is easy to brittle, crack and fade, and within a few years, the wall will be dilapidated."

Are you afraid of being laughed at?No wonder I feel like I've lost my soul all day long!
"This matter is easy to handle. In the next year or two, we will wrap a layer of stones on the outside of the wall. This will not only strengthen the fortress wall, but also deal with the pile of stones on the rocky beach. It will kill two birds with one stone!"

"Wrapping it into a stone castle? How much is the price? Such a high wall, unless it is piled up with whole stones, how can the stones picked from the rocky beach be used?"

"It works! I have a way to make a kind of mud that can stick to stones. With that kind of mud, it will not cost much to coat the outer wall with stones."

"Really? Guarding you is afraid that you are cheating on me?"

"What am I lying to you for? If you don't believe me, after the wall is built as a whole, I'll take someone to try it out and let you see how it sticks to the stone. By the way, the earthen wall can be built for half a foot, plus the female wall and The crenel can be two feet high, which is regarded as compliant.” The official requirement is that the wall be two feet high, but they didn’t say that the parapet and crenel are not counted.Why build a big wall so high?
With the current fortification method of reducing allocation and height, the more than 100 taels given by the Dazheng court are not enough to spend, let alone strictly follow the standards.The key to defending the city depends on people and weapons. The height of the wall is of little significance to Song Yingkui.If there is any effort, it is better to do something else, and use the limited manpower and material resources to the right place.

For example, a workshop that has already started producing wheels is worth the effort and money.

"The head of the Huichuan business gang, Wang Gang, came to discuss business yesterday and said that the scale of our wheel factory is still small, and more than 1000 pairs of wheels in January are not enough to sell! So, I want to expand the scale of the wheel factory. It’s just that there is a thorny problem that is difficult to solve now. After the current situation is chaotic, the price of iron has risen sharply, and it is extremely difficult to buy. There is no channel for Wang Jinxiong. Master Yang, have you heard of any channels where you can buy iron? "

Iron deficiency is still a big problem, and now it has become an obstacle restricting the further expansion of the wheel factory.Iron is needed to make wheels, and it is also needed to equip the garrison.After asking around from Wang Jinxiong and other tenants, they couldn't find much iron.The Yang family is an old family, and Song Yingkui wanted to ask him if there was any special relationship.

"Iron is an important thing now, and I can't think of where I can buy iron. In the early years, I heard that someone in Qingbailing on Didao's side had smelted iron privately and sold it to outsiders. Now that it has gone through chaos, no one thinks about it." Do it again."

"Someone has smelted iron in Qinglingling? How far is this place from us? Is there a way to get there?"

"About a hundred miles or so, there is a mountain road that can be walked across."

"Mountain road? Can a shelf car go?"

"I went there when I was young, and the roads at that time could pass through ox carts!"

"Well, Master Yang, prepare yourself. Let's go to Qinglanling to inquire about the news in the next few days. See if we can find iron ore over there. If we can find iron ore, and there is a way to pass the shelf car. Let's think about it." There is a way to transport the iron ore to Guanli, and start the furnace to make iron."

I didn't inquire about the channel to buy iron materials, but I heard the news that there might be iron ore not far from Shiping Pass.Song Yingkui couldn't help but adjust his thinking. If we can't buy iron, we can smelt it ourselves. Can a living person be suffocated to death by urine?
"Kui Wa, do you know how to make iron by yourself?" Song Yingkui's words surprised Yang Shun'an, not by his official name, but by his nickname.

"I know how to be a blacksmith. Although making iron is different from blacksmithing, it's basically the same. It's not difficult to make iron out of it!"

I haven't made iron before, but I learned the principle when I was in junior high school.Simple ironmaking knowledge and essentials are also mentioned in the university materials class.It's all here, let's catch the ducks and try it on the shelves.Song Yingkui was not worried about whether iron could be smelted. His main concern was how long it would take to find out a relatively mature iron-making process.After fumbling for a year, it was not worthwhile to clarify this matter.Another one, is the iron ore on the Qinglanling side reliable?

(End of this chapter)