Rome must fall.

Chapter 99 Weapon Workshop
  Maximus glanced at Capito.

Capito immediately introduced him: "The leader, his name is Kedesos. He was originally a slave, and now he is the steward of this weapons workshop I appointed. The original steward is Eraqus' confidant, Sarah Pia, a Roman citizen, who was unwilling to do anything for us.

And Kedessos is his servant. As you can see, the environment here is not very good. The steward usually doesn’t like to stay here. He usually instructs Kedessos to do things, so Kedessos has a negative attitude towards the workshop. On the contrary, he is more familiar with the affairs than that steward..."

Maximus nodded in agreement: "You are right. The weapons workshop is very important to us. Only those who share our hearts can be placed in important positions!"

Then Maximus smiled and patted Cadsos' thick shoulder intimately: "I know nothing about the weapons workshop. Next, I have to rely on you to take me around here carefully. Please explain it carefully so that I can learn from it."

"Yes... yes, leader." Kedessos was flattered. After calming down, he asked carefully in a questioning tone: "Shall we go to the gravel room first?"

"It's up to you." Maximus responded readily.

Cadsos led Maximus and Capito towards the river bank, followed closely by the heavily armed Guards soldiers. On the way, I met many busy people. When they saw this formation, they all wisely avoided it.

Soon they came to a tall building, which was built on a water channel and next to the hill to the west. The channel more than two meters wide introduced the gentle water of the Orfidus River from the hill. It became very turbulent as it poured down. The water hit a rather large wooden wheel under the building, making a loud rumbling sound. It also caused the fan blades of the wooden wheel to continue to rotate under the impact of the water...

Seeing this, Maximus suddenly became excited. He couldn't wait to walk into the building. What appeared in front of him was: at the other end of the wooden wheel deep into the building was a huge rotating gear, which was connected to the other side of the building. A smaller iron gear is fitted together, and the iron gear is fitted into another iron gear, through the connecting rod... Finally, an iron arm is revealed, with a large iron hammer at the end of the arm. The gears are linked together, eventually leading to The hammer moves up and down continuously, crushing the iron ore underneath...

"This is a water hammer!" Maximus couldn't help but said. When he was in Campania, he talked about the water mill with Volenus and Scarpulla, but instead of seeing the water mill, he saw another one first. An ancient machine that harnessed the power of water.

"First... leader, stand back a little more, be careful not to get hit by the gravel!" Kedessos reminded with concern. Due to the rumbling sound in the building, he had to speak loudly with great effort.

Maximus nodded, took a few steps back, and stared at several laborers not far away. They were wearing thicker clothes and their heads were tightly wrapped. They slowly moved the wooden boards covered with iron ore to the top. After all the iron ore was crushed, it was poured into the wooden frame, new iron ore was placed, and the hammer continued to hit...

After only staying for a while, Maximus felt that his eardrums couldn't bear it. He quickly withdrew, rubbed his buzzing ears, and then said: "We should call Spukala and let him study this water carefully." The construction of the hammer.”

"Chief, Spukala has been here a long time ago. The water hammer broke down before, and I invited him to fix it." Capito said.

"Oh, it turns out that you have known about such a good thing for a long time, and you have been hiding it from me." Maximus said half-jokingly and half-seriously.

Capito replied seriously: "Chief, I don't think this thing is very good. I heard them say that building a water hammer requires a lot of manpower, but this thing often breaks down and is troublesome to repair. And because of the water in the Orfidus River, The amount is uncertain, and the impact on water hammer is also greater...

Originally, Erakus planned to build a few more water hammers and use them more for forging molten iron. Perhaps because of these shortcomings, it was only used on gravel that had the lowest technical requirements. "

"Oh, that's right..." Maximus responded. Capito's words did not reduce his interest in water hammer. As a modern man, he knew that mechanical power is far more efficient than human power. , and can also promote the development of society...

He was about to catch a glimpse of Kedesos out of the corner of his eye but hesitated to speak, so he asked with a smile: "Kedessos, what do you think of this water hammer?"

Cadsos glanced at Capito warily.

"Just say what you have to say! Neither Capito nor I know much about iron smelting and weapon casting. You have been here for so long, and you are the expert in this field. Your opinions are very important to us!"

Maximus spoke frankly, which made Cadsos feel unprecedented respect. He felt a surge of heat in his heart, and immediately blurted out: "I think the water hammer is very good. It can not only be used to break stones, but also It should be used for forging!”

"Oh, tell me carefully." Maximus encouraged.

"The Romans were hired to build this water hammer with a lot of money. I heard from the Lord... Erakus complained privately that the Romans were worried that the weapons and armor produced by this weapons workshop would exceed theirs, and the construction was not very careful, so it was often It broke down, and our carpenters here lacked the experience to repair it, so it was stopped from time to time. But we have the adult who came that day (referring to Spukala), so there shouldn't be so much trouble in the future.

When the water hammer is good, it can crush more than 1500 kilograms of iron ore in a day. This requires more than ten people to hold hammers and hammer for a whole day to barely achieve this, because they have to rest at night, but the water hammer does not.

In fact, at the request of my former master, the blacksmiths brought molten iron here to forge it. In fact, it was far less labor-intensive than their own, but they complained that the force given by the water hammer was either too high or too high. It was small and kept breaking down, which seriously affected the quality of weapon output, so it was finally abandoned.

But I think—"

Kedessos hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice and said: "The main reason why those blacksmiths are strongly opposed is that if water hammer is used in large quantities for forging, part of the blacksmiths and labor may be replaced..."

Maximus asked in a more kind tone: "Then what improvements do you think need to be made if we want to use water hammer more in weapon workshops?"

"This... I don't understand." Kedessos touched his head, and seeing Maximus's encouraging eyes, he couldn't help but say again: "If we could equip this water hammer with a dedicated carpenter to conduct regular inspections, and maintenance, there should be less frequent failures...

And I heard them say that the reason why the power of this canal is difficult to control is because the flow of our Orfidus River is too slow and there is not much water in the river. Therefore, when the hot water dries up, it... ” ˆ ˆ Maximus listened carefully and said with a smile: “You said it very well!” Where should we go next? "

"Go to...the ore washing room."

"Ore washing?"

"These...these iron ores not only contain iron, but also...there are also soil and other things. We need to put the broken iron ore into the sink for stirring and washing to wash away the impurities in the iron ore. There will be more iron in the ore..." Kedesos explained: "I heard... the iron ore we use here comes from Noricum in northern Italy, and it is better than the iron ore from other places. Better, the ore contains more iron..."

While listening to Kedesos' explanation, Maximus carefully visited the washing room, roasting room, and grinding room.

The grinding house was built on the water channel next to the gravel house, and the rumbling sound it made was equally loud.

Maximus discovered the water mill he had longed for in the room. Its entire structure was similar to a water hammer, except that the end was replaced by a large hammer instead of a large stone mill. However, it did not grind grains, but roasted them. The ore then becomes swollen and soft, where it is ground into granular powder, and then the powder is sent to the center of the weapons workshop.

There is a large tower-shaped house here, about two meters high, with no door to block it and remains transparent. There is a large circular furnace in the house, which is one meter deep into the ground and about 1.5 meters in diameter. The furnace cavity gradually rises upward. It shrinks and eventually becomes a straight chimney, sticking out of the roof and releasing billowing black smoke... People in the workshop call it a "shaft furnace".

The almost naked laborers mixed the ore powder and charcoal according to a certain proportion, put them into the furnace layer by layer, ignited them, closed the furnace cavity, and blew air inward through the air duct...

I don’t know how long it took, but the heat in the house became extremely hot, which made Maximus unbearable. When he had to exit, he saw that the laborers were still busy in the house.

Since this is the most important step in iron smelting, Maximus waited patiently outside the house until he saw the red liquid flowing out from the bottom of the furnace cavity...

He thought it was molten iron, but Kedesos told him that the liquid was slag, and the real iron embryo was still in the furnace cavity.

After the slag was drained, the workers opened the furnace cavity, carefully took out the semi-liquid iron embryo, and sent it to another large room connected to the shaft furnace room.

There are several heavy guillotines placed in the room, and there are several laborers next to them. Their task is to cut and stretch the soft iron blanks that have just come out of the furnace into appropriate sizes so that they can be better manufactured later. Required weapons.

There are also some strong men wearing leather robes and holding hammers in the room. Their task is to simply forge the cut iron embryos to discharge the slag in the iron embryos, making them purer and textured. Sturdy.

After this step, the iron ore was produced into pig iron ingots. Iron smelting should have come to an end, but Kedessos told Maximus: Erakus learned it from Roman military merchants at a huge cost. I have found a way to make iron stronger and more durable, which is to place pig iron ingots and charcoal powder in a closed container, and then heat them at high temperature for a few hours...

Isn't this carbon doping? ! ...Maximus was surprised. The reason why he knew something about this was because he had taken over the work of a game company in his previous life and provided illustrations for a game about ancient civilizations and hegemony, which included various ancient sciences. In order to draw a good picture, he has carefully read historical materials and seen the prototype structure. The carbon-doped raw steel method is an ancient technology.

Maximus thought about it and no longer found it strange, because the armor and daggers they intercepted from the Roman legions were much harder than pig iron and could be considered steel. This shows the Romans' technology in smelting steel. It began to be popularized and used in the army on a large scale, becoming a weapon for the Roman army to dominate the Mediterranean.

Maximus frowned and followed Kedessos to the east of the weapons workshop, which is the area where weapons are manufactured.

The first thing you enter is the foundry house, which is a large house divided into two parts: one is the crucible house, where small pieces of wrought iron ingots are put into the crucible, and then the crucible is sealed with clay. Repeated heating at high temperatures can eventually turn it into molten iron;
  The other is the mold house, where various iron and pottery molds are densely packed, such as armor molds, spear point molds... Laborers pour molten iron into the molds, remove the molds after cooling, and the prototype of the weapon is formed. .

Due to material limitations, crucible casting is only suitable for small weapons. For the manufacture of large weapons such as daggers, helmets, shield cores, and greaves, wrought iron ingots of various sizes must be sent to the forging room.

The forging room is larger in area and is divided into various weapon rooms such as helmet room, dagger room, armor room... etc. Wrought iron ingots and weapon prototypes cast from crucibles are quenched, forged, polished, and ground by the blacksmiths. Front...

The formed weapons will then be sent to various assembly rooms. The people working in the assembly rooms are no longer blacksmiths, but mainly slaves who are proficient in carpentry and leather arts. They would add handles and scabbards to daggers, embed iron shield cores into square shields, pad linings and feathers on helmets, connect pieces of armor and assemble them into segmented armor... …

When Maximus visited the dagger room, he also saw an acquaintance - Paisianasis and his son Paisipidas.

In Pompeii, Maximus had met Peisianasis several times, and the two parties should have known each other, but Peisianasis clearly saw Maximus coming in, but deliberately turned his head and turned a blind eye.

However, his son Pasipidas took the initiative to greet him and shouted respectfully: "Chief Maximus!"

Maximus said with a smile: "Long time no see, Pasippidas, it looks like your injuries are all healed!"

Pasipidas touched his right leg with his hand, and said with both heart palpitations and gratitude: "It's all my fault for my reckless behavior. If you hadn't sent someone to rescue me, I'm afraid my leg would have been disabled long ago!"

"No, you shouldn't thank me." Maximus said seriously: "You should thank the medical team and Lucina who took good care of you!"

(End of this chapter)