Great Wei Overlord

Chapter 68
Chapter 070

Ran Ming set up the Hanlin Academy in the Chu Palace. However, this Imperial Academy was actually an institution established in the Tang Dynasty. It was a place where talented literati drafted imperial edicts for the emperor. However, Ran Ming’s real intention was to imitate the Imperial Academy in the Song Dynasty. Let the academicians of the Hanlin Academy become his staff!The official position in the Jin Dynasty is equivalent to that of a regular servant on horseback.

Now Ran Ming's first task for Hanlin scholars is to improve the laws of Chu State.In view of the fact that clan and tribal leaders control the population of families and tribes and monopolize various resources such as manpower, fields, and materials, the first "Tax Law" was revised. No matter who they are, everyone must pay taxes according to the principle of equality before the law. Farmers, [-]% tax one, herdsmen [-]% tax one, the principle of [-]% of the profits of merchants, amend the detailed bill.

Since Ran Ming is not from this era, he does not understand the industrial structure and related unspoken rules of this era at all. Of course, the work of amending the law mainly falls on Wang Meng and ten Hanlin scholars.

As for Ran Ming, he brought his blueprints to the Arms Supervision to find Niu Shi, and asked Niu Shi to build his rail car blueprints!In order to save precious steel resources, this rail car is actually very simple. The bottom four iron wheels, the bracket and the bottom seat are made of iron, while the upper car box is replaced by wood!

After telling Niu Shi the blueprints and key points of manufacture, Ran Ming began to monitor the weapons.

The current Military Weapons Supervision has set up a shelf, and there is a Nufang Department under it. The Nufang Order is Ma Jun's descendant Ma Ying.According to Ran Ming's vision, his current enemies are mainly Xianbei and Diqin, mainly cavalry, and using crossbows is the best way.

Although the manufacturing cost of the ballista is much more expensive than that of the bow and arrow, the ballista has an advantage that the bow and arrow cannot have, that is, the training is fast.It only takes one hour to train a peasant into a crossbowman.

When Ran Ming saw Ma Ying, he asked him, "Mafang Ling, how many horse crossbows can the Nufang Department make in a day?"

Ma Ying wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and said, "Reporting to Your Highness, there are more than 1000 craftsmen in the Nufang, who can manufacture 160 horse crossbows every day, plus four eight-ox crossbows."

The eight-ox crossbow is actually a kind of bed crossbow. Theoretically, it needs the pulling force of eight cows to wind it. If it is to use people, it needs a hundred soldiers to wind it.

However, because Ma Ying invented the lever instead of manual winding, the eight-ox crossbow at this time only needs the joint efforts of six people to wind it.Moreover, Ma Ying installed wheels for the eight-ox crossbow, which formed a ballista that could be pulled by mules and horses.

In order to facilitate aiming, Ma Ying used his family's mechanical knowledge to install a movable turntable on the bottom of the crossbow machine, which can move the eight-ox crossbow up and down, left and right, and aim at the target.In this way, the eight-ox crossbow has become completely different. When Ran Ming sees such a crossbow, it looks like the ballista in the European blockbuster "Underworld".

Of course not all, this kind of crossbow is extremely powerful, of course, people cannot buckle the trigger. When firing, the crossbowman raises a sledgehammer high and hammers the trigger with all his strength, so the huge crossbow bolt roars and flies. to the enemy.These arrows are very thick, and the arrowheads are flat chisel-shaped, so they are called "chisel arrows".
The shooting range can reach more than [-] steps.If you line up the eight-ox crossbow formation, you can simply restore the scene of Mengtian Hetao's battle against the Huns!

However, Ran Ming saw that the manufacturing efficiency of both the Eight Bull Crossbow and the Horse Gong Crossbow was very low!

Ran Ming vaguely remembered seeing the crossbowmakers of the Qin Dynasty in later generations. They also had about 1000 people, and they could produce [-] sets of Qin crossbows or [-] three-stone strong bows a day.

Ran Ming observed the manufacturing process of the Nufang Department, and finally found the problem. This is completely different from Ran Ming's factories in later generations. They basically completed most of the mechanical parts by each person alone, which was slow and inefficient. !

Seeing that Ran Ming raised his brows, Ma Ying quickly explained: "This is because the craftsmen are not yet skilled. When they become proficient in the future, they will make it faster!"

Ran Ming said: "This is still too slow, why not break down the process of making the crossbow mechanism, such as making the crossbow arm for the special crossbow arm, and the string making for the special string, all the components of the crossbow mechanism have their own special In this way, each craftsman only needs to learn how to make one of the simple components. Then after all the parts are completed by different people, let a special person be responsible for the assembly. In this way, the speed is fast and the efficiency is high. It is also higher, and more confidential."

Ma Ying looked at Ran Ming in surprise and said, "Your Highness also knows about Kaogonglu."

Ran Ming asked perplexedly, "What is the kaogonglu?"

Ma Yingdao: ""Kaogonglu" is the organ-making technique written by Mozi back then. Our ancestors once got a broken copy of "Kaogonglu", and made this pair of horse crossbows according to "Kaogonglu". It records the production method His Highness just mentioned, the pre-Qin craftsmen relied on this method to forge a large number of magic weapons, if not, it would be difficult for the pre-Qin Dynasty to sweep the six kingdoms!"

Then Ran Ming told Ma Ying the characteristics of the assembly line operation and related precautions based on his own knowledge, and asked Ma Ying to slowly improve the production of the crossbow machine.

In addition to the Nufang Department of the Military Weapons Supervision, the Military Weapons Supervision also has a Jiafang Department. This department is concurrently in charge of Niu Shi. It mainly makes armor and various weapons!
The research and development of Modao is currently the focus of the work of Jiafang Administration!
Soon, in the afternoon of that day, Ran Ming saw the real rail car. Without molds, such precise wheels could be completed by hand-made methods. One can imagine how high Niu Shi's level is.

At this moment, Jing Zhan led the guards to bring more than 100 catties of coke that Ran Ming brought back from Montenegro to Niu Shi!

Niu Shi was very surprised, "Is this black stone but steelmaking?"

Ran Ming smiled and said, "How will you know if you don't try it?"

Niu Shi was not affectionate either. He grabbed a handful of coke and put it on the burning stove. He pulled out the lever with a sudden force, and then pushed it in hard.The impact of the airflow is generated in the bellows, and it is sprayed into the furnace from the mouth, that is, the air valve.

The charcoal fire burst into flames, dancing with blue flames. "It's hot!" Niu Shi couldn't help shouting.

He knows exactly what kind of flame, what kind of temperature it produces, and what kind of items are most suitable for making.Just seeing the flames rising, Niu Shi knew that the high temperature was far beyond that of charcoal.So he immediately picked up a scrapped knife blank from the side of the melting iron furnace and threw it into the iron furnace.Bang-dang-dang!The iron tongs took out the fiery red knife embryo, placed it on the chopping board, and continuously forged and knocked it.

With every strike, Niu Shi used all his strength, sparks splashed, the knife embryo gradually formed, and the temperature slowly dropped.When the blade was almost dark red, he stopped forging, clamped the blade, and put it into the sink.Repeated forging, repeated quenching.

After more than an hour of beating, Niu Shi finally finished making a knife!
Holding the knife without a handle, Niu Shi excitedly said to Ran Ming, "Your Highness, it's done. This coke is indeed a sharp knife tool. This kind of coke is much better than charcoal fire!"

Ran Ming looked at a big man in his 40s, excited like a child, quite speechless, he said to Niu Shi: "Sledgehammer, I remember someone told me before, you can pour melted pig iron on wrought iron , and then mix and melt the two kinds of iron, and you can get Bailian Steel!"

In fact, the method Ran Ming mentioned is the historical "irrigation of steel" method. The ancient smelting technology was in a relatively primitive stage before the Spring and Autumn Period, and the smelting method used at that time was called "block smelting method".At that time, charcoal was used as fuel for ironmaking, with little heat, small furnace body and poor blasting equipment, so the furnace temperature was relatively low and could not reach the melting temperature of iron, so the iron produced was a spongy solid block, called "" block of iron".

Block iron smelting is time-consuming, the texture is relatively soft, and it contains many impurities. After forging, it becomes usable wrought iron.But after entering the maturity of the steel pouring method, the scale of steel production began to take a qualitative leap!Niu Shi didn't take this method of filling steel seriously, but he was a loyal craftsman and didn't have any scheming. Anyway, Ran Ming asked him to do it, so he did it!
Anyway, success comes from failure and groping slowly. Ran Ming didn't care about the truth and how to do it. Anyway, he didn't understand, at most he knew a little theory.

Niu Shi said: "Your Highness, this coke is a good product for steelmaking, and it must be used on a large scale. If there is coke, our armor production will definitely double in one month!"

Ran Ming nodded and said, "Gu understands! Gu will mine a lot!"

After Ran Ming returned, he told Wang Meng about his idea of ​​mining coal.Wang Meng said: "His Royal Highness, the autumn harvest is about to begin, we must not be able to spare people to mine!"

Ran Ming thought for a while and said, "I remember there should be a lot of Xianbei prisoners in the prisoner camp!"

Wang Meng's head is quite good. He thought for a while and said: "The captives are mainly the Murong tribe and the Duanbu Xianbei. Among them, the Murong tribe has more than 700 people, and the Duan tribe captives were sent to Duan Qin with 6000 people before. Duan Wei has 900 people, and there are [-] left!"

"Now that we are building water conservancy, we still have another winter to use it!" Ran Ming thought for a while and said, "Chen Ying has already gone to the south of the Yangtze River to buy grain, and he plans to use work instead of tax, so that the people who participate in the construction of water conservancy can get food. In this way , can mobilize most of the people in Qingzhou, and the water conservancy should be barely enough, and the Xianbei captives don’t have to do hard work, they are all sent to mine!"

Wang Meng said: "But, Your Highness, now Murong Jun has sent people to discuss the matter of buying the captives, and they have already arrived! If we use the captives for mining again, isn't it a bit..."

Ran Ming said: "As long as it can be delayed, if Murong Jun refuses to accept, he will send troops to fight. Gu is not afraid of him coming. Even if we send all the prisoners to Murong Jun, he will not be grateful to me, but will think that I am Weakness can be bullied, only strong, hard enough fists can scare the enemy! The marriage between Han and Han did not bring about peace, so I don't care what Murong Juan thinks.

These captives should exert their greatest value and bring us enough benefits! Ran Ming got up and said: "Coal can not only make steel, but also be used for cooking. We can use the coal to save firewood for cooking and use a lot of wood to build ships!" "

After dealing with the issue of captives, Ran Ming began to prepare lessons for his disciples in the martial arts hall, accepting others as apprentices, he must not let them go, the most important thing is to teach his disciples how to fight!
(End of this chapter)