Guide to traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty

The next day, Ju Ming took a boat to Liguojian.

On the deck, Geng Dingchen pointed to the north and introduced: "The canal in the north of the city was opened by Di Wuxiang (Di Qing). The canal in the south of the city was dug by Su Dongpo. The efforts of the two princes in the past have brought about the prosperity of Liguojian today!" "

"Does all iron smelting in Xuzhou use coal now?" Zhu Ming asked.

Geng Dingchen said: "Coal is cheaper than charcoal, even casual smelters also use coal."

Ju Ming nodded: "Excellent."

Xuzhou's iron smelting industry experienced two leap-forward developments in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The first time was when Di Qing was sent to Xuzhou to supervise the manufacture of weapons and equipment, which immediately expanded the scale of iron smelting here.

The second time was when Su Shi governed Xuzhou and sent people to conduct exploration and discovered high-quality coal mines in the wild. Xuzhou Iron Smelting entered the coal age.

The two dug a canal, one in the south and one in the north, and connected them to the original canals, solving the traffic problem.

Half of the iron mines in Liguojian were soaked in Weishan Lake in later generations. This is also the main reason why the Xuzhou Iron Field was inferior to the Zunhua Iron Field in the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, there is no Weishan Lake, that area is all land.

In fact, in ancient times, the iron smelting conditions in Xuzhou were far stronger than those in Zunhua. Because the iron ore and coal mines here are all of high quality, and they are quite close!

"Ahead is the Du family's smelting field," Geng Dingchen pointed forward and said, "The Du family used to only produce iron. Using His Highness' method, now it has begun to fry steel."

"Go down and take a look." Zhu Ming said.

Zhu Ming didn't say in advance that he would disembark here, so his entourage was immediately extremely busy, and Du Jiaye also rushed to greet him in a panic.

Xuzhou has Thirty-Six Metallurgical Industries, that is, 36 private iron smelting plants that have obtained operating licenses. They mine and smelt iron themselves, and give 20% of their products to the government for tax deduction. The remaining products can be bought and sold freely, but the government has the priority to purchase at low prices.

The Northern Song Dynasty also tried to monopolize the iron smelting industry with the government. The result was that the products were too numerous to be used, and the government-run iron yards continued to suffer losses. It also forced local people to turn to thieves.

"Du Yu, a common man, please pay homage to His Highness the Crown Prince!" The owner of Dujia's smelting factory came running to pay his respects.

Ju Ming smiled and said: "Stand up and speak. The workers will do whatever they need to do."

"Yes." Du Yu whispered, and the people around him immediately dispersed the idle people and ordered the workers to return to their posts quickly.

Ju Ming asked this person to lead the way and went to check the factory situation.

No water power is used here as no forging is involved. However, Ju Ming's design was used to improve it, that is, the steel-frying method recorded in "Tiangong Kaiwu" is nothing more than connecting the stove to the frying pool, and you can directly pour it into the frying pool to fry the wrought iron. Compared with the previous steel-frying method Greatly save time and labor costs.

Du Yu respected the prince from the bottom of his heart and regarded him as an expert. The prince's improved iron frying equipment brought him real economic benefits!

Ju Ming asked: "When the government purchased raw wrought iron, did they not lower the price indiscriminately?"

"No, absolutely not, it's very fair!" Du Yu swore quickly, for fear of offending Geng Dingchen next to him.

Prices must be lowered, but compared to the Northern Song Dynasty, price lowering in the Ming Dynasty was much more humane and would not push merchants to death. We will not lower the price while also deliberately finding fault with the quality of the raw and cooked iron.

Being able to do this is nothing more than rectifying the administration of officials.

In fact, the iron smelting merchants are doing better, but the gold mining merchants are miserable. The gold mine owners in Jiaodong were forced by the Northern Song Dynasty court to lose money if they did not smuggle. It was impossible for them to operate lawfully and legally!

Geng Dingchen said: "Your Highness, please rest assured that the purchase price of iron for the benefit of the state affairs is only slightly lower than the market price."

Not only is it lower than the market price, but the merchant also has to pay freight to deliver the product to the warehouse of Li State Affairs.

Du Yu wanted to stay with the prince for dinner, so Ju Ming took a brief walk around, asked many basic questions, and then hurriedly took the boat away.

Du Yu and his men knelt down to send the fleet away, saying with emotion: "What a holy prince!"

After passing more than a dozen private iron smelting yards, the fleet finally arrived at Liguo Town, which is full of official institutions, and an ordnance factory is also located nearby.

The sound of banging, banging, banging was heard endlessly, and black smoke was emitting from stoves everywhere.

Zhang Cheng, the manager of the ordnance factory, also came to visit and took Ju Ming to check around.

"They specialize in making firearms over there," Zhang Cheng said, pointing to the northwest. "They have made more than 300 firearms, three wrought iron forged cannons, and six cast iron cannons. In addition, the cast iron cannons handed over by the prince Cannon casting craftsmen have also mastered the gun iron molding method, and can cast a gun barrel in a few days. But..."

"But what?" Ju Ming asked.

Zhang Cheng said: "The barrels made of iron molds are mostly white iron, which is brittle and not tough. If you want to prevent the barrel from exploding, the barrel must be cast thicker, and the barrel must be hooped with wrought iron. Iron ring. It takes more than a month to build a cannon like this, and it will be very large and bulky."

Ju Ming asked again carefully and basically understood the situation.

The iron mold method for casting cannons appeared in the late Qing Dynasty, but its technology existed during the Warring States Period, but it was used to cast carriage parts and arrow clusters.

The advantages are very obvious. The casting time is short, and the barrel can be formed in just a few days. It does not need to be dried in the shade for three or four months like the clay mold method. Moreover, the iron mold can be used repeatedly, which greatly saves the cost of casting cannons. The manufactured artillery is well-proportioned and smooth with very few blisters, which can improve the stability of the artillery.

The disadvantage is even more obvious, the risk of bombing is very high. In order to prevent the barrel from exploding, the barrel must be thickened, and more wrought iron hoops must be added to the outside. It is difficult to polish after casting. Once there is a problem during casting, it will have to be scrapped and recast. Forcing it will greatly increase the risk of explosion.

In other words, it took more than a month to save a lot of costs and build a heavy artillery that was as heavy as a siege gun but as powerful as a field gun.

"Has the iron mold been made?" Zhu Ming asked.

Zhang Cheng replied: "The iron molds are enough to make three sets."

Ju Ming ordered: "In the next two years, all cannons will be cast using this method. All the iron forging craftsmen will be transferred to making firecrackers!"

Zhang Cheng said: "With the existing number of iron molds, if there are no errors during casting, we can guarantee that three artillery pieces will be cast within 40 days."

Now we don’t care about the many problems. We can ignore the cumbersome problem. We just need to use more artillery to fight against the Jin people and think about logistics and transportation.

This type of artillery is actually more suitable as a coastal defense artillery and urban defense artillery!

Coastal defense artillery in the late Qing Dynasty was almost exclusively made of this stuff.

The gunners brought by Ju Ming were sent to carefully inspect the built artillery, and the musketeers also went to test the muskets produced in Xuzhou.

Soon they came back and reported that the products here were all good, better than those produced in Sichuan.

This is an extremely normal result. At its peak, Liguo Town had four thousand iron smelters alone. Including miners, blacksmiths, coolies, etc., the total number of workers is ten to twenty thousand.

Every household deals with iron!

Nowadays, the quality inspection process is stricter, and each part has a responsible person. The most serious punishment is to beheaded directly.

After inspecting the firearms factory, Ju Ming went to the armor factory.

Zhang Cheng brought a huge piece of armor, which can already be called a small plate armor, and said: "This is forged repeatedly with a water hammer. Zha armor can be made faster."

"Excellent." Zhu Ming nodded in approval.

Zha armor in the Song Dynasty has been highly modularized. After being separated, many parts are just like plate armor, and they are also heavier than plate armor.

Why not just use plate armor layout instead? It’s lightweight and cost-effective, what a great thing.

It's very simple. The cost of sophisticated plate armor is too high, and ordinary plate armor has insufficient defensive properties.

With water hammer, it is a perfect solution. Plate armor is repeatedly forged with water hammer to replace some modular armor parts. The armor made in this way is lighter in weight, saves cost and time, and ensures that the defense is not weakened.

An eighty-pound walking suit can be reduced to fifty or sixty pounds.

Zhang Cheng took Ju Ming to see the finished product. He saw a huge nail plate on the chest, and large nail plates on both sides of the armor skirt. The rest of the nail plates had also become larger as a whole.

"How heavy is it?" Zhu Ming asked.

"Fifty-six kilograms," Zhang Cheng said. "To make such strong armor before, it would have weighed at least seventy kilograms."

Ju Ming is extremely satisfied with this. This thing not only reduces costs, but also allows soldiers to reduce their load. It can also save trouble during daily maintenance, and it is easier to repair large armor plates.

As for chain armor, major ordnance factories across the country have completely stopped manufacturing it and will start manufacturing it again when manpower is not tight.

That thing is too labor-intensive!

Keyboard warriors disparage the poor defense of chain armor because when they tested it, they used a butt-type armor that could be easily shot through with an arrow.

Throughout ancient and modern times, butt-type chain armor was commonly used only in ancient Japan.

Most of the chain armor used by armies of other countries is riveted or welded, which is actually very durable.

"Bring the reward money!" Zhu Ming ordered.

Baskets of silver coins and copper coins were carried off the ship by the guards, and Ju Ming began to reward officials and craftsmen.

As the news spread, cheers broke out and everyone became more motivated.

Ju Ming said to officials such as Geng Dingchen and Zhang Cheng: "If craftsmen have novel ideas, let them try them. Those who can improve the craftsmanship will be rewarded heavily, and the officials in charge can also be counted in their political achievements."

"Yes!" The officials all bowed.

Ju Ming added: "I plan to build a school here. Confucian classics will only teach "The Analects of Confucius" and "Mencius". The other courses are mathematics and physics, as well as iron smelting, forging, casting, cannon making, gun making, and armor making. Etc. As long as they are residents of Liguo Town, their children can enroll in school. The school is also divided into five levels according to the three-level method, and the top 100 students in each level will be exempted from tuition fees."

"This method is very good and will surely teach countless skilled craftsmen!" Geng Dingchen quickly flattered him.

Zhu Ming said: "Students who graduate from the school's board exams can be given priority to be martial arts officers in Li Guojian, and can even be transferred to other state capitals to be martial arts officers. I will set up twelve such schools in the future. There are more than just For iron smelting and armor making, other supervisory duties related to craftsmen will also be established, such as shipbuilding and vehicle building."

Ju Ming's plan for the craftsman school was to build one in three years and complete the construction of twelve schools in thirty-six years.

Of course, when finances become abundant in the future, several can be built a year, and the scope of enrollment will also expand.

After this kind of school system matures, technological development will definitely be faster, and it will be more systematic and theoretical, and some scientific sparks may burst out.