Spring and Autumn I Am King

A few months ago, the appearance of this Wu woman had frightened the blacksmiths in Taoqiu. ∷, x.

At first, everyone blocked her from entering because she was a woman. There was an unwritten rule in the circle of gold attacking workers in the Central Plains: Do not let women enter the workshop, otherwise unlucky things will happen, and it is hard to build it. The blast furnace will burst, the ore blocks of copper and tin hardware will not be melted for a long time, and there will be burrs and irregularities when casting...

What's more, she also brought a young child. The child had no tattoos, but had a dark red birthmark between his eyebrows. Like his mother, when he looked at the people around him, there was a strong distrust in his eyes.

This mother and daughter must never enter Taoqiu!

Cao Bing, the iron official, stood up and explained the reason to Yan Yan who brought the woman here, but Yan Yan just glanced at him lightly and asked back: "Processing pig iron into malleable wrought iron, Maybe it can be done? The iron weapons that the general needs are likely to be mass-produced?"

Cao Bing, sweating profusely, said with a smile, "Isn't it possible? But this woman from Wuyue claimed to be able to do it, and the general issued the "Order of Seeking Talents", stating that only merit is required. You really have the ability to create a weapon for going abroad, and naturally you will not shy away from whether the craftsman is male or female, quickly open the workshop and let her in!"

The iron craftsmen of Lu and Jin sullenly complied and let her in.

She didn't speak, and went to the foundry first to make a handy tool for herself. Wu Nu, who was originally silent and dull, seemed to be a different person when she put on a cooked cowhide skirt and stood by the stove pouring the gold liquid. Sweat flowed on the bronzed skin, and the dragon and snake tattoos on his arms seemed to come alive. After the tool is formed. She held the copper cutter to remove the burrs, and swiftly shaped them with her hands and feet. Pieces of fine tools are made.

The Taoqiu blacksmiths stared at the woman's performance in a stunned manner, and put away their contempt. They were at least certain that this was an extremely skilled worker.

"I heard that swords are easy to use in Wuyue, and gold and tin are everywhere, so everyone can make swords without national work. This woman may be one of them..."

But they still don't believe that this mysterious woman can break the bottleneck of Taoqiu Iron Workshop, which has been stagnant for nearly half a year.

Although even General Zhao also personally intervened. A lot of suggestions that are not very feasible have been provided, but the process of smelting and forging iron is still not improving. In the eyes of iron workers, unless it is inspired by gods, it is impossible for technology to advance by leaps and bounds.

Next, the woman nodded as she looked at the iron smelting blast furnace that had been increased in height under Zhao Wuxi's suggestion, shook her head when examining the iron ore, touched the charcoal and coal used as fuel, and was barely satisfied. She tried in front of the giant airbag. He also curiously looked at the hydraulic blast furnace being developed by the stream.

In fact, after nearly two years of development, the Taoqiu Iron Workshop has been thriving, the mines are getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more furnaces. The daily output has soared from 100 catties to 200 catties. Among them, the technology of smelting pig iron is relatively developed and has reached a certain level.

As early as the early spring of last year, the craftsmen of Lu State had been able to produce better gray pig iron. catch up with the average of the times. Compared with white pig iron, which can only be used for casting tripods, kettles and other utensils, gray pig iron is a great improvement. It is very wearable. It's a pity that it is brittle and hard and not strong enough. It is only suitable for casting ploughs and other agricultural tools and tools that will not be broken and damaged by severe impact. This is the so-called "bad gold".

After that, by overcoming the softening and annealing of pig iron, a better malleable cast iron was obtained, and more farm tools could be cast, and even iron hammers and iron shovels could be cast. However, it is still not suitable for extension and forging, and sharp iron tools are out of reach.

After nearly a year of technical breakthroughs, this bottleneck still cannot be broken through. Wrought iron can rarely be directly smelted, let alone the "steel" described by General Zhao, but at this time, the woman in the land of Wuyue coming.

…

She doesn't speak the Central Plains dialect, and has always communicated with Yanyan in the soft Wuyue language, and then translated Yanyan to the craftsmen, asking them to do this and that.

The original skill of the craftsmen was the "block refining method", which produced a sponge-like solid block, which was called "block ironmaking".

But the woman asked the craftsmen to return the quickly smelted iron and high-quality charcoal to the furnace for re-smelting, and she also took the lead in cutting off the shoulder-length hair and putting it in the furnace!

"Jin Tie Nai wet, hair, cut, put in..." She spoke Zhongyuan dialect in chaotic order, explaining the reason for doing so.

"It's just nonsense!" The craftsmen of Jinlu were trembling with anger.

This woman does seem to have some skills, but this is the only thing that the craftsmen who grow the hair can't accept. In the end, they can only find some cleaned pig hair and the hair of the prisoners.

Pig iron and charcoal were widened and enlarged, and the four blast furnaces, which were a full 10 feet high and 15 feet wide, continued to be sealed and heated. Dozens of iron workers and servants were guarding around the furnaces they were responsible for. Some push the air bag, sweating profusely, blowing air into the furnace; some stand bare-chested on the raised platform, unloading materials into the furnace; some nervously observe the fire and master the opening time.

The smelting workshop was smoldering with smoke and dust flying everywhere, but the Wu woman just covered her mouth and nose, carefully observed the fire, and pointed out the operation of the craftsmen.

After waiting for half a day, the blast furnace was turned on, and after several days of annealing treatment, the craftsmen in Jinlu were a little incredible with the wrought iron produced.

The two furnaces failed to smelt. Of the remaining two, one produced white-hearted wrought iron, and the other was black-hearted wrought iron. These wrought irons are very soft, plastic, and ductile, and can be drawn into silk. And the hardness is low, it is easy to forge a sharp blade, and it is not easy to break in use!

"Why is this so?" The craftsmen were puzzled.

The Wu girl murmured, and Yan Yan translated: "It is not easy to use iron ore to refine mature iron at one time, but to refine it with this method of stewing iron, which is not known to anyone in Wuyue, It's easier to get. Those hair and bones are all her family's secret iron smelting recipe, which can make gold and iron easier to melt. This is the first attempt, only half of success, and no better steel can be made, wrought iron is still It takes continuous carburizing and forging to make the properties better and forge weapons!"

Everyone expressed their admiration. In the next few months, the whole Taoqiu was ringing with jingle and beating, and while Wu Nv taught everyone the smelting skills, she also gradually learned the language of Zhongxia. Under her guidance, in just one spring, Taoqiu's iron smelting has undergone earth-shaking changes.

From melting molten iron, preparing clay mold, casting and forming, to high-temperature annealing and cooling, various process links often have flaws at first, and even accidental deaths may occur, but later they can be carried out stably. The craftsmen's operation skills also gradually became skilled and refined. Because of the shame of the craftsmen, they all wanted to worship the woman as their teacher, but they didn't get any answer.

The woman just wore a leather apron and forged the blade with her own hands in the fireworks-filled workshop. There was still not much wrought iron, and good iron was used on the blade.

And her youngest son, carrying a long sword taller than him, quietly squatted beside him and watched, the red spot on his brow did not disappear at all, instead it became more and more red, as if he was about to drip blood.

In March, the spring rains are sparsely falling, and most of the workshops in Taoqiu are in the open air, and production will be suspended for a period of time. The female blacksmith and Yan Yan went to Qufu with ten new iron swords and one hundred iron swords.

…

"Good weapon! It's not inferior to these fine bronze soldiers!"

After a collision of gold and iron, Zhao Wuxi looked at the guard's bronze sword that was missing a big mouth on the ground, and then looked at the black iron sword that was only broken by a pea and a small mouth, and couldn't help but praise.

The reason why he worked tirelessly on iron weapons, he would rather spend huge sums of money to support the Taoqiu Iron Workshop to continue its research, rather than expect the performance of iron weapons to surpass bronze weapons in an all-round way. After all, until the Qin extermination three hundred years later, the Qin people mainly carried the well-made bronze weapons to hang and beat the Zhao, Chu, and Han countries who used iron soldiers.

Zhao Wushi only hoped that the production of iron weapons would solve the urgent need of Lu State's lack of copper and tin.

Although there was no copper and tin in the State of Lu, there were many iron mountains. In these hundreds of miles of mountains and rivers, the later Han Dynasty set up three iron officials, namely Dongping State, Lu State, and Taishan County, and now they are Tao of Jixi County. The hill, the northern foot of Mount Tai, under the jurisdiction of Qi State, and the hills in the eastern suburbs of Qufu.

Therefore, Zhao Wushi can set up at least two or three large iron official workshops, with a daily output of three or four hundred kilograms. Now after nearly two years of accumulation, iron agricultural tools have begun to be used side by side with bronze, stone, and bone tools in Xilu, and it is only a matter of time before they spread throughout the country of Lu. However, the limited bronze in the treasury is still mainly used to make weapons, so that there is not enough copper for casting Kong Fangqian.

So he desperately needs a breakthrough from the Iron Workshop.

But it takes a long process for new things to replace old things, especially for technological transcendence. The problems that took hundreds of years and thousands of years to solve in human history are not an external action that has never been seen in the whole process of blacksmithing. What can be solved by lip service, at least it can save people from taking some detours. In order to achieve a breakthrough, a huge team of craftsmen is needed to keep trying and failing.

Or, by chance, he got an extraordinary ironworker like the woman in front of him.

Thinking of this, Zhao Wuxi gave the female caster a meaningful look again.

Her limbs are strong, and her bronze-colored skin is embroidered with dark blue tattoos, extending from the back of her hands to her face. UU Reading www.uukanshu.com The originally fair and beautiful face was suddenly unreadable. Her eyes were full of indifference and hatred, and her lips were pressed together tightly, as if they were two hard boulders, making life impossible to get close.

A standard cut-off tattoo, a Wuyue woman, strong and fierce, looked at Zhao Wuxi and glanced back uneasily - her son with red spots on her eyebrows, carrying a long sword on her back was stopped by the guards. rear.

Zhao Wuxi sat up high and asked, "Can you say it again, what's your name?"

The woman said in inarticulate Zhongxia language: "I'm from the country of Yue. My family has been attacking gold and casting swords for generations. My father's name is Ou Yezi, my husband's name is Ganjiang, and my son's name is Meijianchi. As for me..."

She looked up at Zhao Wuxi and said proudly, "Mo Xie, I am the sword master Mo Xie!"

ps: All the metallurgical knowledge in this chapter comes from the "History of the Development of Iron Metallurgy Technology in Ancient China". If there are mistakes, don't use the July theory. Anyway, I don't understand o(n_n)o~ By the way, please ask for your guaranteed monthly pass! There are also recommended tickets! There is another chapter tonight.

(To be continued.)

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