After the land auction was over, the craftsmen who had already been recruited went to Hejia Town to start the construction of the city wall.

At this time, there are still almost two months before the freeze, and as long as the materials are supplied, it is entirely possible for 50,000 people to go into battle and complete one-third of the project.

The project was supervised and implemented by Han Si of the Prefecture Government and the grain chief of He Jiazhen, and He Zhiyuan's task was to plan and raise silver in the early stage. Now that both of these tasks have been completed, the others are starting to get busy, and he is idle.

However, He Zhiyuan can't be idle for a long time. Under the supervision of Liang Wensheng's arrangement, the construction of the iron and steel smelter began on the Shuhe River in the east of the city, but the gunpowder factory and the firearms factory did not start for a long time.

These days, He Zhiyuan has been living in a mansion in the city. He was not for enjoyment, but for the convenience of guiding the construction of the steel mill.

The Ming Dynasty's iron-making technology and steel production were among the top in the world. In particular, the invention of the steel frying method and the steel filling method is almost a century ahead of the West.

Why did the cannons and muskets of the Ming Dynasty often explode in the case of advanced technology? In fact, this aspect is due to human reasons, the treatment of craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty was extremely low, and officials at all levels were seriously corrupt, and it was strange that craftsmen could make good steel without enough to eat. On the other hand, the fuel for ironmaking in the Ming Dynasty was ordinary coal, which contained impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus, and smelting raw iron contained impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus, which was highly brittle and had poor flexibility. The chance of a cannon musket produced from this type of steel being blown up is greatly increased.

In He Zhiyuan's view, the problem of people is not a problem, the current steel mill is a government-private partnership, and Lord Liang of Zhizhou now realizes the importance of science and talents, so he will no longer look down on craftsmen like other officials, and their treatment will be greatly improved, and the enthusiasm of craftsmen will be greatly stimulated.

The best way to solve the problem of high sulfur and phosphorus content in steel is to use high-quality coal with low sulfur and phosphorus content. However, most of the coal in Shandong Jingjing has high sulfur content, and only Shanxi and Hebei have high-quality low-sulfur coal.

The second is to desulfurize the coal, but it is technically difficult to do now. There are many ways to desulfurize coal, the simplest method is to use magnetic separation method and gravity method, which can effectively remove iron sulfide in coal, and the desulfurization rate is as high as 50%. However, the desulfurization efficiency of this method is not high, and the cost is also large.

In the end, Ho decided to sacrifice the environment, abandon the use of coal for ironmaking, and replace ordinary coal with high-calorie high-quality charcoal. The technology of burning charcoal has long been mature, but in the Ming Dynasty, due to the decrease in forest area and the large demand for steel, most of them abandoned the use of charcoal, and coal ironmaking became the mainstream.

Early in the morning, He Zhiyuan got up early and came to the construction site of the steel mill in the east of the city. In charge of the construction site is the master craftsman Hou Dongming, who is about forty-five or sixteen years old, and has been a blacksmith since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

By his generation, it was already the fifth generation. He was the best ironsmith in Juzhou, so Liang Wensheng arranged for the workshop to assign him to be in charge of ironmaking.

When He Zhiyuan found Hou Dongming, he was directing the workers to build an iron-making furnace. The iron-making furnace that Hou Dongming is building now is still the traditional way of connecting the iron-making furnace and the iron-frying furnace in series. In this method, the molten pig iron smelted by the iron-making furnace is first allowed to flow into the iron-frying furnace, and the carbon in the molten pig iron is oxidized with a willow stick to mature iron. This continuous production process has begun to take shape of the system idea of combined production, which not only improves production efficiency, but also reduces energy consumption.

However, the so-called "wrought iron" fried in this kind of iron furnace is iron with a carbon content of less than 2%, that is to say, according to the definition of wrought iron (carbon content less than 0.2%) and steel (carbon content between 2% ~ 0.2%) in later generations, the meaning of this "wrought iron" includes both wrought iron and steel in later generations. Just because the temperature is not enough, whether it is fried steel or wrought iron, what is fried is semi-solid paste steel and iron.

In order to make high-quality steel, it is necessary to increase the furnace temperature and heat the steel to a liquid state, so that the ratio of carbon to other elements can be controlled freely and accurately.

Finally, only when liquid steel is smelted can it be mixed with other alloys to make alloy steel, and the steel can be quickly produced by casting or rolling. During the Ming Dynasty, China had reached the world's most advanced level of steel smelting, but it was still close to the point where it could melt steel into molten steel.

He Zhiyuan looked at this Hou Dongming and their busy figures, and thought to himself: It seems that I will kick this kick at the door. But now the creation of a qualified flintlock pistol is the most urgent, and there is no time to explore and experiment with new methods of steelmaking. But it's okay to improve it a little.

So he asked Hou Dongming: "Master Hou, are you going to use coal to make iron now?" ”

"Yes, now both official and private kilns use coal to make iron. He Gongzi has a good way? Hou Dongming knew He Zhiyuan's reputation, so he asked.

"It's too late to make big improvements, but small improvements can still be made. Master Hou, don't use coal as fuel in the future, use charcoal instead. He Zhiyuan said.

"Charcoal is too expensive, and the cost will be much higher. I heard my grandfather say that the iron made from charcoal is indeed good and has the right hardness, and it is not easy to explode when used as cannons and firearms. But now the imperial court is short of funds, where to use charcoal. Hou Dongming said.

It seems that the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty knew the benefits of making iron with charcoal, but because of the cost, they could only use coal to make iron. Think about how sad it is to smelt poor quality steel in order to save costs, and finally lose the war because of the explosion of cannons and firecrackers!

"Master Hou, you don't have to worry about the silver, you just say what you need, as long as you can smelt good quality steel. My request is that it should be used to make cannons and muskets, and it should not be blown up. He Zhiyuan said to Hou Dongming.

"Master He, don't worry. With your words, I am relieved. Ensure that the iron made of fire will not blow up the cannon! ”

He Zhiyuan nodded, and then said, "Master Hou, I'll teach you another steelmaking method." It's called crucible steelmaking. With this method, various qualities of steel can be smelted, the disadvantage is that the output is too low, but now only tens of thousands of catties are enough. ”

"He Gongzi, is the crucible you are talking about a square furnace to practice steel? I know that method, but I can only melt iron, not steel, mainly because the furnace temperature can't reach it. Hou Dongming said.

"Master Hou really deserves to be the master of ironsmithing in our state, you are right, the crucible is the square furnace you said. However, the crucible I am talking about is made of a different material from the square furnace, and this crucible is now used in the glass workshop in Hejia Town. You go to the glass workshop tomorrow and come back with a batch of crucibles, and by the way, see how their smelting furnaces are built and how they blow them. Communicate with Master Song over there, I believe there will be a lot of gains. He Zhiyuan said to Master Hou.

"Thank you Gongzi He for your guidance, I will bring someone over to study tomorrow." Hou Dongming was of course happy when he heard that he could go to Hejia Town to study. He had long heard about the new furnaces and blast methods of the glass workshop in Hejia Town. However, the glass workshop is a private workshop, and outsiders are not allowed to enter without He Zhiyuan's permission.

Then He Zhiyuan told Hou Dongming the basic method of crucible steelmaking. Then he saw the rows of anvils that had been erected next to the furnace. Only then did he remember that a necessary step in ironmaking in this era was to put it on the anvil and beat it repeatedly with a hammer, which was time-consuming and laborious, and the efficiency was low. He couldn't help but blame himself, it was a pity to stay on the edge of the Shu River and not use good water resources.

So, he took out the pencil and paper he had with him and drew a diagram of a hydraulic forging press. Tell Hou Dongming to find a craftsman to build a hydraulic forging press to test it first.

The hydraulic forging press he painted was the hydraulic forging press used in Europe in the 16th century, and the structure was still very complex.

Hou Dongming looked at the schematic diagram in front of him and couldn't help but be a little dazed: "Can such a complex machine be made?" ”

"No matter how complex it is, it can be done, it just takes time. This kind of machine is called a hydraulic forging press, which can replace manpower to repeatedly forge iron. He Zhiyuan explained.

Hou Dongming was shocked by He Zhiyuan's move. He could think of such a complex machine, and he could draw it at will. As an ironsmith, he understands the importance of forging too well, and wrought iron can only be hammered repeatedly to obtain high-quality steel, which is the so-called tempered steel.

However, the efficiency of this manual sledgehammer is very low, and if this hydraulic forging press can really be built, the efficiency can be increased by more than ten times.

After giving some specific instructions on the construction of the hydraulic forging press, He Zhiyuan left the steel mill.

Now that the firearms factory has not started for a long time, he wants to go to Liang Wensheng to urge him.

(End of chapter)

The little people of the Ming Dynasty

The little people of the Ming Dynasty

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