The difference between iron and steel is the carbon content.

If the carbon content is less, below 0.6 percent, it is wrought iron, and if the carbon content exceeds 2 percent, it becomes pig iron again, and the carbon content of steel is between 0.6 percent and 2 percent. The so-called stirring method is to put pig iron and wrought iron raw materials into the steelmaking furnace according to a certain ratio, so that the carbon content inside it is evenly mixed in the molten iron, and then the appropriate proportion of molten steel is obtained.

Therefore, steelmaking is a particularly delicate operation, and the quality and proportion of raw materials are quite important.

Spring steel is actually a kind of low-carbon steel, of course, it would be better if some trace amounts of silicon and manganese could be added to it. For that alloy of spring steel, Li Qi does not have any expectations for the time being.

Being able to unexpectedly produce a furnace of spring steel was already overjoying to him.

From the perspective of later generations, a simple iron-smelting workshop has taken shape. Two rows of adobe houses were built along both sides of the river to serve as lodging, and workshops were built on four main canals. This small reservoir on the Daekawa River has so much water that four channels are already the limit.

On both sides of the embankment, an iron-making shaft furnace with a height of more than two zhang was built, but the chimney made of red brick and clay was only built more than ten zhang high because of the difficulty of construction, far from the height that Li Qi originally expected.

As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, the structure of the iron-making shaft furnace in China was already very mature, and it was very similar to the early iron-making blast furnace in the West in later generations, with the only difference being that a thick and tall chimney was missing. In the case of limited ventilation conditions in the early stage, the exhaust effect of the chimney is absolutely irreplaceable for improving the combustion efficiency inside the blast furnace.

Li Qi knew that the larger the volume of the iron-making blast furnace, the less fuel it consumed, the higher the production efficiency, and the lower the production cost.

The strength of the furnace made of masonry could not support the pressure of the large blast furnace, and the main structure of the blast furnace in later generations was made of steel and cast iron as the main support to enhance the structural strength, while the old clay shaft furnace certainly could not achieve such strength. The problem is that there is simply not enough steel at the moment, so we can only make do with the old brick and earth iron-making blast furnace first, and then build a new large blast furnace when the steel materials are enough.

Anyway, in this era, iron-making blast furnaces are the same as brick kilns, and they are scrapped after a few years of use

The system of the earth blast furnace is almost the same, the diameter of the bottom is about zhangxuxu, which is used to pile up the wood and coke that ignites the fire, the part where the ore is piled up in the middle is slightly thicker, the inner diameter is about one zhang and five zhang, and the upper part is closed, which looks like a large jar. The only thing Li Qi knew was to connect a tall chimney to this earthen blast furnace, which made it easier to make the blast furnace exhaust more smoothly during iron smelting.

……

Jinyang began to plant rice as early as spring and autumn, but later the weather gradually became colder, the climate was arid, except for a small number of rice fields on both sides of Jinshui, other places have been changed to millet and millet, and the sowing area of wheat is also very small. The most eaten by Hedong people in daily life is corn and millet rice, millet is millet seed, the dough is sticky, steamed rice cakes and pancakes, the main use of this kind of millet noodles.

Fu Yanqing and He Fujin brought back more than 5,000 old and weak soldiers who had been eliminated from the army from Guanzhong, and after more than a month of hard work, Li Qi decided to entertain the two with a hearty meal of rice.

Braised pork, dried mushroom jar chicken, steamed grass carp, plus a plate of leek eggs, a pot of wolfberry winter melon pork rib soup, there are not many meals, but Li Qi personally brought a plate of steamed fish, which made the two feel a little scared.

"We are stalking and grinding, and Ren Yuan was finally willing to give 60,000 yuan, and most of those soldiers are old and weak who have been laid off!" Fu Yanqing sat on the side of the desk and said angrily.

"Hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is already a lot, is a windfall. I just mentioned it casually in the letter, I didn't expect it at all, Ren Yuan could give some, indicating that it also took into account some past feelings. Li Qi said with a smile, picked up the small jar of wine that had been opened, and poured wine into the bowl of the two: "This wine has been steamed three times, and it is stronger than ordinary sorghum wine, how do you taste it?" ”

He had already seen the soldiers that Fu Yanqing and He Fujin had brought back from Guanzhong, and they were indeed very thin, like homeless people who had suffered from famine, but he didn't care about this. These soldiers were originally used in the tuntian, and they didn't expect them to be of much use in their own battles.

Among them, 3,000 people were arranged in the three royal estates of Beiyuan, Qingyuan and Yuci, and the remaining 2,600 people were all transferred to the Tang Ming Huangzhuang and Gujiao Iron Workshop in Yangqu County.

Fu Yanqing, He Fujin, the sons and daughters of the Jin army, were trained by Li Cunqiao as the future generals of the Later Tang Dynasty, so they stayed by their side as guards and pro-army, but unfortunately their luck was not very good, and the emperor was no longer there before they were released. It turned out that except for the emperor, no one dared to make things difficult for their second generation, and this time they were angry in Chang'an, and they were naturally a little depressed and indignant.

The strong aroma of wine overflowing from the bowl made Fu Yanqing stop his mouth immediately, only to feel that the gluttonous worms in his stomach were making a lot of noise, and he didn't care about anything else, he drank the wine first.

Li Qi only picked up the wine bowl and drank a small sip, but He Fujin directly dried a large bowl of spirits as soon as he raised his neck, and he was suddenly spicy and closed his mouth, and endured it for a long time before he breathed a sigh of surprise and exclaimed: "Good wine!" ”

In ancient times, there were very few highly distilled spirits, and sorghum liquor was only about 10 degrees, and Li Qi was trying to make highly distilled spirits. This is the routine I learned from reading the online novel, and after the trial production, I found out that this thing is not profitable at all, except for being used to show off in the homes of the rich and noble!

"This wine is made of sorghum wine three steamed and three brewed, the degree is higher, and you need to drink it slowly to taste the taste. Eat a little food first to suppress the wine. Li Qi looked at He Fujin's face that began to turn red and said, the ancients rarely drank high alcohol, and the actual amount of alcohol was not much stronger than those who could drink in later generations.

Fu Yanqing has more eyes than He Fujin, and as soon as the wine is in his mouth, he only drinks half a bowl, so he behaves normally.

"This wine is really good, it's similar to the original emperor who once rewarded my father with more than a dozen jars of imperial wine." Fu Yanqing said, "It's a pity that in the Luoyang Palace, I know that Guanglu Temple still has a lot of imperial wine from all over the world. ”

"This thing will be there later." Li Qi smiled, took a piece of fish meat with chopsticks and put it in his mouth, "The three armies around Jinyang have been formed, and the two of you and Wang Quanbin will each lead an army." It's just that don't care about it now, and you can only train after the farm is slack. ”

The situation has now stabilized, the veteran An Jinquan returned to Shuozhou with his soldiers and horses, and Zhou Guangfu also returned to Daizhou, but the 2,000 Yanmen troops under Zhou Guangfu were left half by Li Qi. Fu Yanqing was sent by him to Shanbei, and took Li Qi's prince's edict to receive the defense of Confucianism and Confucianism.

The territory that Li Qi can control is only in the northern part of Jin, plus the two prefectures of Tonghua where Yuan Xingqin is located, the people under his jurisdiction are only one million, and there are more than 30,000 soldiers and horses. It's just that the current situation is much better than he originally expected.

This starting point is not low, at least there is no need to take people into the ravine and occupy the mountain......