The exciting ironmaking has finally begun. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Patriarch and grandfather bless, we will sincerely pray, burn stone into pure iron, smelt iron into steel。。。。。。" On an incense case in front of the blast furnace, there is a wooden frame image of Taishang Laojun, Yan Jun twisted three incense sticks with both hands, lit them on a pair of big red incense flower candles, raised them above his head reverently, recited words in his mouth, led a group of craftsmen, worshiped three times religiously, and then respectfully inserted into the incense burner in front of the portrait.

In the blacksmith shops in various parts of the Ming Dynasty, it was basically Taishang Laojun as the ancestor. It can be seen that in ancient China, the smelting industry had the same origin as Taoist alchemy. On the 15th day of February, the blacksmith family warmed the birthday of the patriarch and ate longevity noodles, and on the day of his birthday, he took the male family to the lobby to burn incense and worship his birthday, and held a grand worship ceremony.

It is said that because Taishang Laojun is the ancestor of the blacksmith, the Taoist priest naturally became the junior brother of the blacksmiths, so the Taoist priest turned into a blacksmith shop and took the initiative to say hello to the senior brother, and the blacksmith gave him a warm reception. If the Taoist priest does not follow the rules, the blacksmith will punish the Taoist priest to kneel in front of the iron furnace and admit his mistakes; If the Taoist priest still does not admit his mistake, the blacksmith can beat the Taoist priest with pliers and shovels, and even turn the stove over and put it on the Taoist priest's head, commonly known as "wearing a gauze hat".

"Boom!"

Yan Jun held a knife in his right hand, and with a sharp swing, he cut off the head of a rooster in his left hand, and sprinkled the dripping chicken blood all over the blast furnace to worship the gods of the Quartet.

"Ironmaking begins!"

In the deafening sound of firecrackers, Yan Jun shouted loudly.

Baskets of charcoal are stuffed underneath the blast furnace, and truckloads of iron ore are piled together with charcoal, and limestone is used as a slag making agent to mix into it.

In the Ming Dynasty, blacksmiths generally used loess mixed with grass ash as a slag agent. Zhao Shizhen said in his writings that this practice is to let the pig iron be sprinkled with iron and urine, so as to reduce impurities.

The ancients only had practical experience, but did not understand the principle of slag making agent, so this method is much worse than the effect of using limestone as a slag agent in later generations.

When the wooden push-pull blower began to be pulled by several blacksmiths, under the strong blowing of fresh air, the high-quality charcoal in the blast furnace began to burn violently, and the iron ore mixed with the charcoal immediately violently underwent a reduction reaction, and the ore quickly turned red, soft, liquefied, and a flame rose to the sky and floated out from the top of the furnace.

Yan Jun was pleased to find that the blast furnace designed by Li Xiao had softened into water in only half a day, which greatly exceeded his original estimate.

The key secret of Li Xiao's iron tapping so fast is that the air blown in from the blower box has been preheated at a high temperature before entering the blast furnace, and under the long air intake, there is an isolated ground fire pool stacked on top of the air intake, which is filled with coal, and the air is heated to 800 to 1,000 degrees Celsius before entering the furnace, instead of directly blowing cold air into the blast furnace like the Ming Dynasty.

Air preheating is the most critical step in modern steel production to improve the efficiency of ironmaking. Li Xiao remembered that this was a trick devised by the British in the second half of the 16th century to increase steel production, and the whole world had not mastered this technology before.

Li Xiao originally planned to imitate the production methods of later generations and build a special regenerator to use the high-temperature exhaust gas generated to heat the air inlet channel, so as to save the use of coal. It's just that, after all, it is an experimental nature now, and Li Xiao doesn't want to make the device too complicated, so that these Ming Dynasty craftsmen, who were already stunned by themselves, can't digest more novel technologies.

Or wait for this blast furnace to be used sixteen times, when it reaches its lifespan, the craftsmen also accept and understand the current way of operation, and use the regenerator device again, Li Xiao thought to himself.

At this time, from the observation port on the side of the blast furnace, you can see that the molten iron is gathering at the bottom of the furnace, giving it an attractive orange-red color. "Master Li, the iron juice is ready, and you can open the furnace to produce iron!" Yan Jun had an excited look on his face.

A blacksmith put on a thick cloth coat for protection, covered his face with wet wipes, and held a long-handled iron tongs to open the trap door of the lower tap of the blast furnace, and suddenly the molten iron jumped and rushed out.

The molten iron was mixed with the cinders, the iron was heavy and the slag was light, and the cinders were mostly floating on the surface, and the large pieces of cinder were blocked by a baffle made of pig iron on the trenches, and the blacksmiths took long iron sticks and pulled the slag aside.

The molten iron flows directly from the trenches into the already blazing iron furnace. After the molten iron flowed, the three strong men wrapped their mouths and noses with thick cloths, slowly and forcefully pushed the winch handle on the iron stove, and the three wrought iron sticks were fully mixed with the molten iron, and the orange-red molten iron burst out, making a popping sound.

The blast furnace produces molten pig iron, with a carbon content of about 3 percent, and the melting point of pig iron is about 1100-1200 degrees Celsius, while pure iron is as high as 1535 degrees. When carbon is combined with oxygen, the carbon content in the molten iron gradually decreases, and its melting point gradually increases, so the molten iron in the iron oven becomes thicker, from the clear soup to the sauce, from the sauce to the jelly...... In the end, they gathered into a very cute iron ball, quite like Shrek, a monster in the magic world.

The craftsmen present cheered that the wrought iron that could be used for striking iron was finally smelted.

This time the refining made at least 15,000 catties of wrought iron, but it only took less than a day.

During the Ming Dynasty, in Zhangzhou, Fujian, there was the largest 10 cubic meter blast furnace, which could produce 10,000 catties of iron at a time, which was already the top level at that time. However, Li Xiao's experimental ironmaking increased the output by nearly one-third at once, and the time was shortened by more than half!

In fact, Li Xiao has not yet maximized the production capacity of this blast furnace, the effective volume of the 30 cubic meter blast furnace is about 20 cubic meters, even with a low utilization factor, such as 2~3, at least nearly 6 tons of wrought iron can be smelted per day.

This so-called "wrought iron" is not actually wrought iron in the sense of modern textbooks. In the modern iron and steel industry, the carbon content of less than 0.02% is called wrought iron in China, pure iron in foreign countries, and the texture is very soft; the carbon content is 0.02%-2.11% is called steel; the carbon content is more than 2.11% in China is called pig iron, and the foreign content is called cast iron.

In ancient China, the iron ore smelted directly from the blast furnace was called "pig iron", and the iron that was fried in the iron furnace was called "wrought iron". The carbon content of this "wrought iron" is inversely proportional to the frying time, and the longer it is fried, the more carbon oxidizes the carbon, the lower the carbon content of iron, and vice versa, so its carbon content can fluctuate between 0.01% and 1.5%, including "pure iron" and "steel" in the modern sense.

Therefore, in ancient China, the method of frying iron with willow sticks was also equivalent to frying steel. It's just that the process is difficult to grasp, and the finished product is mainly wrought iron and medium and low carbon steel, if you win the **** luck, you can meet one or two pieces of high-carbon steel, this probability, probably similar to winning the lottery.

Generally speaking, the lower the carbon content of steel products, the softer, and the higher the brittle, harder. Medium and low carbon steel is soft, used to make swords is not sharp, the ancients also regarded it as "wrought iron", only the toughness, hardness, and strength of high-carbon steel meet the needs of making weapons, and the ancients thought that it was "steel".

The carbon content determines the hardness and softness of the steel. During the Ming Dynasty, low-level blacksmiths could find out which piece of finished rubberized wrought iron was high-carbon steel by hammering with a forging hammer. And the high-level experienced blacksmith, in his long career of blacksmithing, has refined a pair of poisonous eyes that can distinguish between a piece of soft iron that is of little use, and a piece of good steel that can make swords and swords.

Yan Jun is that kind of high-level craftsman, he observed for a long time, and then picked up a monster Shrek with iron tongs, and looked this iron Shrek up and down, with an excited look on his face.

"Master Li, you are amazing! This first furnace of fried iron will produce high-quality steel, I have never had such luck in 30 years! ”

He was experienced and could see it well, and it was a pretty good piece of high-charcoal wrought iron, tough and hard, and could be made into a fairly sharp sword.

Li Xiao smiled slightly: "Yan Zuotou, this is just a probability, not surprising." Think about it, when you were in Liaodong before, how much could you fry in each furnace? How much does it cost for me to fry a stove? There is so much iron, and the workers take out the iron furnace first, and the iron is also raw and cooked, from wrought iron to high-carbon steel, and there are always a few good pieces of steel. ”

Yan Jun suddenly realized. In the past, when I used to fry iron, I would first hammer the pig iron into pieces, put it with charcoal in a much smaller iron furnace, and then blow the air from the top of the stove.

Because the drum is cold air, it takes a long time to burn before the pig iron can be melted, and then stirred with a stick until the iron condenses into a ball, and finally takes out the forging and squeezing slag.

In this way, it is only a few dozen hundred catties of iron at a time, and Lord Li's iron furnace is directly made of molten iron from a blast furnace, and the iron of a test nature is 15,000 catties, which is equivalent to the iron of more than 100 furnaces in the past.

You must know that Li Xiao's smelting method of directly entering the iron furnace when the blast furnace comes out is only practiced in some extra-large iron and steel workshops in the Ming Dynasty at that time, and the Hongyinshan Iron Yard in Tieling, Liaodong, where Yan Jun was originally located, is still the most primitive workshop-style iron yard for melting pig iron and smelting wrought iron, and the probability of getting refined steel is naturally very low.

"Master Li, you see, I'll give you a sword!" Yan Jun looked at this piece of high-carbon steel, and the more he looked at it, the more he liked it, and he didn't realize that his hands were itchy.

Li Xiao smiled: "Okay, it's getting late today, and everyone has worked hard, let's go rest first." After tomorrow, I will come to admire the forging skills of Yan Zuotou. ”

Yan Jun hurriedly said: "My lord, this way, I'll wait for the rest of the iron pieces to be beaten into iron ingots while they are hot and put them in storage, and then it's not too late to rest." ”

Li Xiao nodded in agreement, and at this time, a group of craftsmen coarsely made those iron ingot Shrek, and then put them into different warehouses according to their different qualities for future use.

As soon as the sky dawned the next day, amid the excited shouts of the craftsmen, Yan Jun began to forge the sword.

He happily picked up the steel, put it on the fire and burned it red, then knocked off a piece weighing about four pounds with a chisel, and then put it on the anvil and beat it with a precision hammer.

Yan Jun cooperated with another craftsman, one clamped iron, one wielded the hammer, the steel was quickly knocked into a thin piece by the forging hammer, as the temperature decreased, the golden red color of the steel burned through gradually faded, Yan Jun put it on the forging furnace and burned it red-hot, knocked the chisel in the middle a few times, and as soon as the iron tongs were forced, they were bent and stacked together from the middle, and then put them under the forging furnace to beat. Then the iron sheet is thinner, folded again, and when it is cold, it is put on a forging furnace to be heated...... Yan Jun's repeated folding and forging method is the so-called manufacturing of 100 steel.

In this method, it means that every time the furnace is heated once, it is called a refining, and a hundred times of returning to the furnace is called a hundred refining. Of course, it is quite rare to really reach the level of hundred refinements, and it can be said that it is basically non-existent, because the cost of time and energy spent is too high. In the Ming Dynasty, the knives of ordinary soldiers were refined at most 10 times, or even only 7-8 times, while the knives of generals were only 20-30 refined, and only the knives of senior generals were more than 50 refined.

Seeing Yan Jun working so inefficiently, Li Xiao on the side was thinking that he must improve the operation method of forging and smelting in the future, such a production method that relies on human tapping is too slow and inefficient.

In modern industry, due to the availability of electrical devices and turning machines, the efficiency of those metal processing factories is one heaven and one underground compared with that of today's Ming Dynasty craftsmen. Of course, Li Xiao didn't have the ability to generate electricity by himself, and the way he thought of was to use a hydraulic forging hammer.

If the hydraulic forging hammer device of 60 to 100 times per minute can be successfully introduced, Li Xiao can ensure that the efficiency is at least ten times higher than that of the current manual hammering.

Yan Jun worked very hard, it took six hours, a total of twelve hours, and in the middle of the night, a number of craftsmen took turns to work in the craft, and finally made this 50-refining sword into shape.

After the sword was formed, Yan Jun then began to quench, he steadily clamped the sword body, only the tip of the sword and the blades on both sides were immersed in the water, and a burst of white mist rose up. This quenching method is local quenching, so that only the blade is hardened after quenching, and the spine of the sword is still relatively soft, so that the sword is the outside and soft on the inside.

Yan Jun does this very reasonably, because the steel parts have been quenched, and from the metallographic point of view, the austenite with a Vickers hardness of about 400 is transformed into a martensite of about 1000, simply put, the blade of the sword has become harder, but the sword body is still relatively soft.

"What a sword!"

In the exclamation of a group of craftsmen, Yan Jun looked at the blue and shining sword in his hand with some pride, and saw that the cloud patterns on the sword were faintly visible, like flowing water, like a star, the cold light was shining, and the green energy was full of energy, which made people look at it intoxicatingly.

Li Xiao saw that Yan Jun had made such a good sword, and he liked it very much in his heart.

He smiled and handed a fine bronze red tasseled sword hilt to Yan Jun along with the shark scabbard.

It turned out that when Yan Jun was making the sword, Li Xiao had already asked people to buy back the best sword hilt and scabbard in the local area from Shanxian County.

Yan Jun took it with a smile, and quickly installed the hilt of the sword firmly, and then he repeatedly sharpened the blade with the grinding wheel to sharpen the sword.

Finally all the production processes were completed, Yan Jun put the sword into the shark scabbard handed over by Li Xiao, inserted the sword into the sheath, and respectfully handed the sword to Li Xiao.

"Shhhh

Li Xiao pulled out his right hand, and in the slight sound of the sword, he pulled out half of the sword.

He saw that this sword was as green as jade, and when he touched it with his hand, the surface of the sword was as smooth as a girl's skin, as smooth as satin.

Li Xiaoqu pointed to the spine of the sword and flicked it lightly, and he heard the sound of a dragon chant of "Zheng", and it was scattered.

"It's really a good sword, Yan Zuotou has worked hard. With the intention of this official, this top-grade Qingfeng will be named Longyin Sword. Li Xiao said with a smile.

Yan Jun wiped a handful of sweat from his face and laughed: "As long as adults like it, it can be called whatever name you want." ”

(Thank you for the monthly pass, thank you for your support) (To be continued.) )