Ma Cheng stood at the door and watched Zhang Erpei look up at the sky after entering, it was just past noon. Originally, Ma Shiying took Ma Cheng to Ruan Dacheng's house to meet friends, and it was very troublesome for the literati of the Ming Dynasty to eat, and it was very common to eat from noon to midnight. But today, because of such a scandal caused by Ma Cheng, this meal was dissolved halfway through.

"It's still early, and the old man just said that he won't let himself go home, so where will he go?"

Ma Cheng thought for a while, there were Gu Changwei and Xu Dahu in charge of the barracks, there was no problem in a short time, and it was better to go to Beicheng to see how the blacksmith workshop was going if he was free today.

A few days ago, Ma Cheng gave Ma Shun all the craftsmen who came from the Ordnance Bureau, and asked him to build an iron factory. Ma Cheng asked the family to bring the horses, and after riding, he hurried to the north city slowly.

Nanjing City is an irregular ten-sided type, built entirely according to mountains and rivers, so the north city of Nanjing is not a place where dignitaries live. The imperial city of Nanjing is in the east city, some important yamen are in the west city, and the south city is the prosperous Qinhuai River, so the north city located along the Yangtze River has become a gathering area for workshops and farms.

A large number of military camps and farmland are distributed here in Beicheng, and it was the station of the most elite government army guards during the Hongwu period. However, with the completion of the Ming Dynasty and the abolition of military equipment for a long time, the original garrison of the government army guards in the Jinchuan Gate has become a workshop, and the farmland given to those guards has also become the industry of dignitaries.

Ma Cheng's location for his industry is very superior, just here in Sanjiawan in Jinchuan Gate, which is the Sajiawan area of Nanjing in the later generations. In later generations, it belonged to the center of Nanjing, and the house price was 30,000 or 40,000 yuan per square meter, but it was still a large area of farmland at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

A Jinchuan River flows through Sanjiawan Lane, and Ma Cheng's ironworks are built on the left bank of the Jinchuan River.

After a few days of not being here, it has been transformed from a farmland into a factory, and a group of people are busy inside and out. Ma Cheng came to the door and looked left and right, and at this time a family member saw Ma Cheng coming, and hurriedly stepped forward to salute and asked, "The second master is here!" But looking for Ma Ye? ”

Ma Cheng nodded and said, "The second master will come and see it today, and let Ma Shun and Xu Zhenye come over." ”

Xu Zhenye was sent here to be a master after following Ma Cheng, and there are probably not many people in the entire Ming Dynasty who use people as masters.

A family member reported that Ma Shun and Xu Zhenye quickly rushed over, and Ma Shun knelt in front of Ma Cheng and asked, "The second master is here!" Of course, Xu Zhenye's self-respecting identity can't kowtow, but he also bowed down and said: "The proprietor is here!" ”

Ma Cheng waved his hand and said, "Get up, the second master will come to see how you are doing today." Ma Shun, you talk about it. ”

Ma Shun said after Ma Cheng's order: "Second master, now the blacksmith workshop has been built, and the first pot of wrought iron was officially produced yesterday, and now some basic farm tools can be made." The gunpowder workshop has been relocated here by the villains, but for safety reasons, it is placed two miles away, where there are few people, and even if there is any problem, it will not cause too much loss. ”

Ma Cheng was very happy to hear that he could already produce iron: "Okay, Ma Shun, you lead the way, the second master wants to take a look!" ”

Ma Cheng led the way in front, Xu Zhenye accompanied him, and soon several people came to the blacksmith workshop.

In front of Ma Cheng was a blast furnace five or six meters high, and now there was iron smelting inside, and the furnace fire was majestic, and you could feel the temperature of the furnace fire when you stood ten meters away.

Although Ma Cheng does not understand steelmaking, but the science and technology of later generations are developed, and in addition to the poison of time-traveling novels, Ma Cheng still has certain insights into steelmaking.

The iron-making furnace of the Ming Dynasty is not closed, and the top is completely open, so that it is convenient to feed, but the furnace temperature is not guaranteed at all.

Ma Cheng looked around, and there was a one-meter-square pool in front of the blast furnace, which had a hole connected to the blast furnace.

Ma Cheng didn't know what this thing was, and asked, "Ma Shun, what is this?" ”

Ma Shun is a housekeeper, where he knows what this thing is, and when he heard Ma Cheng ask, he quickly called Qi Liu, the foreman of the blacksmith: "Old Qi, come here, this is the second master of the owner!" ”

Qi Liu, a strong man in his forties, quickly knelt down and said, "The villain has seen the proprietor!" ”

Ma Cheng nodded and asked, "What is this pool for?" ”

"Back to the proprietor, this is a fried steel pool, pig iron is turned into molten iron and then introduced into this pool, and then the craftsman will stir it with willow sticks, and the pig iron will become mature iron, and there is a high probability that the steel will be fried."

Ma Cheng nodded, it turned out that this was the ancient method of frying steel. In fact, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, China had already invented the method of frying steel, which did not need to be cooled and reheated to produce steel, reducing fuel consumption and greatly increasing production.

The iron-frying furnace described in "Heavenly Creation" is actually the churning furnace invented by Europeans in the second half of the 18th century. The difference is that in European mixing furnaces, wrought iron rods or steel rods are usually used to stir to burn the carbon in the pig iron, and finally obtain low-carbon wrought iron.

In China, willow sticks are used to stir, and the willow sticks are gradually burned off while stirring, which can mix carbon into the pig iron, or reduce the rate of decarbonization of the pig iron. Through this step, it is easier for a skilled iron franger to control the ingredients, and he can directly fry steel with a carbon content lower than pig iron but higher than wrought iron, and even have the opportunity to fry medium carbon steel and high carbon steel, which is called fried steel.

However, this technique has a great element of luck, and I am not sure at all about what kind of iron will come out of this pot. This is also a helpless thing, in ancient China, because the technology was not enough, the temperature of the steelmaking furnace was not enough, whether it was frying steel or frying wrought iron, what was fried was semi-solid paste-like steel and iron, so the price of steel in ancient China was very expensive.

Ma Cheng looked at the blast furnace in front of him, although this was already the pinnacle of iron-making technology in the Ming Dynasty, there was still a lot of room for improvement in the eyes of Ma Cheng, a layman.

"Qi Liu, why is the top of the iron-making furnace not closed?" Ma Cheng asked, pointing to the top of the fire above.

Qi Liu heard Ma Cheng say this and hurriedly replied: "Second master, exhaust gas is produced during iron smelting, and if the top is capped, it will blow up the furnace, which is very dangerous!" ”

"Fart, won't you leave a pipe on it and draw the exhaust gas out? How do you raise the furnace temperature like you? ”

Qi Liu was scolded by Ma Cheng without saying a word, although he didn't say it, he muttered in his heart: You know a fart, Uncle Qi has been refining iron for more than 20 years, and you don't know much about it? Qi Liu slandered in his heart, but Ma Cheng's next sentence made him even more angry.

"You guys can't do it if you don't study, isn't it a waste of money to make iron like this? Hurry up and put out the furnace fire, release the iron in the furnace, the second master, I want to transform this iron-making furnace, and you can directly smelt steel! ”

Qi Liu didn't believe it when he heard Ma Cheng say this, you just blow it, I Qi Liu is so big I haven't heard of a furnace that can directly make steel.

However, this factory was owned by Ma Cheng, and Qi Liu did not dare to object, so he had to command his craftsmen to release the iron in the furnace and then extinguish the fire.

Extinguishing the fire is not something that can be completed in a short time, and Ma Cheng took advantage of this effort to write out the transformation method of the iron-making furnace.

Of course, what Ma Cheng wrote was not simplified, but Ma Cheng's dictation was recorded by Xu Zhenye.

The transformation plan is very simple, the first is the fuel problem, just now Ma Cheng saw that the iron smelting is charcoal, which is also no way, China's iron ore is pyrite, if you use coal to make iron, it will be brittle, so from the Song Dynasty * began to use charcoal to make iron.

Of course, Ma Cheng's improvement is not the direct use of coal, but the use of coke. Coking is also very simple, there is no environmental protection law in this era, Ma Cheng directly moved out the kind of earthen kiln coking in order to save trouble. This method has a long coking cycle, low coking rate, high coal consumption and high coke ash content, but fortunately, the method is simple and is very suitable for the industrial base of the Ming Dynasty.

The coking kiln is a small brick kiln, in the brick kiln is filled with coal, and then ignited and sealed the kiln, after nine to eleven days of anaerobic combustion, most of the coal will become coke, and the coking rate is about sixty percent.

After Ma Cheng finished painting the coking kiln, he handed it to Ma Shun and asked him to organize people to start coking, and the next step was to transform the blast furnace.

Ma Cheng didn't understand the terms of converter open hearth in later generations, he only knew that if he wanted to make steel, he had to increase the furnace temperature. In the Ming Dynasty, because of the lack of technology, the furnace temperature could only reach 1,200 degrees, and it was okay to smelt pig iron at this temperature, but wrought iron was not good, and it was even worse for carbon steel with a melting point of 1,500 degrees. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty could only find another way to invent the steel frying method.

The method of Ma Cheng's transformation is to recycle the blast furnace exhaust gas, after the blast furnace is capped, the furnace gas is led to the bottom with a pipe, and the inlet air is heated after passing through the regenerator, so as to increase the furnace temperature. In order to increase the furnace temperature, Ma Cheng also needs to replace all the refractory bricks to avoid the temperature being too high and the fryer is generated.

The Ming Dynasty has begun to use refractory materials to make refractory bricks, but the raw material is chalk and sea salt, and the material used in Ma Cheng is kaolin and sea salt, and kaolin is dolomite, which is very widely distributed in Jiangxi, and the porcelain in Jingdezhen is fired with this kind of soil. Kaolin with salt is the perfect refractory brick, and this refractory material can withstand the test of high temperatures.

The last step is to prepare baking soda, China's iron ore is all pyrite, so it is difficult to desulfurize, but Ma Cheng learned through the novel that adding an appropriate amount of baking soda can be desulfurized, but I don't know how much to add. So Ma Cheng, for the sake of safety, told Ma Shun to prepare a thousand catties of baking soda.

Ma Shun listened to Ma Cheng's drastic improvement of the blast furnace, his face became more and more unnatural, and finally Ma Shun really had no choice but to say: "Second master, I'm afraid that the silver is not enough to change like this!" ”

Ma Cheng frowned when he heard Ma Shun say this, isn't the sugar factory still producing? Why is there no money?

"Ma Shun, how much money is left on the books?"

Ma Shun took the account book and flipped a few pages and said: "Second master, from the beginning of Fengyang to the present, the sugar factory has produced a total of 3,120 catties of white sugar in a month and a half, and sold it to obtain 7,480 taels of silver. Although it looks like a lot, we spend too much! In order to settle these craftsmen, it cost 1,000 taels of silver, as well as the purchase of equipment for the iron factory, the purchase of iron ore, charcoal, the purchase of land and houses, etc., and now there are less than 100 taels of silver on the books. ”