When Ma Cheng came to the blacksmith's workshop, he found that the iron-making blast furnace had completely changed. The whole blast furnace is at least about one meter higher because it is closed, and at the same time, the furnace gas on top is led out by a one-foot-thick pottery pipe, leading from the top to the lower air duct.

The air ducts have also been modified to be thickened with refractory bricks and separated in layers to store heat for the intake air. In the past, the frying steel pool in front of the furnace was removed, but after this transformation, the furnace temperature can reach more than 1,600 degrees, and the steel can be completely melted into molten steel. Therefore, in front of the furnace according to Ma Cheng's instructions, more than a dozen crucibles were fired with refractory materials to fill molten steel for the sand mold.

Ma Cheng rebuilt this blast furnace in the Ming Dynasty belonged to a small iron-making furnace, each time the iron is only more than 100 catties, and the feed is only about 200 catties. This is only an experimental blast furnace, the largest iron furnace in the Ming Dynasty can produce more than a ton of iron at a time, but now it is not something that Ma Cheng can play.

The blacksmith Qi Liu had already prepared the iron, and the furnace had been preheated last night, just waiting for Ma Cheng to start making steel.

Qi Liu saw that Ma Cheng had arrived, and hurriedly stepped forward to ask for instructions: "Second master, everything is in place now, please speak to the second master, the little ones are easy to do!" ”

Ma Cheng nodded, and said to Qi Liu: "Let's start, if it is successful, this steelmaking plant will give you thirty percent of the shares." ”

Qi Liuyi was overjoyed when he heard this, although the scale of this workshop is not large, but if it can be directly smelted as Ma Cheng said, it is a hen that can lay golden eggs. You must know that the world is in chaos now, and the weapons business has always been booming, if Qi Liu has 30% of the shares, it is enough to worry about food and clothing if he doesn't work.

With the motivation of the share incentive, Qi Liu hurriedly got up and beckoned his apprentices to open the furnace and make steel. As for Ma Cheng, he naturally hid far away, this is the first time that this experimental blast furnace has been operating, and Ma Cheng's knowledge is also from books, who knows if there can be any emergency. Ma Cheng's life is very precious, so it is naturally impossible to risk it in person.

Ma Cheng is 300 meters away from the blast furnace, but the distance does not mean that Ma Cheng is ignorant of the production progress, Ma Cheng arranged ten people to take turns to report the production situation, and at the same time solve the problems in the production process in a timely manner.

Before Ma Cheng came, the blast furnace had already lit a fire, and a layer of coke from the brick kiln was laid inside. The ten people in charge of the blast began to increase the wind speed after receiving Qi Liu's order, and the fresh air was heated to more than 300 degrees Celsius after passing through the layers of regenerative chambers under the double heating of furnace gas and coal.

The coke in the blast furnace began to burn violently with the blessing of fresh air, and the fire at the furnace mouth has turned from red to yellow, and has a tendency to turn blue. There was no thermometer in the Ming Dynasty, and the grasp of the furnace temperature depended on the experience of the foreman, but fortunately, Qi Liu was an old furnace worker with more than 20 years of experience in ironmaking, and now he saw the color of the fire and knew that the temperature had reached the temperature of smelting wrought iron.

It was the first time Qi Liu had seen the iron-making furnace directly reach this temperature, and after being stunned for a while, he began to order the workers to pour iron ore and coke into the feed port. Iron ore is the best ore that has been selected, 40% iron ore and 60% coke are mixed together and put into the furnace, Qi Liu stood at the observation port to see the iron ore being melted quickly in the extremely high furnace temperature.

The iron in iron ore is in the form of iron oxide, and the oxygen molecules are slowly reduced in the extremely high furnace temperature, which further increases the furnace temperature, and soon the color of the fire in the furnace changes to blue. At this time, the temperature has reached 1,400 degrees, and now it is wrought iron, but Ma Cheng still feels that it is not enough, and orders his subordinates to increase the air volume.

Slowly the fire in the furnace turned white, and began to have iron flowers in the fire one by one, and the fire finally became completely white and shiny, and the density of carbon flowers continued to increase, and the white flame tongue changed from short to long, and the combustion of carbon entered the peak at this time.

This is the time to add baking soda, China's iron ore is pyrite, so the smelted steel is brittle, the easiest way is to add alkaline substances. In the Ming Dynasty, there was nothing more suitable than baking soda, and Ma Cheng didn't know how much to add, so he could only explore slowly. Therefore, according to his own calculations, Ma Cheng put 60 catties of baking soda into the 200 catties of iron ore, so he ordered to put the baking soda into the feeding port.

The next step is stirring, when the iron ore has been smelted into molten iron, and the baking soda input produces a large amount of slag, but this is normal.

After the number of iron flowers in the stirring furnace began to decrease, Ma Cheng knew that the carbon molecules in it were basically gone, and now was a good time to come out of the oven. Qi Liu opened the discharge port under Ma Cheng's order, and the high-temperature molten iron in the furnace began to flow out, flowing into the crucible that had been prepared a long time ago.

Qi Liu had already made a sand mold, with tools and weapons, and the next step was to use these molten steel to cast tools. After the molten steel cooled, Qi Liu found that the molten iron produced this time turned out to be steel, but he didn't expect to be able to directly refine the ore into steel, which was beyond Qi Liu's cognition.

Qi Liu ran to Ma Cheng's side with a freshly cooled knife embryo and shouted, "Second master, second master, look, this is a hundred steels!" Qi Liuchang is so big, and it's the first time I've seen a hundred steels that are directly cast! ”

Ma Cheng secretly scolded Qi Liu for not knowing anything, and at the same time took the knife embryo and watched it repeatedly. Ma Cheng is not a professional, and he can't see any difference between this swarthy knife embryo, but there are many blacksmiths in the factory, and it is not difficult for them to make a knife in a hurry. The reason why the 100-for-steel knife takes a lot of effort is mainly because the raw materials are difficult to get, and each 100-for-steel knife has to go through hundreds of folds, and now the most difficult material problem is solved, and the rest is just to polish the blade.

Soon the craftsman sent the bladed steel knife to Ma Cheng, and Ma Cheng picked up the hundred refining steel knife assigned to him by the military department and compared it with each other, although this kind of cast steel knife did not have the exquisite moire of the hundred refining knife, but the sharpness was not inferior to the hundred refining knife.

Ma Cheng slashed at each other with knives in both hands, and it was obvious that the material of the Hundred Refining Knife was not as good as the casting knife. The Hundred Refining Knife was cut out of a large gap, while the Casting Knife only had a gap the size of a sesame seed.

Seeing this result, Ma Cheng was very satisfied, and when the material problem was solved, many of his ideas could be implemented. Steel is much stronger than iron, and armor with the same degree of defense is much lighter than iron, and steel muskets are much lighter than wrought iron, and the same is true for artillery. Another point is the most important, that is, with qualified steel, the steam engine designed by Ma Cheng can be produced.

Ma Cheng was very happy to solve the problem, and after giving Qi Liusancheng shares, he rewarded all the blacksmiths, and then ordered all weapons to be produced with this steel, and at the same time asked the blacksmiths to prepare for the production of flintlock pistols, which were called self-generated firearms in the Ming Dynasty.

The originally elated craftsmen were stunned when they heard Ma Cheng say this, and Qi Liu said cautiously on the side: "Second master, other firearms are fine, but this self-generated firearm will not!" ”

Ma Cheng was stunned when he heard Qi Liu say this, wasn't this kind of firearm invented by Da Ming himself? Why don't you craftsmen know how to make it?

"Qi Liu, tell me why not? Hasn't it been built before? ”

"Back to the second master, the villain has only produced Lu Mi Gong and other firecrackers in the Ordnance Bureau, and I have heard of this self-generated firearm before, but the Ordnance Bureau has not put it into production, and I have never seen it in the atlas."

Ma Cheng knew what was going on as soon as he heard it, it must be that the production cost of this kind of firearm was too high, and the Ordnance Bureau didn't like to produce, so it was not put into production.

Thinking of this Ma Cheng secretly scolding these Ming bureaucrats, the north is all together, but you have this sharp weapon and do not put it into production, no wonder the Ming Dynasty is dead.

The Ordnance Bureau does not produce it, but Ma Cheng does, this kind of firearm shoots at a rate far higher than that of arquebus, and Ma Cheng will never let it go.

"Qi Liu, if you have a weapon atlas, will you produce it?"

"Back to the second master, as long as there is a manufacturing method recorded in the atlas, the villains can start production."

Ma Cheng thought for a while and asked, "Where is this atlas?" ”

"It should be in the Ministry of Industry."

Ma Cheng made it difficult to hear Qi Liu say this, if it is the Ministry of War, it is better to say, the Shangshu of the Ministry of War is his own Laozi, and going to the Ministry of War is the same as his own home. But there are no acquaintances on the Ministry of Works. At this time, Ma Cheng suddenly thought of Chen Zilong, who had been drinking together half a month ago, Ma Luan didn't say that he had compiled a book, which recorded a lot of classics, so it was better to ask this Chen Zilong.

Thinking of it, Ma Cheng handed over the steelmaking plant to Qi Liu, and asked him to start mass production of gun barrels in addition to expanding production and building a few blast furnaces, and wait for himself to get a catalogue to start mass production of flintlock pistols.

Ma Cheng rode a horse and came to the military department, the guards here have seen this second ancestor many times, and when they saw that they were coming again today, they hurriedly stepped forward and asked, "Second master, you are here!" I don't know who I'm looking for this time? ”

In the past, Ma Cheng came to ask for money and food, but today he really came to find someone, Ma Cheng asked: "The second master came to find Lord Chen in the matter today, and the brothers will help inform me!" ”

The leader of the little flag smiled: "What did the second master say? The second master is also our old acquaintance, just go in directly, and Lord Chen will work in the courtyard on the right side of the second hall! ”

After hearing this, Ma Cheng hugged his fists and thanked the little flag, and then walked into the lobby of the military headquarters.

It is not an official position, but a system, which is a supervision system set up by Zhu Yuanzhang in order to restrain the ministers of various ministries, which is equivalent to the discipline inspection department in later generations, but it can be much more powerful than the discipline inspection department.

Although the grade in the matter is very low, and there are only seven grades in the matter, the prestige and power in the court are very great, even high-ranking officials like Shangshu and Shilang are often respectful in the matter, and they will not be treated as ordinary petty officials.

The influence of the Ministry of Affairs mainly comes from the fact that they control the exchange of documents of the imperial court, and each section is responsible for supervising the documents of its corresponding department, such as the Military Department of Affairs, which is responsible for supervising the document exchange of the Ministry of War.

Copies of the memoranda presented to the emperor through the general administration department or through the clerical office of the eunuchs were provided for reference. When the emperor approves these memorials, he will hand them over to the corresponding ministers, who will then turn on to the relevant ministries. The Sixth Section keeps a record of the transmission of the decree and, as appropriate, determines the deadline by which the ministries must reply.

In this whole process, the privilege of refutation and scientific counselling could be exercised at any time in the matter to veto the emperor's recitals, edicts, or reports of various ministries on the grounds that they were not in the prescribed format or that the content was unwise.

Tang San Chinese Network