Two days later, Guo Shao discovered that the hammer forging workshop was not operational.

"Stop the donkey!" Luo Jiye, the leader of the craftsmen, shouted, "It's stuck." ”

Guo Shao looked up and saw that the cast iron lump that was used as a forging hammer was hanging in the air and could not fall, the chain was pulled to a "Titicaca" sound, and there seemed to be 10,000 grass and mud horses whistling in his heart. This workshop has been busy for a month, and his depression can be imagined.

After a while, the donkey in the next cellar was driven to reverse, and finally the hammer was slowly lowered, but fortunately there was no damage...... If it can't be used in the first test, it will collapse directly, and I'm afraid it will hurt even more.

The craftsmen have been working for so long that they can't use it, and occasionally there are people complaining and talking from a distance. Someone muttered quietly, thinking that Guo Shao couldn't hear it, "Why don't you let people pull the rope up and down, it's the same rice, but you have to repair such things......"

Luo Jiye hurriedly flipped out the picture he painted, frowned, and bent down to Guo Shao and said, "I followed General Guo's intentions, and I didn't dare to cut corners." ”

There was also an official from the Jiafang Department next to him, and the official said, "What's going on? ”

Everyone looked dazed, except for a few officials here, most of them were craftsmen. This thing seems to be out of the craftsman's knowledge, and people don't quite understand the problem. The official of the Jiafang Department turned to Guo Shao and said, "General Guo, I know a person who has built a waterwheel, why don't you call him to take a look?" ”

"Okay." Guo Shao nodded.

He gradually calmed down from the depression of failure, knowing that there will always be setbacks in his attempts, and scientists have tried countless times to make electric light bulbs...... Although the structure of this "mechanical forging hammer" is relatively simple, it is mainly based on the principles of transmission belts and pulleys, and the principles are not unfamiliar to Guo Shao; However, he had no practical experience in tinkering with this stuff before.

It was indeed too novel for the ancients; The ancients were also creative, but the development of technology was based on previous experience, with the occasional progress in one or two details, and it was a slow process. Suddenly something completely new comes and it takes a process for them to accept it...... Just as there is a saying that interlacing lines are like mountains, this is true of the unfamiliar.

Guo Shao walked back and forth in the two rooms several times and said: "There is a problem with the design of the opening and closing pendant connecting the forging hammer and the chain, and the intention cannot be realized during the operation, so we have to find a new way." ”

The experienced blacksmiths and shipbuilders around him were also confused, and no one could answer Guo Shao's topic.

Guo Shao asked someone to put paper and ink in the workshop, and then drew a sketch according to the structure in front of him and pondered it. I feel that the "semi-automatic" design step is too big, it is difficult to achieve it temporarily, and the structure has to be simplified, and the simpler the process, the less likely it is to go wrong.

He also discovered that the chain at the edge of the grinding disc was diagonally leading upwards to the hole in the wall, and he intuitively felt that such a orientation would reduce the distance the chain could be pulled (the hammer could not be pulled too high). At the moment, I drew a triangle on the paper, and used the trigonometric functions to calculate it to determine my judgment.

The officials and craftsmen watched in amazement as Guo Shao was drawing, writing all kinds of symbols that he couldn't understand at all, all of them were in the clouds.

Guo Shao didn't want to bluff them, let alone explain, now starting with Arabic numerals and formula symbols, how can I explain it to everyone? In ancient times, there were also mathematicians, such as those who wrote nine chapters of arithmetic and the Pythagorean theorem, but after all, they were in the minority; There are no less than a few thousand officials in Tokyo alone, and no one knows who is good at what...... Anyway, most people, including civil officials, don't quite understand the more complex geometric rules, maybe the officials of Qin Tianjian will be more expert.

"These two grinding discs need to be repaired to cushion the bracket." Guo Shao said to Luo Jiye, "Don't put the donkey that pulls the grinding disc in the cellar, get it to the ground; The 'grinding disc' is raised and lifted upwards. ”

Luo Jiye gestured and asked a few words, and understood what Guo Shao meant.

Guo Shao took out the diagram of the redesigned and simplified pendant device, walked to the forging hammer, pointed to those things on the spot, and explained to Luo Jiye. Part of the structure had to be reassembled, and there was no way to do it.

……

"Guo Du left the government office early every day, and I heard that he was with a group of civil officials and craftsmen?" Shi Yanchao had nothing to do in the front of the palace, so he sat there with Yuan Yan and chatted.

Yuan Yan said: "Last time, the king's privy envoy mentioned it, it seems that Guo Du wants to make new armor. ”

Shi Yanchao was stunned, and then smiled: "I almost forgot, I heard that General Guo used to be a blacksmith!" Haha......"

Yuan Yan was a little more steady, and when he heard Guo Shao's words that were a little joking, he didn't follow the coaxing, and sat there without saying a word and turned a deaf ear.

Shi Yanchao said: "I don't understand, Guo Du is not doing a good job of inspecting the generals of the forbidden army, what is he doing to take care of the weapons prison?" If he hadn't asked Xiang Gong to fight Hanzhong and choose someone well, Hanzhong would have become our territory now...... Now it's comfortable, stealing chickens and rice is not a loss, it costs a lot of money and food, nothing is grabbed, and the court is doing a loss-making business. ”

Yuan Yan originally wanted to say that Xiang Gong was not a mediocre person, but Shi Yanchao didn't seem to look at Xiang Gong very well, so he didn't bother to argue with Shi Yanchao.

…… On the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month, Guo Shao came to the workshop in the outer city again and found that the workshop was already operational.

There was a piece of felt on the anvil below, and the two large wheels next door turned "Titicaca" and made a loud noise. Guo Shao shouted: "Prepare some tung oil, it won't be so loud when you apply oil everywhere!" ”

Seven or eight donkeys pulled the big wheels and turned them near the pivot position, and they did not go very fast; But the other small wheel is several times smaller, and the speed is faster. So the chain on this side moves up and down faster.

"Wow!" With a loud bang, the forging hammer weighing more than 1,000 catties was violently pulled to the height of the beam, like a large sluice being violently opened. A wooden stick next to the forging hammer struck a copper bell with a "clanging" sound as it rose.

When the craftsman standing next to him heard the brass bell, he pulled the rope hard, and the iron hook of the oiled pendant was very thick, in a relatively flat "V" shape, and the two sides were tilted; The chain is deflected to the side with the tugging of the craftsman...... The pendant was immediately unhooked, and the heavy forging hammer "whirred...... Boom" to fall.

There was a loud bang, and although the anvil was padded with felt, the forging hammer of more than 1,000 catties still made a deafening sound when it smashed on it.

It is said that it is too late and that it is fast, and the head of the chain that is driven moves down very fast, and the head of the chain also hangs an iron lump weighing dozens of pounds, which pulls the "unloaded" chain straight. Due to the gravitational pressure of the iron pimple, the V-shaped iron hook directly pressed the inclined plane of the iron hook into the "door" shaped hanger of the forging hammer.

The reconnected hammer was immediately pulled up by the iron chain, and the two sounds of "jingling" and "dingdong" were the sounds of the forging hammer rising and falling through the copper bell. "Bang!" smashed on the anvil again, and so on.

"Haha......" Guo Shao couldn't help laughing, and everyone also laughed when they saw this, and the workshop cheered for a while.

So the craftsman swept away the broken felt grass, put a piece of red-hot wrought iron on the anvil with fire tongs, and hurriedly pulled a square shield with a hole to protect the front. With a "bang", the red square iron block was directly flattened at once. Behind the shield, the craftsman carefully adjusted the position of the wrought iron with tongs, leaned less, and was smashed again.

After forging five or six times, he clamped out the wrought iron, which was already flat; Another craftsman went up with another piece of red-hot iron.

The previous flat piece of iron was stuck in a crack in the stone, bent with a hammer, and replaced with folding and forging.

Guo Shao looked at it for a while and said with a smile: "It is said that Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, can lift a thousand catties, but the overlord can't compare to this thing; Let's make the wheels bigger and use a few more mules, which can lift two thousand catties or several thousand catties. ”

Luo Jiye laughed and said: "The king of the West can't carry the work of a blacksmith to the shop to forge iron. ”

"Hahaha......" The crowd burst into laughter again.

Guo Shao turned his head to look at Wang Hong, the commander of the Jiafang Department: "Another day, I will let Kaifeng Mansion requisition land around here, and you will gather the craftsmen who make the armor, and let Luo Jiye build more workshops according to the size of the forging hammer and gear here; There are three sizes of forging hammers that are doubled in size and twice in size. Now that we have this thing, we can make new armor. ”

Wang Hong bowed and said: "The lower official receives the order." ”

Guo Shao said: "All the craftsmen involved in this matter are like elite soldiers in front of the palace every month, and they are ordered to keep the secrets of the process and behead those who leak it to outsiders!" ”

The crowd came back to their senses from laughter...... Because Guo Shao has often come and gone between workshops for more than a month, and he has not talked to craftsmen often, everyone really rarely feels his power.

Guo Shao took out a drawing: "Anvils and forging hammers can't all be flat, according to these arcs, first cast and anneal, and use them for cold forging stamping shapes." After making the anvil, try forging a few helmets. ”

Now the helmet of the forbidden army is not uniform, there are two main processes: one is the whole piece casting, and regardless of the strength, the disadvantage is thick and heavy, and the cast iron parts cannot be light and thin; The second is the forging of iron sheets, which are connected by rivets for punching, and the disadvantage is that there are many processes and troublesome.

In fact, the disadvantage of the ring lock armor currently used is not mainly a problem of defensive power, it is also very laborious to build, so the whole body armor rate of the forbidden army raised by the whole country is less than one-third; A pair of ring-lock armor is made by connecting hundreds of pieces of iron, and it requires experienced and skilled blacksmiths, and it takes about twenty or thirty people a whole month to create a pair of full-body armor...... This is the case with its low efficiency and high cost, mainly labor costs.

Guo Shao engaged in this thing because he wanted to use cold forging to stamp it into a large area of plate armor. The combination is still using the technique that was popular at the time, with rivets striking the patchwork. However, design is the most difficult part, and some moving parts will affect people's movement if they are ironclad.

So it's not time to start producing plate armor, so let's try to make a helmet first. Plate armor slowly experiments with design...... In any case, at least the technical basis of stamping has been achieved.