Speaking of which, some people may ask, why not smelt wrought iron into water, and then mix molten pig iron with molten wrought iron, can't you blend the steel with the ideal carbon content?

Unfortunately, this idea is very beautiful, but unfortunately it cannot be established, for the simple reason that the temperature of the furnace in ancient times could not reach the level of melting wrought iron.

The lowest melting point of pig iron is 1148°, and as the carbon content decreases, the melting point of iron gradually increases, eventually reaching 1535° of the melting point of pure iron. This nearly 400 degrees is like a chasm, and it was not until modern times that Westerners invented the liquid steelmaking method, and mankind crossed this chasm.

Westerners, since classical times, have been playing the ancient carburizing and steelmaking method until modern times.

It was not until the Renaissance allowed Western technology to take off that the smelting of steel by Westerners surpassed that of the Chinese.

The hallmark of Westerners' steelmaking over Chinese is the reverberatory furnace refining method.

The principle of reverberatory furnace refining steelmaking is very similar to that of the frying method, except that Westerners use closed furnaces and continuously heated reverberatory furnace fires to slow down and prolong the process of decarburization of the frying method, making this process more controllable, thus refining a large amount of steel (in fact, most of the reverberatory furnaces are still iron, but the slag content, sulfur content, and phosphorus content have made great progress compared with the steel in the past.) ）

Of course, the furnace that Chen Xian asked Chen Lao Jia to cultivate was not a refining reverberatory furnace, the most primitive refining reverberatory furnace was not very complicated, and Chen Xian would never casually take out this key technology to show others.

Before the invention of reverberatory furnace refining, two methods of producing steel in small quantities were also invented.

One is the crucible steelmaking method.

The crucible steelmaking method is to put the iron into a closed crucible made of graphite clay, put it into the furnace for a long time to calcinate, the iron reacts with the graphite in the crucible during calcination to remove oxygen and sulfur in the material, and the carbon in the graphite can also carburize the material in the crucible.

This method is said to have been used in both ancient China and ancient India.

The steel produced by the crucible method is of excellent quality and was originally used as tool steel, a technique that has not been phased out until modern times.

Now Chen Xian has no graphite in his hand, and the crucible steelmaking method has high requirements for furnace temperature, Chen Xian estimates that he will not be able to achieve this method for a while.

Another small-scale steelmaking method invented by Westerners is the "carburizing method".

This "carburizing method" is not the ancient calcination and forging carburizing method mentioned above, but a carburizing and steelmaking method invented by modern scientists on the basis of understanding the carburizing principle of iron.

In this carburizing method, wrought iron sheets and toner are mixed into a sealed box and placed in a furnace for a long time to heat and calcin.

Through this long-term sealed calcination, the carbon element penetrates deeply into the iron plate, resulting in steel.

The furnace that Chen Xian asked Chen Laojia to build was to be used for carburizing and making steel.

The carburizing steelmaking method is the simplest steelmaking method known to Chen Xian, which is simpler than the steel-filling method used by the people of the Song Dynasty now, but the quality of the steel produced is far beyond the steel-filling method.

In addition to the carburizing method, Chen Xian also planned to use pig iron annealing combined with the hundred refining method to produce steel as a cover on the surface. The furnace can also be used as an annealing furnace for pig iron.

In fact, forging a good weapon, the most important thing is to have good steel, as long as the problem of high-quality steel is solved, as for the subsequent wrapping method, soil quenching and so on is not complicated.

Chen Laojia is not a loss of old craftsmen, although he is illiterate, but he has a strong understanding of technology and is very sensitive, and he quickly figured out Chen Xian's intentions.

After communicating with Chen Laojia about the regulations of the blacksmith workshop and the smoldering stove, Chen Xianbian said goodbye and left the Chen family.

After leaving the Chen family, Chen Xian did not return to the Yang Mansion immediately, he wandered around the Zhuangzi.

After solving the most basic problem of survival, curiosity about the world more than a thousand years ago finally prevailed in Chen Xian's heart.

He walked along the courtyard wall of the Yang Mansion towards the front gate of the Yang Mansion, and it is said that the east-west street outside the front gate of the Yang Mansion is the most prosperous place in the entire Zhuangzi.

Walking in the alleys, Chen Xian was a little disappointed.

The streets and alleys here, except for the Yang family's compound, are not antique at all, and the adobe tile houses and adobe grass houses on the roadside are not much different from the poor and remote streets and alleys in the mountains in the nineties in Chen Xian's memory, and are even more dilapidated, narrower, and more filthy.

The sewage-ridden alleys and the disgusting mixed smell at the end of his nose could not bring him even the slightest bit of the poetry of the Song Dynasty that he imagined.

Said to be a street and alley, in fact, there are no shops, from the Chen family, walked around the Yang family's compound for half a circle, Chen Xian only saw a grocery store and a Hu cake shop selling food.

After walking nearly 100 meters along the west side of the Yang family's compound, Chen Xian finally walked out of the alley and came to a street five or six meters wide.

Walking on the main street, the first thing that attracted him was the large mansion opposite the Yang Mansion, which was not inferior in scale.

Above the grand main entrance of the house, a plaque reads "White House".

Seeing this mansion, Chen Xian knew that this East Zhuangzi was not the only one in the Yang family, and he thought to himself, no wonder Yang Yuanwai was only called Outside, and no one called him the owner.

The east-west street, sandwiched between two large courtyards, is quite popular.

To the west of the two large courtyards is the most "prosperous" section of the street in the entire Zhuangzi, where Chen Xian saw a tea shop, a wine and food shop, two grocery shops, a blacksmith shop, and an inn.

The blacksmith shop is on the south side of the street, not far from the west wall of Baifu, which is the most "prosperous" location of Zhuangzi.

On the street side of the blacksmith shop, there are various agricultural tools, spatulas, kitchen knives and other daily ironware, as well as knives, knives, spears and other weapons, all of which look very rough.

Walking through the shop and into the shop, there were four stoves in an empty semi-open courtyard, and three masters were leading seven or eight apprentices to tinkle around the stove.

Chen Xian came in, but the craftsmen didn't pay attention to it, but they were busy.

Chen Xian carefully observed the shop.

He found that the fuel in the furnace was coal, not charcoal as he had imagined, and the air was blown by a wooden bellows, which was very similar to the kind that Chen Xian had seen when he was a child, and the kind used by popcorn vendors.

Next to each blacksmith's furnace was a frame filled with a mess of iron, and Chen Xian had not yet been able to tell from the rusty appearance of the iron, but it could be seen from the obvious slag inclusion on the surface of the iron that the quality of the iron was quite inferior.

On the wall next to the anvil hung tools such as chisels and files, which had taken on the rudiments of later generations and, of course, were as shoddy as the rest of the shop.