After Han Qian arrived in Xuzhou and initially integrated more than 1,200 soldiers and horses to ensure that the four clans and the Tanzhou soldiers and horses who infiltrated into Xuzhou did not dare to act rashly, the most urgent thing for him to do was to build Wuliuxi Weir, build houses, and reclaim fields, so as to resettle the slaves and maids of the Feng family and the displaced people who were drowned in Xuzhou.

In this way, they can gain a more solid foundation in Xuzhou, otherwise with only 1,200 men and horses, how can he contain Tanzhou from the upper reaches of the Yuan River with such a complicated situation in Xuzhou?

Not to mention that Tanzhou was contained from the upper reaches of the Yuanjiang River, even the more than 1,000 elites who infiltrated Tanzhou into Xuzhou and gathered at the foot of the Chinese mountain, Han Qian was not able to solve it, not to mention that the four clans were staring at them like poisonous snakes in the deep mountains and old forests on both sides of the Yuanshui.

And the native people outside Xuzhou are also hostile to them!

Standing in front of the walls of Dragon's Tooth City, he could even see the vigilant and hateful eyes of the spies hidden in the bushes from the chicken village, and even two people on his side were negligent a few days ago, chasing an elk that was shot and wounded, and accidentally ran to the old dragon's head, and was killed and injured by the soldiers there.

These Han Qian had to endure it for the time being, he didn't have the capital to confront the surrounding native surnames at this time.

Without a group of basic scales supporting his father and son, unable to obtain basic material supplies from the locality, and the unstable morale of 1,200 troops, it is really not enough to see!

And they have 1,200 men in their hands, and after fighting with other forces, once there are large casualties, there is no place to replenish them.

The Feng family's slaves and maids and a group of displaced people who were submerged in Xuzhou were resettled and brought over, and the Hakka people who had moved to Xuzhou before but had serious contradictions with the native Fanmin were further brought together, and the current unstable factors in Mali were resolved, so that Han Qian and his father could be regarded as having a preliminary foothold in Xuzhou.

However, even if the slaves and maids of the Feng family, the displaced people, and the Hakka Han people were all brought over, the men and women, the old and the young, together there were only 60,000 or 70,000 people, which was only a slightly larger county in the Jiangdong region.

On the one hand, we must arrange 20,000 or 30,000 people in such a short period of time, and on the other hand, we must solve the Tanzhou soldiers and horses infiltrated into the territory in the autumn and winter season next year, and we must settle the four major clans, and on the basis of dealing with the hostility of the native surnames in the periphery, we must ensure that we have the ability to clamp down on Tanzhou from the upper reaches of the Yuan River.

Han Qian pinned his greatest hopes on his improvement of the method of iron-making and forging in the world.

Before that, he had four months, and he had been pondering the method of iron-making and steel-casting in Yandangji, and also built a forging room, as well as a variety of experimental iron-making furnaces and hand-forging furnaces, built a bellows on the basis of the wind lobe, and summoned Chen Jitang and others to continuously test the new method.

Even in order to adapt to the iron ore, pig iron and coal produced in Xuzhou, he did not hesitate to occupy the tight capacity of the Xuzhou fleet, transported iron ore, pig iron and coal from Xuzhou to carry out various tests.

The main reason is that the composition of iron ore and coal produced in various places is very different, and Han Qian wants to find a set of iron-making methods based on iron ore, pig iron and coal produced in Xuzhou and even Longya Mountain.

Otherwise, on the basis of not mastering the real ironmaking theory, why did Du Junyi directly take over the position of engineer in the ironworks of Dragon's Tooth City?

Because the process adopted by the ironmaking site in Longya City was improved by the Yandangji Forging House over and over again, in addition to Chen Jitang and Du Junyi, the Han family also had six craftsmen and more than ten slaves and maids in the Zhuang Yuan to participate in it for four months, and they all came to Xuzhou at this time.

And the iron-making yard built by Ji Xiyao in Longya Mountain, whether it is the furnace or the process used, is a new method improved by Han Qian in Yandangji.

At present, only the smoldering coal and stone under the imitation charcoal firing to remove impurities, but only after arriving in Xuzhou began to experiment.

Although Xuzhou's forest resources are abundant, even if charcoal is used to make iron, it can be consumed in a short time, but the problem is that at present, this method is used to wash and burn coal and stone to remove impurities, compared with burning charcoal, it can still save a lot of manpower.

And what Han Qian is most lacking at the moment is manpower, and almost everyone doesn't think that he can accomplish anything with the little manpower in his hands!

Otherwise, how could Tanzhou easily let him go across Dongting Lake?

Of course, after Du Junyi switched to smoldering coal and stone to make iron, there were two new changes in the ironmaking process that had been determined before, but these two were good changes......

"After we replaced charcoal with smoldering coal, the furnace temperature was significantly improved, and the same iron melting time could be shortened by about 12 times; In addition, the supporting force of smoldering coal and stone is much stronger than that of charcoal after burning...... "Du Junyi reported to Han Qian the new changes he observed during this time.

"yes, that's a good thing! Take me to see it! Han Qian took Du Junyi and the others and strode towards the iron-making field behind Dragon's Tooth City.

Increasing the furnace temperature is not a simple matter of shortening the time for smelting pig iron by 12/12.

After four months of experimentation, Han Qian has determined that the melting point of iron is directly related to the carbon content, and the lower the carbon content, the higher the melting point.

This is also the key to the fact that flexible iron with almost zero carbon content can only be obtained through uninterrupted forging that can last for months or years.

Iron material to impurities, the carbon content is reduced to a very low level, that is, hundreds of steel around the finger soft, so called soft iron, in fact, it is the wrought iron that later generations said, also known as old iron.

Because the carbon content of soft iron is extremely low and the melting point is extremely high, there is no way to melt the soft iron at the furnace temperature of the iron-making furnace in the world, and there is no way to obtain real wrought iron directly through furnace refining.

Therefore, increasing the furnace temperature is always the key to the improvement and improvement of the method of ironmaking and casting steel.

Now with smoldering coal stone instead of charcoal, you can increase some furnace temperature, and even can directly export the molten iron for stirring, when the molten iron is not cooled, the charcoal is exposed to the air for further combustion and direct removal, and other impurities can also be formed by combustion to form slag and impurities precipitated under the molten iron, so as to directly reduce the carbon content and impurity content, which has to save much effort for the subsequent forging?

This method was tested by Han Qian in Yandangji with a small iron-making shaft furnace.

However, there was no way to build a large-scale blast facility in Yandangji, and the fuel was mainly charcoal, which was difficult to accumulate too high, so that the furnace temperature could not be raised to the extent that Han Qian expected, and the cooling rate of the exported molten iron was too fast, and the effect was not very ideal, but it also proved that it was worth the effort to explore.

The vertical blast furnace built on this side of Longya Mountain is twice as high as the experimental furnace in Yandangji, which can build a larger hydraulic or animal power blast box and accumulate more fuel.

Han Qian thought to himself, what if the molten iron produced by the vertical iron-making furnace was introduced into a new crucible furnace, stirred to remove charcoal and impurities at high temperatures, and then exported for cooling?

In fact, this is the combination of the current ironmaking and steel frying process, which is also known as the double furnace method in later generations, which is much more fuel-efficient and efficient than after the molten iron is cooled into pig iron, and then heated, melted, decarbonized and impurities!

Han Qian didn't expect to be able to directly go to the real pure wrought iron, but if this method can obtain refined iron with a moderate carbon content, how much effort does it save compared to the current steel frying method?

The support of residual coal has been significantly improved, which is also a phenomenon that deserves to be applauded.

The shaft furnace ironmaking built here in Longya Mountain, the molten iron outlet and slag outlet are located in the lower part, and the charcoal port and feeding port are located in the upper part, and the carbon material supports the iron ore for reaction after ignition, and the obtained molten iron flows from the gap to the bottom and exports, but the ironmaking must be stopped before the charcoal material can not be supported to prevent the material from collapsing.

The amount of iron that the shaft furnace can smelt at one time and how much iron ore can be added is directly related to the supporting force of the residual carbon.

At present, a vertical iron-making furnace in Longya Mountain, a furnace of molten iron can produce 700 catties of iron, if the residual stone support of smoldering coal is significantly improved, a furnace of molten iron can be increased to 1,000 catties, how much can the efficiency be improved again?

With this foundation, it is also convenient to build a vertical blast furnace with a larger furnace volume and a furnace that can produce 2,000 catties or even 4,000 catties in the future!

These experiences were all explored by Han Qian in Yandangji in the past four months, he left Jinling and absconded, and "destroyed" many experimental furnaces, so naturally he also had to bring out the craftsmen of the Han family who had mastered these experiences.

Han Qian rushed to the ironworks manned by sentinels.

The ironworks were built between a gentle slope and the southwest wall of Dragon's Tooth City, and although there were only three vertical iron-making furnaces that were more than a foot high, as well as some smaller forging furnaces, it covered an area of more than 100 acres, and charcoal-burning kilns were also built in the ironworks, so it was necessary to ensure that there were sufficient areas of coal yards and ore yards.

After confirming that Du Junyi did not exaggerate the effectiveness of smoldering coal, Han Qian directly stopped an iron-making furnace and built a crucible furnace at the outlet of the molten iron that could stir or fry at high temperatures, in order to test the double-furnace steelmaking method that he had been pondering for a long time......

If this method can be achieved, although it will still be difficult to build the high-performance steel parts required to make the scorpion cannon crossbow arm, the cost of armor such as piercing armor, scale armor, fine iron knives, and war spears created by Longya Mountain will be greatly reduced to one-third of the level of other iron fields in the world.

The cost could not be further reduced, mainly because the ironworks built on his side were not located in a suitable location, and the ironmaking output was limited by the mining and transportation of iron ore and coal.

If the double-furnace method can work, Han Qian's next step is to transfer hundreds of more strong laborers to increase the employment of coal and iron mines!

Just imagine, how much more penetration will be improved by replacing ordinary iron arrows with fine iron arrow clusters and stainless steel arrow clusters?

Even if the agricultural tools such as river canals and shovels, shovels, hoes, and plows for the grain field were built specifically for the Wuliuxi construction site in the early stage, the efficiency was greatly improved compared with ordinary iron tools.

In the next half month, Xuzhou seemed to be facing the tranquility before the rainstorm, and the four big families, Tanzhou soldiers and horses, and big guests were all waiting to see how the fate of the Han family and his son would be decided in Jinling, so that they didn't take any action.

Han Qian stayed in the Dragon's Tooth City, personally staring at the transformation of the twin furnaces.

The structure of the crucible furnace for stirring or frying molten iron is simpler than that of the vertical furnace, and the volume and height are also much lower, but the location is at the outlet of the molten iron of the vertical furnace, which can be solved by digging an inclined pit on the basis of a stable foundation.

Therefore, the first experimental double-furnace renovation process is still simple.

Fifteen days later, the molten iron from the first double furnace was introduced into a long mold to cool, and the cooled iron was shining brightly.

The casting of swords involves the performance requirements of the blade and the spine, and it is quite complicated to deal with it, but the armor pieces and decks required for piercing armor and scale armor only need to be simply forged with thin iron.

At this time, if you compare it with the nail piece made by the traditional steel forging method, you will find that the performance of the nail piece cast by the new method is almost the same.

A pair of armor is made of hundreds of armor pieces, and the number of scale armor pieces is larger, and the traditional armor-making technology is to use small pieces of pig iron to heat and fry and then repeatedly forge and form.

It usually takes a year for a master armor maker to produce a good pair of armor.

If you don't fry and forge the armor piece, and directly use a thin iron piece as the armor piece, if you want to get a considerable amount of protection, the iron armor will be more than doubled.

With such iron armor, a soldier may be exhausted with a single charge.

Protection, armor weight, and armor-making efficiency are always three contradictions that are difficult to reconcile in the world's armor craftsmen.

The refined iron smelted by the new method also needs to be cold-forged to a certain extent under the hydraulic forging hammer, so that the quality of the armor can be further improved, but compared with the traditional armor piercing and scale armor craftsman, the efficiency is much higher, and the requirements for the armor maker can also be greatly reduced.

Han Qian confirmed that the refined iron smelted by the new method could be used to make armor, so he immediately recruited more than 100 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 from the slaves and maids of the Feng family and the children of the generals as apprentices to supplement the armor workshop.

The Zuo Si scouts are the elite of the elite, and they have also captured a lot when guarding Xichuan, including the prisoners who have returned to their hometowns, the Xi clan, and the boat gang Wuwei, as long as they have made military achievements, won military medals, or need to be assigned to the state camp to serve, they are allowed to directly carry the captured armor back to their hometowns.

Therefore, the 1,200 men and horses that Han Qian made up in Xuzhou this time are still generally complete, and there is not much missing.

It's just that the soldiers and horses in Xuzhou, the most important thing worn by the generals is leather armor.

In addition to six or seven hundred pairs of leather armor, there are more than 100 pieces of heavier iron armor in the army, but there are only more than 20 pairs of stainless steel armor.

A warrior like Tian Cheng, who is strong in martial arts and has sufficient strength, wears leather armor inside and steel armor on the outside, as long as he does not encounter a bed crossbow and shoots in front of him, he is facing a longbow and arrow array, and he dares to charge into battle.

Leather armor or slightly thinner iron leaf armor can resist ordinary iron arrow clusters at a slightly longer distance, but what if the opponent's longbow is equipped with sharper and more penetrating steel arrow clusters?

The improvement of materials corresponds not only to the improvement of productivity, but also to the improvement of killing ability and efficiency!