Sang Jun felt that his heart was beating wildly, he looked at Zhang Yue, and the excitement in his eyes was already overflowing.

He knew what the message Zhang Yue meant to him.

It's the future, it's the guarantee!

If the current son is still on the throne, he can establish the eldest grandson as the next generation of monarchs.

So......

For a minister like himself, the lower limit of his future prospects is at least 2,000 stones!

Maybe there will even be a chance to pay homage to the marquis!

Just thinking about it, I was already excited.

Reluctantly, holding back the ecstasy in his heart, Sang Jun lowered his head and diverted the topic, and said: "Shizhonggong, if it's not too early today, why don't you let the lower official accompany Shizhong to inspect the various places in the workshop garden?" ”

Zhang Yue nodded and said, "There is a Laosang order......

He turned his head and looked at Chen Wannian on the side, Chen Wannian's face had become extremely flushed now.

Needless to say, he received the message.

Soon, almost the entire bureaucratic structure of Xinfeng will get this message.

From the eldest grandson to the great-grandson, there is a word apart, but the status is very different.

After all, no matter how powerful the eldest grandson is, he is only the eldest grandson.

In the Han family, where the mother is more expensive than the son and the son is more expensive than the mother, Liu Jin's background is actually not good.

He is from Shi Liangdi, not from the crown princess Wang's family.

The background of the maternal family is not deep, and the historian of the maternal family is just a landlord of Hongguyuan, which is mediocre.

There are neither generals nor high-ranking officials in the family.

However, the crown prince also has three sons.

In fact, the current Liu Jinneng has his current status, relying on the spoiling of today's son.

Although the prince himself also likes this eldest son, he ......

Who can say for sure what is going on in the court?

Who can say what the future holds?

Moreover, Zhang Yue is actually not very relieved of the prince Liu Ju.

This prince is a gentleman, Su Xidun is kind and quiet, which is naturally an advantage, but think about it from another angle, does it mean that His Royal Highness the prince is actually soft-eared, indecisive, and easily influenced by others?

Therefore, in order to avoid long dreams at night, and in order to reassure others, and for the future, Liu Jin must change from the eldest grandson to the eldest grandson.

This thing just needs to be done.

So in the future, even if Liu Ju ascends the throne, there is no way to abolish the elder and the young, which is a good thing for everyone.

It's just that this thing, in operation, is not so easy.

Zhang Yue still has to sort out the relationship and think about how to operate.

In advance, he still had to have a good talk with Liu Jin, Liu Ju's father and son, so that Liu Ju could accept this matter.

After all, without Liu's approval and support, there would be little room for maneuver in this matter.

Thinking about this, Zhang Yue had a headache.

It feels incredibly tricky and cumbersome.

But I had to do it, or even had to do it!

Because......

The people below are all pointing to him, the Shangguan, leading the big guys to build a well-off together, to achieve peace, and to reach the peak of life by the way.

Among these people, there are only a few who can eat their ideals and dreams.

Most people must be counting on following Zhang Yue and Liu Jin to counterattack Gui Fumei, serve as 2,000 stones, and reach the pinnacle of life.

If Zhang Yue has been dragging his feet and refusing to give them hope, and people who can't see hope for a long time, of course they will vote with their feet and make their choice.

If you don't take it, you will be damned!

Thinking of this, Zhang Yue also sighed helplessly, and surrounded by Chen Wannian and Sang Jun, he stepped out of the official residence of the Industrial and Commercial Bureau and came to the workshop of Shaofu.

It has been completely transformed into one of the most skilled handicraft workshops in pre-AD Northeast Asia!

In the workshop, hundreds of large and small houses are endless, and more than 1,000 skilled craftsmen and more than 2,000 officials, slaves and maids shuttle back and forth among them.

Of particular interest are the five large smelting furnaces that were built in the heart of the workshop.

Zhang Yue visually observed that the shortest of these five iron-smelting furnaces was probably more than three meters tall, and the highest might be more than five meters.

Thick smoke rises from the furnace, and there are air vents on all sides of the furnace, and drums made by Shaofu are installed.

The so-called drum is actually the original form of the blower.

In appearance, it is a leather pouch sewn from cowhide, which may be equipped with support rings and baffles, which can be entered into the smelting furnace by human blast, causing the furnace temperature to rise.

Cheng Yuan stood proudly in front of these five shaft furnaces and introduced to Zhang Yue: "In the service, just these five shaft furnaces can produce two or three thousand catties of fine iron every day!" ”

"It's just a pity that Xinfeng County itself has no iron ore, so it can only purchase pig iron from the iron officials in Lantian to smelt ......"

Zhang Yue raised his head and looked at these shaft furnaces, countless information and news flashed in his mind.

The data recorded by Lantai and the data of later generations were immediately synthesized, allowing him to form the basic parameters and three-dimensional structure diagram of these shaft furnaces in his mind.

They should be a standard shaft furnace.

The so-called shaft furnace, as the name suggests, is an upright iron smelting furnace.

This is one of the signs of the progress of iron-smelting technology in the Han Dynasty - during the old Qin and Warring States periods, iron had begun to be smelted and used in various fields by the Zhuxia people.

But at that time, the iron-smelting technology was not up to par.

The iron smelted was of poor quality, high sulfur content, brittle and easy to break, and compared with the bronze technology that had matured at that time, it was much more reliable and stable.

Therefore, the end of the Warring States Period was - the Qin State, which manufactured and used bronze weapons on a large scale, relied on the pinnacle of bronze technology to beat the eastern countries that used various advanced iron weapons and complete the unification!

But in Hanji, everything changed.

Because, the iron-smelting furnace appeared!

When this epoch-making blast furnace appeared, the old crucible ironmaking was immediately eliminated.

Especially in the Han Shaofu and those former super iron merchant workshops, the large iron smelting furnaces quickly eliminated the crucible furnaces and the former bronze smelting industry.

At the latest, during the reign of today's sub-rulers, shaft furnace technology began to appear.

and immediately replace other old iron-smelting furnaces.

This kind of shaft furnace, may be seen in the eyes of future generations, full of various defects and unsafe design, unreasonable places.

But in contemporary times, it is one of the strong foundations of the Han family.

Because......

As far as Zhang Yue knows, later archaeologists have discovered and unearthed a large number of Han Dynasty shaft furnace sites.

After restoration, people came to the conclusion that this shaft furnace can produce an average of 0.5-1 tons of iron per day, or smelt more than 200 kilograms of refined iron.

Especially in the complete mid-Han Dynasty shaft furnace unearthed in Guxing Town, it is breathtaking.

And the data of the Lantai record and the archaeological discoveries of later generations.

Zhang Yue now knows that these shaft furnaces are made of refractory bauxite and rammed by the plate construction method.

Around the furnace wall, a large number of refractory quartz stone fired refractory bricks.

It has an external feeding port and multiple manpower drums.

And the five shaft furnaces in front of you, the shortest is probably three meters high, and the tallest may even reach five meters!

The best iron-smelting furnace of our time!

It is conservatively estimated that only these five shaft furnaces, as long as the raw materials are sufficient, can smelt 3,000 catties of refined iron per day.

That is, more than 1.5 tons of refined iron.

The level of technology is close to the iron-smelting technology of the end of the seventeenth century in Western Europe.

It's just that......

"It's still not enough......" Zhang Yue thought to himself.

At present, the iron smelting output of the Han family is about 2 million catties to 2.5 million catties per year.

It is equivalent to an annual production of about 5,000-7,000 tons of pig iron.

With such a little output, I am afraid that even the weekly output of an eliminated crude steel mill in the future is not as good.

The annual demand for pig iron in the world far exceeds this number.

Therefore, the iron tools of the Han family have always been in short supply, so that the state can make tens of thousands of profits every year through the government-run iron tools!

It's just that at present, the smelting scale of Xinfeng is almost to the limit.

Mainly because Xinfeng has no iron ore and no coal.

It can only be purchased from the Tieguan in Lantian County.

The iron officials in Lantian County also have a limited monthly iron production scale.

Now, the iron-rich mines known to the Han family are all in Shu County, Nanyang and Qilu.

Therefore, the development of super-large iron-smelting industry in Xinfeng has almost no future.

However, it is feasible to develop high-end steelmaking technology.

After all, Shaofu has hundreds of thousands of catties of scrap iron to dispose of every year.

These scrap iron tools are basically weapons retired from the Han army or various rotten tools used by officials, slaves, maids, and prisoners.

Shaofu generally chose to recycle them into new weapons and tools.

If the technical problems of blast furnace steelmaking can be solved, then these waste iron tools can be obtained from Shaofu and turned into crude steel or even steel with superior performance!

And that's going to be a huge income!

Thinking like this, Zhang Yue made up his mind.

Steel, even if it is crude steel, is a luxury in today's Han Dynasty!

A steel-doped sword is often worth tens of thousands.

If it is a sword made of stainless steel, a hundred gold and a thousand gold are just waiting for leisure.

More critically, it's a huge leap from iron to steel.

If all the discarded iron tools in Shaofu are refined into crude steel, it is almost one or two thousand tons of crude steel, and it is completely possible to replace the elite weapons and equipment of the Han army with all-steel weapons.

All of a sudden, the technological generation gap between the Han army and the Xiongnu army can be opened by an era.

Zhang Yue knew that the steelmaking technology of later generations was divided into open hearth furnace and converter, but he did not study industry, and he only knew a little about it.

But, basic common sense, he still knows.

"Cheng Gong ......" Zhang Yue said to Cheng Yuan: "This official has an idea, can you ask the masters of Shaofu to help experiment?" ”

"Please instruct ...... in the waiter" Chengyuan is of course not unavoidable, and it doesn't matter if there is one more stove here, right?

Zhang Yue looked at the five shaft furnaces in front of him, thought about it, and said, "The appearance of this furnace is still like a shaft furnace......

"It's the furnace wall, and the official wants to make the furnace wall out of dolomite and clay......"

"Then, the official wants the craftsmen to try to see if they can put some lime powder in the smelting process as a medicine ......."

In later popular science books, alkaline bottom-blowing air steelmaking is a landmark technology.

Its appearance has solved the problem of desulfurization and dephosphorization of steel.

Of course, in today's terms, shaft furnace technology has its bottlenecks, and it may not be at the level of steelmaking furnaces during the industrial revolution.

However, if you only use scrap iron to make steel, you may be able to get good quality crude steel by adding this improvement.

It's really not good, you can also get fine iron with fewer impurities!

Anyway, you won't lose by giving it a try!