At present, the steel production of the North Sea country is relatively low. The steelworks in Krumhearn currently have only three small 10-ton iron-making blast furnaces, producing about 30 tons of iron per day. Even if the work is started all year round, the annual pig iron output is only 10,950 tons, that is, more than 10,000 tons.

Of course, in this day and age, this production is already remarkable. Because, this is already the top in Europe.

Other European countries have just evolved from block ironmaking technology to furnace ironmaking technology. The specific time was probably in the middle of the 15th century, and before the middle of the 15th century, most of the steel smelted in Europe was a softer sponge iron obtained from a block of iron. Without carburizing, this iron is not as strong as bronze.

Moreover, even if there is a furnace for ironmaking, it is still only a small furnace for ironmaking, and has not yet evolved into a blast furnace, let alone any coke steelmaking. Steel production in various countries has also been very low. The annual output of steel in a top country like France is only a few thousand tons, which is not as good as the only steel mill in the North Sea country......

What does steel mean? It means weapons and equipment, and it means the innovation of agricultural tools......

Thanks to the appearance of harder pig iron ingots, the plate armor of the French began to become stronger, and they no longer feared the English longbow. The plate armor made of sponge iron was often shot through...... Together with the use of artillery, France won the Hundred Years' War and established European supremacy.

But Beihai Kingdom's steel technology is even better, because of the existence of Marin, a traverser, Beihai Kingdom directly skipped the pig iron age and entered the steel age. In terms of Warcraft Quantification, the level of French science and technology is still at the level of iron armor of a base. And Beihai Country has entered the steel armor era of the second base.

The annual output of pig iron in Beihai Province is about 10,000 tons (there are errors), and most of it is used to make agricultural tools and general tools.

For Europe, the backwardness of agriculture at this time was all-round. It's not just a matter of fertilization technology, it's not just a question of irrigation technology, it's a serious shortage of iron farming tools.

At the time when Marin first crossed, even the serfs on the Hoffman family's manor could not make an iron farming implement. Many serfs use wooden pickaxes to plough the ground, and the efficiency can be imagined......

But there is no way, steel is a strategic material in Europe in this era, and most of it has been made into swords and plate armor, how can there be any surplus used to make agricultural tools?

The development of agriculture in Beihai is not only the development of technology, but also the problem of equipment. In Beihai Country, basically every manor has enough iron farming tools. And this is the credit of the three small blast furnaces of this steel plant in Krumhearn......

Only a small fraction of pig iron is used to make steel. At present, the steelmaking technology of Beihai Country is actually a bit backward, and there are mainly two kinds - one is crucible steelmaking, which is mainly for the production of weapons and armor. The other is the secondary refining of the reverberatory furnace, which is mainly used for casting cannons.

The steel products used in crucible steelmaking have a high carbon content and are mainly used to make swords and armor. The reverberatory furnace refining, after control, including the addition of high-purity graphite, etc., mostly obtains low carbon steel (if the carbon content is not controlled, what is obtained is cast wrought iron).

Of course, open-hearth furnaces with regenerative are also in use, but the technology is not yet mature, it is being tested and improved, and it has not yet been popularized on a large scale.

Iron farming tools are so important to agriculture that the current Beihai country pig iron farming tools are not only supplied to the country, but also to neighboring friendly countries. Of course, not cheap.

You must know that Beihai uses a small blast furnace to make iron, and the cost is only a fraction of that of half of the ordinary small furnace in a blacksmith shop. However, because of the limestone sulfur removal and scaling link, the quality of iron farming tools in Beihai Country is better than that of ordinary blacksmith shops.

In terms of price, the price of Beihai National Railway's farm tools is similar to that of ordinary blacksmith shops, but the profit is several times higher, and the quality is better.

As a result, many blacksmiths from other countries went bankrupt because of this, and hated the North Sea Kingdom. Of course, the North Sea Kingdom doesn't care about any of this. Some blacksmiths, because they lost their jobs, even ran to the hostile countries of the North Sea Kingdom and became mercenaries......

Of course, there were also clever blacksmiths who switched to importing pig iron ingots from the North Sea country, and then processed them into tools needed by the common people, so as to continue to make money. In the end, the only ones who were unlucky were the blacksmiths who made their own iron......

In addition, there are smarter ones. They found that the quality of pig iron in Beihai was higher than that of French military pig iron, and then they actually imported pig iron farming tools from Beihai and melted them to make weapons and armor, which turned out to be very popular......

But this is also limited to those countries that have poor relations with the North Sea State, and countries that have good relations with the North Sea State can directly import steel weapons and armor from the North Sea State, which is of better quality and much better......

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The progress of steel technology has greatly promoted agriculture. For example, the Prader plow, which was launched last year, has shined extremely brightly this year.

This year's spring ploughing in Beihai is extremely extraordinary, because the Prader plough has been popularized and applied on a large scale.

The Prader plough has three curved plough heads, which are pulled by multiple animals and are more than three times more efficient than a single curved plow.

If pulled by 12 horses, the daily arable land reaches 30 acres. Later, it was pulled by 6 cows, and the daily arable land reached 15 acres.

But later tests found that pulling the plough with several oxen together seemed dangerous. Especially, when several bulls are together......

Bulls are very short-tempered, and the breeding of hornless cattle in this era is not yet large-scale, and most bulls are horned.

The bull has a bad temper, and it is even worse to put several bulls together. No other action, no need to pull the bull's nose ring, as long as you tilt your head and stab with the horns, you can have a bloody case.

So, the final test showed that the bulls could not be put together to pull the plow. Then, people mainly choose good-natured cows to pull the plowcart together. Or, pull the cart with a good-tempered bull that has been castrated......

The same is true for pulling horses, where uncastrated stallions are used to pull carts together, and the stallions kick each other with their hind legs, or they bite each other with their mouths. Therefore, the horse that pulls the plowcart together also needs to be a mare or a castrated stallion......

Just a few years ago, Marin imported 20,000 ordinary horses from Crimea, so that this year's spring ploughing, the North Sea country has an inexhaustible number of horses.

Although the Eastern European Mongolian horses in Crimea are not as strong as the professional large horses in Western Europe, the Eastern European Mongolian horses have good endurance. Lack of strength, durability to make up.

After using 16 horse-drawn plough carts, the efficiency became about the same as that of the average Western European horse-drawn 12. Moreover, these 16 Eastern European Mongolian horses require much less feed than 12 Western European horses, which is very economical. What's more, in addition to working, these Eastern European Mongolian horses usually only need to be fed grass and do not need expensive food......

Normally, each farmer can only plough 4 to 6 acres (4 acres is cattle ploughing, 6 acres is one acre, horse ploughing), but now with the Prader plough cart and sufficient livestock, Beihai Country's spring ploughing this year is fast and efficient. It's only been half a month, and the amount of spring plowing that usually takes more than a month has been completed......