"The sword is four feet eight inches and seven minutes long, and weighs five pounds and fourteen taels and three dollars. The round empty head, the stem is round and the hoop is double, which can be held with both hands; Its grid is like a diamond, slightly narrow, the ridge is high and oblique, and it converges in two of the three places, the edge is incomparable, the sharpness is unparalleled, and the swords are in harmony with it, and the edge of the sword can not be beaten......"

Xianyang Shaofu, a long sword is placed in the hand of the engineer Ye Tunnel, and he is talking about this sword to the right Prime Minister Changping Jun. This sword Changping Jun had seen it in Dun Weak, and he also knew the Chu Sword Formation System very well. This sword is a standard Chu-style sword, with an elongated willow leaf type, while the Qin sword is shaped like an orchid leaf and is extremely slender. And the length of the sword, the Qin ruler is slightly longer than the Chu ruler, if this sword is measured in the Chu scale, it should be exactly five feet.

The length of the sword is five feet, and it is very rare, at least the Qin State can't do it, this should be used by the father. If it was only the sword used by his father, Changping Jun would not have come, and he learned from the news of the marquis that the state of Chu had made a new kind of huge iron, and this sword was made of huge iron, and the real name of the sword was Chopping Ding—the sword was cut off without polishing.

In this era, swords were all cast, and the lower form was taken from the sand fan. Liu An of the Western Han Dynasty said in "Huainanzi Xiu Wu Xun" that "the beginning and bottom of the hook and fish intestines of the husband is pure, and the blow cannot be broken, and the thorn cannot enter, but it is added to the sharpening, and the water is broken by the dragon boat, and the land is cut rhinoceros armor", which is exactly the casting of the sword. After the lower type, the sword must be 'sharpened', 'Mo Qi Feng Gong (Feng: the tip of the sword; Blades: both sides of the sword)' can become a sharp sword, 'water breaks the dragon boat, and the land slashes the rhino armor'.

"How did the Jing people refine it into great iron?" Of course, Changping Jun didn't come here to look at the sword, he was concerned about the secret of the iron.

"Prime Minister, please." Ye Tunnel walked out of the sword room, turned around a few times, and took Changping Jun to a work shed. In the middle of the shed, a cradle-shaped stove was erected in front of the crowd, and not far behind this furnace were three charcoal-smelting iron furnaces.

"This is the furnace of Jing people's refining iron. The eldest son of Jing Guo said that this is a converter, which can be turned to dump molten iron. If Xiong Jing was here, he would definitely spit out three liters of blood in his mouth, and the current converter that he had scratched his head to restore was shamelessly stolen by the Shaofu of the Qin State.

In fact, he was ignorant and didn't know much about Qin's pursuit of farming and warfare techniques. The Qin State was a latecomer, and after the implementation of the law of the Shang Dynasty, it only focused on farming and warfare, and most of the private traders and private workshops did not exist, and the military workshops could not even have the Xiangbang Mansion, how could private individuals dare to have them? And the Shaofu workshop to the Qin law of the strict, everywhere according to the order, everything is customized, not followed, unfinished or shield or armor, no money will be reduced to the city of ghost salary, which makes the craftsmen only dare to complete the plan according to the work book, who dares to find another way.

Under the strict system, there are few original techniques, and the only ones that can be relied on are the six countries of the East. Once there was any new method of cultivation and warfare in the Six Kingdoms, the Qin State would try to steal it through the Hou or Mo people, and introduce it into the country to promote it on a large scale. It can be said that the innovation of technology is the weakest in the Qin State, but the sensitivity of the technology is the strongest in the Qin State, and the technology of Jutie has attracted the great attention of the Marquis of the Qin State since its appearance, and then through the ink in the smelters of the Chu State, the converter soon moved more than a thousand miles west and appeared in Xianyang Shaofu.

"Then how do you refine it?" Changping Jun read the news and knew the name of the converter, but he still didn't understand how to make steel.

"Jing people make iron with hot wind, so that the iron turns into water, and the molten iron enters the converter, and blows it with air, and it becomes a huge iron in a while." Through the relay of the ink man, Ye Tunnel roughly knows the process of converter steelmaking. "Just ......"

"Just how?" Changping Jun was patting the cradle-like converter with his hand, and he thought the stove was so strange.

"There are two methods for Jing people to refine iron: one is the small furnace method, which is called the ink furnace, and I don't know how the ink furnace is; Then there is the converter, but the converter refining has not been completed, and the iron produced is said to be ......" Ye Tunnel thought about it, and had to relay the words on the spy report in the original text: "It is said that it is hot and crisp, and it is cold and crisp, and it cannot be a big one, so the eldest son of Jing Guo ordered the smelter to test it with iron and stone from all over the country." ”

In the end, it is a stolen thing, only the form without theory, and the specific process is incomplete. For example, the Scottish tuyere used for hot blasts, Ye Tunnel also pondered for a long time before he realized that the hollow iron was for water diversion and cooling. It was this Scottish outlet that made the output of copper and iron smelting in Qin soar last month, and the consumption of charcoal was reduced by half.

"This didn't work?" Changping Jun was inevitably a little disappointed, after Lü Buwei left office, he was Xiangbang, and Qin's next step was to destroy Zhao. The Zhao people were stoic, and every time the Qin State fought with it, even if it was a big victory, it would hurt itself by eight hundred, and he hoped that the Qin army could have a huge iron army, so as to deter the Zhao people and reduce the casualties of the Qin State itself.

"It really didn't work out." Ye Tunnel said truthfully, "The method of refining huge iron in the Jing State Ink Furnace is very secret, and only Ou Chouzi knows it, and his disciples don't know it. Although the method of converter was not successful, the eldest son of Jing Guo instructed the government to try again, regardless of the money and time. There are only a few iron mines in Jingguo, and the iron mines under the rule of Qin are ten times that of Jingguo. ”

"That's all there is to it." Changpingjun looked at the converter again, and finally answered.

"Can the prime minister know that he is weak and has brought back a pair of armor from Jing Kingdom?" Turning out of the shed, the leaf tunnel continued.

"Yes." Changping Jun nodded, "The sword is a great armor, and the weak gains are all treasures." ”

"This armor is also made of iron, and ordinary swords can't pierce it, but its armor pieces are disassembled and placed in the furnace, and it is not possible to try again after the furnace." Ye Tunnel said another incomprehensible thing, he was giving Changping Jun a preventive injection in advance.

"Oh. How about the nail slice? Changping Junqi asked. Is the sword pierced? ”

"Before entering the furnace, the thin one hits it with great force, and it cannot enter, and after entering the furnace, it can be struck with great force." Ye Tunnel's expression was extremely solemn, "Why is it, I can't figure it out." ”

A huge armor that can't be pierced by a sword no matter how much it pierces it, it is not a huge armor when it is put into the furnace and then baked, and it becomes an ordinary iron armor. Changping Jun was shocked when he heard this, and he stopped: "Jing Guo's artificial armor also has a secret? ”

"Exactly." The art of iron smelting is one problem, and the performance of the giant armor after entering the furnace is another problem - Xiong Jing's previous fears have finally come true, and the Qin State has begun to realize the importance of quenching steel weapons.

Copper alloys and ferroalloys are two different metals with very different smelting properties. Copper alloys, such as bronze, are also quenched, but bronze quenching is completely opposite to the purpose of steel quenching: the purpose of quenching high tin (more than 18%) bronze is because high tin bronze has high hardness and is not easy to process, quenching can soften it and facilitate processing; The steel itself has good machinability, and quenching is to improve its hardness, so that the HV value is increased from around 200 to more than 500, or even more than 700.

Because of this, steel weapons without quenching do not have an advantage over high-hardness bronze weapons, and even if the carbon content of iron is too low, they will be at a disadvantage - this is also an important reason why although the six Kwantung countries have iron weapons, they cannot form an overwhelming advantage over Qin's bronze weapons, but steel weapons with good quenching and tempering processes are completely superior to Qin's bronze weapons.

This problem was discovered after the leaf tunnel annealed the giant armor piece. It's just that the Qin State is mostly copper smelting, and the existence of iron smelting is also mostly pig iron smelting. According to the inertia of copper weapon manufacturing, the use of pig iron to make weapons and agricultural tools is cast instead of forging, and the molten iron is poured into the model, and there is no problem of quenching or not quenching. Even if Ye Tunnel thought of quenching, he would not have guessed that quenching would harden the weapon, he would only follow the inertia of bronze quenching, thinking that quenching would make steel softer.

The secret of iron refining and the secret of armor manufacturing, these two insoluble secrets made Changping Jun go away and return in defeat. His idea of attacking Zhao with a huge iron army was shattered, and on the side of Chu, Xiong Jing and Ou Yezi both issued assassination orders. If no one else knows these two secrets, it is likely that this sword armor will never be made again.

Changping Jun returned to Xiangbang Mansion silently, Lu Buwei was not there as usual, and countless official documents were waiting for him. He was busy until dark, and before going home, he passed Weishui again, entered the palace, and reported important matters to his aunt.

In this way, Lü Buwei ......, "In Huayang Palace, all the forms are in the style of the Chu State, and the servants are also playing Chu music at this time. The Empress Dowager is the only one in the Qin State who dares to call Lü Buwei by her name, she seems to be a little lazy and doesn't want to say how Lü Buwei is. "Who is this Lees? Chu people? Wei people? ”

"Aunt Hui: Li Si said that he was from Chu State, but he was actually a Cai person." Changping Jun elaborated on Li Si's identity. He first served as a small official in Shangcai County, and then worshiped the Confucian Xun as a teacher, and after leaving the school, he entered Qin and worshiped under Lü Buwei. The number is meritorious, and the king takes it as a guest. After the chaos, he saw that Lu Buwei was about to die, so he sent someone to say to me, but I didn't think about it at the time. He knew the general situation of the DPRK and China, so he secretly investigated Lü Buwei's crime as a former disciple, and this is ......"

The wall is down and everyone pushes it, but the person with good eyes will always push it in front, and Li Si is a person with excellent eyes. Today, he sent Changpingjun Lü Buwei's 'criminal evidence', which was very important in Changpingjun's opinion, so he entered the palace to report it.

"You can dispose of it. He has merit, and he will be rewarded in the future. As for the mother country...... "the thorns are high above the people, and they don't ask much about the details."

"Xiang Yan is already a general, and the number of soldiers in the country has exceeded 300,000, and the war may improve." Changpingjun hurriedly said.

"The war is not in a hurry, Zheng'er said to withdraw the troops, then withdraw the troops, Zheng'er doesn't say it......" Mi Jian yawned.

"Only, nephew remember." The battle of Qin and Chu was protracted, but Changping Jun didn't dare to say half of it.

"In the palace of the mother country, which princess is waiting to be married, and which princess is worthy of being a political child?" Suddenly he asked about him.

"My nephew only hears it, I only ......hear it," Changpingjun, the princess of Chu State, didn't know much, he thought about it before saying: "The daughter of Concubine Zhao is the princess, but it is the daughter of Concubine Yan who is said to be slender and graceful, and the princess born to the Yue girl, her skin is better than snow, like an immortal......"

Before the princess finished speaking, Changping Jun interjected again: "Auntie, the battle of Qin and Chu killed a lot of Chu people, but the new monarch was married to the Qin State at the beginning of his career, this, this is probably ......."

"If you don't marry with the Qin State, don't be an enemy of the Qin State?" Mi Thorn smiled with a sense of authority, "I said before that no matter who is the new monarch, Yang Wenjun will be the Ling Yin and be friendly with Qin." Now that the eldest son and sister-in-law are all dead, who doesn't want to be the king of the princes? If you listen to it, you will stand it; If you don't listen, you will set it up again. ”

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(End of Volume 1)