At the temperature of charcoal, iron ore is reduced to sponge pig iron at most, and it is impossible to reduce molten iron, while the melting point of pure iron is more than 1,500 degrees, and it is more difficult to turn into molten iron, so it is absolutely a miracle that ironsmelters in this era see molten iron. However, the hot blast smelting of coke, which is much hotter than charcoal, also brought a problem: the furnace wall material used in the iron-making furnace could not withstand such a fire temperature, and it did not take long to burn through one by one.

If history had not changed, ancient craftsmen would still have to rely on repeated forging to remove impurities from pig iron, but this process would also remove the carbon from pig iron. Therefore, how to leach back the carbon in the second half of smelting has various methods for craftsmen in various countries, but none of these methods have the possibility of large-scale and low price. The real way to produce steel on a large scale was the crucible method, invented for the second time by the English watchmaker Benjamin Huntsman in 1740[Note], and later modern steelmaking methods such as Bessemer's converter steelmaking.

According to the description of the crucible method in the British modern steel production technology paper: a crucible furnace can only hold one nine-kilogram crucible at a time, and can produce up to three to four times a day, and can only produce sixteen to eighteen tons of crucible steel per year, and a factory with five crucible furnaces can only produce eighty tons per year. Thirty years later, technological advances have increased the crucible capacity to eighteen kilograms, but the output of a five-hole crucible furnace is only three hundred and twenty tons per year.

Of course, Xiong Jing can't remember these numbers, but they are enough to give him the impression that the output of the crucible method is too low, plus cost considerations, although the construction has made several graphite crucibles from the graphite found during the coal search, Xiong Jing still invests his energy in the Bessemer converter. As for the harm of high-phosphorus pig iron, after racking his brains, he could only learn from the lessons of the Hanyang Iron Works and use alkaline linings to remove phosphorus from pig iron in the furnace wall.

In the cradle-type iron furnace, the new lining is a little white, and these are new refractory materials found by the whole government.

"The bricks are only half paved?" Xiong Jing didn't know the new furnace lining, he only thought it was a bit like marble.

"Yes, Your Highness." In addition to Ou Chou, there are Tao Yin, Ji Yin and Shao Ji Yin, the former knows that it is pottery burning when he hears the name, and it is the same as Kong Tieguan, and the latter two, their responsibility is to be responsible for the prospecting and collection of minerals across the country.

The idea of the two was very simple: since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince could make a fire that burned evil iron, he must find the earth and stone that could withstand this kind of flame no matter what, and under the stronger furnace fire, the giant iron could be practiced no matter what.

"Your Highness, this kind of refractory stone is as loose as black ink, and it needs to be cast and fired like a black furnace to be formed, and half of it has not yet been fired." The lining of the furnace is now in charge of Tao Yin, and he has tried to burn the refractory stone that Ji Yin found, but it really can't be burned.

"When will it be fired?" Xiong Jing asked. His fingers were on the vent at the bottom of the furnace, and the air blowing in from it would burn violently with the silicon and carbon in the pig iron, turning it into steel for a very short time, and the furnace could smelt 600 kilograms of steel at a time.

"Your Highness, it will be done next month." Tao Yin is an honest man, he has been by the fire for many years, and his complexion is like black pottery.

"Then next month's trial." Xiong Jing stood up and looked at the dump of molten steel. At the end of the steelmaking, the entire furnace can rotate and pour out the molten steel, which will flow down the ditch into the placed Shafanli.

This is no way, the government has not yet made gears, without gears can not roll steel, can not roll steel, can only pour molten steel into the sword mold or other sand fan, and then forge into shape. Coking, ironmaking, steelmaking, and glass burning are big things, but gears, bearings, these small things are also important.

Seeing the wrought iron that was 'not far from making a huge iron', Nao was already a little satisfied, and Xiong Jing knew that the converter trial could be held next month, so he didn't say anything. It's just that in his heart he knows that the chances of success are not great, although the pig iron used in converter steelmaking is specially selected charcoal pig iron, but who can guarantee that it is low phosphorus?

"Your Highness, can you try the Black Ink Furnace first?" Xiong Jing cared about the converter, but Ou Chou immediately wanted to test the crucible.

"Yes, you can give it a try." Xiong Jing did not object, "In the first trial, you must be careful. ”

"Yui." Ou Chou said, and asked, "Can Your Highness come in person?" ”

"No, I'm afraid I won't be able to come." The crucible smelting is covered, and you can't see anything when you come, Xiong Jing refused and then said, "Then ...... You should remember that the carbon in iron should not exceed 12 hundred, and if there is more carbon, the steel will be hard, and if there is less carbon, the steel will be soft. If pure iron is added, then carbon should be added to the furnace; If raw wrought iron is mixed into the furnace, you don't know how much carbon to add. ”

"Your Highness, in this case, you can only smelt pure iron in a furnace?" That's all Xiong Jing knows, and it's still pure theory, Ou Chou sounds like a golden rule, and he only asks after memorizing it carefully.

"It was better to do so." Raw and wrought iron is mixed into steel, and it is said that it is so, but no one can get the proportion. The stupidest way is to make the pig iron into pure iron without any impurities, and then add carbon, if the steel pot is covered and sealed and smoldered, the carbon can seep into the pure iron. "It's just that the cost is high." Xiong Jing was a little apprehensive about the crucible.

"Huge iron is rare, a furnace of molten iron can cast several huge iron swords, which are worth dozens of gold." Ou Chou said. "Your Highness don't worry."

"We can't afford a sword with a few dozen gold." Xiong Jing understood Ou Chou's swordsmith thinking, but Ou Chou didn't understand what he was thinking. "Zi Chou, I don't want every general of my Chu army to have a huge iron sword, and I also want to make iron cheaper than copper, and I want to replace bronze with iron and build a steel world in the future."

Xiong Jing's words made everyone stunned, 'Replace bronze with iron and build a world of steel', no one can imagine what kind of world this is.

"You don't have to worry about losing your job." Xiong Jing smiled again, "Ju iron is not meteoric iron, just a kind of carbon iron. Since pure iron can add carbon, it can add other things, some things that you and I have not yet seen. In this way, there will be all kinds of iron, which can be sharpened like clay, or can never rust, or can be elastic, or can not be afraid of high temperatures...... just like making a soup, different things are added to it, and the soup will have a different taste. You already have an ink stove, the ink stove is a tripod, you can try what you want to do. ”

"Thank you, Your Highness." Ou Chou paused again. If Xiong Jing opened the window of iron smelting before, then what he tells now is the essence of smelting: making soup, everything in the world can be added to pure iron or other metals to try the taste.

Ou Chou paused, and only on the way back to the palace did he ask: "Your Highness, is it true that each person has a huge iron sword?" ”

"It's better to have a set of iron armor." Xiong Jing added.

"Iron Armor?!" Xiong Jing was also stunned when he said that he would build a steel world just now, but now his expression was glaring, "Your Highness, the iron is very expensive, why is it A?" This rhino armor, this rhino armor ......," he poked hard at the rhino leather armor he was wearing, "it was enough. ”

"Can the rhinoceros resist the sword?" Xiong Jing asked rhetorically. The armor of the Chu State was all leather armor, and in the era when the armor was basically self-contained, the vast majority of soldiers had little protection. "How much is this rhinoceros worth?"

"Dare to ask Your Highness, how much is the huge iron armor worth?" Nao also asked rhetorically, he felt that it was impossible to distribute a few catties of huge iron swords to every soldier, let alone a time-consuming and time-consuming huge iron armor.

"I don't know." Xiong Jing doesn't have much spectrum. "There are two ways to smelt huge iron, and the price of converter refining is not more than twenty; If it's an ink oven......"

"Twenty gold?" Nao Cunning stretched out two thick fingers.

"Twenty bucks." Xiong Jing corrected, and then Nao was completely dumbfounded.

"If it is an ink furnace, pig iron must be trained into mature iron, and wrought iron must be trained into huge iron, which costs a lot, and it may cost fifty dollars per catty. This is made of charcoal pig iron, if you can solve some problems, use the iron born from coke to smelt iron......"

There are two ways to make steel, one is to directly use charcoal pig iron in this era to smelt in the furnace, and the current price of pig iron is roughly 12 yuan per catty. The converter is directly made of pig iron into steel, no need to heat, as long as the air is blown, so it is cheap, even if it exceeds 20 yuan, it will not exceed too much, and it is definitely lower than the copper price (30 yuan per catty);

The crucible is different, the crucible method pig iron must first be refined into mature iron, wrought iron and then steel, not to mention the fuel, the loss of pig iron itself is very amazing - Xiong Jing vaguely remembered that Sun Yat-sen had met the American steel king Carnegie, and asked about steelmaking, Carnegie said at that time that ten tons of pig iron could only make five to six tons of steel, which shows that the loss is huge, and that is still the beginning of the twentieth century. It can be seen that the fifty dollars of crucible steel must be exceeded, perhaps about sixty or seventy dollars.

However, this is only one way, coke ironmaking is another. With the current iron-making technology of the Chu State, smelting one ton of pig iron requires two tons of iron ore, eight tons of charcoal, and 0.15 tons of lime; In the case of iron making with coke, the consumption of coke by hot blast will not exceed 1.5 tons (i.e., 3 tons of coal). Eighteen tons of coal are consumed without blasting, nine tons of coal are consumed by cold blasting, and five to six tons of coal are consumed by blasting at 120 degrees).

Unfortunately, the coal mine is still mining, and only a small amount of coking coal is used to break out of the mountain when the flash flood erupts, and coke cannot be used to make iron for the time being, so Xiong Jing has no way to judge the actual cost of coke iron. However, the cost balance point between charcoal pig iron and coke pig iron in modern Britain was that the coal consumption of coke pig iron fell to nine to ten tons, while the consumption of charcoal per ton of charcoal iron at that time was only one ton. Compared with the eight tons of charcoal, the iron smelting of coke is equivalent to three hundred kilograms of charcoal smelting one ton of iron.

Eight tons of charcoal to smelt one ton of pig iron, the cost of charcoal is more than half, and it may account for two-thirds; If 300 kilograms of charcoal are smelted into pig iron, the price of iron should be less than five yuan, and the converter steel smelted from pig iron at this price may not be higher than ten yuan, and the price of crucible steel should be less than 30 yuan.

"Your Highness, I want to see the king, I want to see the king!" Xiong Jing had already calculated the cheaper price of steel in his heart, and the big Sima was shocked by the shocking price of twenty yuan, and shouted to see the king of Chu.