In the 21st century, China has become the country with the highest steel output in the world, with a cumulative pig iron output of 700 million tons, almost every citizen, with an annual iron consumption of more than half a ton, which is a terrible number, the price of ordinary pig iron is less than 1,000 yuan, and the average per kilogram of iron is eight or nine cents. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

This is the product of the great development of productive forces, the Northern Song Dynasty and the 21st century, if you evaluate from the general equivalent, more from the grain, a pound of rice can buy more than 5 pounds of steel, this is the basic price comparison.

For Zhao Xin, there is still a lot of room for the current steel price, and perhaps he can't accurately make steel on a large scale, and ironmaking is no problem.

At present, the manufacture of iron in the Northern Song Dynasty is still in the stage of manual manufacturing, from the appearance of iron to the Song Dynasty, showing a slow downward trend, the decline is not very high, from the Han Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the price may not exceed 50%, after the Industrial Revolution, the price of iron has been greatly reduced.

The reason is very simple, the current iron-making, or in the hands of many blacksmiths, tens of thousands of tons of steel in the Northern Song Dynasty, may be the result of tens of thousands, or even more blacksmiths working together, manual operation has no scale, and there is no economy, iron-making or charcoal, the quality can be guaranteed, but the cost is too large, the price of charcoal is expensive, even in the 21st century, it is still high, it is many times that of coal, coal-based coke, can provide higher heat, and the price is cheaper, which is the main factor in the reduction of steel prices.

Of course, more scientific blast furnace design, reduce many unnecessary links, generate more steel, which is also the fundamental factor after the industrial revolution, steel prices have been greatly reduced, 1000 tons of open-hearth furnace output of 3000 tons per day, 180 tons of converter, a day can produce close to 3500 tons, higher technology brings lower costs, bring more output, may be a later generation of open-hearth furnace output, has exceeded the current output of the Song Dynasty in a year.

With the reduction of the cost of iron smelting, large-scale production, the price of iron, will be greatly reduced, not to mention the standard of later generations, a pound of iron is reduced to the extent that it is cheaper than rice, as long as it is reduced to the difference between the like, or one or two times, that is, within 20 Wen, it is expected, the use of coke, the large-scale output brought by the larger steelmaking furnace, the price of iron will definitely be greatly reduced.

Iron is the root of the cost of long arrows, a long arrow, will use about 60 grams of iron, after the price of iron has fallen, the price of arrows will definitely be greatly reduced, another point of labor costs, not much, after the innovation of ironmaking technology, arrow processing is easier.

When the iron of the iron-making furnace is successfully smelted, and then under the action of high temperature and carbon, it is dissolved into a liquid, so that the boiling and flowing liquid is injected into the molds that have been prepared a long time ago, and after the cooling is over, it is a simple arrow, maybe there will be some burrs and the like, with the help of this grinding wheel and other tools to repair it, it is a qualified arrow.

The part of the arrow shaft, the same can be used to save costs, in the early stage can be processed by skilled craftsmen, with the current Miaojiazhuang equipment, 12 craftsmen, at least 500 a day can be made, which is enough for training, to really train the longbowmen, after the large-scale increase in the demand for long arrows, it can be processed through machining, in the middle, it is necessary to make some machines specifically for the arrow shaft.

Now in the Northern Song Dynasty, it is impossible to make large-scale and accurate machine tools. But it's simple, and only a little processing can be done on woodworking machines, which is not much of a problem.

To put it bluntly, the lathe is to use the spiral, or some fixed rotation and cutters, to process fixed items, processing complex planes, what is needed is a CNC machine tool, not to mention the Northern Song Dynasty, even if it is 800 years later, it is also very difficult, Zhao Xin is not to manufacture complex planes, just the simplest, cylindrical arrow shaft, all that is needed is a turning tool, for the processing of fixed size wooden strips, it is not a problem at all.

As long as a group of skilled craftsmen are gathered and the concept of machine tools is told to them, these people who have enough manual experience and are familiar with the manufacturing methods of various machines will almost certainly be able to develop this.

Restricting the emergence of machine tools, it is always the material, the machine tool from the time of the appearance, is for the processing of iron, especially the harder material, can process better materials, will always be more hard and sharp materials, and for the overall machine parts, the requirements are also very high,

Wood is not so hard, even the hardest wood, it is the hardness of iron, the difference is repeated, under this premise, the wooden machine itself has the possibility of birth.

In fact, in history, wood machine tools have also been born, but only for specific things, and even because of the relationship between traditional Chinese habits, many skills, especially deep skills, have gradually been lost.

In the pile of old papers, there were records about the Spring and Autumn Period, the Gong Lose Class and Mozi, especially the Gong Lose Class, as the ancestor of carpentry, he was also rumored to have made woodworking tools, which could automatically process wood.

Regardless of whether there is or not, in short, this era, has all the premise of the birth of woodworking machine tools, now, just to turn this premise into substance, through years of exploration, only to get the experience, in Zhao Xin where a lot, he has seen some woodworking machines, this is also thanks to the project he found for his hometown.

His hometown is a remote mountain village, there is no transportation, there are no specialties, only a large area of mountains and forests, relying on the mountains to eat the mountains, relying on the water to draft, close to the mountains and forests, there is no other advantageous place, so the processing of wood, and even the production of furniture, is the inevitable choice.

Years of study, plus some temporary extras, for example, to help others identify some Song Dynasty cultural relics, or to act as an appraiser for some low-level collectors, with his professional quality, in the industry, a little famous, in just 6 years, he has accumulated almost 400,000.

400,000 yuan, for a rich person, may be just the price of a meal, but for a remote mountain village, this is probably the only chance, after many choices, he finally decided to pay equal attention to quarrying and wood processing, and through a furniture business owner, learned about wood processing.

It is this understanding that allows him to have a general understanding of woodworking machine tools, this cognition, can not help Zhao Xinxin's manual method, his own woodworking machine tools, but pointed out the direction for him, at least, some simple processing, for example, rectangular, square, cylindrical simple woodworking machine tools, the basic concept is there.

With this as a basis, you can process a large number of machine tools, the biggest advantage of machine tools, one is easy to use, do not need to go out of the carpenter, only use is ordinary, slightly trained, you can operate, fast, maybe two or three days, you can almost use machine tools for processing, which greatly increases the number of practitioners, on the other hand, the production speed of machine tools, 100 times more than manual, can reduce the production cost of a single arrow shaft to the minimum.

A long arrow, both aspects are lowered, as for the tail feathers, that is the simplest, but the same can not be saved, the need for feathers, perhaps in the future can be used to raise a large number of chickens, to increase the output of feathers, but now, can only rely on the existing output, this is probably the only, but also the most difficult to solve the bottleneck.

No matter what you say, it will be a matter for the future, with the previous two reductions, when the price of iron and the difficulty of processing arrow shafts are reduced, the price of long arrows will definitely be reduced to a very low level, which is lower than the arrows used in short bows now, and it has the possibility of mass production.

Many people see the English longbow, but they only see the strength of the longbow itself, at most the British use of the longbow, but they do not see the efforts that the British have made for this class.

As early as the 13th and 14th centuries, in the import of some luxury goods and special products, a part of the purple shirt wood must be added as a condition of trade, and Britain also vigorously promoted the development of the manufacturing industry, especially the manufacture of long arrows.

For the Great Song Dynasty, the same is true, the longbow is the most suitable weapon for the Great Song Dynasty, in the future, in the Great Song Dynasty, it may be a million, or even 2 million equipment, according to a battle of 150 arrows to calculate, the demand for arrows is astronomical,

When the price of the longarrow is reduced to less than 3 yuan, that is, one-fifth of the current short bow, the cost of using the longbow is similar to that of the current short bow, but the effect is much stronger, and anyone with a little common sense will not refuse the entry of the longbow, which is the right way to develop the longbow.