"The eldest son of the king is out of the palace?" In the wine shop compartment in the east of the city, Li Yuan, who was drinking alone, looked suddenly, and his eyes stared straight at the subordinates who were reporting. It took him half a long time before he waved away the prostitutes who accompanied the wine and the poor man who played music, and lowered his voice and said, "What is the armor? ”

"Three pawns." The subordinate is also a Zhao person, and the scar on his face from the corner of his eyebrows to his lower lip is very shallow, and it is still hideous.

"Three pawns." Li Yuan silently recited, "Where is the eldest son of the king leaving the palace?" ”

"Build a mansion in the north of the city." The subordinates did not have a surname, so they took the country as their surname, and Li Yuan gave the name 鈇 (fu), and the purpose was self-evident. Now Zhao Yu is exerting his instinct as a guillotine, wanting to completely smash the crown prince who stopped his master. "There is a wasteland in the east of the big city and in the north of the private square, and there are almost no houses, if you lie down here with a swordsman and a crossbowman......"

Shouying is 6.2 kilometers long from north to south, 4.25 kilometers wide from east to west, and nearly 8 kilometers long from north to south with the outer city, while the inner city of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties is 6.6 kilometers long from north to south, 5.5 kilometers wide from east to west, and only 8.7 kilometers long from north to south with the outer city. The population of this capital, which is smaller than Beijing, is only about half the size of Beijing. Until the early years of the Republic of China, there were still many places in Beijing that were wasteland, and there were even more natural wastelands in Shouying, which had a population of only 400,000. Zhao Ji wanted to ambush in the wasteland on the way back to the palace of the crown prince, if he could kill the crown prince Xiong Jing, the master's nephew would be the future king of Chu.

The king of Chu has already set up Xiong Jing, and the only way to abolish it is to kill it, so that Xiong Han, who is his son-in-law, can replace him as king. This idea has been in Li Yuan's mind since the failure of the battle for the throne, and he has been secretly preparing for it. However, it is easy to kill the crown prince, but it is too difficult to deal with the aftermath, especially when the king of Chu is not dead at this time. In case Xiong Jing died, and the king of Chu did not set up Xiong Qiang but set up those concubines, then he would not get any benefits.

"Master, when you have to be lazy, when you don't come again; If you don't take it, it will be a disaster. Zhao Yu saw Li Yuan's hesitation, so he persuaded him in a deep voice. The king of Chu was sick repeatedly, and he fell only in the evening, and he suddenly heard that the eldest son of the king died in the street, and he would die of heart disease. In this way, the prince should be the king of Chu. ”

"It's a good time!" Li Yuan pinched the wine lord's hand and turned white because of the force, "As you said, kill it in the wasteland of Dongcheng." ”

"Yui!" Zhao Yu kept his head down, and when he heard this, he glanced at Li Yuan before bowing and retreating lightly.

*

"Iron is brittle and easy to crack, it can only be used as a farm tool, not as a weapon, and it is for evil gold. Iron is used as a soldier, and non-masters cannot be cast. In the mansion, Gong Yin Dao answered Xiong Jing's question. What was not noticed was that the caster who forged the bronze sword just now had a dissatisfied face, especially when he heard Xiong Jing's question 'Why don't you use the iron sword'.

"That's pig iron." Xiong Jing roughly guessed the reason why Tie didn't make weapons, and now he just wanted to confirm it. "If it's wrought iron, it's too soft. Iron can only be ...... if the proportion of carbon is just right, and the proportion of phosphorus and sulfur is low enough."

Xiong Jing is not talking about iron weapons, but iron cannons. In the era of sailing ships, most of the naval guns were cast in steel, and in the later era of ironclads, even the hulls were made of steel. The carbon content determines the hardness and softness of the steel, while phosphorus will make the steel cold and brittle, and sulfur will make the steel hot and brittle, so it is extremely important to grasp the carbon content in iron and reduce the ratio of phosphorus and sulfur to the cannon. Xiong Jing's hobby is sailing, but the extended knowledge of sailing also gives him a general idea of iron and steelmaking.

Xiong Jing didn't understand what Gong Yin Dao said, he just nodded meaningfully, and then asked Xiong Jing to move forward. Everyone walked a few steps, and the caster holding the bronze sword suddenly shouted, "Please stay!" ”

The caster looked like he was in his fifties, and his face was blackened from the fire day and night. His voice was loud, but the rest of the group didn't understand his words. Seeing this, he stepped forward, and the guards immediately stopped him.

"What do you want?" The forger had a bronze sword in his hand, and he walked too quickly like an assassin.

"I ask you to stay." The caster and Gong Jia couldn't speak well, but fortunately, the commotion in the rear made Xiong Jing and the others turn around.

"What?" Seeing several palace armor holding swords surrounding a black-faced man holding a sword, Xiong Jing's heart tightened.

"It's a thorn...... Assassin. Gong Yindao's face turned pale.

"What is he talking about?" Xiong Jing asked again, "Why did you stab?" ”

"Your Highness, it's better to take shelter for the time being." The surrounding palace armor has protected Xiong Jing, Cai Bao can see something strange, but he doesn't dare to be sloppy.

"What is he shouting?" The caster had already thrown away the sword in his hand, and was then taken down by the palace armor. Xiong Jing was short and couldn't see what was going on, only hearing the person shouting and shouting, as if in another language.

"Your Highness, what this person said is not Chu language." Cai Bao said. "It's like the words of the land."

"Your Highness, this person is a Yue Ren Forge Guest, not an Assassin." An engineer in the crowd who understood Vietnamese hesitated, "He asked... He asked His Highness what is the raw and cooked of iron? ”

"Is it a caster?" Xiong Jing stood on his toes, but he still couldn't see the man.

"Your Highness, this person is ...... It's a caster. Gong Yin wiped his sweat, he couldn't wait to poke his eyes, where is this person an assassin, he is Ou Chou, after Ou Yezi, a famous sword casting master in Yueguo.

"Ou Chou greets the nobleman." Xiong Jing's identity Ou Chou doesn't know, and he doesn't know who His Highness is called. Of course, with his temperament, even if he knew, he wouldn't care. "I heard the noble man say that iron is raw and cooked, and wrought iron is too soft......"

Although Ou Chou can understand Xiong Jing's elegant words, he can't speak, he can only speak in the local dialect, and Xiong Jing can't understand it at all. Fortunately, his father once told him the population composition of the Chu State: Jingman, Sanmiao, Ba people, Yongren, Yangyue, Huaiyi, ......, no more than those Central Plains countries that obtained large fiefs by blood origin, every inch of Chu State was conquered by itself, and it is reasonable to have multiple ethnic groups and multiple dialects under its rule.

He couldn't understand the Yue language, and the engineer beside him could translate for him, and Gong Yin Dao also mentioned Ou Chou's identity. He arranged Ou Chou to take the opportunity to present the sword to Xiong Jing, but he didn't expect Xiong Jing to look down on the bronze sword, so he asked Qin Jian for a while, and then asked Tie Jian for a while.

Of course, Ou Yezi Xiong Jing knew that he was the father-in-law of the cadre and the father of Mo Ye. Hearing Ou Chou's question, Xiong Jing didn't answer, but asked, "Is there an iron sword?" ”

"Yes." Ou Chou turned around to get it. An iron sword will be raised.

The iron sword was similar in shape to the bronze sword just now, but it was significantly lighter. Looking closely at the steel of the blade, Xiong Jing could only tell that the sword was cast rather than forged, and there were still traces of exemplary signs in some places, such as the junction of the sword shaft of the sword body.

"Iron is smelted from charcoal, the temperature is too low, and the smelted is only pig iron, which is brittle and has a lot of sundries, which can only be used as agricultural tools, and it is difficult to cast weapons. If all the debris in the iron is removed, pure iron can be obtained. The hardness of iron is determined by carbon, and if there is no carbon, it is soft, I call it wrought iron, and if there is more carbon, it is hard, I call it a giant iron......" sorted out his thoughts, Xiong Jingcai generalized, others seemed to understand whether they understood or not, Ou Chou wrung his brows, engrossed, listened carefully word by word, and his face seemed to be smiling and sad.

"May I ask you, how do you know how much carbon is in iron?" Ou Chou interjected very rudely, decades of smelting experience made him fully understand what Xiong Jing said, and it also made him unable to take into account etiquette and dignity.

"There's no way." In an era when there were no high-temperature thermometers, precise smelting was simply impossible. "Only by experience."

"Pure iron is soft without carbon, how to add carbon?" The problems of Ou ugly are more important than the other. Carburizing is carburizing, and the carburizing process has been a secret for thousands of years, which is the key to replacing bronze weapons with iron weapons.

"It's not difficult to add carbon, the key is the furnace temperature." Xiong Jing was very happy to meet a craftsman who knew how to smelt iron, and he said without reservation: "If the furnace temperature is reached, the easiest way is to mix raw and wrought iron, add more pig iron if the carbon is too soft, and ...... if the carbon is too hard."

'When-', the iron sword in Ou Chou's hand suddenly fell to the ground, his hands opened angrily, his mouth opened wide, and he couldn't shout anything he wanted to. Seeing him like this, Cai Bao and Yu immediately blocked Xiong Jing behind them. At this time, Ou Chou also returned to normal, he fell to the ground and paused, and shouted hoarsely: "Today, I have the words of the noble man Jin Yu, please accept the villain's worship." ”

After he shouted, he was worried that Xiong Jing was puzzled, and said with some condensation: "The ancestor of the villain refines the sword for people, and the sword does not succeed when it comes, and his body is too soft to become a blade, so he breaks his hair and cuts his fingers and throws it into the furnace, but it still does not work, and then the sword of the furnace is completed." ”

Ou Chou poured out the family past, and the version was different from the one that was handed down in later generations. The cadre Mo Xie forged the sword because the gold and iron were not melted and thrown into the furnace, and his ancestors were cast because wrought iron could not be turned into steel.

Thinking of the craftsmen who have been unknown in China for thousands of years, but have forged the bones of the nation, Xiong Jing was suddenly a little moved. He pushed away Cai Bao and Yu in front of him, walked to Ou Chou and gently helped him up, and said, "Zichou, please get up." Let the ancestor be heavy in the promise and die in the art, not sincerely admired. Everyone in the world is made by light craftsmen, but they don't know that the reason why people exist is because of the tools. If there is no plow, there will be no crops, if there is no loom, there will be no clothes, if there is no car or ship, there will be no transportation, and if there is no sword, there will be no hero. All the tools are made by craftsmen, how can people be light? ”

A few months ago, Huang Xie's words criticizing himself for not valuing virtue reached Xiong Jing's ears very early, and he did not refute it, but now when he heard what Ou Chou said, he couldn't help but reveal what he thought in his heart, and the engineer standing next to him nodded his head.

After Xiong Jing finished speaking, he said: "The smelting of iron, once at the furnace temperature, the furnace temperature is high, the iron will be hydrated, and the result will be twice the result with half the effort; Second, in the ore, the iron ore is excellent and the impurities are few, and the iron quality is pure; Three in the technique, to impurity carburizing, quenching, tempering, annealing, carefully grasp, the iron is self-contained. It is not to be asserted that there will be no more craftsmen martyred in the future. ”

Although Ou Chou got up, he still knelt, as if he couldn't show his reverence for Xiong Jing without this. After listening to Xiong Jing's explanation of the key to iron smelting, he bowed again: "Please accept the villain as a servant, and learn the art of iron smelting." ”

"Your Highness ......" the most shocked Gong Yin Dao, he didn't figure out how Xiong Jing could convince Ou Chou in a few words, and now Ou Chou wants to be Xiong Jing's servant and learn the art of iron smelting.

"Your Royal Highness, this ......" Gong Yijian was also surprised, among the mansion casters, most of the swordsmiths were made by Wu Yue, and Ou Chou was one of the best, but he didn't expect Xiong Jing to make Ou Chou willing to be a servant with a few words.

"You don't have to be a servant, just a student." Xiong Jing looked at Ou Chou and smiled.