The closer it is to Yingdu, the denser the carriages and horses on the official road become. It was the eighth month of the Chu calendar, the sun was scorching, and the road was dusty. And from the beginning of the Chu State, there has been no rain for half a month, the millet seedlings in the fields beside the road are curled and scorched, every now and then, the evil will talk about the Zhengguo Canal of the Qin State, this canal will be completed this year, can irrigate millions of acres of farmland, and then sigh that the Chu State has no such ability, can only let the millet seedlings thirsty.

Before the evil came to the Qin State, he longed for the Qin State, and after he went to the Qin State, he praised everything in the Qin State. Along the way, although I heard from time to time how the crown prince of Chu tamed the six dragons and turned them into waterwheels, he dismissed them as ignorant and scoffed at them. However, today in the suburbs of Ying, the group finally saw the waterwheel: a narrow wooden box more than two zhang long was horizontally erected between the field and the ditch under the ridge, the water in the ditch was only shallow, the wooden box was just enough, and the farmer was pulling something with both hands at the end of the box, and the canal water was running along the wooden box in the field. Everything is thirsty, and the white splash makes people feel a little cooler.

The evil man in front of him stopped the car, he looked at the waterwheel and did not move, Xia Yang walked up, and said, "Senior brother, that is the waterwheel that the Chu people said." The water flow is so great that an acre of land can be irrigated in no time. ”

"I'll take a look." Xia Yang didn't say that it was okay, but when he said that the evil came, he wanted to take a look. Evil comes and goes, and Xia Yang follows. The closer you get to the waterwheel, the louder the sound of the rushing water becomes, and the white splash makes people feel like they are immersed in it, and the weather is too hot.

"My husband is polite." Evil came to speak the Chu language, and when the peasant stared at the sword at his waist, he greeted him with a big grin.

Xia Yang, who was following, couldn't understand Chu language, so he had to take a closer look at the water wheel that had stopped: the carriage was like a ditch, and there were pieces of tooth leaves in it, and he couldn't figure out how the car pumped water.

"I'll try." Evil has the ability to mingle with the poor, so he rolled up his sleeves, grabbed two swivel arms and started driving. At this time, Xia Yang saw that with the rotation, the teeth and leaves in the car were endless, and it was they who lifted the canal water little by little, and poured it into a stream of water to irrigate the field. It's really amazing, as a disciple of the Mo family, Xia Yang has seen a lot of clever weapons, but he has never seen such an ingenious one.

"This must have been created by Luban." In the sound of the water, Xia Yang said loudly.

Evil came to the car, and the farmer next to him shook his head vigorously when he heard the word Lu Ban, what did he say, but unfortunately Xia Yang didn't understand.

"It is said that it was made by the eldest son Jing of the Chu State." The car is finished, and the front half of the body is wet.

"Big Zijing?" The eldest son, Jing Xiayang, naturally knew that as soon as he entered the Chu State, the eldest son Jing would be endless. "Senior brother, the waterwheel is very clever, but such a waterwheel must be expensive."

"Definitely." Evil came and shook his head, "It's only three hundred dollars." ”

"Three hundred dollars?!" Xia Yang couldn't help but look back at the waterwheel, the farmer started to drive water again, according to Xia Yang's estimate, it was not necessary to irrigate one acre for two hours. "It's... How can it be so cheap? ”

"You ask me, who do I ask?" Evil came to the angry road, he said that he got into the car, and immediately took the road in front. Yingdu is already in sight, and the journey of nearly two thousand miles is finally coming to an end.

"Where is the eldest son?" Yingdu Chengguo, after reading the book of Xianyang, Jun asked about Xiong Jing. For more than two months, he had told the spies in the palace to pay close attention to Xiong Jing's movements, and once Xianyang replied, he would act immediately.

"Dazi Jing has been refining Ju Iron recently." The little maid looks weak, but her eyes are fierce. She is a maid of the king, called 葍 (fu).

"Iron?" Jun Jun smiled, "His Royal Highness the eldest son also understands the things of iron?" ”

"Yes. Dazi Jing has been going to build a mansion in the past few days, and the route is fixed, if he can ......, "The second assassination last time was carefully arranged by Bao'er, how could it not be done, and four dead soldiers were sacrificed."

"No need." Xuan Jun waved his hand, "Send a message to Zhao Yu and ask him to persuade Li Yuan to persuade Huang Xie to help the eldest son Jing enter Qin as a hostage." ”

"Entering Qin as a hostage?" Hearing this, Bao'er was surprised at first, and then smiled: It is not easy to assassinate in the Chu State, but it is different in the Qin State, the proton in the Xianyang Palace, killing anyone is just stepping on an ant. "Only, the slave and maid will do it."

*

In Bao'er's eyes, Xiong Jing is just an ant in the Xianyang Palace, Xiong Jing doesn't know his future fate, and now his attention is all on the converter in the middle of the shed. Half a month has passed, everything is ready, and the converter steelmaking trial is today.

Different from the crucible method, converter steelmaking involves the pouring of molten iron, the blowing at the bottom of the furnace, and the pouring and casting of molten steel, which is not like the crucible method, which can solve all the problems in one pot, it is composed of multiple parts integrated, and if any part goes wrong, the whole steelmaking will fall short. For this reason, the craftsmen in all aspects of the construction of the palace thoroughly tested and inspected several times before the trial began.

Besmer is just a mechanical engineer, and Xiong Jing cheers himself up in his heart. Besmarck had never smelted iron to make steel, and he only occasionally found that pig iron reacted with air and turned directly into steel, so he concluded that it could be blown to make steel, but at that time, the steel industry thought that blowing smelting was a fallacy, forcing Besmarck to try it himself. Compared with him, he had skilled blacksmiths, swordsmiths, carpenters, and clay makers...... It can be said that the forces of the entire Chu State have been mobilized, and as long as the pig iron is qualified, there is no possibility of failure.

"Your Highness, it's all right." Gong Yin Dao, this old guy, is dressed exactly like the previous dynasty, and it is said that he bathed and fasted for three days before, just for today's converter trial. At this time, he was covered in sweat, and his clothes were wet and sticking to his chest and back, but he was unconscious. His eyes were on Xiong Jing, worried that he still had any instructions.

"Then let's get started." Xiong Jing, Nao Cunning and others stood on a makeshift overpass, from which they could see that at the farthest end of the shed were three steaming, improved charcoal-smelting blast furnaces, and a little closer were converters, and the molten iron from the blast furnaces would flow directly into the converters.

"Open the furnace!" Gong Yin Dao shouted to the bottom, and the craftsman in front of the blast furnace quickly opened the furnace mouth. As soon as the molten iron of the three blast furnaces came out, the temperature of the whole shed rose in vain, even if he stood on the overpass, Xiong Jing also felt the slightest heat.

"Open the gates." Pig iron is very fluid, and this molten iron meets in the ditch and then flows along the ditch, and the final destination is the converter. The molten iron was white-hot and dazzling, and after looking at it for a while, Xiong Jing's tears came out.

"Open the gates." The craftsmen beside the converter surged, they opened the gate quickly, and the white-hot molten iron was poured into the converter along the wrought iron trench.

"Full?" Xiong Jing's face was also sweaty, and when he wiped his tears, the sweat accidentally got into his eyes, and his eyes were hot, and there were more tears. He could only see that the color of the converter had become very red now, and he didn't know if the converter was installed.

"Your Highness, it is not yet full." Gong Yindao's eyes were squinted, and he waited for a while before he said, "Your Highness, it's full." ”

"Yes." At this time, Xiong Jing's eyes were already healed, and he nodded and said, "You can start refining." ”

How the converter is filled with molten iron, and how the workers should be, have been repeatedly explained before. Ou Chou, Kong Tieguan, and all kinds of craftsmen at the bottom stayed away from the converter according to the instructions in advance, and the blowing refining was about to begin.

"——! Start" Outside the shed, shouts rang out, and the air blowing was the same as the blast furnace blast, and it was all manpower. Hundreds of sturdy Donggong armor soldiers, under the command of the craftsman, began to push the bellows. The air, when the skin is raised, is sharply squeezed into the skin, and then rushes to the bottom of the converter furnace at high speed when the skin is compressed. Molten iron is hot, the arrival of air is like explosives meeting Mars, silicon, carbon, manganese, sulfur ......, in the high temperature of more than 1,300 degrees and oxygen violently burned, the whole converter boiled instantly, the furnace body trembled, the flame erupted out of the furnace, the molten steel splashed outside the furnace, the red smoke rushed straight to the roof of the shed, and the whole shed was as hot as a firebox.

"The furnace is about to explode!" I don't know who shouted, and everyone was trembling, including Nao Cunning and Gong Yin Dao on the flyover.

"Your Highness, how should this be?" Gong Yindao's face was completely black, and he had never seen modern steelmaking, and he could not accept the scene at present, which seemed to be more terrifying than a volcanic eruption.

"......" Xiong Jing is also the first time to watch converter steelmaking on site, but fortunately he knows that Besmer's first steelmaking is also the same.

"Your Highness......" The great Sima Nao was also a little worried about the explosion-like iron furnace below.

"Don't panic, it's normal." Xiong Jing is confident, and he now has two worries: one is when to stop blowing, because if he blows too much, the carbon in the pig iron will be consumed, and what he has practiced is just a furnace of molten iron; The second is the phosphorus content of pig iron, he didn't ask for the iron ore of Daye Tonglu Mountain, he used the magnetite ore of Huiji County, but who can guarantee the phosphorus content of the magnetite?

"Normal?" After getting along for a long time, some of the strange words that the crown prince often said were gradually understood, and then he saw that the converter under his feet was just sparkling, and there was no more violent reaction, so he put his mind at ease for the time being.

"How long?" Xiong Jing looked at the temple man beside him, it was a delicate timing water leak.

"Your Highness, it's been ten minutes." The temple man was calm, but unfortunately the ten minutes he said were not the standard ten minutes.

"Stop blowing for fifteen minutes." Xiong Jing admonished. The time of the converter blowing determines the carbon content of the molten steel, that is, the steel, and he can only guess without experience for the first time.

"Yui." The temple people nodded, and the temple man who struck the gong to stop blowing even grabbed the mallet.

The converter was still boiling, but the sparks were much less sparkling than before, and seeing this, Xiong Jing didn't want to wait another fifteen minutes, he was worried that the carbon of the molten iron would be exhausted. "Strike the gong." He shouted.

......As soon as the gong sounded, the craftsman outside the shed immediately shouted, and the airbag did not move. The converter, which had lost its airflow, gradually died down, and except for the red-hot molten steel, everything in the shed returned to normal.

"It's time to start the furnace." Xiong Jing said again.

"Burn!" The people below shouted, and the half-red craftsman immediately pushed the giant wooden turntable, and the converter tilted little by little, and finally, the white molten steel gushed out.