Annoyed, Anthony came out of the first furnace of molten iron he had made, and poured it into the mold to make round iron rods.

However, after the iron rod was condensed, when it was taken out to see, the quality was not good, and there were many bubbles in it.

After thinking about it, Anthony thought that the charcoal was too much, so he opened the furnace again to make iron, but the second furnace still failed, and seeing that several days had passed, he had not even made the qualified iron material for drilling the barrel, and Anthony was finally not calm.

In fact, in the matter of ironmaking, Anthony is a second knife, and he only set up one according to the style of the blast furnace of the Macau Arsenal, and then according to the gourd painting, but he does not know the detailed process of ironmaking.

Seeing the time go by, Anthony became extremely anxious, if he could not win the game, the high salary of 1,000 taels of silver a year would be in vain, and he would return to his original state of poverty.

In the end, Chen Yujie, who had been following him in charge of translation, couldn't look past it, thinking that the design of his blast furnace was unreasonable, and the height and ventilation made the furnace temperature too low, which caused the quality of the iron to be smelted.

Chen Yujie is well-read, has studied with his uncle Xu Guangqi for many years, and also has experience in smelting.

Anthony couldn't solve the problem of ironmaking quality, so he had no choice but to try to follow Chen Yujie's advice, revise the blast furnace, and then make ironwork again. To his surprise, the quality of the iron in this furnace finally met the requirements. But twelve days have passed, and it is almost halfway to the time of the month-long competition.

"Third brother, third brother," Qiu Ba panted and ran in, "that red-haired ghost has made iron." ”

"Alcheming?" Liu San stopped the hammer in his hand, "Didn't you say that you couldn't practice it all the time?" ”

"It seems that Lord Chen, the secretary of the Ministry of War, gave him a trick, and he rebuilt the blast furnace, so that the iron was smelted." Qiu Ba said.

"Why is Lord Chen helping a red-haired ghost?" Liu San said suspiciously, but then shook his head, not caring.

"But so what, twelve days have passed in a month, we have made three guns, grasp that each group can do three, he hasn't made one now, no matter how much he can't catch up, we will win this competition!"

Liu San said confidently.

Next to the blast furnace of the stream, Chen Yue twisted an iron rod and looked at it carefully, it was heavy and swarthy and straight, and there was no difference between it and the industrial products of later generations from the naked eye.

"Master Hou, this iron is of extremely high quality, much better strength and ductility, not as brittle as ordinary iron." Chen Yujie said excitedly.

"How is it compared to the iron used by our Ordnance Division?" Chen Yue asked calmly.

"The quality is not the same!" Chen Yujiedao, it has been some time since he came to Yangzhou, he stays in the Ordnance Department every day, and he knows very well about the construction of weapons in Pingnan Army.

"Why do you think that? Why can't we make our own iron? Chen Yue asked again.

"It should be the structure of the blast furnace and the problem of the charcoal added. Our original iron is purchased from iron mines everywhere, and it is all finished products refined by others, and our Daming iron smelting is not quite the same as that of Xiyi people. Chen Yujie said.

Chen Yue thought about it, but he couldn't figure out what was going on, he didn't understand smelting at all. However, he knew the importance of high-quality iron, and the reason for the poor quality of Daming's weapons was that the iron used to make weapons was not good. Even in a later life in another time and space, smelting technology was already very advanced, but a large amount of high-quality iron ore still needed to be imported every year.

"Secretary Chen has been following Anthony, and he must have figured out the structure of the iron-making furnace, and this technology can be promoted in our Ordnance Division, so this matter will be handed over to Secretary Chen." Chen Yue said.

"Willing to serve the Hou Ye"! Chen Yujie said happily that it had been some time since he came to Yangzhou, and he finally got a specific task, instead of hanging out here every day as the secretary of the military department.

"Since this iron is as good as the performance Chen Siwu said, in addition to being used to make gun barrels, it should be used in other places, such as iron armor. Our Ming Dynasty's iron armor is made of pieces of armor leaves, and then woven with leather ropes, but there is a kind of plate armor in the West, the whole body is made of steel, and the strong bow and crossbow cannot be shot through! Chen Yue thought for a while and said.

"What did Master Hou say, but heavy armor?" Chen Yujie asked. The Ming Dynasty also had heavy armored cavalry, which was found in the original Guanning Iron Cavalry, with heavy armor for men and horses, and the white armor soldiers in the Mantar were also heavily armored.

"That's the style," Chen Yue thought for a moment, twisted a branch, and drew on the ground from memory. In his previous life, he was a policeman and loved handmade, he bought a lot of information, read a lot on the Internet, and made a crossbow with his own hands.

Plate armor is a full-body furniture, which was very popular in the West before the popularization of arquebus, and can effectively resist the frontal rush of bows and spears, but with the advent of muskets, well-made plate armor can effectively resist the penetration of the bullet frontally, but the huge impact force often causes the guard plate to sink inward and be damaged, and the vibration that occurs when the bullet collides with the plate armor will also bring serious damage to the human body, and the plate armor gradually declines.

However, the imaginary enemy after the Pingnan Army was the Eight Banner Soldiers, and although the Eight Banners had firearms, most of the people who used firearms were the weaker Han Eight Banners, such as the subordinates of King Sanshun. And most of the real Manchu Eight Banners use strong bows and crossbows.

Plate armor can effectively resist the fire of a strong bow and crossbow, and the defense power of the triple armor of the full Tartar white armor can be compared, but the weight is much lighter than the heavy armor of the white armor.

The physique of the Ming people is generally worse than that of the professional soldiers of the Eight Banners, and many soldiers wearing heavy armor cannot march and fight at all, if they can make plate armor, they can form an ironclad soldier who can resist the Eight Banners White Armor soldiers.

"Most of the whole body of this plate armor is one, and I'm afraid it's a little difficult to fight." Chen Yujie carefully looked at the picture drawn by Chen Yue and said.

"Actually, it's not difficult, have you seen the waterwheel designed by Anthony? If the waterwheel can drive the lathe to drill the barrel, why can't the iron be pressed into an iron plate by water force? Chen Yue said with a smile.

Chen Yujie thought about it carefully, and a smile appeared on his face: "What Master Hou said is very true! ”

"The matter of plate armor will be handed over to you, so let's do it, I will write to the Ministry of War, and leave you in the Governor's Palace, temporarily serving as the five-grade deacon of the Ordnance Department, responsible for plate armor matters." Chen Yue said.

"I am willing to serve the Hou Ye." Chen Yujie nodded and agreed. It's not that he fancied any five-grade deacon, although he is from the ninth grade, but he is a civilian official, although this deacon is a five-grade military position, his status is not much different.

The reason for Chen Yujie's agreement was that he was willing to engage in technical work in this area.