While controlling the tea and horse trade routes, Yang Lin focused more on internal affairs and on the education of the common people.

The experience of the previous life told me that steel is the foundation of all industries, and in recent years, in order to build weapons, the masters have forged pig iron into mature iron and forged it into fine steel, which can be imagined.

After several years of exploration, coupled with Yang Lin's intentional guidance, and after a large number of experiments, in September of this year, the iron-smelting operation finally made a breakthrough.

If you didn't need to spend too much effort in your previous life, you could simply build it or cast it simply.

Seventy percent of steel smelting is made of coal, and three percent of it is charcoal.

This is a strange thing, and this charcoal is usually collected in the mountains and forests where there is no coal, and the blacksmith chooses hard sticks of wood to burn them into fire ink (commonly known as fire arrows, which do not turn into debris to block the vents when burned), and use him to smelt steel, which is more fierce than coal.

Pig iron can be made by smelting it for three hours in this way, and pig iron can be smelted back and forth five or six times to become wrought iron, and wrought iron can be smelted nine times to smelt steel.

This can surprise Yang Lin, in the past, it was often said that coal and iron ore and a little limestone were added to make fuel to smelt steel, why can't steel be used now.

Although he was puzzled, Yang Lin also asked Song Shihui to draw a picture of a steel smelting furnace at that time, which was first mixed with coal and steel and burned together, after the molten iron flowed out.

Hearing that the governor Yang Lin was coming to watch the effect of iron smelting, the iron official specially bought half a cart of fire ink from outside, poured it into a very small furnace with iron ore, and after igniting it, two big men took turns pulling a huge bellows to drum air into it to pull the bellows.

On the other side, Tieguan mixed coal with iron ore and put it directly into a small furnace 2 meters wide and 1 meter deep, and after igniting it, four or five big men took turns pulling the bellows.

The Iron Officer constantly explained that it was difficult to make fire ink, not only that a large number of trees had to be cut down, but also that it was very difficult to burn them into fire ink.

It took half a day's work, the two furnaces of molten iron were made, and after condensing into pig iron, it was obvious to see the difference in the quality of pig iron.

The quality of the pig iron calcined by coal is very poor, and the big knife is cut over, and it is like cutting on a piece of gravel, and the pig iron the size of a palm is broken.

Seeing that Yang Lin's face was full of doubts, the iron official next to him explained with a smile that this kind of pig iron calcined from coal was sold to farmers to make hoes, plowshares, and rakes, and if they needed to be made into weapons, they needed to be forged back and forth seven or eight times by craftsmen, so that they could be made into various weapons.

Or seeing that Yang Lin looked quite angry, the iron official explained again and again that when the blacksmith master beats hoes, plowshares and other agricultural tools, he needs to forge back and forth many times, and the treasure knife in Yang Lin's hand is made of stainless steel after hundreds of beatings.

From Guan Zhong, since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented the salt and iron monopoly system, the people have fooled ordinary people through this kind of scrap iron and scrap steel.

But in the previous life, it seemed that coal, iron ore and limestone were used to cast steel, why is it that the steel made from coal, iron ore, and limestone as additives is so poor now, and the quality of pig iron made by adding fire ink and iron ore and limestone is completely different.

Thinking of this, Yang Lin convened all the craftsmen to discuss, and on the other hand, he re-examined the method of making fire ink, which was completely coal, but it was just necessary to burn hardwood into charcoal.

The experience of my previous life told me that the so-called fire ink is the same as the main composition of coal, but why the quality of coal smelting steel is so poor, it seems that the real problem lies in coal.

There may be impurities in the coal, there is an impurity that is difficult to know, if this impurity can be removed, then it can be completely made into fire ink.

Hearing that the governor proposed how to make coal into fire ink, everyone was in an uproar, and some old craftsmen shook their heads again and again, fire ink is fire ink, coal is coal, in their eyes these are completely two things, how can they be made into the same thing?

After a long day of discussion, a young craftsman of seventeen or eighteen years old sitting in the corner of the wall said, "Your Excellency the Governor, do you think this will work?" Didn't people everywhere burn tiles, and didn't fire ink also make them like this? It is lit and placed in the cave, and then the cave is closed, so that the fire ink is created.

Your Excellency the Governor, can we light coal and put it in a cave, so that we can make fire ink as well?

When everyone heard this, they shook their heads again and again, and some even said that if this is the case, then won't the coal be burned?

Yang Lin had no better way, so he immediately asked the young man to take charge of his affairs, and ordered him to immediately find a cave and calcine half a cart of coal to see if he could make it into fire ink.

The Governor is very decentralized, and after determining the strategy, he basically doesn't ask, and completely puts this He Daming in charge, and suddenly takes on such a responsibility, although it is a little inappropriate, but in order to sit down and not embarrass people, He Daming has also completely fought these days.

On the seventh day, Yang Lin sat in the four-wheeled carriage according to the appointment, which is faster than the ordinary carriage, and the distance of more than 50 miles will take at least half a day if you take the ordinary carriage, and the four-wheeled carriage will arrive in an hour (2 hours) (the Frenchman Maupassant's novel "Sheep Fat Ball" once described that the four-wheeled carriage traveled 4 miles from morning to 10 o'clock in the winter, that is, 16 kilometers, 32 miles, such a long distance, but the author thinks that it is too slow to walk in the snow. ）。

Everyone was opening the sealed soil outside the cave, when suddenly a burst of smoke came out, a pungent smell came out, and a craftsman who was receiving the sealed soil was so smoked that he fainted to the ground.

Everyone panicked, and the surrounding crowd said everything, some said that He Daming disrespected the Bodhisattva, and the Bodhisattva was angry, and some said that this method could not make fire ink at all.

And Yang Lin took a deep breath, this smell is so pungent, is it?

Immediately, two buckets of water were brought and sprinkled at the smoke, and the smell reacted violently with the water droplets from a distance, and many weeds around the incense were smoked to death.

Seeing this scene, everyone was shocked, and Yang Lin was full of confidence, this, isn't this the result of the sulfuric acid reaction?

It seems that this method can remove impurities from the coal.

Oh, in the past, it seemed that coke was used to smelt steel, and Yang Lin didn't have an impression of what coke was, probably to remove the sulfur element in the coal.

Yang Lin immediately made people open all the sealed soil, and the top felt no different from coal.

When Yang Lin was quite disappointed and was about to leave, He Daming was suddenly overjoyed, and as if he was crazy, he had to peel off the next layer, and actually pulled out a layer of fire ink, which was the coke that everyone longed for.

Yang Lin was overjoyed and ordered everyone to clean up immediately, so they got three truckloads of coke.

In the midst of chaos, Yang Lin did not solve the problem of sulfur in coal until he solved the problem of coal sulfur and began the coke production process.

Yang Lin didn't care about the thirty-seven twenty-one, and immediately put it in the furnace to calcinate the iron ore, and to everyone's surprise, the coke burning flame was far more than the fire ink.

In anticipation, the hardness of pig iron produced is far stronger than that of pig iron produced with fire ink.

Let the blacksmith forge the pig iron produced here, coal iron can be forged five or six tenths before it can become steel, fire ink pig iron must be beaten out of three or four ten, and this coke pig iron only needs to be beaten one achievement.

Looking at everyone's abnormal eyes, Yang Lin thought about it and explained with considerable difficulty.

Didn't the ancients say that everything in this society can be divided into components according to gold, wood, water, fire, and earth? In fact, gold, wood, water, fire, and earth are just the properties of these materials, just like gold, silver, and steel are different things, but the properties shown are gold.

While all kinds of things exhibit different properties, everything is made up of different smallest things, which are combined and become different things.

Just like the coal, fire ink and coke, their main components are the same, slightly different because of the temperature, environment, etc., showing different forms, but the coal has more impurities, the fire ink is relatively less, and the coke has no impurities.

The quality of steel smelted with coke is better than that of fire ink, probably because the purity of the charcoal in the coke is much stronger than that of the fire ink, and the quality of pig iron produced in this way is much higher than that of pig iron fired by fire ink.

In this way, if we want to make good steel, we need to improve not only the purity of coke, but also the purity of iron ore.

In addition, didn't the ancestor say that the law is natural? We need to study the smallest components of different substances, and we need to understand the essence of things.

Because he was so happy, Yang Lin used his speech talent to explain it in combination with some ancient theories, but it was surprising that someone understood.

Thinking of the sycophants in his previous life, Yang Lin was overjoyed, just like the modern times, all the high-ranking officials farted probably many people would say that it was fragrant, in this case, why not let people introduce some steel smelting knowledge in the "Popular Daily", which mixed with their own modern theories.

Yang Lin also thought of a good way to produce sulfide gas in the process of coke production, that is, to produce calcium sulfide through limestone to solve the problem of sulfide gas.

After solving the coke problem, the output and quality of steel increased greatly, considering the importance of steel, steel is needed for wars, and steel is also needed to build roads and bridges in the future, Yang Lin founded a steel workshop to produce steel on a large scale.

Song Shiyi was appointed as the chief soldier of the steel factory, and He Daming was appointed as the coke factory to co-organize the steel smelting.

Considering that the smelting furnace was too small in this era, Yang Lin built an earthen furnace to smelt steel according to the model of the Zunhua Iron Works in the Ming Dynasty and the knowledge of the previous life, and ensured that the iron ore and coke were in full contact with the bellows and chimneys to make molten iron, and then repeated several times to make pig iron to create mature iron and steel.

In the process of smelting steel, due to the elimination of sulfide, a harmful substance, the quality of cold weapons and hot weapons created by the weapons workshop far exceeded that of Tartar and reached the world level, which greatly improved the combat power of the volunteers. (Some people say that Japanese knives are powerful, and one of the main reasons is that the sulfur content is quite low.) And the ancient Chinese weapons were far inferior to each other, mainly in coal, and in steel contained sulfides).

Due to the large production of steel, the front-loading red-coated cannons manufactured by the Volunteers were not only lighter in weight than the red-coated cannons and Francos cannons made by the Tartars at that time, but also had a much longer firing range.

While smelting steel and making red-coated cannons, Yang Lin also began to think about making ships for production.