Of course, Dai Yan could not stay in Xiangyi forever and wait for the agricultural revolution to take place. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

When he had opened the coal mine in Xiangyi, set the iron factory in operation, and inspected the entire coal transportation channel and the pig iron sales channel, he began to prepare for the aftermath.

He transferred 100 cavalry from Taoqiu and 300 elite infantry from Fengyi to help Xiangyi resist the invasion of the Chu.

Then, he handed over the security of the coal mine and the iron factory to Xiangyi, and the management of the iron plant and the coal mine was entrusted to Han An, a ranger who had been following him. As for the nobles of Xiangyi, Dai Yan just allowed them to send financial inspectors to supervise the finances and give them dividends on time every year.

This practice also greatly satisfied the nobles of Xiangyi! In their opinion, although the coal mine and iron factory made money, it was really difficult for them to go in and manage it. And they don't have to do anything now, they get money every year, such a day is really suitable for them!

And the nobles of Xiangyi even began to leave Xiangyi to travel around the Song Kingdom because of the dividends of coal mines and iron factories, and boasted about their experiences to the nobles of the Song Kingdom. The nobles of the Song Kingdom heard about the deeds of Xiangyi, but the big nobles did not make too many moves, but the small nobles began to have some thoughts of their own.

It took Dai Yan nearly three months to open the mine and get the entire mine and iron plant on track. When he returned to Taoqiu three months later and saw Zhao Xue, the princess of Zhao directly asked Dai Yan: "Who are you?" ”

Industrial dogs are so hard! Dai Yan sighed in his heart. He is a high-ranking aristocrat with "Shanghai" in the fourth century BC, the richest man in the world, in order to open coal mines and build ironworks, his wife does not know him! How SB did I go to industry?

However, as soon as he swore not to engage in industry in the future, when he saw that the people of Taoqiu were no longer the same as before, and went to the outside of the city in groups every day to collect firewood, the oath he made immediately disappeared.

After all, his actions are still meaningful, and they are really pushing the wheels of history forward. He didn't have time to continue complaining about being tired, and set his sights on the cause of steelmaking.

Compared to ironmaking, steelmaking is significantly more difficult. The proverb of "hating iron does not make steel" in later generations clearly illustrates the huge value gap between iron and steel, as well as the rarity of steel.

At least in today's Warring States era, Dai Yan has not seen a steel weapon in the true sense!

However, as a traverser, Dai Yan knows that steel is not very complicated, in essence, steel and pig iron are iron-carbon alloys, but the carbon content in steel is lower than that of pig iron!

For a long time, people believed that steel was a "concentrate" of iron, and there was even an idiom in China that "a hundred steels are made into steel". However, in fact, the statement that iron can only be made into steel by forging is actually unscientific.

People forge pig iron at high temperatures, and they can get steel, but they squeeze the carbon elements inside the pig iron to the surface, and make the carbon and oxygen oxidize at high temperatures, so as to successfully reduce the carbon elements inside the pig iron, and the steel obtained!

Iron is forged into steel, not because it has become stronger and finer after being hammered many times, but simply because the carbon inside the pig iron has decreased!

And getting steel by forging is not a good idea in Dai Yan's opinion! After all, this efficiency is too low, even if you can get some steel, the output is too small and the effect it can play is definitely very limited!

Whether it is to use steel as a standard weapon, or the steel reactor needed to synthesize ammonia in the future, the steel obtained through forging will definitely not meet Dai Yan's needs!

When Dai Yan was building a shipyard and invited Wu Yue craftsmen to Taoqiu, he also invited a large number of local swordsmiths to come. I have to say that Wu Yue's sword-casting skills are indeed relatively skillful, and when Dai Yan said that he wanted to make steel, these swordsmiths also understood Dai Yan's requirements.

In their understanding, Dai Yan actually just wanted to make the iron he obtained more "refined". They did propose a relatively efficient method of steelmaking, and one craftsman proposed that steel could be made by heating pig iron to a liquid or semi-liquid state, and then using blasts to sprinkle concentrate fines.

For this "frying steel method", Dai Yan also made an attempt, and he was indeed able to get a small amount of steel. However, he was still not satisfied with this, he wanted a way to get a lot of steel!

In later generations, Dai Yan roughly knew that before the European Industrial Revolution, the British were the first to invent the crucible steelmaking method. In this way, liquid molten steel was obtained, and for the first time in European history, it was possible to make steel in batches. And it was precisely because of the abundant amount of steel as a support that it was possible for Watt to invent and improve the steam engine!

After all, high-pressure steam can only withstand high-pressure steam if it is a hard and fine material such as steel as a container! Other containers are light when they are directly burst under high temperature and high pressure!

The crucible steelmaking method actually existed in China as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, but it was gradually lost! In the Han tomb unearthed in Luoyang in the eighties of the 20th century, the crucibles and steel blocks found perfectly illustrate this point!

For such a steelmaking method, Dai Yan is very interested. The principle of the crucible steelmaking method is actually very simple, it is nothing more than to melt the pig iron into a liquid state, so that the impurities in the pig iron will gradually float up and can be easily removed, and the resulting high-carbon molten steel will be poured into the mold, and then forged into the desired shape, and the steel items can be perfectly obtained!

For the crucible steelmaking method, the first thing to be solved is its container, that is, the problem of crucible manufacturing. In order for pig iron to be completely melted into a liquid state, the container must withstand temperatures that exceed the melting point of iron, i.e. at least 1538°C, which requires high-quality refractory bricks.

The best material for the manufacture of refractory bricks is alumina, which has a melting point of more than 2,000 degrees and good heat absorption, making it the best material for refractory bricks. Even the refractory bricks of later generations were made from it, many of them.

However, as long as Dai Yan thought of the existence of alumina in nature, he dismissed the attempt to use it as a refractory brick. Because alumina has another name: corundum. Being given the title of "jade" by the Chinese is absolutely very valuable. Indeed, rubies and sapphires are the main components of precious gemstones.

Using ruby or sapphire as a material to refine refractory bricks, even if Dai Yan is now the richest man in the world, I am afraid he will not be able to afford it!

So he chose another material to refine, which was graphite.

If you think carefully, graphite is actually no different from the elements contained in charcoal, they both exist as carbon elements, and they are all allotropes of carbon. However, the biggest advantage of graphite over charcoal is that it is not easy to burn and can withstand high temperatures.

Therefore, Dai Yan chose to use graphite and kaolin to experiment and fire, after many firings, I don't know how much material was consumed, and finally made a graphite crucible that can be used.

Since the main component of graphite is carbon, it can still be oxidized by oxygen in the air at high temperatures, so the biggest difference between this graphite crucible and the crucible made of corundum is that the corundum crucible will not be oxidized by oxygen and can be used almost permanently, while today's graphite crucible must be replaced as long as it is used for a month!

This made the graphite crucible, as well as the graphite refractory bricks that Dai Yan made next, become consumables.

But Dai Yan didn't care about these at all, after all, things like graphite and kaolin existed everywhere in this era, and he could still afford it with his financial resources!

He can also be regarded as solving the problem of refractory bricks, so the biggest obstacle to the crucible steelmaking method is also discharged!

Therefore, it was not long before the goal of mass production was perfectly achieved!

Watching the craftsman forge Taoqiu's first steel sword, Dai Yan was extremely excited at the moment, he really had a feeling of creating history! The kind of complaints that arise from the fatigue of industrial dogs have really dissipated!

I saw that this first steel sword gradually changed from molten steel to steel ingots, and then was forged into the shape of a sword by craftsmen and made into a sword body. Then the craftsmen heat treated the steel sword, quenched and tempered it respectively, and then straightened the sword body, adjusted the sword body and sword stem, so that the shape of the sword body was fixed!

After straightening, the craftsmen polished and polished the blade, and the blade became cold and shiny.

Dai Yan was a little impatient for the first newly baked sword, so he ordered the craftsmen to install the hilt of the sword that had been made on the sword stem, and then completely cut the sword, and a real steel sword was born!

Seeing the steel sword out of the oven, Dai Yan was extremely excited, he handed the copper sword in his hand to the entourage who followed him, took the newly baked steel sword, and said to the entourage: "You pull out my sword and fight this steel sword once, I want to try the power of this sword!" ”

The entourage agreed hesitantly, and then took the copper sword in Dai Yan's hand, drew the sword out of the sheath sharply, and slashed each other with the copper sword and the steel sword in Dai Yan's hand!

With a "bang", the copper sword that Dai Yan was wearing was immediately broken in two!

Such a scene shocked everyone present! Dai Yan, as Tao Qiujun, his saber is obviously not an ordinary inferior product, but it was so easily lost in the hands of this newly baked steel sword!

"My lord, I... The attendant with the broken sword looked ashamed, as if he had done something wrong.

However, Dai Yan immediately stopped his words, he stroked the steel sword in his hand, and said to his entourage: "This result is also what I expected. My sword, since it can be cut off by this new sword, it means that it deserves such a fate, and you don't have to blame yourself! ”