In Li Tiehammer's separate blacksmith workshop, Liu Zheng caressed a snowy Tang knife, even a layman who played with knives knew that this knife was definitely a good knife, and there was not much gap with the steel knives forged in later generations. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

"Hammer, find a knife and try it!"

Li Tiehammer nodded, and not long after going out, he came back with a steel knife that was now equipping the troops.

Liu Zheng casually played with two knife flowers, and said: "Come, iron hammer, use all your strength, let's fight with a knife!" ”

Li Tiehammer's head shook like a rattle: "What, no, no, no, I, I have a lot of strength, I, I'm afraid of hurting you!" ”

Liu Zheng laughed and said: "Don't look at you are taller than me and stronger than me, work hard, you really don't have to fight me, don't worry, my strength is also very big, come!" Try it! Look at the knives! ”

Without giving Li Tiehammer a chance to refute, Liu Zheng held the knife in both hands and jumped forward, the knife borrowed the human momentum, the person borrowed the knife momentum, and slashed at Li Tiehammer with a blow like a tiger descending the mountain.

Li Tiehammer raised his knife in a panic to block up, with a crisp sound, Li Tiehammer was pressed backwards and took a step, before he had time to adjust, another knife slashed down from top to bottom like a tiger descending from the mountain, and Li Tiehammer raised his knife again to resist.

After four or five consecutive sounds of metal collisions, Liu Zheng stopped, after all, it was in the house, just fight four or five knives to see the effect.

After closing his hand, Liu Zheng took a hand, the blade was already horizontal in front of him, and after looking at it carefully with wide eyes, Liu Zheng exclaimed: "It is indeed a good knife, with so much strength, the blade is as good as ever!" ”

Li Tiezhu was surprised when he saw Liu Zheng's appearance, and while he was happy in his heart, he also smiled innocently: "General Liu, look at this knife again!" ”

Liu Zheng took the steel knife in Li Tiehammer's hand, and after a brief look, he found that there were one or two gaps on the blade, and there were slight curling blades on both sides of the gap, and his brows wrinkled suddenly.

"Why is this steel knife so indiscriminate? It's just a few fights, that's it, can this be done on the battlefield? ”

As soon as the words fell, an old voice sounded outside the door: "Haha, General Liu, you are too worried!" ”

Liu Zheng turned his head to look at the door, and found that it was Old Man Sun and Old Craftsman Xu, Liu Zheng hurriedly greeted the two old men.

After the old man Sun returned the salute, he said: "General Liu, whether this knife is good or not, it depends on what knife it is compared with, if it is not a good knife compared with the knife in your hand, it is naturally not a good knife, but if it is compared with the knife in the hands of the court soldiers, this knife is already good, if the general does not believe it, the little old man can order someone to take some knives used by the court soldiers to compare!" ”

Liu Zheng shook his head, the steel knife has been compared with the knife used by the court soldiers before, it is no problem to chop dozens or even hundreds of times, the thickness and durability of the knife itself are very high, it can be said that the general soldiers use absolutely no problem, even better than the generals of the court.

"No need, Old Man Sun, I believe this knife is a good knife!" After saying this, Liu Zheng changed the topic and said, "Old man, how is the graphite crucible researched?"

Old Man Sun smiled and said, "I was about to talk to the general!" But let's go see the real thing! ”

"Hmm!" Liu Zheng also felt that he should take a look at the real thing first.

A few people walked a distance to a kiln with a high chimney, just in time to open the furnace, and a dozen shirtless men were shouting to lift a black water tank out of the kiln.

Liu Zheng looked at it for a while, then turned to the old man Sun beside him and said, "This is the graphite crucible you made, old man?" ”

Old Man Sun nodded and said: "It is improved by the method that the general said, first grind the graphite into powder in the mill, and then wait for the adobe of the pot to be made, evenly spread the graphite powder in the inner lining, apply it several times, and then fire, it becomes this pot!" ”

Liu Zheng nodded lightly, and shook his head in his heart, to be honest, even if he didn't know the production method of this graphite crucible, he also knew that the method he said to Old Man Sun before and the method improved by Old Man Sun were not the real graphite crucible production method, and the graphite crucible made in this way was not a real graphite crucible, but even so, in the firing process of molten iron, impurities and bubbles would be greatly reduced, after all, the characteristics of graphite were there.

Old Man Sun continued: "It's just that there are too few graphite stones, and there is too much waste when I am trying to figure out how to build it, and after molding, the pot cracks and destroys a lot for various reasons, and now there are only five pots that can really be used, and this is the sixth!" Can the general think of a way? ”

Liu Zheng's brows furrowed suddenly, this is a problem, most of today's graphite stones are picked up on the surface, and they have been digging for a long time near Laishan and have not found the ore vein.

Or the concept is too backward, when you are busy farming, unless you pay a lot of money, it is impossible to hire people, or simply send troops to rob people, but this is definitely digging your own grave.

He sighed lightly and said: "Old man, it's not that I don't want to find a way, it's that I really can't do it, we have sent a lot of people to Laizhou, and now we haven't found the location of the ore vein!" I really don't have anyone left, wait until later...... Well? ”

Liu Zheng suddenly thought of something, and suddenly a smile appeared on his face: "Yes, old man, I have a way, send someone to find me a graphite stone!" ”

Old man Sun pressed his doubts in his heart, and ordered someone to fetch a graphite stone over, Liu Zheng did not take this graphite stone, but said to the person who took the graphite stone: "You give this stone to Wei Boyuan as the old man, and then tell the old man Wei to arrange for someone to send this graphite to Laizhou Mansion to the mine tax envoy Chen Zeng, and tell Chen Gonggong that we will make a deal with him, this stone has a vein in Laishan, if he can find a vein, a thousand catties of graphite, 10,000 taels of silver!" ”

The man replied yes, and hurriedly went to Wei Boyuan with a stone.

Old man Sun's heart turned up a lot of waves, 1,000 catties of graphite stone 10,000 taels of silver, 10,000 taels, in his life, the most money he has seen is only 100 taels.

After the person who sent the stone left, Liu Zheng turned to look at Old Man Sun and said, "Old man, I want to discuss something with you, I want you to help me make a batch of special knives with the steel made from this graphite crucible!" ”

Old Man Sun suddenly became interested: "Dare to ask the general, what kind of special knife is it!" ”

Liu Zheng smiled and said, "Modao!! ”

"Hiss......"

……

Liu Zheng came out of the craftsman area, and followed Xu You, the youngest son of the old craftsman Xu, to the brick kiln area in the north of Qingzhou City, and now this brick kiln area is not only a brick kiln, but also several lime kilns nearby.

As soon as he entered the brick kiln area, Liu Zheng saw countless people pushing small carts to pull the slag to the open space further north, where there were already piles of hill-like slag, and there were dozens of mills next to the slag, some pulled by mules, and some pushed by manpower, grinding all the slag into powder.

Liu Zheng, Xu You's leader, walked inside and found two brothers, Xu Qi and Xu Zai, who were mixing sand, lime and cement together.

"Big brother, second brother, the owner of the village is here!"

When the two brothers heard their younger brother's words, they turned their heads and saw Liu Zheng staring at them, hurriedly wiped their sweat with the cloth hanging around their necks, and then bowed down and said, "I've seen the owner!" ”

Liu Zheng nodded and said, "We don't need these etiquettes between us, let's talk about it, how about it?" ”

Xu Qi smiled and said: "Owner, it's really a god, after this thing is dried, it is stronger than a stone, and if it is used to pave the road, it won't break for a hundred years!" ”

Liu Zheng thought to himself, a hundred years? It's good that he can use it for ten years, no matter how strong you are in the future, the car will be crushed in March, although there is no heavy car at the moment, not to mention that the cement road can not withstand the sun and cold, and the light person will step on it, and it will have to be repaired after a year or two.

Besides, he didn't make cement to pave roads, but to build cities.

"How's the yield?"

Xu Qi thought for a while before saying: "This is not easy to say, if there are enough people, you can say how many or how many you want, but according to the current manpower, it will be a few thousand catties a day!" ”

A few thousand pounds? Liu Zheng is dizzy, this special day only produces two or three tons, enough to play eggs?

But you don't make money playing with cement! At present, the need is only his own need! You can't sell this to the imperial court and let it use it to strengthen the city, right?

Or sell it to wealthy merchants to repair their yards? But this is not the future generations, now can build the yard, strange stones and strange stones do not need small stones, are some whole Taihu Lake stones, with small stones Lei those special will not buy your cement.

Except for this, it's to build a house, but damn today's ordinary people build houses, who uses this? Use it only when you eat it! In a word, there is no spare money!

Unless the production of steel increases in the future, steel bars are made, and reinforced concrete is used to build high-rise buildings, otherwise don't even think about selling it.

Sighing softly, Liu Zheng said: "Recruit some more people, but not too much, there are too few ways for us to make money at present!" ”

Xu Qi nodded and did not speak.

Liu Zheng said again: "How did you do with building a house with cement and red bricks?" ”

Xu Qi turned his head to look at his younger brother Xu Zai, Xu Zai groaned slightly before saying: "I built a building like you said on the side of the street, and I didn't dare to build it again when I built it on the fourth floor!" ”

Liu Zheng said suspiciously: "Why is this?" ”

Xu Zai scratched his head and said: "The main reason is that I am afraid that the cover will be too high and overrun, and I am afraid that it will fall too high!" ”

Liu Zheng stroked his forehead speechlessly and said, "How could it have fallen?" According to the drawings I gave you, cover me up, at least five stories high! ”

But to be honest, Liu Zheng thinks it's pretty good, although it has only been built to four floors, but these four floors are more than ten meters, and the standard he set, the height of a single floor is three and a half meters, which is much more conscientious than those black-hearted real estate developers in the later generations, who can touch the roof of the house with a short hand.

"And don't be afraid of overstepping the system, you can build as high as you can!"

Xu Zai suddenly asked again: "Owner, the floor you said, I thought about it, it's too extravagant, just use wood!" ”

"Wood? Why do you use wood, let's build such a tall house, do you think it will work with wood? ”

Xu Zai scratched his head and said, "The main thing is that my father said that such a thick iron rod in the cement is too loser!" ”

Liu Zheng smiled in his heart, indeed, with today's technology can not get the steel bar, he thought of a method, when building the floor slab, in the reserved round hole to pour molten iron into it, of course, not all the holes are poured, one is not so much iron waste, the other is that its own weight is too heavy, easy to deform. Only two holes are poured for each slab, so that it is not too important to be in the same place.

Liu Zheng scolded with a smile: "Your father has to listen to me, so ah, you have to listen to me too!" Just do as I say! Build me a five, six, or seven-story house! Remember to make sure it's bigger! ”