One of the strategic departments directly under the jurisdiction of the royal city of Pulun, the Ministry of Ironware. There are a total of six major departments in the royal city that belong to the strategic responsible departments directly under the royal city, all ministers and officials above the deputy minister are personally appointed by King Pulun, and the department implements confidential militarized management, and any entry and exit personnel must be strictly reviewed.

These six departments include the Ministry of Iron, the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry of Food, and the Ministry of Strategic Military Planning (the highest organ). There are also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, but these two ministries are only an idea, and they have not really started construction, and there are no candidates for the title.

The Iron Ministry, located in the west of the city of Puren, was relocated to a total of thirty-seven craftsmen, including twelve carpenters and their apprentices. Due to many reasons, resource integration and other backgrounds, a four-meter-high floor was built on this 300-square-meter foundation.

The floor is divided into two floors, with a total of thirteen rooms, four forging rooms, one mold room, and the rest are the collective dormitories of the blacksmiths. The conditions in the dormitory cannot be said to be too good, but at least there is a toilet that leads to an underground underground waterway.

At present, the work of the Iron Ministry is the most arduous, they take care of all the agricultural tools of the more than 500 serfs in the royal city of Pulun, and they also have to work overtime to catch up with the wheelbarrows, two-handed saws, four-wheeled wooden carts, early Roman-style gear cranes, and also be responsible for the completion of many tasks such as ordnance.

In addition to the hardest training of the legions in the city of Pulun, the work here is the hardest. Most of the older generation of blacksmiths who came with the exiles struggled to adapt to the intense work at first, but later the priority rationing of food and the open supply of wine and fruit kept the artisans motivated.

At present, the total population of the city has reached 1,337 people, reaching the top of the current urban load population. All kinds of supplies began to become scarce and weak, but fortunately, the basic food and shelter were still barely able to survive.

Three days ago, the King of Pullen had ordered the gates to be closed and all the messengers scattered outside the city of Pullen to be recalled. Over the next three months, Pullen will undergo a new upgrade from start to finish. After the urbanization scale of the town is completed, it will continue to recruit displaced people again.

……………………

King Pullen and Ni entered the department directly after coming to the Iron Department, and as soon as they entered, a wave of heat suddenly hit their faces. The temperature of the whole room was a little scary, even though it had become cold outside, and many people were wearing thick clothes, but the blacksmiths in this forging room were still ** and sweating profusely in this fiery room.

"Really...... No matter how many times I've been here, I don't feel comfortable here. Ni frowned and took off the cloak on his body, and then took Tianxiang's cloak with him and handed it to the guards who walked by.

"Not used to being here? Or is it the temperature here? ”

Less than a minute after entering, fine beads of sweat were already oozing from Tianxiang's forehead. However, he didn't seem to care, on the contrary, there was a faint smile on his face as the fire lit up.

Ni looked up at the huge furnace in front of him, which was about four meters long and three meters wide. Huge flames were spraying out in front of the two furnaces.

Ten apprentice blacksmiths were desperately compressing bellows around the stove, blowing hot air into the furnace. Rows of firewood piles surrounded by earth provided ample fuel for the fire.

The workers shouted neat slogans and worked profusely. In order to prevent the smoke from spreading to the surrounding area, a chimney more than six meters long was pointed straight into the sky through the roof. A large amount of smoke gushed out from inside, and the pitch-black smoke could be clearly seen from a distance of dozens of miles.

-- The initial type of integrated collective forging furnace.

The elliptical flame kiln designed by Intertek is adopted, and the inside of the furnace is supported by cement after reinforcement and baking, which can withstand high-temperature baking for a long time. Effectively prevents heat from running out. If the fuel in the furnace is cut off at this time, and the wind is no longer blowing, the high temperature in the fireplace can be maintained for up to three days.

Because in the Middle Ages, a block of iron has been used, because the furnace temperature is low, can not reach the temperature of molten iron, iron ore uses the method of carbon reduction to turn the iron oxides in the ore back to iron, a large number of ore veins and impurities in the ore are stored as inclusions, and the obtained is called sponge iron, which needs to be heated and forged more than 20 times to remove the inclusions inside, and the obtained is wrought iron. Wrought iron is very soft, about the same hardness as copper, and far worse than bronze.

Tianxiang knew that the Pulun Royal City was already inferior in numbers, and if he no longer surpassed the enemy in weapons and forging technology, he would not be able to hold victory firmly in the palm of his hand. So he referred to the method of Chinese kilns, and introduced that kind of high-temperature kiln to the city of Pulun, that is, the magnified giant furnace in front of him.

And the iron melted in the ultra-high temperature furnace of Tongguò is also molten iron! In this way, the royal city of Pulen will be able to obtain the forging technology that is ahead of the entire Western European world.

This giant furnace, which requires three experienced blacksmiths and ten apprentices to operate at the same time, has a smelting speed dozens of times higher than that of ordinary blacksmiths. Don't look at where those apprentices are just blowing the wind and fanning the fire, the old blacksmiths are beating and forging every minute on the side, and all the freshly baked weapons and tools are reprocessed!

The so-called secondary processing is actually frying steel, this kind of pig iron through oxidation and decarburization to produce wrought iron or low carbon steel technology, generally pig iron water after the flow out of the direct stirring, do not need a large amount of forging to remove inclusions, because the vast majority of insoluble inclusions in one step of molten iron have been opened with iron water, so the output is much larger than the block ironmaking method, and the quality is much better.

The principles and procedures are the same as those of modern steelmaking. As a result, the block ironmaking method was quickly replaced.

Frying steel gave birth to 100 steel, in fact, it is forging steel with different carbon contents, according to modern terms, this belongs to metal composite technology, and the strength and toughness are much more than a single carbon content of steel.

Later steel filling is a technology for quickly obtaining high-quality steel, using liquid carburizing, which has the fastest carburizing efficiency to make steel.

From a technical theory point of view, Intertek is fully capable of producing a "plate armor" that is at least two hundred years ahead of the whole of Europe. However, at present, the initial technology of the Pulon King City is difficult to digest, so it will take at least five to ten years to fully master, and when the time comes, not only the plate armor, but also the gunpowder, with the technology of the Pulon King City at that time, it will be fully capable of making muskets.

But at present, the city does not have such high-end technology, and even the kiln itself is made by Tianxiang in order to resell porcelain, but in the process of making zuò, it was accidentally discovered that it can be used to forge iron......

"Well, I'm not used to it." Nee looked at the busy scene before him, accustomed to the sight of a dilapidated blacksmith shop where there was only one apprentice and an old blacksmith pounding at the iron. It is in stark contrast to the collective and hot work scene in front of me.

It turns out that striking iron can become so lively...... Ni looked at the front of him and sighed in his heart.

"Cassius, long time no see."

At this time, Cassius, the deputy minister of the Iron Department, ran over sweating profusely. It turned out that he was still on the front line of the forging front line until just now, and only after being informed by Barrophon did he learn that Tianxiang had brought Ni to observe the work of the Iron Department, so he hurried over.

Of course, there was still a lot of noise between Cassius and Barrophon along the way, until Tianxiang was in front of them, and they both glared at each other with very unhappy eyes.

"You two are really ......" Ni twitched the corners of his mouth, these two have always been noisy and noisy all day long since the first establishment of the Puron King City, and they haven't seen them change for almost a year, so they are really convinced!

When Cassius saw Tianxiang, he quickly bent down and saluted, and then said, "King, why are you here?" There is too much fire in this place, and the temperature difference between it and the outside is too great. Ordinary people I don't allow him to come in casually, otherwise this entry and exit guarantee that he will have a snot and sloppy bed the next day! ”

Tianxiang smiled.

At this time, Ni said: "Cassius, the king came to see how about the batch of new equipment that you produced two months ago?" The first batch of more than 200 members of the October Legion has completed their training, and the third, fourth, and fifth batches will all complete their training by the third month. How much equipment do you have on your side? ”

Cassius shook his head with a wry smile and said, "Lord Ni, don't be strong. I had sixteen veteran blacksmiths under me, and the rest were apprentices. We have four forging rooms, but two are under construction, and two are to be rotated on a monthly basis. Plus the workers' farm tools in the royal city, those wheels, and the weapons and armor of the hundreds of people on our side...... We really don't have that much capacity to maintain production! ”

Ni frowned, and said in a somewhat stern but not aggressive tone, "Indeed, your current work is the hardest and busiest in the entire Pleon King City. However, this cannot be an excuse for you to delay the military construction of the royal city. Anyway, how many armor and weapons have you crafted so far? ”

Cassius said: "Seventy-three sets of leather armor and weapons have been made according to the king's request, and if I were given two more months, it would be enough to arm three hundred soldiers." But in addition to this, the crossbow that the king had requested, the trebuchet, the furnace jar, and the great crossbow of death...... There really isn't enough manpower to distribute! And even if there are Wang's design drawings in the production of zuò, some necessary materials and craftsmanship must be explored slowly. If we want to expand production in the short term, we will need at least thirty more skilled blacksmiths and fifty more apprentices, and a team of more than a hundred people to listen to us. ”

After hearing this, Ni looked back at Wang with some embarrassment, but Tianxiang's face still did not change at all, neither an unhappy look nor a happy expression. Then again, wouldn't he get tired with that facial paralysis face almost all year round?

At this time, Tianxiang stood up and said: "Let's stop the design of heavy weapons for the time being, wait until you are busy with the end of this year, and then continue to study it at the beginning of spring next year." According to my calculations, most of the demand for agricultural tools and vehicles is due to the short-term peak effect caused by the recent increase in population in the royal city, and the demand in the royal city will be greatly reduced in two months, and it is not too late to continue to develop it at that time. ”

"And now the first task is to arm our guards, and according to the information brought back by the messengers, the English have been besieging Dublin for two weeks. In my judgment, I am afraid that the Irish and the Welsh will have to make a big deal this time, and the Scots will not move to the wind, which will fuel the arrogance of the English. We cannot continue to sit idly by, not afraid of ten thousand, just in case, we must rush to pull up our own armed forces before the return of the mixed regiments of the English westward! And the number should not be less than four hundred, and all of them should be equipped with the standard combat equipment of the Pulen Royal City. ”

For mobile phone users, please go to mqidian to read