The snow is white, and the firearms workshops on the west side of Siping Mountain are also white. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoIn the blink of an eye, Zhong Yu has been in the firearms workshop for almost two months, and now it is the middle of winter.

Today, Zhong Yu is taking his little brother Yang Fan to patrol around the firearms workshop, which is Zhong Yu's main daily work in the firearms workshop.

Yang Fan really didn't succeed in the Qiuqiu Township test this time, and he really came to Zhong Yu.

Zhong Yu happened to have no henchmen of his own here, although Yang Fan had no talent, but he still had some ability to do things, so Zhong Yu arranged Yang Fan to be a steward in the firearms workshop. I didn't expect Yang Fan to do a good job, the firearms workshop was well organized under his arrangement, and the general management matters were handled by Yang Fan, and Zhong Yu just inspected it every day.

Zhong Yu has been in this firearms workshop for almost two months, and the various affairs of the firearms workshop have made good progress and some have made slow progress.

This gunpowder problem is easy to solve, saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal can be made according to the classic black fire medicine formula summarized by later generations, and now Zhong Yu has popularized the technology of black fire powder granulation, and the power of black fire powder is several times greater.

However, the progress of this fire control production is still not large, mainly because it is difficult to create a qualified system, and the reason why it is difficult to make a qualified system is mainly because it is impossible to make good steel.

In this era, steelmaking was mainly to melt the malleable iron, and then repeatedly beat it to knock out impurities to obtain forged steel.

At this time, the best steel is 100 forging steel, can be malleable iron after calcining, beating, quenching, folding four processes for a forging, so repeatedly forged 100 times and 100 steel, this 100 forging steel rate is very small, it can only be used to make knives, swords, can not be used for the manufacture of standard weapons, forged steel of general weapons, forging ten times eight times is rare.

After Zhong Yu came to the firearms workshop, he had designed and installed a water conservancy forging hammer on the Yongding River, which saved countless manpower, and this hundred forging is no longer a problem, and more hundred forging steel can be produced.

However, a new problem comes, the malleable iron used for forging steel is very rare, and the control that does not explode the chamber still cannot be mass-produced. It turned out that the blast furnace at this time was all made of charcoal, and the iron could not be completely melted into molten iron, so this kind of malleable iron that could be forged repeatedly, with better flexibility and fewer impurities, produced very little, and most of it was pig iron with more carbon and other impurities.

Iron ore cannot be completely melted, and naturally the temperature of the blast furnace with charcoal cannot reach the temperature that can dissolve iron.

So, some time ago, Zhong Yu was studying how to burn qualified coke.

In fact, coke has been widely used long before the Ming Dynasty, and the use of coke to make iron can improve efficiency and reduce costs on a large scale; After all, charcoal is not easy to obtain, and it needs to be burned into charcoal, which costs a lot of manpower.

But after Zhong Yu saw the coke at this time, he felt that he should smelt the qualified coke first. At this time, the coke is really difficult to see directly, and it is mixed with too many impurities, which is not suitable for ironmaking at all. This kind of low-quality coke, used to make iron, will only produce a lot of impurities, and the iron produced is very inferior, very easy to brittle, even charcoal is inferior.

Coke is made of coking coal, and its refining method is similar to that of ironmaking, which is fired at high temperature to remove impurities from coking coal, and finally coking coal is made into coke.

Recently, Zhong Yu commanded the craftsmen to build a sealed blast furnace that can refine coke by the Yongding River, but after testing a furnace, it was found that it was still unqualified, and it seemed that the temperature was still difficult to reach.

So Zhong Yu thought of a blower, with a blower can make the combustion more sufficient, the temperature should be able to reach, a few days ago he and the carpenters designed a large water conservancy blower,

The blower appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty, taking the water drainage power, that is, choosing the bank of the turbulent river to erect a wooden frame, erecting a rotating shaft on the wooden frame, installing a large water wheel at the upper and lower ends, and installing a leaf plate around the wheel axle of the launching wheel to bear the water flow, which is a device that converts hydraulic power into mechanical rotation; In front of the upper horizontal wheel, a drum-shaped small wheel is installed, and the upper horizontal wheel is connected with a "chord"; A crank is installed at the top end of the drum wheel, and a connecting rod that can swing is installed on the crank, and the other end of the connecting rod is connected to the bellows. In this way, when the water flow hits the lower horizontal wheel, it will drive the upper horizontal wheel to rotate. The connecting rod connected to it moves, and the connecting rod reciprocates, so that the row fan opens and closes, and blows air, which is almost the prototype of the later generation of blowers.

Of course, Zhong Yu and the craftsmen made some improvements in the bellows, adopting a two-way blower, and the pistons inside were also enriched to make the wind stronger.

It's just that today's cold ground is frozen, the river surface is frozen, and the blower has not yet been erected to the Yongding River test, and it seems that it can only wait until the warm spring of the new year and after the river thaws.

However, Zhong Yu is quite satisfied with the progress of his workshop's research, after all, it is only less than two months, and there are still four months before the half-year deadline given by the emperor, and he can always come up with some results by then.

After staying in the firearms workshop for a while, Zhong Yu realized that conducting research was also quite expensive. Zhong Yu went to apply for "scientific research funds" with Ming Langzhong, and was told that there was a fixed amount of silver and output geometry allocated by the firearms workshop every year, and the money was allocated by the household department, and he couldn't get more "scientific research funds" for Zhong Yu!

Fortunately, Zhong Yu himself thought of a solution to the cost.

Zhong Yu asked Ming Langzhong to help him find a few craftsmen who could make glass, and then got quartz ore and other ores used to make glass, and fired the glass by himself.

Of course, the name of making glass is to make clairvoyance, Zhong Yu said to Ming Langzhong, this clairvoyant wants to go farther, so he will burn better glass for himself. However, most of the glaze fired was used by Zhong Yu to make mirrors to generate income.

Finally, I didn't expect that Qian Baihu was not only good at beating and executing, but also a good hand at trading, and the first batch of 300 mirrors made were quickly sold out by Qian Baihu at a price of at least 200 taels. Of course, the money earned from selling mirrors is naturally indispensable to the benefits of hundreds of households.

Qian Baihu is also happy, and now he has made several of his henchmen more strict in the supervision of the mirror workshop, this is all money, but this craft can not be known.

With the money he keeps making from selling mirrors, Zhong Yu's "scientific research funds" are quite abundant.

All this money was used by Zhong Yu to buy raw materials and improve the treatment of craftsmen.

In the past, the craftsmen only had one or two cents of silver a month, but now Zhong Yu has already raised their salaries twice, and the minimum has reached three taels of silver, and the motivation of the craftsmen has increased a lot.

Zhong Yu and Yang Fan made a round, and finally came to the gunpowder workshop.

Nowadays, there is no progress in the newly developed ** for fireworks, but there has been great progress in making fireworks.

Now the fireworks in this gunpowder workshop can already make seven-colored fireworks, and they can also make the kind of fireworks that are put in the sky to show the words.

"How about the ancient three, three hundred fireworks? The day after tomorrow, the prince will send someone to fetch it, so be smart! ”

"Lord Zhong, don't worry! My ancient three things, what else are you worried about! ”

"Fart, don't worry!" Zhong Yu casually scolded the so-called ancient three rough craftsmen.

Gu San was not annoyed, just hehe said twice, and stopped talking.

Turning his head and saying to a middle-aged woman next to him: "Sister-in-law Gu, you can keep an eye on this matter, be careful, and don't let Lao Gu drink, these fireworks must be set off in the big house, and there can be no mistakes." ”

The middle-aged woman said fiercely: "Don't worry, my lord, if Lao Gu dares to drink, I will screw his head off!" ”

Gu San was beside him, his neck shrunk, and he muttered: "If I want to drink again, I have to wait until tomorrow after the batch of fireworks is delivered, and I am not a person who doesn't know the severity!" ”

Sister-in-law Gu glared at Gu San fiercely, and Gu San didn't dare to speak anymore.

Zhong Yu smiled at Sister-in-law Gu: "Work hard, after this batch of fireworks is finished, the salary will increase for you again!" ”

As soon as the old three or two heard about the increase in wages, they were busy thanking Zhong Yu!

This ancient third is the head craftsman of the gunpowder workshop, who works hard, but has a short temper, and Zhong Yu arranges it for his wife when there are general problems.

When the fireworks are delivered, Zhong Yu plans to return to the city, and when the New Year is over, it is time to rest.