"Steady! It's almost crooked! ”

"Stuck on! Attaboy! ”

"Has the molten iron melted?"

Hundreds of people surrounded the pit under the mountain wall, and men, women, and children stared nervously at the movements of the dozens of people in the pit. I saw that on the cast fort, the core of the cannon was firmly buckled into the iron fan, and the wooden frame around it stuck it straight. A sloping brick tunnel leads to the iron fan of the casting fort, and at the end of the turnaround, there is a furnace that is also connected to the regenerator.

Hearing Guan Fengsheng shouting loudly, the furnace worker guarding the stove opened the hole on the lid of the big horn, carefully avoided the hot air that spewed out, and then quickly looked in through the hole, turned his head and shouted: "Okay!" ”

"Then ......"

Stepping on the wooden frame of the cast fort, Guan Fengsheng rubbed his palms nervously, and was about to beckon the furnace worker to open the bottom door of the iron furnace.

"Wait!"

Tian Dayou suddenly shouted on the side, causing everyone to look over, all of them were full of suffocation, and Li Yan, who was guarding under the casting fort, was raising his throat in one breath, and he was also so confused by this shout that he rolled his eyes.

The loss is that the cannon is not the man, if you want to make such a voice at that critical juncture, then you must not harm others......

"Wait!"

In a small bay more than ten miles away, the dilapidated boat was quietly moored, and in a cabin, Pan Jinling snatched back a bowl of soup and medicine from Pan Yinling's hand, his face full of panic.

"Sister, you're dying! The fourth brother said, the first bowl of medicine goes down, you have to observe at least five or six days before you can decide whether to continue the medicine, it's only been less than three days, what are you anxious about!? ”

Pan Yinling didn't wear a veil at this time, and the scarlet flesh sores on her face seemed to be a little darker, and she resisted eagerly: "Isn't this not dead?" I think it works! Sister, let me keep trying! The fourth brother said, you have to try the amount, and the amount tested on the piglet may not be able to be used on people! ”

Pan Jinling's tone was stern: "No! Absolutely not! ”

Seeing that Pan Yinling's expression darkened, Pan Jinling changed his face: "This grass is hard to find in Yingde, and the disciples of the fourth brother followed me for several days to pick these." If you drink it all, what will others do? ”

Pan Yinling bowed her head in shame and changed the topic: "Why did my sister come back so quickly?" Dealing with overwork? ”

Pan Jinling nodded, as if recalling the previous experience, and a look of disgust appeared on his face: "He is staring at ...... closely."

Putting the decoction in the distance, Pan Jinling explained: "Sister, you are here to take care of everyone, I have to inform the fourth brother immediately." Let's not talk about whether this medicine really works, people's attitude towards us is already a great favor, and they don't point to us in return, so it's really ashamed to think about it. ”

Li Shi's toothy smile that seemed to be holding a knife flashed in Pan Yinling's mind again, and the row of Yao girls shuddered, and subconsciously reached out to stroke her lower back, as if there was still a heavy foot as a mountain stepping on, and she muttered in her mouth: "Fourth brother...... That's not human...... Naturally, we don't care what we can give back. ”

Pan Jinling left, Pan Yinling found a bronze mirror, squinted and wanted to look but didn't dare to look, it took a long time to open a trace of his eyes, looked at it for a while, and his face bloomed with joy. Then she craned her neck, looked at the bowl of potion resting in front of her, and sighed leisurely.

In the mine, everyone also sighed, why did something go wrong at this critical time?

It turned out that Tian Dayou discovered that the steel drill for the fire door was rotten, although this thing is small, but the impact is great. Without this thing, when the cannon is cast, you can't drill the fire door, and then the fun will be great. The fire door had to be drilled while the gun body was still red, and there was never a matter of drilling it again when it was cold.

"It must be the rice stove, they did it on purpose!"

Tian Dayou said indignantly that the rice stove was Meadzheng, and the cannon they made was also made by this rice stove more than 10 years ago. Now the rice stove is used as a big stove in Master Zhong's blacksmith shop, and the materials and tools allocated to them are naturally the worst.

"Blame me, I didn't pay attention to the inspection before."

Tian Dayou looked depressed, Guan Fengsheng patted him on the shoulder comfortingly, knowing that he was disturbed by his son Tian Qing's affairs during this time. Tian Qing has been locked up for seven or eight days, and although he has not found out that he has been infected with leprosy, everyone still does not dare to let him out rashly.

The matter of leprosy is tricky, and the matter of casting cannons is quite smooth, but it is now March 23, and the two-month deadline is not yet halfway through, and such a trivial matter will not affect anything.

"That's it, while going to Mr. Zhong to ask for a new steel drill, let's forge a few by ourselves."

Guan Fengsheng said as he peeked at Li Shi.

Li Xian smiled, his father-in-law, who was full of steelmaking, was always trying to find the trick of steelmaking in his place.

Look at the iron furnace, without the steel drill, the hot iron that has just been melted in this furnace has to be condensed again, and hundreds of catties of charcoal are naturally wasted. Although they have a lot of money now, it is not a way to spend money like water all the time......

Li slapped his face, steelmaking!

"Steelmaking!"

Guan Fengsheng smiled, waved his hand, and commanded his furnace workers to get busy.

It's not steelmaking, it's frying, and you don't necessarily get steel.

Without the knowledge of later generations, Li Shi found out "Heavenly Creations", and it specifically talked about this steel frying method.

The principle is very simple, iron ore smelting into pig iron is a reduction reaction, and pig iron smelting into steel is an oxidation reaction, the oxygen in the air is blown into the molten iron, and the carbon components and various impurities in the pig iron can be combined to make pig iron into steel.

The frying method is to stir liquid or semi-liquid pig iron like a stir-fry, and at the same time blow in air with a blower. In China, steel may be obtained by using churning tools such as willow sticks and adding iron ore powder to control the rate of decarburization. At this time, the Purinder method was widely used in Europe, relying on a reverberatory furnace and iron oxide as the bottom of the furnace, and stirring it at the same time, so as to obtain wrought iron, and if you are lucky, you can also have low-quality steel.

With the existing conditions of the mine, there is no hope of direct steelmaking. Not to mention that the calorific value of this charcoal is insufficient, and the temperature resistance of the material of the chemical iron furnace is not high enough, and there is no way to produce it industrially before the liquid molten steel is produced. It was not until 1740 that the Englishman Huntsmann invented the crucible steelmaking method, and the liquid molten steel was obtained from the new refractory material.

Li Shi set his eyes on this furnace of molten iron, and what he wanted was to try to make mature iron first. Foshan Iron Farm also has the technology of using pig iron and wrought iron to make steel by filling steel, but it requires more experience and conditions, and this black mine can't do it.

According to the description of "Tiangong Kaiwu", the original smelting pig iron can be connected with the fried steel, and the baked pig iron is directly introduced into the fried steel trough, and in the process of molten iron flowing, some heavy and pure paste will precipitate out. Most of the steel drills they were going to use were made of this fallen steel.

Knowing that he might only get wrought iron, Guan Fengsheng was a little frustrated, but then he cheered up, wrought iron is good, the price of wrought iron is almost ten times that of pig iron, even if it is not sold, this wrought iron is used to forge various tools, and it also saves the worry of casting cannons.

"What a prize! What a cost! ”

Guan Fengsheng beckoned someone, so Carpenter He appeared again. During this time, He carpenter was in the limelight, first became a mechanic, learned gear transmission, and then turned to architects, led a group of apprentices to build a new residential area for the mine, and also built toilets, baths and water rooms according to the rough drawings given by Li Xian. He even robbed the blacksmith business of Sekida and others, designed a water tank for bathing, and was scratching the principle of the toilet and faucet.

Put up the blower rack that was originally hung by the iron-smelting furnace, and then find some wood to make a stirring stick, in this steel-making matter, Carpenter He can no longer waste any spirit, and the other details will be explained to the apprentice. Thanks to Li Xiansai's work for him, he now has more than ten apprentices under him, although he is not as powerful as Guan Fengsheng, but it can be regarded as a self-contained discipline.

The woodworking lathe that Li Xi had taught to Carpenter He before saw the wood completely, uncovered the iron horn cover of the regenerator, climbed the shelf, and the furnace workers started drying.

Since it was an experiment, Li Xi didn't have much hope for the results. Without the steel drill, the cannon could not be cast, so it could only be delayed. Li Xian stayed for a while, and felt that there was no need to continue to stay, so he went out of the mine, and at this time Pan Jinling happened to find him.

"What place? How many people? ”

Li Xian cared about these two things, and after listening to Pan Jinling's explanation, he nodded, he already had a plan.

After tossing down this day, Guan Fengsheng was very annoyed, and spent thousands of catties of charcoal, not to mention, half of the molten iron was wasted, and in the end only a hundred catties of wrought iron came out, and there was still half a furnace of messy things, I don't know if it was raw or cooked, of course, it was not steel. The stove almost burned down.

"Let's use an iron rod next time......"

Li Xi was also weak-minded, and he saw this method of stirring with a wooden stick from someone's time-traveling novel, but the furnace workers found that it was not practical at all, and it was burned in molten iron after a while, and the position of the blower on the temporary erection was not quite right, and the air volume was insufficient.

"That's right, it's just that we're completely inexperienced."

Guan Fengsheng also relieved himself and looked at the problem from a different angle.

The next day, Master Zhong hurriedly sent someone to send the steel drill, but the iron furnace had to be rebuilt, and the cannon still could not be cast. Looking at the wrought iron that Natuo had made yesterday, Li Xi had another idea.

"Knives?"

Originally, Guan Tian and the others didn't have much surprise at Li Shi, but this time they were really stunned.

"It's a sword...... We've made all the guns, so it's okay to shoot a few self-defense things, right? ”

Li Shi didn't think it was a big deal, but looking at the faces of Guan Tian and the others, it seemed that he had great scruples. This made him very strange, and he had the impression that because the Mantars had to use local forces to suppress the rebels, including local armed forces such as regimental training, they had always had them, and the control of civilian bladed weapons and even shotguns was not particularly strict. It shouldn't be a hassle to strictly control strategic materials such as artillery, armor, horses, and saltpeter sulfur to create what he wants.