"Can you read words?"

Chen Dexing looked at Meng Datou, who had a big head and a thin body, and asked Wen Yan.

"Back to the king, the little one studied in his hometown in Tanzhou, but he didn't read anything famous and followed his family to Lin'an to strike iron."

Although this Meng De is a native of Hunan, he has been a blacksmith in the Lin'an Military Weapons Supervisor for generations, starting from his great-grandfather. was plundered by Chen Dexing during the Lin'an Revolution, but his family was still in Lin'an.

Meng Datou knelt on the ground and replied in an eager tone.

"It turns out that I have read books," Chen Dexing nodded, "It is indeed not easy to go to school, and it is difficult to become a climate without being taught by famous teachers, so it is better to learn a craft...... In fact, this metallurgical study is also a university question, which is not worse than the way of Confucius and Mencius. ”

Can striking iron be compared with the way of Confucius and Mencius?

Not only was Meng Datou taken aback, but the blacksmiths present and the two Deng family members who had read poetry and books were a little difficult to accept such an evaluation.

"Meng De listens to the seal!" Chen Dexing was also unambiguous, his eyes glanced at the people present, and his tone suddenly sank, "Er's furnace and iron smelting are quite creative, and they have made great contributions to the country and the people!" Now the lonely king is a scholar, giving a grange, hoping to abide by the way of the scholar, make persistent efforts, and make more achievements! ”

This is the Gentleman!

Deng Ming'an and Deng Mingli glanced at each other, it turned out that this iron can also make a sergeant! This status is a level higher than that of the gentry of the old brothers! It seems that here in Liaodong, the iron striker is indeed better than the nerd who can only read the Four Books and the Five Classics!

"Chen Mengde, thank the king for his grace, but if you have a life, you will never give up!" Meng De seemed to have been looking forward to the Feng Shi for a long time, and as soon as Chen Dexing's words were finished, he couldn't wait to say the standard Feng Shi's thank you. Then he kowtowed again. When I raised my head again, I couldn't hide a smile on my face. O nobles! Although it is a bit rotten street in Liaodong. But in the future, King Ming will win the world, and this identity will still be high!

"Not bad. Not bad. Chen Dexing nodded appreciatively, this kid's reaction shows that he is self-motivated - now the young man in Liaodong, if he doesn't want to be a scholar, he will be considered unmotivated!

"Feng Shi is just the beginning, there are men, sons, uncles, marquis, and dukes above the shi! As long as you make achievements in the art of iron smelting, you can also rise step by step! ”

"Small...... Ministers must fulfill their duties and live up to God's grace! Meng De replied according to the rules - these words of thanks are known to almost everyone in Liaodong. Because there are too many people who have received the knighthood.

Chen Dexing said a few words of encouragement, and then said to Qi Ta: "Old eight, there are still meritorious brothers in the Nanfen Iron Workshop, and they will all make a list later, and report to the lonely king, the reward of the line, and the title of the sealer." Also, who the boatmaker who made this waterwheel was also reported, and a gentleman always had it. ”

"The little brother can save it." Zita arched.

"And ...... Put the process of iron smelting and precautions. The drawings and methods of making blast furnaces, frying ovens, crucible furnaces, and crucibles were all written and drawn, and they were to be taken away when the lonely king left. The Heavenly Dao Academy is going to open a metallurgical school, and it just needs these. If Meng De is not needed here, let him go to Mingdu with Gu. I will enter the Heavenly Dao Academy first, and I will be a professor of metallurgy in the future. ”

Metallurgy, of course, is a university question! It is different from the Confucian Academy, which likes to engage in a hodgepodge, and all kinds of people are mixed together to "teach without class". Chen Dexing's Tiandao Academy is divided. Like the universities of later generations. At present, ten departments are being established, including the Department of Arithmetic, the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Shipbuilding, the Department of Engineering, the Department of Astronomy, the Department of Medicine, the Department of Education, the Department of Metallurgy, the Department of Foreign Chinese, and the Department of Tendo (Department of Theology). And the teachers of various departments. There are two sources, one is the students trained by Chen Dexing himself. The earliest students of the Suiying Academy, including Chen Dexing's fake sons, are now not leading soldiers in the army, but working as teachers in the military academy and Tiandao Academy.

The second is trained professionals, just like Meng Demeng, who are "little masters" in various industries. The requirements are to be skilled, flexible, and young, and coarse in writing. These people will be arranged to study in the preparatory department of the Heavenly Dao Academy for one to two years, and then they will be able to teach and do research at the same time.

"Big brother, the crucible furnace is now making steel...... Wrought iron from previous trials was used. Zeta pointed to the smoking stove and said, "In the past few months, the Nanfen Iron Mill has smelted more than 20,000 catties of crucible steel, most of which have been sold to blacksmith workshops in Liaodong. ”

More than 20,000 catties of steel! Deng Ming'an and Deng Mingli were taken aback. Steel! It's worth much more than copper, and it can't be said to be equivalent to gold, at least not under silver! Although the two of them are literati, they also have martial arts students at home, and they still know the weapon jargon of "three taels of steel and one tael of silver".

If one or two pieces of silver are so good, it is almost two copper coins, more than a dozen catties of copper! In order to exchange for three taels of good steel, you can imagine how high the value of this steel is. The price of steel is high, and even the weapons made of good steel are expensive. A sword and sword made of 100 steels is not pure steel, it is a guy who clamps steel and wraps steel, and the steel used for weapons weighing more than ten catties is only five or six catties, and it can't be taken down without more than 100 pieces of copper! If it comes from the hands of the Master, a good sword made of pure steel is hard to find in hundreds of times!

If more than 20,000 catties of steel are taken to Jiangnan, according to three taels of steel and one tael of silver, at least seven or eight thousand catties of silver, and more than 200,000 pieces of copper! This business is really not small!

The Deng brothers followed Chen Dexing to Nanfen, a small county that is desolate in eastern Liaodong, naturally for big business, and it was Deng Mingchao, the prefect of Mingdu, who asked them to follow......

"The newly built blast furnace and the newly built frying oven have been baked with a small amount of charcoal (coal) for 10 days and nights, and after careful inspection, there is not a single crack. Pulleys, flywheels, pulleys, bellows, have also been tried repeatedly, and now they are all fully oiled, and they are very slippery. ”

Zita continued: "The craftsmen have also worshiped the Taiyi God, and they have also invited the Taoists of the Heavenly Dao Temple in the city to come and pray for blessings. Now you can start the furnace and make iron at any time! ”

Beiming is now the state religion of Tiandao, all walks of life worship Taiyi, and the original ancestors have stood aside. Therefore, the blacksmith opened the furnace to make iron, and also worshiped Taiyi, and invited the Taoist of Tiandao to recite the "Taiyi Light Sutra".

"Good! Let's get started! With a wave of his hand, Chan sat down in a chair and began to see with great interest the world's most advanced metallurgical processes in the 13th century. Deng Ming'an and Deng Mingli were standing behind him, both staring wide-eyed. Of course, the heart is bright - His Royal Highness the King Ming wants them to get involved in this iron-smelting business! With the help of their Deng family's influence on Zhoushan Island, they must recruit enough coolies to mine coal and iron in Nanfen and Fushun!

Zita already had a small red flag in his hand, and waved it vigorously: "Ignition!" ”

Coke and iron ore have long been piled up in the blast furnace. Coke is smelted and transported from Fushun - there is no clever technology, just dig a pit and burn the best coal and iron in it, and proper soil coking is a waste of resources and pollutes the environment!

The iron ore was dug in the Heibeigou and Tieshangou in the south of Nanfen County, and you will know that there is iron ore by listening to the names of the two places. Because it is an open-pit mine, there is also a part of the surface that is exposed, and it is also magnetite, so it is very easy to find. Therefore, it was mined as early as the Liaojin period, but the scale was not large. Now it has been refound, and a thousand or hundreds of slaves have been transferred to the mines. The output is also not large, and the ore transported to Nanfen County every day is less than 20,000 catties. After washing and calcination in the earthen kiln, there are only 16,700 catties left. It is almost the same as the digestion capacity of this already built blast furnace, and it can produce 8,000 catties of molten iron per day, almost four tons. However, due to the temperature in eastern Liaoning, Nanfen Iron Mill had to stop working for several months during the winter ice age. It runs for about 250 days a year, so the current annual output is 10,000 tons of pig iron. The output of wrought iron and steel is greatly discounted, with a maximum of seven or eight thousand tons of wrought iron (all pig iron is smelted into mature iron), and the output of crucible steel is only a few hundred tons - it is very difficult to increase the production of crucible steel, and even after the first industrial revolution, steel is still a rather expensive metal. In the United Kingdom, where the output of pig iron is as high as more than 2 million tons, before the invention of the Bessewheat converter steelmaking method, the annual output of steel was only tens of thousands of tons.

However, a few hundred tons of steel is converted into millions of catties every year, which is enough for 20,000 infantry and cavalry to wear strong plate armor and use sharp steel swords!

If the Deng family of Changguo could mobilize thousands of poor peasants from Zhoushan to engage in iron smelting and mining in Fushun and Nanfen counties. The output of Nanfen Iron Mill can at least triple in the short term. It is not impossible to smelt 2,000 tons of crucible steel every year!

The fire had been lit, and puffs of green smoke poured out of the flue on the roof of the stove. Meng Datou squinted his eyes for a while outside the open pig iron door coated with refractory clay at the tap hole, "Chief, it's burning brightly!" With that, he slammed the trapdoor shut.

Zeta waved the small flag in his hand: "Blah the wind!" ”

Driven by the flow of water, the huge waterwheel slowly turned, and the gears of the guò mechanism, accompanied by bursts of chirping wood, turned into the reciprocating motion of the bellows pistons, and fresh air was blown into the blast furnace through the air duct. With the help of sufficient oxygen, the coke in the furnace burned rapidly, and the smoke from the furnace turned from black to blue, from green to white, and the color became lighter and lighter, and finally, a large flame suddenly rose from the top of the furnace.

When the smiths who had already climbed the scaffolding saw the flames, they shouted, "Add carbon!" ”

The craftsmen below got the signal, pulled the mechanism, and the power of the waterwheel was transmitted to the winch, and through the guò pulley, a basket of coke was hoisted onto the scaffolding, and the two craftsmen above grabbed the bamboo basket together, pulled it to the feeding port, and poured all the baskets of coke into it, adding carbon to the fire, and the carbon helped the fire, and the fire in the furnace burned more and more, and the temperature also rose rapidly, and the iron ore in the furnace gradually turned red and soft under the action of high temperature...... (To be continued......)