(Deeply grateful for the love of the alliance!) Thank you Zhao Wuxian 2014, ufgw. Uh, I finally saw s0514024 on the reward list, I'm ashamed, I can't meet the two more. ）

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Beginning on 14 May, Ma Han led a 100-man cavalry team to the south to inspect the main route, which was along Xinchang-Anshi-Wenxian-Pingguo. Originally, I thought of the Yu family, but the distance was too far, the time was too tight, and I had to participate in the Yanagi Karasuma May Dragon City Conference, so I had to put it on hold.

For a new regime that has risen to power violently, pacification and consolidation of prestige are an indispensable procedure, and patrols are a good way to do so. For the three county towns of Xinchang, Anshi, and Wenxian, Ma Han only made a general inspection, and the stay was very short, mainly to appease the county temple officials, local scholars, and the people. The main destination of his trip was Pingguo.

Why Pingguo? Quite simply, Pingguo is the most important steel production base in Youzhou and even in eastern Liaoning. Whether it is prosperous or troubled times, steel is an extremely important national resource, especially in troubled times, who masters a steel production base, whose waist pole will be straight three, when the princes will be allied, speak louder than others.

Since the time of Emperor Wu, the Han Dynasty has set up 49 Tieguan Temples and 37 Yanguan Temples across the country, and Liaodong occupies one each. The Yanguan Temple is in the Yushi, and the Tieguan Temple is in Pingguo.

At the beginning, Ma Han didn't know much what Pingguo was, why the iron ore in just one county could actually support the consumption of armor in the entire Youzhou, and even made the Liaodong arsenal accumulate a huge amount of equipment enough to arm 100,000 armored soldiers. When he took a look at the map, he suddenly realized that the person who was Pingguo, the Anshan of later generations, and the location of Angang, it was no wonder.

Anshan Iron Mine. From the early Han Dynasty mining, until the later generations, not only has it not been exhausted, but the output is getting higher and higher, and its reserves are large, accounting for a quarter of the country, which is eye-popping.

Ma Han was extremely happy to have such a large and mature iron ore mining area in his jurisdiction, but after he inspected Xiangping's arsenal, his joy added a little worry. The reason is when patrolling weapons. Ma Han once sampled five ring-headed swords, three halberds, three spears, ten bows, five-sided shields, and ten two-grade armor. Among them, the bow and shield are qualified, and the two-grade armor is also so-so, but the quality of the iron weapon is worrying.

Ma Han carried a thirty-tempered ring-headed steel knife with him, and slashed five ring-headed iron knives respectively, but the result was that all of them were cut by hand, and the steel knife only appeared a gap the size of a grain of rice. As for the halberd blade and spear tip, the surface of the sand hole and roughness can be seen by the naked eye.

Faced with such a result, Ma Han was full of gloom, but the arsenal commander in charge of the arsenal looked natural, bowed down and replied: "This is the regular equipment of my county soldiers. For five to seven refinements, it is naturally far inferior to the treasure blade of thirty refinements. ”

Thirty refinements are considered a treasure blade? Ma Hanqiang resisted the urge to break the ring-headed steel knife in his hand in front of the arsenal order. This may only scare the arsenal order, but it does not change the fact that the iron-making technology of the Han Dynasty was still relatively inefficient and of poor quality.

In the eyes of Ma Han. These five to seven iron-refining knives are loose in iron and brittle, which is inferior to a kitchen knife bought in a two-dollar store in later generations. This is the standard weapon of the army of the Han Dynasty. If you want to do a good job, you must first sharpen your tools, not to mention that it is so small that it decides a life. It is as big as a conventional weapon of war that determines a country's national fortunes.

At that moment, Ma Han decided to take a look at Pingguo to see the iron ore mining and refining process of this era, as well as the process of building weapons, and figure out where the defects were. To this end, he also brought several experienced blacksmiths and a new engineer Ma Jun, hoping that this team of consultants with experience and wisdom can help him solve this problem.

On May 20, Ma Han and his entourage arrived in Pingguo. The new Pingguo Linglu Dai and Pingguo Tieguan Jia Cheng led a group of subordinates to greet him. Ma Han refused the request for a feast and hospitality for the two, and after a casual meal, he went to the mine under the guidance of the two Pingguo chiefs.

A few miles away from the mine, the sound of the clanging of pickaxes and chiseled stones fills the ears and brains. As we approached, we saw rows of low stone houses on both sides of the avenue, which were built by miners using local materials. On both sides of the pass, under the mountains of ore, countless oxen, mules, and horse-drawn carts are waiting to be loaded with ore and transported to the ironworks. From time to time, soldiers dressed in military uniforms and armed with knives and spears can be seen patrolling nearby.

Jia Cheng introduced all the way that this is one of the three mining areas in Pingguo, and it is also the largest one. There were more than 5,700 miners, of whom nearly half were imprisoned, and the rest were recruited from the homeless. This mining area can get millions of iron and stone every month, and can smelt 10,000 catties of iron......

Ma Han calculated, just the iron ore mining area of Liaodong can get 120,000 jin of iron billet every year, plus the other two mining areas, 300,000 jin is not a big problem. However, it should be noted that this is a Han jin, which is converted into a later value, only 150,000 catties. And to forge these 150,000 catties of iron billet into fine iron that can be made of agricultural tools and weapons, the final iron is only 30,000 or 40,000 catties, which is the annual iron output of Liaodong.

Low or not? It is indeed very low, but the threshold of increasing the beneficiation rate and iron production rate is not something that can be solved in a while. Ma Han is not an engineer, he has no skills in this area. Therefore, after the on-site inspection, there is only the ability to acknowledge the reality. Fortunately, since Gongsun Du took office, the iron materials were basically never sent to Beijing, and all of them were intercepted in Liaodong. In the warehouse of Xiangping, the refined iron ingots of 100 catties were stacked neatly and neatly, piled up like a mountain, no less than 200,000 catties, which was enough for Ma Hao to "squander" for several years.

The amount of iron produced cannot be controlled by Ma Han, but his purpose is not here, what he really wants to solve is the quality of weapons, that is, the process of ironmaking and forging soldiers, and this needs to be inspected in the iron-smelting workshop.

The ironworks are not far from the mining area, about 20 miles, which is also to save transportation costs, but the security is much stricter than that of the mining area, and there are even some cavalry patrols.

There are more than 400 craftsmen in the iron-smelting workshop, and there are even 1,000 miscellaneous laborers, which is really not small. Here, Ma Han saw the iron-smelting furnace and blast equipment, which people called "機" at the time. This is a kind of leather zuò bellows and wooden frames, with air inlets and exhaust outlets, several of which are connected together to be called exhaust bars, which can increase the air intake, enhance the burning firepower, and quickly raise the furnace temperature to more than 1200 degrees Celsius required for ironmaking.

The rows of rows and rows that Ma Han saw were driven by the power of oxen, horses, mules and other animals, as many as hundreds. Driven by the trumpeter, the whip sounded deafeningly, the livestock mooed, the hooves trampled chaotically, the rows expanded and contracted, the furnace flames erupted, and the iron juice splashed everywhere, and the scene was extremely spectacular and shocking.

Jia Cheng was quite proud, twisting the goat's whiskers and smiling: "I have enough animal power in Liaodong, so I can drive hundreds of animals to drum." It is said that Xu, Yang and other states smelt, the use of manpower, when there are more people and less animals, hehe......"

Ma Han didn't laugh, just touched his chin and pondered for a while, and suddenly said: "How is animal power like water power?" Why not use water power? ”

Jia Cheng was stunned, Lu Dai seemed to have an understanding, but Ma Jun's eyes lit up.

Jia Cheng was stunned for a while, and muttered, "Water power? What is a hydraulic method? ”

Ma Han turned his head and asked Ma Jun, "What do you think?" ”

Ma Jun's stuttering has improved a lot in recent years, especially when talking about technical issues, which can be called fluent. For technical things, it can be said that it is a bypass, and as soon as I heard it, I understood what Ma Han was referring to, and nodded at the moment: "It is feasible." ”

"Okay, that's up to you, there's no time limit, but it's best to make a pattern this month, and then make the app as fast as possible. One qiē degree can be withdrawn from Yousi, and there is no limit. "Ma Han has always acted simply, especially in technology, he is very willing to invest, and at this time, he has a lot of money, and he basically does not discuss the military technology, which is an area that is not very important to the civil ministers and military generals, and makes a decision.

As soon as Ma Han arrived, he found a defect that could be greatly improved, not because of his genius, but because the concept of using water power has become common knowledge in later generations, and the backward way of using human and animal power on a large scale has long been eliminated in later generations. What Ma Han possessed was only an advanced insight, not a talent. So he can come up with a good idea, but to realize it, he has to rely on a professional like Ma Jun, who can't make it himself.

Next, Ma Han will visit the specific iron smelting process.

At that time, the steel frying method was commonly used, which was to heat the malleable cast iron with too high carbon content to a semi-fluid state, and use air blast or sprinkle concentrate powder to oxidize silicon, manganese, and carbon, and reduce the carbon content to the composition range of steel. After that, it is mixed and constantly "stir-fried", so that the carbon elements contained in the cast iron continue to seep out and oxidize, so as to obtain medium carbon steel or low carbon steel. If you continue to fry it, you will get wrought iron with lower carbon content. This method began in the Western Han Dynasty and has been passed down to later generations because of its simplicity and ease of implementation.

After frying and then forging, the composition of the steel will be more uniform, the structure will be denser, and the strength will be higher. Each fold forging is a refinement, so there are thirty refinements, fifty refinements, seventy refinements, and even a hundred refinements of the name of the sword.

The whole process does not seem complicated, but it requires a lot of experience from the craftsman, and if the fire is not well grasped, it will become scrap metal, and the forging is also labor-intensive and time-consuming, and the production capacity is very low. From ore to iron to forging, the whole process is made by hand. In later generations, pure handmade manufacturing is a guarantee of quality, but in this era, it is synonymous with inefficiency. Under such low efficiency, the only way to produce a large number of weapons for the army and to store a large number of weapons for war consumption is to reduce man-hours, simplify processes, and save costs. This is also the origin of those five refining and seven refining swords - either they can't do it, they can't do it.

Improving efficiency and ensuring quality form an incompatible contradiction. Is it to produce a large number of cheap and high-quality weapons, or to give priority to low-quality weapons with small quantities? There is no doubt that the former can only be chosen.

The problem is found, but when it comes to solving it, there is a feeling that there is no way to start. Ma Han walked out of the iron workshop, silent, and the accompanying officials behind him did not dare to speak.

After a long time, Ma Han suddenly spoke, but the words he said made the brains of the officials present unable to turn around: "What is the famous place here?" ”

Jia Cheng hesitated for a moment, and said: "There is a white mountain with the name of 'Thousand Mountains', the scenery is magnificent, and the scenery is excellent. ”

Ma Han clapped his hands: "Okay, let's go to Qianshan." (To be continued......)