Zhu Youzhen continued to listen to the stories of Song Yingxing, Bi Maokang, Tang Ruowang and others, and walked back to the Iron and Steel Smelting Bureau again to observe and then returned to the Firearms Bureau.

After learning about it back and forth for most of the day.

Zhu Youzhen can only know what level Daming's current military industry is.

In general, the level of the military industry is mainly reflected in the capacity to manufacture guns.

According to the modern military industry, guns are manufactured using boring technology or milling.

In addition, precision parts need to be cut and manufactured by lathes, which are now called grinders in Daming.

Because Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" calls this kind of machine tool a grinder, and the grinder in Tiangong Kaiwu can use flying sand and water to cut high-hardness substances when it rotates rapidly.

In other words, the main problem in the manufacture of guns is how to process highly hard metal substances more efficiently, in addition to the efficiency of the use of mechanical power.

Zhu Youzhen only noticed the improvement of power before, but did not pay attention to the material processing.

In this, the processing level of gun materials is reflected in the material of boring cutters, milling cutters and even turning tools.

Generally speaking, these cutting and even planing, drilling, metal molds and even product knives are made of special steel.

The so-called special steel refers more to high-carbon steel, and of course there are more responsible high-carbon alloy steels in later generations, but they have been designed to the microscopic aspect of the atomic and molecular structure.

The refining of special steel, that is, high-carbon steel, is naturally not something that can be smelted by ordinary steelmaking methods.

Now the Daming Iron and Steel Smelting Bureau is popularizing the crucible steelmaking method.

This was originally the technology of the mid-18th century, and it was naturally the most advanced steelmaking technology in the world at this time.

This steelmaking technology has been practiced in the Ming Dynasty for three years, and the technology is naturally much more proficient than at the beginning.

Moreover, this steelmaking method was the world's first liquid steel method, and because of this, it was possible to make high-carbon steel, i.e. tool steel.

Because of this, Daming was able to establish a basic grinding machine and boring machine, which could process ordinary steel.

However, because Song Yingxing gained a lot of theoretical knowledge from Zhu Youzhen, and after popularizing it, coupled with his genius creativity, he actually used a variety of natural mixtures containing a certain metal (at Song Yingxing's level, it is not possible to extract pure compounds or elementals) to try out some alloy steels with a hardness far above ordinary steel but less dense.

It even produced a material that is the standard barrel and barrel manufacturing material of the Ming Dynasty.

But it is precisely because of this that even if Daming has the basic boring ability, he cannot bore the barrel of the main equipment of Daming, because there is still no way to make better tool steel.

The production capacity of crucible ironmaking is too low, and the sulfur content of Daming iron ore is too high, coupled with the low fuel value provided by coal fuel, so that high-carbon steel, that is, tool steel, still does not have the hardness that can be processed into alloy steel.

However, Zhu Youzhen still felt very pleased:

"That is to say, now it is still only possible to use the hammer and iron fan to make alloy steel gun barrels and then assemble them, but in fact, I already have the ability to use the boring machine to boring the gun barrel in large quantities, and even the ability to engrave threads, so as to greatly enhance the accuracy and range of gun shooting;

It's just because we use alloy steel gun barrels, our knives can't cut such materials, but if we replace bronze cannons and ordinary iron pipes, we can achieve such large-scale boring production, right, I have this production technology. ”

"What Your Majesty said is that the Ming Empire is already the most powerful country in the world, as long as Your Majesty is willing to use non-alloy steel as gun materials, Weichen dares to guarantee that you will soon be able to manufacture the rifled guns that Your Majesty wants, but such guns are easy to deform and the rifling threads will be deformed at high temperatures because the hardness of the material is not enough."

Tang Ruowang came over at this time and interjected, there are many Westerners like him who serve the Ming Dynasty in the ordnance station, and Tang Ruowang is currently the one with the highest status.

"Still use alloy steel to make the barrel, the production efficiency is low, it doesn't matter, since it is because of the problem of the knife, in fact, the crux is still in the steel smelting."

Zhu Youzhen said and pointed to the crucible that covered the workshop of the entire General Bureau of Iron and Steel Smelting, endured the scorching sensation on his face, let the sweat accumulate on his forehead, and only said to Song Yingxing and the others:

"Now that we can boring ordinary steel objects, such as steam cylinders made of ordinary steel, we can also improve the way of smelting steel, and we can make an iron furnace that can be turned;

Paste refractory materials on the inside of the iron furnace, and then pour the molten iron into the converter and blow in the air, so that the molten iron rotates in this furnace, and produces better high-carbon steel, even alloy steel and even other metals through the changes brought about by its own movement;

The point is that he no longer needs auxiliary heating, the output is higher than that of crucible ironmaking, the cost is also low, and he no longer needs a lot of coal, crucibles and graphite, but our iron ore is high in sulfur and phosphorus, and we can find a way to add some lime and the like to take away these impurities. ”

Song Yingxing nodded, and took out a drawing:

"Your Majesty said this, Wechen remembered that Your Majesty said before, and it was specially designed according to Your Majesty's wishes, and now it is still being built in the Engineering Institute, Wechen strives to promote it before the end of December, this is indeed a high yield, and strive to use this to refine better tool steel before next autumn, and the specific heat must be carefully grasped and summarized to be regular."

"This is called converter steelmaking, but don't worry, the processes and processes involved in this are naturally not as simple as I said, and naturally they need to explore by themselves, as long as they find out the important awards, they will be knighted;

Once the converter steelmaking is successful, it means that the steel production capacity can be increased many, many times, the knives can be better, and the Ming Dynasty can enter the era of rifled guns at that time.

However, Zhu Youzhen is not sure how long this time is, is it half a year? Whether it is a year of doubt or ten years or even a hundred years, it all depends on the luck and personal understanding of Song Yingxing and other Ming science giants.

After all, a complete alkaline converter steelmaking process is not something he can draw casually.

This requires Song Yingxing and others who have decades of experience in steel smelting to slowly explore, and he can only provide directions, so that Song Yingxing and others know to improve steel smelting technology in this regard, so that better special steel can appear.

Song Yingxing's current design of converter steelmaking is a huge ellipsoid, with air ducts inserted in the neck and tail, and two people are responsible for using air blasting equipment to introduce air into the furnace, and the molten iron enters from the middle and upper part of the furnace, and the whole furnace is placed horizontally in the holes of the two walls, connected to a push rod, which is pushed by a person to make the furnace rotate.

Zhu Youzhen still has to admit that Song Yingxing is very creative, and I don't know if there is any credit from others, in short, if this experiment can really succeed, it will bring epoch-making changes to Daming.

(End of chapter)