When they were in the village, there were thirty or forty people working together, and they used ready-made mines and ironworks that had been handed down for many generations, and now a dozen of them had to do the same big things as so many people, so naturally they had to endure hardships and time-consuming, and everything had to start from scratch, including tools.

To make the sleeve of the blower, you need to make the contents inside.

They sawed a log board of the same tree as the log, the size of the plank was slightly larger than the hole on the inside of the log, and after boiling it in boiling water, it was slightly modified with a killing knife to make it exactly the same size as the hole on the inside of the log.

Subsequently, two egg-sized wind tunnels are scalded with steel brazing on both sides of this round plank, and a piece of leather is tied with bamboo on the inner side of the wind tunnel, and the leather is just covered on the top of the wind tunnel, so that when the wooden board is pulled outward, due to the pressure of the wind, the leather is blown up by the wind, so that the wind from the outside enters the inside; when the wooden board is pushed inside, also due to the pressure of the wind, the leather is firmly pressed on the wind tunnel by the wind, and the wind tunnel is blocked, so that the wind is squeezed out from the other end, and the wind extruded at high speed can make the charcoal fully burn and form a high temperature.

At the other end of the log, the one that is not opened, two wind tunnels and skins are made like the logs, and this wind tunnel is connected directly to the hearth by a pipe made of mud.

A hole was drilled in the center of the log and a log stick was passed through it, and the stick was held in place with pins at both ends of the log.

At the end of the log, use the remaining material of the log to see a log board the same size as the log, boil it in boiling water, and fix it on the log.

Drill a hole in the middle of the plank, thread the stick out of the middle, and make a pull handle at this end of the stick.

In this way, a blower is made.

If the blower is done, it is a blast furnace.

Doing the work of a blast furnace is relatively much simpler.

They made a blast furnace with clay that is more than one person high, the blast furnace is small at both ends, the middle is large, it is a big belly shape, the hole reserved for air intake in the middle is connected with the wind tunnel of the blower, and there is a concave platform for placing mineral powder in the middle of the blast furnace, and on the blast furnace wall on one side of the platform, a hole the size of a fist is reserved, which is used to flow out of slag, but it is usually blocked with a piece of clay.

The blast furnace is also made of clay first, air-dried and formed, and then put into the brick kiln to sinter and shape.

Do these things well, and the household belongings for ironmaking are complete.

At the same time of doing these things, my father also arranged for a few people to find a few loads of limestone with powder in the nearby mountains, which is also a very coincidental thing, and the preparation work was done in the middle, and the eldest uncle remembered that limestone was needed when reducing the slag, and his father sank in his heart, if there is no limestone, all the preparations in front are considered versatile, even if there is iron ore, iron ore can not be smelted.

Fortunately, the eldest uncle and a few young men found limestone under a stone cliff in the ravine where the hunting group entered, which the hunting group accidentally encountered when entering the ditch.

The blast furnace is done, the blower is done, the limestone is recovered, the mineral powder is stirred evenly, and the ironmaking is left to ignite.

How much hard work everyone has put in to get to this day.

Not to mention the men, the women are also very hard, taking care of the children, beating pigweed, cooking and cooking, they are so busy that they can't get along.

It took more than a month to make these preparations from finding the iron ore back and forth, but now it is finally completed.

Originally, the second uncle also said that he wanted to wait for a good weather to start work, but the father said that the weather doesn't matter, anyway, there are ten proportions of mineral powder, but everyone must remember what the proportion of each mineral powder is, and arrange for someone who can read the words to write it down, so as not to make a mistake and be busy in vain.

In fact, my father was in a hurry, he couldn't wait any longer, he wanted to see the iron smelted as soon as possible.

Everyone understands the anxious mood of the father, in fact, who in the family is not in this mood. So it was decided that the day after the preparations were completed, they would light the fire and make iron.

This night, so nervous and excited that everyone in the family did not sleep, everyone excitedly talked about all the hard work and luck for so long, looking forward to tomorrow's ignition function to bring a new tomorrow to the whole family.

After the ignition of the second day, no one spoke except for the nervous busyness and rotation of pulling bellows, and they were worried that talking would bring something bad.

The method of ironmaking is to mix charcoal with ore powder and ignite it, heat it continuously with a blower, and after burning through, reduce the oxidized iron ore to iron.

At this time, the iron is still mixed with the ore, and then the limestone is heated in the mixture of iron and ore, and the ore is displaced, forming slag, so that the rest is iron.

After two days and three nights of smelting in turns, they finally smelted iron from the third proportion of ore powder, after reducing the slag from limestone and ore, and then after repeatedly beating and hammering with the back of an axe, a piece of rough pig iron was baked.

The whole castle was boiling.

With iron, they can really live here! The first piece of pig iron is so meaningful! After discussing with everyone, my father decided to put it in the castle and keep it and pass it on to future generations, so that they can see the difficulties of their ancestors and cherish life.

With iron, some of the needs of life that were previously restricted are now magnified.

The father thought about making more knives, the eldest uncle wanted to make more saws and axes, the eldest son wanted to make more steel drills - that thing was most useful against animals at night, and the mother wanted to make more kitchen knives - the kitchen knives at home were too old to look good, and they were already very small and difficult to cut vegetables, especially meat.

Seeing everyone's minds come alive and his forehead stretched, my father didn't mention how happy he was, and said with a smile, don't worry, these will be there.

The ore there can be used to make iron, but it is a whole day's journey from home.

If the ore is transported back to make iron, it will save trouble, but it is too far away, and the ore is too heavy.

Based on the amount of pig iron smelted and the ratio of slag, they estimated that the iron ore content in this place was a little more than half, which meant that if the ore was brought back for smelting, it would take twice as much physical effort to transport the ore.

However, if you want to make iron on the spot, you will face the problems of charcoal, blast furnaces, food, shelter and food.

Charcoal is not a big problem to solve, you can use local materials to make a kiln, another blast furnace and blower are not needed, just carry the current use at home, eat in the vicinity can be hunted on the spot to solve part of the meat, and some vegetables and staple foods need to be transported at home frequently, three meals a day is not a small problem.

They can live in a stone house where they lived last time, or they can build a temporary wooden shed.

It's just that there is no convenient water there, there is no living water, only dry snow.