After successfully convincing Hanzhong Taishou Chen Zhong, it means that Liu Ponu's prestige will begin to develop in Hanzhong County in the next period of time, and gradually even spread to the entire Shu region.

Everything is developing in the right direction, but there are only people or things who have to jump out at this time as a stumbling block.

"Envoy, this is already very fast, if you want to be faster, then you can only add more people......" Wang Liu looked at Liu Ponu with a confused expression.

Originally, I was excited to welcome Liu Ponu to inspect the work, and I thought that Liu Ponu would praise him fiercely after seeing his work results.

As a result, who could have imagined that it would be a black face when it came up, and even bluntly said that the progress was too slow and the output was too low.

Looking at the mountains of iron ore outside, if the output is too low, Wang Liu can grit his teeth and come down, but where does this progress come from if it is too slow?

"Adding people doesn't help much with production either!" Liu Ponu shook his head.

This time he was really careless, the imperial court did master the iron-smelting technology, and now they are also using the most advanced iron-smelting technology of the imperial court.

Of course, really advanced technology doesn't really use much, or even a little.

The previous steps are basically the same, the improvement of iron smelting technology is mainly to change the reduction of carbon content in iron, improve hardness while ensuring toughness, make it strong, durable, and not easy to break.

But there are not such high requirements for agricultural tools, and they don't need to go to war, they only deal with the land all their lives, so just the most basic primitive form of iron is enough.

I thought it would not be a difficult task, but it turned out that the miscellaneous things and the lack of production made Liu Ponu not come here in time to check, and he didn't have time to come over until after it was put into production.

The results can be imagined......

The iron smelting technology of the Han Dynasty was very simple, that is, by removing most of the impurities in the iron ore and reducing it into a grain of sponge iron, and then heating and forging to obtain iron.

This method is not only inefficient, but also extremely demanding on manpower.

If this is the case, Liu Ponu wants to complete his plan in a short period of time, and it will be a bit difficult to expand this place tenfold.

"Can you smelt this iron into molten iron?" Liu Ponu asked, pointing to a pile of sponge iron.

"If the temperature can't reach it, you can ...... it with copper," Wang Liu shook his head.

Liu Ponu frowned slightly, looking at the various raw materials in the venue, there seemed to be nothing wrong.

The main raw material for iron smelting is coal, which made Liu Ponu a little surprised, but he didn't expect to learn this trick in the Western Han Dynasty.

Even in later generations, he used coal for iron smelting, but he picked some coal that met the standards, and then gave it a good name, called coke.

Now we are using loose coal, but there are some carbon blocks in the middle, is this the reason?

"Have you ever tried to smelt all of it with coal?" Liu Ponu wondered.

"I have used it, the charcoal is not easy to ignite, although it has been burned for a long time, but I have not heard of the ...... that can smelt iron ore into molten iron," Wang Liu still shook his head.

"I don't believe it yet!" Liu Ponu gritted his teeth with an unwilling face and said, this doesn't make sense at all.

Although the blast furnace is not high, I don't know, but the furnace in front of me is also three or four meters high, and the amount of one-time smelting is not much.

Liu Ponu suddenly thought of a passage he had seen, as if limestone was added when smelting iron?

Liu Ponu didn't know what that thing was for, but he didn't lack limestone now.

Since the old man asked him to build a city wall first, Liu Ponu asked people to find limestone, mobilized the national force to find it, and almost a minute of effort allowed Liu Ponu to find a limestone mine in Lantian County, and directly arranged for people to mine some first, although the number in the mining area is not much, but it is also enough for the time being.

For Liu Ponu, it seems that there is nothing to do now.

Although he is the county commander, the people's hearts have been harvested, and everything in the county is taken care of by Liu Qu, so basically there will be no major problems.

I'm afraid the old man didn't let him come here to see how dedicated he was, as long as he could get things done.

"Rebirth: The Great Age of Waves"

Therefore, Liu Ponu most likely feels that Lantian will not make a mistake, the people will get it, and the rest will be as they wish, and they can do whatever they want.

"Go and pull a few carts of limestone over, and then find a batch of charcoal, and I won't leave until I practice molten iron!" Liu Ponu gritted his teeth tightly and stared at the blast furnace in front of him.

Next, Liu Ponu completely turned himself into a real scientific research maniac, eating and living in the mining area, guarding those blast furnaces every day.

If you feel that something is wrong, let people change it, and if you think of an idea, you will immediately arrange for people to implement it.

Although there was no successful experience, after two months of hard work, Liu Ponu still got some irregularly shaped sponge iron.

Although the shape of the sponge iron itself is irregularly shaped, this time some of the irregularities are more thorough, and even many of them have been glued together.

That is to say, after Liu Ponu's continuous tossing for two months, he has successfully increased the temperature in the furnace a little, and it has reached the point where the sponge iron can begin to melt, but it has not really made him give up resistance completely.

Another month has passed, seeing that the summer has passed and the autumn harvest is about to begin, Liu Ponu, who has been patiently studying for three months, can't help but be a little irritable.

His experiments have come to a standstill, and the current situation is only to partially melt the sponge iron, which is still one step away from the molten iron.

And Liu Ponu has changed the charcoal in I don't know how many places, and even what is the effect of adding limestone when smelting iron, he has figured out what the effect of adding limestone can directly affect the iron production rate of pig iron.

"Coal, bellows, coal spray, limestone ......" Liu Ponu, who had been in the dark, squatted alone next to the blast furnace, and the more he thought about it, the more he didn't understand.

Even to put it as a joke, Liu Ponu basically even figured out when to add something, how much to add, and the ratio of raw materials, but he was stunned that he couldn't make molten iron.

Although the lack of molten iron means that all the work he has done in front of him is useless......

"What went wrong?" Looking at the busy crowd, Liu Ponu couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

Everyone has worked hard during this time, but this kind of thing cannot be accomplished by one effort alone.

The cement came out, and I don't know what the quality is, anyway, after the homemade concrete is dry, I have to hold a hammer and smash it hard for a while to smash it, and this appearance is basically usable.

In order to alleviate the embarrassment, Liu Ponu even had people record this passage on several different bamboo slips, in order to improve the iron-smelting method, the limestone was discarded after being fired at high temperature in the furnace, and was trampled on into powder, and cleaned up after the rain, and found that it was extremely hard, so cement was found......

After such an explanation, Liu Ponu felt that the whole person became so great in an instant.

'Huh...... Whoop......

Several strong men were pushing and pulling the bellows vigorously, and the bellows, which had barely rested for three months, also emitted a dull roar, and even the strong men had to use more force to push it, but the wind sent out was not as good as before.

"Huh?" Liu Ponu was suddenly stunned, and something seemed to flash in his mind?

The purpose of blowing is to send oxygen from the air into the furnace to support combustion, so as to increase the temperature in the furnace.

Although this step has been done, the bellows are too backward, and the later generations are blowing pure oxygen, and now there is no pure oxygen to blow for him, if the air volume is increased???

"Come on, find a carpenter, let the people in the mine stop, and change the canal in Wangjia Village!" Liu Ponu's eyes lit up, and he immediately ordered.

Thanks to Liu Ponu's canal decree, he can save a lot of energy next.

Under the three-day work of thousands of prisoners, the canals along the Wangjia Village were directly changed on a large scale.

When encountering a low place, he directly set up a water wheel, and directly built a set of circulating water system in the mining area.

In order to ensure the strength and continuity of the air supply, taking into account the water pressure, each one is not large, but after completion, each one is like a small electric motor, rotating rapidly.

Half a month later, looking at the flames that were higher than ever, Liu Ponu's heart finally felt a little confident.

"Out of the water, out of the water......"