Iron smelting and other equipment were built on the side of a flowing river to facilitate water quenching, and water drains were also built in the water to replace manpower for blast operation.

Liu An didn't expect that at this time, people had actually learned to use water power, which surprised him.

Sure enough, the people of China, both ancient and modern, are very smart!

A high platform of about two meters was built by the river, and two shaft furnaces were erected on one side of the high platform, and after Liu An asked the blacksmith, he learned that this furnace was used to burn iron.

On top of the high platform is a flat surface, which is used to store some materials, charcoal, iron, limestone, etc., and at this time there are many materials on it.

Below the platform, near the water's edge, there were two wrought iron furnaces, and here were the blacksmiths' wrought iron, the tools for making iron, and beside the furnaces there were buckets of water.

It was indeed clear water, not the animal urine in Liu An's memory.

In his previous life, when Liu An was still in school, he had read about quenching with animal urine and animal fat in a book about scientific inventions, but he couldn't remember the specifics.

Naturally, he didn't remember the principle, function, and specific operation.

However, he could tell the experienced blacksmith his idea, and for this reason he had prepared these two things for the past few days, and had his men loaded them on the wagon and transported them on their way to this side.

In my memory, in that article, the use of the steel filling method was also introduced, as if someone in the Western Jin Dynasty used the steel filling method and animal urine and oil to refine some weapons.

Liu An also can't remember the steel filling method clearly, but he only remembers that the wrought iron is placed under the pig iron and burned in the furnace together, but the effect is completely unknown.

Putting the matter aside, Liu An continued to look at the equipment built by the blacksmiths.

Between the forge and the raised platform, there is also a smaller stove on which a pot in the shape of a crucible is placed, and under the pot there is a plugged outlet.

After Liu An asked the blacksmith, he learned that this pot was a tool used to fry steel, but the production speed of this thing was extremely slow, and when making ordinary ironware, blacksmiths could not use steel frying tools.

After only looking around for a short while, Liu An was already sweating hot, because the furnace had been built yesterday evening, and it had been warmed up all night since last night.

Liu An saw the young men who were adding charcoal, iron, and limestone to the furnace, and the sweat on their faces was dripping down as if they had been drenched in rain.

Liu An found Fu Zhao, who was in charge of the blacksmith's related work here, and told him about the steel filling method and urine grease quenching in his memory, but Fu Zhao didn't know why.

But he was very interested in the method proposed by Liu An, and immediately asked people to collect animal urine, and then raised the forge furnace, and brought a piece of wrought iron to try it.

When the temperature in the forge reaches the standard of forging iron, the animal urine happens to be collected, and the urine is poured into the bucket.

Due to the short time, only a small part was collected, less than a third of the barrel.

Fu Zhao took a piece of iron bar, put it in the forging furnace to heat it, and when the iron bar was burned to white hot, he quickly took out the iron tong and put it in a bucket.

With a pungent smell and a large amount of white mist, there was a sizzling sound in the water.

After a while, Fu Zhao took out an iron bar to observe, and then beat it with a sledgehammer, repeatedly observing, and after comparing it with the part that was not quenched by urine, he came to a conclusion in surprise.

"Xianzun, this urine not only shortens the rate at which the iron cools, but also makes the quenched iron harder. Merely...... Its toughness has been reduced a lot, and it has become much more fragile than quenching with water. ”

"So...... Then how about quenching with grease? Liu An tried to suggest.

After waiting for so long, the man who was transporting animal urine and grease finally arrived.

Liu An asked people to take grease, and took some urine to add Fu Zhao's bucket of urine to the appropriate water level, and then asked Fu Zhao to try again.

This time, after the paper was hot, it was put into a bucket filled with grease and quenched, and when the temperature of the iron bar cooled down, the iron bar was taken out for observation.

I was surprised to find that quenching with grease is the opposite of urine quenching, and the quenched iron bar is extremely tough, but the hardness is insufficient, and it is very easy to crack and deform.

Iron smelting was a tedious task, and the labor of adding coal, iron, and limestone to the furnace was repeated and repeated until at least in the afternoon.

And there are other blacksmiths watching over there, they are all experienced blacksmiths, and they are relieved to try to quench with new substances here.

During this period, Fu Zhao tried multiple quenching methods such as urine - grease, grease - urine, urine - grease --- urine, grease - urine - grease and so on.

Later, three more blacksmiths joined in to help with the experiment.

After many attempts, it was finally concluded that when the temperature of the iron is high, it is quenched with animal urine, and after the temperature is reduced, it is quenched with grease to ensure that the iron has sufficient hardness, and the toughness of the iron can be guaranteed, so that it is not easy to deform.

And the iron tools quenched by this method can obtain a weapon that meets the standards even if it is not tempered and forged.

In this way, the speed of building both weapons and farm tools will be doubled.

If you just create a farm tool with low requirements, you only need to mold the shape, and then return to the furnace, you can directly quench it with two liquids to become a qualified farm tool.

And the creation of weapons does not need to be as troublesome as before, especially the hundred forging weapons, now there is no need to go through a hundred forgings, and you can come up with weapons that are comparable to them!

This major technological breakthrough made the old blacksmith excited.

He never imagined that in his later years, he would be able to complete a reform of blacksmithing craftsmanship himself.

If such a technology can be promoted, the iron-making efficiency of thousands of blacksmiths in the Han Dynasty will definitely increase several times.

However, if the 100-forging process is really omitted, there will be another disadvantage.

That is, there are too many impurities in iron, and when Fu Zhao just observed, he had already found that although the hardness and toughness of iron are extremely high, but careful discovery can find that there are many impurities contained in it.

The 100-forging process can not only increase the hardness and toughness of iron, but also remove many impurities in the iron.

Therefore, this method can only be used in low-level weapons and agricultural tools that do not care about the appearance.

Fu Zhao did not say this explicitly, but hoped that the steel filling method proposed by the county could solve this problem.

After successfully completing the experiment of two-liquid quenching and making a major breakthrough, Fu Zhao had great expectations for the method of placing wrought iron under pig iron mentioned by Liu An and smelting together.

He took only a small amount of wrought iron from his home, which was not enough to smelt with pig iron.

You can only wait for the first batch of wrought iron to come out of the furnace and let it cool before trying.

When several other blacksmiths heard about it, they also came over to try it, and replaced the three blacksmiths who had come to help before to look at the furnace, and they started to operate excitedly.

Fu Zhao watched from the sidelines and pointed out the specific operation methods of a few people.

After several people tried it, they looked at the iron bars with good hardness and toughness in their hands, and they were also very happy.

Originally, a few people wanted to try again, but someone from the furnace said that the iron juice could be baked.

Pay the trick to calculate the time, at this time, more than four hours have passed since the start of the filler in the morning, and it can indeed be baked.

So the group came to the furnace, Fu Zhao and another experienced blacksmith each one by one, with the help of his subordinates, opened the slag valve under the furnace, and released the slag.

Then put the pre-prepared iron fan under the iron liquid outlet, open the valve, and then the hot and red iron liquid flowed into the iron fan.

After the iron no longer flows out of the outlet, the two plug the valve, wait for the wrought iron in the iron fan to cool, first separate a part and put it into the furnace, then pour pig iron into it, then pour wrought iron and pig iron iron, and so on.

It is worth mentioning that during the experimental quenching method, Fu Zhao did not forget that the amount of meteorite iron was not much, and stopped the move of continuing to add iron to the furnace in time.

At this time, only a small part of wrought iron and pig iron were added, but not all of them.

After all, the steel filling method mentioned by Liu An is still in the testing stage, and if it fails, it will not be distressing if a little meteorite is wasted.

Liu An waited here until late at night, and the iron juice smelted by the steel-filling method was finally baked.

After the iron juice cooled, Liu An hurriedly asked Fu Zhao: "How?" ”

Fu Zhao took the iron to the burning flame, observed it carefully, and said in surprise: "Hui Xianzun, this method of filling steel removes a large number of impurities in the iron, and the iron smelted by this method can save a large part of the forging process, and it has indeed greatly improved the wrought iron process!" If you cooperate with the two-liquid quenching method proposed by the county honor, you can completely create a blade that is sharper and tougher than the world! ”

"Good! Continue to smelt iron with this method! Liu An nodded, and his heart was also happy.

With these two methods, as long as you get a lot of iron ore cheaply, the armament of the army will no longer need to rely so much on the system.

Maybe the weapon created in this way is still not as good as the system, but as long as the amount is large enough and better than that of other princes, it is enough for Liu An!

The night was dark, Liu An called Liu Bei, arranged for his subordinates to take turns to take care of the furnace, and did not exhaust his subordinates, so he took advantage of the moonlight to return to the county office.

Early in the morning of the second day, Liu An ordered to give the five original heroes to collect iron raw materials for themselves and transport them to Jiuyuan City.

Although he is not short of weapons now, the peasant households lack farm tools, and ordinary farmers have few iron farm tools at home, many of which are borrowed from the powerful people they rely on, or the neighbors borrow farm tools from each other that they do not have.

If Liu An wants to improve the overall productivity of Wuyuan, iron farming tools are indispensable.

After arranging the matter, Liu An went to the smelter site in the northern mountains again.

At this time, the second batch of meteorite juice had already been baked, and it was poured into the molds of Fang Tian's painting halberd, two-handed sword, and spear.

This was ordered by Liu An before, he asked for the opinions of Lu Bu, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Gao Shun, and the weapons they wanted were Fang Tian's painted halberd, male and female double-strand swords and spears, and Gao Shun, like Zhang Fei, chose spears.

Liu An's force value is low, and he also has a novice gentleman's sword given by the system, so it will not be in the way if he doesn't build weapons for the time being.

After filling the molds of the four weapons, Fu Zhao saw that there was still meteorite being smelted in the furnace, so he asked Liu An:

"What is the rest of the meteorite for?"

Although he brought the molds of various weapons at home, he still had to prepare them in advance, in case the iron juice was in a hurry.

"Hmm......" Liu An thought for a while and said, "Wait and see, can you build four weapons today?" ”

Fu Zhao shook his head and said, "I'll wait for a few people to work together, and we can build up to two." This is still after the county zun improved the process, so the weapon made by the divine iron, according to the past, it would take at least a few days for one person to forge one. ”

"Then let's build the double-strand sword first." Liu Andao.

"No!" When Fu Zhao heard this, he and a few blacksmiths prepared to go to the forge, leaving only two blacksmiths to guard the furnace.

All the iron from the meteorite has been poured into the furnace, and after this round of iron liquid is baked, the iron will not continue to be smelted, because there is no need to add more material to it.

After the furnace has cooled, it is cleaned and the smelting of the gold and stone begins.

After watching the blacksmiths for a while, Liu An felt bored, and he had no more advice to offer, so he left here with his subordinates and went deeper into the mountains.

After the construction of various buildings, Liu Bei replaced Lu Bu, and some people from his command helped to make iron and dig gold, and the rest were all responsible for the defense here.

At this time, Lu Bu had already sent his subordinates all over the mountains and went to hunt for treasures according to Liu An's instructions.

He himself was among them, wandering around with one of the many treasure hunting squads.

Liu An walked around the mountains all morning, and found nothing except some wild things.

At noon, he and his men took the wild things they hunted, found a river, processed the wild things and roasted them, and after eating, they hunted some wild animals in the mountains, estimated that the time was about the same, and then returned to the smelting site with the wild things.

handed over the wild animals to Liu Bei and asked him to skin them and improve the food for everyone at night, and Liu An found a trick.

At this time, Liu Bei's double-strand sword had been built, and Liu An tested its sharpness with his own gentleman's sword.

As a result, under the slash, his novice gentleman's sword was broken.

The gentleman's sword was broken, although Liu An felt very sorry, but he also saw the power of the divine soldiers after using the extraterrestrial meteorite, as well as the steel filling method and the double liquid quenching method after multiple buffs were superimposed.

He immediately took the broken gentleman's sword and said, "The rest of the meteoric iron, make another spear, and the rest are all made into this sword style." ”

Fu Zhao has a sword mold in his hand, but there is a slight gap between its shape and the gentleman's sword in Liu An's hand.

However, it is not difficult to forge and hammer it into the style of a gentleman's sword after being carefully forged and hammered by the hands of a blacksmith.

So Fu Zhao replied: "No! ”

After thinking about it, Liu An said again: "Can you also restore the words on this sword to one of them?" ”

Fu Zhao looked at the words on Liu An's broken sword and said, "It can only restore seven points." ”

"Yes." Liu An also knew that it was impossible to completely restore it, so he was not embarrassed.

Liu An waited for nearly an hour at the smelting site, and this batch of iron juice was also successfully baked.

Except for the spear requested by Liu An, the rest of the iron juice condensed a total of four swords.

Four?

After Liu An heard the news, his heart moved, four swords, just corresponding to four directions.

So he ordered Fu Zhao to engrave the pattern of the green dragon on the other side of the sword that copied his gentleman's sword.

The other three, in the same position, are engraved with white tigers, vermilion birds, and Xuanwu.

In addition to the Qinglong hand, the other three Liu An are ready to reward the meritorious people under his command in the future.

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