The iron-making furnace is to be built in a factory outside Zunyi County, but the personnel have to be transferred from Shi Xianwei, as well as Master Kong and Mo Zigan, after all, they are experts in this area, and Shi Xianwei's veterans are loyal and reliable after all, and they can also bring a batch of manganese ore to study casually.

But the specific implementation of the blast furnace had to be discussed with Mo Zigan, the heir of the Mo family, but when he saw the set of blast furnace drawings drawn by Wu Yunlin on the carriage, he was completely dumbfounded.

That's right, Wu Yunlin completely abandoned the routine of open-hearth steelmaking in the nineteenth century and went directly to the blast furnace. Of course, what the blast furnace needs is stronger building materials, which Wu Yunlin is also ready for.

Wu Yunlin handed a detailed recipe to Mo Zigan next to him: "This is the firing process of refractory bricks, you can see if you can make it." The production of refractory bricks is relatively simple, and the bricks should be mixed with sand and some mineral powder, as well as the slag left over from ironmaking, and the specific amount has been marked for you. ”

"My lord, what's the use of this?" Mo Zigan next to him asked.

"Of course, the refractory brick is refractory, and even if the temperature in the furnace is doubled, it is enough to withstand it." Wu Yunlin introduced the different temperatures of various smelting to Mo Zigan next to him, and he could barely close his mouth when he heard it.

Mozi next to him blushed, and it took a long time before he asked, "My lord, can I pay New Year's greetings to be a master?" ”

"You?" Looking at this sloppy uncle who was full of curiosity, Wu Yunlin couldn't help but want to laugh, he shook his head and said: "I have time to teach you, and these things of mine are not necessarily correct just to provide you with a direction, of course, I can discuss refining tools with you when I have time in the future" Wu Yunlin's objection made Mo Zigan next to him a little disappointed, but not very disappointed, he was already completely addicted to making tools, and he was hungry for knowledge in this area. Because of Wu Yunlin's words later, he kindled hope again.

"These things of mine are classified and can only be shown to reliable people." If it spreads, it is likely to promote the rapid improvement of the level of science and technology in Asia and even the world. If he is not ready to start the era of the Industrial Revolution, the situation will be unpredictable, so it is better to keep it a secret for the time being.

"Don't worry, my lord, I promise there will be no problems." Mozi next to him grinned with joy.

Wu Yunlin shook his head and said, "With your foundation, there is no problem with self-study, if you don't understand something, just ask me." ”

"Okay." Mo Zigan next to him smiled when he heard this, and the two of them planned to make the blast furnace again.

In addition to the fact that cement is not produced as a binder, it takes time to build a new refractory brick kiln, and there are also sections of furnace bodies that must be solved by the blacksmith workshop of Shixianwei. According to the estimation of Mozigan next to him, it will take two months to complete, not counting the time to build a furnace in the factory outside Zunyi County. Wu Yunlin knows that this kind of thing is in a hurry, in the era when there are no accessories manufacturers and everything can only rely on manuals, such work efficiency is already very fast.

However, Wu Yunlin instructed Mo Zigan next to him to buy iron ore next time, to separate the two ores, and smelt the magnetite ore first, so that it is easier to smelt pig iron.

After all the tasks were deployed, Wu Yunlin returned to the city that day, he still had things to do tomorrow morning, and he couldn't delay more time outside the city.

This method was developed and improved from the ancient shaft furnace ironmaking.

Although many new iron-making methods have been researched and developed by countries around the world, the iron produced by this method still accounts for more than 95% of the world's total iron output due to the good technical and economic indicators of blast furnace ironmaking, simple process, large production volume, high labor productivity and low energy consumption.

Although according to the existing technical means of the Qing Dynasty, it is impossible to achieve real blast furnace ironmaking, but it will also make a qualitative leap in ironmaking.

In the production of blast furnaces, iron ore, coke, and slag fluxes (limestone) are loaded from the top of the furnace, and preheated air is blown from the air outlet located at the lower part of the furnace along the furnace perimeter.

At high temperatures, the carbon in coke (some blast furnaces also inject auxiliary fuels such as pulverized coal, heavy oil, and natural gas) is combined with the carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced by combustion of oxygen in the air, and the oxygen in the iron ore is removed during the rising process in the furnace, so as to reduce the iron to obtain iron.

The molten iron is released from the iron mouth, and the non-reducing impurities in the iron ore and the limestone and other fluxes combine to form slag, which is discharged from the slag mouth.

The gas produced is exported from the top of the furnace and used as fuel for hot blast stoves, heating furnaces, coke ovens, boilers, etc. after dust removal.

Because the most important thing in blast furnace ironmaking is to have high temperature, but the traditional charcoal and coal ironmaking is far from reaching that temperature.

This requires the use of coke, bituminous coal in the condition of air isolation, heated to 950-1050 °C, through drying, pyrolysis, melting, bonding, solidification, shrinkage and other stages of final coke, this process is called high-temperature coking (high-temperature dry distillation).

The coke obtained from high-temperature coking is used in blast furnace smelting, casting and gasification.

With coke, the minimum temperature of blast furnace ironmaking can be achieved, which in turn can increase the iron output geometrically.

Two months passed, and the news of Mozigan came, and Wu Yunlin led the staff to rush to the factory.

Three blast furnaces are lined up in the tall factory, five meters high and one and a half meters in diameter. Mo Zigan is leading the craftsmen to meticulously inspect and measure. Just such a blast furnace was filled with 3,000 catties of iron ore, 1,500 catties of coke, and a large amount of limestone.

Mozi came over and nodded to Lu Bu: "It's ready." ”

"Okay, open the furnace immediately after the sacrifice."

"Yes."

Wu Yunlin presided over it, Ma Qiang, Xiong Ge, Wei Qi, etc. all participated.

Especially Xiong Ge came late, just in time for the sacrifice.

A pig, a sheep, a chicken, and a fish were prepared.

Wu Yunlin read the sacrificial text aloud and begged for the blessing of the sky.

After the sacrifice was completed, Mozigan announced the ignition.

The fire was blazing, and the sturdy donkeys pulled the wind raft to provide a steady stream of wind power for the blast furnace.

There were a few first-time visitors to the factory who looked a little confused.

"Lord, why is this stove so high, and why is there no smoke from the burning coal?"

"This is called a blast furnace, and it can produce more than 1,000 catties of iron at a time."

"How often can that come out?"

"Although this is the first furnace, the furnace has been empty for a day, and soon, at most three or four hours, it will come out with good iron, good material for casting iron pots."

I know a little about ironmaking, but I'm more curious, isn't it pig iron that casts iron pots? It's not the same crispy.

From morning to noon, at most, three hours later, I heard someone shouting that the iron was out, and the iron was out. ”

Wu Yunlin and Xiong Ge came to the iron furnace together, and saw that the red molten iron had quickly flowed into the iron pool, and at least thousands of catties of iron came out at this time.

On this hot day, the steelmakers sweated profusely and cleaned the slag immediately after the molten iron was released. Then re-feeding, the donkey is too hot to stand, and the huge bellows can only be driven by manpower

Three blast furnaces come out together, and it is 3,000 catties at once, and at least 6,000 catties a day.

The molten iron comes to the die-casting room through the slide, where hundreds of molds have already been prepared, divided into large iron pots, medium iron pots, and small iron pots. According to the size, the craftsmen take different amounts of molten iron and put them into the mold, and then press the other half of the mold on.

This is a very dangerous process, if you are not careful, the molten iron will burn the skin, and the operator wears cowhide gloves and operates carefully.

Today I am very unskilled, the three pots of molten iron only made 600 large iron pots, 600 medium iron pots, and the rest of the molten iron is cold, so it can only be made into pig iron pieces and sold directly to pig iron shops.

The cast iron pot cooled quickly, but in half an hour, a mouthful of iron pot came out.

Xiong Ge couldn't close his mouth in surprise: "This, this, that's it." ”

Not enough, this output is still a little low, and we have to increase productivity. Wu Yunlin thought

The people in the factory didn't hear Wu Yunlin's belly slander, otherwise they would have fainted. 60,000 tons of pig iron a year, even if the pig iron in the country is added together, it is not as much as the output of these three blast furnaces, which is too little and too dissatisfied. Wu Yunlin pondered how to change the process to increase production, and he suddenly thought of a problem, adding combustible gas to the ironmaking blast furnace is a good way to improve production and quality, and can also reduce air pollution.

Wu Yunlin said to Mo Zigan next to him: "Go back and study changing the coking pool to a closed one, and add a chimney to connect it to the blast furnace." ”

"Why is that?" Mo Zigan next to him asked puzzled.

Wu Yunlin smiled: "Coking produces a flammable gas, I call it gas." This gas can be passed into the blast furnace to speed up the smelting, better reduce impurities, and I guess it can also double the output. ”

Wu Yunlin didn't care: "I'll draw you drawings tomorrow, and I will finish it as soon as I go back, and save the coal tar left over from coking for future use." If we build three more blast furnaces, I estimate that pig iron will be enough. ”

Although he didn't know what Wu Yunlin wanted so much pig iron for, Mo Zigan next to him still agreed. Wu Yunlin said again: "Now that I have iron, while making the musket, you and Master Kong will make me a batch of spears and waist knives. ”

"My lord, what do you want these things for? Even if the production of muskets is not enough, we will be able to equip them all in another year or two. Wei Qi next to him reminded.

"It is used to equip the guards of the village, this is the strength on the surface, if we are equipped with muskets, it will be too dazzling, and we must not let the court pay attention to us." Wu Yunlin said, and the people next to him nodded willingly.