Ren Baqian looked at the iron mountain in front of him, and he really had some doubts in his heart, is this really a natural product?

Compared to the mine, Ren Baqian is more willing to believe that this is a huge piece of meteorite.

Unless I don't know how many billions of years ago, such a large piece of meteorite fell to the ground, and then after many years of crustal changes, the huge basin that should have appeared here became a plain, and this meteorite became Da Mo Mountain.

In Ren Baqian's heart, such a possibility is greater than natural formation.

Otherwise, this iron mountain is too unconventional.

"Can you open a few holes here?" Ren Baqian asked, pointing to the part of the mountain wall protruding above his head to Gu Qiong, the size of a fist, at least a foot and a half deep.

Six or seven meters above Ren Baqian's position, the rock wall began to bulge outward, about three or four meters.

It should be that height that is already difficult to mine.

However, if you take a few holes in that place and use explosives, you will probably blow up a large chunk.

After all, he doesn't specialize in blasting, so he can only roughly guess where the effect is better.

"Lord Fucheng, although I don't know your plans, I really can't hit such a big eye, at most I can only make a fist-deep hole, and if it is deeper, I have to dig to the side. Gu Qiong said with a difficult face.

Ren Baqian frowned after hearing this, this Gu Qiong's words should be true, but in this case, it would be difficult for the explosives to have any great effect.

In this case, if it were on Earth, there were many ways to think of it, such as cutting it off piece by piece with acetylene.

However, most of them either need electricity or gas tanks. Like acetylene, I can only bring one bottle at a time, and I have to bring it here directly, otherwise with Dayao's road conditions, I'm afraid that it will blow up halfway through.

However, if you bring it here, your secret will be exposed in the eyes of people other than the empress, and it is unacceptable.

"Take me around this Damo Mountain. "Ren Baqian pondered for a long time, let's take a look at the surrounding situation first. It can still be dark for a while, and at least I can turn around and look at the situation in Iron Mountain.

In the next time, everyone rode their mounts and walked along the foot of Damo Mountain for a distance before returning, Ren Baqian found that this mountain was probably really as he thought, it was completely a huge piece of meteorite, because the structure of this mountain was completely different from the surrounding land, all the iron ore was gathered on the mountain, and only a few plants grew on it, all of them were weeds and other relatively lively plants, which should have been accumulated on the mountain with dust that had fallen over the years, forming a layer of surface soil.

"Lord Ren, is there anything you can do?" Tao Jiyuan asked Ren Baqian, who was frowning, on the way back.

"Hmm, I have a little idea, but I have to try if I can do it. Ren Baqian was shocked by his thoughts, looked up at him and said.

"That's great, the iron ore mining in Da Moshan, countless people have been unable to speed up for so many years, and can only use manpower to mine little by little, if Lord Ren has a way, it must be a great achievement. Tao Jiyuan said with a smile on his face.

"If you want me to mine here, it's better to go out and grab it faster. Gu Qiong muttered on the side.

Ren Baqian rolled his eyes, isn't this nonsense. Most of the time it's faster to grab than to mine, the question is, is it that easy?

When they returned to the camp, it was almost dark, and the prisoners and coolies had returned in droves, gathered around a few large vats in the middle of the square, waiting to make broth, but few people spoke, and many years had passed since such days, and there were very few new people who were brought in.

Ren Baqian smelled the aroma of broth from afar. "Good food!"

"They don't have enough to eat, and they don't have the strength to work. After all, this iron mountain has a little less strength, and it can't chisel a small piece in a day. ”

Ren Baqian nodded.

Gu Qiong had already cleaned up a wooden house for him, and his dinner was also broth, but with a little more wild vegetables and two miscellaneous dry foods. Even Gu Qiong eats these on weekdays, there is no shop in front of the village here, except for the people who send meat on weekdays, they can't even look at anyone, and they can't get something else to eat.

After eating a meal, Ren Baqian had a good night's rest, and when he woke up the next day, he called Gu Qiong and Tao Jiyuan to the room: "I have an idea, I should be able to try it." A large amount of timber is piled up at the mountain, and then the water is poured on it, and after the heat expands and contracts, cracks will form on the iron, which should make it easier to dig the mountain. ”

Although Ren Baqian said so, he was not optimistic about this method. After all, it takes a lot of manpower to transport a large amount of timber, and although it is a little easier than it is now, if you add the manpower of cutting down timber and transporting timber, and the time it takes to set fire to the mountain and wash it with cool water, this is still too inefficient, and I am afraid it is not much better than now.

He had another idea in his heart, which was to make a large number of mirrors and concave mirrors after he went back, adjust the angle of the concave mirrors to the mountain wall, and then use the mirrors to reflect the sunlight onto the concave mirrors.

In this way, the iron can be melted into molten iron in a very short time by the light reflected and focused by the concave mirror, and it is much easier to mine and separate it.

"What does it mean to expand and contract?" Tao Jiyuan didn't know what Ren Baqian thought, but he was very interested in what he said and was very curious.

"Let's demonstrate. Ren Baqian pulled everyone out of the house.

"Raise a fire first. Ren Baqian ordered to go down, and Gu Qiong immediately called someone next to him to get wood according to Ren Baqian's instructions.

After a while, a fire rose, and Ren Baqian picked up two stones and had them be roasted on the outer flame of the fire with two iron cones.

The others looked at what he was told to do, and wondered what he was going to do.

After a while, Ren Baqian estimated that the time was almost up, and he asked people to throw the stone into a bucket of water prepared next to him.

At first, some bubbles appeared, and then after a few minutes, Ren Baqian reached in and scooped up the stone, and there were already a few cracks on it.

Ren Baqian showed the stone to a few people, and the others hadn't found any problems, but Tao Jiyuan suddenly realized: "So that's the case." ”

This is a very normal natural phenomenon, it's not that no one has discovered it, but no one has summarized it, and no one has investigated what the cause is, so there is no concept of thermal expansion and cold contraction. No one even thought of applying this situation to Damo Mountain.

"Why is that?" Tao Jiyuan asked curiously after suddenly realizing it.

"Because when an object is heated, it expands, even if you can't see it with your eyes, but it expands. Objects contract, on the other hand, when they get cold. This change occurs if this situation of post-expansion tightening occurs in a short period of time. This is true not only of stone, but also of iron. ”

Ren Baqian roughly explained, if you say something molecules, the other party must not understand.

Tao Jiyuan looked thoughtful, while Gu Qiong asked with round eyes, "Lord Ren's idea is to burn this big mountain?"

"Just burn one place. Ren Baqian looked around, although there was no vegetation on Damo Mountain, there were other mountains around.

Let's cut some wood and come back to burn the mountain, although the efficiency is still very low, but you can try it, and it can speed up the mining progress a little.

When I go back to study how to make the concave mirror, I will be able to completely solve the problem of mining in Da Mo Mountain.

It's a pity that the 40 kilograms of TNT I brought with me are afraid that they will be useless.