1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 274 War and Peace ([-])
"Is this a glazed cup?" Luo Ziwei asked as he watched his daughter Luo Xinru holding a transparent glass of tea.

There are many fine air bubbles in the glass wall, and the color is not very pure.In terms of exquisiteness, it is far inferior to the Daming porcelain teacups used in the past, and even the Jianyecheng clay pottery teacups. At any rate, the latter will have some artistic pictures on the appearance.At first glance, it appears to be a shoddy handmade product.

"Qi Tian gave it to me, and told me to use it for drinking water." Luo Xinru said with a smile: "He said that this glass is not yet a mature product, with too many bubbles, but it can be made into glass for windows. Dad, You said that if the whole room is covered with glass, it will definitely be much brighter!"

"Glass?" Luo Ziwei took the glass from his daughter and took a closer look. It should be colored glaze used by wealthy people in Daming, or medicine jade. Such similar items.

"Qi Tian, ​​it's absurd." Luo Ziwei shook his head and said, "Young people don't know how difficult it is to make things, so how can they be used as windows in the house! To make these things, it's better to cultivate more acres of good land and produce more farm tools. Or, It is also good to build more weapons."

"Father, Qi Tian said that this glass is also a kind of production tool." Luo Xinru heard his father's criticisms against Qi Tian, ​​and quickly defended: "This kind of glass can be used to make all kinds of cups with graduations, which can accurately measure some water solubles. The size of the object can be used to observe the changes of some substances in detail. Moreover, the production of this kind of glass is more, um, the scale is larger, and the cost of it is not more than the cost of making some farm tools. "

Hearing this, Luo Ziwei was stunned for a moment, then waved his sleeves, and said dissatisfiedly: "Absurd! Measuring the size of some water-soluble substances and observing some so-called material changes will benefit the lives of ordinary people and help Hanzhou grow stronger." arm?"

Originally thought that relying on his own knowledge and his relationship with his father-in-law, Luo Ziwei thought that although he could not directly step into the position of real power control in Hanzhou, he could easily win a county.Unexpectedly, after coming to Hanzhou for a few months, he was only assigned to teach in the academy, and it was the simplest teaching content of literacy and reading.All of this made him feel quite unrecognized.

Pan Qifeng, the deputy director of civil affairs in Hanzhou, has never even passed the county examination, but he is already the second person in civil affairs, the chief official of one government, and the chief officials of several other counties, and he can't even interpret certain contents of poems and books accurately.Can they really be officials close to the people?
With the cheek to tell his daughter, Luo Ziwei would never do such a thing.Regarding the marriage between their daughter and Qi Tian, ​​Yue Zhang and Cao Xiong readily agreed after discussing it.He is also noncommittal about this.Now, everyone lives in Hanzhou, perhaps, for all of them, it might not be a bad thing.

"Father, that's science!" Luo Xinru said: "Science is to promote the development of other industries through countless small discoveries!"

science?industry?These words are all understandable, but why some... don't understand!Luo Ziwei stared blankly at his daughter, these things, could it be that Qi Tian was fooling his daughter.

Science, industry, of course, are not the words that Qi Tian fooled the little girl.Because it is necessary to study alcohol, gunpowder, and some coal chemical products, glass tools such as beakers and measuring cups are required.In Qitian's cognition, the manufacture of glass should be a very simple matter.

Isn't the glass component just silicon dioxide, which can be made by burning sand.But how to burn, how to design the glass kiln, what raw materials are needed, how high the temperature is needed, how to remove air bubbles, how to remove impurities, how to fire colorless or various colored glass paste, and how to blow the finished product, he Suddenly a little dazed.

Therefore, he had to dig out the "Heavenly Creation of Things" to find the answer, and asked Song Yingxing and many craftsmen to participate in the research.But after months of failed experiments, many artisans were discouraged.

Just when Qi Tian was preparing to use open clay pots as simple measuring cups and beakers, a few months ago, a dozen Portuguese craftsmen from Dili City were escorted from New Town Castle, and two of them could actually blow glass.This time, Hanzhou felt like a treasure.Immediately get these two people to Heishan City Industrial Research Institute to conduct trial production of glass.

Craftsmen fished a large number of plants from the sea, dried them and burned them into ashes to obtain impure soda (sodium carbonate salt).Then the soda is mixed with limestone and river sand and calcined. After the burned glass slurry is fully stirred to remove some air bubbles, it is blown into containers of various shapes with a blowpipe.After more than three months of continuous experimentation, it has been able to produce ugly utensils, although there are still many bubbles.However, this can barely be regarded as a relatively transparent glass container.

In this process, the most difficult thing is glass blowing, which is a very challenging technical work.It's not that you can get the shape you want by just blowing and blowing.This requires a lot of experiments, and it is possible to blow out a qualified shape only after accumulating enough experience.

Song Yingxing proposed that if it is possible to make some molds and what shapes of containers are needed, the shape of the molds manufactured in advance should be used as the base, and then blown on this basis, such as measuring cups, beakers, test tubes, distilling bottles, and even wine bottles. .

The wine glass that Qi Tian gave to his "little girlfriend" is an industrial glass product blown in batches by means of moulds.Several workshops, such as Jianye sweet wine factory and Jianye liquor factory, saw a large number of glass blowing, and also came up with the idea of ​​changing some containers from the previous clay pots and porcelain pots to wine bottles.

In fact, in order to please women, the best gift should be a clearly visible mirror.But the blown glass currently has a little more air bubbles.If it is made into a mirror surface, some protruding bubble eyes may not be able to show the beauty of a woman, but will produce some mirror distortion.

At present, according to the two Portuguese glassmakers, the best glasswork in Europe is in Venice.The various glass products they produced monopolized the entire Europe and the Middle East, and even the wealthy families of the princes of the Ming Dynasty had some Venetian glass products to show their luxury.

Not to mention that Hanzhou's current glass products are still in the rough production stage, even if they can be put on the market, they are not something that ordinary people can consume.What's more, the mainland of Hanzhou is still blocked by armed merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company, temporarily isolated from the Nanyang market.

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"Mr. Song, your book ("Tiangong Kaiwu") already has a description of metal alloys, that is, the statement of zinc and copper-zinc alloy (brass). It pointed out that two metals, copper and zinc, are directly fused And the method of obtaining brass can actually be applied to other similar metal alloys." Qi Tian said.

"After smelting certain alloy metals, they will exhibit higher strength and hardness than any single original metal. In the copper-iron mine near Kaiyuan City, there is a rare metal rich in it. Well, I call it manganese .If it can be extracted and added to steel, it can form a very hard metal, which we can call manganese steel. Its strength and hardness far exceed any metal we know so far, and it is also very tough.”

"Manganese?" Song Yingxing looked at Bi Maokang and Wang Zheng, but they both shook their heads and said they hadn't heard of it.

"What is the shape of this manganese metal?"

"Currently discovered manganese ore is massive, grape-like, stalactite-like, dendritic or soil-like aggregates with a smooth surface. Semi-metallic luster to dull. Color is dark gray to iron black. Streaks are light dark brown, opaque .brittle, smooth or shell-like fracture."

"What ratio does this manganese need to be added to steel?"

"Well, it needs to be tested bit by bit. Different amounts of participation may produce different characteristics."

"You plan to use this manganese-infused steel to make the spikes on the musket?" Bi Maokang asked.

"Not only can the spikes on the musket be manufactured, but also a number of production tools, molds, boring machine edges, drill bits and other processing tools can be manufactured." Qi Tian said.

"Qi Tian, ​​if you go to study utensil making, your future achievements will be as good as Chang Geng's (Song Yingxing)!" Bi Maokang exclaimed.

"Old Bi praised you absurdly, how dare you compare with Elder Song!" Qi Tian dared to compare with Song Yingxing, what he was good at was nothing more than the knowledge of the next few hundred years.

"When I was at his age, I was still obsessed with the Four Books and Five Classics. How could I know so many things of all kinds?" Song Yingxing said with a smile: "If he goes to study all kinds of things, he will become a master!"

Qi Tian even said that he was ashamed, if he hadn't learned civil engineering in his previous life, which involved metal manufacturing of some building materials, how could he dare to show off his knowledge in front of several learned old people.

In view of the feedback from the military government, the marines will face hand-to-hand combat several times when they go out to fight.For the convenience of movement, the Hanzhou soldiers were only equipped with a short knife.Therefore, when fighting the enemy, it is inevitable to suffer losses.Especially in the face of the attack of the enemy spearman, it seems a little passive.After all, among cold weapons, there is an inch-long and inch-strong reality.

The earliest bayonet appeared in 1640. The French officer Pisegu inserted a double-edged straight knife into the muzzle of a musket, which must be used as a hand-to-hand weapon for musketeers.

Later, in 1688, French Marshal Vauban improved the bayonet installation method and installed the bayonet outside the muzzle.This type of bayonet is called a sleeve bayonet.In this way, while the bayonet provides the self-defense capability for the musketeer, it also ensures the shooting ability of the musket.

Therefore, Qi Tianchang thought about equipping the musket with a bayonet.However, if the elongated bayonet is produced with the current steel products, it will become more brittle or even break after stabbing the object many times.

Of course, the easiest way is to equip each soldier with a few more bayonets on his body, which can be replaced at any time after they are broken.

However, the situation on the battlefield changes rapidly. Sometimes, if there is a delay of one second, countless soldiers will die at the hands of the enemy. Moreover, they are carrying multiple bayonets, which will also affect the convenience of soldiers' movement.

Therefore, he wondered whether it was possible to add chromium or manganese to the steel to increase the strength and toughness of the bayonet.Therefore, the statement about metal alloys was brought forward, hoping that the three "scientific experts" from Ming Dynasty would be able to inspire and produce suitable manganese steel bayonets and even manganese steel production tools.

(End of this chapter)