Emperor Sui Yang

Chapter 459 New Blast Furnace
Is the smelting technology of the Sui Dynasty really as backward as what Yang Ming saw in Shimen Village?
No, far from it.

In fact, the craftsmanship of the Sui Dynasty was passed down to the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The cast iron technology and carbon steelmaking technology have matured, and it is completely possible to produce high-quality goods.

The process that Yang Ming saw yesterday, after repeatedly forging the blade, squeezes out the impurities in it to improve the texture of the blade, and then repeatedly throws it into the charcoal fire to heat, so that carbon elements can penetrate into the blade body and increase its hardness. This is called carbon refining. steel.

Carbon steel is currently the most common weapon material in the Sui Army, and folk tools and equipment are also made of carbon steel.

The cast iron technology is to start a blast furnace and pour molten iron into a mold. Because cast iron is hard and brittle, it cannot be forged, so it can only be made into castings and connecting parts.

So what is the real boutique?

It is the combination of cast iron technology and carbon steelmaking technology, and the fusion of pig iron and wrought iron. This is pouring steel.

It is impossible to mass-produce this thing. A real Guangang sword is extremely labor-intensive, and it can't be made in less than ten days and half a month.

Most of the real sharp weapons are for nobles, even if they are used as funeral objects, they must be high-quality goods, but it is idiotic for ordinary soldiers to want to own a precious sword made of poured steel.

Therefore, more than half of the current Wenxi smelting kiln produces carbon steel with the most backward technology.

Peizhuang, next door to Shimen Village, is a blast furnace built, and the molten iron is cast iron. The cast iron is poured into the wrought iron after firing, and the two are fused to form high-carbon steel. This is a fine product.

The blast furnace that Dugu Huai'en set up in Peizhuang was specially used to make high-quality goods. After so long, there were only about a hundred pieces of iron-filled weapons and about twenty pairs of armor in total.

He is treating this place as a testing ground, he only seeks refinement, not quantity.

But what the army lacks right now is quantity, and the gap is very huge.

After Yang Ming inspected several villages one after another, he found that going on like this was not an option. Except for Pei Zhuang who was burning pig iron in a blast furnace, the other kilns were burning carbon to make steel. The weapons made of these things were very easy to wear and tear. Yes, basically, after cutting off a few sets of armor, the blade will soon be unbearable. You can't let the soldiers kill the enemy empty-handed, right?

So Yang Ming planned to open up a new site to integrate all the processes to form a huge production line.

To set up a factory building, you must first select a site, and there must be water around the factory site, because water power is needed.

Peizhuang is the best place. Seven or eight miles away from Zhuangzi is the Sushui River, a tributary of the Yellow River.

So Yang Ming led his people to the Sushui River to open up a new site.

After the new site is selected, it is to draw the blueprint of the factory building, which requires the participation of all major craftsmen.

There are 11 craftsmen from the Taifu Temple School here, more than 30 people under Dugu Huai'en, and 20 people from the Pei family, forming the Wenxi smelting expert group.

These people are senior craftsmen with rich experience, exquisite craftsmanship and proficiency in smelting technology.

The ancient master craftsmen all had apprentices, and their apprentices were either their own children and grandchildren, or the juniors of relatives and friends, and generally they would not accept outsiders.

After all, this is the craftsmanship of eating, and if the relationship is not in place, it will not be passed on.

Among the more than 60 senior craftsmen, there are four to five hundred apprentices alone, and these people are treasures.

Yang Ming summoned all these craftsmen to discuss the start of construction of the factory in the lobby of Wenxi County Government.

Until now, basically all the craftsmen are full of complaints against Yang Ming, thinking that the prince is playing the piano indiscriminately. You have only been here for a few days, and you plan to abolish all the current kilns and start a new one. You are messing with us play?

Dugu Huai'en kept nagging, complaining in a strange way, but after being reprimanded by Yang Ming, he shut up with dissatisfaction.

When Yang Ming squatted down and began to draw left and right on a blank oil paper laid out in the lobby, everyone present knew that things were not easy.

Yun Dingxing was also full of complaints at first, but he didn't dare to say it out. After all, the refining kiln belongs to someone else, and he is the prince. Who am I to give advice?

Right now, he is staring at the blueprint on the ground intently, without blinking his eyes.

Yang Ming first simply drew the first step, then raised his head and explained to everyone:

"First of all, we need to open up a flat area outside the refinery to accumulate, screen, and crush ore, and then set up more than ten low furnaces next to it to burn refined iron."

Then, Yang Ming pointed to a position on the blueprint and said: "This place needs to build a blast furnace to turn refined iron into water. The material of our current blast furnace is not good, and it is easy to collapse if the temperature is not properly controlled. You should collect some thrush stones as soon as possible. Silica, pine oil, kerosene, the more the better, among them kerosene, I will say hello to Yongfu Gong (Dou Qing) and ask him to allocate some, other things are not difficult to find, and I just need to use these things to transform the furnace body.”

The smelting furnace must be resistant to high temperatures to produce molten iron. The furnace body cannot withstand the temperature and collapses because of material problems. In the blast furnaces of the Sui Dynasty, the furnace body often collapsed.

The purpose of starting the blast furnace is to provide wind power. As long as the oxygen supply is sufficient, the fire can be boosted, and the temperature will naturally rise.

It is also necessary to improve the blower equipment, which helps to raise the temperature quickly.

He Yan of Taifu Temple was stunned and said:
"Dare to ask the prince, where did you get your idea?"

Yang Ming said: "Don't ask too many questions, collect the materials immediately according to what I said."

He Yan knew that if people refused to tell, he would not be able to find out by asking, so he nodded and ordered his subordinates to start working on the materials issued by the crown prince immediately.

He Yan is the younger brother of He Chou, the Prime Minister of Taifu Temple, and now he is the master smelter of Taifu Temple. The two brothers, one is proficient in smelting and the other is proficient in firing porcelain. It seems that they are not the same thing, but in fact there is not much difference. Play with fire like a cook with salt.

These materials are relatively easy to find. Among them, thrushstone is graphite. In ancient times, this thing was a kind of pigment used by women to thrush eyebrows. Wealthy families have it.

Silica is easier to find, that is, quartz sandstone, which is found in Zhongtiao Mountain, and pine oil is also easy to find. Zhongtiao Mountain is full of pine trees.

That is, kerosene is a strategic material and has to be allocated from Weiwei Temple. However, there must be some stocks in the treasury of Hedong, and it must be approved by Weiwei Temple before it can be moved. You can ask Dou Qing to take things out.

Next, Yang Ming began to explain the transformation of the blast furnace.

The height and width of the smelting furnace are all particular.

First of all, the height determines the uniformity of heating of the ore in the furnace. If it is too high, the iron ore below has been melted, but there is no movement above.

The width is to increase or decrease the upward space of the wind force, so that the ore accumulated above the middle section of the furnace can receive high temperature and promote the smelting process.

Another advantage of the blast furnace is the large volume of shipments.

Among the materials listed by Yang Ming, both thrush and silica need to be fired. The temperature of the stone is secondary. As long as the firing time is long enough, it can be turned into ash.

Therefore, it is necessary to add a few more ash furnaces. First, burn the stones, and after the ashes and silica stones have cooled, pour kerosene and pine oil into them and mix them evenly. As for the ratio, Yang Ming doesn't know, so he can only let They figured it out.

Kerosene and pine oil are binders, the main material is thrush stone, and the auxiliary material is silica.

The last step is to mix refractory clay, which is the main material of the current furnace body, that is, bauxite, which is called bauxite in the Sui Dynasty.

When He Yan saw this step, he knew that the prince was not joking. This nima is clearly an unknown craft?Where did the prince learn it?
Yang Ming put down the pen in his hand, and said: "The new kiln still needs to be developed slowly, let's build the blast furnace first."

Yun Dingxing is also excited now, because he knows that the prince is not the kind of person who messes around, so in the next few days, he made people speed up the speed of collecting materials, and five days later, he personally Under the command, create a new type of blast furnace.

According to Yang Ming's method, Yun Dingxing and his staff determined the ratio after several attempts, then mixed the ashes made of thrushstone and silica with kerosene and pine oil, and then mixed in a large amount of bauxite to start shaping the stone slurry. new furnace.

Seven days later, the blast furnace was up, 11 meters high and five meters wide.

The new blast furnace looks dry on the outside, but not dry on the inside, so it is necessary to heat the furnace body with a low fire first, so that the furnace body can adapt to the temperature of the fire.

After three days of baking, it's time to test the oven.

First add a large amount of chestnut charcoal, then add fine iron ore, and then use the huge blower modified by Yun Dingxing to blow air.

The main test this time is the high temperature resistance of the furnace body, to see how high the temperature the newly built blast furnace can withstand.

In just one hour, the temperature of the furnace body has risen rapidly. As time goes by, the heat wave can be felt from a distance of more than ten meters.

Yang Ming's method is actually a very simple graphite crucible, which is limited by the current conditions, so the overall material of the furnace is definitely not good enough, but compared to the original furnaces, I don't know how many times stronger it is.

Testing the furnace is a very dangerous thing. After all, it is a new furnace. No one knows how well it can withstand high temperatures, and Yang Ming has no idea.

For such a large furnace, there are fire watchers on the hearth set up next to it, and the vent in the middle of the furnace body is responsible for the fire, that is, to prevent the wind from accumulating on the bottom of the furnace, it needs to be poked left and right with an iron rod. There are seventeen or eighteen people operating the blower to send fire below.

Once the furnace body collapses, these people's lives are in danger.

Except for these people, the others are far away, for fear that if the collapse happens, and a little spark splashes on them, they will not be able to bear it.

Time passed little by little until the night was full of stars.

On the high platform in the distance, a craftsman shouted excitedly towards the crowd:

"It's turned into water, it's turned into water."

At this point, at least it proves that the blast furnace manufactured by the prince's method is no less heat-resistant than the original blast furnace, and it seems that it can be stopped.

But Yun Dingxing was not sure, what he wanted to test was how high the temperature this furnace could withstand.

According to his past experience, after the blast furnace melts water, it is necessary to stop the blast, start the furnace immediately, and draw molten iron out to lower the temperature of the furnace body and prevent it from collapsing.

"Don't stop, keep blowing the wind," Yun Dingxing took the risk and stepped forward alone, circling around to observe the furnace at close range. Judging from the fact that the surface of the furnace body is not red, it should be able to continue to withstand the high temperature.

Experienced craftsmen also saw that the fire was coming, and they ventured forward to watch the furnace body.

Timid people can't do technical work, this is the case in ancient and modern times.

After a long time, the craftsmen on the high platform were dried up with sweat as soon as they broke out, and they could hardly bear it anymore.

Yun Dingxing wanted to continue, but Yang Ming stopped him. He didn't want to cause death, so he said:
"Let's turn on the stove."

Next, several craftsmen opened the bottom of the furnace, and a puddle of boiling hot water bubbled out and flowed into the reservoir that had been dug at the bottom.

Yun Dingxing was in a mess, his old face was roasted like a monkey's butt, he trotted all the way back, knelt down to Yang Ming, wept with joy:
"It's done, the prince's method is so ingenious, this skill must be with the prince, and it will last forever for future generations to admire and worship."

This flattery, I just modified the blast furnace, and it will be famous forever?Are you out of words?What other adjectives can you use for what I'm going to do next?
Dugu Huai'en stood there blankly, staring at the molten iron, in a daze. After a long while, he sighed a long time, damn it, he actually understands better than me?
All the craftsmen present were full of suspicion at the moment, and secretly looked at Yang Ming from time to time. Could it be that the palace really had some hidden secrets of smelting techniques?

Otherwise, how would the prince know how to use these materials to make blast furnaces?

But right now, no one suspects that the prince is a fool. Everyone has been convinced, and then he will do whatever he asks. He will definitely not regard Yang Ming as a layman anymore. He is clearly an expert.

Yang Ming looked around, the new site was still laying the ground and laying a solid foundation, and within ten days and a half a month, the building could not be built.

So he took Yun Dingxing back to Wenxi County, planning to think carefully about what to do next.

Dugu Huai'en now regards Yang Ming as an idol. If people don't call him, he will follow him. He plans to learn from a teacher, or call him a stealer.

Wenxi's county government office has been completely vacated. The county magistrate and all officials work in the county magistrate's home, and his county government office has been requisitioned by Yang Ming.

In the county hall, Yang Ming frowned and said:

"The time is still too long. It took a whole day to burn molten iron with charcoal. This is due to insufficient firepower. We should use coal instead."

Yun Dingxing frowned and said, "There are many impurities in the coal, which may contaminate the material of molten iron."

Yang Ming said: "White coal (anthracite) is used, and it is not used in the blast furnace, but in the low furnace for firing miscellaneous ore to obtain its refined iron ore. The purer the refined iron from the low furnace, the longer the firing time of the blast furnace will be. greatly shortened."

After listening, Yun Dingxing frowned thoughtfully for a while, then nodded solemnly and said: "You can try it, I have opened my eyes today, how to build the kiln in the future, only the prince's orders will be followed."

"What? Only listen to me in the future?" Yang Ming asked.

Yun Dingxing was taken aback, and hurriedly said: "No, no, in the past, now, and in the future, the crown prince will always follow the lead."

　My son no longer has a fever, but he slept for several consecutive nights and snored, breathing with his mouth open, and his nose was airtight. The doctor said it was adenoid hypertrophy.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)