Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 61 Weird Technology Tree

Orville had some understanding of the life experience of this famous Byzantine general. He was not a brilliant general from the beginning, but rather a general who became more courageous and indomitable as the battles went on. The level of the first few battles he commanded were relatively average, and it was the loyal emperor who gave him opportunities again and again to accumulate experience.

It is not easy to learn and improve from experience. Belisarius can indeed be called "the last Roman".

Orwell was not sure whether this was a coincidence or a real person. The historical "Flavius ​​Belisarius" was a local prominent family in Thrace, Greece. This Flavius ​​did come from the Flavian dynasty founded by Vespa, but it was more of a title, like "Caesar" and "Augustus". The reason was that the later Roman Emperor Constantine "claimed" that he was a descendant of the Flavian dynasty, so he added Flavius ​​to his name. Later, the word "Flavius" became an honorary title, and many people had it.

But in this time and space, it seems that the other party's surname is really Flavius. This surname was a common surname in the Sabine region in the past. They may not be related by blood, but they are fellow countrymen after all, which is closer than strangers.

Orville was conflicted for a while, but finally decided not to worry about it. Regardless of whether the other party was capable or not, he had a good personality and was a talented person.

Vespa must have seen this point and introduced Belisarius to him. Unlike Tia, Orville was not good at leading troops in battle and really needed someone like this to assist him.

He continued to ask: "Is there a blacksmith shop or weapons factory around here? Can you take me to have a look?"

"No problem, please come with me."
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As we all know, there are certain differences between Eastern and Western civilizations. The technological trees of the two sides are different, and in many aspects, Eastern civilization is indeed ahead of Western civilization, such as the metallurgical technology that Orville thinks is very important.

Logically speaking, Europe at that time only had iron-smelting technology, which was to build a furnace and put iron ore into it. After the iron ore was heated, the furnace was dismantled and the iron ore was taken out.

This method is not only time-consuming and laborious, but the furnace temperature cannot reach the melting point of iron ore, so it can only produce sponge-like porous solid iron blocks, but not molten iron. There are many impurities in it, and it is very troublesome to remove the impurities. This inefficient technology is called block ironmaking.

Eastern civilizations developed another technology called blast furnace ironmaking or pig iron smelting, in which the furnace temperature reaches the melting point of the iron ore, melting it into molten iron, and one furnace can melt a large amount of iron.

This ironmaking technology has significant advantages in both output and average quality. This technology was invented by Orientals at the latest in the late Spring and Autumn Period in the sixth century BC. As far as Orwell knows, the earliest blast furnace in Europe only appeared in Sweden around the 12th century. There is a gap of nearly two thousand years between the two, which is indeed far ahead.

Knowing that there were certain technological differences between the East and the West, Orville's eyes almost popped out when he saw the super-large blast furnace in front of him.

The diameter of these blast furnaces is about three or four meters, and the height can reach six or seven meters. The overall shape is oval, with four tuyere and what looks like complete blasting equipment blowing air, which is pulled by slaves or donkeys and horses.

In addition, there are all the necessary things such as iron-making furnace, mold warehouse, water pool, anvil, grindstone, etc. This is a very complete metallurgical base, covering a large area. A rough glance shows that it is about 200,000 to 300,000 square meters.

As a relative of the emperor, such a misbehavior would indeed damage the dignity of the imperial family. He tried his best to correct his mentality and asked casually, "How is the output here?" The accompanying craftsman replied respectfully, "Each blast furnace produces about 3000 pounds of iron (Roman pounds, about one ton) each time. There are more than blast furnaces here that can maintain work, but they are not fully opened at ordinary times. There are about to furnaces every day. They will work overtime during wars."

Putting aside any possible exaggeration in the other party's words, the annual iron production was about several thousand tons, which was already a very high level in ancient times.

"I haven't seen anything like this in the Eastern Provinces. Is this technology developed by Rome itself?"

"This is an oracle from Vulcan (Hephaestus), the god of forging. We have improved it over the course of hundreds of years and it has become what it is today."

The other party told Orville a history mixed with mythology, and Orville roughly understood the development of this world.

Obviously, the history of human civilization in this world is longer, and the gods at least once existed. They enabled humans to master more skills through oracles or various messengers, so the productivity level of this world is much higher than historical facts, and the development of some areas is more thorough.

For example, Gaul, Britain, Germany and other places were originally in a mostly undeveloped state in the 1st century, but now they have been basically developed and have a larger population.

There were more "gifted" people like Tia in ancient times, but their numbers have been decreasing in recent hundreds of years, and the gods haven't issued an oracle for hundreds of years. It seems that Orville is in a relatively "end of the law era".

The composition of talents is actually diverse, and the mainstream of each nation is different. For example, Tia can enhance her physical fitness while stabilizing the emotions of people around her, which is equivalent to adding a morale buff on the battlefield. This talent is more common in Rome and is considered to be a gift from the god of war Mars (Ares), the goddess of wisdom Minerva (Athena), or a god in ancient Greek mythology who is in charge of war and power.

In addition, there are various more niche talents, such as healing, night vision, sharp vision, photographic memory, extraordinary speed, natural proficiency in musical instruments, great strength, thick skin and flesh, the natural ability to ride horses and chariots, poisonous blood, the ability to talk to animal friends, the ability to hit the target in every shot, etc., highlighting the diversity, these talents are all considered gifts from the gods.

The identification of these gifted people is more metaphysical. Of course, there is no dispute about those who can be seen as non-human at a glance, but some talents are not so outstanding, which gives some people room to manipulate. For example, people with profound knowledge and multilingual skills claim that they are favored by Mnemosyne, excellent blacksmiths claim that they are blessed by Vulcan, and noble children who buy paintings and poems claim that they are liked by the nine Muses and Apollo. In short, chaos is frequent and order is disrupted.

It is also because of this that the original gifted people enjoyed privileges and subsidies, but now they have none of these. They only have citizenship rights and corresponding citizen obligations, and the qualification certification requires certification by multiple senators and judges. This seems to have finally solved the chaos.

PS. Stacked armor. Blast furnace ironmaking is a Chinese technology in ancient times. The plot needs to be patched up. The explanation is relatively clear. I think this method is more reasonable than pure fictional magic. I don’t have the ability to make up a new technology out of thin air, so the reference material is "History of the Development of Ancient Chinese Iron Smelting Technology". Please don’t blame me. If there are any mistakes in the technical issues, please comment and I will correct them if I see them.

(End of this chapter)