I was the emperor in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 270 Co-organizing the Royal Iron Works

Li Tian ignored the shock of the few people, drank tea leisurely, and said lightly,
"You don't have to worry about what I want to use these fine steels for, Third Madam, just give me a happy word, this order, are you going to accept it, or not!"

The third lady's expression changed in a short time.

At last he couldn't help but sigh,
"Forgive me, Mr. Li, the Chen family may not be able to accept such an astonishing order."

Li Tian seemed to have known that she would react this way.

If you say [-] catties of iron, Chen Ji can still refine it within half a year with full power.

But what is fine steel? It needs to be hammered and quenched repeatedly by a master craftsman, and it takes half a month or even a month to forge it.

And a master craftsman can at most smelt 1000 to [-] catties of refined steel in a month, and more than [-] master craftsmen have to forge around the clock to achieve [-] catties.

But how many master craftsmen can master this kind of craftsmanship in the whole world? 1000 people 2000 people?
If all the craftsmen in the world were gathered together, it might be possible to smelt so much fine steel within half a year or a year.

But if it is put in Chen Ji, there are less than [-] master craftsmen with such skills here, even if they are given ten years, it is estimated that there is no way to achieve it.

Even if the price of fine steel is high, far exceeding that of ordinary iron, the third wife can only reluctantly give up this attractive list and there is no other possibility.

But since Li Tian dared to speak, he naturally had something to rely on.

The emperor seldom talks nonsense, and so does Li Tian.

When he came, when he saw the blast furnaces standing in the front yard of Chen Ji, this kind of idea had already popped up.

Regardless of the structure or the structure of the bellows, those blast furnaces almost touched the edge of the steelmaking blast furnace during the explosion of European steel production after the [-]th century.

It shouldn't be too difficult to refine the so-called fine steel in this era with a little modification.

If you want to practice steel, you must first understand what steel is.

Steel is actually iron, but due to the amount of magazines in it, the hardness and toughness displayed are different.

Although Li Tian doesn't know how to make steel, he has heard of it more or less. The quality of steel is actually related to the amount of carbon contained in it.

Not only Li Tian understood this truth, but the craftsmen at this time also understood this truth.

It's just that they don't quite understand the principle at this time, they just know that adding carbon to wrought iron can make the iron harder.

After years of exploration, the craftsmen of this era have basically mastered the method of making steel through repeated forging to infiltrate carbon into iron.

It's just that this purely manual method is obviously too inefficient compared to the various steelmaking methods that were born in later generations.

Li Tian hadn't thought of a better steelmaking method yet.

But he does know a method that can effectively improve the efficiency of forging carburized steelmaking.

That is a forging hammer driven by water.

In fact, at this time in the Ming Dynasty, the technology mastered was mature enough for how to make iron. Compared with the terrible output of later generations, the worst estimate is the efficiency.

As long as Li Tian can introduce the forging hammer into the process of forging steel, there will be no problem at all to produce [-] jin of steel within half a year.

Seeing that the third lady gave up just like that, Li Tian knew the time had come.

He leaned close to her and said in a low voice,
"Third Madam, if I have a way to greatly improve the efficiency of steelmaking, I wonder if San Madam is willing to cooperate with me."

The third lady was taken aback when she heard the words, and then blurted out,

"What method? How much efficiency can be improved!"

With a laugh, Li Tian gently shook his fan twice pretending to be elegant, and said very calmly,
"I can't tell you what the method is, but I can guarantee that if Chen Ji adopts my method, even an ordinary craftsman can forge more than five times the steel in a month."

How quick is the third lady's mind.

After a simple estimate, at this time a master craftsman can forge at most fifty catties of steel in a month.

If what Li Tian said is not a lie, thirty master craftsmen plus seventy craftsmen, one hundred people can forge twenty-five thousand catties of steel in one month.

Fifty thousand catties of steel can be smelted in just two months?

This statistic is so scary that the third lady doesn't believe it at all.

But she can't directly refute Li Tian.

He said with a faint smile,
"Young Master Li must be joking. Even if Chen Ji works hard, he can only get [-] catties of ordinary iron in a month."

"The so-called three catties of iron can produce one catty of steel. Even if the son's method can really do it, Chen Ji's iron material is not enough, so it is still..."

The third lady has tried her best to reject Li Tian's proposal in a tactful way.

How could Li Tian fail to hear her polite refusal, but instead of giving up, he decided to show his cards with her.

So he picked up the pen and paper on the table and started writing and drawing.

Not long after, a simple structural diagram of a waterwheel driving a bearing and the bearing driving a forging hammer appeared in front of everyone.

When he finished painting, not only Jiang Bao, Wang Fu and others could not help but surround him curiously.

Even the third lady leaned forward slightly to find out what kind of medicine was sold in Li Tian's gourd.

Li Tian simply took pictures of the drawings directly on the table so that she could see them more clearly.

At first, she didn't quite understand what this thing was.

But seeing the back, her face gradually became serious.

And Li Tian took the opportunity to explain to her,

"This thing is called a hydrodynamic forging hammer.

There are no other benefits, the only advantage is that you can swing the hammer non-stop for twelve hours. "

Hearing this sentence, not only the intelligent third wife understood, but even Jiang Bao and Wang Fu, two laymen, also understood.

The third lady couldn't help but gasped, and secretly calculated in her heart,
"If one person only works four hours a day, such a forging hammer alone can be equivalent to four craftsmen.

Moreover, no matter how strong an ordinary person is, it is impossible for an ordinary person to continuously use the hammer for four hours. There is always a time to rest.

Calculated in this way, the efficiency of the forging hammer can be further improved, which is said to be five times higher than that of ordinary people, but in fact, it is said to be less. "

In the end, she couldn't help covering her mouth lightly, and whispered softly,

"No wonder he said that one person is worth five people. With this thing, let alone five people, there may be more than seven or eight."

Seeing that she was stunned by his forging hammer, Li Tian smiled slightly and said at the right time,

"How about it, Third Madam, the thing I showed you is not bad at all!"

The third lady was probably overwhelmed by the profits this thing could generate, so she blurted out without thinking,

"Not only is it passable, it's not an exaggeration to describe it as supernatural workmanship!"

(End of this chapter)