Late Ming Dynasty: Summoning players from Liaodong to support the Ming Dynasty

"Gongshu Ban! Engineers! I need something that can grind powder automatically!"

Tian Qianhe's shout, like a stone thrown into a calm pond, carried an urgent and undeniable force as it crashed into the smoky workshop in the west of the city.

Inside the workshop, the clanging and hammering sounds abruptly stopped.

Gongshu Ban's tall frame was bent over a half-person-high earthen furnace, his muscles bulging beneath his vest, which was covered in oil and iron filings. He was using a pair of iron tongs to painstakingly pull a piece of red-hot iron from the furnace fire, his face full of concentration.

Hearing Tian Qianhe's shout, he didn't even look up, only muttering an impatiently.

"Go find a mill to grind the flour, I'm busy here!"

No matter how high the potato yield, in his eyes, it couldn't compare to a good piece of steel. The "Steel Torrent" quest chain issued by General Chu Ze was the ultimate romance for this mechanical engineer.

However, he encountered a problem.

The best blacksmith's furnace in the city, even at its maximum capacity, could barely smelt small pieces of wrought iron; its efficiency was appallingly low. To smelt iron on a large scale and produce enough molten iron to arm an entire army was simply a pipe dream.

The air volume of the bellows is also far from sufficient.

Tian Qianhe paid no heed to his romantic gestures. She rushed to Gongshu Ban like a gust of wind, hands on her hips, her wheat-colored face displaying an unyielding determination.

"The hand-operated stone mill is too slow! A hundred thousand mouths in the city are waiting to be fed. We can't just eat potatoes every day, can we? If it can't be ground into flour, what will we eat?!"

"You need to eat to have the strength to fight! Only with the strength to fight can you protect Guangning! Don't you understand this principle?"

Gongshu Ban paused in his movements.

He finally raised his head, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face, which had been half-burnt off by the fire.

Tian Qianhe's words were simple and blunt, yet they hit the nail on the head.

Yes, no matter how powerful the Iron Legion is, they still need to fill their stomachs first.

"Automatic? And fast?" Gongshu Ban threw down the iron pliers in his hand, circled Tian Qianhe twice, and muttered to himself, "Hydraulic drive... gear transmission... centrifugal force... it can be done, but the problem comes full circle."

He shrugged, his face full of annoyance.

"The basic industries of this era are inadequate. Without enough iron, what am I supposed to use to make gears and drive shafts? Wood simply isn't strong enough!"

One needs iron to build a grinding mill, while the other needs to produce iron first.

This created a vicious cycle.

Just as the two were staring at each other, neither able to convince the other, a clear, cool yet excited voice came from the workshop entrance.

"What if I could provide a fuel that could increase the furnace fire temperature by more than 30%?"

Cheng Huaxue walked in.

Her tight-fitting shorts were covered in black powder, her long flaxen hair was casually tied up with a few strands falling across her face, but her eyes were surprisingly bright. In her hands she held a ceramic jar containing several dark, shiny stones.

"This is coke." Cheng Huaxue placed the pottery jar on a wooden table covered with blueprints, making a "bang" sound.

"It's made by dry distilling coal in the absence of air. It has a higher ignition point, a much higher calorific value than charcoal, and produces almost no smoke!"

Gongshu Ban's breathing became rapid instantly.

He grabbed a piece of coke and examined it closely. Its hard texture and porous structure spoke volumes about the powerful energy it contained.

"Great stuff! This is definitely great stuff!"

"Not enough."

Another voice rang out, and Zhou Keke, carrying a huge roll of blueprints, peeked out from behind Cheng Huaxue. Her pretty face was also covered in dust, but it couldn't hide the excitement she was feeling during a compulsive episode.

"The fuel problem is solved, but the stove itself is a sieve. This kind of earthen stove loses heat too much! The structure is also wrong! The position of the vent, the height of the stove body, and the volume of the furnace are all problematic!"

With a "whoosh," she spread the blueprints in her hand on the table. On them was a huge and strange cylindrical building drawn with charcoal pencil.

"Look, this is a real 'blast furnace'! The furnace body is built with refractory bricks and cement, which can withstand much higher temperatures! Charging is done from the top, and iron is tapped from the bottom, allowing for continuous production!"

"Also, high temperature alone isn't enough to remove impurities from molten iron. Cheng Huaxue, is the 'limestone slag-making method' you mentioned last time feasible?"

Cheng Huaxue immediately nodded: "Theoretically, it's entirely feasible! When limestone decomposes upon heating, the resulting calcium oxide reacts with the silicon dioxide in the iron ore to form slag, which floats on top of the molten iron, making it easy to separate!"

Gongshu Ban, Cheng Huaxue, and Zhou Keke.

Mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and civil engineering.

Three science and engineering enthusiasts from different fields, at this moment, their ideas collided because of a common goal.

"A water-powered bellows! This thing should work! Using the streams in the city, we can make a linkage structure that can blow air 24 hours a day!" Gongshu Ban slapped his thigh, his eyes gleaming with fervor.

"I'll handle the refractory brick formula! Mixing clay with a certain proportion of quartz sand and clinker can significantly improve the fire resistance limit!" Zhou Keke immediately added data to the blueprints.

"Leave the calculation of the coke and limestone ratio to me!" Cheng Huaxue also picked up a charcoal pencil.

Tian Qianhe stood aside, watching these three crazy engineering geeks scribble on the blueprints and spout a string of technical terms she couldn't understand. She was completely dumbfounded.

I... I just wanted a flour mill.

How did things turn out this way?

An industrial revolution that could be described as a game-changer was decided in this small workshop in an extremely hasty manner.

With Chu Ze's tacit approval and Ling Yun's full support, a huge construction site was quickly established in the south of Guangning City.

The players' enthusiasm was completely aroused. The entire city of Guangning was transformed into a huge factory serving the blast furnace, with people firing refractory bricks, mining limestone, and felling trees to make waterwheels.

Five days later.

In the south of the city, a bizarrely ugly monster, yet exuding a wild industrial vibe, rose from the ground.

It was built with cement designed by Zhou Keke and newly fired refractory bricks. It was about three zhang tall, like a thick chimney, pointing straight up to the sky.

Beside it was another, even larger mechanical monster.

The enormous waterwheel, propelled by the stream, creaked and groaned as a complex linkage and gear system drove four massive leather bellows, causing them to rhythmically rise and fall, compressing and retract.

"Inhale—exhale—exhale—exhale—"

The voice was deep and powerful, like a prehistoric beast fast asleep.

When Wang Erniu led his patrol team to this spot, they heard this eerie sound from afar and were so frightened that their souls almost flew away.

He drew his ring-pommel sword and cautiously approached. When he saw the enormous bellows that could open and close on its own without the need for human or animal power, his face, covered with a thick beard, instantly lost all color.

"A demon...a demon!"

His hand holding the knife was trembling, and he collapsed to the ground.

These "heavenly soldiers" not only know how to clean latrines, but they also create monsters!

Nobody paid him any attention at the construction site.

All the players' attention was focused on the towering blast furnace.

Gongshu Ban stood in front of the blast furnace, shouting loudly through a tin megaphone, directing the final preparations.

"Coke! Limestone! Iron ore! Load them in layers at a ratio of 3:1:5! Quickly!"

Cheng Huaxue held a simple thermometer and stared nervously at the observation port.

Zhou Keke and her engineering team conducted a final inspection of the furnace structure.

Everything is ready.

Gongshu Ban took a deep breath, climbed onto a tall wooden frame, and held a burning torch in his hand.

"ignition!"

He threw the torch with all his might into the charging port at the top of the blast furnace!

boom!

A wave of heat shot into the sky.

"Start the bellows!"

Gongshu Ban slid down from the wooden frame and roared at the waterwheel.

The player in charge of the sluice gate immediately pulled the huge lever, and the rushing stream crashed against the blades of the waterwheel without restraint.

"Creak—Boom! Creak—Boom!"

The roar of the hydraulic connecting rod bellows instantly increased several times, and the powerful airflow rushed into the bottom of the blast furnace through the thick ceramic pipes.

The blast furnace began to roar.

The temperature inside the furnace was rising steadily at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Observe the light emanating from the mouth, which changes from dark red to orange-red, and then to a dazzling golden yellow.

The entire blast furnace was trembling slightly, like a volcano that had been awakened and was about to erupt.

Everyone held their breath, staring intently at the taphole at the bottom of the furnace, which was sealed with mud.

Time passed by, second by second.

"The temperature is right!" Cheng Huaxue's scream pierced the tension in the room.

"Prepare to tap the iron!" Gongshu Ban's voice was hoarse. He grabbed a huge iron shovel that was two zhang long and led several of the strongest players to the iron tapping hole.

"open!"

With a loud shout, the group worked together and used an iron spike to smash open the mud seal that was blocking the way!

In an instant.

All sounds are silent.

All the noise was swallowed up by a beam of light.

A blazing, dazzling torrent of golden-red energy, imbued with the aura of destruction and rebirth, surged forth from the iron sluice gate!

That light illuminated the night sky, the city of Guangning, and every face contorted with fervor.

molten iron!

It's molten iron!

Gongshu Ban was the first to rush forward. Ignoring the intense heat that could melt anything, he used a long-handled iron ladle to scoop up a spoonful of molten iron from the flowing water and let it cool on the ground into a rough iron ingot.

Trembling, he picked up the still-warm iron ingot, raised it high, and with all his might, unleashed the first roar of an industrial pioneer at the entire city of Guangning, at the tens of thousands of enemy troops outside the city, and at this era.

"We did it! We did it! Wow, we've built a blast furnace for iron smelting in the late Ming Dynasty! From today onwards, Guangning will have plenty of weapons!"