Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

Yinchuan Post Station.

It was called a post station, but it was really just a courtyard surrounded by several rows of low mud-brick houses, with a lonely, peeling wooden sign at the entrance.

The earthen walls surrounding the courtyard were pitted and uneven from wind and rain erosion, and the withered grass on top of the walls swayed in the wind.

The courtyard was quite large, but the muddy ground was hardened by footsteps, and there were puddles of horse manure and sewage covered with a thin layer of ice.

The air was always filled with a mixture of horse odor, fermented hay, and cheap tobacco.

Lin Fan was left in a small, drafty shed next to the stable, where miscellaneous items were piled up.

Li Zicheng threw him a set of old post stationer's clothes that reeked of sweat and mildew, stiff and rough, along with a thin quilt so dirty that its color was unrecognizable.

"You'll be sleeping here from now on. The main job will be in the stables."

Li Zicheng pointed to the long row of simple stables outside, where more than a dozen post horses were tethered, most of them listless and with rough coats.

"Feeding, watering, cleaning manure, checking saddles and equipment. You have to get up before dawn and rest only after all the horses are settled at night. If you do well, you get a treat. If you slack off, you're fired."

The explanation was concise and to the point, without any unnecessary concern or explanation.

This is a naked contract of exchanging labor for food.

For the first few days, Lin Fan survived entirely on his survival instinct.

This body is too weak; every movement takes all of its strength.

Chopping hay, my arms are so sore I can't lift the chaff cutter anymore;

When carrying water, shaking it caused most of it to spill.

As he swept up horse manure, the strong ammonia smell made him dizzy and nauseous.

The other post station workers were mostly poor men recruited locally, or refugees like him. They didn't treat this new, thin "youngster" well and often ordered him around.

No one asked about his background, nor did anyone notice the occasional blank look in his eyes that seemed out of place with his surroundings.

Only Li Zicheng.

He didn't talk much, but his eyes always seemed to be looking around.

Seeing Lin Fan struggling to chop grass, he would come over, take the cleaver, and quickly chop up a pile, demonstrating the correct posture and method of applying force, then say, "Save your energy, you have a long life ahead of you."

Seeing Lin Fan staring blankly at the filth covering the stable floor while cleaning, he would kick a broken wooden stake and say, "Will it get clean if you just stand there? Get to work."

His tone was always flat, even somewhat cold and hard.

Lin Fan gradually learned to keep his head down, remain silent, and complete the assigned tasks as quickly as possible.

He observed this small post station, and the people there, especially Li Zicheng.

This future "rebel king" was at this moment just a tired and silent head of the post station, worrying about the overdue post station fees, fretting about the damaged saddles, and frowning about how to use the limited fodder to keep these skinny horses going for a few more days.

He reprimanded the lazy postman and whispered with passing merchants who were also emaciated, exchanging snippets of news about distant famines, extra levies, and troubles in some place.

His brows were always furrowed, and his gaze became particularly deep when he looked at the gray-yellow sky outside the post station.

At night, Lin Fan huddled in the drafty shed, wrapped tightly in the thin quilt, the cold still seeping in everywhere.

But compared to the despair of waiting to die by the roadside when I first crossed over, here there are at least four walls and a meager but relatively consistent source of food.

Despite the relentless exhaustion that drained his body day after day, the sliver of strength slowly returned to his body thanks to the support of those coarse foods.

After the initial days of confusion and numbness, the mind, belonging to another world, began to awaken and take root in this body, in this unfamiliar era, and tried to understand everything before it.

He saw the couriers laboriously cutting leather and repairing saddles with their worn-out iron knives;

They were sighing and lamenting over the broken cart shaft, trying to tie it up with rough hemp rope.

I saw the chipped iron pot in the kitchen and patched it up again and again.

His gaze swept over the simple tools and crude objects, but the corresponding material properties, processing principles, and improvement plans automatically surfaced in his mind, so clear they were almost blinding.

But this knowledge is useless at this moment.

He can't even fill his stomach, let alone change tools or materials? That's wishful thinking.

Until that afternoon.

The sky was overcast, with low-hanging, leaden clouds that looked like it was about to snow.

Lin Fan had finished his morning work and was inspecting a batch of saddles that had just been removed and were ready for maintenance, as instructed.

Most of these leather goods are old and worn, with dry and stiff leather, loose stitching, and rusty metal parts.

He picked up a pair of stirrups.

It feels heavy in your hand; it's made of pig iron.

The surface is rough, with burrs and sand holes left from casting, and fine cracks have appeared on the edges.

He subconsciously pinched the joint with his fingernail, then carefully examined the connection of the stirrup ring in the dim light.

Typical brittle fracture pattern, stress concentration point.

Improper temperature control during forging resulted in numerous impurities, and subsequent heat treatment was almost entirely neglected.

These stirrups are fine for normal use, but they are prone to breaking at their weak points when subjected to severe impacts or long-term load-bearing fatigue.

On the battlefield, what does a broken stirrup mean? It means falling from the horse, which usually results in death or serious injury.

"Pig iron has many impurities and coarse grains... If medium carbon steel is used, repeated forging removes impurities, refines the grains, and then proper quenching and tempering can increase toughness and strength several times over..."

He murmured to himself, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the rough crack, his mind quickly sketching out possible improvement procedures:

Ore beneficiation, traditional blast furnace or crucible steelmaking, controlling carbon content, appropriate forging ratio, selection of quenching media, and control of tempering temperature...

"What are you muttering about?"

A voice suddenly rang out beside him. It wasn't loud, but it startled Lin Fan, who was immersed in the world of materials. He almost dropped the rusty stirrup in his hand.

He raised his head.

Li Zicheng stood by the pillar of the stable, having arrived at some unknown time.

He had an old towel draped over his shoulder and a pitchfork in his hand, as if he had just finished another task.

His face remained expressionless, still bearing the calm demeanor honed by the trials of life. But his small eyes were fixed on the stirrups in Lin Fan's hand, before slowly moving to Lin Fan's face.

That gaze held scrutiny, a hint of barely perceptible inquiry, and the sensitivity unique to those who "know their stuff," typical of someone who deals with all sorts of tools and livestock year-round.

The wind blew through the dilapidated stable, swirling up a few strands of dry grass.

In the stable, a skinny horse snorted impatiently and stomped its hooves on the ground.

Lin Fan's heart skipped a beat under his tattered jacket, and his fingers gripping the cold iron stirrups tightened slightly.

The rough, rusted texture feels incredibly realistic.

He opened his mouth, his throat feeling dry, the terms about grains, quenching, and stress concentration swirling on his tongue, only to meet the other person's gaze, calm as a deep pool.

"I..." He lowered his eyes, avoiding Li Zicheng's gaze, his voice low and hoarse, carrying the inherent weakness of his body, a result of long-term hunger and fear.

"I mean... this stirrup looks flimsy, like... it was cast directly from pig iron. It'll become brittle when it cools and break easily."