Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

On the fifth day, the team finally shook off their pursuers.

In a secluded valley, Li Zicheng ordered his troops to set up camp.

After counting the number of people, the team of two thousand people had dwindled to less than one thousand five hundred.

Some went missing, some died in battle, some were captured after falling behind, and some took the opportunity to escape.

Lin Fan's team of craftsmen also lost two people—two apprentices who were killed by government troops while covering the rear.

"Write down their names," Lin Fan said to Han Jinhu.

Han Jinhu was taken aback: "Why do you need to remember names?"

"Once we've settled down, we'll send compensation to their families."

"They...are all alone, without family."

Lin Fan fell silent.

Then he said, "Then write it down. At least we'll remember."

Han Jinhu nodded, took out a piece of cloth from his pocket, and wrote two names crookedly with charcoal.

---

Ziwu Ridge.

This is a more desolate and rugged mountainous area than Bao'an Valley.

It is a remote place frequented by humans and wild animals.

But precisely because of this, the government troops dared not venture too deep.

Li Zicheng decided to rest here.

Lin Fan led the craftsmen to rebuild the blacksmith shop.

The scale is smaller than before—there aren't enough people or enough materials, so we have to make do with what we have.

But the fire quickly reignited, and the hammering sounded again.

In this desolate wilderness, this sound is hope.

---

One night, Gu Jun'en found Lin Fan.

"Master Lin, the general wants to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"You can build cannons, but can you build... cannons that can shoot even farther?"

Lin Fan remained silent for a while.

"Mr. Gu, building cannons isn't just a matter of craftsmanship. It requires better iron, better furnaces, and better gunpowder. With our current resources, we can only build small cannons with a range of only two or three hundred paces at most. To fire farther, we need..."

He paused.

"What do you need?"

"We need steel," Lin Fan said. "Real steel."

steel.

In Lin Fan's mind, this word represents another era.

That was the cornerstone of the Industrial Revolution and the framework of modern civilization.

In this era, the best steel was "Damascus steel" or "high-strength steel".

But those are all for swords and knives.

To build cannons, a different kind of steel is needed—high-strength steel that can withstand enormous chamber pressure without bursting.

Lin Fan understood the principle.

Crucible steelmaking.

Pig iron is placed in a sealed crucible and heated at high temperature to melt it into molten steel.

During this process, impurities in the iron material are removed, and the carbon content is adjusted.

The final product is steel with uniform composition and excellent performance.

Knowing the principle and actually doing it are two different things.

What material is the crucible made of?

How to achieve a sufficiently high temperature?

How to control the composition of molten steel?

Every problem is a huge challenge.

But Lin Fan decided to give it a try.

---

What he needs first is a crucible.

The crucible must be able to withstand extremely high temperatures without cracking or melting during the heating process.

Lin Fan thought of graphite.

Graphite is resistant to high temperatures and has stable chemical properties, making it an ideal material for making crucibles.

Is there any graphite in the Ziwuling mountain area?

He led a few craftsmen and searched in the mountains for three days.

On a bare rock face, he discovered a layer of black, metallic-looking minerals.

It is graphite.

Although it is not of high quality and contains a lot of impurities, it is indeed graphite.

Lin Fan was overjoyed.

He had a batch of graphite ore mined, crushed, ground into powder, mixed with clay and water, shaped into crucibles, and then fired in a kiln at high temperature.

The first batch of crucibles all cracked during the firing process.

Lin Fan was not discouraged.

He continued to improve the recipe and firing process.

The second batch, the third batch.

Finally, he succeeded.

---

Next up is the stove.

Steelmaking requires higher temperatures than blacksmithing.

Ordinary charcoal stoves are not enough; a stove that can blow in a large amount of air and improve combustion efficiency is needed.

Lin Fan designed a "blast furnace" - built of stone and clay, with a furnace body as high as ten feet and a tuyer at the bottom, into which air can be blown in using bellows.

He found a place with a stream in the valley and used water power to drive a huge wooden waterwheel.

The water turbine drives the bellows, continuously blowing air into the blast furnace.

This is the most advanced blower method he could achieve in this era.

After the blast furnace was built, Lin Fan began to test it.

The first time, the temperature was not high enough, and the iron did not melt completely.

He improved the furnace structure, increased the furnace height, and improved the blower system.

The second time, the temperature was right, but the crucible broke in the furnace, and molten steel spilled all over the floor.

He improved the quality of the crucible and increased its thickness.

The third time, the crucible did not break, and the molten steel was successfully melted.

However, the composition of molten steel cannot be controlled—if the carbon content is too high, it becomes pig iron; if the carbon content is too low, it becomes wrought iron.

Lin Fan knew that what he needed was medium carbon steel—with a carbon content between 0.5% and 1.5%.

How to control it?

He didn't have modern testing equipment and could only rely on experience.

He recorded the raw material ratio, heating time, and cooling rate for each experiment, and observed the color, fracture surface, and hardness of the finished product, gradually figuring out the patterns.

Once, twice, three times...

Ten times, twenty times, thirty times...

I failed countless times.

---

The forty-seventh test.

Lin Fan used a new raw material ratio—three parts pig iron and one part wrought iron, mixed together and put into a crucible.

The heating time is also longer than before, allowing the iron to melt and mix fully.

After it cooled, he opened the crucible.

Inside was a piece of silvery-white metal.

The surface is smooth, and the fracture surface is a fine gray color, shimmering with a silk-like luster.

Lin Fan tapped the hammer, producing a clear and resonant sound.

He then tested the hardness with a file; it was softer than pig iron but harder than wrought iron—just right.

"This is..." Han Jinhu's eyes widened.

"Steel," Lin Fan said, his voice trembling, "real steel."

He picked up the piece of steel and felt its weight and texture.

This was the first time in his two lifetimes that he had created real steel with his own hands.

In this era, in this desolate wilderness, he used the most primitive methods to achieve the leap from iron to steel.

Although the output was pitifully low and the quality was far inferior to that of industrial steel in later generations, it was still steel.

Real steel.

---

When the news reached Li Zicheng, he came to investigate in person.

Lin Fan handed him the piece of steel.

Li Zicheng took the steel, examined it over and over, then drew his own sword and slashed it hard.

Ding--!

Sparks flew everywhere.

The blade of the waist knife has a small chip.

The steel piece only had a faint white mark on it.

"Excellent steel!" Li Zicheng's eyes lit up. "Master Lin, can this steel be used to make cannons?"

"Yes, we can," Lin Fan said, "but the yield is too low. It takes three days to smelt a furnace of steel, and we can only get this small piece. To build a cannon, we need dozens of pieces of this steel. Moreover, we also need to solve the problems of casting and forging."

"Then let's take it slow," Li Zicheng said. "No rush. As long as you can forge steel, we have hope."

He returned the steel to Lin Fan, adding, "Master Lin, your steelmaking business is top secret. No one is allowed to know about it except you and your craftsmen. Including Liu Zongmin."

Lin Fan's heart skipped a beat, and he nodded, saying, "Understood."

He knew that steel was the most advanced military technology of the time.

Mastering steelmaking technology is tantamount to gaining the initiative in future wars.

Li Zicheng intended to use it as his trump card.

---

In the days that followed, Lin Fan continued to smelt steel while also trying to make cannons out of it.

He discovered that casting cannon barrels directly from molten steel was prone to cracking and porosity after cooling.

This is due to uneven flow and cooling of molten steel during the casting process.

He switched to forging—heating the steel block, repeatedly forging it to make it dense, then rolling it into a cylindrical shape and forging it into a cannon barrel.

This process is more time-consuming and labor-intensive, but the quality of the resulting cannon barrels far surpasses that of casting.

The first steel cannon took more than a month to build.

The cannon is five feet long, has a caliber of two inches, and weighs three hundred catties.

Its surface is smooth, with a silvery-gray metallic luster, and the character "闯" (chuǎng, meaning "break through") is engraved on it.

During the test firing, Lin Fan loaded twice the usual amount of gunpowder.

boom--!

A deafening roar shook the earth.

The shell flew five hundred paces and embedded itself deeply into the mountainside.

The cannon was intact.

"It's a success..." Lin Fan murmured.

Han Jinhu was so excited that tears welled up in his eyes: "Brother Lin, we really made it! A steel cannon! A real steel cannon!"

The artisans who witnessed this scene cheered so loudly it nearly shook the valley.

Sun the blacksmith knelt on the ground, tears streaming down his face, kowtowing repeatedly towards the steel cannon, muttering prayers that no one could understand.

Lin Fan stood there, looking at the steel cannon and his cheering comrades, a feeling he couldn't quite describe welling up inside him.

It was neither joy nor pride.

It's something more complex.

He came from an era of steel surplus.

In that era, steel was so common that no one would give it a second glance.

But here, in this desolate wilderness, this silvery-white metal represents hope.

It represents the possibility of survival.

It represents a small force that can change this cannibalistic world.