Yuan Xi called Sun Li and rode out with several guards. When passing through the street, the people on both sides saw him and knelt down on both sides of the road.
After Xu Jie was rumored to be hanging in the city, Yuan Xi opened a warehouse to release grain, which appeased the people in the city, and his prestige in the city also increased.
Yuan Xi thought it was a coincidence. Originally, Xu Jie's greed and cruelty needed to be investigated carefully, and the crime would not lead to death. However, his servant, Boss Zhu, was an spy planted by others.
Boss Zhu led a group of Xu family servants to take away Father Qian, and the neighbors saw it. In addition, the evidence of the murder was solid, so Yuan Xi put the label of evil intentions on Xu Jie's head, and let this
Those who commit suicide deserve to die.
Yuan Xi rode all the way to the north corner of Jicheng, where a small river flowed, with dozens of houses on both sides. Thick smoke billowed out from the chimneys on the roofs, the sound of airbags being blown up one after another, and the tinkling sound of iron could be heard all the time.
Jicheng specially set aside a piece of land and built dozens of blacksmith shops, where experienced blacksmiths were gathered to train apprentices and verify different iron-making methods.
Yuan Xi jumped off his horse and walked into the largest blacksmith shop in the center. He saw seven or eight people sweating profusely in front of the anvil, holding a hammer high in one hand and holding a red-hot iron block with pliers in the other, hammering away at it.
From the Spring and Autumn Period to the Western Han Dynasty, block smelting carburized steel and cast iron softening techniques appeared.
The so-called block carburized steel is made from sponge-shaped block iron as raw material, which is then hot carburized and carbon penetrates from the surface to the inside. Then it is repeatedly forged to form carburized steel.
Using sponge-like lumps to make iron or wrought iron to make steel through carburization is easy to implement and has become the earliest steelmaking method in my country. This is a leap forward development between pig iron and steel.
If carburized steel has promoted the development of military weapons, then cast iron softening technology has greatly promoted the application of agricultural equipment.
Early cast iron was white iron with high carbon and low silicon. Carbon existed in the form of iron carbide in the iron. The texture was brittle and hard, and it easily cracked when used. In order to increase the toughness, craftsmen invented the softening technology of cast iron.
The white iron blanks are decarburized or toughened at high temperatures.
It is precisely because of this technology that pig iron farm tools began to be widely used and promoted, which greatly improved the level of agricultural production. However, there was no record of forging cast iron in Europe until the Middle Ages, and wooden plows were still used for plowing fields.
The level of production tools directly determines productivity. In the Song Dynasty, the average yield of rice in southern China was 350 kilograms per mu, while the average yield of mixed crops in Britain at the same time was only more than 70 kilograms per mu. The difference between this is quite large, and it is also why later generations
The reason why China has talent for farming.
At this time, China's steel-making technology was already the leader. You must know that before the seventeenth century, most of the world was still at the level of iron-making technology and still used block iron to make iron. Except for some areas in Arabia, the penetration of steel
Carbon technology is almost invisible.
Especially in Europe, steelmaking generally adopts the method of low-temperature smelting of wrought iron. The steel cannot be melted, the iron and slag cannot be easily separated, carbon cannot penetrate quickly, and the quality of the steel is extremely poor.
At that time, Rome was called the Great Qin. Its mainstream weapon, short sword, was made of smelted iron, so it would bend when stabbed, let alone a forged long sword. Even if it was forged, it would be useless, so it needed to import a large amount of Eastern steel to make it.
arms.
During the Western Han Dynasty, China's steelmaking technology once again made an epoch-making breakthrough.
Fried steel method.
The cast iron parts are decarburized, and then the formed iron plates are decarburized into formed steel plates. The so-called stir-fried steel means that the liquid or semi-liquid pig iron is continuously stirred during the smelting process, just like cooking, and the liquid or semi-liquid pig iron is oxidized under the oxidation conditions of the blast.
Under this condition, carbon, silicon, and manganese are oxidized to reduce their content in the steel.
Most of the fried steel is low carbon steel or cooked steel. There is also a practice of frying pig iron first to make wrought iron with very low carbon content, and then using surface carburizing to increase the carbon content.
Taiping Jing, a Taiping Taoist classic from the Eastern Han Dynasty, also records details about steel frying: "When there is an emergency, engineers will be asked to smelt the stone to find the iron in it, and then smelt it to turn it into water. Then a good worker will be sent."
After countless forgings, it becomes Moye."
The Taiping Jing is known as the Yuancan of Taoism. It contains not only teachings, but also alchemy, including practical techniques such as medicine, acupuncture, and smelting. While the lower class people came into contact with it, it also promoted the spread of technology.
Yuan Xi's Yi Xue is now developing very rapidly. Part of the reason is because officials and craftsmen really need to acquire knowledge and improve their status. On the other hand, it is also because the knowledge of hundreds of schools of thought taught in Yi Xue is very similar to the all-encompassing Taiping Jing.
Characteristics, many people from all walks of life secretly believe in Yuan Xi's prophecies and the identity of the real person, so they secretly join Yuan Xi.
The reason why the steel-frying method is called a time-zone technology is because the foundation of the modern steel industry is the blast furnace, open-hearth furnace, and converter. The blast furnace was first invented in ancient China. The open-hearth furnace and the converter were also born out of the steel-frying method. In the early days, they were used as high-quality cannons.
The Krupp crucible steel is a direct copy of the steel frying method.
Without these three things, there would be no industrial revolution and no modern industrial civilization.
So some people say that the Chinese opened half the door to the Industrial Revolution, and the Europeans opened the remaining half.
But unfortunately, in the nearly two thousand years since China invented the method of frying steel, due to various reasons, it has not entered the half-open door, which is very sad.
If a suitable furnace cannot be made, the smelting temperature cannot be raised. The smelting temperature of steel is probably above 1,500 degrees, and that of porcelain is above 1,100 degrees.
The reason why the West imports Chinese porcelain is because the furnace temperature is not high enough and it cannot be fired by itself. The technology of blast furnaces and bellows is completely backward, which makes the manufacturing of ceramics inoperable, and the smelting of steel is even more incompetent.
China's steelmaking technology leads the world for more than a thousand years, which has led to China's weapon forging technology advancing by leaps and bounds, and a large number of extremely practical weapons have emerged.
The level of weapons determines the level of war and tactics. It is very doubtful how intense the battles can be and what invincible tactics can be produced in a place where steel cannot be forged.
However, another factor that promotes China's continuous improvement of iron and steelmaking is that the iron ore in China has too many impurities. In order to solve the impurity problem, the working people of China have tried every means to improve iron and steelmaking in every link.
Steel craftsmanship.
As early as the Warring States Period, the technology of adding alkaline lime to molten iron to remove impurities appeared. Lime can promote the precipitation of slag and can also absorb phosphorus and sulfur impurities. Only at the end of the 19th century did the West find this method of adding alkaline substances to remove impurities.
method of impurities.
An iron anchor from the Ming Dynasty was unearthed in Quanzhou, weighing 750 kilograms. It was tested that the phosphorus and sulfur content was two to three times lower than modern high-quality steel.
In contrast, iron ore near the Mediterranean has high sulfur content and very few impurities. However, for two thousand years, the West has not found a way to remove sulfur, resulting in no progress in steelmaking technology.
Of course, the steelmaking technology in the Arab region at that time was not low. Although there may be some differences with China, it was still much better than the West. As for the reason, it is said that the Silk Road promoted cultural and technological exchanges between China and the Arab region.
Therefore, communication is the driving force for progress. It is difficult to stay at the forefront of the times if we work behind closed doors.
The final step of the fried steel method is to fold and forge the oxidized wrought iron or steel multiple times, and then further carburize it to become steel.
Of course, the fried steel method is not without its shortcomings. It is not easy to control the carbon content, and the production is more time-consuming and labor-intensive, so the steel filling method came into being.
"Seven Lives" written by Zhang Xie of the Jin Dynasty: "The more sheep heads are sold, the more protactinium (鍱) is forged into it, the more it is refined, the more it is.
Li Shan's note: "Production means stacking it, and filling it means casting it."
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the prototype of the steel-filling method had appeared. The master of steel-making technology in this period was the Huanshou Dao.
The Huanshou sword of this world is completely different from the mainstream weapons of later generations. From the perspective of later generations, its sword is more than 1.2 meters long and three centimeters wide, but the thickest part of the blade reaches one centimeter. Compared with
Under the circumstances, the thickest blades of later Western heavy swords were only about four millimeters.
This is because a good ring-shou knife often requires dozens of layers of steel to be repeatedly folded and forged. When held in the hand, it looks like an iron bar, but with the strength of Baidu Steel, it has
It is suitable for both horse and foot combat, and has the advantages of slashing, slashing, and piercing through armor.
What the blacksmiths are doing now is trying to make a ring-shou knife without forging, and finally conducting strength comparison experiments to find the most suitable one.
Yuan Xi looked at the blacksmiths hitting the iron with hammers, and couldn't help but feel a little moved. It was precisely these countless working people in China who overcame obstacles one by one with their hands, and then they converged into the torrent of the times and promoted history.
process.
When a group of blacksmiths saw Yuan Xi coming in with everyone, they quickly saluted. Yuan Xi loudly said: "It doesn't matter, you finish the work first!"
The room was extremely noisy. Yuan Xi raised his voice to the loudest level, and everyone could barely hear it. They quickly turned around and continued to swing the hammer.
Their movements were a little stiff and awkward because they were forged according to Yuan Xi's requirements, which was different from their previous techniques and habits.
Because the Huanshou Sword they are making is based on the improved steel filling method proposed by Yuan Xi, and some improvements in the direction of the steel clamping have been adopted. No one is sure about the final effect.
Steel filling, also called the Tuan Gang method or the raw and cooked method, is one of the most outstanding achievements in China's early steelmaking technology. It was invented at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and was only promoted and perfected during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
Yuan Xi asked the craftsmen to use three methods to improve it based on the memories of later generations.
Pig iron sinking method, pig iron covering method, pig iron pouring method.
Different processes and different steel qualities will affect the quality of the final product, so it is necessary to find the most appropriate method.
At this time, a blacksmith had already punched out the prototype of the Huanshou Sword. He held the red sword body with iron pliers, walked to a huge wooden barrel, and put it in.
Hearing a hissing sound, the blacksmith lifted the sword, and it caught fire.
Everyone's eyes couldn't help but be attracted to it. This was Yuan Xi's second new idea, the oil quenching method.
Different from the water quenching method that had been invented at this time, the oil quenching method in later generations can make the sword more tough, while the water quenching method has higher rigidity.
Of course, depending on the quality of the steel, it cannot be said that oil quenching is necessarily better than water quenching. A truly good weapon must have both hardness and toughness, which can only be seen through subsequent experiments.
However, by taking a two-pronged approach, Yuan Xi thought that he should be able to improve the quality of the Huanshou Sword to a higher level.
As for how high it would be, he had no idea, but as long as it could withstand a few more slashes and blows than the previous sword, it would determine the life and death of both the wielder and the enemy on the battlefield.