Suddenly hearing the sound of footsteps, an old man rushed into the lobby, looked around, and asked Guo Niansheng: "Deputy General Manager Guo, where is the General Manager?"
Guo Niansheng said hurriedly: "He went to the outskirts of the city for inspection. Is Mr. Hu in a hurry?"
The old man was Hu Guangcao. He said anxiously: "Where are you going to inspect? I have something important to report to him!"
Guo Niansheng turned to look at his nephew, Guo Huan said: "We should be in Huangtang Town now."
Hu Guangcao cupped his hands, turned around and left.
Fang Yuan asked: "Who is my father-in-law? Is he also an official of the General Manager's Office?"
Guo Niansheng said: "He is the supervisor of the Ordnance Bureau, and he is responsible for manufacturing most of our weapons."
Fang Yuan said in a low voice: "If I had met him earlier, I wouldn't have to go to Haozhou to buy weapons."
Chen Ji stood up, smiled and cursed: "Don't think like a woman, get up quickly, let's go with him to see the manager."
As soon as Fang Yuan stood up, he heard someone coming in from outside the door to report that Zhang Yangquan and Qin Lingjun had returned to the camp in the north of the city, so the two of them turned towards the camp.
The two caught up with Hu Guangcao on the road, and the three of them came to the camp gate to ask for a meeting.
Not long after, Zhang Yangquan and Qin Lingjun came out with their generals, with joy on their faces, and connected the three of them.
Fang Yuan left Shanzhai in August last year, and it is now June. He has been away for almost a year, and Chen Ji has also been away for more than half a year.
When they met again, they couldn't help but feel a little emotional. When Qin Lingjun asked about the two of them in Haozhou, they only talked about Guo Zixing and Peng Da's courtesy to them, but did not mention the difficulties Zhao Junyong and Sun Deya made for them.
Qin Lingjun knew it well and knew that they were afraid that he would encourage Zhang Yangquan to attack Haozhou in his anger, so he didn't ask any more questions.
Zhang Yangquan proposed that the two of them should hold important positions respectively, one in charge of foreign affairs, and the other in charge of military affairs together with Qin Lingjun, but both declined and refused to agree.
Chen Ji smiled and said: "General manager, Lao Fang and I have no great merit, how can we get high positions? Even if we get it, how can we convince the public? It's better to wait until we have made great contributions and then be awarded high officials."
Zhang Yangquan was greatly pleased to see that the two of them were so open-minded, and temporarily granted them the title of General Manager to participate in government affairs.
This is an official position that can be big or small. If you are used as highly as the deputy general manager, you can intervene in all affairs of the general manager's office.
If you are not valued, you will not be invited to meetings, then it will be a false position.
At this time, Zhang Yangquan turned his attention to Hu Guangcao behind the two of them and said: "Mr. Hu, have you finished refining the coke?"
Hu Guangcao cupped his hands and said, "Go back to the manager. Ten stones of coke have been refined. You ordered me to inform you when I have a certain amount."
Zhang Yangquan nodded, took out a written piece of paper from his arms, handed it to Hu Guangcao, and said: "Follow the above process and try it to see if you can bake a gray-black powder.
."
This note is exactly the cement refining draft.
Zhang Yangquan is not familiar with cement. He only remembers that the ingredients of cement are limestone, clay and iron powder, with a little gypsum added.
He didn't know the specific ratio, but he had the impression that firing cement requires a very high temperature, which is similar to the melting point of iron, and requires the use of coke.
If he were to slowly explore it alone, it would probably be difficult to burn this thing in a few years.
Fortunately, there is now an Ordnance Bureau with nearly a thousand people, and Hu Guangcao, an expert craftsman, can figure out the cement formula. It is only a matter of time.
Hu Guangcao took the paper and looked at it for a long time, then asked: "Manager, do you want to configure something similar to glutinous rice mortar?"
"Glutinous rice mortar?" Zhang Yangquan was stunned.
Hu Guangcao hurriedly explained: "It is an adhesive material for fixing city walls. The effect is much better than mortar and lime mortar, but it is more expensive!"
Zhang Yangquan was overjoyed. Hu Guang and Cao Ding knew the properties of these materials so that they could see at a glance what they wanted to make.
"Yes, this thing has about the same effect as glutinous rice mortar. Are you sure you can make it?"
Hu Guangcao hesitated and asked cautiously: "I wonder where you got this formula?"
Zhang Yangquan couldn't answer for a moment, so Qin Lingjun raised her eyebrows and said, "Mr. Hu, he can even modify the formula of gunpowder. Just do as he is asked and don't ask any more questions."
Hu Guangcao said hurriedly: "Yes, yes." He carefully put the note away.
When Chen Ji saw Zhang Yangquan tinkering with materials for strengthening the city wall, he felt strange and asked, "Do you know the news that Tuotuo sent Jia Lu to attack Haozhou?"
Zhang Yangquan said: "I have heard that Tuotuo does not trust Jia Lu. If he only gives him 30,000 troops, he will never be able to capture Haozhou!"
Chen Ji said solemnly: "Thirty thousand yuan of soldiers is naturally not a big deal, but I heard from Guo Zixing that Tuotuo is raising food and grass in Xuzhou. The amount is very alarming. I'm afraid there will be a big move!"
Zhang Yangquan was shocked. He had known about this for a long time. Tuotuo was preparing for the battle of Gaoyou. He only hoped that the battle of Gaoyou would not turn into the battle of Jiangdu.
Starting from the next day, Zhang Yangquan recruited a group of masons to be responsible for the development of cement in the Ordnance Bureau.
After Zhang Yangquan inquired with them, he learned that the main adhesives used during this period were mortar and lime mortar.
The composition of lime slurry is very close to that of cement, and it is also made by firing.
As a result, developing cement only requires improving a few steps, adding some ingredients, and increasing the firing temperature.
These masons are very experienced. They first fired limestone and clay in a ratio of 7:3, which is the best ratio for lime mortar.
The wet firing method is used. The two raw materials are ground into powder to form a slurry, and then put into the kiln to calcine the mature powder. Next, water and river sand are mixed in a ratio of one to one, and iron slag is added to check whether the cement has
Stickiness.
After the test, although the burned cement is far less than the finished cement, it is still quite viscous. The viscosity after solidification is similar to that of lime mortar, but the solidification speed is much faster.
With this conclusion, the masons began to try to change the ratio of lime and clay, the ratio of clinker and water, and the ratio of clinker and river sand.
The first thing to test was the ratio of lime to clay.
In order to accurately measure the effect, the ratio of clinker to water and river sand is temporarily set to one to one, and the effect can be checked by adding or subtracting lime.
Because it takes a lot of time to cool the cement, this process is very grueling. In the end, it took six days, and everyone calculated that when limestone is nine times more than clay, the clinker prepared has the highest viscosity.
The cement mortar at this time is not a finished product, and its viscosity is only slightly higher than that of ordinary lime mortar. The next thing to test is the optimal ratio of cement powder to water.
This time Zhang Yangquan only selected 100 people to participate in the experiment, and still mixed sand and gravel one to one. Finally, after three days of experiment, he found that the viscosity is best when water is half cement.
At this time, the cement viscosity is much stronger than that of lime mortar, but it is still not as sticky as glutinous rice mortar.
The last step is to test the ratio of cement to sand and gravel. Originally, the ratio of sand to stone also had to be subdivided, but Zhang Yangquan omitted this step and directly replaced it with river sand.
For this most critical step, Zhang Yangquan carefully selected 30 reliable people from among the blacksmiths to take charge of testing.
Finally, when the river sand is three times and seven times the cement, the cement mortar has the best viscosity.
At this point, the cement mortar was finally made into finished product. After testing, the viscosity was similar to that of glutinous rice mortar, but the cost was vastly different.