Anle's affairs are advancing step by step, and they are confronting the Yellow Turban Army.
Cheng Zhiyuan dare not take the initiative to attack in the short term, and Liu Xiang has no intention of attacking now.
Cui Yi was ordered to stay behind, and Yan Rou was ordered to lead his Hu cavalry to join Anping's right army and march eastward to capture Shanggu, Guangping and Xuanxi counties.
The combined population of these three counties is less than 4,000 households. They are mainly nomadic and have little cultivated land. They have to dam rivers and build water conservancy projects before they can be developed. Currently, there is a shortage of labor. Liu Xiang plans to recruit refugees in the future and slowly open up the land.
Liu Xiang returned to Yuyang County with the Zhong base camp. The North City wall was still under construction, and various workshops were building factories, recruiting craftsmen, and working hard.
Whether here or in the future, city construction and road construction need to be completed quickly. Liu Xiang feels that cement must be produced as soon as possible. Of course, modern high-grade cement cannot be thought of. With the technology of the Han Dynasty, ancient cement can still be made.
The three main raw materials of cement: limestone, clay and iron ore. Limestone and clay are ground together into raw meal.
Next, the raw material is calcined until it is partially or completely melted, which is called clinker. Finally, the clinker is ground together with iron powder or iron slag to obtain cement.
Liu Xiang probably remembered this. He found the engineer of the lime kiln. The engineer was the person who managed the craftsmen in each workshop. He explained to him the method of burning cement, the properties of cement, and his requirements one by one, and asked him to test it.
Already.
Do you expect Liu Xiang to do it himself?
Impossible, absolutely impossible.
He has never burned before, so he is not as capable as the craftsman who burns lime. It is okay for him to go and have a look and make suggestions, but forget about doing it, which is pure trouble.
Liu Xiang also thought that iron making and cement firing could be carried out at the same time.
He remembered that blast furnaces were used to make iron in the Spring and Autumn Period. After improvements in the Western Han Dynasty, it was already a very mature technology by the Eastern Han Dynasty. Du Shi, the prefect of Nanyang, also invented a water drain to blow air into the blast furnace.
There is also the steel-frying technology for steelmaking, which is clearly recorded in the Taiping Jing of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The pig iron with excessive carbon content is heated to a semi-fluid state, and then mixed with the powder of iron ore grinding and "stir-fried" continuously, so that the carbon contained in the pig iron continues to seep out and oxidize, thereby obtaining medium carbon steel or low carbon steel.
carbon steel.
If you continue to fry, you will get wrought iron with lower carbon content. This method began in the Western Han Dynasty.
If Liu Xiang remembers correctly, steel filling technology emerged during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
In this method, wrought iron and pig iron are heated together. Since the melting point of pig iron is low, it is easy to melt. After the pig iron is melted, it is "poured" into the wrought iron to increase the carbon content of the wrought iron and obtain steel.
As long as the proportion of raw and wrought iron is properly matched, the carbon content level in the steel can be controlled more accurately, and then after forging, steel with uniform texture can be obtained.
This method is relatively easy to master, and the work efficiency is greatly improved. The technical reserves of the Eastern Han Dynasty are sufficient, and it can be completely realized.
Not wanting to waste any time, he immediately went to the iron smelting workshop.
The iron smelter was an old man named Gu Wei, who looked to be in his sixties. Liu Xiang followed him to visit the workshop and after asking a few questions, she found out that he was only forty years old.
Liu Xiang sighed. He worked hard all day long and naturally aged quickly, but he was not a god and could not let everyone live a pampered life.
It will get better in the future, it will definitely get better. Liu Xiang swore secretly.
Put away your thoughts and go see the blast furnace.
The iron-smelting blast furnace is oval in shape, with the lower furnace wall sloping outward. The furnace body is about two feet high and has four tuyeres, which are blown by horse rows.
Surrounding the iron-smelting blast furnace, there are iron-frying square ponds, iron forgings, batching rooms, cooling sand rooms, as well as special ore warehouses, finished iron warehouses, and fuel warehouses. The facilities are already complete.
This is one of the foundations of the Han Dynasty's strength. It is places like this that create the all-round strength of the Han Dynasty.
As long as he does not mess up, Siyi Hu Di will have to tremble under the pressure of the big man.
It's a pity that such a prosperous era is about to be blown away by rain and wind.
Something must be done. A hundred years from now, China will be in ruins and China will be in ruins. It makes me sad to think about it.
The Three Kingdoms at the end of Han Dynasty, what a splendid era.
Heroes rise, generals are like clouds, advisers are like rain, and each individual's name is remembered in history, and the 56 million Han people are harmed until only 7.5 million are left.
In the end, the land of China was stolen by the Sima family. Liu Xiang didn't know whether the descendants of the Sima family were outstanding or not. It was just that they had gained the country unfairly and had a guilty conscience.
The policies enacted do not care whether the country is strong or not, they just want to hold on to the power in their hands and not allow others to steal it.
Would rather be destroyed by foreign enemies.
Then, the country was really destroyed by the barbarians.
The Five Huns disrupted China and sixteen kingdoms were established. The Han people were reduced to two-legged sheep and no longer had the slightest trace of the Han Dynasty.
During that period of history, every word shed the blood and tears of the Han people, and every line told the grievances of the Han people.
Liu Xiang clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Let's start everything here. He wanted to reform the method of steelmaking. He would first use the steel filling method, and then slowly improve the technology and directly make steel in the blast furnace.
Steel is the backbone of a nation, especially in this era, an army with all-steel combat equipment can really be invincible.
Liu Xiang talked about the idea of pouring steel, hired a blacksmith, and started the furnace test directly.
Blacksmiths all know that pig iron and wrought iron have different melting points, but no one has thought of mixing the two to make steel.
The steel filling method has no technical difficulty for them, it is just an innovation in thinking.
Turn on the furnace and heat it to about 1,200 degrees. Although there is no thermometer, these old blacksmiths can grasp the temperature of the furnace just by observing the color of the iron.
The iron material gradually burns red. As the temperature increases, it changes from cherry red to orange. The pig iron begins to melt and merges with the wrought iron.
Take out the iron material and bury it in sand to cool down. After it cools down a bit, take it out for observation. After inspection, you can see that steel has indeed been made, but the quality of the steel is not good.
Liu Xiang was not disappointed. He proved that the method was feasible. This trip had achieved his goal. He could just continue to study the ratio in the future.
"It should be a problem with the ingredients. The grain engineer can continue to experiment and find a suitable formula."
"Wei." Gu Wei was very cautious.
"Another method is to use wrought iron as iron material, place it in a furnace for calcination, and place a pig iron plate at the furnace mouth. When the pig iron melts, it will drip on the iron material. You can increase or decrease the number of pig iron plates to explore the formula.
Try it as soon as possible. After success, all participating blacksmiths will be rewarded with military titles.
I am here, and you are all cautious, so I will go back."
After Liu Xiang finished speaking, he left. He had finished making suggestions and there was no use for him to stay here. The blacksmith was making iron just now, so he could only watch from the side.
After coming out of the iron smelting workshop, Liu Xiang ran to the sword workshop and said to the swordsmith: "I have heard of a forging method for a magic weapon. It is made using the method of hundreds of refinements, folded and forged more than ten times.
Then the two pieces of steel are stacked together, mixed with mild steel in the middle, heated to a yellow-white color, and repeatedly forged until the three pieces of steel are finally combined into one, and then slowly made into a knife, and finally covered with soil to burn the blade.
The blade is sharp and the blade is strong.
You can try making one and bring it to me for a look."