On the flat ground on one side of the gorge, there stands an iron-making furnace that is about two people tall, thin at both ends and thick in the middle, like a big waist drum.
Half of the blast furnace is outside and is used for blowing air, removing slag, and tapping molten iron. The other half is surrounded by soil and a high platform is built, flush with the furnace mouth, for the blacksmith to operate.
The whole thing looks like half the size of a house.
This is a serious blast furnace, not just a crucible furnace with a name.
Using this kind of blast furnace to smelt ore is more convenient than using crucibles.
The crucible furnace is small and difficult to remove slag.
The process is also very simple: crush the ore - put it into the furnace - mix the catalyst and burn the coal, and then burn the molten iron.
The lump of iron smelted in this way will most likely be pig iron.
Moreover, phosphorus and sulfur have been removed once, and the quality is much higher than the iron material Li Song and Hu Baozong bought from Gaoping Town.
The rest is naturally to remove carbon, or combine it with wrought iron to make steel in a crucible furnace.
Going back further, in fact, the Chinese during the Western Han Dynasty were already able to build large furnaces for smelting iron ore, but the ones they built were rather bulky, at least five or six times the size of the one in front of them.
But at least by the Song Dynasty, blast furnace ironmaking technology was already very mature. Not only could it separate slag water (molten iron and slag), it could even blow hot air (air heating).
Coupled with the already mature steel-filling method in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it has basically reached the pinnacle of human steelmaking technology. In the next one thousand years, until industrial steelmaking became popular, China's steelmaking technology basically never evolved again. Including the large-scale steel-making period after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the blast furnaces and iron-making technology, including Wang Mazi's technology of making kitchen knives and scissors, were basically formed during the Song Dynasty.
Therefore, the armor-making technology of the Song Dynasty was quite advanced. When Song soldiers fought against the Iron Buddha of the Jin Kingdom, they sometimes had to wear three layers of infantry armor, but the total weight was only seventy or eighty kilograms.
The reason why the Song Dynasty is said to be cowardly is definitely not the fault of the people of the Song Dynasty. You should ask the Zhao family and the Huang family...
……
A group of blacksmiths surrounded the pool of molten iron underground, and it was as if they had seen a miracle.
Have you ever seen someone who can refine iron ore with just a handful of firewood?
No wonder Lang Jun traveled thousands of miles to let Baijiaying escape to this place?
It turns out there is something good...
Seeing Li Chengzhi, Li Song and others, a group of blacksmiths quickly dispersed to make way.
Li Chengzhi walked closer, took a closer look, and his eyes bulged.
Although it had solidified, how could he admit his mistake: this was definitely a block of iron (primary iron material), not a sintering block (slag).
Besides, if the furnace temperature is not enough, sintered blocks will not be produced at all.
It shouldn’t be...
Li Chengzhi held his chin and looked at the old blacksmith suspiciously: "How was it made? In addition to magnets, did you also add other things to the furnace?"
He wondered if the old blacksmith had thrown a quartz stone or limestone in by chance.
If there is enough catalyst and the furnace is sealed, the firewood can be burned into charcoal, and the ore can indeed be refined.
Especially quartz, general magnetite is often accompanied by quartz veins, and it is normal for old blacksmiths to mistake it for iron ore.
The old blacksmith was even more confused.
He recalled carefully: "Nothing was added? I just picked up a few pieces from a pile of magnets and threw them into the furnace..."
Is it like asking a blind person?
Forget it, just go and see it yourself...
Li Chengzhi sighed secretly and said: "Where is the magnet? Take me there!"
"Lang Jun please!" The old blacksmith led Li Chengzhi behind the blast furnace.
A small pile of stones, some black, some yellow, and some reflecting light.
Just taking a casual look, when he saw a pile of white, purple, green or yellow gravel mixed in, Li Chengzhi was startled and actually cried out "Ouch".
What quartz? This is fluorite.
Li Chengzhi even wanted to slap himself twice.
Are you still a top student majoring in resource exploration engineering?
How can you have the nerve to say that this is your hometown in your previous life, a place where you have visited every inch of land in your previous life?
Knowing that there is gold, copper, iron, coal, and clay in my hometown, why did I forget that there is also a fluorspar mine?
It may also be because there is no such thing in Guanzhong, and it doesn't seem to be very useful, so I didn't think of it for a while.
In fact, fluorite has several uses.
It can be used as a catalyst and flux when making steel. Its melting point is lower than that of quartz. It can also remove sulfur and phosphorus.
This function is actually dispensable. Although fluorite is found everywhere and has huge reserves, most of it is buried beneath the earth's surface and must at least be dug out first.
In comparison, wouldn't it be easier to get quartz sand, which is available wherever there is sand?
What Li Chengzhi finds strange is that this thing can be used to etch glass...
Imagine if the colorful glass beads issued to the soldiers had dragons, phoenixes and other mythical animals, or patterns of mountains and rivers, how would people of this era react?
You will definitely be driven crazy...
What's more important is that green fluorite can also glow at night. If it is exposed to the sun for more than ten minutes, it can light up for a whole night.
In addition to glowing after absorbing light, this thing will also glow when heated.
Li Chengzhi remembers when he was a child, he picked up two pieces of stuff and hid them in the quilt and rubbed them around. Then there was a burning smell and gravel flying around, and the quilt would be illuminated...
Then, I will be stabbed to death all night long, and I will have trouble sleeping.
And nine times out of ten, you will have to get a good beating from me the next day...
Therefore, the so-called luminous pearl in ancient times is actually this thing.
Including the one that Sun Dianying dug out of Cixi's mouth and was auctioned for 800 million in the new century, the main ingredients are exactly the same as the green gravel in Li Chengzhi's hands, which is calcium fluoride.
However, what was dug out of the fluorite mine was sold by the ton, with only a few thousand yuan per ton...
But who made that one a cultural relic?
The reason why this thing was so expensive in ancient times is actually the same reason why copper was so expensive before the Tang Dynasty: very few were mined.
Moreover, the strength of fluorite is not high. As long as the wind and sand are slightly stronger, it will not take long for the fluorite exposed on the ground to be reduced by less than half.
The missing half had been blown to pieces by the wind and sand, turning into gravel like the one in Li Chengzhi's hands.
If you take a piece of ordinary glass to take a picture of this thing, the fluorite will be completely broken, but the glass will still be fine.
Therefore, there are very few that can be discovered by people of this era, and are very large enough to be polished into beads.
Even if one or two pieces can be found, with ancient technology, how to ensure their integrity during mining is the first level, long-distance transportation is the second level, and how to polish them is the third level.
The most critical thing is the fourth level: this thing is so soft, the more you play with it, the rougher the mirror surface will become. As time goes by, it will not reflect much light under the sun, let alone at night.
When several phases are added up, the few that survive will naturally become more expensive...
However, it all depends on the human condition. Li Chengzhi thinks he can still give it a try.
Not to mention too many, if you can carve out a hundred or so stones, you can probably buy half of Guanzhong...
Coupled with the glass beads etched from fluorite, such things are definitely priceless rare treasures for both the Han people and the Xianbei people.
And this thing can also be used to make fakes: just find a stone and stick it with a layer of green fluorite powder, and it will produce the effect of a luminous pearl.
For example, those plastic crafts from later generations that glow at night...
Thinking of this, Li Chengzhi even stopped thinking about making iron swords and armors.
Instead of training weapons and armor in exchange for food, which is similar to giving people a handle, or giving them to the enemy, why not use such things to collect IQ tax?
Although there are many jewelry and jades from Hu merchants, there is absolutely no such thing. How can you not be surprised when you see it?
As for whether Hu merchants will sell to the Western Regions, or to the Central Plains, or how long it will take to get involved in gangs, Li Chengzhi can't control that much...
Just do it, Li Chengzhi immediately called Li Song aside: "Send someone out to look for it... Go east along Heli Mountain, at least seventy or eighty miles, and you will definitely see gravel like the one in my hand...
…Let me know as soon as you find it…”
Seeing that Li Chengzhi was slightly excited, how could Li Song not know that Lang Jun had discovered the treasure?
While nodding, he asked suspiciously: "Lang Jun, what is this?"
"I won't be able to tell you for a while!"
Li Chengzhi lowered his voice involuntarily: "You just need to remember that once this thing is used, it will definitely be more valuable than the meteorite sword that was made before..."
Li Song almost shouted: "Magic weapon?"
Li Chengzhi's face darkened.
A magical weapon?
Your mind is full of swords and guns, fighting and killing?
"How can there be so many magical weapons...things like glass beads..."
It turned out to be jewelry?
Although Li Song was still curious, the expression on his face involuntarily faded a bit.
In his opinion, no matter how peerless a treasure is, it will eventually have to be replaced by a knife and a gun...
Just after sending the people, Li Chengzhi called Li Song over again: "In a few days, after things have settled down a bit, let Li Liang or Huangfu Rang find a way to sneak into Jiuquan City and see if they can buy some suet jade or Jiuquan."
Jade will do, too."
Li Chengzhi feels that since he has decided to charge IQ tax, he might as well charge more.
I also want to see if he can use fluorite powder to create a real luminous cup, which is the kind that can really glow at night.
It is not the kind of Xibei stuff in history books and poems: no history books or poems have ever said that the so-called luminous cup can emit light by itself without a light source.
Most of them are just thin jade cups that look better when illuminated by the moon on nights like the 15th.
If you think about it, you will know that this thing is so brittle that with the technology of future generations, there will be no way to mass-produce lenses with fluorite, so it can only be synthesized, let alone using fluorite to grind wine glasses?
Thinking of this, Li Chengzhi naturally thought of glass lenses.
When making beads, he didn't have enough materials on hand and not enough time, so he didn't try to see if he could make colorless glass.
But he understands the principle: it is nothing more than selecting quartz sand that does not contain metal elements and burning it, or removing all the metal elements in the quartz sand.
Relatively speaking, the first method should be simpler.
As long as colorless glass can be burned, the rest is nothing more than polishing it into lenses.
If he could really build this thing, Li Chengzhi would laugh out of his dreams: It's not about whether it can be sold for money, but about being able to build a telescope...