Looking at the blazing fire in the furnace, Tao Qiqi squinted his eyes and asked people to close the lid of the furnace.

As soon as he got off the stove, Sun Dalang couldn't wait to step forward and ask Tao Seventeen: "Is this stove well covered?" Can I put iron? ”

Tao Qiqi shook his head: "What's the hurry, this stove has been built, it has only been burned overnight, and it hasn't dried yet." It is necessary to wait until the furnace is dry and the furnace wall will not be burned, and the material will be fed. Look over there, the pig iron has been prepared, and after waiting for more than an hour, it can be put into the furnace. ”

Sun Dalang rubbed his hands and said, "There are a lot of materials!" This stove is enough to be a big family on the hill over there. ”

"That's nature. This kind of furnace frying steel is not comparable to your previous small iron furnace, not only does it produce more materials, but it also produces steel quickly. Tao Seventeen was a little proud. After following Du Zhongxiao for a few years, he has become a qualified technical talent.

Sun Chengping followed behind Du Zhongxiao and looked everywhere.

Next to the furnace are several sheds, three huge forging hammers, all powered by water from the nearby river. Although Sun Chengping saw it for the first time, he could imagine that once this thing was opened, the efficiency of forging was not much stronger than that of manual labor. This one hammer can catch up with dozens of hammer workers. And because of the great strength, the hammered iron is larger and of better quality.

There are also two small anvils next to it, which are used to make swords and other iron tools. Next to each other is a row of several steel rollers with different gaps.

Sun Chengping could figure out what other facilities were for, but he couldn't figure out how this row of steel rollers was. Seeing that Du Zhongxiao was in a good mood today, he couldn't help it, pointed to the steel roller and asked, "Official, I don't know what those are for." ”

Du Zhongxiao looked at it and said casually: "That's used to make steel plates." My iron here is not only to be made into ingots, but also into steel plates, which have many uses. - You don't have to look at it, you don't need this kind of thing, as long as you know how to make iron ingots. ”

Sun Chengping smiled embarrassedly. The things here are good, but they are of no use to themselves. First, the financial resources are insufficient and cannot be built. Even if it is built, it is impossible to find so many people to do things. Datong Prison is now in decline, it is still at the same level as the county, and now there is enough manpower, which is not comparable to the private forces. If he is in a hurry, Du Zhongxiao can also let the nearby Yehu come here on an errand.

Du Zhongxiao walked around, and finally returned to stand in front of the steel rollers of the steel plate. It's also the use of hydraulic power, which drives huge chains that make these steel rollers turn. This kind of rough transmission, the chain structure is simple, and it is the easiest to manufacture the ring chain, which is actually the most common iron chain in the previous life. As for the common roller chain in his previous life, Du Zhongxiao also wanted to use it, but he couldn't make it.

This set of equipment must be able to make steel plates. What Du Zhongxiao can't be sure of is the fried steel, to be precise, it should be wrought iron, and it is not qualified. If there are too many impurities in it, the drawn steel plate is easy to crack.

Steel plates are of great use, and in military use they can be made into armor. After cold forging, even wrought iron has a high hardness due to cold work hardening. Although it is not necessary to make plate armor, it can also save time and effort to make key parts. Of course, Du Zhongxiao is not ready to use steel plates to make armor now, he has a more important use, to mint money.

Iron money is easy to mint because it doesn't require special equipment. Once the iron money is changed to punching, it will be difficult to make it private. The equipment that can stamping thick steel plates is expensive and ordinary households cannot afford it. Second, it is huge, as long as you have the heart to investigate, it is difficult to hide.

The reason why Hedong Road is parallel to copper and iron coins is because of the shortage of copper coins, and the other is at the junction with the Khitan and the party, in order to prevent the copper coins from flowing abroad. Now with iron money, there are inferior iron coins smuggled into the Song Realm on the Khitan side, and I don't know if it is a private piracy or an official act.

There is a real demand for iron coins in this area, and copper coins are not suitable unless paper money is used.

The hundreds of thousands of catties of iron stored by Datong Prison are still suitable for casting iron money, and the rest can be done later. If it is possible to make a fine iron coin that is difficult to imitate, it will be worth more than the fur market in the state.

After looking at all the preparations, Du Zhongxiao arrived in front of the frying steel furnace and said to Tao Seventeen: "How is it, when can I cut the material?" ”

Tao Qiqi quickly climbed up to the mouth of the furnace, looked at the flames, and said in a loud voice: "It's almost! I'll take a look at the feeding place. ”

After getting off the stove, I ran to the side of the feed port to take a look, and saw that the furnace wall had been completely dry, and the heat was pressing, so I was overjoyed and said: "Official, this furnace has been completed!" Now the material is cut, and the steel can be fried in the afternoon! ”

Waiting for Tao Seventeen to come back, Du Zhongxiao said to Tang Kongmu on the side: "Tell me to go down, all the craftsmen who have been set here will go to the place where they are arranged, and everything will be under Tao Seventeen's command!" Today's first pot of steel, no mistakes must be made! ”

Tang Kongmu forked his hand and agreed, turned around and ordered the craftsmen waiting on the side, each of them to the designated post.

Tao 17 commanded the people, slowly put the prepared pig iron into the inlet, and preheated. When he was ready, he went to the side of the stove and said to the five strong men: "From now on, you blow the wind!" Every half hour, rotate! This matter is of the utmost importance, and there must be no sloppiness! ”

The five forked hands promised. Tao Qiqi ran to the top of the stove to watch the fire again, and was very busy.

Sun Chengping took his three sons and followed closely behind Tao Seventeen, for fear of missing a little. Frying steel here is completely different from their own previous process, and they have to learn it from scratch. This is my own job in the future, and I can't be sloppy at all.

As the air from the blower box enters the furnace chamber, the temperature inside rises suddenly, and the flame gas changes. Tao Seventeen on the top of the furnace was a little nervous, for fear that the furnace wall would not be built well and cause dry cracks. Fortunately, everything went well, and there were no accidents, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Following down from the top of the furnace, Sun Chengping said to his eldest son: "Da Lang, you go over there to watch the blows." I've never seen this kind of wind row, but I didn't expect the wind to be so strong! If there is no such sharp weapon, this steel will not be fried. ”

Sun Dalang agreed, slowly walked to the bellows, and stared at the bellows. At this time, the bellows is still pushing and pulling the wooden plank, and the air is supplied to the furnace by fanning the method. Du Zhongxiao used the memories of his previous life to change to the piston type of Tongli in his previous life, pushing and pulling to supply air, and the wind was several times stronger. With this small improvement, the temperature in the furnace is much higher, and it is also beneficial for the hot table to enter the melting pool on one side through the fire channel.

Listening to the whistling sound from the bellows, Sun Dalang was secretly shocked in his heart, he didn't expect this eye-catching thing to have such great power.

Du Zhongxiao, who was on the other side, saw it and sighed secretly in his heart. I was still negligent and forgot to build a fire tunnel next to the bellows to preheat the air entering the furnace. Cold air is now fed into the furnace, which reduces the rate of accumulation of temperature.

The key to steelmaking is temperature, and if it can exceed the melting temperature of iron, the iron will be very pure, saving a lot of forging effort. The use of coal, coupled with a mature bellows, coupled with suitable smelting methods, can greatly increase the yield and quality of iron.

In fact, there are many improvements in this steel speculation site built by myself. For example, the bellows can also use hydraulics, more fire ducts should be built for preheating, and there is room for improvement in the furnace type. However, Du Zhongxiao only came here temporarily, and there is no need to pursue perfection.