A few months ago, the appearance of this Wudi woman frightened the blacksmiths of Taoqiu.

At first, everyone prevented her from entering, because she was a woman, and there was such an unwritten rule in the circle of gold workers in the Central Plains: never let a woman enter the workshop, otherwise something unlucky would happen, and the blast furnace that had been built with great difficulty would break, and the copper and tin hardware would not melt for a long time, and there would be burrs and uneven and uneven places when casting......

What's more, she also had a young child with her, who had no tattoos, but a little crimson birthmark between his eyebrows, and like his mother, he looked at everyone around him with a thick distrust in his eyes.

This mother and daughter must not enter Peach Hill!

Cao Bing's clan of the iron official stood up and explained the reason to Yan Yan, who had come here with the woman, but Yan Yan only glanced at him lightly and asked, "It is possible to process pig iron into malleable wrought iron?" The iron weapons needed by the great generals may be mass-produced? ”

Cao Bing was sweating profusely, and said with a smile: "Can't you do it?" But this woman from the land of Wu Yue claimed to be able to do it, and the general issued a "Talent Seeking Order", stating that she wanted to be meritocracy, if she really had the ability to create a sharp weapon to go abroad, she would naturally not shy away from whether the craftsman was a man or a woman, quickly open the workshop and let her in! ”

The iron craftsmen of the Lu and Jin kingdoms sullenly complied and let her in.

Without saying a word, she went to the foundry first to build herself a handy tool. Wu Nu, who was originally silent and wooden, seemed to be a different person when she put on a cooked cowhide skirt and stood by the stove to pour gold liquid. Sweat flowed on the bronzed skin, and the dragon snake tattoo on the arm seemed to come to life. After the tool is formed. She held the copper shaved and deburred, and corrected them with her hands and feet. A piece of fine tools was made.

The Peach Hill blacksmiths watched the woman perform in amazement, and their contempt was put away, they were at least sure that this was a goldsmith with excellent craftsmanship.

"I heard that the land of Wuyue is easy to use swords, and gold and tin are everywhere, so everyone can make a weapon, and there is no need for national labor, this woman may be one of them......"

But they still don't believe that this mysterious woman can break through the bottleneck of the Taoqiu Iron Workshop, whose craftsmanship has been stagnant for nearly half a year.

Although even General Zhao personally intervened. A lot of suggestions were provided, but the process of smelting iron and wrought iron still did not improve, and in the eyes of the ironworkers, unless it was inspired by the gods, it was impossible for the technology to advance by leaps and bounds.

Next, the woman nodded as she looked at the iron smelting blast furnace that had been increased and heightened at Zhao Wuxian's suggestion, and when she inspected the iron ore, she shook her head and touched the charcoal coal used as fuel, barely satisfied. She tries it in front of a huge blower bag. He also looked curiously at the hydraulic blast furnace being developed by the stream.

In fact, after nearly two years of development, the Taoqiu Iron Workshop has been thriving, the pit is getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more furnaces. The daily output soared from 100 catties to 200 catties. Among them, the technology of smelting and casting pig iron is relatively developed, and it has reached a certain level.

As early as the early spring of last year, the craftsmen of Lu have been able to produce better gray pig iron. Caught up with the average of the times. Gray pig iron is a great improvement compared to white pig iron, which can only be used for casting tripods, kettles and other utensils. It is wear-resistant. It's a pity that it is brittle and hard, and the strength is not enough. It is only suitable for casting ploughs and other agricultural tools and tools that will not be damaged by severe impact, which is the so-called "evil gold".

After that, by overcoming the softening and annealing of pig iron, better malleable cast iron was obtained, and more agricultural tools could be cast, and even iron hammers and iron hammers were cast. However, it is still not suitable for stretching and forging, and sharp iron tools are out of reach.

This bottleneck still cannot be broken through after nearly a year of technical breakthroughs, and wrought iron can rarely be directly refined, let alone the "steel" described by General Zhao, but at this time, the woman from the land of Wu Yue came.

……

She doesn't speak the Central Plains, and has been communicating with Yan Yan in the soft Wu Yue language, which is then translated to the craftsmen and asked them to do this and that.

The original skill of the craftsmen was the "block refining method", which made a solid block in the shape of a sponge, which was called "block iron smelting".

But the woman had the craftsmen return the quick-smelting iron and fine charcoal they had obtained to the furnace to the furnace again, and she took the lead in cutting off the shoulder-length hair and putting it in the furnace!

"Jin Tie Nai, hair, cut it off, put it in the ......," she said in the confused Zhongyuan dialect, explaining why she did so.

"It's nonsense!" The craftsmen of Jinlu trembled with anger.

This woman does seem to have some ability, but this is the only thing that the craftsmen who grow their hair can't accept, and in the end they can only find some cleaned pig hair and the hair of the hooligan prisoner to use.

Pig iron and charcoal continued to be sealed and heated in four blast furnaces that were one zhang high and one zhang five feet wide, and dozens of ironworkers and subordinates were guarding around the furnaces they were responsible for. There are those who push bellows and sweat profusely into the furnace; There were those who stood shirtless on the high platforms that had been erected, and poured material into the furnace; There is a nervous observation of the fire and grasp the opening time.

The smelter was smoky and dusty, but the Wu girl just covered her mouth and nose, carefully observed the fire, and pointed out the operation of the craftsmen.

After waiting for half a day, the blast furnace was opened, and after several days and months of annealing, holding the wrought iron produced, the craftsmen of Jinlu were a little incredible.

The two furnaces failed to smelt, and the remaining two, one produced white-hearted wrought iron, and the other was black-hearted wrought iron, which is very soft, plastic, malleable, can be drawn into wire, has low strength and hardness, is easy to forge sharp blades, and is not easy to break in use!

"Why is this happening?" The craftsmen were puzzled.

The Wu Nu muttered, and Yan Yan translated: "It is not easy to use iron ore to smelt mature iron at one time, but it is easier to get it by refining this method of braising iron in the secret of Wu Yue, and those hairs and bones are her family's secret recipe for iron smelting, which can make gold and iron easier to melt." This is the first attempt, only half of it is successful, and no better steel has been refined, and wrought iron still needs to be carburized and forged to make it more suitable for forging blades! ”

Everyone expressed their admiration, and in the next few months, the entire Taoqiu resounded with the sound of jingling forging, and the Wu Nu gradually learned the language of Zhongxia while teaching everyone the smelting skills. Under her guidance, in just one spring, the iron smelting of Taoqiu has undergone earth-shaking changes.

From melting molten iron, preparing clay fan, pouring and forming, to high-temperature annealing and furnace cooling, each process link is often flawed at first, and even accidental deaths may occur, but later it can be carried out stably. The craftsmen's skills gradually became more skilled and sophisticated, and because of the craftsmen's shame, they asked to worship the woman as a teacher, but received no answer.

The woman was just wearing a leather apron, and forging the blade with her own hands in the workshop full of smoke and fire, and there was still not much wrought iron, and good iron had to be used on the blade.

Her youngest son, carrying a long sword taller than his height, squatted quietly beside him and watched, the red spot in the center of his brow did not disappear at all, but became more and more red, as if he was about to drip blood.

In March, when the spring rains are sparse and falling, most of the workshops in Momogaoka are in the open air, and they will be closed for a while. And the female blacksmith went to Qufu with Yan Yan and ten newly made iron swords and one hundred iron ge.

……

"Good weapon! It's not inferior to these excellent bronze soldiers! ”

After a collision of gold and iron, Zhao Wuxian looked at the bronze sword of the guard that was missing a big mouth on the ground, and then looked at the black iron sword that only broke a pea-sized and small mouth, and couldn't help but praise.

The reason why he worked tirelessly on iron weapons was that he would rather spend a huge amount of money to support the Taoqiu Iron Workshop to continue research, not that he expected the performance of iron weapons to surpass the bronze blades in an all-round way. After all, until three hundred years later, when Qin destroyed Liuhe, the Qin people mainly carried well-made bronze weapons to hang and beat the three kingdoms of Zhao, Chu and Han who used iron soldiers.

Zhao Wuxian only hoped that the production of iron weapons could solve the urgent need of the lack of copper and tin in the Lu country.

Although there is no copper and tin in the Lu country, there are many iron mountains, between these hundreds of miles of mountains and rivers, the Han Dynasty of later generations set up three iron officials, namely Dongping country, Lu country, Taishan County, and now they are the peach hills of Jixi County, the northern foot of Mount Tai under the jurisdiction of Qi State, and the hills in the eastern suburbs of Qufu.

Therefore, Zhao Wuxian can set up at least two or three large iron official workshops, with a daily output of three or four hundred catties. Now, after nearly two years of accumulation, iron farming tools have begun to be used in Xilu alongside bronze, stone, bone tools, etc., and it is only a matter of time before they spread throughout the country. However, the limited bronze in the treasury was still mainly used to make blades, so that there was not enough copper to cast Kong Fang coins.

So he desperately needed a breakthrough from the ironworks.

But it takes a long process for new things to replace old things, especially in terms of technological transcendence, and the problems that took hundreds of years or thousands of years to solve in human history are not solved by an external action that has not even seen the whole process of striking iron, at most it can make people take fewer detours. To achieve a breakthrough, you need to have a large team of craftsmen who keep trying and failing.

Or, by chance, get such an outstanding ironworker as the woman in front of you.

Thinking of this, Zhao Wuxian glanced at the female caster meaningfully.

Her limbs were vigorous, and her bronzed skin was embroidered with inky blue tattoos, extending from the back of her hand to her face, and her face, which was originally quite beautiful and beautiful, was suddenly unsightly. Her eyes were full of indifference and hatred, and her lips were tightly pursed together, as if they were two hard stones, which made people feel intimate.

The standard tattooed with broken hair, Wu Yue woman, strong and fierce, glanced back uneasily while looking at Zhao Wuxian—her son, who had a red spot between his eyebrows and was carrying a long sword, was stopped behind by the guards.

Zhao Wuxian sat down on the desk and asked, "Can you say it again, what is your name?" ”

The woman said in a slurred Zhongxia language: "I am from the Yue country, my family has been attacking gold and forging swords for generations, my father's name is Ou Yezi, my husband's name is Ganjiang, my son's name is Meijian Chi, as for my ......."

She glanced up at Zhao Wuxian and said proudly, "Mo Ye, I am the sword master Mo Ye!" ”

PS: All metallurgical knowledge in this chapter comes from the "History of the Development of Ancient Chinese Iron Smelting Technology", if there is a mistake, you don't need to talk about the theory of July, anyway, I don't understand O(∩_∩)O~ By the way, ask for your guaranteed monthly pass! There are also recommended tickets! There is one more chapter in the evening.

(To be continued.) )