"Isn't that piece of steel a ......," Li Yuanba said with some surprise.

"It's weird!" Liu Changqing said with embarrassment: "A few days ago, Xiaguan was drunk at night, but he suddenly came to the smelting area. When he saw that there was a piece of iron on the cutting board, he started beating it wantonly with the strength of his wine, and he didn't know how many times he beat it, anyway, when the official was finally shouted by the iron, it was already early in the morning of the second day. So......"

Speaking of this, Liu Changqing checked the steel block in his hand, and his face became extremely strange.

“……”

Li Yuanba was also a little crying and laughing, this special place is too casual, right? This piece of steel is completely inadvertent!

"Isn't what you want to do now to make real steel?" Li Yuanba confirmed again.

"Hmm!" Liu Changqing and Ren Wei nodded at the same time, and said, "Please also ask the prince to teach me!" ”

Hey, these two old men really think they are wronged, they think they are an encyclopedia, they know everything?

Thinking like this, Li Yuanba almost laughed out loud.

Seeing Li Yuanba laughing, Liu Changqing also breathed a sigh of relief in their hearts, and said in their hearts: I know that looking for the prince is right.

Yes, I misunderstood again!

Misunderstanding, misunderstanding, anyway, this time I came to Shenji Mansion to refine steel, and at the same time mobilized some good people who knew how to build ships, and some skilled craftsmen, to go to Dengzhou with him.

Li Yuanba didn't speak, but walked into the small shed that was ventilated on one side and surrounded on three sides.

Liu Changqing and his elder brother hurriedly followed, as if they were afraid that Li Yuanba would run away.

"Lord Liu, this thing is for wind blasting, right?"

Turning around in the small shed, Li Yuanba didn't care about the men who were beating the iron with their arms, stretched out his hand and pointed to the thing that seemed to be a sheepskin bag on the side of the blast furnace, and said.

These sheepskin pouches are stretching and shrinking inside and out, as if they are doing a reciprocating motion. When the thing deflated, the bulging gas passed through a thick iron pipe and directly hit the bottom of the blast furnace, which in turn made the fire in the furnace burn even stronger.

"Lord Qi, this thing is called wind row, as for the function, it is indeed used to drum the wind. It's just that it is very difficult to drive the air exhaust by manpower, and it is usually driven by water power. Look over there, this ditch just leads to Weishui, which is used to drive the air exhaust. It is also necessary to save time and effort. ”

The division of each weaving area of the weaving division is carefully selected, and even the role of which place and what needs to be used are all taken into account.

As the director of the Ministry of Industry, Ren Wei is also the best at these.

"Oh, I see!"

Li Yuanba nodded with a sudden realization, but when he saw the red-hot iron pieces taken out of the blast furnace, and saw that the fire inside didn't seem to be as strong as he imagined, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he said:

"Lord Liu. This king has a question for you, is it true that when making iron, the higher the temperature in the furnace, the better the effect of smelting metal? ”

"Huh?"

Liu Changqing was stunned for a moment. But fortunately, he was originally a highly skilled karae general, so he can still answer this kind of professional question:

"Lord Wang, for smelting. If you don't consider the degree of burn resistance and cost of these furnaces, the higher the furnace temperature, the better! In particular, the calcined coke that you taught us earlier is especially beneficial for us forging metals! ”

Li Yuanba shook his head. Said: "Lord Liu, as the saying goes, the wind helps the fire, but this situation is only for a large area of fire, even if the internal volume of the blast furnace is very large, but this parallel area is not vast, this small cold wind blows, of course, it can make the flame more vigorous, but if you want to make the furnace fire burn more vigorously, how can it be with only a small cold wind?" ”

Area, volume, although they didn't understand these two words very well, but thinking about Li Yuanba's words, they still understood a little.

Li Yuanba's words seem unceremonious, but in fact, they point out two points.

One is that if you want to make the furnace more vigorous, you have to remake the furnace to make the area of the furnace larger, but this method is a bit unrealistic.

Second, this method is much simpler, that is, the small cold wind becomes warm wind, the wind is warm, the furnace fire is hot, and the effect is definitely not as simple as one plus one equals two.

"Xiaguan understands!" Liu Changqing bowed deeply to Li Yuanba and said.

"Huh!"

Li Yuanba bowed slightly, stepped forward to the edge of the wind row, and said:

"If you want to turn cold air into warm air, it's actually very simple, just add a heating pipe after the air exhaust, and heat it with coke below, so that the wind blowing into the blast furnace is naturally warm air. In this way, the quality of iron has improved, and it has saved time even more, hasn't it? ”

While talking, Li Yuanba also made a few moves behind the wind row.

Unlike Liu Changqing, who was bent on smelting, Lin Wei, as the chief manager of the Shenji Mansion, made overall arrangements for all aspects.

Therefore, Lin Wei stepped forward and said to Li Yuanba: "Lord Wang, according to what you mean, every time you smelt, you have to heat the cold air before you can put it into the smelting furnace?" In doing so, the speed and quality of smelting can be increased, but the consumption of coke will be increased. ”

When he said this, Lin Wei looked at everyone's expressions and continued: "Although it seems that this does not consume much coke in the short term, in the long run, the amount of coke consumed is simply an astonishing astronomical amount!" ”

Li Yuanba was a little depressed, what's wrong with this guy's brain, is it possible that the number of arts in the six arts of the gentleman is a chef's teaching?

Sighing helplessly, Li Yuan said domineeringly: "Lin Wei, you just noticed that this kind of smelting will increase the consumption of coke, why did you forget what you just said, after the temperature of this furnace is raised, the smelting time has also been greatly reduced......

"yes!"

Lin Wei quoted Li Yuanba's words, patted his head at that time, and said with some embarrassment: "Lord Wang, look at me......"

"Hahaha!"

Li Yuanba laughed, patted Lin Wei's shoulder, and said, "It's okay, everyone has something they can't think of, all that's missing is a reminder!" ”

"Lord Wang, people say that you are both civil and military, but now it seems that you are not exaggerating!"

Lin Wei jumped out of Fang Cai's embarrassed entanglement and complimented Li Yuanba.

Li Yuanba just smiled shallowly, and then didn't make any other moves.

In this way, it makes him look a little more unpredictable.

"Alright, let's try it quickly!"

Having obtained a method that can improve the quality of ironmaking, or is very likely to smelt iron that can be made into fine steel, Liu Changqing and Ren Wei are all busy.

As the heads of the Ministry of Industry and the Weaving Division, the two adults immediately called the main force of the division, and while drawing the design drawings, they also asked the craftsmen in the smelting area to make the container for heating the cold air according to the style of the drawings.

Of course, at first they didn't understand what was going on, but when they learned that they could make iron into steel, they all looked shocked.

Fortunately, these people are all top talents in this area, plus Li Yuanba is there, so they quickly got this thing called 'heating bellows'.

In fact, Li Yuanba has no concept of wasting coal mines and coke or anything so far, but in this dynasty, the storage capacity of coal is simply as much as it wants.

In addition, as early as a year ago, he asked Tianjiwei to explore all the known coal mines in Datang, and collected all these places for official use.

After all, up to now, the application of coal, that is, coal, has been extended to the entire territory of Datang, and has become an existence like salt and grain.

If the government is not implemented, I am afraid that those businessmen will jump out and stumble around again.

Of course, since this method can save raw materials, Li Yuanba is still happy to see this result.

However, this method is good, but the smelted is still iron, not real steel, and it cannot solve their difficulties.

It's just that at the moment these guys are all so immersed in improving the quality of iron that no one notices the problem.

……

The time to wait for the heating bellows to be made was painful, and just when everyone was staring at the forging furnace, Li Yuanba suddenly turned his head and said to Liu Changqing:

"Lord Liu, I don't know what method of forging steel was used by our Shenji Mansion before?"

Liu Changqing's entire mind was attracted by the forging furnace in front of him, and where did he still have the heart to think about other things, so he said without a match:

"Lord Wang, the steelmaking methods of our Datang are actually roughly the same, and they all follow the records in the ancient books, which is called the method of frying steel."

"Frying steel?" Li Yuanba smiled and said, "Could it be that this steel can still be used for cooking?" ”

"No, no, no..."

Liu Changqing shook his head with a smile, and at the same time finally came back to his senses and said to Li Yuanba:

"Lord Wang, this so-called fried steel does not mean to make vegetables, but to melt the pig iron into iron juice and then stir it constantly, just like stir-frying vegetables in a pot."

"Oh, I see!"

Li Yuanba nodded as if he didn't understand.

According to his understanding, this method of stirring molten iron can make the oxygen in the air react with the impurities in the iron and the charcoal, and then greatly reduce the carbon content in the original iron juice.

This method is actually an improved version of the steel-making method left over from the Warring States period, because not all metals smelted by the frying method are steel.

And even if it is the steel that is trained, it is all that kind of low-carbon steel, that is, the kind of iron that is very brittle and not very flexible, that is, what Li Yuanba said.

When Liu Changqing started, the piece of iron handed over to Li Yuanba's left hand was Bailian iron, or mild steel.

Like the piece of high-carbon steel in his hand later, the chance of appearing is simply counted in 1 in 100 million. (To be continued......)