It was already evening, and Kawei's work was still not over. The mercenaries were also performing their duties, sweating crazily.
Rurik had been sitting on the lying log to supervise their work, and finally stopped playing with the cracked sword and put it back into its leather sheath.
He has no regrets and is even pleased with the success of his risky experiment and ensuring that he will avoid detours in the future.
In the final analysis, Rurik felt that his dagger was used as a guard of honor most of the time, to demonstrate his wealth and authority. Therefore, everyone needed its bright color more than they expected to ride on the battlefield with it.
Now, Rurik is paying close attention to those ferrochromes.
Some ax embryos have been thrown into piles of charcoal blocks for a long period of surface carburizing treatment, and the hardness of the ax head will become even more extreme.
"I don't need an axe, what should I do with it? Make a hard stainless steel knife, or a spoon. Yes! A stainless steel spoon, but the spoon needs a manual punch. While the blank is still hot, press it in the mold Keep hitting them! Sigh..."
Rurik, whose stomach was growling, finally stopped being a bystander. Now he needed to do another thing - supervise whether the Covin women were cooking properly.
The men spent a lot of energy, and Rurik decided to reward his talents for smelting chromium steel.
The sky is getting darker, and the air is filled with the aroma of food, that is wheat, that is fish.
As a blacksmith, Kaweita understands the principle of "forging while the fire is hot". Based on his life principles and the promise he made to Rurik, he must pound all the sponge iron into ax embryos.
If there were more qualified blacksmiths, the job wouldn't be so difficult. However, he is the only qualified blacksmith, and the others are all handymen. He gritted his teeth and swung the big hammer, finishing all the forging of sponge iron as the sun was almost setting.
A special bonfire continued to burn, and as many as thirty ax embryos were put in, undergoing a long and extremely necessary surface carburizing treatment to make them very hard before the final quenching.
Hardness is the most notable feature of chromium steel.
Rurik believes that this toughness will definitely create some new situations in future wars.
Kawei no longer knows how many times he has swung the sledgehammer. He considers himself a very strong man. Now he is sitting on a wooden pile, using the bonfire to look at his injured hands that are covered with calluses and have been squeezed and cracked in some places. Also full of dirt and dust. He washed his hands well with soap, hoping to wash away the so-called "dirt invisible to the eyes."
He felt weak and cold, and the discomfort was very obvious even when he was warming himself by a campfire.
"Ouch! Now I finally have time to eat something."
Kawei stood up with difficulty, his body swaying as if he had drunk a lot of wine. Looking for the scent of wheat, he approached the large pots where wheat porridge was being cooked in the open air, but he didn't have to go and beg for a bowl of food in person.
Rurik had already prepared a delicious meal for this man who had made great achievements.
In fact, for all those involved in heavy physical labor, Rurik spent a lot of money on food supply, considering the huge amount of energy consumption they will experience now and in the future.
In fact, the mercenaries all held their own wooden bowls, or sat on wooden piles, or found a rock, or simply sat on the ground, grabbed their wooden spoons, and began to dig and eat. Stuffing very mushy oats into your mouth.
There are also a large number of herrings longer than a palm with their heads and internal organs removed hanging by the bonfire. A branch often pokes them for up to ten days, forming "fish skewers" with a somewhat exaggerated weight. Many of them have been grilled to sizzle with fish oil. .
In addition, there are also some large pottery urns cooking so-called vegetable soup, which is actually made from a batch of old onions and low-temperature-preserved yellow root carrots stored in the Ross tribe. There are also some fresh edible mushrooms collected by the women of the Iron Squirrel tribe, and even some fresh pine needles and leaves acceptable to the Russian people, and bear meat that has been minced and stewed.
Compared with the arbitrariness of other tribes in terms of food, Rurik can now be said to be truly in charge of all public affairs of Ailon-Olava Fort, so he has spent a lot of money on the food of the personnel.
Russians are often accustomed to eating two meals a day, with the evening meal being the most important meal of the day. Rurik decided that all heavy manual laborers would always enjoy extremely generous dietary care, and this preferential treatment even extended to the men of the Iron Pine Tribe.
In everyone's eyes, Rurik is a person who treats everyone equally. Everyone thought he was a kind person, but they did not expect that Rurik's determination was to rationally pursue the maximum efficiency of construction. All those involved in the construction must ensure that their bodies do not collapse. Based on reality, Rurik is very taboo about losing any labor force.
Undoubtedly, Kawei became the biggest contributor. Not only because he started smelting and forging chromium steel, but also because he was the only and best blacksmith in the settlement under construction. When the builders' tools began to wear out, only Kawei could make the best repairs for them. .
The current Kawei is completely irreplaceable talent.
Staggering, he was helped by mercenaries to approach Rurik's "royal" bonfire. He was also asked to sit cross-legged on a polar bear skin.
In front of him were two large pottery bowls, one filled with fragrant wheat porridge, and the other filled with a mixture of sliced onions and cooked bear meat.
It's not over yet! Rurik also didn't know how much Kawei ate. In line with the principle of not starving the blacksmith no matter what, there was a wooden stick stuck on the ground with as many as twenty herrings on it.
"Kawei, you are finally here." Rurik, who was sitting casually eating grilled fish with his close subordinates, said, "You should have come over for dinner a long time ago. It seems that your work is finally done. Eat. , these are all prepared for you."
Looking at Rurik and then at the delicious meal, Kawei's tears suddenly flowed from the corners of his mouth.
The wooden spoon was the first to insert the thick wheat porridge, and Kawei ate it wantonly. The food that was deliberately added with more salt should have a salty taste. For people whose bodies are already very short of salt, it is tantamount to a kind of neurological pain. Intense stimulation!
A lot of carbohydrates and salt were consumed quickly, and Kawei did not miss the onions and salted bear meat in another clay pot. The sweetness, spiciness, and complex taste of the onions are truly a rare experience. After Kawei wolfed down the greasy onions, he finished the wheat porridge.
Kawei wiped the wheat grains from the corner of his mouth casually, and placed the pottery basin to Rurik with unfinished thoughts.
When Rurik saw this, he motioned to Carlotta beside him: "Hurry up and get him another bowl."
Although there are not much oats and rye in the tribe's inventory, they are high-quality food after all. Rurik figured out that whoever works hard for himself has the right to enjoy the best food.
Then when Carlotta came over with a second bowl of steaming wheat porridge, Kawei had transformed into a big eater and began to hold the grilled and oily herring in his hands and happily skewer it.
Seeing him eating like a wolf, even though Rick had many things to ask, he could only shut up now.
Asking himself, Rurik felt that he had not eaten much food in the past few days, while others had already eaten all the food they carried. He was very lucky that he had assigned tasks to the fishermen who were following him. Up to now, there were some fishing boats every day, carrying fresh catches that he caught from the southern seas, or brought them from the "chief warehouse" in his hometown. From grain to even stocks sold at low prices by the Gould family, the fishermen transported all kinds of materials to the north, which relieved the builders from worries.
Without the existence of these fishermen's transport teams, Rurik was sure that his work would have stopped.
To maintain such an economic operation model, it relies entirely on the control of large amounts of wealth. At this point, Rurik felt that he had used his ability to "make money" in the right place.
Rurik is convinced that all the men who cut trees, construct, or even assist in blacksmithing must consume more than three thousand calories a day, and it is not uncommon to reach four thousand calories.
I'm afraid Kawei consumed 5,000 calories today alone!
A strong man can continue this extremely high-consumption state for three or four days, but if he does not get enough supplements, the strong man may die suddenly from exhaustion! In fact, Kawei has shown a strong state of overwork today. If there was an instrument to measure blood pressure now, we would be surprised to find that Kawei's blood pressure has exceeded 160. However, the night concealed the fact that he had become hypertensive due to overwork. A red face is definitely not caused by being roasted by the fire.
After being replenished with a large amount of carbohydrates, fats, and extremely important water and electrolytes, Kawei's mental condition finally recovered.
Kawei drank two large bowls of oatmeal, and actually ate nearly three pounds of dry oats.
He even ate as many as twenty herrings. The caloric content of herrings alone was as high as two thousand.
As a blacksmith, Kawei always has to do heavy physical work, and he has a large appetite. This time he really broke a eating record.
Eating more than 5,000 calories of food in one meal is a miracle to be able to enjoy such a high-energy intake anywhere in this day and age.
"Are you feeling better?" Rurik asked kindly.
"Much better!" Kawei smiled awkwardly and patted his rock-hard stomach: "I really can't eat anymore. I'm afraid I used three days of food to eat in one day. Thank you so much, Rurik, for your reward. I am very happy."
"This is what it should be. Now tell me, can you continue working tomorrow? After a night of carburizing work, tomorrow the ax embryos will undergo final forging and critical polishing. Are you okay?"
Kawei's arm was still sore, and he suggested: "Since you are going to give the ax to your mercenaries, they have reason to personally participate in the final processing. I can only do the final forging and polishing work for them, and The work of installing the ax handle should be their own business."
Rurik noticed Kawei's haggard appearance and understood the meaning of these words: "You... are really too tired. Okay, I will arrange this."
This night, Kawei felt comfortable for a long time.
The past day and night seemed like a dream. Due to excessive exhaustion, when he opened his eyes again after falling asleep, it felt as if it was dawn in an instant. After all, he is a young man in his early twenties, and he is an extremely young and promising person among the warriors. However, he is a blacksmith, and his physical fitness is actually better than that of the warriors.
Those who were placed on vigil continued to monitor the smoldering process.
After Kawei woke up, he directed his men to pull out the blank that had been surface carburized for twelve hours. Then, the big towering furnace fires up!
The flames began to spurt again, but without the strong wind from the blower, and the fuel was less charcoal and more pine branches.
Seeing Kawei swinging the hammer sonorously and forcefully, Rurik felt relieved.
"After all, I am a young man. Being young is good. Haha, I am just too young."
For a dazed moment, Rurik felt that he had become an old guy again. Only by seeing his young hands could he know how naive he was. In fact, he has always felt that his thoughts are naive. Living in such an era, he has a lot of advanced knowledge and certain practical abilities, but he is only one person. The advanced ideas simply could not adapt to this era. After being severely beaten in the battle, he realized that he had been a little naive.
Now, Rurik is extremely eager to equip his tribe with the best weapons and tools, so as to protect everyone in the wild world and ensure that the tribe is a good servant and will not be destroyed by other powerful tribes at any time. .
Chromium steel is stainless steel, and now these carburized chromium steels begin the final process.
"It is harder than mild steel. Now the armored cavalry of the Romans can't withstand the poke of chromium steel spears, right? Anyway, it must be suitable for making an axe."
Soon Kawei's final work came to an end. He sat proudly on a wooden stake on the side, directing the mercenaries to sharpen their axes happily.
There are a lot of pebbles and a lot of sandstone on the river beach.
To polish the edge of a weapon, the most efficient way is to make a grinder. Even a human grinder is more efficient than grinding with a flat whetstone.
So is there the best sharpening stone? Of course there is.
As much as 69% of the ores that have not yet been smelted are highly fused iron oxide and chromium trioxide. It is precisely because of this high degree of natural fusion that the Russians took advantage of it. The metal component of all axes is low-carbon chromium steel that is very evenly fused.
The mercenaries usually polished ordinary iron swords and small hand axes by themselves. They had sufficient polishing experience, and this time they had to be shocked by the wear resistance of the new hand axe.
Compared with ordinary sandstone, chromite itself is a better abrasive. The ore was polished straight by the constant grinding of each other. Even so, in order to polish the sharp ax blade, each mercenary was busy from morning to nightfall, and the work finally came to fruition.
The night covered up the gray metallic luster of chrome steel, but could not hide their hardness.
Beside a bonfire, a mercenary ignored the wounds on his hands while polishing. He placed the ordinary iron sword he was issued on the ground, and at the instigation of other mercenaries, he manipulated the chrome steel ax he had polished. , chop it down hard.
The iron sword was immediately cut into two pieces, and the fracture also showed a flat cross-section under the bonfire.
In an instant, the mercenaries exploded, and Rurik hurriedly ran away after hearing the sound.
"What are you doing?!"
The mercenary who collected the chrome steel ax hurriedly and excitedly offered his treasure: "Sir, look! My weapon is ready. With all due respect, with it, I no longer need the sword I had before! Just like Like you, I sacrificed it.”
"You..." Rurik looked at the broken sword on the ground and was speechless.
He took the ax and observed that it was polished until it was quite smooth, and he couldn't help but feel in a trance.
"It's so beautiful, so beautiful! It's not a treasure that could be made in 830, it's more like a craft tool in 2030."
No one could understand the meaning of his words, but they understood that it was a compliment.
What happened next was beyond Rurik's expectation. He never expected that because he did not make a clear recovery, his mercenaries would take out their easy-to-bend low-quality ordinary iron swords and use their own swords one after another. The "chromium steel battle ax", which was regarded as a magic weapon, was chopped into pieces, but the ax blade was still as sharp as before, and no curling or cracks could be seen under the bonfire, which made everyone even more excited.
On the second day, some of the mercenaries who had brand-new axes continued their work as lumberjacks. To cut down large trees, of course, the traditional (so-called tradition only lasts for one year) carbon steel axes are the most powerful. For small trees, these chrome steel hand axes immediately show terrifying felling efficiency.
Everyone saw it, especially all the Kewen people. They really couldn't imagine that the iron ore discovered by their expedition team could actually be turned into such a treasure.
Mechasta, the leader of the Iron Squirrels, even felt that if his expedition team mined some ore earlier and brought it back, he would also have a large amount of iron tools. At this point, he mainly attributed the defeat of himself and other Kovin tribes to the extremely inferior weapons.
"If I take possession of the mine, I can make a large number of hard axes and spearheads, and iron arrow clusters will no longer be rare."
But Mechasta couldn't be more wrong. The furnaces made by the tribal blacksmiths who died in the war can handle ordinary ores, but for the chromite here, they must make larger and thicker furnaces and install stronger blowers before they can smelt it into The sponge iron is then further forged.
It is true that they discovered the mine, but from the beginning, the Covin people did not have the ability to smelt it. In the end, they would give up because the ore was difficult to smelt, and instead continued to buy ordinary iron ore at high prices from the Finns in the south. Bring it back for processing.
Finally, low-carbon chromium steel tools with a chromium content of about 12% and a carbon content of about 1% began to slowly appear in the construction sites of Elon Orawa Fort. People who own such tools have improved their labor efficiency. Immediately improve quickly.
An efficiency leap from quantitative change to qualitative change begins here.
