Wu Hanlong muttered secretly, what's so good about this furnace room? Dignitaries and dignitaries want to see this stuff, it's so fresh!
Now let the person in charge step aside and lead the way himself.
The Wu family's furnace room, like most of the furnace rooms here, does not make iron itself, but uses purchased iron materials for production and processing. Therefore, there are only a dozen or so 1-meter-high iron furnaces in the open space, which look like Like a big rough water tank. Although Xi Yazhou didn't understand metallurgy, he could see that the structure of this furnace was very simple and it was not the reverberatory furnace widely used in Lingao Metallurgy. Apart from the push-pull bellows, there is no special structure.
If you look carefully at this stove, you can see that it is made of clay. Can mud also be used as refractory material? Xi Yazhou was slightly confused and asked Wu Hanlong.
Wu Hanlong quickly replied: "This is the best pure yellow mud. It is mixed with salt first and has to be hammered in the pit for more than half a year before it can be made into a stove. After it is hammered, there should be no cracks, otherwise the stove will crack when it is turned on."
Xi Yazhou vaguely remembered that when Ma Niao's steel plant built the blast furnace, the refractory bricks did contain some kind of salt sent from the salt field. It seems that the ability of certain chlorides to withstand high temperatures has been known in ancient times.
The outside of the stove is tightly wrapped with thick rattan, and the surrounding area is supported by thick hardwoods such as ironwood and rosewood. It can be seen that although the stove is not big, once it starts to melt iron, the amount of iron fuel loaded inside is quite astonishing. of.
These iron furnaces are arranged in a semicircle, with brick flow channels under the discharge opening. The center point of the semicircle was a large pit, two to three meters deep, and empty inside.
Wu Hanlong said that this pit was used to cast large castings, such as bells, tripods, and cannons. The mold is placed in this pit and filled with soil on all sides. Because large-scale castings use a lot of materials and a single furnace cannot discharge enough materials, molten iron or copper must be discharged from multiple furnaces together to cast them. After the casting is completed and cooled, it is dug up manually and the castings are lifted out.
This process is very familiar to Xi Asia. When the Fubo Army first started to cast artillery, the technology was actually very similar to this. To be advanced, it is nothing more than Lingao's large-capacity and high-efficiency reverberatory furnace, which can cast artillery in batches at one time, and the other is Iron mold technology.
From this point of view, there is no technical difficulty in organizing the local production of barrels for various smoothbore artillery used by the army in Foshan. Of course, it would be better to make technological innovations, but there is no problem in directly using local equipment and workers. The only major equipment missing is Boring machine for boring the gun bore.
The reason why Xi Yazhou needs to consider the issue of artillery casting is because the smoothbore cannons used by artillery are almost all cast from pig iron. The lifespan of the barrel is far less than that of bronze barrels, and they need to be replaced every 200 to 300 shots. If production can be organized locally in Foshan, the artillery can be repaired and supplied nearby. Moreover, with the expansion of the occupied territory, the number of fortified cities increased, and more artillery was needed. In many cases, the sound of a cannon was enough to destroy the bandits who were not determined to fight.
He looked around, and his eyes lit up. It turned out that there were several red cannons laid out under a reed mat shed not far away.
The Red Barbarian cannon is actually the European half-snake gun or big snake gun. The casting technology is not much different from that of the Napoleon cannon. Since this furnace can cast the Red Barbarian cannon, there is no problem in casting the barrel of the Napoleon cannon.
When Wu Hanlong saw the change in the face of the "true Kun" when he saw the Hongyi Cannon, he couldn't help but feel secretly worried. He quickly explained: "This Ming Dynasty cannon was pressed down by the yamen to be cast by Xiaopu. Xiaopu originally didn't want to take it... "
These cannons were distributed by Xiong Wencan to the "compradors" of the furnace households in Foshan. The merchants were not willing to accept this kind of business. Although the work is not for nothing, according to the regulations, the government must pay according to the labor price and materials, but in fact, either the price is very low, which will cause a loss of capital, or the payment is delayed, dragging on for a year and a half, and finally nothing is done.
But no one dared to say no to the governor's apportionment. After some haggling in the furnace industry guild, it was finally decided that each furnace owner would share the labor and material costs according to size, and the largest furnace owners would be responsible for the casting. If the government can pay some money, it will be returned according to the proportion of each family's apportionment.
"This is nothing," Xi Yazhou was in a good mood, "You are all ordinary people, how can you still say no?"
"Yes, yes, the chief is right!" Wu Hanlong breathed a sigh of relief and said quickly, "Young men, I originally sent all these cannons to serve the Senate."
Xi Yazhou said: "Your attitude is good. But I am marching and fighting now, so I can't accept it anymore." He turned to Lin Ming and said, "You take charge of this matter. When the people from the Planning Institute arrive, bring them here." Receive these artillery pieces.”
Lin Ming quickly responded: "Yes."
Xi Yazhou saw that under the thatched shed of the furnace room, there were piles of iron pots, thousands of them large and small. After asking, I found out that these iron pots were prepared for export. Iron pot is the largest and most famous product of Foshan in this time and space. It is not only sold domestically throughout the seven southern provinces, but also exported throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia. In particular, foreign ships sailing to the Western Ocean almost always carry iron pots. Even European traders would purchase iron pots in large quantities through Portuguese merchants in Macau for use in Southeast Asian trade.
There are many types of pots, the big ones include Tangwei, Shenqi, Shenliu, Niuyi, Niu2; the small ones include Niu3, Niu4 and Niu5. There are also three-mouth, five-mouth, and earless pots such as Niukui, Qinggu, etc. in various sizes. In addition to being used for cooking, they are also used to boil sugar and cocoons.
In addition to the iron pots, there were many other large round iron plates. Xi Yazhou couldn't see any use for them. After asking, he found out that they were used by seaside kitchen households for frying salt.
Now that traffic is interrupted, these pots and pans are so well cast that they cannot be transported out, and they are already rusty in the hay shed. Wu Hanlong sighed again.
In the yard, there were piles of pig iron ingots, charcoal and ashes, but no coal. After asking, I found out that the local smelting industry does not use coal.
"It's not that there's no coal. In fact, it's cheaper to buy and use than charcoal. But smelting with coal is dirty, and the iron properties are not good." Wu Hanlong said that in any furnace that uses coal, the iron will become brittle and the quality will decrease. Over and over again, everyone would rather use high-priced charcoal than use coal.
"...Everyone says that Guangzhou Railway is good, mostly because of the iron sand. In fact, from a small perspective, Guangzhou Railway is good because it is smelted with charcoal instead of coal."
Xi Yazhou was a little surprised: Coal contains sulfur, and if it is used in smelting without coking and desulfurization, it will indeed make the iron brittle. However, this was only known in modern times after chemical analysis and metallography. Many ancient people could not understand it, even ancient scientists like Song Yingxing. , I only know that Guangzhou Railway is good, but I don’t analyze why it is good. Some people even attribute it to the theory of Yin Yang and Five Elements. But this person knows "why Guangzhou Railway is so good" based on experience.
It seems that ancient China did not lack technical talents. What it lacked was people who could record, summarize and disseminate these technological discoveries. In this environment, Song Yingxing, who wrote "Tiangong Kaiwu", can be called a "strange person" - thinking of Song Yingxing, he couldn't help but think of something, and whispered a few words to the messenger, who immediately Ran out.
"All you have here are castings!" Xi Yazhou said, "Why don't you make other things?"
Wu Hanlong hurriedly said: "Skills have specializations. The young ancestors have been handed down to specialize in making bells, tripods, incense burners, cannons, iron pots... these clumsy things. As for various farm tools, mulberry shears, and kitchen knives, there are also shops making them. . Although everyone belongs to the same furnace room, the objects they create are different."
He introduced that the so-called Furnace House Guild in Foshan actually includes many industries, including iron pot shops, foundry shops, steel frying shops, iron wire shops, iron lock shops, agricultural tools and miscellaneous equipment shops, iron nail shops, etc. Anyone involved in iron-making and metal processing is considered to be in this profession. There were originally three to five hundred companies in the industry.
"...In recent years, things have been going bad, and many colleagues in the industry have collapsed -" At this point, he swallowed the following words forcibly, because the reason for the collapse was the influx of "Kuntie", wouldn't it be wrong to say it? Are you going to offend this "true Kun"?
Xi Yazhou suddenly didn't realize it and asked: "Why did you fall?"
Wu Hanlong secretly complained, but had to answer, hesitantly said: "...It's always the case that their craftsmanship is not good and they can't compare with imported goods...the price is also high..."
"Is it because of Australian iron?"
Wu Hanlong kept laughing and did not dare to speak.
"If they are not good at craftsmanship, our Senate can teach them." Xi Yazhou said, "Your production technology and equipment are so backward!"
Wu Hanlong said quickly: "Yes, yes, yes. Young people are short-sighted and only know that the craftsmanship of the Great Song Dynasty is all superb."
"I will send a few people to guide your production in the future!"
Wu Hanlong was stunned and thought, what kind of idea is this? If he sets his sights on their property, for him as a "veteran", it's really just a matter of words. What kind of "guidance" is needed?
But he didn't dare to respond, so he had to say "yes" several more times.
Xi Yazhou saw the piles of pig iron ingots here, some in the shape of round pancakes, and some in the shape of squares, so he asked where the iron ingots came from.
"It is produced in all parts of the province, with Luoding and Dong'an producing the most." Wu Hanlong said that the best pig iron is Luoding's Datangji Furnace Iron, which is so-called "Kail iron" with a "smooth" color and flexible iron properties. , that is, it is used for drawing iron wire, and it is also good for casting pots.
"Does this pig iron need to be taxed?"
"Why not?" Wu Hanlong said, "Just outside Guangzhou City is the Guan Iron Works. Anyone who wants to mine or smelt iron must go to him to get a ticket before entering the mountains to mine."
The iron merchants first went to the iron factory outside Guangzhou to collect tickets. With the ticket from the Chief Secretary of Guangdong, they went to the mountains to mine and smelt iron. After the pig iron was smelted, it was transported to the factory for inspection and tax filing.
The tax rate is not high. During the Hongwu period, the tax rate was "two out of thirty". Now it is two taels of silver for every 10,000 kilograms of pig iron delivered to the factory. After paying the tax, you will be given a ticket, and the goods can be sold with the ticket. When buying, the local yamen had to check and declare the tax according to the ticket plate: for every ten thousand kilograms of pig iron, the tax was eight yuan, and for every ten thousand kilograms of wrought iron, the tax was one or two yuan.
