The secret letter Liu Wei sent back to Zhou Zhen detailed how Zhao Feng dealt with this matter.
In fact, not only the various places where militia teams were formed encountered financial problems, but even Zhao Feng encountered some problems here.
There was a lot of money allocated by the imperial court to suppress the bandits, but relying on this money, there was no way to train the militiamen to the situation that Zhao Feng had in mind, and going out to fight also required money, whether it was to build weapons or some food and grass. Everything requires a lot of money.
It was completely insufficient to rely solely on the money currently provided by the court, so Zhao Feng directly made changes and upgrades to the militia.
The original militia team only needed to train, but now that Zhao Feng has made changes, the militia team will only spend one and a half days for training every three days, and the remaining day and half need to be worked on.
The content of this job is also very simple, that is, mining coal and making steel!
I have to thank the environment of Qingzhou here. There are also several relatively large coal mines in Qingzhou. Zhao Feng has not reported this matter since he sent people to explore them before.
But now it is just right to use this coal to make steel!
Although the Zhou Dynasty already had iron-making technology, they still used the most basic charcoal when making iron. This could only burn the iron ore red, and then hammer out the impurities inside through continuous tempering. , thus forming steels such as Hundred Steelmaking and Thousand Steelmaking.
However, the speed and efficiency of steel tempering in this way are very low. Often, blacksmiths need to wield heavy hammers and refining for up to a month before they can produce a piece of steel.
The so-called hundred steelmaking refers to the number of times the steel is folded and beaten. Even the most skilled craftsmen can only hammer it about three to four times a day at most.
This will also consume a lot of manpower and bring a very heavy workload to these blacksmiths.
The fundamental reason is that the temperature of the charcoal is not enough. Even if a bellows is added, the temperature inside can only be more than 1,000 degrees at most. There is no way to melt the iron in the iron ore into molten iron.
But if coal is used for ironmaking, this problem will be solved!
Because when coal is burning, if sufficient oxygen is supplied, it can reach a high temperature of more than 2,000 or even more than 3,000 degrees. Such a high temperature can not only melt iron ore into molten iron, but also melt the iron in the molten iron. Make adjustments.
If you want to refine qualified steel, the most important thing is the ratio of iron to carbon, and the most important process is carburization.
Only by melting iron ore into molten iron can carburization be carried out.
So Zhao Feng directly changed the militia team and asked them to mine coal mines. The mined coal mines were used to smelt the iron ore, which greatly improved the speed of making iron tools.
At the same time, you can also use these steel materials to make perfect weapons. This is simply killing two birds with one stone!
It's just that at this time, the militia team can no longer be called the militia team, but should be called the engineering team, because in addition to training, they also need to work.
These jobs can also improve the physical fitness of the people in these militia groups, and the iron ore and coal mines produced can also be sold.
Since the speed of iron smelting in the Great Zhou Dynasty was very slow, this was also the reason why the Great Zhou Dynasty generally lacked iron tools. Otherwise, the Great Zhou Dynasty would not have been able to strictly limit the number of folk iron tools.
But after Zhao Feng figured out this method of making steel from coal, their engineering team of 500 people was able to refine thousands of kilograms of iron every day!
Iron-making blast furnaces were erected everywhere. The coal burned crazily in the blast furnaces, and the molten iron slowly flowed along the furnaces into the pools.
Yu Ruhai looked at this scene in disbelief, and then said to Zhao Feng with emotion.
"Mr. Zhao, you are simply amazing. Not only can you turn iron ore into molten iron, but the weapons you make are also so sophisticated!"
Zhao Feng smiled, waved his hand, and said very modestly.
"I just accidentally discovered something like coal. The weapons made using this method far exceed the quality of the iron tools on the market."
"If you don't believe it, adults can come over and test it."
Zhao Feng said this, took Yu Ruhai and Liu Wei to the warehouse of weapons, and randomly selected a big knife.
Looking at the gleaming sword, Liu Wei couldn't help but marvel in his heart, and then turned to Zhao Feng and held his hand.
"If you don't mind, sir, please let me test the quality of this knife, right?"
Zhao Feng nodded and took out a large knife bought from the market.
Liu Wei checked the condition of the two knives and found that the quality of the two knives was very good, but who was stronger and who was weaker still needed to be tested head-on.
So Liu Wei fixed the big knife he bought from the market, held the long knife that Zhao Feng and the others had just made in his hand, and swung it hard towards the blade of the knife!
"clang!"
The sound of gold and iron clashing made Yu Ruhai and Zhao Feng's eardrums hurt, while Liu Wei looked at the knife in his hand in shock.
Just now, the knife completely cut off the other knife, and Liu Wei felt that he didn't use much strength!
Looking at the knife in his hand, not only was there no damage, even the blade was intact.
This shows that the hardness and toughness of this knife have reached a very high level. This is simply a magic weapon!
Liu Wei looked at the knife in his hand with great excitement. The more he looked at it, the more he couldn't put it down. He was already very good at using broadswords. He had a long knife in his hand that was gifted by the late emperor, but he kept it in his house in the capital and didn't bring it with him at all. come over.
But now that he saw the knife in his hand, he felt that the knife given by the late emperor was no longer fragrant!
"Sir, this knife is really powerful. I wonder if you can give it to me as a gift?"
Zhao Feng looked at Liu Wei with some confusion and pointed at a warehouse full of weapons.
"This knife is just an ordinary knife. If you want, you can choose it here!"
Liu Wei couldn't help but take a breath, looked at the various weapons in the warehouse, and asked Zhao Feng.
"Sir, are these weapons of the same quality as the sword in my hand?"
Zhao Feng nodded naturally. These weapons were all forged from the same batch of steel, and of course the quality was the same.
Liu Wei's eyes widened and he realized something when he looked at the warehouse full of weapons.
