When the news about Li Zhao's branch was released, there was an explosion everywhere.
If one person reacts, the others will basically react, but there is a difference in speed.
Moreover, now as long as you are willing to delve deeper, you can discover the business opportunities.
When Li Zhao learned the news, he was staying in the re-planned factory area.
Except for the group of top craftsmen, the rest of the factory has been completely distinguished.
Carpenters, for example, have now divided special areas and built factories and dormitories to provide suitable living quarters for those from outside the area. The standards are also extremely high.
At the same time, blacksmiths, bricklayers, etc. are also distinguished.
Today, Li Zhao came to the blacksmith workshop area.
There are not many blacksmiths, but those who can come here are all those with excellent skills and skills.
Today, the person in charge of the blacksmith is Meng Dachuan, Meng Blacksmith.
He is from the next county and was the first to come here.
At first, Li Tiejiang was the most skilled man, but unfortunately, he betrayed Li Zhao, revealed the information, and finally committed suicide.
Blacksmith Meng was promoted because of his outstanding ability and was responsible for all matters in the blacksmith workshop area.
Unless Li Zhao has new research tasks assigned, he will stay here.
"Lao Meng!"
"Your Highness!" Meng Dachuan was covered in dust. When he saw Li Zhao coming, he immediately wiped his hands and put down what he was doing.
"How is the progress of Quyuanli?"
Meng Dachuan thought that Li Zhao was not satisfied with the progress, and immediately said nervously: "Your Highness, the progress is very fast, there will be no delay, I promise to complete it..."
Li Zhao patted Meng Dachuan's nervous body and said, "I'm not here to speed up the progress. Just keep it at the normal speed."
"Do you still have an impression of the mandarin duck pot I asked you to make last time?"
"Yes!" Meng Dachuan nodded.
"Next, you will be responsible for this project and build more Yuanyang pots. In addition to this, you will also need a small copper stove hot pot. This one is going to be sold for money." Li Zhao ordered.
"Yes!" Meng Dachuan's eyes lit up, as long as His Highness is not here to rush the progress.
"Is there enough iron?"
"Not enough!" Meng Dachuan shook his head and said: "Although there is a lot of iron shipped now, there are also a lot of impurities. If the demand for tools increases in the future, I think... there will be a shortage of iron, not to mention the loss of our tools. The temperature is too high unless higher quality iron is developed."
Li Zhao frowned slightly. The mining of iron ore was not too slow. As for the iron-making process, this required a technical breakthrough.
Pulleys and gunpowder have been used, and mining must not be slow. If you want to reduce the loss rate of tools, you can only improve the iron smelting technology.
"I'll figure this out!" Li Zhao said.
After leaving the blacksmith shop, Li Zhao found Li Zhong.
"Uncle Zhong, how is the iron ore mining going now?"
Li Zhong hesitated and said: "Not ideal."
"Why?"
"There are few people!" Li Zhong sighed: "Iron ore mining is much more difficult than stone mining, and now... Blacksmith Meng also said that iron smelting is also a problem now."
Hearing Li Zhong say the same, Li Zhao realized that Tie's demand seemed to be unable to keep up.
It is not because there is not enough iron ore, but because there are not enough workers to mine it.
In addition, the refining efficiency of iron is somewhat inefficient.
Li Zhao didn't ask any more questions. He returned to his tent and began to think deeply. It would be easier to deal with things without people, just to recruit workers at high prices.
"The iron of this era is still not good enough. What if we could make steel?"
Li Zhao vaguely remembers that his thesis in college was about steel.
At that time, he almost vomited blood while checking the information.
I don’t know how many documents I have read, but they mainly focus on the changes and evolution of steel.
At that time, because he had to check for plagiarism, he could only read the article thoroughly without reading the literature, and then rewrite it in his own words.
Therefore, he actually still remembers many knowledge points.
But simple things like threshing machines, windmills, and curved shaft plows failed dozens of times before they succeeded. He didn't feel that he, who only had theoretical knowledge, could refine iron ore and forge steel. It works twice.
At present, the loss rate of any iron tools is very high, mainly because the quality of the iron is not good.
Secondly, because there will be more pig iron when the iron is not completely oxidized, later forging increases the difficulty and cost of forging.
Li Zhao crossed his legs and recalled the knowledge points.
Ironmaking began in the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, iron was made from lumps, which was to turn the iron ore from solid into sponge iron at a lower smelting temperature, and then forge it into iron blocks.
Block iron smelting generally uses three types of ground furnaces, flat furnaces and shaft furnaces. Liquid pig iron with a carbon content of 2% can be produced and cast into tools.
During the Warring States Period, decarburization and heat treatment technologies were mastered, and ductile cast iron was also invented.
In the Western Han Dynasty, the crucible iron-making method appeared, and the scale of the shaft furnace for iron-making was further expanded. This is among the sites unearthed and excavated in Zhengzhou in later generations.
Not only that, the Western Han Dynasty also invented the method of frying steel, using pig iron to fry mature iron or steel.
At the same time, steelmaking technology also emerged.
During the reign of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the hydraulic blast furnace, also known as a water drain, was invented. This was awesome, more than 1,100 years earlier than in Europe.
After the Han Dynasty, the method of filling steel was commonly used, which was called "Su Gang" in "Book of Northern Qi. Biography of Qi Mu Huaiwen", and was also called filling steel and Tuangang by later generations.
It is considered a major breakthrough in steelmaking technology.
Nowadays, the quality of iron is not good enough, so the loss is high, and the demand and frequency of use are high, so the loss is even worse.
If Li Zhao can solve this problem, many subsequent troubles will be solved.
More importantly, Wu's weapons may have improved as a result.
Li Zhao vaguely remembered that pig iron, wrought iron and steel can be distinguished according to the difference in carbon content.
The carbon content of pig iron is often between 2.11% and 4.5%, while that of wrought iron is less than 0.0218%.
Steel is somewhere in between, 0.0218%-2.11.
Therefore, the difficulty that Li Zhao had to solve was how to purify the pig iron or add carbon to the wrought iron.
Steel is the best choice.
The refining of steel has been evolving, such as the Bessemer converter steelmaking method and the Siemens open-hearth steelmaking method. The production processes are basically similar.
They all melt pig iron into molten iron, and then add substances, such as oxygen and iron ore, to the molten iron to cause carbonization reaction.
Thereby reducing the carbon content in the molten iron, and finally purifying the molten iron and pouring it into the mold. After cooling, it becomes steel.
Li Zhao is still weighing this, because ancient times were not as advanced as the later eras, and there were not so many industrialized high technologies.
If you have to choose multiple methods to try, the trial period will be very long.
As the main person in charge, Tiejiang Meng needs to keep an eye on it until this technology is successful and takes shape.
Li Zhao immediately summoned people and started the meeting.
Although he knows that the method is correct, most of the things in history are summaries, and the process cannot be seen.
Therefore, there is no use following a script.
It is actually very difficult to actually apply and master this technology.
Blacksmith Meng didn't expect Li Zhao to come up with a solution so quickly, and he was shocked when he looked at the countless pieces of paper written by Li Zhao.
"Your Highness..."
