There was a period of time in autumn, and it was sunny for many consecutive days. Huang Huai concentrated all his hands on the blast furnace and worked continuously. After the refractory mud and bricks in the iron furnace were completely dry, he began to prepare for ironmaking.
Chen Hongtao's professional skills were not as good as Huang Huai's. All the work on the iron furnace was left to Huang Huai. He just hired miners everywhere and was busy with miscellaneous things in the iron yard.
Opening a furnace is a sacred thing in Dongshan, and it requires choosing an auspicious day. Chen Hongtao specially hired a Feng Shui master to wander around the iron yard for a long time, counting on his fingers, and finally decided on a date.
Liu Heng did not interfere in these matters and let Chen Hongtao do it.
On the day when the furnace was expected to be opened, Liu Heng brought a squadron of firecrackers to the iron yard. In order to prevent accidents, he asked Chen Xunping to bring a third squadron.
Before the guards in the iron field are trained, Chen Xunping and the Third Battalion will stay in the iron field as guards and train the iron field's own guards at the same time.
On the day when the furnace was opened, early in the morning, the entire iron yard was very busy. People who had no work at hand gathered around the furnace, waiting to open the mud and plug out the molten iron.
There was fire and smoke under the iron stove and around the ear room, and the fan stove was constantly busy.
Huang Huai and some experienced old miners were supervising to prevent accidents.
Liu Heng is waiting for the molten iron to come out of the iron yard.
The iron field had cost more than two thousand taels of silver. If it really failed, he would feel more sorry for the money than Li Shuheng.
Chen Hongtao accompanied Liu Heng, his hands tightly clenched into fists, and his eyes looking at the iron furnace were full of worry.
At this time, there was a shout from the other side of the iron furnace. Chen Hongtao's face straightened and he said: "Proprietor, the molten iron is coming out."
Liu Heng secretly breathed a sigh of relief and turned towards the iron stove.
After a few dozen steps closer to the iron furnace, I felt a wave of heat rushing towards my face. A little further forward, I saw that the mud plug in the middle of the furnace was opened, and the molten iron rolled out of the furnace and followed the preset path.
The iron flowed for about two and a quarter of minutes, and when it was almost done, Chen Hongtao said with excitement: "Proprietor, this furnace may have exceeded four thousand jins, and it will reach 5,000 jins."
Chen Hongtao is not as technical as Huang Huai, but as a former ironworks proprietor, he still knows some things. He can tell how much molten iron a furnace produces by just visual inspection.
"Dr. Liu, congratulations. The furnace has been opened successfully, and it seems that there are very few impurities in the molten iron. It will save a lot of trouble when forging fine iron later." The person who spoke was a steward named Xu from Fatty Xu Iron Works.
As the first iron yard owner to cooperate with Hutou Village, he personally disliked Liu Heng's status as the head of Hutou Village and was inconvenient to come in person, so he sent his own iron yard manager.
This person has been working in the iron yard for at least twenty years. From his perspective, the molten iron is red and translucent, with obviously fewer impurities, and is much stronger than the molten iron in their iron yard.
Huang Huai proudly pointed to the regenerator next to the iron furnace and said: "When we built the furnace, our proprietor added a regenerator. The temperature of the furnace is higher than that of ordinary iron furnaces, and all coke is used. , there are few impurities in natural molten iron.”
After the molten iron is formed, the iron material needs to be heated and forged over a charcoal fire to remove impurities and turn the pig iron into refined iron. All iron sold at the iron farm i is refined iron.
There are fewer impurities in the molten iron, so the charcoal fire and labor costs required during forging will be reduced accordingly. The small part of the cost becomes profit, which makes Manager Xu envious.
The quantity of iron produced is high and the quality is high. A bandit leader in Hutou Village can actually do a much better job than he, a veteran of more than 20 years.
Manager Xu licked his chapped lips and said, "It's better that Mr. Liu is willing to bear it. One load of coke is worth three loads of coal."
Chen Hongtao, standing next to Liu Heng, said: "After heat storage, each furnace can save about 30% of the coke. In terms of cost, the two are about the same, but the purity of the molten iron is high, and the iron tapping rate is also much higher."
The regenerator and coke ironmaking in front of me were new things to an old miner like Mr. Xu. There was no such thing in the iron yard in Dongshan. He immediately picked up the corner of his robe and tied it around his waist, curiously approaching the regenerator. On the edge, I looked up and down, and couldn't help but reach out and touch it.
Huang Huai on the side shouted hurriedly: "Don't touch..."
Manager Xu still pressed his hand up, but immediately retracted it, gasping for air, and slammed it several times.
"Bring cold water and badger oil quickly." Chen Hongtao ordered the miners around him.
There is no shortage of cold water in the iron yard, and there is also a lot of badger oil specially prepared to treat burns.
Miners often deal with iron furnaces, and burns are inevitable. Apply some badger oil to recover faster.
There is an additional regenerator next to the iron stove. The temperature of the stove becomes higher, and the outer wall of the regenerator is also very high.
Liu Heng asked Huang Huai to calculate that it takes a high temperature of about 1,200 degrees to make iron, and 1,600 degrees to produce molten steel. The structure of the refractory bricks is not up to standard now. Once it is found to be qualified, the furnace will be able to operate continuously in the future. Tapping steel.
The price of steel is ten times that of iron. As long as it is continuously produced, a furnace of steel is worth half a furnace of silver.
"Dongzhu Liu is such a talented person. I didn't expect that he even knows about iron furnaces. Adding a regenerator can make the temperature higher and produce good iron. I, an old miner of more than 20 years, feel ashamed." Manager Xu looked at Liu Heng, with a look of admiration on his face.
Both Huang Huai and Chen Hongtao knew that they did not have much ability. The only person who could think of building a regenerator and making iron with coke could only be the head of Hutou Village or an expert of Hutou Village.
Liu Heng smiled when he heard this and said, "Thank you very much, Manager Xu. I just read a few more books. I usually like to figure things out on my own."
What he said is the truth. He used to work as a librarian. When he had nothing to do, he liked to read books. He read all kinds of books. When he encountered something he didn’t understand, he would look up some information, including coke ironmaking and heat storage. room contents.
However, when Guanshi Xu heard this, he had another meaning. He misunderstood that Liu Heng was a scholar before he became the head of Hutou Village. He was at least a literate person. Otherwise, how could ordinary people be qualified to study and not even know the words? .
Manager Xu stared at the regenerator with envy for a long time.
He knew in his heart that the furnace and regenerator looked simple, but unless a furnace master like Huang Huai said it himself, he couldn't learn the subtle technical aspects by just looking at them.
After seeing the molten iron coming out, there was no problem with the iron furnace. From now on, all he had to do was follow the steps. Liu Heng also breathed a sigh of relief. Before, he was worried that the regenerator and coke steelmaking he added would fail. After all, these things were read from the book. , without actual operation, he has no absolute guarantee of success.
Fortunately, Huang Huai from the iron field had been a furnace operator and had no shortage of practical experience. With him finding the loopholes and filling in the gaps, he finally succeeded. In the future, he only needs to slowly improve and increase the temperature of the iron furnace.
Manager Xu saw so many new things this time. He needed to send back everything he saw today, so he said goodbye.
Liu Heng did not persuade him to stay and asked Chen Hongtao to send Manager Xu away.
After giving Huang Huai a few words, Liu Heng also left the iron stove. After staying there for a long time, the iron stove was too hot to stay.
Returning to the iron yard's house, Yang Yuan hurried in from the outside and whispered: "Master, a group of official officers and police officers came down from the mountain. There are more than a hundred people in total, coming towards our iron yard. Captain Chen asked me to come back and ask if I need to stop him."
"The government is here to suppress bandits. Let's go and have a look." Liu Heng stepped out.
