"How long until the furnace can be opened?" Lu Chen waved to the steward of the blacksmith shop on the side. Originally, the blacksmith shop was mainly managed by Liu Laosan, but with the expansion of the workshop area, Liu Laosan is now working with Du Junchuo's father, Du Chengze, as The chief and deputy general managers were responsible for the management. After all, Liu Laosan was illiterate, so Du Chengze helped Liu Laosan manage it as the deputy general manager. The current manager of the blacksmith shop was Ai Xu, who was promoted by Liu Laosan.
As soon as he saw Lu Chen waving to him, Ai Xu hurriedly ran over, "I have met your majesty! Lord Marquis!" Ai Xu quickly knelt down to greet Li Yuan and Lu Chen. Normally Lu Chen would not let these people kneel, but with Li Yuan Here, there is no other way.
"No gift!" Li Yuan waved his hand, and Ai Xu replied: "Thank you for your grace." Then he stood up tremblingly, but in his heart, Ai Xu admired his own Marquis even more. The emperor issued a "no-no" order, but within a few days the emperor was brought to Lujiazhuang.
Don't underestimate the emperors of this era. In this feudal period, let alone ordinary people like Ai Xu, even some distant officials from the imperial court may not be able to see the emperor in their lifetime.
Ai Xu felt that he could meet the founding emperor of the country at such a close distance because his ancestral graves were filled with smoke. He even had the urge to worship his ancestors and talk about this matter with his ancestors. .
"Ai Xu, how long will it take for this furnace of pig iron to be started?" Lu Chen looked at the dark-faced Ai Xu and asked. When Ai Xu became the manager, Liu Laosan mentioned to Lu Chen that after all, ironmaking The iron-making workshop is a very important one. If the person who takes over is not a loyal person, Lu Chen will never hand over the iron-making workshop to the other party for management.
As for Ai Xu, Liu Laosan and Du Chengze reviewed it for a long time together, and even consulted Du Yanliang's opinion before deciding on the candidate. Ai Xu was thirty-two years old, and was born in a blacksmith family. His wife had difficulty giving birth to his son. After his death, Ai Xu took care of his son Ai Tao alone. When Lu Chen established the ironmaking workshop, Ai Xu was among the first to come in to work.
"Return to the Marquis!" Ai Xu said, taking out a bamboo slip he carried with him, and then opened it and looked at it. At the same time, he looked at the hourglass on the side. This hourglass was also made by Lu Chen. In fact, it was not made by Lu Chen. Chen made it, but took it out from the base.
Following Ai Xu's eyes, Li Yuan also discovered the existence of the hourglass, because this hourglass was not small, and was more than a foot high. However, as soon as he entered the ironmaking workshop, Li Yuan's eyes were attracted by the blast furnaces on the side. His eyes ignored the hourglass placed aside.
When he saw it, he was immediately shocked. The hourglass Lu Chen made was made of glass. It had square gilt bases at both ends. Four gilt pillars connected the two bases. The gilt base and pillars were carved with slender figures. The spiral pattern shines with golden light in the sun, and the fine white sand in the glass hourglass is constantly flowing.
"Is this colored glaze?" Li Yuan pointed to the hourglass and asked with some surprise. You must know that most of the colored glazes in this era were brought by Hu Shang from Dashi. Therefore, the colored glazes the size of fingernails are valuable, transparent and pure. The speed is not as good as Lu Chen's hourglass. Li Yuan has never seen glass with such high transparency. How could he not be surprised? This hourglass alone can replace a three-story house in Chang'an City.
"Uh..." Seeing Li Yuan's surprised expression, Lu Chen managed not to laugh out loud, "It's just a glass product, is there such a fuss?" Lu Chen cursed in his heart, "Have a look at you? I've seen the world! He's the emperor!" Of course, Lu Chen didn't dare to say this.
However, Lu Chen immediately woke up. This was the Tang Dynasty now. This thing was called "Liu Li", and it was an imported product. Everyone took this thing as a treasure. Lu Chen suddenly felt that he Should we make glass? Glass is a good thing, and you can also make money with it. "Liu Li" is priceless!
"Back to Your Majesty! This thing is indeed colored glaze! It was given to me by my master to keep time!" Lu Chen finally suppressed his laughter and replied to Li Yuan respectfully.
"Time?" Li Yuan looked at the fine sand in the hourglass, frowned slightly and began to think.
"Yes! Has Your Majesty seen the flowing sand?" Lu Chen pointed to the sand flowing downwards. At this time, there was not much white fine sand left in the upper half of the hourglass. Li Yuan nodded, " The time it takes to flow from one half to the other half is exactly one hour! And it is exactly the time it takes to make a furnace of pig iron!" Lu Chen said and pointed to the iron smelters on the other side who were putting on clothes. Craftsmen, at this time these craftsmen had already put on their somewhat heavy coats, and as these craftsmen put on their coats, a burning smell spread from those clothes, and the officials who entered the ironworks smelled After hearing this smell, they couldn't help but take out a silk handkerchief and cover their mouth and nose. Of course, Li Yuan was no exception.
"Which batch is this?" Lu Chen turned to look at Ai Xu and asked. Ai Xu just took out the bamboo slips just to report the output, but unexpectedly he was interrupted because Li Yuan was attracted by the hourglass.
"Back to Lord Marquis, this is the third furnace today. This furnace has been released. So far, it has been released today..." Ai Xu said and began to look at the number of furnaces recorded on the bamboo slips and began to calculate the output. After the furnace is finished, Ai Xu has to calculate the output. Just as this furnace is about to be released, Ai Xu has not calculated it yet.
Seeing Ai Xu calculating the output, Lu Chen couldn't help but shook his head, "Our Zhuangzi can now produce five thousand kilograms of iron in one furnace. Wouldn't three furnaces produce fifteen thousand kilograms?" Lu Chen directly used a folding fan. After knocking Ai Xu on the head, Ai Xu smiled innocently at Lu Chen.
"You just know how to giggle! I asked you to learn literacy and arithmetic from Mr. Du, and that's all you learned?" Lu Chen directly glared at Ai Xu, and Ai Xu shrank his neck.
"Master Hou, Mr. Du couldn't understand some of the books you gave him, so we can't understand them even more!" Ai Xu said with some grievance.
"Hey!" Lu Chen looked at Ai Xu's expression and shook his head. It's not that Lu Chen hates iron, it's just that he has too many things to be busy with now, and the children's school is still under construction. This thing requires systematic education. During this period of time, Lu Chen was busy with Zhuangzi's planning during the day, and at night he was giving lessons to his friends, led by Du Yanliang.
Damn it, Lu Chen has been teaching Chinese Pinyin and Arabic numerals to the first grade of elementary school for a long time, mainly because most of these people are literate. Lu Chen originally expected that these literate people would be easier to teach, but Lu Chen found that he was wrong Well, teaching the literate is really not as good as teaching the uneducated from scratch.
"Lu Aiqing, how much iron do you think this furnace can produce?" Li Yuan was directly shocked by the number reported by Lu Chen. Good guy, Lu Chen's iron production this day is almost half as much as other iron smelting workshops. A month's worth.
"We can produce up to 20,000 kilograms a day!" Lu Chen responded to Li Yuan casually, "After all, we can work up to four hours a day here. If the time is long, these craftsmen can't stand it!" Regarding a reasonable work system, Lu Chen is Strictly enforce the requirements. If anyone dares to ask these craftsmen to work overtime without permission, Lu Chen will definitely be able to take care of the workshop manager. In serious cases, he will be kicked out of Lujiazhuang. Now these farmers in Lujiazhuang regard Lu Chen as a god. , Automatically Lu Chen came, and their food and accommodation changed a lot.
Lu Chen would occasionally get angry, but these villagers and Beiwei guards would not blame Lu Chen, why did the Marquis target me again? Instead, they would directly reflect on whether they had failed to do something well and offended their own family. The Marquis was angry. It was said that Zhao Si from the cement workshop was lazy for a quarter of an hour while working. Lu Chen didn't say anything. Zhao Si was chased from the east end of Zhuangzi by his mother, Aunt Sun, carrying a rolling pin. After arriving at the west end of Zhuangzi, he finally took his ears to the Hou Mansion and knelt down to apologize to Lu Chen. He made Lu Chen laugh and cry.
In fact, the reason why Zhao Si took a break for a quarter of an hour was because my mother suddenly wanted to eat fish the day before. This silly boy went to the river in Zhuangzi to catch fish for me in the middle of the night. He was beaten for a quarter of an hour when he went to work the next day. Lu Chen naturally knew the cause and effect of Zhong's drowsiness, so he didn't deliberately punish Zhao Si. He just told Zhao Si that if this kind of thing happens in the future, he can tell himself in advance that there are fish in the Hou Mansion and they can run into the river in the middle of the winter. Touching fish, if one is not careful, wouldn't people be dead?
But before this stupid kid could tell his mother about it, he was beaten with a rolling pin by his mother. When Lu Chen told Aunt Sun the cause and effect of the incident, Aunt Sun burst into tears, and Lu Chen even rewarded her with a reward. The mother was given a handful of leeks, which moved both of them to their heart's content.
"Then if it's twelve hours, wouldn't it be more?" Li Yuan looked at Lu Chen and asked. It's not surprising that Li Yuan would ask this. After all, there was no "eight-hour work system" in this period. Many tenant slaves from aristocratic families were It adheres to the idea of "as long as you can't do it to death, do it to death."
"Your Majesty, if someone changes shifts, they can naturally keep the furnace running. However, there are only so many people in Lujiazhuang, so we can be self-sufficient! Moreover, it is very difficult for people to work in such high temperatures for a long time. It's easy to dehydrate!" Lu Chen explained with a smile to Li Yuan, "Moreover, this is just a small blast furnace. If it were a larger blast furnace, one furnace could produce tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds in four to six hours. of pig iron! Of course, the premise is that there is enough iron ore!" As Lu Chen spoke, he looked at Zheng Shanguo who was standing aside. At this time, Zheng Shanguo was looking at the craftsmen busy in front of the blast furnace with a pale face.
