Thousands of sunset clouds fall, and the cold night drives away the scorching sun.
Thousands of houses light fires, and thousands of houses are filled with smoke.
The road was already sparse, and there were not many pedestrians left. Occasionally, passers-by were in a hurry, leaning against the wall and walking quickly with their heads lowered.
Every store has also closed its doors.
There is no curfew in Chiba City, but deep in the troubled times, thieves rule at night, so ordinary people do not dare to go out on the streets casually.
Lu Qi lowered the curtain of the blacksmith shop, leaving only the chimney open.
Gu Gu Gu~~
Lu Qi's stomach growled again.
He touched his stomach and frowned, "Not long after I finished eating, I was not full. Now I have made a breakthrough. My body needs more nutrients and energy, and I am actually hungry again."
Although he was hungry, the only food left in Lu Qi's home was tree bark, so he could only endure it.
Looking at the iron materials in the warehouse, Lu Qi's eyes were firm.
This is the basis for his fortune.
Li Muer was sent to guard the gate, while he was planning his work tonight.
"It takes seven days to make ten low-grade knives, five during the day and five at night, almost two knives a day and a night."
"If you don't count it during the day, I only have two hours at night. If it's any later, it will affect other people's rest. It will definitely attract hatred. It may also attract the government officials and neighbors, and there is a possibility of exposure."
"In other words, I have to complete a knife within two hours, as well as build some things that I need to sell."
Lu Qi recalled the scene of making a low-grade dagger today, and thought about how he had become more proficient in blacksmithing skills in the past half month. In addition, he was already a master and a master of the first-level leather refining realm in martial arts.
In fact, it only takes half an hour to make a low-grade knife, a quarter of an hour to polish it, and the remaining time and a half can be used to do his own things.
"With my strength, if I want to sell things and don't want to expose my identity, I can only go to the secret workshop operated by the Lu family and the county government. My father took me there several times when I was young, so I don't need to expose myself.
Selling things of identity.”
"But the order inside the dark workshop is fine, but the order outside is still very chaotic. If I don't want to be targeted, I must sell things that match my strength. I need to show my strength in the first level of martial arts, and I can sell it by then.
There are only low-grade swords."
Lu Qi held his chin and thought, "Moreover, the selling price should not be too good, it is best to be of just the right level. In this way, it will not show off its appearance. And low-grade swords have never been worried about buyers, especially now in the Judao Sect.
New mines are being developed, and new recruitment is about to begin in the second half of the year. Too many people are in need of weapons."
When Lu Qi thought about it, he started to care.
"However, I have to guard against some people who are crazy about poverty, so I must build a self-defense weapon for myself, and kill the invading enemies when necessary. The self-defense weapon cannot be too good, so as not to be targeted by interested people."
After several calculations and reflections, Lu Qi gradually had an idea of what he wanted to do.
Just start doing things.
When Li Muer saw that Lu Qi had been thinking, he thought he was finding it difficult and wanted to give up. Just as he was about to say something, Lu Qi had already started to get angry.
"Now my only fire material is charcoal, which burns at a lower temperature than coal. It is impossible to increase the carbon content in the pig iron, and it cannot be directly evolved into steel. It is difficult to shorten the building time."
"It is estimated that those high-level blacksmiths have either found a substitute, found a unique iron material in the world, or used their own skills to increase firepower to create stronger weapons."
"But now I am only practicing the strength of my muscles, bones and skin externally. I cannot yet practice one breath internally, let alone release the internal energy externally, or increase the firepower. There are no special materials, let alone substitutes, so I can only find another way."
Lu Qi originally wanted to use the steel-making method to directly cast iron tools, so that the hardness of the iron tools would directly reach the standard, thus saving the time and energy of constant forging.
But now, it's obviously not possible anymore.
"It seems that we can only use the steel filling method." Lu Qi thought for a moment and planned to use the steel filling method in his previous life to obtain steel.
The so-called steel-filling method is not a brilliant technique, it is just a steel-making method to obtain high hardness accumulated by countless blacksmiths in previous lives over many years of experience.
That is to pour molten pig iron into wrought iron, increase the carbon content of the molten iron, and reach a certain ratio to obtain steel.
However, this level of steel is still the most rudimentary.
But compared to ironware cast from pig iron, its hardness is not even the slightest bit stronger.
Even so, in Lu Qi's opinion, it is enough.
"Okay, let's use the steel pouring method. In this way, the hardness of the steel will be exactly that of pig iron that has been hammered for thousands of times. Maybe it only needs a little polishing to get a qualified low-grade knife."
Lu Qi thought this and started to operate.
The first step is to obtain wrought iron.
There are two ways to get wrought iron.
One is to put iron ore into a steel-making furnace and directly reduce it to sponge iron at low temperature. This was a relatively early practice in the past and has been rare since the Song Dynasty.
The other is to put iron ore into a steel-making furnace and reduce it at high temperature to obtain pig iron. The pig iron is then decarburized using the steel-frying method to obtain "wrought iron". If the control is proper, the steel can be tapped directly.
Lu Qi just lacked a high-temperature furnace, so he planned to use the first method directly.
Light the fire, put the iron ore into it, and after two-quarters of an hour of calcination, you finally get sponge iron, which is wrought iron.
After that, you need to start a new stove, put the iron materials into it, step on the blower, blow in the air, burn the fire vigorously, raise the temperature of the furnace, and quickly obtain molten iron.
Then there is a series of fusion steel filling.
About a quarter of an hour later, Lu Qi looked at the quality and felt that the molten iron was no longer pig iron, but had turned into steel. He poured it into a standard knife mold and melted it into a knife shape.
After cooling for a moment, Lu Qi took off the mold, picked up the knife with tongs, knocked it with a hammer, and smiled.
"Haha, it's done."
It was a one-time success and the steel knife was obtained.
Lu Qi used the tongs to break it again and felt relieved after confirming that the hardness of the steel knife was only 10% or 20% better than that of normal low-grade knives.
"It's not too strong. It's a little worse than the dagger I used during the day, but it's definitely qualified. That's enough."
Lu Qi heated the steel knife red, and then forged it briefly. This time, he didn't need to hit it 360 times, but only hit it more than 30 times to smooth out some of the potholes. Then he heated it red again and added a brand.
A knife is enough.
After that, Lu Qi began to install the handle of the knife, clamped it with wood chips, wrapped it with cloth, and then added some tung oil to polish the coating. After that, the knife was ready.
It just hasn't started yet.
Lu Qi was not in a hurry to start the knife, because it only took him more than half an hour from starting to light the fire to finishing the knife. If he started sharpening the knife immediately, the neighbors would know how long it took him to make the knife.
From the moment he started blacksmithing, Lu Qi had noticed that neighbors and neighbors occasionally came out to check, and one family even came to inquire.
But they were all persuaded to leave by Li Muer.
If it is polished at this time, it will definitely be exposed.
Therefore.
Lu Qi put it aside and began to smelt iron materials to forge the weapons he would sell tonight, as well as things to use for self-defense.
When it's done, we'll polish it together.
As expected, Lu Qi continued to smelt iron materials to make his own weapons. Even Li Muer did not have any doubts. He only felt that he was still working on Brother Dao's low-grade knife.
"First of all, build the weapon I want to defend myself. This thing shouldn't be too big, but it should kill with one blow and be powerful enough to allow me to escape as soon as possible."
Lu Qi thought of the triangular military thorn. It was an excellent blood-letting thing and very useful, but it had a single function and lacked the chopping function of a sword.
Then he rejected it.
"Hey, I thought of it, that's it."
Lu Qi thought of the Nepali military knives that were recognized as the most ergonomic in his previous life, commonly known as dog-leg knives and kukri knives.