Mass production of iron swords naturally requires the help of molds.
While the craftsmen of the Ordnance Forging Bureau were working desperately to cast weapons, the craftsmen of the Smelting Bureau were making the molds needed to cast iron swords.
Because they had already had experience in making candle molds, the craftsmen of the Metallurgical Manufacturing Bureau seemed to be very handy when making the molds. They used clay with better thermal insulation properties than ordinary clay to first shape the outline of the iron sword mold.
Then, the molten iron melted in the crucible is poured into the clay mold, and after it cools down, an iron sword mold that looks similar to a candle mold is obtained.
On this mold, there are also ten square holes horizontally and vertically, one foot long, half a foot wide, and about the length of a sword deep.
It has to be said that this iron mold, which is square and square like an iron platform, is much larger and heavier than the mold used to make candles.
Craftsmen from the Smelting Bureau brushed oil on the one hundred square holes in the iron mold, and then filled them with clay as full as possible.
Then, they polished a wooden sword from hard wood. This wooden sword was larger than the weapons used by normal armies. The craftsmen inserted it into a square hole filled with clay until the blade was gone.
Later, when the craftsmen cleaned up the extruded clay and pulled out the wooden sword, the outline of the wooden sword was left inside the clay in the square hole of the iron mold. This was the actual material used to cast the iron sword.
Mold.
After the clay solidified slightly, the craftsmen poured molten iron into the hollow in the center of the clay and filled it up. The hot molten iron gradually transferred its temperature to the surrounding circle of clay, causing the clay to gradually solidify.
In this way, after the molten iron has completely cooled and solidified, the craftsmen of the Smelting Bureau can take out the sword embryo and the clay that wrapped it. After crushing the clay as the outer shell, they can get a sword that needs to be reprocessed.
Processed and forged sword embryo.
The only problem is that the sword embryo cast in this way has no hilt.
Don't think that you can simply use welding technology to weld the hilt of the sword. In fact, this is not advisable. After all, this is a weapon supplied to the army, and quality is particularly important. If one day, a soldier is holding an iron sword with a welded hilt.
Stepping onto the battlefield and fighting hard with the enemy, the hilt and blade of the sword separated at the critical moment. This was not only related to a human life, but also related to the fact that on this battlefield, the Wei State lost a heroic soldier due to the quality of the weapon.
.
Don't think this is a trivial matter. Perhaps one soldier cannot affect the outcome of the entire war. What if there are ten soldiers? What about a hundred soldiers?
If such a situation really occurs, then the Metallurgical Bureau will not be able to escape the blame. You know, the generals stationed in the Sixth Battalion will probably knock the roof of the Metallurgical Bureau off.
Just when the craftsmen were worried about this, the young craftsman Ding Jun, who had made valuable suggestions when perfecting the candle mold last time, once again made constructive suggestions this time.
He proposed that the Metallurgical Bureau create a mold for a special part, that is, an iron rod about the thickness of a finger. When the molten iron wrapped in clay has not yet solidified and formed, the iron rod could be hung up with a rope.
Then it hangs down into the molten iron. In this way, when the sword embryo solidifies and takes shape, the iron rod will be sintered inside the sword embryo.
In order to prevent the iron rod from leaving the sword blade, Ding Jun also suggested that when making the iron rod mold, it should be widened by a small section at intervals, just like a human finger joint, and a lock-like method should be used to ensure that the iron rod cannot be separated from the iron rod.
Detachment from within the embryo.
These suggestions not only amazed the craftsmen of the Smelting Bureau, but also made Zhao Hongrun become obsessed with this craftsman named Ding Jun.
Zhao Hongrun felt that this craftsman named Ding Jun might not have as much experience in craftsmanship as those older craftsmen, but his creativity surprised even him, Zhao Hongrun.
On that day, Zhao Hongrun promoted Ding Jun to head craftsman without saying a word.
Craftsman, or foreman, is not a formal professional title in the smelting bureau. It is equivalent to a "craftsman captain". Generally speaking, only older and extremely experienced craftsmen have this qualification. It is by no means a title like "craftsman captain".
A young craftsman like Ding Jun, who is less than thirty years old, can take this job. After all, the Smelting Bureau is an agency that pays great attention to qualifications.
Fortunately, Ding Jun repeatedly put forward important suggestions and made great contributions. In addition, Zhao Hongrun had a special status in the Smelting Bureau. Therefore, the craftsmen in the Smelting Bureau acquiesced to the young Ding.
Jun was promoted to be the chief craftsman and commanded them.
It has to be said that Ding Jun's idea was indeed ingenious. With the help of the method he came up with, the craftsmen of the Smelting Bureau quickly harvested a hundred sword embryos.
The reason why these iron swords that are directly cast with molten iron are called sword embryos is because the quality of the iron sword at this time is not as good as that of the finished iron sword because it has been forged and quenched.
Of course, in fact, the best way is to use heavy machines to roll, but this era does not have such process conditions. Therefore, the only option is to ask the craftsmen to hammer one hammer after another, and then perform a series of quenching
, normalizing, tempering and other procedures gradually stabilized the sword embryo.
But in any case, the manufacturing process of melting and casting the sword embryo in one step, and then performing another round of processing, is much faster than the process of the Ordnance Casting Bureau that directly uses the block iron embryo to create the iron sword.
If it takes three to five days for a craftsman from the Ordnance Forging Bureau to start making a finished iron sword from a lump of iron embryo, then the craftsmen from the Smelting Bureau can use the new process to directly process the sword embryo and be able to make it in one fell swoop.
The time is shortened to one day, which is a huge improvement.
The days passed day by day.
Ten days later, the craftsmen of the Weapon Casting Bureau had made approximately two to three thousand finished iron swords.
The Smelting Bureau only cast ten iron molds for melting and casting iron swords. Although some sword embryos were mass-produced, there was not a single finished iron sword.
Don’t think that the iron sword forging figures of the Bingzhu Bureau are scary. In fact, the Bingzhu Bureau has nearly 2,000 experienced blacksmiths, plus the craftsmen who assist in casting and hammering iron embryos, and the apprentices who pull the bellows. It is not difficult to guess that the Bingzhu Bureau
How much manpower was invested in increasing production to this point?
It may be that this news leaked to the court, so many people in the court sneered at the Smelting Bureau: Fortunately, these people had challenged the Bingzhu Bureau before, but now after ten days, the Bingzhu Bureau has cast two to three thousand coins.
The finished iron sword, where are the people in the Smelting Bureau? I don’t know what they are doing!
However, all knowledgeable officials in the DPRK remained silent.
Especially the Yu Department. The Yu Manufacturing Bureau under their name is holding more and more candle molds made by the Smelting Bureau. The number of candles produced every day has reached an astronomical number. It has already been produced to the point where the supply of raw materials for the Ministry of Households is insufficient.
, we had no choice but to temporarily stop work and wait for the warehouse under the household department to deliver the raw materials for making candles.
Only they understand how terrifying the process of mass-producing finished products using molds is.
In response, Zhou Pei, the director of Yubu, secretly sneered: The candle molds of the Smelting Bureau have almost overwhelmed the domestic candle workshops, forcing those workshop owners to change their way of making a living to help Yubu sell candles.
Health. If the Metallurgical and Manufacturing Bureau is serious about tinkering with molds capable of mass-producing weapons and equipment, I am afraid that even the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau will be crushed.
Even when this news reached the ears of Emperor Wei, Emperor Wei smiled and made a bet with the three ministers in the Chui Gong Hall on who would win the craftsmanship competition between the Bing Casting Bureau and the Smelting Bureau.
As a result, in addition to Feng Yu, the right prime minister of Zhongshu, who still had some doubts about Zhao Hongrun and the Metallurgical Bureau shortly after taking office, he chose the Bingzhu Bureau.
Create a situation.
As this matter spread more widely within the court, more and more officials became curious about the outcome and silently paid attention to the matter.
Those who support the Bingzhu Bureau, such as officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, secretly resented Zhao Hongrun because the Ministry of Civil Affairs was weakened by Emperor Wei. As expected, this time they sided with the Bingzhu Bureau, saying what the Smelting Bureau wanted.
To be better than the Weapon Casting Bureau in weapon forging is simply a fantasy!
In fact, many people even in the Ministry of Revenue hold this view.
Of course, the most important thing is the quarrel between officials from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry: the Bizzhu Bureau is the "son" of the Ministry of War, and the officials of the Ministry of War naturally support the Bizzhu Bureau, while the Metallurgical Bureau is not a "pro-son" of the Ministry of Industry.
"Son", and has long since left the Ministry of Industry, but after all, the Metallurgical Bureau has also left the Ministry of Industry, and this friendship will not weaken.
It can be said that except for the officials of the Ministry of Punishment and the Ministry of Rites who are neutral, the other ministries seem to have lined up.
So during these days, it was almost common to see officials from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Personnel quarreling and scolding each other over trivial matters. Officials from the Ministry of Works also used various excuses and reasons to refuse to accept the request from the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Personnel.
An application was made to repair the official building.
The entire court was in an uproar, which made Zhao Yuanli laugh out loud when he heard about it.
Generally speaking, most of the officials in the imperial court were still optimistic about the Smelting Bureau. However, even though only officials from the Ministry of Industry cheered for it, the Smelting Bureau was not in a hurry and was still busy with its own affairs.
Yes, neither Zhao Hongrun nor Wang Fu meant to panic at all.
As the saying goes, if you want to do your job well, you must first sharpen your tools. The Smelting Bureau spent ten days casting the mold. However, as the molds are officially put into use, the number of iron swords cast by the Smelting Bureau will inevitably exceed that of the Weapon Casting Bureau. This is
The obvious thing.
Sure enough, after waiting for another ten days, the craftsmen of the Weapon Casting Bureau had only doubled the number of finished iron swords from two to three thousand, while the Smelting Bureau only had more than 400 blacksmiths and about double the number of craftsmen.
With his apprentice, he increased the number of finished iron swords from zero to four thousand in just ten days.
Calculated on average, it is indeed the speed at which a group of craftsmen (one craftsman, one craftsman, and one apprentice) can forge an iron sword every day.
When this news reached the DPRK, a large number of people were really frightened.
However, the Smelting Bureau's strength is far more than that. According to Zhao Hongrun's estimation, if both the Military Casting Bureau and the Smelting Bureau produce iron swords according to the current casting trend, then after the third ten days have passed, the Smelting Bureau will
Eight thousand iron swords will be produced, tying Bingzhuju in one fell swoop, or even surpassing it.
What's even more incredible is that as time goes by, even if the Smelting Bureau does not increase the number of iron molds, the output of iron swords can still be one thousand swords every ten days, gradually leaving the Bingzhi Bureau behind.
This is the change of the times. New technology will inevitably replace and eliminate old technology. How can a small military casting bureau stop it? (To be continued.)