Han Qian left Zhao Laoguan, Zhao Qi, and Chen Jitang outside. He took Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, and others back to the official residence. At this time, the slaves were taking the pottery urns, steamer pots, and some strange things.
Moved into the East Cross Courtyard.
These pottery urns and pots were newly designed and fired by Han Qian. They were mainly used for distillation and purification after brewing, but the effect was not very good, and Han Qian never had time to figure out what was going on.
The current generation could not brew the throat-burning liquor of later generations.
In the past, Han Qian mainly used quicklime to dehydrate and purify the wine he brewed at that time. However, the purified wine contained a certain amount of lime water and was bitter in the mouth. It was definitely not considered a fine wine and was only sold as ordinary shoji wine.
It's a pity that Shao Daozi, which doesn't taste good, can't be sold to the homes of officials, and ordinary people can't afford the high price of wine, so it can only be considered better than nothing.
Even if Shaodaozi wine is used for disinfection, it will cause great irritation to the wound.
Han Qian had long considered using distillation to purify wine, and tried to make a new type of wine steamer in the autumn of last year. However, he failed to think further and adjust the design of the new type of wine steamer. Then the Jingxiang War broke out, and the matter has been delayed.
.
At present, Han Qian leaves the daily affairs of Jinyun Tower and Zuosi to Tian Cheng, Gao Shao, Lin Haizheng, and Zheng Tong. Whether it is to avoid the suspicion of Emperor Tianyou or to sort out the situation in Jinling City, he needs to cultivate his moral character for a period of time.
time, and have more time to ponder these ingenious and obscene techniques.
Real high-purity alcohol is not only highly welcomed by officials and dignitaries, but also has extremely high medical value; and the corresponding distillation and purification methods will also be used more widely.
When the pottery urns and pots were placed in the Dongkua courtyard, Han Qian couldn't wait to lead several young craftsmen from the Han family to assemble them...
In the next few days, Han Qian rode into the city every morning, went to the Prince's Mansion to sort out the affairs of Jinyun Tower, chatted with the third prince, and then rode out of the city after lunch, returning to Yandangji to ponder the matter of distillation.
Yang Qin, Feng Xuan, and Xi Chang took the fleet and the three hundred loaves of gold left in Han Qian's hands to buy rice grains in Runzhou and Guangling, which had been experiencing a continuous food boom in recent years.
During the Jingxiang War, not only was the Jingxiang area crippled, but also neighboring Jiang'e and other places, millions of dan of grain and a large number of civilians were requisitioned. In addition, before autumn and winter, people had to be mobilized from Jiang'e, E, Tan, Hunan and other places.
Thirty thousand households were recruited to fill Deng Prefecture, and all prefectures were bordered. The entire western territory of Chu was greatly affected by farming.
There is news now that the Yangtze River, Yuanshui River, Xiangshui River and even Ganjiang River basins will receive very heavy rainfall after the beginning of summer. Flood disasters will not be light, and food shortages will be the general trend.
In any case, transporting grain westward from Runyang and other places will not be a loss-making business.
However, the Xuzhou fleet currently only has eight large ships, with a total transportation capacity of only 15,600 shi. Han Qian did not let Yang Qin, Feng Xuan and others take away all the ships, leaving one in Yanyanji.
A new type of fast sailing ship, led by Lin Zongjing and more than 30 armed guards and sailors, trafficked supplies in Jinling and other places.
Han Qian really wanted to buy lime, green bricks, briquettes and other materials from Taowuji. The warehouse was equipped with ships for transportation. However, Han Qian had to be prepared for the situation in Jinling City to take a turn for the worse one day. He needed a fast sailing ship to help him escape quickly.
Danger.
No matter how scarce the transportation capacity of the Xuzhou Shipping Gang is currently, he must keep a ship by his side so that he can call on it at any time.
Of course, while he was developing distilled liquor in Yandangji, he also began to trial-produce a scorpion cannon that could be placed on the deck of a sailboat.
Installing trebuchets on warships was an idea that all naval generals in the world would have. After all, everyone wanted to destroy the enemy ship or kill a large number of enemy soldiers from three to four hundred steps away, instead of engaging in a brutal and tragic battle between the two sides.
of boarding operations.
However, traditional trebuchets are too bulky and require at least 40 or 50 people to drag them at the same time to launch stone bombs. Even five-story high-rise ships at that time were far from having such a large area of deck to place a traditional trebuchet.
trebuchet.
The biggest improvement of the cyclone cannon is to replace the human drag with a hanging box weighing more than several thousand kilograms. However, even a small cyclone cannon is five to six meters high and the tip pole is nearly ten meters long. It is very different from the existing weapons in the world.
The boat is still too big.
Even if it is forcibly installed on a warship, it will do more harm than good.
The weapons commonly used in the warships of the Luchuan Army and the Navy include bat poles and hooks for close combat, and crossbows for long-distance combat.
The bed crossbow can shoot short spear-like crossbow arrows, which can penetrate thick ship walls, but it can only attack enemy ships from the side. It is not as powerful as hitting the enemy with stone bullets weighing hundreds of kilograms or even two to three hundred kilograms.
ship, let alone setting fire to a clay pot filled with kerosene to an enemy ship three or four hundred paces away.
The traditional Scorpion Cannon has extremely high requirements for the material of the tendons, and it is difficult to reuse it many times.
Jinling City is not like the besieged Xichuan City. It is relatively easy for Han Qian to obtain high-quality bow materials.
Han Qian thought of combining the traditional three-bow bed crossbow with the sinew-cord bed crossbow, using the arms of three huge wooden bows to replace the torsion ribs as the power storage mechanism for projectiles.
However, even the bed crossbow made of three huge wooden bows has a bow power of only about five or six stones. It is enough to fire giant crossbow arrows, but it is thought that even a stone projectile weighing thirty to fifty kilograms can be thrown three hundred steps away.
, at least eight to ten giant wooden bows are needed as a projectile accumulating mechanism.
As a result, the Scorpion Cannon becomes bulky and expensive to build.
Han Qian thought about it a lot and decided to use fine steel to make the crossbow arm.
Even if there are hundreds of steelmaking operations in the world, the cost is actually much higher.
Steelmaking mainly involves heating pig iron blocks and repeatedly forging them, gradually removing impurities and removing carbon, and finally forging them into fine steel, but the whole process is extremely complicated.
At the beginning, Han Qian just took the meaning of the word, perhaps thinking that heating the pig iron red-hot and then forging it once could be called "one refinement". However, when he really studied the craftsmanship of the time in depth, he discovered that the pig iron was in the furnace.
After medium heating, it needs to be repeatedly forged for several days or even ten days before it can be called "one-refined". This shows how difficult it is to refine a piece of fine steel to the "hundred-refined" level in this world.
During the Three Kingdoms period, King Cao Cao of Wei ordered his secretary to make five swords, which took up to three years.
Although six to seven hundred years have passed since the Three Kingdoms, iron and steelmaking technology has developed on the basis of the traditional "hundred steelmaking", but it is still difficult to make a fine steel bow arm that can be used to store power.
Much bigger than imagined.
A fine straight-spine steel knife, forged and tempered on the basis of crude steel, is enough and can be sold for thousands of dollars. However, the fine steel bow arm must be greatly deformed without breaking, and it can also
It must be elastic enough to accumulate a huge force of three to four thousand kilograms, which is much more demanding than forging a sharp steel knife.
Han Qian discussed the relevant plans with the Han family craftsmen, and everyone was stunned. They said that if they really wanted to forge a qualified bow arm, they might not be able to forge a qualified stainless steel giant bow after spending two or three years.
Not to mention the expense involved, is this time worth it?
What if two or three years pass and it still fails?
Isn’t this money and food wasted in vain?
"There is nothing I can't do about what I've planned, so just go ahead and do it." Han Qian slapped the table and said, determined to go his own way and make a giant steel bow.
In the past two years or so, Han Qian wasted money and food like running water, and everyone was used to it.
At this time, seeing that Han Qian had made up his mind and not allowing others to comment, everyone stopped saying anything, so they requisitioned an adobe house for slaves in the south of the West Cross Courtyard and prepared to build a furnace.
Junfu Workshop has ready-made pig iron and iron ore powder for purchase, so there is no need to build a large iron-smelting furnace here in Yandangji.
The hand-forged furnaces of today are much simpler than imagined. Tools for steelmaking and forging, such as plows, fire tongs, forging hammers, etc., can be transported from Taowu Ji ready-made and cast in three days.
The house has been prepared to light the stove.
This morning, Han Qian specially asked Du Yijun and Du Yiming to go to the county prince's palace to take leave on his behalf. He stayed in Yandangji to see how the fires would be lit on the first day, but he took a special nap and practiced boxing.
After slowly having breakfast in the courtyard, before running to the forge, the county prince's palace sent a guard, saying that the third prince was going out of the city to Yongchun Palace to inspect the farm.
Han Qian could only put the others down in advance, take a boat to the farm on the other side of the river, and wait for the third prince and others to come out of the city.
It is said to be a farm, but it is twelve or three miles deep. It will also be one of the most important sources of private funds for the prince's government in the future.
Before the farm was granted to the county prince's name, it was a hunting park for Emperor Tianyou's autumn hunting. There was not much cultivated land, but there were nearly 20,000 acres of paddy fields, which were cultivated by more than 900 households and 5,000 to 6,000 official slaves.
In addition to harvesting more than 20,000 tons of rice every year, the farm also raises more than 2,000 cattle and horses, and can also deliver cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, meat, eggs, fish, crabs, and a certain amount of firewood every year.
Take a boat out of Yandangji and go south for about two miles before turning into a branch of the river that runs horizontally from east to west.
The farm house of the Prince's Mansion is located at the mouth of the river. There is a wooden bridge across the river lane, connecting the official road from the south. Cars and horses can drive directly into the manor.
This manor was where Emperor Tianyou rested when he went out to hunt in the city. Although it was not built as a formal palace, it was still a hundred times more grand than the Yandangji Manor on the other side.
After Han Qian came ashore, he saw that the outpost of the Third Prince's escort had just arrived, so he walked into the manor and took a stroll.
In the manor, which is more than a hundred acres in size, there are dozens of pavilions and pavilions. There are carved railings and painted walls everywhere. There are flowers and trees everywhere. The shallow pond in front of the house is full of koi and green lotus.
In addition to this, there was also a main palace named Yongchun Palace built in the manor. Emperor Tianyou would sometimes conduct official business in Yongchun Palace when he was away from work. Everyone also used to call Yongchun Palace the manor courtyard.
In addition to the main building complex, which is more than a hundred acres in size, there are also barracks for guards and water camps for naval warships to the east.
In addition to the more than 330 direct family guards and attendants in the Marriage Palace, the Prince's Palace will also select 670 loyal and brave soldiers from the soldiers of the Longque Army as guards in the tent.
The barracks next to Yongchun Palace will be used as a residence for the guards of the tent house in the future.
Under normal circumstances, when the third prince goes out of the city, the personal guards of the Zhang Nei Palace will be used to escort him; the guards of the county prince's palace and the daily escort of the third prince are mainly on duty from the Marriage Affairs Palace.
In addition to Yongchun Palace and the barracks, more than 900 households of slaves in the farm mainly live in ten slave villages.
If the third prince did not leave the city, Han Qian would not come to Yongchun Palace Manor for nothing. This was also his first time entering Yongchun Palace Manor.
Han Qian climbed up a rockery and looked around. He saw the northern part of Yongchun Palace Manor, with lush trees and grass, crisscrossing streams, and integrated with the Qiupu River to the west and the Yangtze River to the north. He didn't need anyone to introduce him to this place.
This part should be the main part of the hunting park. You can also see elk jumping among the grass and trees, and groups of white waterbirds flying among the swamps.
To the south of Henghe Port, there are criss-crossing Caiqian Streets and mulberry fields and paddy fields. Ten slave villages are also mainly distributed in the south of Henghe Port.
If Yongchun Palace Farm wants to increase its income, it still needs to cultivate more than 30,000 acres of land north of Henghe Port.
However, this land may have been a river beach a hundred years ago, and even then it was still low and silty. At this time, it looks like a dense forest of water swamp grass, but if we really want to open up wasteland to grow grains, the problem of flood disasters will be serious.