The forge house is very simple. It was just raised today and the furnace was officially started today.
Han Qian spent the day hunting with the third prince and inspecting the Yongchun Palace farm. It was only at this time that he was able to take a look at the process of forging crude steel by the Han family's craftsmen.
The Dragon Bird Army established a garrison and built and repaired armor, which was the responsibility of the Gong Cao. This was something that Zhou Yuan had tried his best to grasp from the beginning, so Han Qian had not had the opportunity to touch and refine it in person before.
Regarding the steel process, in the past, when he wanted to make any steel forgings in Jinling, he would always ask Lin Haizheng or other Lin family craftsmen to find Gong Cao's craftsmen to help with it.
Zhou Yuan wanted to ask Han Qian for help at that time and would not embarrass Han Qian on such trivial matters.
At this moment, he was standing in the forging room, just briefly looking at the operation of the two hand forges in the room, and felt that it was really crude.
At that time, the hand forge was used to heat pig iron blocks for decarbonization and for forging after heating. The working space was a concave trough furnace. The trough was filled with charcoal or coal, and the air for combustion was supplied from the cavity at the bottom of the trough.
, the workpiece is buried in burning charcoal for heating, and half of the working space is exposed to the outside. The heat source escapes through radiation and hot air convection. How high can the thermal efficiency be, and how high can the furnace temperature be increased?
The air blower is a leather paddle made only of cowhide, which is also a commonly used blower for smelting gold and iron in the world. Han Qian has not had time to study the internal structure carefully.
These wind prongs were obtained directly from the military workers. There were two handles at the bottom. Each wind prong was operated by two slaves to hold the handles and blow air into the forge.
It's just that this kind of manual platooning is extremely labor-intensive. Han Qian secretly feels that these two slaves can't even do it for half an hour, and their arms will be so numb that they can't lift them up, so someone else needs to be replaced.
Perhaps due to the limited temperature of the furnace, Han Qian and the others looked outside the forge for a long time, but they did not see the pig iron rod put in the working tank burning red. Han Qian called a young craftsman out and asked if it would take half an hour for such a burning.
, can a pig iron rod be burned until it is semi-soft. At this time, iron ore powder can be sprinkled on it and turned over, so that the pig iron ore powder can be burned into the red-hot pig iron rod little by little.
Han Qian thought to himself that it was no wonder that even crude steel, which could only be used to make farm tools, was sold at such a high price, and from crude steel to making farm tools, it needed further forging and shaping.
It’s no wonder that five famous swords during the Three Kingdoms period took three years to make. Even if the world had mastered the steel-frying technology of heating and then sprinkling iron ore powder to decarbonize, first-class swords would still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Get your money back.
And even if Han Qian took a cursory look at it, he knew how much room there was for improvement once he started.
Apart from anything else, the working tank for heating forgings must at least be changed to a closed or semi-closed tank chamber.
The world didn't know it at the time, but Han Qian knew that in an open working tank, the heat of the furnace flame escapes in large quantities through convection and radiation. Although a closed working tank also needs a flue and cannot isolate the convection of hot air, at least it can
It can greatly reduce the outward radiation of heat source.
From this point of view, Han Qian is estimated to be able to directly increase the furnace temperature significantly.
Of course, the closed working chamber must withstand high temperatures and needs to be strong and fire-resistant so that it does not collapse easily and injure people. There are still many technical problems to be overcome.
Apart from the work slot, Feng Pai is also too primitive in Han Qian's eyes.
Although it was possible to build a water drainage system at that time, that is, to use the water flow to impact the wheel blades of the water wheel to drive the reciprocating wheel to squeeze the bladder to inflate, which is much more labor-intensive than manual inflating. However, the surrounding area of Yandangji is flat and the water flow in the canal is extremely slow. Not enough to drive a waterwheel.
The furnace temperature is also directly related to the amount of air blown in. How to solve this problem?
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Han Qian was thinking about how to improve the ventilation and exhaust facilities. The third prince, Yang Yuanpu, was distracted by other things and asked Han Qian curiously:
"There seems to be a strong aroma of wine coming from the courtyard to the east. Is it because the wine jar in Master Han's house was broken?"
"How many wine jars do you have to smash to get such a strong aroma of wine?" Zhang Ping said with a smile. He had long noticed the aroma of wine wafting out of the manor, but Han Qian had too many secrets hidden in him. , if the third prince did not mention this matter, it would be inconvenient for him to inquire blindly.
He believed that Shen Yang, Zheng Hui and the others should have noticed this a long time ago.
Han Qian came to his senses, looked away from the forging room, and said: "There is a lack of strong brewing in the world, and I just can't take any time off, so I secretly brew some liquor to drink."
In Dachu's actual wine franchise system, there are only a dozen wine shops in Jinling City that have obtained the official certificate of wine sales from the Liquor Management Bureau of the Salt and Iron Envoy Department, and are qualified to make wine and sell it to the outside world. Whether it is other wine shops or prostitute villages, They all needed to buy wine from these eighteen wine shops. The Linjiang money shop offered Shaodaozi wine as part of the interest, which was an opportunity for the Salt and Iron Envoy to turn a blind eye to the property owned by the third prince.
However, the government does not regulate privately brewed water as long as it is not sold publicly.
Han Qian led everyone into the scene where the distiller's grains were steamed in Dongkuayuan without any hesitation.
The steamer pot that Han Qian built at this time was placed directly on the large stove for cooking. A large conical copper lid was fastened on the top, and a copper tube as thick as an arm was led out from the big copper lid.
The large stove has a built-in charcoal to cook the distiller's grains, and the hot steam rises and flows out diagonally downward through the copper pipe.
Since Han Qian had not figured out how to continuously supply cold water to the condenser tube at this time, he had not yet installed the condenser tube into the copper tube.
At this time, wine steaming mainly relies on the natural heat dissipation of copper pipes in contact with the air.
At this time, even though the fire under the stove was very small, there was still a lot of wine odor overflowing, and only a small amount of wine seeped out against the wall of the copper pipe, dripping continuously into the pottery urn below.
Han Qian poured a few cups of the brewed wine and handed it to the third prince, Shen Yang, Zheng Hui, and Zhang Ping to taste. He also asked Zheng Hui with a smile: "My privately brewed Yandangchun is better than the Zheng family in Huangzhou." How's the wine?"
Even if Zheng Hui is not the head of the Zheng family, he is still the core disciple. Naturally, he knows that the Zheng family’s secret brewing method is to use continuous melody to increase the intensity of the wine. It can be said to be a rare spirit in the world, but he Walking into the wine steaming room, smelling the rich aroma of wine filling the room, you knew that this Yandangchun wine was stronger than the wine made by the Zheng family.
Zheng Hui took a sip. The wine had not been blended and seemed bland and tasteless in the mouth. However, a line of fire went down his throat. It was definitely much stronger than Zheng's wine. He was secretly shocked. He didn't know what Han Qian's master had passed down. Door, even wine-making is involved.
"I didn't expect Master Han to be a famous wine maker. Is it difficult to find such strong wine in this world?" Zheng Hui said.
Han Qian smiled slightly and said, "It's just a favor, so who am I to be a famous brewer?"
The alcohol he served to everyone was not very high-precision. He took a sample and tested it with quicklime. The alcohol content was only 30%, but the alcohol content was higher than the so-called spirits brewed by the continuous pouring method in the world. A big chunk.
Han Qian generally remembered that alcohol has a lower boiling point than water and can be separated from water through distillation. However, it is actually still distilled with water, but the alcohol content is doubled.
Han Qian couldn't figure out what was going on for a while, but seeing that the alcohol content could be increased, he knew that it could be further purified through continuous distillation.
As for the installation of the condenser pipe and how to continuously supply water, Han Qian has not had time to think about these issues in detail yet, so the current wine steaming is not ideal, so Han Qian generously invited everyone to come in and visit.
Even though Zheng Hui's eyes were as wide as bells and he wanted to take in everything in the wine steaming room, Han Qian didn't care.
"Master Han has to do so many things. I'm afraid there are not enough slaves in the manor. Master Han can select twenty households of slaves from Yongchun Palace Manor and go!" Yang Yuanpu said while taking a sip of Yandangchun.
Shen Yang just wanted to dissuade him, but when he thought about Zuo Si's liquidation, Han Qian really suffered too much, so His Highness's reward of twenty additional households of slaves could be considered some kind of compensation.
"Han Qian is more respectful than obedient. Thank you for the reward, Your Highness." Han Qian thanked him.
He wants to do too many things, but there are too few available manpower.
In the past two years, he had trained nearly a thousand skilled craftsmen for the craftsmanship workshop, and they all stayed in the Qiuhu Mountain Villa. After all, these skilled craftsmen were all military households of the military government, which were different from the Han family's military tribe. .
There are more than 900 households of slaves in Yongchun Palace. They are mainly the descendants and clansmen of the defeated parties and tribesmen who fought for the dominance of Jianghuai in recent years. Han Qian can choose 20 households and 120 or 30 people from them. They can select a group of talents. .
In Han Qian's eyes, this is naturally far more valuable than a direct reward of two to three thousand acres of land.
When Yang Yuanpu was on duty, he ordered Zhang Ping to bring the list of slaves in Yongchun Palace to Han Qian for selection tomorrow.
At this time, the barbecue scene in front of the official residence was ready. More than a hundred guards took away two elk and two wild boars to cook stew. The farmyard also provided some extra fruits, japonica rice, and five jars of Yandangchun, which were enough for the guards to eat. Some.
Han Qian and the others specially selected a young elk, skinned it, and marinated it with spices, salt and other ingredients for half an hour before grilling it. The meat was naturally tender and plump, and even Shen Yang was sweating profusely while drinking it. , shouting happily without caring about the details of the relationship.