Although Emperor Tianyou convicted Feng Wenlan and Kong Zhou of treason, he detained their relatives and party members for separate trials. He still considered the feelings of the princes and ministers in the court and had no intention of annihilating the entire Feng family.
Feng's side children and even Feng Wenlan's bastards may be relatively lightly implicated, but Feng Liao, Feng Yi, and Kong Xirong, as the legitimate sons of Feng and Kong, will most likely still be unable to escape serious crimes.
Even if no additional charges are laid against them, one of them will probably be exiled to the army or demoted to an official slave in the end.
Feng Liao, Feng Yi, and Kong Xirong escaped from Jinling. Han Qian didn't find it strange, but he thought that the world is so big, where could they escape to?
Maybe they never thought at all that they would end up in such a situation one day, right?
However, after the Feng family went to great lengths to pick up Feng Yi and Kong Xirong from Lanting Lane, Han Qian didn't want to pay attention to it. When Tian Cheng came over to talk about it, he just listened and looked up at the blue and cloudless night.
After sighing for a moment that the autumn air was crisp and the weather was cool, he got on his horse and galloped towards Donghua Gate in the sunset, escorted by Zhao Wuji, Xi Faer and others.
Back at the manor, it was already dark. After dinner, Han Qian ran to the forging room and watched Chen Jitang leading the craftsmen to figure out how to forge fine steel.
After more than half a month of testing the furnace, the benefits of the new semi-closed chamber furnace are slowly being further explored.
Han Qian also confirmed from the practice of Chen Jitang and others that the melting point of fine steel is actually much higher than that of pig iron. With the semi-closed chamber furnace currently built in the forging house, the pig iron block will be melted into molten iron very quickly, but a handle
An excellent straight-ridged knife will only get red enough to be further hammered after being burned for half a day.
This is also the key reason why forging becomes more difficult in the later stages of steelmaking.
Even Chen Jitang didn't understand what was going on, but for Han Qian, some of the knowledge gained from the dream suddenly became clear.
This is obviously due to the difference in carbon content and impurity content, which determines the difference in the melting point of steel.
And if you don’t want to spend many months of forging to get a good piece of steel, the key to saving more effort and trouble is actually to continue to find ways to increase the furnace temperature.
Especially at extremely high furnace temperatures, the pig iron material is smelted into molten iron. Proper stirring and rolling while continuing to blow in air can directly reduce the carbon content. There is no need to forge and decarbonize, and real iron can be produced.
Wrought iron, this is also the soft iron referred to in "He Yibai makes steel and turns it into soft iron."
However, as weapons and armor pieces, the lower the carbon content is not always the better. Instead, there are too many things to explore in terms of impurity removal, carbon removal, and even carbonization.
Carloads of charcoal and pig iron are transported into the forge every day, and thousands or even tens of thousands of money are consumed, but they cannot make a good knife that is suitable for use. Chen Jitang and many craftsmen are also impatient. However, Han Qian has always been
Emphasize that he should be patient, put aside past stereotypes, explore and summarize bit by bit.
Han Qian also devoted a lot of his energy here. As long as he was in the manor, he spent most of his time in the forging room, and his skin was burned red.
Chen Jitang and his colleagues have been trying to replace expensive charcoal with cheaper briquettes for the past two days, but they found that the forged steel shed more iron slag during forging.
Han Qian speculated that this may be because impurities in the briquettes entered the molten iron or steel bars during smelting, making them brittle, which manifested as an increase in iron slag during forging.
Today, when Han Qian specifically asked Chen Jitang to conduct tests under the same conditions using charcoal and coal cakes, he called him to the forging room. Chen Jitang told him that it was indeed verified that the crude steel cast from the coal cakes was more likely to break.
"It may be possible to make farm tools with steel made from coal cakes, but it is not possible to make swords and armor." At this time, Chen Jitang was in charge of the craftsmen in the village's courtyard. As a result, he became more confident and spoke more fluently.
Pig iron cannot be used because it contains impurities, high carbon content, and is brittle. Steel made from coal cakes is not modified to a great extent, so it can be used to cast farm tools, but what Han Qian wanted to do was to be able to batch it.
Produce cheap and high-quality fine steel armor pieces or fine steel components.
Although the charcoal consumption is not very wasteful for small-scale forged steel parts, for large-scale iron and steel smelting, the cost advantage of briquettes is too great.
What's more, the burning of charcoal requires a large amount of wood. This is no longer an issue of whether it is environmentally friendly or ecological, but a matter of whether the few remaining forests near Jinling City can withstand several years of consumption.
Han Qian squatted in the corner of the forge yard, weighing a piece of coal cake and a piece of charcoal in each hand.
The person in the dream, Zhai Xinping, did not have an engineering background. It was really difficult for Han Qian to figure out what impurities were in the coal cake and how to remove them.
At this time, Xi Rong led Xi Fa'er over, called Han Qian aside, and said: "There is a man who calls himself Feng Family Buqu. He went to the village courtyard at night to find Guo Que'er, saying that he wanted to see the Lord for something."
Xi Fa'er and his father Xi Chang are the only Xi clan members who are closely related to Xi Rong. Xi Chang and Xi Rong's mother Gao Xi are cousins.
After Xi Chang and Xi Fa'er were redeemed, Han Qian initially asked them to command and train slave soldiers, and later served as the deputy commander of the Xuzhou Battalion.
After the Xichuan War, most of the prisoners returned to Xuzhou, and a few prisoners were recruited as military guards of the boat gang. Xi Chang and Feng Xuan also directly joined the boat gang and worked with Yang Qin, but Xi Faer, who was two years older than Zhao Wuji,
The young Xi family who led a group of people to practice the art of endurance remained with Han Qian as private soldiers.
At this time, the Feng family was either detained in the prison of Dali Temple awaiting trial, or they had fled Jinling. Suddenly someone claiming to be the Feng family came over late at night, and Han Qian frowned slightly.
"Are you afraid that Feng Yi came over and begged the young master for help?" Xi Rong said speculatively.
"What can I do to save him?" Han Qian rubbed his temples to relieve the swelling and pain, and asked Xi Fa'er, "Where is he? Has anyone seen him?"
"This man is quite capable. He walked into the farmyard and found Guo Que'er, but our manpower didn't notice it." Xi Fa'er said with some shame. He was responsible for guarding the farmhouse tonight, and let people sneak in quietly and call out.
He was very uncomfortable.
Counting the days, Yang Qin and Xi Chang led the fleet to come from Xuzhou. Lin Zongjing and Guo Nuer took a part of the manpower and sailed to Runzhou to purchase silk in advance.
Han Qian cannot transfer Zuo Si's scouts and spies to the manor for private use. It is impossible for the dozen guards led by Zhao Wuji and Xi Fa'er to keep the manor where nearly 300 people currently live in a watertight manner.
Although the manor was full of servants and slaves of the Han family, one had to be careful of people talking too much. Han Qian didn't want to disturb too many people, so he called Xi Rong, and Xi Fa'er led the way to Guo Que'er's recuperation place.
Both of Guo Que'er's parents were seriously ill and died of illness soon after they were incorporated into the camp. Guo Que'er was a master of martial arts and a smart man. He was first selected by Han Qian to join the Zuo Division and was directly assigned to work in the Feng Mansion.
After Feng Yi and Kong Xirong were picked up from Lanting Lane, they finally revealed some of the secrets they knew. Afterwards, Feng Wenlan not only told Yin Peng the whereabouts of Chun Shisanniang, but also imprisoned Guo Queer and tortured her.
Torture, want to know more secrets about the Prince's Palace and Zuo Si, as capital for self-protection.
It was not until Feng Wenlan and Kong Zhou were placed under house arrest by Emperor Tianyou that the Feng family sent back Guo Que'er, who had been tortured beyond recognition. In the past few days, Guo Que'er had been recuperating at Yandangji Manor.
When Guo Que'er went to the pond to relax at night, he was approached by the Feng family. He also knew that the matter was not trivial, so he took him to the courtyard where the guard lived to find Xi Fa'er to report the matter.
Han Qian walked into the house and saw a thin, bearded man standing restlessly in front of the window. He opened the door and entered the house. The thin man was startled. It seemed that he had been frightened a lot in the past two days.
"Young man Li Qi Donkey, Master Han, remember!" The thin man saw Xi Rong, Xi Fa'er and others standing behind Han Qian with great vigilance. He did not rush forward in a hurry, but stood at the window and saluted and asked.
road.
This thin man was Feng Wenlan's guard who later moved to Feng Yi to restrain Feng Yi's actions. Since he only obeyed Feng Wenlan's orders, Han Qian had met him several times but had never spoken to him.
"You are so brave. The Feng family's crimes are so heinous. Your Majesty has shown mercy by not annihilating the family. You don't think about your faults or atone for your sins. You dare to escape from the city. Do you really think you can escape what your Majesty has ordered?"
A dragnet? Come here, arrest this slave and torture him. Even if you beat out his feces and urine tonight, you must also torture and find out the whereabouts of Feng Yi, Feng Liao, Kong Xirong and other criminals!" Han Qian did not come with him.
As he was reminiscing about old times, he stared at the skinny man for a while and then directly ordered him to be detained.
Xi Fa'er and others rushed into the house like tigers and wolves, grabbed the thin man and pushed him down into the mud.
"Master Han, Master Han, we know that the Feng family has committed extremely heinous crimes, including corruption and perversion of the law, and they deserve to die. We have detained several Feng Liao brothers and are waiting to hand them over to Master Han, so that Master Han can send them to Dali Temple for trial!"
The skinny man didn't expect that Han Qian would have someone push him down directly into the wet mud at the slightest disagreement, and shouted hurriedly.
Xi Rong glanced at Han Qian in surprise. She really didn't understand how he knew that this man was not sent by Feng Yi to ask for help, but was the one who caught Feng Yi, Feng Liao and others came to collect the reward?
"Oh," Han Qian stared at the slender man suspiciously and said, "If you can understand the righteousness and help the department catch the criminal, but still do meritorious service, maybe the department will give you a big reward...