The fire on the ground is raging, and the molten iron in the smelting furnace is rolling.
However, after pouring three furnaces of molten iron in a row, the purity of the black iron was only around 95%, maybe a little higher. Based on the intensity of the appraisal light, it might be over 95.5%, but definitely not 96%.
It sounds nice to take another step forward, but taking another step forward is even more difficult! It’s already over, so how can we take another step forward?
Zhang Shengye frowned slightly: "Let all the craftsmen in the family forge and purify it. We will definitely get 10 tons of black iron in three days."
Zhang Hao shook his head: "Second uncle, I think what the princess wants is not just ten tons of black iron, but what she wants to see more is our ability.
If we can't even produce 96% of dark iron, how can we convince the princess that we can build a big ship, a big ship that can cross the Green Sea of Death!"
Zhang Shengye nodded thoughtfully.
Next to him, Huang Mingshan said carefully: "Master, if you use spiritual stones and formations to replace the earth fire, and use low-level spiritual stones to replace the inferior crushed spiritual stones, will the purity be improved?
I think that a considerable part of the impurities in black iron come from inferior broken spirit stones!"
Zhang Hao's eyes suddenly lit up, "Why did I forget this?"
In fact, Zhang Hao didn't forget, but deliberately didn't say it. He wanted to train Huang Mingshan and others to develop their awareness of active thinking, summarizing, learning, accumulation and progress.
During the work just now, Zhang Hao mentioned many times the scene of public water forging in the city.
The transformation began quickly, and Huang Mingshan and others immediately began to calculate approximate data.
"The purity of broken spiritual stones varies, and the average spiritual energy content is about 18% of that of low-level spiritual stones. Due to the interference of impurities, the effective spiritual energy of broken spiritual stones is only about 15% of that of low-level spiritual stones."
"Crush the spirit stone to increase the effective contact area with the ore."
"After crushing the selected ore, water select it again to increase the purity of the iron ore."
"Use bamboo charcoal instead of charcoal to further reduce the impurity content."
"Although the air volume of one fan is sufficient, it is not uniform. It is recommended to use four fans to operate at the same time and control the air volume to about a quarter."
"Use low-level spiritual stones to arrange the flame formation. The flame formation is calculated according to the formula in the Suan Jing, and the temperature is controlled above 2700 degrees."
"By the way, the air supply from the fan must be preheated by the flame array before being passed into the molten iron to prevent the molten iron from cooling down."
"There is a lot of dust here, and the smelting process is isolated using arrays; the air from the fan needs to be filtered. Cotton is temporarily used as a filter layer."
Huang Mingshan, Bai Xiaodong and others were busy, Zhang Hao looked on and smiled lightly.
Now, the Zhang family has initially gotten rid of the traditional handicraft model. In the production process, everyone has begun to pay attention to measurement, calculation, and use mathematical methods to summarize everything.
Although the measurement technology is not perfect yet and the data is not accurate enough, the technology has finally sprouted and is growing vigorously.
What makes Zhang Hao most happy is the way everyone works, no longer through experience accumulation, but directly starting from theory.
Air preheating, filtration, uniform air supply, crushing of ores and spiritual stones, attention to controlling impurities from raw materials, etc.; all of this is done with the awareness of scientific production.
This is a qualitative leap.
After being busy until late at night, a "refining workshop" appeared.
This is a ten-meter-square house with four fans surrounding a smelting furnace. After water selection, dried ore powder and low-grade spiritual stone powder, plus carefully selected bamboo charcoal powder, are heated in the smelting furnace.
Below, the flames activated by the spirit stone turned purple-gold. In this small space, the rolling heat wave made Zhang Shengye feel a little uncomfortable. Zhang Hao and others who were in the Qi refining stage were sweating like rain.
But no one complained!
Everyone has invested in this unprecedented research and production with unprecedented spirit.
The billowing brown smoke gushes out from above the smelting furnace, is then sucked away by the fan, and discharged to the outside world.
Above the Zhangjia smelting base, more than a dozen brown smoke pillars billowed into the sky. In the early days of industrial development, the environmental pollution capacity was directly proportional to industrial production capacity and technological progress!
The world is so big, I want to go... to pollute it~~~
Time quietly came to dawn, and the first furnace of brand new molten iron finally stopped producing smoke. However, the craftsmen did not pour it immediately, but continued to heat and wait.
Because, there is one more step next - precipitation!
The air volume began to slow down and gradually almost disappeared.
A spirit gathering array is placed at the air inlet of the fan, and a small amount of spiritual energy is slowly input into the molten iron through the fan.
It took more than an hour, that is, more than two hours, when the sun rose, before Huang Mingshan gave the order to pour the iron ingots.
Now, the Zhang family's smelting furnace is very large, and one furnace of molten iron can pour more than three tons of iron ingots.
It is still an iron ingot half a meter square.
Zhang Shengye couldn't wait for the iron ingot to cool down automatically. He took a little from the molten iron, used magic to cool it down, and identified it. After a while, Zhang Shengye opened his mouth:
“Purity 97%~~~”
The voice was trembling, it was a success, a huge success!
Zhang Hao, however, was very calm and turned around to reward. This time the reward was very generous, but for fifty people and craftsmen, Zhang Hao rewarded 100,000 spirit stones in one breath! The average number was two thousand per person.
Two thousand spirit stones are equivalent to two million iron coins!
Although iron coins are depreciating a bit now, the depreciation is the low-purity black iron coins.
Here in the Zhang family, craftsmen can exchange a piece of spiritual stone for 3,000 low-purity black iron coins.
It’s so willful!
Our old Zhang family has no shortage of black iron.
Because black iron is difficult to smelt, black iron is both a spiritual resource and has its own currency properties, so the state encourages private coinage.
As the Zhang family disclosed the water forging technique, the black iron market became unstable, and the low-end currency system, dominated by black iron coins, also suffered a serious impact.
But the princess didn't mention this last time, so Zhang Hao naturally wouldn't ask for trouble.
The real greatness of resourcefulness is - wait for others to ask before you speak; only in this way can others know, oh, you are the smart one. Or, you can use it as a bargaining chip.
Moreover, the devaluation of black iron coins is of great benefit to the Zhang family. Now, the Zhang family is frantically minting coins to buy grain, broken spiritual stones, wood, charcoal, cloth, horses, etc.; even fields, mines, etc.
Previously, the princess said that raw materials such as broken spirit stones would be exchanged for the Zhang family's black iron. Why did Zhang Hao refuse? Not only because the princess insisted on the 'market price', but also because the Zhang family could mint coins themselves, and the average price was only half of the market price.
ah!
The biggest cost of black iron smelting comes from the 'crushed spiritual stone'. Although the crushed spiritual stone is a low-quality spiritual stone, it is still a spiritual stone. It is used to arrange formations, cultivate elixirs, smelt, etc., and it is still very expensive.
There is a market.
Now, the Zhang family uses their own coinage to purchase broken spirit stones, reducing the cost of the Zhang family's broken spirit stones by about half in one go.
The Zhang family has a large purchase volume and can further lower the price.
In the early stages of capital expansion, it was brutal and rough. The Zhang family was also unavoidable.
…………
At noon, the three iron ingots finally cooled down, but the craftsmen had already begun to smelt the second iron ingot.
The purity of the first furnace was 97%; starting from the second furnace, the requirements were appropriately lowered and finally controlled at 96%.
Zhang Hao leaned against the door, with a smile on his tired face.