Blast furnaces need to be built higher, and the fuel for ironmaking needs to be changed from coal and charcoal to coke... These rectification directions seem clear, but in practice, there are a lot of problems.
For example, Shen Shuren had people spend seven or eight days experimentally raising the temperature of an existing blast furnace and restarting trial production to collect data and see what problems would arise.
As a result, the heightened blast furnace collapsed and the bottom softened within a few days of preheating. Chen Shuren was so frightened that he immediately ordered a stop and tried to find a way to turn off the fire and remove the fuel.
Upon inspection, it was found that the problem lies in the high temperature resistance of the furnace material - the temperature of the blast furnace in the late Ming Dynasty could reach 1400 to 500 degrees Celsius, and it could also melt less pure iron into a molten and viscous state. Only But it's not as thin as the molten iron of later generations.
Because the melting point of pure iron is about 1,500 degrees Celsius. If it is significantly higher than this value, for example, if it reaches more than 1,600 degrees Celsius, the molten iron will be very thin and easy to flow. If it is not hot enough, it will be relatively viscous like glue.
As the blast furnace continues to increase in height, it is easier to accumulate heat at the bottom and less likely to be dissipated. After the temperature exceeds 1,500, although the bricks building the furnace will still not soften, at least the structural strength will decrease.
Originally, the height of the blast furnace was only about two feet. When the masonry of the upper two feet was pressed down, the base below could still hold it. If the height increased, the pressure would further increase and the temperature would rise. Suddenly, it could no longer hold it.
In addition to the blast furnace materials that need to be re-researched, there are also some minor problems with the R&D and trial production of fuels.
Originally, no one in the Ming Dynasty had tried to make coke, and everyone had no experience at the beginning.
The amount of air reserved in the furnace was not well controlled in the first few furnaces, and the subsequent air tightness adjustments were not precise enough. As a result, either the coal was not burnt to coke, or the coal itself burned too fully and directly turned into cinder ash.
Fortunately, Shen Shuren read a lot in his previous life. He remembered reading a famous book "Railway Guerrillas" when he was a child. The first chapter tells the story of the guerrillas in the Zaozhuang area behind enemy lines and near the Zaozhuang coal mine during the Anti-Japanese War. Many of the members in it They were all in the business of burning coke to hide their identities, and the book also describes how to burn coke in large sections.
At that time, the courageous people near the Zaozhuang coal mine were burning every house. It was said that one hundred kilograms of coal could produce seventy kilograms of coke, and one kilogram of coke could be sold for the price of two kilograms of coal, so they could make a net profit of forty kilograms, which was a bit hard ( Also, burning like this is actually very polluting, but during the Anti-Japanese War, no one cared about pollution), which is a kind of "dead profit" that can be invested without thinking.
Chen Shuren couldn't remember too many details, so he had to give a rough guide in a direction and let his men control it according to the proportion of "seventy kilograms left after burning one hundred kilograms".
If it weighs more than 70 kilograms after burning, it means that too little air has been introduced and the combustion is insufficient. If it weighs less than 70 kilograms, it means that it has been burned enough and turned into slag.
After a few more experiments, the actual ironmaking effect will be slowly tested based on the results each time.
…
This multi-pronged effort took about ten days.
Chen Shuren did not return home to govern Jiangxia County, so he stayed in Daye, still in the wild Tieshan, and did not even return to the county seat for more than ten days.
As for the two stunning beauties who stayed in Jiangxia County, Chen Yuanyuan and Li Xiangjun, they also stayed alone in the empty house for twenty days, and their husbands were away from home when they were on business trips.
As a time traveler, how can a beautiful woman be as happy as making steel and guns! Guns are the weapon that affects whether you can rule the world and strive for hegemony and establish a career in the future! There will be as many women as you want in the future!
Fortunately, winter is the slack season for farming, the army is not allowed to mobilize, and thieves are at peace, so the government affairs of Daotai Yamen and Qiandu Yushi Yamen are not busy to begin with.
We have a group of staff and deputies to help with our daily work. If there is any major issue, we can go to Daye County for instructions, but there is no delay.
Time is approaching the end of November in a blink of an eye, and it has been almost twenty days since Chen Shuren first arrived in Daye.
On this day, he was preparing to accept a new batch of coke samples and try to use them in the newly adjusted blast furnace.
Suddenly, Assistant Secretary Song Mingde finally brought him good news, saying that his family had replied to the letter and that his uncle Song Yingxing had left to move eight days ago and would arrive in Daye today.
Counting the days, Song Mingde's home letter was sent sixteen days ago, and Song Yingxing arrived not too late. After all, the other party was a fifty-seven-year-old man, and he had moved here.
Chen Shuren also valued talents. He still had a few technical issues at hand that he couldn't solve, so he stopped solving them for the time being. Without washing his face, he directly ordered someone to ride with him to greet them.
A Taotai, the censor of the capital, personally welcomed a seventh-grade Yuheng kiln smelting expert, which was a great honor.
…
An hour later, at the dock of an unknown town on the edge of the Yangtze River in the northwest of Daye County.
A fifty-seven-year-old man with a long, curly and sparse beard got off the boat with a cane and looked at the dirty but busy dock in front of him. His eyes were a little erratic, as if he was worried about the future.
This person was none other than Song Yingxing. Behind him, his wife, children, and family members also disembarked one after another, carrying large and small bags and loading them into the car.
It seems that the Song family is indeed not rich. His youngest son and eldest grandson are still in the prime of life, and they are still carrying luggage with the servants. Obviously, the number of servants in the family is not large enough to prevent them from doing housework at all.
Song Yingxing never got Jinshi in his life. Although he had tax-free privileges and could get some money through various channels after winning the imperial examination, he and his brother always wanted to win the Jinshi. They took the exam from around the 40th year of Wanli to the early years of Chongzhen. , I have been taking the exam for nearly twenty years.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the price of goods in the capital was already very high, and it was very expensive to travel long distances to take exams. Traveling from Jiangxi to the capital every three years, living in the capital for more than half a year, and building relationships and socializing, cost a lot of money.
Of course, Song Yingxing actually had one of his biggest expenses - he wrote "Tiangong Kaiwu", but few literati and doctors would buy and read this book, so it was definitely impossible to make money back by engraving the book and selling it.
And he couldn't bear that his work would be lost, so he had to pay for engraving and printing at his own expense.
At that time, the production cost of a collection of poems ranged from 500 taels to nearly 1,000 taels depending on the thickness and length. (It was not just the money for engraving, but also the money for the first printing. Generally, it would cost several hundred taels to print once it was finished. Volumes can range from 5,000 to 1,000 copies. Just like today's publishing houses, for printed paper books that have been typed, they generally have to print at least 5,000 copies, otherwise it will be difficult to give up paper books.)
"Tiangong Kaiwu" is much longer than the collection of poems, and it has three volumes. The key is that his book also had to engrave the illustrations of mechanical drawings, which was very expensive. It cost Song Yingxing more than three thousand taels of silver in total.
This was the biggest loss he had ever made in his life. He treated him as a Qingshui official with no chance of corruption, and lost all the money he had earned in the past few years.
The loss in printing books meant that his family could not afford many servants, and the family had to do housework. This time when I came to Wuchang, I was not willing to throw away anything, and I brought all the big and small bags.
The wharf town where he was stopping at the moment was on the opposite bank of Qishui County, Huangzhou. The Xishui River merged into the Yangtze River from Huangqikou Town on the opposite bank, forming a water transport hub for river transfer.
There was no city built in this place at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and even until the Republic of China in the 20th century, it was an unknown town.
It was not until after liberation that the "Huangshi City" was established where the wharf was located. Later, it was the turn of the newly established Huangshi City to annex Daye County.
Song Yingxing and his party had been busy for a long time, and finally loaded everything into the truck, and were about to hit the road again. Suddenly, they saw waves of dust flying on the official road to the west of the pier, horses' hooves rumbling, and it seemed like thousands of horses were approaching.
Song Yingxing's face suddenly changed. He had never been in a war and did not understand the momentum of the cavalry, so he overestimated the number of people coming. He thought that the Wuchang Prefecture was still not peaceful. Zuo Liangyu's bandits and Zhang Xianzhong's bandits were still wreaking havoc.
Disturb the place.
After hugging his wife and children and shivering for a while, Zheng Chen gradually dispersed, and then he saw the leader, a tall young man in his early twenties with a dark face, dismounting his horse and walking towards him.
Seeing that the other party's face was so dark and his figure was so powerful, he subconsciously thought that he was a general who could lead hundreds of cavalry. He probably had a high official position, so he didn't care about his civil and military status. He had no choice but to bow his head under the low eaves.
Go up and salute.
"This general, I don't know..."
"What kind of general? Mr. Song is here in front of you?" The "black-faced general" spoke kindly. As he asked, he stepped forward and grabbed Song Yingxing's arm, making him unable to resist.
Song Yingxing staggered: "I don't dare to be called Mr. uukanshu.com www.uukanshu.com An old man who resigned from office and retired to hermitage has received the kindness of Shen Daotai here..."
The "black-faced general" said nonchalantly: "I came too late and didn't welcome you to get off the boat. Next time, I'll ask your sentry boat to report earlier."
Song Yingxing was startled, and then he realized: "You are Shen Daotai? How can you deserve to be called sir? You can't deserve it! I will just rule the next subordinate official in the future..."
Chen Shuren said without any doubt: "There are different levels of learning and specialization. If you can write "Tiangong Kaiwu", you are certainly outstanding in the general study of physics, so you can naturally be called "sir."
"
Song Yingxing gradually came back to his senses, and then felt a little awkward again, and laughed at himself:
"I lost my temper just now. I thought I encountered an insurgent army... Master Daotai is young and promising. I heard he was a second-ranked Jinshi and was a world-renowned minister. I didn't expect him to be so powerful."
Chen Shuren laughed loudly, realizing the problem, and laughed at himself indifferently:
"You mean I look dark, right? In fact, I don't look dark. I just learned that my husband was coming, and I was in a hurry to go out without washing my face. I have been in Daye Iron Mountain for the past few days, thinking about how to burn the furnace.
My face is full of cinder dust."
Song Yingxing couldn't help but be in awe. It was really rare for the noble soldier and the censor of Qiandu to personally supervise the refinement of these techniques.
It seems that my visit to Wuchang this time has really been appreciated by Master Ming, and I can show off my talents!
Sure enough, Shen Shuren respected his elders along the way and let Song Yingxing ride in the carriage. He rode by the carriage window and chatted with the people in the carriage, without any pretense of being a Shangguan official.