Cutting over the end of the Ming Dynasty: a dog-leg knife at the beginning

Chapter 100 Manganese Steel
"Wang Tiechui, Wang Tiechui, get up!"

Just after dawn, there was a knock on the door of the Thousand Households Office that matched the sound of drums.No need to look, just by listening to the confident voice, everyone can guess who is knocking on the door.That's right, it's the boss of the Wuyang Thousand Households Institute, the future supreme commander of the Wuyang Guard, Yang Menglong!God knows if he took the wrong medicine. He ran to knock on Wang Tiehammer's door early in the morning, and there was a bang bang. Fortunately, the house Wang Tiehammer lived in was fairly solid, otherwise, if he knocked and kicked like this, the wall might collapse A long stretch!

The door opened, Wang Tiehammer rubbed his sleepy eyes and poked his head out, yawned and asked, "Little General Yang, what can you do?"

Yang Menglong said: "Let's go in and talk about it." Regardless of whether people agree or not, he turned sideways and got in.Wang Tiechui murmured in his heart: "What trick do you want to play again?" He closed the door.

Yang Menglong glanced around, and after confirming that there was no one else in the house except Wang Tiehui, he calmed down and asked in a low voice, "You said you used to be a blacksmith?"

Wang Tiechui's teeth were itchy, and I really wanted to kick him out --- just because of this, he ran to my house early in the morning and knocked out a few cracks in my door?It's a pity that Yang Menglong is the boss, and his ass can't be kicked. The honest Wang Tiehui had no choice but to hold back his unhappiness and said, "Yes, my family has been blacksmiths for generations."

Yang Menglong lowered his voice: "Then do you know how to make steel?"

Wang Tiehammer said: "Nonsense, can someone who doesn't know how to make steel be considered a blacksmith? I can fry steel, pour steel, and make steel in a crucible, but I am best at making steel. I forge and hammer a piece of iron over and over again until it is cracked." Until it turns into a piece of fine steel. It’s just that such steel is hard to come by, and it takes a whole year to make a piece of steel. Why, Little General Yang, do you want to make steel?”

Yang Menglong grinned and said, "It's fine if you know how to make steel with a crucible! Come with me, I have something for you to do."

Wang Tiehammer regained his spirits immediately.Ever since he came to Qianhusuo, he has been in a state of doing nothing. The most he has done is to be Xiao Yufang's bodyguard when Yang Menglong and Xiao Yufang are recruiting in the county. It is so boring that his bones are rusting !Now that he had something to do, he followed Yang Menglong out without saying a word.

Yang Menglong turned around and took Wang Tiechui to the warehouse.I don’t know when a lot of good things have been added to the empty warehouse, such as blue alum, golden pyrite, black iron ore, gray-white phosphate ore, and some king hammers whose names cannot be named. The ores are piled up in several piles by category.Wang Tiehammer's eyes sparkled, he grabbed a handful of black iron ore, rubbed it in his hand, and said, "This ore is really excellent, you can definitely make good iron with it!"

Yang Menglong said proudly: "I want steel, the best steel, why do I want iron! Don't waste time, bring what you need, and let's start!"

Wang Tiehammer asked tentatively, "Do you really want to make steel?"

Yang Menglong said: "It is not only necessary to make steel, but also to make the best steel in the world!"

Wang Tiechui really doesn't know where his self-confidence comes from, but with so much high-quality iron ore, his hands are itchy, and he feels uncomfortable when he doesn't smelt a few pieces of good steel, so he grabbed a sack and packed a bag The iron ore was about to leave, but Yang Menglong stopped him and asked someone to bring a large scale to weigh the iron ore carefully... Maybe they want to charge money?Fortunately, Yang Menglong didn't seem to intend to collect money. After weighing, he muttered: "Sixty catties of ore, according to the ratio of 15.00%, you need to add nine catties of manganese ore." Shoveled a shovel of a kind of black ore, weighed it, and added On the last point, I gathered up nine catties, then poured it into a small bucket, and waved: "Let's go, make steel!" He strode towards the blacksmith's workshop with Wang Tiehammer.

What's the use of that damn thing?

Wang Tiechui was at a loss, picked up the iron sand and followed.

In the blacksmith workshop, a furnace had been vacated, and all the necessary things, such as crucibles and charcoal, were available. However, what surprised Wang Tiehui the most was the large pile of dark things that looked neither like coal nor charcoal. , could it be used as fuel to make steel?
"This is coke. It can be made by burning the coal. Although there will be some losses, it can effectively reduce the sulfur content in the coal... You know that if the sulfur content in the steel is too high, the steel will be destroyed. It’s useless.” Yang Menglong picked up a shovel and shoveled a large shovel of coke into the furnace, explaining as he worked, “The iron ore in our country is more fucked up, and the sulfur content is surprisingly high, and the coal required for steelmaking also contains If there is a large amount of sulfur, the quality of the smelted iron will be very unsatisfactory. In order to improve the quality of iron, any method that can reduce the sulfur content is worth a try.”

Wang Tiechui half understood: "Little General Yang, how do you know so much? Although I didn't understand it, but... it sounds very powerful."

Yang Menglong rolled his eyes: "Is it amazing? This is common sense, dear, common sense that all junior high school graduates know! Don't be dazed, do it quickly, there are only two of us here, who else do you expect to help?"

Wang Tiehammer shook his head, put all the weird thoughts in his head to the back of his head, skillfully lit a fire, mixed the ore and charcoal in proportion, and then put it into the furnace.Yang Menglong helped to pull the blower, and the blower swelled and deflated under his pulling, blowing the fire into a bright red, and the heat wave in the workshop suddenly became unbearable.Forging iron has always been a hard job, not something ordinary people can do.Wang Tiehammer looked at the flames of the fire, and secretly admired in his heart: "It's really a good way to make steel with coke. The fire is much fiercer than using coal alone!" He unceremoniously became the commander, strictly controlled the fire, and sent Yang Menglong Looking at Yang Menglong's hot tongue sticking out, he felt refreshed: You have today too!

"No, no, I will never do this kind of hard work in the future!" Yang Menglong complained repeatedly while pulling the bellows, "This work is really not done by humans. If you don't die of exhaustion, you will die of heat! No, we must find a way Come up with a water-powered windmill, driven by a waterwheel, instead of manpower blowing!"

Think of a way to be lazy so quickly?Wang Tiechui admired secretly, this kid is really a lazy genius!
Under the fierce fire, the ore sand melted little by little, and soon turned into a pot of molten iron.Under the high temperature, Wang Tiehammer continuously cleaned out the impurities floating on the surface of the molten iron.It can be seen that the quality of this batch of ore is really good, there are relatively few impurities, and the purity of the molten iron is quite high. This must be a furnace of high-quality molten iron.However, if you think this is the end of the matter, then you are too naive, it is still very early, or how did the idiom "hardened into steel" come from?These two poor wretches can only endure the heat enough to cook eggs, add fuel to add fuel, blow to blow.The molten iron was boiling at a high temperature, and slowly glowed a faint red light. Wang Tiehammer was overjoyed: "It's done! The fire is here! Prepare the mold!"

Yang Menglong said: "There is an egg mold!"

Wang Tiehammer, who was about to get the crucible out, was dumbfounded: "There is no mold!?"

Yang Goulong said: "Of course not!" He kicked the bucket of manganese ore: "If you think it's not bad, just add these ores to me!"

Wang Tiechui's temples throbbed, "This... what the hell is this?"

Yang Menglong said: "Manganese ore, high-quality pyrolusite, I hired a lot of people to select it from the slag, stop talking nonsense, add it to me quickly!"

Wang Tiehammer looked at the bucket of unknown origin and purpose, and lamented in his heart that the good molten steel in this furnace was finished.Yang Menglong is the boss, you have to listen to what he says, well, if you let me join, I will join!Without further ado, he added all the manganese ore in the bucket, and while stirring the molten steel, he muttered: "Add it, add it, you asked me to add it, and it's none of my business to ruin the molten steel. You don't feel bad, I feel bad." What a fart!" The molten steel that had been smelted through untold hardships was joined with a lot of messy things, and it must be destroyed, of course he was very upset and kept talking about it.Yang Menglong was full of energy, shouting chant while blowing wind, making the fire even fiercer!To Wang Tiechui's surprise, the pile of ore of unknown origin was melted together with molten steel, and there was no trace of it except for some impurities floating on the surface.He carefully cleaned out those impurities, and with a bit of surprise and excitement, he took over Yang Menglong's class, blasted wind into the furnace, and practiced for two full hours with fierce fire.

Yang Menglong leaned closer to the furnace for a look, and said uncertainly, "It should be almost there, right?" He fanned his face with his hands and walked out, returning about half an hour later, with an extra long strip in his hand stuff.He put this thing on the ground and shouted: "The molten steel can be poured out!"

When Wang Tiehammer saw it, it was actually an iron mold, three feet and three inches long. It could be seen from the shape that it was a long knife, but the shape was a bit weird.He didn't care about that much anymore, he ran out and poured two buckets of water on himself, and then came back, carefully took out the crucible, tilted it lightly, and the fiery red molten steel was poured into the mold, with a hissing sound, and a puff of water rose up. A puff of white smoke, under an absolutely impossible situation, the temperature in the workshop has reached a new level, making people breathless. Wang Tiechui's whole body is emitting white water vapor, living like a steamed bun in a steamer, Yang Menglong's face was as red as a steamed crab, and he wailed repeatedly: "My mother!" He even crawled and fled, and before the molten steel cooled, he would not come back if he was killed!Wang Tiechui didn't get any better. After pouring the molten steel, he also escaped. The two unlucky guys rushed to the nearest well and jumped down without saying a word. The people in this area are going to drink their bath water.

The cool well water washed away the dryness and heat on their bodies little by little, bringing them a little bit of coolness.Yang Menglong rubbed his reddened skin, damn it, there are several blisters, this time it really has to peel off a layer of skin.He buried his head in the well water and took several sips in a row, raised his head abruptly, splashed, and the water splashed all over the place: "Damn, this is like making steel with my life, I won't do such a stupid thing again !"

Wang Tiehammer asked: "What did you add to the molten steel just now? Why did it melt with the molten steel?"

Yang Menglong despised him: "I've told you [-] times, what I added is manganese ore, soft manganese ore, the best manganese ore! Add more than [-]% of high-grade manganese ore to the molten steel to smelt it. Making high manganese steel is just like how you can make high carbon steel by adding a lot of charcoal powder to molten iron! You are from a family of blacksmiths and you don’t even understand this!"

Wang Tiechui was very wronged: "I know about adding charcoal to molten iron, but I have never heard of adding manganese ore to molten steel..."

Yang Menglong said: "There are so many things you haven't heard of! Do you think there is only one way to make steel? There are so many ways to do it! Add a lot of charcoal powder to molten iron, and then temper it to get high-carbon steel. Add it to molten steel Manganese steel can be obtained by adding manganese ore, tinplate can be obtained by adding a certain proportion of tin to molten iron, and tinplate is as white as silver and not easy to rust. Try them all."

Wang Tiechui was dumbfounded.

At this time, there were a few screams nearby, and the pair of brothers and sisters, who were soaking comfortably, looked up, and there were several big girls carrying buckets standing by the well platform, looking at them in surprise, with shame on their faces. famous.It turned out that they came to carry water, but they found two big men taking a bath in the well, and they were very frightened.Yang Menglong stared at them, and shouted dissatisfiedly: "What is it called, have you never seen a man take a bath?"

It was enough to scare these big girls out of their wits if another Qianhu stared, but it is a pity that, like Xiao Yufang, Yang Menglong's small gestures of staring and ruthless words are really hard for the girls in the Qianhu Institute. Too lacking in lethality, people are not afraid of him at all.A more courageous girl asked with a smile, "Lord Qianhu, why did you run into the well?"

Yang Menglong waved his hand arrogantly, and said: "Don't ask if you shouldn't ask, and do your work honestly!" Get up wet, not caring at all that he was wearing only a pair of shorts, and walked towards the workshop with his nostrils upturned, like A proud young boar.Wang Tiechui imitated the example, also strutting with his nostrils upturned, his head in a mess, and he didn't care at all that several big girls were watching them from behind.It is worth mentioning that the atmosphere in the Ming Dynasty was relatively open. In Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, women who have no talent are virtues, and men and women who do not know each other. This kind of obsessive stuff does not have much market among the people, at least not in the north. Yes, under the pressure of life, ordinary people in the north use their women as men and men as livestock, and women as half-strong laborers. The whole family can't fill their stomachs after working so hard, so they let girls bind their feet?Is there something wrong?Because they have to bear the burden of life, the girls in the north are more aggressive. Those big girls secretly looked at the two proud wild boars, their hearts were pounding, and a strange thought flashed in their hearts: "If I can marry them, I will marry you." Well, they are so strong and hardworking, they will definitely make us live a good life!"

There is no hope for Yang Menglong, he already has an owner, but Wang Tiechui... still has hope, there is still hope!

(End of this chapter)