Red Dust Daqian

Seeing that Zhou Sen had nothing else to do, Xiangcao poured out her troubles to him and said, "This morning, someone from the county government reported that a group of notorious robbers were discovered. The robbers were quite skilled in martial arts. The government requested me to go and help capture the robbers. In the end, all the robbers were captured by me easily. But who would have thought that the weapon used by this damned bandit leader was a heavy bronze mace, and I accidentally broke my sword when fighting with it." Zhou Sen knew that Xiangcao's sword could cut iron like mud. You can imagine how fierce the battle was at that time.

Xiangcao continued, "You know, this sword was left to me by my master. It's my only wish now. Now it's broken. How can I not feel sad?" Zhou Sen stroked Xiangcao to comfort her. Xiangcao complained, "After the sword broke, I went to find a blacksmith to help me fix it, but no one could. Finally, I found a blacksmith to help me fix it. Look at what happened to my sword. I just picked up a weapon and it broke again." As she spoke, Xiangcao took out the broken sword and handed it to Zhou Sen, asking him to check it.

Xiangcao then said, "What else can that incompetent blacksmith say! In the entire Changnan County, only their iron shop can repair my sword, and it can only be repaired like this." Zhou Sen carefully studied the broken sword and saw that the gap was obviously filled up, and the color was very different from the original sword. Zhou Sen had not carefully studied Xiangcao's sword before, but after a closer look, Xiangcao's sword was really quite good. In this era when only pig iron, bronze, gold and silver were used as metals, it was really rare to have such a fine iron sword, which was even better than the current carbon steel.

Zhou Sen asked curiously, "Did the blacksmith tell him why he couldn't put it back together?" Xiangcao complained, "The blacksmith said: First, the fine iron material for making the sword can't be found in Changnan County at all; second, the temperature of all the iron furnaces in Changnan County can't reach the temperature required to refine this sword, and the temperature of their iron furnace can be said to be the highest in the entire Changnan County. If you want to fix this broken sword, I guess only the royal iron furnace in Daqian can do it."

"The furnace temperature cannot reach that. The furnace temperature in the entire Changnan County cannot reach that." This sentence kept circling in Zhou Sen's mind. Zhou Sen seemed to be awakened instantly. A light bulb flashed in his mind. Could it be that the direct reason why the ceramic kiln could not burn colored glaze was that the furnace temperature was not high enough and could not reach the required temperature for burning colored glaze? In general ceramic caves, the burning materials are mainly wood. In Zhou Sen's memory, the maximum temperature of firewood burning in the kiln should be more than 800 degrees. This temperature is definitely not suitable for burning colored glaze.

So what should I do now? How can I increase the kiln temperature? Should I change the fuel? Can changing the fuel increase the kiln temperature and meet the requirements for firing glass? Zhou Sen fell into deep thought.

Noticing that Zhou Sen was standing there in a daze and not listening to her seriously, Vanilla patted Zhou Sen angrily and shouted, "Mumu, Mumu, Mumu, why are you in a daze? Are you listening to me? Isn't it infuriating? A sword asked me to go to Kyoto to find the Royal Guard to repair it!"

After Zhou Sen came to his senses, he hugged Xiangcao excitedly and kissed her forehead fiercely. Xiangcao was also disrupted by this fierce kiss. After being intoxicated for a moment, she became furious and cursed: "You are looking for a fight, you idiot, I am telling you about sword training! What are you thinking? Why are you kissing me? Are you trying to catch me off guard and attack me suddenly? I am your senior sister!" After cursing, Xiangcao grabbed Zhou Sen without any hesitation and beat him up again.

The beaten Zhou Sen kept an excited silly smile, not minding Vanilla's attack at all. Without any resistance, he hurriedly fled the yard and entered the house, locked the door and hid. Vanilla was frightened by this unexpected reaction. She was always worried that Zhou Sen would become an idiot again one day. Could it be just now! The frightened Vanilla hurriedly ran over, knocked on the door and shouted: "Mumu, Senior Sister was wrong. I shouldn't have hit you just now. Come out!" Zhou Sen heard the anxiety in Vanilla's tone and hurriedly explained to Vanilla: "Senior Sister, don't worry, I'm fine. I just thought of the key problem of successfully firing colored glaze. I need to be quiet for a while, sort out my thoughts, and redesign the plan. Oh, and I will also repair your sword for you later." Vanilla didn't care much about the colored glaze. As long as Zhou Sen was still normal and not stupid, Vanilla would be relieved. Since he wanted to study quietly, let him be quiet.

Zhou Sen in the room was like a ignited fuse, his mind was rapidly active. The key to solving the problem of glass firing is to either change the fuel, increase the furnace temperature, or find a way to lower the melting point of the raw materials. At present, the fuel used in Changnan County and even the entire Daqian is mainly firewood. No matter how the firewood is burned, the temperature cannot reach the temperature required for firing glass. If you want to increase the fuel temperature to burn glass, you may need coal as fuel. Although there is little coal in Changnan County, you can still get some. It can still meet the test stage or a small amount of glass firing. For mass production in the later stage, you still have to find a stable and large amount of carbon source. Secondly, the kilns currently used for firing porcelain cannot meet the needs of firing glass in terms of height and ventilation. If you want to increase the furnace temperature and fire glass, you need to build a higher kiln with greater ventilation and better thermal efficiency.

Zhou Sen stayed in the room for three days and three nights without leaving the room. If the food delivered at mealtime was not acceptable and he could talk to everyone normally, everyone would think Zhou Sen was stupid again. Fortunately, the hard work paid off, and he finally successfully designed a blast furnace that he thought was ideal.

After the blast furnace construction plan was designed, Zhou Sen did not delay and went straight to the Zhuyutang kiln factory without stopping, opened up a new area, and built a new kiln for firing glass. At the same time, he arranged for Shen Qianrou and Zhao Tiechui to use all their connections to help collect all the coal that could be collected in Changnan County and buy it back. It was another month of hard work, and eating, drinking, defecating, urinating and sleeping were almost all arranged at the blast furnace construction site. In order to build the new kiln as soon as possible, Zhou Sen even built a stone bed next to the kiln, and supervised every process of the construction day and night to ensure that it was built step by step according to the plan he designed, and there would be no mistakes.

In this way, two months later, the first high-temperature kiln of historic significance in the Daqian Dynasty was finally completed.

Zhou Sen lit the first fire of the blast furnace with a nervous mood.