Wang Rui had no concealment from Li Mu. Not only did he disclose the secret of coke, he also took Li Mu to visit the iron smelting furnace under construction.

It was the first time Li Mu saw this thing, and he couldn't help but take a few more glances. Wang Rui thought he finally met a Li Mu who didn't understand, and introduced it even harder: "Mr. Marquis, please see, the inner wall of this cylindrical iron smelting furnace is made of clay that is more than one foot thick and salt mixed with clay. After adding salt, the clay can make it more resistant to burning. The circle of logs on the outside is for pile-driven and fixed to prevent pouring, and the outer layer of the iron ring is to ensure that the iron smelting furnace will not explode.

Wang Rui told Li Mu that even the master would take less time to build such a furnace and not be greedy. Otherwise, once a crack appears in the salt mud, all the efforts will be wasted, and it may also cause danger. If the iron smelting furnace explodes, it will not be a joke. If the iron water pops out, it will be casualties everywhere.

Such an iron smelting furnace can hold more than 2,000 kilograms of iron ore. Before ignition, first lay a layer of coke in the furnace, then lay a layer of ore sand and coal powder mixture. After layering it, it will ignite it and start refining.

Next to the iron smelting furnace, there is also a huge blower. When smelting iron, you have to constantly transport air into it. This job is not easy to do. The amount of air is delivered, the frequency is determined by experience, and the height and color of the flame.

The iron smelting master introduced to Li Mu that after the ore sand inside was molten into molten iron, it would flow out of the waist hole of the iron smelting furnace. This hole was plugged with mud in advance. Every hour of the day, it would poke the mud plug open and let the molten water flow out.

After the molten iron flows, immediately use a fork to remove the mud, plug the holes again, and then continue to blow the air and melt, and wait for an hour before opening the holes and putting the molten iron. This cycle is repeated until all the ores melt, and the heat can be turned off and the slag can be cleaned.

Li Mu stood far away, waiting for the next hole to be opened in a place where the blazing fire could not be burned. Within a quarter of an hour, an iron smelting furnace opened on the left. Although Li Mu was far away, he could still feel the burning heat contained in the fiery red iron. He looked at the iron without a flash and flowed into a square pond next to him along the stone diversion trough.

Wang Rui told Li Mu that the iron flowing out is pig iron after cooling. If you want to use pig iron to cast it, you can directly inject the iron into the model in this link, and then cool it down and use it directly. However, this kind of pig iron is too poor in quality and is very brittle, so there is almost no direct use like this.

Iron tools used in daily life also need to turn pig iron into cooked iron.

Nafangtang is the same as the iron smelting furnace, but the height is only one and a half feet. A slightly taller platform was built with bricks next to it. The iron smelting master and apprentice both stood on the platform to prevent too much iron and overflowing.

When the iron water flows into the pond, the iron smelter quickly sprinkles the prepared fine mud powder evenly on the surface of the iron.

"saute!"

After the master gave the order, several apprentices stirred vigorously with willow sticks and fry the cast iron into ripe iron. Each time the willow sticks are stir-fried, they will burn two or three inches away. When stir-frying, they will have to replace a new one.

This method is called the steel frying method, which can oxidize the silicon, manganese and carbon in pig iron and reduce the carbon content to the range of steel or cooked iron.

By doing this, you can basically leave the factory. More than 90% of the places where the Tang Dynasty produces iron are basically "cooked iron" products... Some are cast into various tools, weapons and armor. Some are directly cut into squares in the pond, cooled, and taken out and hammered into round blocks, and sold directly to the blacksmith shop.

Such iron is more than enough to make sickles and hoes, but if you want to make weapons, it is not qualified.

In the end, less than 10% of high-quality cooked iron will be used to refine "steel".

In this era, there is only one way to make steel. It is to wrap hay outside the cooked iron, let the hay burn, form wood ash, and then fold forging, and "beat" the charcoal in the cooked iron. This carburizing method is extremely inefficient, so steel is very difficult to obtain. The weapons created by this method are also extremely rare. Every warrior with weapons regards his weapons as life, because it is too difficult to get one.

Once there is a gap in the weapon, it will basically be scrapped. Therefore, craftsmen who can repair the weapon will be so popular. Chu Dali's ability to get orders from the Ministry of War is not entirely due to Li Mu's care, but he is really capable.

After watching the side for a while, Li Mu knew it in his heart. Tang Shi's technical level was still very limited.

"I don't come here for nothing today," Li Mu said after visiting, "I recently developed a solution to teach you, find a few trustworthy blacksmiths and arrange an anvil to come."

Wang Rui couldn't help but be overjoyed. According to his understanding, Li Mu's actions never disappointed. This is an iron factory, and there are iron anvils everywhere. Wang Rui hurriedly ordered someone to clean up one and arranged for someone to surround the surroundings with straw curtains. Although they are all their own children, it is difficult to guarantee that they are not robbed outside. What if it is leaked?

Wang Rui found three generations of servants who worked for the Wang family to help Li Mu and learn his skills. He thought Li Mu would do it himself, but Li Mu did not. He just moved his mouth. In front of outsiders, Li Mu could not use the system functions.

Li Mu first asked a blacksmith to put the unforged iron sheets into the iron furnace, and there was also a worker pulling the bellows to heat it.

About two minutes later, Li Mu ordered another blacksmith to clamp one end of a pig iron with large tongs and place it obliquely in the furnace mouth. At the same time, he ordered the young worker to blow the air so that the furnace temperature could continue to rise.

Before the tea was enough, the pig iron was placed obliquely in the furnace and began to melt, and iron drips continued to fall. At this time, Li Mu took the large iron tongs from the blacksmith, clamped the pig iron at one end outside the furnace, and began to move left and right, so that the iron could evenly pour onto the cooked iron below to give them a demonstration.

Because the melting point of waxed iron is higher than that of pig iron, although it was put in first, it was just burned red and there was no sign of melting.

At the same time, Li Mu's other hand kept turning the cooked iron sheets so that both sides could evenly be dripped with iron. After the two sprays, he clamped the cooked iron onto the anvil beside the stove and asked the blacksmith to forge it.

The two blacksmiths repeatedly beat each other thousands of times, and they were surprised to find that the pig iron had been combined into one and turned into steel! Although this is also very cumbersome, it is much easier than the original wood ash folding and forging!

Wang Rui was so excited that his whole body trembled. With this method, the speed of his iron smelting plant forging weapons would be ten times the original. What is the concept of ten times? This means that if Li Mu did not pass this secret method to others, the Jiangnan Steel Plant would be the only place in the Tang Dynasty that could quickly mass-produce weapons. The benefits brought by the imperial court and the Ministry of War will rely very much on it, and the Jiangnan Steel Plant would become irreplaceable!

The voice of the Wang family in Langya will gradually increase. The family will be revived in his hands!

Wang Rui was completely convinced now. He finally believed that there were people in this world who knew him. His awe for Li Mu had reached the peak and he dared not be ashamed of any more!

Seeing Wang Rui's excited look, Li Mu was somewhat speechless. Just then, he was excited? This was just a steel filling method. He had more than this method when it comes to building weapons.

Although there is no clear idea in the system, there are several ways to forge weapons, these basic methods will appear in the process of creating different weapons. In addition to the steel filling method, there are also metal composite processes such as packaging steel, clamping steel, embedded steel, etc. Integrate different steels to produce steel with different metal characteristics.

For example, Baosteel uses relatively soft steel, such as low carbon steel or fry iron as the frame to forge the basic shape of the knife, and then wrap one side of the knife with a thin piece of high carbon steel to forge it into a blade. This method is relatively simple, but it also has some limitations. First of all, it is difficult to produce double edges, so this method is generally not used when forging swords. In addition, Baosteel is hard steel wrapped in soft steel. If the head is polished and the soft steel inside leaks out, the knife will be useless. The weapon made is relatively wear-resistant.

The opposite process to Baosteel is called clamping steel. Clamping steel is made of hard high-carbon steel and soft steel on both sides. The advantage of this process is that it can create a double-edged sword, and there is no need to be careful in polishing, and production is relatively simple. However, there is another problem: clamping steel consumes more steel than Baosteel technology, and there is no advantage in cost.

The steel embedding technology is a technology that combines the advantages of both. It uses mild steel as the skeleton, then grooves the blades where the blades are needed, and then embeds high-carbon steel. Compared with Baosteel, when the blade performance is the same, the steel embedding time is shorter, which is more suitable for mass production. It can be forged with double edges at will, without any worries when polishing. Compared with clamped steel, it consumes less high-carbon steel and saves materials.

However, this technique is complicated and cannot be achieved by any blacksmith. Li Mu has not planned to give Jiangnan Steel Plant the throne of the Tang Dynasty, so he has not exposed this technology at all. The steel filling method is enough to deal with the situation in front of him.

...

After visiting the steel factory, Li Mu felt his throat was about to smoke.

Wang Rui has long prepared honeysuckle mint tea to clear heat and relieve heat. Although the taste is strange, the effect is indeed good.

After filling several large cups, Li Mu finally suppressed the feeling of burning fire. Only then did Li Mu feels in the mood to speak.

He is still very satisfied with Wang Rui's steel plant. At least this production process... from ore washing and ore dressing, to earth-based coking, to mixed calcination of coke ore sand, to steel frying... the general direction is basically correct.

Although from Li Mu's perspective, there are a lot of problems in every link of production. It also shows that there is huge room for improvement.

In this case, you only need to continuously improve the process and increase the furnace temperature, which is basically enough for the steel he needs in his plan.

If the iron furnace is improved and the temperature is increased by a few hundred degrees, the quality of the iron will be greatly improved. At that time, you can think about the railway.

After talking about craft improvement for a long time, the topic turned to the order issue that Wang Rui was most concerned about. After all, with orders, Wang Rui could focus on production, otherwise no one would want it. Even if the Wang family in Langya had a strong foundation, they could not withstand such a large stall consumption.

What's more, iron is a taboo thing. If it were not endorsed by the court, smelting iron would be equivalent to rebellion. It would be fine in the past chaotic times, but now Li Tang's country is stable, and doing this will be a slight quest for death.

Wang Rui carefully expressed his concerns. Li Mu looked at him and gave him a reassurance and said, "Supporting your steel factory is part of the Jiangnan plan. It is not your Wang family, but also the Li family and Zhao family. The steel factory must have it. You don't have to worry about sales. Within at least ten years, the iron of your steel factory will not be left in a pound. The court will need as much as you have."

"Oh," Wang Rui was excited and said, "The Marquis is really a re-creation of the Langya Wang family. Today I will make the decision. The Langya Wang family is willing to offer 30% of the pure profit to thank the Marquis for his support."

Li Mu sneered and said, "You dare to bribe me if you have some small profits? You really judge a gentleman by the heart of a villain. Do you regard me as a villain as you?"

"I dare not, don't dare..." Wang Rui explained repeatedly, "I just don't know how to thank the Marquis. The only thing that can be done is these vulgar things."

"If you have this idea, when the court purchases, just press the price down a little. Remember my words, do your own thing diligently and do your best. You will make as much money as you should. If you are greedy and take what you shouldn't take, you will sooner or later retribution. Do you think you are doing it secretly? You need to know the truth that the net of heaven is vast and unlimited."

Wang Rui said solemnly: "The Lord is in mind the teachings of the Marquis." As he said, he said again: "The Lord, the Lord is really a place of doubt. Please help me solve the doubts."

As the leader of the Wang family of Langya, Wang Rui also has an official position. He claims to be a lower-ranking official, so there is no problem.

"Marty, regarding this mining, Xiaguan heard that the Tang Dynasty mining industry monopolized the mining rights. So wouldn't Xiaguan offend them when mining here? Can the court allow it?"
Chapter completed!