Tiantang Splendid

Chapter 250 Steel



Chapter 250 Steel

Fang Xuanling sighed secretly when he heard the words, this is because he missed his own son...

Hurry back and say: "Go back to Your Majesty, I haven't gone to the post yet."

His Majesty Li Er said angrily: "You are so young, have your injuries not healed after so long? I remember that when I kicked him yesterday, he was very dexterous in his dodging and moving. Why didn't he see any injuries? Go home and ask him to go to the post for me as soon as possible. Also, the Ministry of Works and Water Department must also be diligent. At such a young age, you don’t want to worry about sharing my worries. How can you just idle around all day long?”

You|mother, you have forced me into such a mess, you just stay at home and enjoy yourself, how can there be such a reason?

Fang Xuanling hadn't answered yet, but Changsun Wuji smiled wryly: "Idle? Your Majesty may have wronged that kid. According to my second son, Fang Erlang led the craftsmen at home to improve a set of iron smelting methods, not only improving At the same time, the production volume is greatly reduced, and the quality of the refined iron is also greatly improved. I am afraid that it will not be long before Fang Erlang ruins the old man's wealth..."

It started with the "Official Mountains and Seas" policy proposed by Guan Zhong of Qi State in the Spring and Autumn Period to control the profits of mountains and rivers, that is, to monopolize salt and iron together.In ancient times, the main products of mountains and seas were salt and iron, and the government monopolized the operation, and the tax was based on the price, so that the people could not avoid the taxation, and they could not feel the taxation.

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the monopoly of salt and iron was abolished, and a taxation system was implemented.The Three Kingdoms and the Two Jins focused on exclusive purchases, and the taxation system was revived during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.From the Sui Dynasty to the present, due to the state's financial prosperity, the exclusive tax on salt was abolished, and the market tax was collected like other commodities. Only the iron smelting industry collected exclusive taxes, but they still did not specialize in it, and let private merchants smelt and sell it.

And the largest iron merchant in Datang is the Changsun family.

And now, Changsun Wuji is actually afraid that Fang Jun will run him off?

Ma Zhou asked in surprise, "Really?"

Changsun Wuji said in displeasure: "Could the old man still lie? Although the details are unknown, it is an indisputable fact that Fang Erlang developed a new method of iron smelting."

Li Daozong has always been on good terms with Fang Xuanling, and once the haze covering his heart dissipated, his affection for Fang Jun increased sharply, so he said to his eldest grandson Wuji: "Even so, Zhao Guogong is a bit exaggerated. The eldest grandson's family is iron The factories spread all over the north and south of the Yangtze River, and no matter what Fang Erlang tossed about, it was just a small fight, how could it pose a threat to the eldest grandson's family?"

He has always been displeased with Changsun Wuji, a vicious and vicious guy. He smiled when meeting each other and stabbed a knife in the back, which is what he said... Besides, he was severely punished by His Majesty Li Er because of his corruption, and he almost lost his title. No cat is doing nothing at home, but this uncle of His Majesty Li Er controls the largest iron factory in the country, and his money is flowing openly and secretly.

It's true that he's an uncle, and I'm also a cousin, why is there such a big gap?
It's just that today he annoyed His Majesty Li Er first, so he didn't dare to be too presumptuous, so he could only sarcastically say this.

Changsun Wuji looked at Li Daozong, curled his lips, and said nothing.He has never looked down on such a rough person...

Regarding Li Daozong, His Majesty Li Er also felt a little harsh, but the censor made too much noise at that time, so he punished Li Daozong as a last resort.And he also knew that behind these censors, there were inevitably those Shandong gentry or Jiangnan nobles who fanned the flames to weaken the power of the Li royal family.

Now that times have changed, it is time to give Li Daozong some compensation.

What's the big deal if someone works desperately for you to get some money to spend?
Thinking of this, His Majesty Li Er said: "Chengfan, in a few days, the official will be restored to his original post, right?"

Li Daozong was overjoyed, he didn't expect to come to the Taiji Palace, and double happiness would come?Hurry up and give thanks...

**************
Dozens of servants and farm guests of the Fang family gathered at the back of the farm.

Under Fang Jun's personal presidency, a blast furnace with a wide belly and gradually narrowing neck, which looks a bit like a vase, was erected on the foundation of a sedimentary rock platform beside the stream in the mountain.

Fang Jun has never seen a real iron-smelting furnace, but his knowledge is enough for him to reverse-guess from the principle and build a completely scientific iron-smelting furnace.

This is the first blast furnace in the history of the Tang Dynasty. It is four feet five feet high and has a volume of about fifteen cubic meters—larger than any ironmaking furnace in this era. It must be shut down forcibly, and the country of Wa is even using a blast furnace of 21 cubic meters...

Graphite is not a rare thing, there is plenty of it in the mine of the Fang family, but people in this era don't understand its usefulness, it is definitely the best refractory material.

In fact, if it is just to build a small blast furnace for ironmaking, it is not a big problem to use clay directly or red bricks to build it. The key is that Fang Jun hopes to improve its service life, so he used modern steel furnace lining in the blast furnace lining. High-grade refractory material for steel furnaces.

The blower is a big problem.

Without a blower to provide sufficient oxygen to help combustion, the furnace temperature is difficult to achieve the purpose of ironmaking, let alone steelmaking...

Modern blast furnaces are all dedicated fans with powerful horsepower, but in the Tang Dynasty, bellows were still used.The bellows of this era are more like an accordion, with wooden boards on the top and bottom, and folded leather on the four sides.

This kind of bellows leather will age after being used for a long time and must be eliminated.

The principle of the bellows is very simple, just like the "foreign well" in the countryside.Fang Jun directed Liu Laoshi and his son to make a new type of bellows, a large wooden box with a valve, powered by a water wheel, and using an eccentric wheel to change the rotary motion into a reciprocating motion.

Four bellows and four air ducts were arranged in the entire blast furnace, and two spare bellows were made to prevent accidents.

The last part of the inlet duct before entering the furnace is joined together, and there is a fire pool isolated from the inlet duct below, which contains burning coal, and the air is preheated to a certain degree before entering the furnace.

Don't underestimate this step, air preheating, this is the most critical step in improving the efficiency of ironmaking in modern steel production. It seems inconspicuous, but it can directly increase the temperature of the furnace by two to three hundred degrees!At least until the end of Ming Dynasty, the whole world did not master this technology.

In addition to the huge furnace body, a free-standing maintenance tower with a support point falling on the ground is also built with solid wood
In addition, the furnace top feeding system is composed of chute, pulley and pulley block.

The molten iron smelted in the blast furnace is pig iron with high carbon content and many impurities, but it can already be used to cast large iron parts, such as iron anchors, so a groove is connected outside the taphole, which is usually closed, and if necessary Just open it, and hot molten iron is poured directly into the mold to cast large iron pieces.

A large frying iron furnace was built next to the blast furnace, which is actually a reflection stirring furnace.

The shape of this frying iron stove is a bit like a cup of Kung Fu tea. It is a reverberatory furnace with flame and iron separated.It is built as a whole with refractory bricks, the bottom of the hearth is sunken in the middle, surrounded by arched furnace walls, the lower part is the combustion chamber, and the air inlet channel is at the bottom of the combustion chamber.

Its structure can be regarded as three floors, the third floor and the second floor are isolated from each other, and there are multiple movable iron fences between the first and second floors.When in use, the molten iron flows from the blast furnace to the third floor. The coal on the second floor burns on the iron fence to heat the molten iron on the upper floor. It is flat, and coal can be added to it from the coal inlet at an angle of 45 degrees downward.

It is also a hydraulic blast, but unlike a blast furnace, a tall chimney is built on its side.

The method of frying steel has been recorded a long time ago, and the specific birth date is unknown. In the past, iron rods were used to stir, so that the carbon in the pig iron was burned and removed, so that the carbon content reached the composition requirements of wrought iron. This is wrought iron. Iron can be forged into various utensils.

You can even get steel with different qualities, but because you can’t precisely control the content of each element, the quality of the steel depends on your luck. If you want to get more vegetables that are good enough to forge swords, it’s just like the probability of a lottery...

But this is hard to live Jun.

He has never smelted steel, but he understands the principle, as long as he knows that steel is between pig iron and wrought iron, that's enough.

(End of this chapter)


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