Rebirth 1958: My Home is in Nanluoguxiang

Why can Yi Zhonghai repay the favor Chang Zhengyang did for Jia Dongxu?

This brings us to the master-disciple inheritance of this era.

In the handicraft era, a skill was the livelihood of a family and would not be easily passed on to others.

If you want to learn someone's skills and become his apprentice, then you have to treat your master as your own father and be responsible for taking care of him until the end of his life.

In the old days, if anyone in a craft trade dared to betray his master and ancestors, his reputation in the trade would be ruined and no one would hire him for work. At that time, he would be like a rat crossing the street, and everyone would shout and beat him.

The only way is to run to a place where no one knows you and start over.

However, in an agricultural society, local clan forces are intertwined, and it is extremely difficult for an outsider to survive, so few people would do this.

And even if you go to another place, it's hard to make a living with your skills.

In the old days, people talked about orderly inheritance. Local colleagues would ask you about your master. Would you tell them or not?

It is very difficult to conceal a lie; it will be exposed one day.

What about finding another master?

That won't work either, because you are applying for a master's degree with your skills, and the master is not stupid, he will definitely get to the bottom of it.

So you either run away to a remote area, or give up this skill and change your career.

Since the apprentice has to serve tea and water to the master, and take care of him in his old age and see him to the end of his life, the master naturally has to be responsible for the apprentice. In addition to teaching the apprentice skills, the master also has to take care of the apprentice's three meals a day and arrange a marriage for the apprentice before the apprentice gets married.

Take Chang Zhengyang's master's master, Li Fugui, who taught Chang Baichuan the carpentry skills. Chang Baichuan would send him gifts during every festival. Chang Zhengyang would also send him some of the wild animals, fish, shrimps, etc. that he caught every now and then.

During the Chinese New Year, Chang Zhengyang and his sister went to visit Li Fugui and received the same amount of New Year's money as Li's grandchildren.

When Chang Zhengyang was admitted to university, the old man gave him a big unity and carved a pen holder for him out of a whole piece of Huanghuali wood, hollowed out in the middle! Now this pen holder is on his desk.

What did Chang Zhengyang want Yi Zhonghai to help him with?

Of course, I asked Lao Yi to make two knives, one long and one short. The long one is usually kept at home, and the short one is kept on my body.

As for why he didn't look for those knife makers in Yanjing City, it was not because these knife makers had poor skills. After all, knife makers who could make a living in Yanjing must have good skills. Some knife makers even inherited the skills from the palace's imperial workshop and made swords for the royal family, so their skills must be top-notch.

However, Chang Zhengyang is not superstitious about any craftsmen who inherit ancient folk techniques.

Don’t assume that something is a good thing just because you hear about some ancient tradition.

There is a saying: Sir, times have changed!

What era is it now? Industrialization has been around for hundreds of years. Only a fool would think how great ancient swords are.

Can the so-called hundred-fold-refined steel that you forge by hand be better than the bearing steel that is smelted in the blast furnace of a steel plant, and then forged with hundreds or thousands of tons of free forging force, and a series of complex annealing processes?

Of course, bearing steel is not the perfect material for making knives. Bearing steel is too hard and its toughness is slightly poor. It is generally suitable for making short knives.

However, this is the best material Chang Zhengyang can get at the moment.

No matter how good the materials are, you have to find someone to customize them, for example, you can go to the United States across the ocean, where there are many arms companies specializing in private customization business.

Regardless of whether it is hot weapons or cold weapons, Chang Zhengyang in his previous life customized a lot of swords from several world-renowned arms companies. In ancient times, each of them would be a peerless sword that could cut through iron like mud.

However, he also has a remedy. Bearing steel lacks toughness, and adding a small amount of chromium can greatly improve the toughness of the steel, while also improving the steel's corrosion resistance and oxidation resistance.

"Looks like I need to get some chrome first."

Chang Zhengyang watched Jia Dongxu leave. Although chromium is a precious material, fortunately the quantity he needed was very small, so it was not difficult to get.

In the past few months, I have been selling old turtles in the pigeon market and have met many capable friends.

After all, people who can often buy his Lao Bie set meal are those who are not short of money and have a certain social status.

He remembered that he had an old customer named Du Shengli, who was the deputy director of logistics at Shougang. It should be no problem to ask him for some chromium. At most, he could just give him ten old turtles!

So the next morning, Chang Zhengyang took his student ID and went to Shougang to find Du Shengli. He proposed the idea of ​​using the old turtle to pipe chromium. Seeing that the quantity he wanted was very small, the other party readily agreed.

Since getting the student ID card, Chang Zhengyang's travel and finding people have become much more convenient. Before, he had to go to the street office to get a letter of introduction wherever he went, which made Chang Zhengyang very annoyed.

Chang Zhengyang was able to meet Du Shengli smoothly at Shougang because of his student ID card, and the other party's willingness to give him the official chrome was also related to this.

If it was before, when you only had a letter of introduction, people might not give you this face.

So, when you are out and about, it is really convenient to do things if you have an identity.

That evening, Chang Zhengyang met Yi Zhonghai who was returning home from get off work in the alley. He stopped him, took out a cigarette and handed it to him. After smoking a cigarette, the two agreed on the matter of making the knife.

Old Yi obviously knew that Jia Dongxu bought fish from Chang Zhengyang, so he readily agreed to help Chang Zhengyang make a few knives.

Chang Zhengyang provided the drawings and materials, and Yi Zhonghai provided the labor.

As for the processing fee, Chang Zhengyang gave a total of ten big unity bills.

The cost is so high because it involves many links. First, the materials have to be melted, and Chang Zhengyang also wants to form it as a whole, so a separate mold has to be made. These old people have to ask the forgers in the factory for help, and these ten big unity sheets have their processing fees.

After the rough blank is completed, it is the turn of Lao Yi, the fitter, to take action. He will carry out fine processing on the two rough blanks and finally sharpen them.

Don't underestimate the matter of sharpening a knife. Some people may say, it's just sharpening a knife, everyone can do it.

This is true and false. If you want your knife to be sharp and not to bend easily, it is best to find a skilled knife maker to sharpen your knife.

Although Yi Zhonghai is not a knife maker, as a seventh-level fitter, the biggest feature of his hands is that they are steady and have high processing precision, comparable to high-precision machine tools.

Although a seventh-level fitter like him is not as good as the eighth-level craftsmen of major countries, Chang Zhengyang's knives are not high-precision instruments used in aerospace. It makes no sense to pursue too high processing precision for a knife.

As for whether Yi Zhonghai and his team's processing of several knives for Chang Zhengyang would violate the factory's discipline.

Chang Zhengyang believed that they could handle it. Nowadays, there are too many workers in state-owned factories doing private work. As long as you don't affect the factory's production plan, it will be fine.