Northern Dynasties Imperial Industry

Duguxin rested one night at Longshou Yuanzhuang and set out again the next morning without stopping again.

Not long after Li Tai sent Dugu Xin away, and before he had time to take a closer look at the specific operating conditions of Longshou Yuan Village, Li Hu's servant rode into the village and came to inform Li Tai that the handover of the workshop could be handled today.

Li Tai did not hesitate and was ready to go. It can be thought that Li Hu and his subordinates did not have a friendly attitude yesterday. Although Duguxin made peace, Li Tai was still not completely relieved and directly brought hundreds of fully armed subordinates with him before going. Meet Li Hu.

Li Hu was on duty today in a fort northwest of Chang'an City and on the south bank of the Weishui River. After Li Tai arrived, he went straight out and explained: "The smelting and foundry is still in Xianyang on the north bank, and horses come and go. If everything goes well, the handover should be clear today.”

As he spoke, Li Hu led a group of followers straight to the Weishui Ferry, intending to personally lead Li Tai to hand over the affairs. Upon seeing this, Li Tai quickly thanked him.

Li Hu waved his hand to express that you were not welcome. While waiting for the ferry to arrive, he added: "We have a deep friendship with Hanoi Bus, and he cares about you very much. We did have some disagreements before, but now they have been resolved. Come, there’s no need to say more. From now on, I hope we can live in harmony. If Li Lang doesn’t know where he is going when he goes to and from the capital, he might as well be a guest at home.”

This attitude was much better than yesterday. Li Tai smiled and said yes after hearing this.

After the group of people crossed the Wei River, they rode northward for more than an hour. In the morning, they arrived at a plateau on the southwest side of the Jing River in Xianyang.

The slope of this plateau is relatively gentle. From a distance, you can already see several blast furnaces standing on it, some of which are still emitting thick smoke.

There is a garrison on the plateau that can accommodate thousands of soldiers. The garrison is surrounded by acres of cultivated land, mulberry forests and orchards, with many felt tents and houses scattered among them.

The entire terrace covers an area of ​​between two and three hundred hectares. It is a relatively typical layout of a large manor that combines military and peasantry. It obviously belongs to Li Hu's manor industry. Every one of these Beizhen military leaders is a big landowner.

The smelting workshop was arranged in the northeast of the manor, close to the Jingshui River. The group climbed the plateau from the southwest and had to pass through the entire manor to reach it. Li Tai also took this opportunity to observe the operating conditions of Li Hu's manor, and secretly judged Li Hu's power.

There are nearly a thousand households on the plateau, including Han people and Hu tribesmen. This number is not too big, and Li Tai doesn’t know if it is the entire Li Hu trilogy.

But last night he also heard from Dugu Xin that in addition to his own position, power and family slaves, Li Hu was also very prestigious among the Hu tribes who had moved inland and settled around Xianyang in Weibei. The commander-in-chief's capital always follows his horse's lead.

In short, these senior military leaders, in addition to their respective official positions and prestige and favor among the township party, their respective official resumes also provide them with a lot of personnel accumulation.

However, this situation can only be maintained until the eve of the establishment of the Fubing system. When the complete Fubing system is established, the coordination and control of the Bafu will be greatly strengthened, and the respective prestige and influence of these pillar countries will be strengthened. will be gradually faded and erased.

There are many craftsmen in the workshop who are busy with different tasks. Some are filling the furnace, while others are forging utensils. There is a burning and choking smell in the air.

The smelting and foundry workshop in Li Tai's own Baishui Village is not small. He is no stranger to the current production process, and he also has some comparison ideas in his heart. Without waiting for Li Hu to introduce it, he dismounted and took a tour of the workshop. stand up.

The Li Hu family's workshop is not small in scale. In addition to several blast furnaces that can be seen on the ground, there are also various other smelting and casting facilities that are producing different metal products.

Ancient smelting technology can be roughly divided into several methods or stages such as block smelting method, steel frying method and steel filling method.

The block smelting method is the most basic and primitive smelting technology. The ore and charcoal are placed in a furnace for smelting to obtain solid sponge iron, which is then heated and forged to remove impurities and undergo carburizing treatment to obtain various products. iron product.

The advantage of this forging method is that it is simple, convenient and easy to operate, and does not require advanced skills, experience, tools and materials. Many UPs who survived in the wilderness in later generations often used this method to obtain iron products.

However, the shortcomings of the block smelting method are also obvious. The temperature in the furnace cannot reach the melting point of iron, and only solid sponge iron can be formed. There are too many impurities. Even after sufficient hammering, the quality is not too high, and the efficiency is very low. . The so-called Hundred Steelmaking is a relatively high-end product produced by this process. Just hearing the name makes it feel difficult.

So when better smelting technology emerged, this relatively primitive method was naturally eliminated.

When the blower appeared, it greatly increased the temperature in the furnace during smelting, and a blast furnace was created, which could directly melt the iron ore in the furnace into molten iron. After cooling, it can become pig iron with extremely high hardness.

The fried steel method is developed on the basis of blast furnace smelting and is a more efficient and advanced smelting technology.

A very critical factor that affects the performance and quality of iron products is the carbon content. Pig iron with high carbon content is hard but brittle and can be cast but cannot be forged. Wrought iron is refined from pig iron, has low carbon content, is softer and has good plasticity, but is not as hard as pig iron.

The stir-fried steel method is to stir and stir-fry the pig iron liquid flowing out of the blast furnace smelting, and then add iron ore powder and air to oxidize it to oxidize and decarburize it, thereby obtaining wrought iron with lower carbon content.

Pig iron is strong and castable, while wrought iron is tough and easy to forge. However, in real life, especially weapons and equipment, both are often needed.

However, the molten iron in the blast furnace is always in a high-temperature flowing state during the steel frying process. In the ancient production environment that relied entirely on manual operations, it was difficult to precisely control the oxidation and decarburization process.

Skilled and experienced craftsmen may be able to flexibly control and directly obtain high-quality products with just the right carbon content by frying steel, but this is not possible in most cases.

In order to make the carbon content in the steel smelting process more precise and controllable, the steel filling method was developed on the basis of the steel frying method.

What is directly smelted in the blast furnace is pig iron. After frying and decarburization, it becomes wrought iron. Then the two are smelted together according to a certain proportion. The pig iron is used as a carburizing agent. After it is melted into a liquid, it is poured into the solid wrought iron. On the iron, hence the name steel pouring method, after smelting each other, steel with more superior properties is obtained, also known as iron.

Of course, this is just the smelting process of steel. The specific casting and forging has a series of meticulous processes. The technical details and key factors are even more detailed, and Li Tai doesn't know much about it.

In the manor of Li Hu's family, various smelting productions are carried out, and different iron products are produced. In addition to various ordnance and weapons, many agricultural tools are also produced.

Li Tai had no interest in seeing the quality of the Li Hu family's hoes. After walking around the workshop, he asked impatiently: "Excuse me, Mr. Longxi, is there a skilled craftsman in the village who can make the Su-iron sword?"

"Su Tie Bao Dao?"

After hearing this, Li Hu first shook his head, then smiled at Li Tai and said: "There is no such skilled craftsman in our village. Li Lang, if you know where to find such a skilled craftsman, please let us know and come and visit!"

The Sutie Knife is a weapon forged using the steel-filling technology. At a time when the steel-filling method has not yet been fully popularized, it can be said to be the most powerful weapon of the era. It is the crystallization of the most advanced smelting and forging technology.

In fact, the principle of forging is also very simple. It is to use wrought iron as the blade base, and then use pig iron to pour the edge and carburize it into steel. In this way, the blade is hard, sharp and indestructible, and the blade is both strong and tough, cleverly combining the properties of different metals. Pair them together for miraculous results.

But knowing the principle is one thing, being able to create it is another. Li Tai also knows how to make artificial diamonds. The basic craftsmanship of the iron sword is not a secret, and there are many people in Kansai who know it. However, few people can master the various matters that need to be paid attention to during the forging process.

Hearing Li Hu's answer, Li Tai also laughed twice. Of course he knew where such a skilled craftsman could be found, but Li Hu might not dare to visit with him.

Although there are no craftsmen who can forge iron swords, the smelting and forging skills of these craftsmen in Li Hu Manor can be seen by the naked eye to be superior to the craftsmanship of their own Baishui Manor. Li Taixing passed several work sheds and saw craftsmen carefully polishing the armor that had been roughly forged.

There are more than 300 smelting craftsmen and tens of thousands of kilograms of iron materials stored here. Several years have passed and the iron materials have been consumed long ago. However, most of the craftsmen are still living here, and many of them are already here. Marry a wife and have children.

When Li Hu summoned all these craftsmen here, Li Tai found that there were nearly a hundred barbarians who looked similar and should be of the same race, but they were somewhat different from the various barbarians he saw every day. He couldn't help but point at these people and ask: "What kind of race are these Hu Nu? They look a bit unfamiliar."

Li Hu glanced at them casually and said: "This is the Ashina tribe in Mobei Jinshan. They belong to the creeping hybrid slave tribe. Although they are not known for their bravery, they can be regarded as rare among the miscellaneous beasts."

Li Tai felt happy again when he heard this comment. In fact, today's Turks have gradually risen. Even after Rouran turned against the Western Wei Dynasty and married the Eastern Wei Dynasty, it was once regarded by the Western Wei Dynasty as a Mobei force with united front value.

However, the rise of the Turks did not have a landmark event after all, and there was still a long way to go before they could completely replace Rouran, the overlord of Mobei.

Li Tai did not expect that among the craftsmen gifted to him by his father-in-law, there were actually nearly a hundred Turkic forging slaves, and he was full of expectations for the craftsmanship of these forging slaves.

Sorry for the long wait, I will update one chapter today. . . My status this month is really bad, and I feel very guilty. I asked for leave and missed chapters, and I will try my best to make up for them next month. . .