I do research in ancient times

The cotton spinning machine team won the house in one fell swoop, and the whole Wubao felt envious.

But not everyone has the ability to invent and innovate. In fact, most of the Mozong craftsmen are more accustomed to working according to the established steps and procedures, and will not easily make changes.

That's not a bad thing.After all, in any era, there are still a small number of people who dare to innovate and try. If they can achieve the ultimate in every detail of work, they can also become qualified industrial workers.

This is the case for most people in the blacksmith workshop.

Ever since Ning Fei and Feng Kai made an agreement to trial-produce frontier weapons, Mo Zong's blacksmith workshop has been in a strange and complicated atmosphere.

The reason is that in the previous knife test meeting, every disciple in the whole workshop, no matter their age or seniority, personally forged a horizontal knife according to the requirements of Jizi, and then put them together for comparison and judgment in front of the whole sect. Fairness and justice are unquestionable.

However, the result was a bit tragic.

For example, there are a few who can't even pierce the armor. They are simply executed in public. They can't lift their faces for several days. Everyone feels that they are really laughing at themselves.

Blacksmith workshop ah!The iron knife can't cut the armor, so are they making sledges?In the future, what face will I have to say that I am a disciple of Mozong? It is simply a shame for the sect!

Some people's results are not bad, but they are also unhappy.

Yes, it's about Mu Donglai and Xu Jin.

These two are considered to be the best in the blacksmith workshop. To be honest, they have always felt that they are not one of the best blacksmiths in Mozong.However, in this competition, both of them were defeated by Liu Tie, a foolish boy who was almost kicked out of the sect before!

Of course, this is not a shame on the surface, because Liu Tie's knife is indeed beautifully made, and there is Juzi on the side as a technical guide. Mozong's Juzi is the most talented person in the sect, and it is normal to lose to Juzi.

But this is where the two tangled.

Although they were convinced of Ning Fei's position in the sect, Mu Donglai and Xu Jin were still very confident in their skills as a person who had spent more than half of their life in front of iron smelting furnaces.

Not to mention anything else, but just forging iron and casting swords. In the past, the iron material was not as good as that of Longquan Jianfang. Now there is the method of pouring steel taught by Juzi. Hundred Steelmaking is not bad at all.

But even so, the knives made are still not as good as the finished products of Juzi and Liu Tie.The key moment didn't do anything, he wrote and drew in the room the whole time, and occasionally went to Liu Tie's stove to check the situation, but he didn't stretch out a finger when he folded the casting knife!

But they still won!Winning is clear and clear, cutting armor thirty times, still the same straw man as them!

Why are their knives so sharp and beautiful? !

Puzzled, Mu Donglai always had a stone in his heart, and he tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep.

His wife thought he was annoying, so she turned over and sat up on the kang, and pushed the old man's shoulder.

"What's the matter with you? If you don't sleep, you just squat outside the hall, it's so annoying!"

Mu Donglai was taken aback.

He has lived with the old woman for more than 40 years. When did he hear the old woman be so fierce?Could it be that he was haunted by something? !

"You... what are you?"

Mu Donglai's daughter-in-law, Wang Shi, laughed angrily.

"What am I? I'm your wife!"

"If you don't sleep, go to the workshop and smoke. Don't hinder me from getting up early tomorrow."

"What?"

Mu Donglai finally heard something was wrong this time.

Two days ago, he felt that the old woman was not as talkative as before, and he was reluctant to ask a basin to pour water.Before, I thought it was because of the knife test meeting, I was in a low mood, and everything I saw was not pleasing to the eye.But looking at it now, it was before he noticed that his status as the head of the family changed!

have a look!Isn't it just turning over, this is going to drive him out of the house!

"I said, what's the matter with you, old lady? When you wake up early, you just go to the dining room to help, and there are so many people who don't miss you. What's the big deal?"

Hearing what he said, Wang sneered coldly.

"It didn't matter before, but it's hard to say in the future."

She kicked Mu Donglai.

"Do you think you're the only one who can work? Aunt Qiu is now organizing the girls in the fort to learn looms, and Da Ya Er Ya and I are the first batch of trainees!"

"In the past two days, I have started to teach fingering. It is a job that practice makes perfect, and I have to practice it every day. If I don't have to take time to go home to serve you and the three boys to eat and drink, I can learn it slower than the eldest and the second?"

What?

Now, Mu Donglai couldn't lie down anymore, he turned over and sat up, staring at his old lady.

"You said that you and the big girl went to learn weaving? Just the loom that Liu Tong and Pinghua made two days ago?"

"Ah, yes."

Wang snorted coldly.

"Auntie Qiu said that Juzi will set up a weaving workshop in Wubao in the future. Anyone who is willing to learn can go to work in the future, but he must master the current weaving method."

"The machine is still changing, but the method remains the same. When the time comes, you can understand how to use it as long as you explain it again, without wasting time."

Oh, it seems that there is such a thing, the boy in the carpentry class and the girl who butchered the pig got a single room because of this.

Mu Donglai touched his nose.

No wonder the old woman had been talking about the loom and so on. He was in a bad mood and didn't like to hear her rambling, so he dismissed her with a few perfunctory sentences.Later, the old woman didn't mention the matter, but her eyes became colder and colder. It turned out that she had joined Mrs. Qiu's weaving group.

"What are you doing for that?"

Mu Donglai smacked his mouth.

"That's only for the orphans and widows who have nowhere to go in Wubao. Your man is from the blacksmith workshop, how can you still starve to death?"

"Besides, the eldest and the second are about to reach the age of marriage, so it would be nice to obediently take care of the housework at home. When I have time, I will find two reliable boys for them in the workshop, and they will be able to rely on them in the future."

"Ah."

Wang sneered.

"Won't you starve to death? It's not like there wasn't a time when you almost starved to death."

Seeing Mu Dong coming to interrupt, Wang waved at the old man.

"You seem to listen to me, don't always say that you are old, and you guys are not the only ones who have grown up."

"Ten years ago, you and the old man Yu worried a lot about the sect. At that time, you went out to collect food and pulled everyone to survive. No one will forget this."

"But if there is no moment to find the potatoes, we might be starved to death right now. Don't say that we can't, the food is for the young and strong to eat. Then Granny Qiu and Old Man Liu have both gone to the back mountain. If there is no food, The next batch will be our useless wives."

Having said that, Wang sighed.

"So at that time, I was thinking, marrying a man, marrying a man, dressing and eating. But if the man has nothing to eat, the young and fresh lady can go to another family. Will I, an old woman, have to starve to death?"

She didn't look at the old man's colorful face, and continued talking on her own.

"At first, I was resigned to my fate, thinking that I would cast a male fetus in my next life. As a result, the loom was built two days ago, and the cloth was woven quickly and well. I have never seen such a soft and sweat-absorbing material in my life. "

"I have planted cotton, picked bolls, and ginned cotton seeds, and I know how to weave cloth again. Does that count as a subsistence craft?"

"This woman, you still need to have a skill. Otherwise, you can rely on a man when you are young. If you can't rely on a man when you are old, you can only wait for death. The big girl is my daughter, I can't Let them go my way."

Mu Dong is so angry!

He wants to say what's wrong with you?Is he, Mu Donglai, suffering from her or starving her? !But what the old woman said is still true.If there is no Ju Zi Ning Fei to find the potatoes, the sect will have a miserable winter, and the old woman will live with him for the rest of her life, and the first few years and the present will be peaceful.

Depressed, Mu Dong came to get off the kang to put on his shoes, and went to the craftsman's room angrily.

I thought there was no one in the craftsman's house, and I didn't want to wait for him to arrive. There was still smoke in a small blast furnace, and someone was staying up all night working.

When he entered the door, it turned out to be Liu Tie.

"Tiezi, it's all over, why are you still here?"

Liu Tie raised his head, saw that it was his master Mu Donglai, and hastily put down the feeding rod in his hand.

"Master, I want to check the ratio of the frontier swords."

The blacksmith workshop is currently trial-producing border army weapons. Because it is standard equipment and needs to be mass-produced, the craftsmanship standards must be determined in advance, and everyone cannot make their own and play at will.

Standard weapons do not require cutting iron like mud like the previous horizontal knives, but they need to work harder on toughness and durability. Regarding such requirements, there have been several debates within the blacksmith workshop, and each time they have different opinions , no one can convince anyone, so they can only compete with each other.

This time Ning Fei didn't participate in it, he felt that professional people should do professional things, it's okay for him to make a temporary guest appearance, but every time he has to get involved, it's a bit of an overreach.

He is Mo Zong's son, and he is not the supervisor of each project team. If the blacksmith workshop is to really support itself, it is still up to these craftsmen to work hard.

In the end, the blacksmith workshop decided to speak with the facts, and had another knife trial meeting to see whose craftsmanship was more in line with the requirements.Of course, the evaluation standard is not a single armor penetration, but also the complexity and cost of the process.After all, this is a custom-made weapon for customers. In the future, it will be too complicated and cumbersome to equip the frontier army in batches. It is useless to say that the output cannot keep up.

As a result, everyone was much more relaxed this time.Some try to simplify the process, some try to reduce the cost. Everyone knows that perfection is impossible. As Juzi also said, he will choose three options for Yongxiguan to choose from, so there is still a great chance of winning the bid.

"You have really improved recently!"

Mu Donglai patted his apprentice on the shoulder and said sincerely.

Since what happened last time, Liu Tie seemed to have grown up overnight.I no longer say those words that were not thoughtful before, and my whole person has begun to mature, and I work carefully and meticulously.

Especially after casting knives with Juzi, Liu Tie was more silent than before.Following Juzi's habit, he prepared himself a birch bark notebook and a stick of charcoal. Every time he turned on the stove, he had to write down something, and when he was free, he would take out the notebook to think about it by himself.

Recently everyone said that Liu Tie was sleeping in front of the stove, Mu Donglai still didn't believe it, but after seeing it today, it was indeed so.

"It's nothing."

Liu Tie scratched his head, keeping his eyes on the feeding port of the stove.

Seeing that the temperature of the furnace was about the same, Liu Tie first checked the condition of the molten iron in the furnace, then grabbed a charcoal pen and wrote a few lines on the birch bark.

"What do you remember?"

Mu Donglai asked curiously.

"It's the state of the molten iron in the furnace, and the height."

Liu Tie answered while writing.

"When casting knives with Jizi before, Jizi once told me some temperature, carbon content and so on. I want to try it myself, break down each step to see what's useful, and figure out why Jizi adds these things, and what's the difference if I don't add them!"

"I didn't understand it at the time, but Jizi said that he could do more observations, as long as the number of specimens is large enough, he can conclude the truth."

As he spoke, he handed the birch bark book in front of Mu Donglai, his dark red face glowing slightly.

"Jizi is right! As far as the carbon content is concerned, doesn't it mean that it can only be one out of a hundred? I understand a little bit now! The carbon content of the iron we smelted in the previous furnace is not enough to be one hundredth, and it is fired in a blast furnace. The one that comes out is higher than Baiyi, as long as you mix the two and record Baiyi's state at that time, can't you deduce whether it is qualified or not?"

"Master, look, I burned a furnace for too long before, and as a result, the molten iron in it became a bit hard after being mixed. I'm planning to burn this furnace for a while now, and I hope this time I can produce some good steel!"