Poor family mother and son

Chapter 53
The task assigned by Zhang Mingyu had to be completed, and Chu Qing thought of a way.She called Chu Yuan and told him to pay more attention to the movement of the mining area when delivering bricks, and develop a few eyeliners. There are always supervisors there.Flowing corvee, hard-working supervisor.It's easy to buy a few.

It's good to be the master, and the mission has been handed over again.I can study ironmaking in a down-to-earth manner again.Baijiaxing bought a carload of scrap copper and iron from surrounding villages and counties.It is not easy to buy these, and people are not willing to sell them.

A broken house is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and these broken pots and hoes can also be sold to blacksmiths, or they can be rebuilt with some money.Baccarat collection is not easy.

Chu Qing cleaned up the rags like a baby, and put them into the blast furnace.Everything in the blast furnace is Chu Qing's treasure.

For example, coke is also fetched with buckets of water, poured into the dug pit, washed and rinsed over and over again with the soil basket, and then put into the kiln after being cleaned.

There is no river nearby.The only small river flows through the rice fields, the current is very small, and it is still far away.Nor should the water for watering the fields be polluted by coal washing.

Nothing came easily.

Under Master Lu's command, Chu Qing and the others ignited the fire, stuffed it, and ventilated it in sequence.

For a whole day and night, everyone did not sleep, and the molten iron finally flowed out.Master Lu stirred the molten iron: "Well, it looks good." He went to the other side of the blast furnace to check the slag, and kept nodding.

Chu Qing didn't know what to do, and she couldn't judge, so she had to wait for the molten iron to solidify.Master Lu has been smelting and blacksmithing iron for half his life, and he has never let go of his craft.When the temperature of the molten iron dropped, I couldn't help but forge it.

The pig iron smelted in the blast furnace has high carbon content, so it needs to be beaten continuously to knock out iron oxide and carbon.The so-called repeated tempering is actually purifying the carbon in pig iron.This principle is clear and understandable.

But seeing Master Lu's repeated beating action, Chu Qing felt that it was a muscle exercise, so he simply became Master Lu's apprentice. Master Lu turned the pig iron block based on experience to indicate the position of the beating, and Chu Qing worked hard.

According to Master Lu's identification, Chu Qing's smelting process yielded very good pig iron, which greatly reduced the number of times of forging and shortened the time for making finished products.

Chu Qing was also very happy, but began to think again, whether the forging process could be shortened.The purpose of continuous forging is to reduce the carbon in pig iron until it becomes wrought iron, that is, iron with extremely low carbon content.

After becoming wrought iron, because the carbon content is insufficient, the hardness of the iron is not enough, and it must continue to be calcined in a charcoal fire to allow carbon to penetrate.Chu Qing felt that this process was too labor-intensive and time-consuming.This is the same as kneading noodles, if there is too much water, put the noodles, and if there is too much noodles, put water.

Moreover, in this "carburizing" technology, it is unknown whether the distribution of carbon in the iron is uneven.Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" records two methods of "steel making" and "steel filling". When Chu Qing read this, he felt that the problem of uneven carbon distribution was not really solved.
Regardless of which of these two methods, the only difference lies in the change in the number of times of forging.Because I am not a professional talent, nor have I studied how steel is made, so I largely rely on Master Lu's experience to judge whether the finished product is good or bad.

The first smelting of pig iron brought confidence to Chu Qing: at least his own fuel and blast furnace have withstood the test.Other materials, such as limestone, are based on Master Lu's experience, and he clearly recorded the whole process, materials, time, and judgment methods.

A truckload of scrap iron was used up, and the finished product was less than half of the raw material.But Master Lu said that the frequency of wrought iron is also reduced by half.

These new irons were fashioned by Master Lu into the style on Chu Qing's drawings.What Chu Qing painted was a thick-backed broad-faced ghost-headed sword, not the straight-edged narrow-edged sword commonly seen in this country.Because Chu Qing believed that the curved blade not only had the function of slashing, but also increased the damage of the slash while slashing.

The thickness of the root of the knife is nearly one centimeter, which is very suitable for people with strong strength and explosive power.This kind of knife is suitable for people with great strength to fight at close range.

A total of two knives were made.Chu Qing also knocked a few small rectangular iron pieces with his own hands, put them into the leggings with pockets sewn into them, and gave them to Xiaobao.This is much cleaner than sandbags on your legs.Xiaobao happily tied his legs and jumped into the pit.In the future, iron blocks can be added piece by piece according to demand.

……

When Zhang Mingyu finally returned to the village, he saw Chu Qing playing big swords early in the morning.I saw her holding a big knife in both hands, slashing left and right, and muttering: "Why don't you breathe out the wind?" The style of painting is a bit ridiculous.

But that knife...Master Lu sharpened the knife so that it was very eye-catching when Chu Qing was holding it and wielding it. Zhang Mingyu's eyes were straightened!She rushed up and asked, "Where did you come from?" Chu Qing hurriedly withdrew her hand, Zhang Mingyu would have been hurt if she was slower!
"Like?" Chu Qing asked.This knife was made for Zhang Mingyu.Zhang Mingyu used the dagger, but Chu Qing looked uncomfortable.When Hong Liang was rescued last time, Zhang Mingyu even took away the dagger and snatched the rebels' sabers to use.

After smelting iron from his own blast furnace, Chu Qing didn't waste it, and gave Zhang Mingyu two knives.Thinking about it, Zhang Mingyu was on a mission, and it was estimated that danger would be inevitable.If you don't have time to sharpen the knife, make two and use them in rotation.

Zhang Mingyu snatched the Ghost Head Knife, and slashed the air left and right, and the sound of the wind was rubbed by this powerful and fast movement.

"Uh..." Chu Qing was speechless.He didn't make any noise himself.

"What?" Zhang Mingyu stopped and asked.

"It's okay. Do you like it? There's another one, you can exchange it." Chu Qing said.In her opinion, clothes must be changed and washed, and knives must be replaced and sharpened.

"Ah? Another one?" Zhang Mingyu was excited!

When Zhang Mingyu was wielding both of the ghost-head knives in his hands, Chu Qing felt that Zhang Mingyu was like a different person, from a taciturn and honest rural kid, he instantly transformed into a killing god!
Zhang Mingyu stuck two knives behind his back in the last gesture, neat and handsome.Chu Qing ran behind him to see where the knife had been inserted.The two knives were crossed behind the back, and the points of the knives reached into the belt.

"Aren't you afraid of cutting your belt and dropping your pants?" Chu Qing asked.There was a burst of laughter behind him.

"That..." Zhang Mingyu scratched his head, "I once seized the straps of Donglun warriors, which were used to insert double knives."

"Why did you seize the braces? Why didn't you seize the double knives?" Chu Qing asked.

"Uh... the knife is broken. Their knives are like ours, thin and light, so they don't work well."

"My knife, do you want to pay for it?"

"what?"

"For nothing?"

"Ah no, how much?"

"Get some iron ore to pay off the debt."

"Ah, this..." Zhang Mingyu was depressed, he couldn't get the mine.

"Boss!" Bai Jiaxing came over, "Just now the government sent someone to settle the account for the last batch of bricks."

Good thing, Chu Qing thought, this time the granary used bricks, and the net profit was 8000 taels.She is also a little rich woman.

But you have to come up with some money to make offerings.Mrs. Hong and Mrs. Song were the initial funders of Baolu Group, so they had to be well maintained.

"Zhang Mingyu, accompany me to the state government office and the general military mansion. Baijiaxing, give me 500 taels of silver bills, and I'll make a confession. Leave the rest to Xiaobao." Chu Qing ordered.Chu Qing was able to order Zhang Mingyu easily, and he didn't mind anyway.

General military mansion.

Chu Qing went to chat with Mrs. Hong in the backyard. Zhang Mingyu was a stranger, so he had to sit in the front hall drinking tea and waiting.Chu Qing didn't care about the time when chatting over there, Zhang Mingyu drank tea until he was in a hurry.Just about to go out to find the toilet, Hong Liang came back.

Zhang Mingyu hurried forward to salute, "Lord Hong!"

Hong Liang glanced at him and recognized the person who came back to rescue him, the person who was with Mrs. Chu. "Why are you here? Did you come with Mrs. Chu?" Hong Liang asked.For some reason, Hong Liang always regarded Zhang Mingyu as Chu Qing's deputy.

"Yes, Mrs. Chu is talking to Madam."

"What's the matter?" Hong Liang asked again.

"No, Miss Chu just said she misses his wife, come and see."

"Okay, just rest, I'll go see Mrs. Chu too."

"Yes."

Zhang Mingyu saluted again, and when Hong Liang turned around, he wanted to go to the toilet quickly, and couldn't hold back anymore.

"Hey, wait!" A loud voice came from behind.

(End of this chapter)