The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 24 Crucible Steel

Zhu Linming opened the letterbox and took out the secret decree, only to see that Zhu Yujian replied to all the things he asked for a few days ago:
[-]. Reform the military system, revoke the military status of the soldiers of the Longwei New Army and increase the compensation for casualties.

Exactly.

[-]. The Longwei Camp increased the number of mentors and gave ranks.

Exactly.

[-]. Establish a missionary office, temporarily increase the rank of the ninth grade, and award it to the missionary officer.

Exactly.

[-]. The matter of Lin Mi taking over the Ganzhou Military Weapons Bureau.

I will send an order to the Ganzhou Military Weapons Bureau to fully cooperate with you, but I am worried that it will affect your military training in Longnan.

[-]. Cancellation of craftsman registration and change to craftsman grade assessment.

The craftsman registration will not be canceled for the time being, and the craftsman level assessment will be promoted first.

It should be said that Long Wu is still very cooperative. For example, he almost insisted on the approval of the cabinet for the increase of the Ninth Grade.Zhu Lin said inwardly, "Except for having no soldiers and no money, this emperor is really beyond reproach."

With Long Wu's approval, many things can be started.

The first thing is to establish a mission office.

At this time, Daming was troubled by internal and external troubles.Soldiers do not look like soldiers, their sense of honor is gone, and they rarely win battles. Officers oppress soldiers, and soldiers plunder civilians. The damage done by the Ming army to the people can be said to be no less than that of the Qing army.

In particular, all the hundreds of thousands of troops from the four towns of Jiangbei in the former Hongguang Dynasty were surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, which brought the image of the Ming army into the [-]th hell.

Corruption among civil officials has become commonplace, and they have fallen in hope of clearing up.Under the joint persecution of corruption and the wrong tax system, a large number of self-cultivating farmers went bankrupt, and exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes were rampant.Coupled with the repeated ravages of Li Zicheng and other rogues and the Ming army who suppressed bandits, the land of China is already in a mess.

The people were terribly disappointed with the imperial court. No one believed that Daming would get better, and some even hoped that the Manchus would come to "save" themselves.

It is not terrible to lose the battle.With the background of the Ming Dynasty, it is not a problem to organize hundreds of battles, but if the people lose confidence in the court, they will really be powerless.So the top priority is to save social confidence!

As a latecomer, Zhu Linmi is most aware of the importance of publicity. Only by leading the publicity can the direction of public opinion be swayed, and the people's confidence re-boosted, so that the emotions of failure will not spread out of control.

This Mission House is his long-planned propaganda offensive, and all matters have been planned long before he arrived in Longnan.

Now with Longwu's consent, he drove to find Wang Keqian, the county magistrate, early the next morning.Although you can't show him the secret decree of Longwu, you can dictate the establishment of the mission office.

Wang Zhixian just received a letter from the Ministry of Officials in the morning, asking him to cooperate with the establishment of a mission office in Longnan.So when he heard what Zhu Linming said, he immediately said: "If there is anything that needs to be done by the lower officials, please just order your Highness."

"My lord Wang needs to help me with two things." Zhu Lin said, "One is that the Xuanjiao Mansion must have a place to handle official affairs. The second is that I need you to help me make public the selection of officials by the Xuanjiao Mansion."

Wang Keqian immediately nodded in agreement, and immediately called relevant personnel to handle it.

After Zhu Linming explained the affairs of the Mission House, she immediately rushed to the porcelain kiln where the crucibles were fired.

Fortunately this time, the crucible was fired perfectly, smooth and clean, without the slightest crack.He hurriedly asked the craftsman to write down the details of the firing time, temperature, and cooling method on paper and hand them over to him. These are all precious technical materials. It is estimated that they can be sold for at least [-] to [-] pounds if taken to the UK together with the crucible formula!A pound in this era is worth about two taels of silver.

By the time the crucible was carefully transported to the iron yard, the hearth had been dried, and the blower was driven by donkeys to blow out a strong wind.

Zhu Linmei immediately ordered to test the fire.

The craftsmen first spread the burning charcoal on the bottom of the hearth, and then began to neatly place the coke on it, and after one layer of coke was ignited, the next layer was laid.

When the coke was spread to the set height, the crucible was placed on the base of the crucible among the coke with special "big tongs" by two big and round craftsmen.

Just preheating the crucible made Zhu Linmi crazy - there was no thermometer!It can only be estimated.He sighed in his heart, the ancient industry really relied on empiricism.

When Zhu Linmi felt that the temperature was about the same, she directed the craftsmen to carefully put the iron blocks prepared in advance into the crucible, and then added lime, iron slag and other slagging agents.

All that's left is to cover the pot, increase the blast volume, and wait for the result.

After about an hour, through the observation hole on the lid of the crucible, it can be seen that the iron paste in the pot gradually turned white. Zhu Linming knew that it was very close to the melting of the iron block.

All the craftsmen looked at this pot of strange things curiously. Although the owner said that it was making steel, none of them believed that such a stew pot was stuffed with a stove, and a lot of strange things like lime and slag were added into it—— In the past, they only added a little lime when smelting iron—it could really make steel.

朱琳渼当然也没办法跟他们讲解诸如FeS+CaO=CaS+FeO或者2P+5(FeO)+3(CaO)=3CaO.P2O5+5Fe之类的反应是怎么回事。

In fact, the reason why iron is not as good as steel is that a large part of the reason is that S sulfur and P phosphorus are two kinds of impurities mixed in iron.Especially iron ore in China has a particularly high sulfur content.Sulfur and phosphorus will cause iron to be easily cracked and brittle, and reduce the impact resistance and toughness of iron.The same piece of iron will become tough and durable immediately after dephosphorization and desulfurization.

The traditional steelmaking method is because the molten iron cannot be melted, so the sulfur and phosphorus contained in the iron block cannot contact the outside world, so it is difficult to remove it by chemical reaction.

But right now, Zhu Linming can burn the iron block to a liquid state, so that these impurities have ample opportunity to come into contact with lime and other slagging agents.One of the main functions of the slagging agent is to react with impurities, so that sulfur and phosphorus are attached to the slagging agent and precipitated.

Of course, since the pot used in crucible steelmaking is made of graphite, a large amount of carbon will compete with the slagging agent to react, resulting in a decline in dephosphorization and desulfurization effects, but compared with the traditional method of repeatedly forging to oxidize surface phosphorus and sulfur, that The effect is much better.There are also some large particles of impurities such as ore slag, which will automatically float on the molten iron after the iron is melted, and the removal effect is excellent, which is absolutely impossible for traditional forging methods.

In addition, the way of forging steel will cause the steel products to have fine defects along the forging direction, and problems such as uneven carburization, which do not exist at all in the crucible steelmaking method.

Historically, after the emergence of crucible steelmaking in the eighteenth century, it immediately led to a leap in the quality of steel in Europe, and even Britain once planned to legislate to ban the export of crucible steel.

About three hours later, the first pot of iron turned completely into a fiery red liquid, stirring slightly in the crucible.

The craftsmen had already been assigned tasks by Zhu Linmi, and at this moment when he gave an order, a large group of people immediately surrounded them.Uncovering, slag pouring, casting, cleaning, all the processes are carried out in an orderly manner, it doesn't look like the first time operation.

In fact, people like crucible steelmaking have never seen it before, but apart from molten steel in a molten state, other steps have many similarities with traditional steelmaking.

The steel ingot has just been poured into the mould, and the craftsmen have already started adding fuel to the hearth furnace. The crucible was placed on the hearth furnace before it cooled down, and new iron blocks were thrown into the pot.

This time Zhu Linmi adjusted the amount of slagging agent and added alkali, alum and a small amount of sand.He only remembered that these things were helpful for dephosphorization and desulfurization, but he had no impression of the specific addition ratio.The best ratio of slagging agent can only be determined by trial and error in the future.

On the other side, the steel ingot poured for the first time was still red, and the craftsman in charge of the forging sandwiched it on the forging platform and began to forge various steel products.

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(End of this chapter)