Chapter 584: Difficulty in Smelting Fine Iron
The messenger had the sacred eagle, which was loved by the grassland people, in his hand. He immediately tied the secret letter to the eagle's thigh and let go. The speed of the sacred eagle was much faster than Hubli's riding speed. When Hubli returned, Tachaer had already gathered 20,000 cavalry and set off.
Hubili asked in surprise: Brother, why is this happening?
Tachaer proudly took out the secret order from the royal court and showed it to him, telling him that Great Khan Mengge had ordered that Datong was in danger, and he was acting on the order and had to leave quickly.
Hubili's body swayed a bit, and he quickly sat back on his horse and bowed to Takaer to say goodbye.
This was because his elder brother did not want to see Hubili's strong army and use the strategy of dividing the troops, which would easily draw away his 50,000 main forces.
Hubili sighed helplessly, feeling very tired. His loyal fans, Shandong Lu Wang and Shi Tianze, immediately went to the government office to take a rest.
Shi Tianze told him a little discouraged that if the army was reduced, they could recruit more, but the blow dealt to them by the Shenwei Army was fatal. After losing Daming Prefecture, Hejian Prefecture and Zhending Prefecture, the empire's military supplies could not be guaranteed.
In particular, the refined iron urgently needed for manufacturing weapons was difficult to obtain. Daxing Prefecture had no refined iron smelting base, and the defeat of Daming Prefecture would be equivalent to losing the empire's source of refined iron, while the imperial court was still urging for arrows and scimitars.
Hubili is very clear about this.
Although Shi Tianze worked hard to build eight blast furnaces during this period, due to technical and ore quality issues, three of the eight blast furnaces exploded, and the quality of the remaining iron was uneven and could not be considered refined iron at all.
Hubili knew that technical problems could not be solved in a hurry, and that the craftsmen had to practice continuously and modify the material ratios before they could figure it out. Although he was anxious in his heart, he still said calmly: No hurry, we must explore carefully and strive to produce fine iron as soon as possible.
Refined iron, which craftsmen call black iron, cannot be smelted by simply adjusting the raw materials. It must be obtained through the careful smelting of craftsmen from the iron ore in Dukou Town, the border between Xinsong and Dali in the south of Liangshan.
No matter how new the blast furnace in Daming Prefecture is, or how skilled the craftsmen are, they can only produce top-quality steel, but not the high-grade fine iron used by the Shenwei Army to cast the Red Cannon.
At this moment, Zhao Yulin is discussing technology with Chen Xian and others in Hongmeng Valley.
To be precise: it was the master of Hongmeng Valley who created the heavy machine gun described by military advisor Zhu Congwen.
However, although this machine gun could fire bullets continuously, its range was too short and could not reach the distance of more than a thousand meters described by military advisor Zhu Congwen.
The craftsmen saw that the heavy machine gun described by the military advisor could hit living things three miles away and cut a person in two with one shot. However, the heavy machine gun bullets they made could only shoot three to five hundred meters, not even two miles. They were very depressed because there was not much progress after repeated improvements.
Chen Xian had no choice but to go to Cuiping Mountain in person to bring him to Xinshi to find a solution.
Zhao Yulin was delighted to see a thing that looked like the Maxim heavy machine gun of later generations. This was a powerful weapon for fighting against enemy cavalry. If there were several heavy machine guns on the battlefield, Mengge would surrender obediently. He personally operated the machine gun, pulled the bolt and fired continuously, and more than a dozen bullets were fired, which was really good.
Zhao Yulin knew that the precision of current machine-made firearms was far from enough, so he told them that the processing of spare parts would be like this for the time being, and we must find a way to improve the quality of bullet charges.
That is to develop new gunpowder. The gunpowder made of saltpeter, yellow mud and charcoal in the past can no longer propel bullets to fly farther.
He told the craftsmen that traditional gunpowder was made by simply collecting saltpeter, grinding it after burning it, and mixing it with charcoal burned from willow trees. No matter how sophisticated the process was, the finished product contained too many impurities, and the energy released by its combustion was just that.
Zhao Yulin carefully read the manuscripts left by Zhu Congwen and decided to improve the gunpowder. Charcoal was replaced by alder; sulfur was recrystallized after distillation to completely remove impurities; and strong liquor was added to the mixture to avoid explosion.
The mixed mortar-like gunpowder is then spread out and made into thin pancakes and dried. It is then ground with a stone-surface grinder and broken into gunpowder pieces as large as wheat grains and as fine as powder, which are then sieved and graded.
In this way, "wheat grain" gunpowder was produced with its power increased several times.
Zhao Yulin stayed in Hongmeng Valley for more than a month and finally succeeded. He warned Chen Xian that to make such gunpowder, he must set up a separate workshop and leave enough safety distance.
The old man was delighted, and he quickly made a test target for the bullets, and used the heavy machine gun as a projectile. It could easily penetrate a two-inch thick wooden board from two miles away, which made the craftsmen overjoyed.
Zhao Yulin thought that it needed to be improved, so he asked him to find Lu Youpeng and select a group of absolutely loyal soldiers to test the direct and projectile aiming methods of the bullets. The machine gun tripod should also be redesigned and made easy to disassemble. A ruler should also be engraved on the tripod to facilitate the gunner to adjust the shooting angle.
Chen Xian was so excited that he nodded repeatedly.
He smiled and said that the new type of gunpowder must be kept secret, and only by unifying the formulation and manufacturing process can the energy be consistent and the bullets fired be accurate.
Otherwise, the shooter won't be able to hit the target accurately if he doesn't know the secret.
The old man nodded again like a chicken pecking at rice.
After Chen Xian realized the new method of manufacturing gunpowder, he understood everything. He wanted to vigorously manufacture this gunpowder to replace the low-equivalent gunpowder produced by the traditional method.
Zhao Yulin disagreed. He thought that too much gunpowder was consumed on the battlefield, especially the iron barrel cannon. The gunpowder consumed by the paper shell bullets could be replaced, at most to low-yield thunderbolt bullets, and the rest would still be made using traditional methods.
After the two reached a consensus, Zhao Yulin returned to Cuiping Mountain. Yangjin had already returned to Chengdu with the child.
Zhao Feiyan came out with her pregnant belly and asked him to support her as she walked in the yard. The two of them strolled in the yard that was transformed from the old county government office. The sunlight during the Great Cold season was surprisingly warm.
He looked up at the sky and said: Our brothers at the northern border are having a hard time, it must be freezing cold right now.
Zhao Feiyan boasted that everyone was concerned about the brothers of the Shenwei Army, so Zhidi increased the soldiers' allowance by 10%. General Meng wrote to her and asked her to summon the soldiers at the border to prepare for battle and guard against enemy sneak attacks.
Zhao Yulin was very grateful to this brother, who had retired to the second line but still cared about his brothers at the front.
In Chengdu, a grand banquet is being held in Taijian Hall to celebrate the New Year.
This year, the new Song Dynasty withstood the drought at the beginning of the year, controlled the floods in Jingzhou, won victory after victory in the military, and received frequent good news. The whole country was rejoicing and every household was preparing New Year's goods for the New Year.
Mr. Ding and Lord Qiao had quit drinking a long time ago, but today they still picked up their glasses and drank with Cao Youwen, Meng Gong and others.
Lao Cao said with great emotion: The greatest gain of this year was not how much grain was harvested or how many cities were recovered. He pointed to the west and said: It was that the officials of the previous dynasty were willing to be special researchers of the New Song Dynasty and settled down to compile history.
Everyone was stunned at first, and then they laughed along with him.
Mr. Ding said happily: That's great, as the saying goes, a harmonious family brings prosperity. Mr. Zhao and Mrs. Xie will stop making trouble, and people all over the world will work together to fight against the northern barbarians. There is no reason why the evil wolf in the north will not be defeated.
The gentlemen laughed heartily again and shouted, "Drink, drink."
Qiao Xingjian said happily that he had seen the report from Qianwei, and that two railway bridges had been built. The bridges were made of cages woven with fine iron, and then filled with stones, soil, and our newly made earth and cement. They were built to be wide and long, and as solid as a rock.
The gentlemen laughed again.
Zhao Yulin didn't know that these old men were praising the craftsmen of the new Song Dynasty for building bridges. If he knew, he would probably laugh his teeth off. In later times, any bridge built at random would be hundreds of meters, thousands of meters, or even tens of thousands of meters long. Building bridges over a few small rivers is nothing.
In Huaxi Village, the emperor summoned his officials who were compiling history to have a dinner with firewood and chicken in the bamboo forest.
After the emperor was willing to be a researcher, Shunzhidi assigned Shi Zizi and a group of officials from Lin'an to form a special team for history compilation in the Ministry of Rites. The old emperor had someone to drive him around and his enthusiasm increased greatly. He instructed Shi Zizi to gather all the officials under him.
Shi's son was also happy. He didn't expect that Shunzhidi trusted him so much and let him contact the empress dowager and do things directly for the emperor. It was much more convenient to apply for expenses than in the Censorate. The emperor directly asked him to handle it.
The fellow drank so happily that he felt as if he was back in the imperial court in Lin'an. He raised his glass to thank the emperor for his kindness and asked all the officials to toast the emperor, wishing him good health and happiness as vast as the East Sea, a long life as long as the Southern Mountains.
Everyone shouted in unison, the emperor was delighted, and drank the wine in one gulp.
As soon as the emperor put down his wine glass, he shook his head violently, stood up and pointed at Shi's son and roared: "How dare you! You are clearly trying to harm me. I am just a commoner, how can I be healthy?"
The emperor left in anger.
Shi's son and a group of officials were so shocked that they stood there in shock.
This guy's mind was confused, and it took him a while to come back to his senses and sighed: Drinking has caused trouble, why did I say such nonsense?
Hey, hey hey.
It was originally a very easy job for this guy to follow the emperor in compiling history. There was also special funding available. He felt like he was back in the position of Elder Taijian.
But he hated to hear the emperor and the empress dowager scold him for being "insolent."
Everyone wants to live with dignity. Even in the Lin'an court, it was difficult for him to be scolded by the emperor for being insolent. But he felt comfortable scolding his ministers for being insolent.
Now, only a few months after arriving at Huaxi, the Emperor and Empress Dowager Xie scolded him three times in succession for being so outrageous.
Shi's son shook his body, waved goodbye to , and walked out of the door of Chaihuo Chicken first.
In Huaxi Villa, the emperor was having tea with the empress and the imperial concubines. The gorgeous courtyard was already hung with exquisite palace lanterns, and the decoration was festive and warm.
The Queen knew that Shi's son had violated a taboo, and she said with a smile that Shi had done bad things because of drinking and had said something taboo, so why should her husband take it to heart? Even if Feiyan and Yulin knew, they would not care.
The emperor put down the tea bowl angrily and said: This guy is still harboring evil intentions. I have just punished his son for the crime of treason, and he is still dreaming of returning to the court.
