Ren Baqian looked at the iron mountain in front of him, and felt a little suspicious in his heart. Is this really a natural product
Compared with mines, Ren Baqian is more willing to believe that this is a huge piece of meteorite.
Unless such a large piece of meteorite fell on the ground hundreds of millions of years ago, and then how many years of crustal changes turned the huge basin that should have appeared here into a plain, and this piece of meteorite became Damo Mountain. .
In Ren Baqian's mind, the possibility of this was even greater than the natural formation.
Otherwise, this iron mountain is too unconventional.
"Can you make a few holes here?" Ren Baqian pointed to the part of the mountain wall protruding above his head and asked Gu Qiong, the size of a fist, at least one and a half feet deep.
Six or seven meters above Ren Baqian's position, the rock wall began to bulge outward, about three or four meters away.
It should be that it is already difficult to mine at that height.
But if you punch a few holes in that place and use explosives, a large piece is likely to be blown off.
After all, he is not specialized in blasting, so he can only roughly guess where the effect of blasting is better.
"Master Fu Cheng, although I don't know your plan, but such a big eye really can't be punched out, at most it can only punch out a fist-deep hole, it can't be any deeper, it has to be dug towards the side." Difficult to say.
Ren Baqian frowned after hearing this, Gu Qiong's words should be true, but in this case, the explosives would hardly have any major effect.
In this situation, if it is on the earth, there are many ways to think about it, such as cutting it off piece by piece with acetylene.
But most of them either need electricity or gas tanks. Like acetylene, I can only bring one bottle at a time, and I have to bring it here directly, otherwise, given Dayao's road conditions, I'm afraid it will explode halfway.
However, if you bring it here, your secret will be exposed to the eyes of people other than the empress, which is also unacceptable.
"Take me to have a look around the Damo Mountain." Ren Baqian pondered for a long time, so let's take a look at the surrounding situation first. It will take some time for the sky to get dark now, at least you can turn around and watch the situation of Tieshan.
In the following time, everyone rode their mounts and walked along the foot of Damo Mountain for a certain distance before returning. Ren Baqian found that this mountain was really like what he thought, a huge piece of meteorite, because this mountain The structure of the iron ore is completely different from that of the surrounding land. The iron ore is all gathered on the mountain, and only a few plants grow on it. They are all relatively active plants such as weeds. It should be that the dust that has fallen over the years has accumulated on the mountain. A layer of surface soil.
"Master Ren, is there any way?" On the way back, Tao Jiyuan asked the frowning Ren Baqian.
"Huh? I have a little idea, but we have to try to see if it works." Ren Baqian was startled from thinking, looked up at him and said.
"That's great. Countless people have tried to find ways to mine the iron ore in Damo Mountain for so many years, but they can't speed it up. They can only use manpower to mine it a little bit. If Mr. Ren can find a way, it must be a great achievement." Tao Jiyuan said with a smile on his face.
"If you want me to talk about mining here, it's better to go out and grab it quickly." Gu Qiong muttered on the side.
Ren Baqian rolled his eyes, isn't this nonsense. Most of the time, looting is faster than mining and manufacturing. The question is, is it that easy
Back at the camp, it was almost dark, and the prisoners and coolies all came back in a swarm, waiting around a few vats in the middle of the square to make broth, but few people talked, they had passed such days for many years, and There are very few new arrivals.
Ren Baqian could smell the broth from afar. “Good food!”
"If they don't eat enough, they don't have the strength to work. After all, this iron mountain has less strength, and they won't be able to carve out a small piece in a day."
Ren Baqian nodded.
Gu Qiong has already packed a wooden house for him, and the dinner is also broth, but with a little more wild vegetables and two dry grains. Even Gu Qiong usually eats these things. There are no shops in front of the village or in the back. Except for those who deliver meat on weekdays, they can't even look at anyone, and they can't get something else to eat.
After a meal, Ren Baqian had a good night's rest. After waking up the next day, he called Gu Qiong and Tao Jiyuan into the room: "I have an idea, I should try it. Pile up a lot of wood on the large Then, pour water on Mount Moshan, and after the heat expands and contracts, there will be cracks on the iron, which should make it easier to dig the mountain.”
Although Ren Baqian said so, he was not optimistic about this method. After all, it takes a lot of manpower to transport a large amount of wood. Although it is easier than it is now, if you add the manpower for felling wood, transporting wood, and the time it takes to set fire to the mountain and wash it with cold water, the efficiency is still too low. I'm afraid it won't be much better than it is now.
But he had another idea in his mind, which was to make a lot of mirrors and concave mirrors after returning, adjust the angle of the concave mirrors to align with the mountain wall, and then use the mirrors to reflect sunlight to the concave mirrors.
In this way, the focused light reflected by the concave mirror can be used to melt iron into molten iron in a very short period of time, and it is much easier to mine and separate it later.
"Expand with heat and contract with cold? What do you mean?" Tao Jiyuan didn't know what Ren Baqian was thinking, but he was very interested and curious about what he said.
"Let's demonstrate it." Ren Baqian pulled everyone out of the house.
"Light up a fire first." Ren Baqian ordered to go down, and Gu Qiong immediately called someone beside him to get the wood according to Ren Baqian's instructions.
After a while, a fire was lit up, and Ren Baqian picked up two stones, and asked someone to sandwich them between two iron cones and put them on the outer flames of the fire to roast.
The others looked at what he ordered to do, and were curious about what he was going to do.
After a while, Ren Baqian estimated that the time was almost up, so he asked someone to throw the stone into the bucket of water prepared next to him.
First some air bubbles appeared, and after a few minutes, Ren Baqian reached in and picked up the stone, there were already several cracks on it.
Ren Baqian showed the stone to several people, and the others didn't find any problems, but Tao Jiyuan suddenly realized: "So it is like this."
It’s not that no one has discovered this normal natural phenomenon, it’s just that no one has concluded it, and no one has investigated what the cause is, so there is no concept of thermal expansion and cold contraction. No one thought of applying this situation to Mount Damo.
"Why is that?" Tao Jiyuan asked curiously after a sudden realization.
"Because an object will expand after being heated, even if you can't see it with your eyes, it is expanding. And after an object is cooled, it will contract. If this expansion and contraction occurs in a short period of time, it will This change will take place. Not only in stone, but also in iron."
Ren Baqian roughly explained that if he talked about molecules, the other party would definitely not understand.
Tao Jiyuan had a thoughtful look on his face, while Gu Qiong's eyes widened and he asked, "Master Ren's idea is to burn this Dharma Mountain?"
"Just burn one place." Ren Baqian looked around and said, although there is no vegetation on Damo Mountain, but there are other surrounding mountains.
First let people chop some wood and come back to burn the mountain to try. Although the efficiency is still very low, you can try it, and it can speed up the progress of mining to some extent.
When I go back and study how to make the concave mirror, I will be able to completely solve the problem of mining in Damo Mountain.
It's a pity that the 40 kilograms of TNT I brought with me may be useless.