Early the next morning, Ren Baqian went out to meet Tong Zhenye, accompanied by Fenghou, Secretary of Ordnance Department, and Shaoqing Zhe Hongbo, Secretary of Ordnance Department.
Ren Baqian rode a horned ox, the most common mount in the Dayao Plain, among the crowd, twisting his ass from time to time, as if there were nails underneath, this thing was really uncomfortable to ride, much worse than Wang Shanniao .
However, it takes a lot of courage to ride a mountain bird in the crowd. Not to mention the sense of sight when the BMW crowd is mixed into an Alto, the faint smell that goes straight into your nose is enough to kill most of you. People pushed far away.
It's the first time for Ren Baqian to walk towards the east gate of Lancheng. After leaving the east city, go forward for two incense sticks and then turn north. Walking for half an hour, you can see a small hill, and you can see the black smoke coming out of it from a long distance. , When I got closer, I saw a wall with a height of one person surrounded by rocks in front of me. There was a gate directly in front of it. It was deserted. This is the Jingtian furnace.
The iron ore in Liucui Mountain is usually first smelted in a small town outside the mountain, and then transported here like the iron ore in Damo Mountain.
The guard opened the door after seeing a group of people from afar. After everyone entered, they could see a large open space, where iron ore and copper ore after initial smelting were sparsely piled up, as well as a large pile of firewood being dried.
And the ores that Ren Baqian saw in the Ministry of Industry yesterday were also brought over and piled aside, and someone was crushing them.
A few burly-faced men first put the limestone ore on an iron plate, then slapped it down, and it turned into a pile of small fragments. After a while, a pile of gravel appeared on the iron plate, and then Someone transported it to the iron plate on the other side, and there was a huge stone roller on it, which was similar to the smooth roller in front of the road roller. Press it up and it becomes a pile of smaller end-of-years, and then push it back over.
After coming down the iron plate a few times, a piece of stone powder and a small amount of debris appeared, and someone received it and sifted out the powder.
When everyone turned their heads to watch their broken stones turn into powder, the people from the Ministry of Industry hurried out to greet the ceremony and then led everyone inside.
The inside is called an earthen kiln, but it is better to say that it is a cylinder made of clay, with a diameter of two meters and a height of three meters. Put iron ore in it and then put a lot of firewood to melt it. Adding a relatively rare kind of firewood called burning wood can push the temperature enough to melt the iron.
The molten iron then flows out through a trough below.
The iron obtained in this way is very soft, and there are many impurities in it, and the craftsman needs to spend a lot of time beating the impurities after heating to knock out the impurities.
It can be said that such a method of melting iron and forging iron is quite inefficient, not to mention time-consuming, and the consumption of firewood is also huge.
As Ren Baqian walked, he listened to the officials from the Ministry of Industry of Jingtian Furnace explaining the process here, and nodded to show that he understood.
However, when Ren Baqian was walking inside, he saw a few large boxes with a height of one person standing next to the iron furnaces, and someone was constantly pushing the wind into the iron furnaces.
It was exactly the bellows that Ren Baqian and Fenghou had mentioned last time.
"With this bellows, the temperature in the furnace has increased a lot, and the speed of ironmaking has also increased a lot. I must also thank Ren Fucheng." Feng Hou nodded and said to Ren Baqian.
The Ministry of Industry official looked at Ren Baqian when he heard this, and from Fenghou's words, he could tell that he was the one who proposed the blower
"When will the other bellows be ready?" Feng Hou asked the Ministry of Industry official again.
"It will be fine within two days." The official from the Ministry of Industry replied quickly.
"Is the cement raw material prepared according to the ratio?" Ren Baqian asked Tong Zhenye, Tong Zhenye looked at Fenghou, Fenghou looked at Zhe Hongbo, and Zhe Hongbo looked at the official.
"My lord, are those stones that were sent yesterday? They have been matched as said." The official said hastily.
Ren Baqian glanced around the eyes of several people, seeing them looking at each other, thinking that he might as well ask this official from the beginning.
"What's the name?"
"My lord Fucheng, the lower official is Jingtian Furnace Superintendent, just call me Tiemu, you can ask the lower official if you don't understand anything." Tiemu clasped his fists and said. The husband-in-law chosen by the empress is the only one in the whole court who is not from the ancient tribe, no matter who he is, he can recognize him.
Not to mention being an official in Lancheng.
"Bring the cement raw material here." Ren Baqian nodded: "See what the effect is after burning it."
Then someone brought the raw cement powder, and Ren Baqian took a look, it was all sifted powder.
Then find an empty furnace to add firewood to it, and then fill the hollow pillar with fine holes made of clay and put it into the empty furnace. After a while, thick smoke rises from above the clay furnace. Get up and spread towards the surroundings, and everyone retreats to look at it from a distance.
In order to make the temperature meet Ren Baqian's requirement, there was another person holding his nose and pulling the bellows in the thick smoke, coughing twice from time to time, and then someone replaced him.
"How long will this burn?" Tong Zhenye asked.
"It shouldn't take too long, as long as the temperature reaches it." Ren Baqian wasn't too sure, the information he got was only what kind of changes would happen to the cement at a certain temperature, but he didn't say how long it would take to burn.
"Let's try burning bricks again." Ren Baqian said looking at the empty clay furnaces around him.
Originally, he planned to set up a brick-burning furnace after the cement was fired, but now seeing this earthen furnace, Ren Baqian thought he could try it, since he was idle anyway.
They have also brought back the clay for a while. Although it has not been dried, it has been weathered for a long time, and it should be enough to burn bricks.
Then the craftsman of Jingtian Furnace began to pour the clay powder into the tank, add water and stir it into a muddy shape according to his instructions, and then kneaded brick embryos, placed them in a circle around the wall in the clay furnace, and then added wood to the middle to start. calcined.
"I'm afraid this will burn for about ten days, don't stop the fire in the middle." Ren Baqian said to Tiemu, and Tiemu quickly wrote it down.
Up to now, he still doesn't know what these bigwigs are going to do with burning mud, anyway, they can do whatever they arrange, and now Jingtian Furnace has nothing to do, at least half a month out of a month.
The cement is fired very quickly, and the fire is turned off to cool down quickly before dark, and then the clay pot is taken out and the cement inside is poured on the ground. It was already sintered into a block inside, but it broke into small pieces when it fell to the ground.
Everyone looked at Ren Baqian with their eyes. Is this the cement that he said was similar to stone
Ren Baqian squatted next to the pile of clinker, grabbed a handful of it with his hands, and there were some glass-like crystals on his hands, which were sintered at high temperature just now. ,
"Huh? Is this a gemstone?" Feng Hou was surprised at first, and then his face showed a look of discovering the great secret.
When it was sent in just now, it was obviously dirt, but after it came out, how could there be gemstones in it? Although it is very small and broken, and its value is not high, it is still a gem, and it is much more valuable than this soil.
Although the things were not burnt into stones as Ren Baqian said, if gemstones could be burned out of the soil, it would be a big improvement.
But everyone immediately began to think about it.
Where was the soil dug? Send someone to dig the soil tomorrow.
"It's glass, or a glass-like crystal." Ren Baqian squinted his eyes and looked terribly uneducated.