Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

When Hu Yuancheng was in Annan Kingdom, he was very interested in metallurgy and firearms, and he focused on these two aspects. The attempt to improve iron smelting technology in the iron smelting field was actually promoted by him.

Of course, there is also great resistance. Many old masters and lower-level officials do not understand this.

But for the few officials in the iron smelting yard, they are not required to work, so they just watch the excitement, but the craftsmen in the iron smelting yard have to work hard and suffer. In addition, the traditional method has been used for so many years, and now suddenly a descendant from Annan Kingdom comes to guide them in making new things. Isn't this just messing around?

In the eyes of some old masters, the Annan people are just barbarians and they know nothing! Since you want to use steel, you must first get the pig iron. Don't always think of taking shortcuts, that will never work.

If there are so many shortcuts in the world, why do we need the skills passed down from generation to generation?

However, officials are officials, officials are officials, and the people are the people. In this era, those who dare to use the people to resist the officials are, after all, a minority among the minority. This old master in a cotton-padded jacket with a sallow face, you dare not let him resist Hu Yuancheng Yes, but if you talk a little bit, what can Hu Yuancheng do to people?

Of course Hu Yuancheng had the power to drive people out of the iron smelting yard, or to whip them, but if he did so, he would probably be intimidated and lose people's hearts.

Originally, your attempt failed. You guys are supporting you by accompanying you, but this is because of your official status. When it comes to private friendships, this old master has gained a lot of prestige and favor over the years. , you can injure or even kill someone just by saying a weird thing, who will dare to do it with you in the future? Even if you don't dare to oppose it openly, you may be willing to go against it openly and secretly, and you will not be able to work hard.

Hu Yuancheng knew in his heart that he was also in a dilemma at this time. If he was in Annan, he would simply kill him, otherwise it would damage his prestige. But this was in the Ming Dynasty, and he was new here. If the matter got serious, it would spread to the Ming Dynasty. In the ears of the senior officials, they were afraid that not only would it be detrimental to him, but that losing his official position would be a minor matter, while affecting the survival of the Hu family in the Ming Dynasty would be a major matter.

Just at this moment, someone discovered Jiang Xinghuo and others watching outside the furnace room of the iron smelting yard, and Hu Yuancheng's dilemma was solved.

"I've seen the Imperial Master!"

Not only Hu Yuancheng, but also the craftsmen and the old master in a cotton-padded jacket with a sallow face, when they heard the news, they all hurriedly came over and bowed to Jiang Xinghuo to say hello, with an extremely respectful look, and even a hint of fear.

In front of the people, Jiang Xinghuo rarely showed up on weekdays, and his status was special. Therefore, even though people all over the Ming Dynasty had heard of the famous Imperial Master, not many people had seen him.

But for these craftsmen who are practicing alchemy, Jiang Xinghuo's prestige far exceeds that of others.

Not to mention anything else, the promotion level of these craftsmen was implemented with Jiang Xinghuo's suggestion. Although it is only a rough creation now and many things are not perfect, after all, the Ministry of Industry has such a thing, which can be regarded as a gift to the craftsmen. Some rush.

Hu Yuancheng had been in Daming for a while and knew that the other party didn't like luxury. The courtyard where he lived was even simpler than that of ordinary people, and he didn't like others to disturb his purity.

Therefore, without any suitable reason, Hu Yuancheng did not visit the imperial master's residence. The two of them were quite strangers.

Today, the Imperial Guard actually appeared at the iron smelting yard of the Ministry of Industry that he was responsible for. This made Hu Yuancheng secretly happy. This proved that the Imperial Guard had developed a strong interest in the iron smelting yard reconstruction plan. As long as he seized the opportunity, he might not be sure. They can get the appreciation and help of the imperial master. This is a God-given opportunity for the Hu family to gain a foothold in the Ming Dynasty!

"Ambassador Hu, please introduce me first."

Although Hu Yuancheng was awarded the official position of the Ministry of Industry, he was only an ambassador. The word "ambassador" had a completely different meaning in the Ming Dynasty than in later generations. It refers to the officials in charge of sub-units, usually classified into two categories: high-ranking or low-ranking officials. Hu Yuancheng was the former.

Within the six ministries, each ministry has the position of ambassador, but the number is not the same. It all depends on how many sub-units there are under each ministry. Taking the Ministry of Industry as an example, because it involves all aspects of engineering and procurement, there are also many sub-units below it. There are the Wensi Institute, the Leather Making Bureau, the Saddle and Bridle Bureau, the Baoyuan Bureau, the Paint Bureau, the Ordnance Bureau, the Weaving and Dyeing Institute, the Miscellaneous Manufacturing Bureau, the Bamboo and Wood Bureau, the Firewood Department, the Cannon Foundry Institute, etc. For sub-units named "So", the chief officer is generally the ambassador, and the adjutant is the deputy envoy.

Hu Yuancheng's current position is the ambassador of the Cannon Foundry, and this iron smelting yard is subordinate to the Cannon Foundry.

Looking at the other party's calm expression, Jiang Xinghuo felt that this must be something he had in mind.

In fact, if you come down to inspect, if it is not completely formalistic, you can actually learn something easily by just looking at the actual situation and asking questions.

It is also easy to see whether the supervisor understands the content of the business he is in charge of and whether he can cover everything. It is also easy to see his attitude and ability.

Jiang Xinghuo watched the Three Kingdoms TV series in his previous life and said that Feng Chu was crazy, but he could finish half a year's backlog of work in a short time in front of Liu Bei, right? It shows that we are still confident.

Sure enough, Hu Yuancheng began to introduce to Jiang Xinghuo one by one the equipment of the iron smelting plant in the Cannon Foundry in Chinese with an almost indiscernible accent.

"The name of this tallest smelting furnace is Dajian furnace. It is one foot and two feet high, two feet and five inches in front, two feet and seven inches in back, and one foot and six inches on the left and right. It is made of high-temperature-resistant ox head stone as the inner wall and Jian Qianshi as the furnace. Doors generally use black sand (a kind of iron sand) as raw material."

"The slightly shorter one is the iron furnace, both six feet high and eight feet high. It has a three-layer structure. The inner layer is made of eye sand (a kind of fire-resistant sand and gravel), the middle layer is made of fire bricks, and the outer layer is made of red bricks. This route is mainly used to smelt molten iron to produce pig iron."

"This small one is specially used for frying steel. It's called Baizuo stove."

"Where's the youngest one?" Jiang Xinghuo asked, looking at the stove in front of him that was similar to a pickle vat.

"This is called a retort. The bottom is as thick as a large wooden retort used for steaming rice. It is also called a cupola. It is easy to move. Two or three people can lift it and pour out the molten iron. Like the iron melting furnace, it is also used to smelt pig iron, but This small stove is mainly used to make white iron."

White iron, to put it bluntly, is made of unimportant leftover parts, such as the barrel of a cannon, which is either made of bronze or steel, but for other parts, low-cost white iron is used.

Jiang Xinghuo roughly understood the main production equipment of the iron smelting yard, and then looked at the iron smelting furnace that failed just now, and asked.

"Is this iron furnace the most commonly used furnace? How does it work?"

Hu Yuancheng nodded and replied: "The iron melting furnace is the most commonly used. The top of this furnace is level with the feeding yard. The feeding yard has an overpass to unload materials from the top of the furnace."

As he said that, he pointed to the top of his head. Sure enough, there was an overpass for feeding materials on the second floor.

"Let's go and have a look."

Jiang Xinghuo had never seen how the metallurgical industry of this era worked. At this time, he was full of curiosity. Seeing that the imperial master wanted to see it, these people did not dare to neglect and took Jiang Xinghuo to observe the feeding yard.

But the feed yard is not here, but next door.

To be precise, it is the first floor next door, and due to the ramp set up to transport materials, the first floor here is equivalent to the second floor of the iron smelting yard next door.

Looking down from the overpass of the feed yard, the molten iron tank in the eight-foot-long furnace of the iron melting furnace is about one or two feet deep.

Based on the actual situation he just observed, Jiang Xinghuo roughly understood the operating principle of this thing. What he just saw was that the molten iron and slag opening at the bottom of the furnace was an open device. The molten iron and slag came out at the same time. Dispersed with the wind.

"So what were you doing?"

"Try changing the air box to see if it can increase the furnace temperature." Hu Yuancheng answered directly.

Jiang Xinghuo was thoughtful and asked, "Take me to see the bellows."

The bellows of the iron melting furnace are in the compartments on both sides of the iron furnace, usually on the left and right sides. It helps the combustion of coal by incoming air, and then burns the iron sand. The bellows are either hydraulic or manpower, and there is nothing else. The method of activation, here is human power.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at the bellows. The bellows barrel in the small cubicle was made of whole wood from a big tree. It could even be seen that a person could get into it. The inside of the barrel was waxed, and the windshield was about two or three inches thick. It looks like it's all wrapped and wrapped with chicken feathers, a bit like using a feather duster.

Jiang Xinghuo rubbed it with his hands, and it was indeed slippery.

"How much material does the iron melting furnace normally discharge each time? What is the normal amount of iron produced? How many people work on it, and what do they do?"

If the previous questions could be figured out with a little effort, then Jiang Xinghuo's current series of questions had to be answered with great concentration. This was also a real test for Hu Yuancheng.

Hu Yuancheng thought for a while and then replied: "The normal cutting is for every one hundred kilograms of iron sand, two hundred kilograms of coal. The coarsest iron sand should not exceed two inches. Every one hundred kilograms of iron sand can produce forty kilograms of iron. Usually one furnace can produce Three hundred kilograms of iron sand and six hundred kilograms of coal are loaded. Two feeders are required to use shovels to feed the materials from the overpass, two people in front of the furnace are collected with iron pliers, and four people are required to pull the two bellows. Each bellows requires two people to take turns pulling, and one The handymen work in teams of nine in total.”

Seeing Hu Yuancheng's fluent answers, Jiang Xinghuo also felt a slight approval in his heart.

Jiang Xinghuo had heard from the generals on the Annan front that the Furiang River defense line was well laid out. Now that Hu Yuancheng was able to command hundreds of thousands of people, it was overkill for him to be in charge of the artillery foundry.

As for the so-called confidentiality of cutting-edge technology.

Well, the Ming Dynasty's cannon-casting technology didn't have any cutting-edge technology. Besides, the Hu family and his son would definitely not be able to escape the Ming Dynasty in this life.

"What about the current production methods?"

"The main methods are the steel frying method and the steel filling method."

Jiang Xinghuo nodded. He still knew these two classic smelting methods.

The stir-fried steel method is the main method of turning pig iron into mature iron in ancient China. It was invented around the late Western Han Dynasty. The principle is to heat the pig iron into a semi-liquid state and stir it continuously, just like frying meat, to dissolve the carbon in the pig iron. Impurities are continuously oxidized, resulting in wrought iron.

The popular sacred book "The Book of Taiping" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which is also the one used by Zhang Jiao, records that "If there is an emergency, the engineer will strike the stone to find the iron, smelt it to turn into water, and then make good "It takes a lot of hard work to forge it, and it becomes Moye (referring to the sword)." It describes the process of smelting pig iron from ore, then frying the molten pig iron, and forging it into a weapon.

The technology of stir-frying steel is easy to operate, raw materials are easily available, it can be produced continuously on a large scale, and the production efficiency is relatively high. It is of great significance to China's long-term leadership in the world. In fact, similar technology was not developed in the West until the middle of the 18th century by the United Kingdom. People invented it, and by this time in the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century, the method of frying steel had reached its peak. Therefore, in front of the door of the Industrial Revolution, China actually had many advantages that were closer to this door than the West.

As for the so-called steel filling method, it has not yet evolved to its ultimate form, which is the emergence of Su Gang, but the basic technology has long been mature. If the main principle is to be easily understood by modern people, it can actually be expressed in four words.

——"Egg Filled Cake".

After understanding the operation method of filling eggs with cakes, you can basically understand how the steel filling method is done. The basic process of the process is to combine molten pig iron and wrought iron. The wrought iron is the "cake" and the pig iron is the "egg", just like the egg. Just as the liquid will penetrate evenly into the entire cake, the carbon in the pig iron will also diffuse into the wrought iron and tend to be evenly distributed, and some impurities can be removed to form better wrought iron or even steel.

Volume 3 of Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" records the process of pouring steel in detail: "In the world, those who forge iron, so-called steel, use soft iron to bend it, but use pig iron to trap it, seal it with mud, and forge it together, which is called 'tuan'." Steel', also known as 'steel filling'. After two or three refinings, the pig iron will mature by itself and it will still be soft iron."

Among them, the purpose of bending the soft iron is to increase the contact surface of raw and cooked iron, improve the efficiency of steel filling, and promote a more uniform distribution of carbon. The sealing mud can promote slag formation, remove impurities, and play a protective role.

Because of the difficulty in mastering this degree, the steel filling method was very troublesome at first, requiring many times of pouring pig iron. Later, the steel filling technology was continuously improved after the Song Dynasty, reducing the number of fillings. By the Ming Dynasty in the Yongle period, it was basically The reason why it can be made in one go is because the current steel-filling method has changed the soft iron bending plate into a thin wrought iron sheet, which further increases the contact surface of raw and wrought iron and accelerates the "harmony of raw and cooked iron". In the process of "steel", the mud seal was also changed to grass mud seal, which has better airtightness.

But what about the steel filling method?

The positive evaluation definitely means that production efficiency has been improved, and the low cost and high output have been achieved. However, in a negative sense, it means that it is mixed with mud, which is not conducive to the production of high-quality steel. Therefore, in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, many forums also ridiculed him. The large-scale use of the steel filling method allowed China's weapons to have "archaeological swords" similar to the "archaeological cultivation of immortals". In other words, after the Song Dynasty, they were all weapons that moved forward in time, and their quality The better, the Tang Dao has become a swan song.

Most of the foreign peoples in the north also began to surpass the Han people in the quality of their smelted products. For example, the quality of vests, armor, swords and guns of the Liao, Jin, and Xia Yuan Dynasties was generally better than that of the Song Dynasty.

It can only be said that under most conditions, quantity and quality cannot have both.

As for carburizing, "Tiangong Kaiwu" records the solid carburizing heat treatment process when making needles: the needles are drawn, cut, and rubbed, then put into a kettle and stir-fried over slow fire. After stir-frying, pine wood and charcoal are used as carburizing agents, and black beans are used as carburizing agents. As a catalyst, solid carburizing is carried out under the seal of soil powder.

This thing is actually based on the same principle as poking a stick into the mud. It can only treat the symptoms but not the root cause. The steel obtained through this method barely meets the standard, but there is no need to expect good performance.

Of course, it is not only the reason for the steel smelting process, but also the factor of fuel. Before the Song Dynasty, charcoal was basically used, and after the Song Dynasty, coal was the main reason. Coal can quickly increase steel production, but it will affect Quality, because the quality of iron ore in China is generally not good, and coal basically contains high phosphorus and high sulfur. Adding the two together, it is inevitable that the quality of the steel produced will decrease.

The Japanese have always insisted on using charcoal to make iron. In addition to the high forest coverage rate in Japan, Japan does not need the same proportion of steel production as China. Their steel is equipped with elite equipment, rather than being constantly given to them like China. Hundreds of thousands of troops are equipped, so the armor coverage rate of the Japanese is not high.

"So just now you wanted to raise the furnace temperature. What was your purpose?" Jiang Xinghuo finally asked after reading this.

Hu Yuancheng said truthfully: "Finding a way to produce steel efficiently is not a long-term solution. Today's cannons are all made of copper."

Jiang Xinghuo nodded after hearing this. It seemed that Hu Yuancheng also realized the problem.

In fact, the Ming Dynasty was a turning point in the development of Chinese artillery technology. Before and during the early Ming Dynasty, China's artillery technology was still ahead of the world, but in just one or two hundred years, it began to lag behind the world significantly. In the middle and late period of the dynasty, not only did they have to import firearms from Annan and Rumi (referring to Ottoman Turkey), but they also had to import cannons from Portugal and Spain.

There are two main reasons for this. One is what I just mentioned. Since the quality of the iron ore stored in China is not good, the smelted cast iron is very brittle and is not suitable for use as a launch tube for firecrackers or cannons. If it is used If the material is thin, it will easily explode; if it is thick, it will seriously affect the performance of the weapon.

The second is that forestry resources are increasingly depleted, and it is okay for the people to use them. But if you want to make iron on a large scale, you can only use coal. However, the coal in China is basically high in phosphorus and high sulfur, and iron containing too much sulfur The tube is very brittle and easy to burst, which makes the iron, which is already prone to bursting, even more prone to bursting after being smelted with high-sulfur coal.

Therefore, it was really a helpless move for the Ming army to use bronze to cast cannons.

If there were iron cannons that were easier to obtain, who would be willing to use bronze to cast them?

After all, in this era, copper is currency and wealth. This is the real "burning money" in the true sense.

Now that price inflation is so severe, the country doesn't even have enough copper to cast money. If it can only use copper cannons, Jiang Xinghuo really doesn't want to invest a lot of copper in casting cannons.

In Jiang Xinghuo's plan, before the cross-sea expedition, the currency price of treasure banknotes must be stabilized within the range of 40-50% of the original currency value. Otherwise, there is no way to carry out banknote exchange. As long as banknotes are exchanged, the entire national economic system will be affected. It's bound to collapse.

There are two ways to restore the currency value of treasure banknotes.

The first is what Jiang Xinghuo is doing now, which is to withdraw the over-flooded treasure banknotes in the market through means such as adding salt to the banknotes and issuing treasury bonds. The reason for reducing the total amount of treasure banknotes is very simple. As long as the treasure banknotes If the total amount decreases, the value of the treasure banknotes will increase.

The second is to increase the total supply of copper coins, that is, to let the copper coins as anchors depreciate themselves. There is no need for copper coins to keep up with the depreciation rate of previous treasure banknotes. That would also lead to collapse. All it takes is to let the original 10 Items that can only be purchased with copper coins/100 copper coins can now be bought with 11 or 12 copper coins. This will rapidly shrink the actual value ratio between copper coins and treasure banknotes.

As for whether the second method will have the consequences of harvesting people's wealth, Jiang Xinghuo thinks not, because prices are also inflating. Even if the country does not increase the total supply of copper coins, this natural economic phenomenon will still occur, or sooner. Or something late.

But now Jiang Xinghuo has not used the second method, which is that the military industry has used too much copper resources, resulting in not enough copper to cast copper coins. After all, the Ming Dynasty is overall short of copper.

"If cannons could be made of steel or iron instead of copper."

Jiang Xinghuo fell into deep thought. Seeing that the Imperial Master did not speak, others did not dare to speak.

If Jiang Xinghuo remembers correctly, in fact, after the Thirty Years' War, Western countries used iron cannons instead of bronze cannons. The best performance among them was the iron cannons cast in the United Kingdom. The British iron cannons were infinitely close. The performance of copper cannons made the price of British iron cannons in Europe at that time even equivalent to four to five times that of European homemade iron cannons.

The reason why the British can do it is because they use charcoal entirely to make iron. Of course, everything has a price, and the price for the British is that the entire British Isles were cut bald.

There are three ways to cast a cannon.

① Use iron cannons and charcoal to make iron

② Use iron cannons and coal to make iron

③Use copper cannon directly

In terms of fuel, the road of charcoal ironmaking was not feasible in the Ming Dynasty. It was only suitable for island countries with high forest coverage such as the United Kingdom or Japan, and Jiang Xinghuo did not want limited copper resources to be invested in the military industry, so, The only option was to use iron cannons and try a new method of making iron from coal, which coincided with Hu Yuancheng's idea.

The problem now is that coal is high in phosphorus and sulfur, and the grade of iron ore is also not good. How can we solve the problem that the iron produced contains too much sulfur and phosphorus, and is extremely easy to explode.

"There should be two solutions."

Jiang Xinghuo thought for a long time and then said: "The first is to start with the iron, and the second is to start with the coal."

This is certainly not nonsense.

As for iron, although wrought iron has lower sulfur content than pig iron, wrought iron is too soft and is difficult to use as a gun barrel. Therefore, pig iron cannot be used, and wrought iron cannot be used. The final result is to evolve iron into steel and not cast iron cannons. , but cast steel cannons.

Jiang Xinghuo concluded: "Don't focus on improving the iron smelting furnace. It should not be possible to think about the iron smelting furnace, because no matter how you improve the iron smelting furnace, the furnace temperature will not be enough to obtain liquid steel."

If you want to obtain liquid molten steel, the first thing that comes to mind is the Bessemer converter method, which relies on the physical heat of the liquid pig iron in the converter and the various components in the pig iron (such as carbon, manganese, silicon, phosphorus, etc.) and the transfer The heat generated by the chemical reaction of oxygen entering the furnace makes the metal reach the composition and temperature required for tapping.

But the problem is, the method doesn’t work!

Now that Ming Dynasty can't keep up with basic materials, even if Jiang Xinghuo draws the drawings of the Bessemer converter, let alone Jiang Xinghuo doesn't remember it, it will be in vain.

It’s not that we can’t make a stove, it’s that there is no low-phosphorus iron at all!

Anyone who knows a little about the development history of the steel industry knows that low-phosphorus iron is good. However, even after Japan entered industrialization, all the low-phosphorus iron it needed had to be imported from the United Kingdom and Sweden. Until the outbreak of World War I, Japan Jiang Xinghuo didn't know where low-phosphorus iron could be found in China, so he could only hope that it would be found in Liaodong. Anyway, none of the existing iron ores in the Ming Dynasty were known to exist.

Why do we need low phosphorus iron? Because Bessemer used pig iron with low phosphorus and sulfur and high manganese as raw material when it started the experiment. It was initially successful. When other pig irons were used, the molten steel produced was not good. Although by adding specular iron (manganese-based iron alloy, It is a kind of desulfurization and deoxidation agent. Because its cross section has a mirror-like brilliance, it is called mirror iron). It can effectively alleviate the problem, but the most important thing is low-phosphorus iron. Even later, the British Thomas discovered that when using alkaline refractory bricks Lining, during the converter smelting process, makes the slag highly alkaline, which can dephosphorize the iron ore, which is the improved "Bessemer-Thomas method", but the iron ore still has strict quality requirements.

Everyone knows that liquid steel has extremely high productivity and extremely low cost, and the quality of the steel is better than that of semi-solid produced Pudelin iron. If not for this, the Bessemer process would not have become the world's major smelting process before and after World War I. Steel method, but without low phosphorus iron everything is in vain.

In fact, as the world's low-phosphorus iron ores were exhausted, and the gradually accumulated scrap steel could not be used in the Bessemer steelmaking method, the Bessemer method began to gradually decline, and was finally replaced by the open-hearth steelmaking method. .

Therefore, the Bessemer steelmaking method cannot be used under conditions where iron is insufficient.

Just when Hu Yuancheng was lacking in ideas after being denied, Jiang Xinghuo said firmly.

"You can start with coal."

"Start with coal?"

The craftsmen in these iron smelting yards looked at Jiang Xinghuo in stunned silence.

This Imperial Master is really tirelessly looking for ideas for improvement.

But these ideas, based on past experience, are all wrong!

There are no other types of coal. Even if there is, it will have to be dug again. It is not known whether it can be used.

However, Hu Yuancheng didn't think there was anything wrong with Jiang Xinghuo's thinking.

In fact, after the failure just now, he has realized that the method of raising the furnace temperature does not work.

However, raising the furnace temperature will not work. There are only two main materials in this method, one is iron and the other is coal.

Although I don’t know why the Imperial Master didn’t start with iron, I guess he has his reasons, but I haven’t fully understood it yet. So, it seems that the only option left is coal.

In fact, there is no iron with low phosphorus and sulfur. There is another way, that is, desulfurization and dephosphorization technology, which turns iron with high phosphorus and sulfur into iron with low phosphorus and sulfur. But this is not possible now. This technology point It was so advanced that it would normally only appear in the second half of the 19th century, and even Jiang Xinghuo couldn't do it.

However, it is not possible to directly desulfurize and dephosphorize steel to obtain low-phosphorus and sulfur steel, and there is no way to achieve a low-profile version.

Jiang Xinghuo had just thought of making steel from coking coal and then dephosphorizing it separately.

First obtain liquid steel, and then use stupid methods to dephosphorize it, thus obtaining low phosphorus steel.

Although the process is different from the Bessemer steelmaking method, the result is the same. Both can obtain low-phosphorus steel. This is a different approach to the same goal.

As mentioned before, obtaining molten steel requires a high temperature of 1,600 degrees.

In fact, in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life, few people thought about when the iron smelting technology between the East and the West began to differ.

The judgment standard of "generation difference" is also very simple, that is, when a high temperature of 1,600 degrees can be obtained stably.

The answer is not difficult, 1709 AD.

When Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty built the Old Summer Palace in the north of Changchun Garden in the west of Beijing and gave it to the fourth son of the emperor Yinzhen to live in, the Englishman Abraham Darby used coking coal as raw material to make iron for the first time, which greatly increased the temperature of the furnace. A stable high temperature of 1600 degrees was obtained.

Since then, breakthroughs in fuel have fallen into a bottleneck period. In order to obtain higher furnace temperatures and higher quality steel, Westerners have begun to focus on blast equipment and iron smelting furnaces. The results of the iron smelting furnace It was the emergence of the Bessemer converter, and the blower was initially driven by animal power to drive the waterwheel, and the waterwheel drove the blower. Later, with the Newcomen steam engine for pumping water, the steam engine was directly used to drive the waterwheel.

Coking coal ironmaking → animal-powered waterwheel → steam engine waterwheel

In fact, Jiang Xinghuo cannot completely remove or desulfurize and dephosphorize in one step, but as long as liquid steel can be obtained, there are still several methods of dephosphorization. The more difficult ones are oxygen blowing and magnesium reduction. Of course, , it actually doesn’t matter if you don’t have magnesium and high-pressure oxygen, because there is a simpler way - there is always limestone in the Ming Dynasty, right?

With limestone, phosphorus can be removed.

As the main component of limestone, calcium carbonate can be used for reduction and phosphorus removal. The reaction principle is that under high temperature conditions, calcium carbonate reacts with the molten steel in the furnace to generate carbon dioxide and other gases and calcium oxide. The calcium oxide then reacts with the molten steel in the furnace. The phosphorus reacts to form gas and is discharged out of the furnace.

This method is suitable for molten steel with high phosphorus content. To put it bluntly, it is to sprinkle limestone powder into the molten steel. There is no technical difficulty and there is no essential difference from sprinkling flour into the water.

With low-phosphorus steel that can be obtained stably at low cost and high efficiency, everything from heavy industry to warship artillery to small lathe parts can be used.

The development of the steam engine is also inseparable from the coal and iron industry. For example, the main function of the steam engine at the beginning was to pump water from coal mines and blow air for iron smelting. However, the pre-technical points, namely lathes, boring machines and other technologies, were not It was invented for use in the production of artillery barrels.

Jiang Xinghuo, who had never connected these scattered knowledge points before, finally understood it all under the pressure of this situation.

At this point, he also obtained the most critical key that opened the door to heavy industry in the first industrial revolution.