Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 114 I don’t know if it can be considered a success
Yuanye and his men set up camp at Xiaohewan, giving priority to mining the black iron sand there. After all, this place was beyond the scope of his temporary territory. Even though it was still a wasteland, no one would probably bother with him if he came here to pan for iron sand. But after all, it was not his territory, so he had to get the things away first.

But within a few days, this year's plum rain season arrived, and the drizzle began to fall continuously. The construction of houses and the digging of ditches were greatly affected. He simply transferred most of the construction teams here, while washing the black iron sand that had naturally accumulated in Xiaohewan over the years, he also built an "iron field" in his own temporary territory.

It is very simple to build an iron field, and it does not require much technical skills. All you need to do is build a section of the river into a "step" shape. When the river water carries black iron sand through this place, the water flow will continue to rise and fall, and the water speed will slow down, so the black iron sand will naturally fall down. Then, the silt can be taken out by manpower and washed nearby.

Of course, it would be faster to use a large piece of magnet to directly absorb the iron sand, but there is no natural magnet to be found at the moment, so we can only wait until the future to slowly improve the process to improve efficiency.

He spent the entire rainy season collecting black iron sand. He braved the wind and rain every day, and his clothes never dried for half a day. He went through rain and mud. When the sun finally dispersed the clouds and fog, he started working on time. He worked on both sides and got more than 20,000 kilograms of black iron sand, which is a little over 10 tons.

These are enough for the time being. He transported the washed black iron sand back to Wanjin and spread it out to dry in the sun. He hesitated for a while, feeling that it would be difficult to completely control the smelting technology in his own hands. He could not guarantee that future technology would not be leaked. He decided to smelt it according to the ancient Japanese method, that is, to use the "pedaling bellows method" to smelt steel.

This is a matter of principle, at least we should try it first.

As for what is the "stepping bellows method"...

A treadle bellows is a large wooden human-powered blower, which is generally more than three meters high. It uses human power as a source of power and can blow large amounts of oxygen-containing air into the furnace. Any smelting operation that uses this large foot-operated blower can be called the "treadle bellows method."

Yuanye had made up his mind. He tried hard to recall all the details in the NHK documentary and restore it as much as possible. The major of chemical machinery was more or less related to metallurgy. At least he knew very well what chemical reactions would occur during the smelting process. The primitive mechanical device was not difficult for him. He produced a set of drawings in just two days.

Now that he had the blueprint, he went on to prepare the combustion aid, which was high-quality charcoal and limestone.

The former already had a charcoal kiln, which was also prepared for the future gunpowder workshop. It was capable of producing high-quality charcoal. There was no shortage of good wood in this era, so he sent people to the mountains to look for it, specifically picking mature timber with extremely dense wood, which later generations only dared to cut down oak and oak trees for making handicrafts. He burned several kilns of fine charcoal and selected the best from the best, whose standards were even higher than the charcoal used in gunpowder.

It is really good charcoal. There are almost no cracks on the charcoal block. It will break only when hit hard. After breaking, it will only break into pieces with little visible debris. Moreover, the cross-section can show the shiny metallic luster. It is absolutely good charcoal.

As for limestone, that is even less of a problem. Limestone is everywhere, so you just have to dig it up and pick it carefully.

At the same time, he also selected high-quality wood and built two "pedal bellows" with the help of a carpenter, one on the left and one on the right. Then he laid the foundation in the open space in the middle and dug a three-meter-deep pit. He first compacted the bottom of the pit, then spread a layer of fine sand and gravel, and then spread a layer of charcoal to absorb moisture, and then spread a thick layer of clay on the charcoal. Finally, he used large stones to carefully fill the pit and level it. If it was uneven, he poured in lime powder.

This is to prevent moisture from the earth from seeping into the furnace and affecting the temperature inside the furnace.

After the foundation was laid, he led people to pile a large amount of clay on it and pounded it hard into a square block of clay that was so tight that it could not be tighter. Finally, he hollowed out the middle of it into a funnel shape, and hollowed out channels such as air inlets and slag outlets.

At this point, the furnace was considered to be built, and he directed people to burn the furnace empty first to completely dry out the furnace and set it into shape.

At this point, we have all the ore, furnace, blower, combustion aid and fuel, and we can start smelting iron sand.

Yuanye was still very careful. He checked it over and over again, thought about the process several times, and felt that there should be nothing missing before he ordered people to start filling it in.

A layer of charcoal, a layer of iron sand, a thin layer of lime, then another layer of charcoal, another layer of iron sand, and another thin layer of lime, until the furnace is two-thirds full. Then the furnace is lit and the bellows start working. Two people on each frame shout slogans, pulling the bellows up and down like a seesaw, slowly blowing air in.

The furnace did not hesitate. With most of its belly filled with high-quality charcoal and no shortage of oxygen, bright red flames immediately blazed up and pointed straight to the sky, but soon slowly shrank back, and the color began to change to dark red, while emitting astonishing heat.

At least for the human body, the heat was astonishing. Even though Yuanye had been standing quite far away, he couldn't stand for a moment and took several steps back.

Iron smelting is a rare thing these days, and it may involve "family secret skills". Ah Man and his friends naturally want to come and watch the fun. When they saw that the fire was finally lit, Ah Man immediately asked with concern: "How long will it take before we can see the iron?"

This is not iron smelting, this is money smelting. Of course she has to care about it and hope it will succeed soon.

"About three days!" Yuanye answered softly, his eyes never leaving the furnace, fearing that this guy would not give him any face and crack in front of him. Fortunately, the half-meter-thick furnace wall was very strong, at least it could withstand this small fire, which made him feel a little relieved. Ah Man nodded, not quite understanding, but immediately asked, "Just keep burning like this? Do you want to throw someone in?"

Yuan Ye was still focusing on observing the performance of the furnace. He didn't react for a moment when he heard her say that. He asked curiously, "Why throw someone in there?"

"With such a big commotion and such an important matter, we should throw someone in, right? Just like building a bridge or a city, we need a human sacrifice!" Aman said as a matter of course, and the people around her didn't show any strange expressions when they heard her words. It was probably common sense in this era.

Yuanye was stunned into silence. What the hell is a Jinchūriki? He was just refining iron, so how come a Jinchūriki appeared? He didn't understand!

He looked around and found that many people came to watch the fun. Even the "chief steward" Endo Chiyo was looking at the raging fire with his three assistants, with a look of surprise on his face, not to mention others. He quickly waved his hand, signaling them not to be idle here, it was enough to just watch the novelty, and they should quickly return to their posts and continue to contribute to the Wanjin territory.

After all the idlers were driven away and he no longer had to worry about saving face, he asked Aman, "What is a Jinchūriki?"

"It's a human tribute!" Aman was no longer surprised by his lack of common sense. While admiring the "spectacle" of iron smelting, he explained to him casually, "If you build a bridge or a city, these big things may anger the gods, earth spirits or vengeful spirits, so you have to bury a person in advance to communicate and appease their resentment. For example, there is a person buried in the pier of Yodogawa Bridge. That person has become a Buddha now. His name is... Jinchuriki Jizo."

After a pause, she added, "It's the same with building a castle. There has to be an unlucky person buried first. Most of the castles in Owari have Jinchūriki underneath them. Otherwise, how could they be so stable?"

Yuan Ye was silenced again. Every time he thought he had adapted to this era, this era would always give him a big blow and bring him some weird and strange news that would make him feel uncomfortable.

Or maybe he traveled to the wrong place. It was the sixteenth century somewhere else, so it shouldn't be likely that such a thing would happen again, or at least it wouldn't be a common phenomenon.

He was speechless for a while and could only shake his head: "Don't say such things in the future. We won't do such things."

"Okay, you have the final say on your own business!" Aman didn't care. After all, this was Yuanye's own business. She didn't know anything about iron smelting. She just wanted to give him some advice and tell him what others would do when they encountered big things.

"You should go back as well!" Yuanye also began to feel that she was an eyesore here. The stove would have to burn for about three days, and she couldn't be idle for this period of time.

As for himself, of course he has to stay here. At present, he is the only technical talent that Wanjin can find. At the same time, he also has to keep good records and improve the craftsmanship, so he can only work harder.

After waiting for more than an hour, the color of the flame began to change again, slowly transforming from dark red to orange-red, and then gradually brightened. It should be that the temperature was further increasing. Yuanye covered his head and face, observed closely, and judged with his imagination that the iron had sunk to the bottom of the furnace due to its own weight, and impurities with lower melting points had begun to separate and float up. He ordered to stop the blast, took a large iron spoon, and quickly began to scoop out the slag from the slag opening in the middle of the furnace.

After the slag was removed, he ordered people to throw in new black iron sand, charcoal and a small amount of lime from high above, and to supply fresh air for a new round of smelting.

This process was repeated over and over again, and the temperature in the furnace became higher and higher. The flames finally turned golden yellow and were barely visible in the daytime. It was already the third day, and the surface of the furnace finally cracked, having completed its historical mission - this primitive clay furnace was disposable, and you had to make a new one every time you refined it.

Yuanye's eyes were already red at this time. He quickly ordered people to stop blowing the air and waited for a few hours for the temperature of the furnace to drop. Then he had people packed tightly and rushed in to smash the furnace and take away the unburned charcoal.

The process was easy. The furnace wall, which was originally nearly half a meter thick, was only a dozen centimeters thick after three days of burning. After all the mess was cleaned up, only a large piece of "sponge iron" full of holes was left.

To put it simply, the whole smelting process is that the carbon monoxide produced when charcoal burns deprives the ferroferric oxide and ferric oxide of oxygen and turns into carbon dioxide and is discharged into the atmosphere. Without oxygen, the ferroferric oxide and the like are naturally left with only iron. It's just that the temperature in the furnace is not enough, far from reaching 1500 degrees. The iron cannot be completely melted into liquid and has been in a semi-solid state. Most of the impurities in it are burned away, and finally it becomes a sponge with many holes on the surface.

In other words, it became a mixture of iron and steel of very poor quality.

Yuanye took a close look at the huge lump of "sponge iron" and ordered his men to smash it while it was hot, push it into a pool of water to cool it down, and then sort it according to color - most of it was inferior pig iron, which needed to be hammered by manpower to remove impurities before it could be used; a small part was pure iron, and then there was a little bit of low-temperature carbon steel, which was accidentally produced by the reaction of pure iron and carbon monoxide, also known as "jade steel".

It’s hard to say what the result is. Yuanye looked at the mess of iron and steel on the ground and didn’t know whether he had succeeded or not.

(End of this chapter)