Ren Baqian sat on a chair in a daze. This was a shady place and the surrounding temperature was as hot as a fire.
According to the season of Great Xia, it was already late autumn, but the weather was still extremely hot.
Clanking sounds of chiseling could be heard from Mount Damo in the distance.
After burning the mountain yesterday, hair-thin cracks appeared on the mountain wall. Gu Qiong and Tao Jiyuan were overjoyed. They felt that they had found a way to excavate Mount Damo.
However, Ren Baqian was not as optimistic as the two of them. He reckoned that only the surface of the mountain had changed.
Of course, this was because both parties had different requirements. Ren Baqian wanted to obtain iron ores that could be used to forge weapons for the 20,000 soldiers.
Dayao's standard thick-backed sabers were not the kind that ordinary people used. Each saber weighed about 20 kilograms and required at least 22 kilograms of iron ores.
On Mount Damo, a thousand prisoners could only mine 80 kilograms of iron ores in a day, which could only be used to forge four sabers. After two years, they would only be able to forge about 2,000 ores. Furthermore, all of these ores would be used by the army.
One had to know that Dayao didn't only require weapons for the army. It also required hunters in the mountains and ironware for daily use.
Ren Baqian did not go to Mount Liucui, but he had asked Tao Jiyuan about it. It was located in the mountains and the mountain paths were difficult to traverse. Even though mining was much easier, transporting the ores was also a big problem.
What could a country with a population of 30 to 40 million people produce 10,000 to 20,000 kilograms of iron ores in a year?
"Sir, Sir, today's ores weigh at least 400 to 500 kilograms. This is the amount that was mined in the past four to five days."
Ren Baqian did not know when he fell asleep. He was woken up by Gu Qiong's loud and excited voice.
"Oh? 400 to 500 kilograms? " Ren Baqian rubbed his eyes. Starting a fire would take a day, then watering the ores. After that, it would take another day to mine the ores.
"Then bring out more wood. It would be best to mobilize some manpower from the surrounding cities to transport the wood. Then, we will burn the mountains separately. One day on the east side and one day on the west side. We will take turns burning the mountains and mining. This will increase the efficiency." Ren Baqian stretched his body and said. He wondered what the surrounding mountains would look like in a few years. After all, if they wanted to burn this iron mountain for mining, the amount of wood consumed in a year was not a small amount. However, the growth of trees took ten years.
Moreover, with the decrease in the surrounding wood, if they wanted to maintain this mining speed in the future, they would need to send wood from afar, and that would require even more manpower. Let's leave it at that for now. I'll go back and study that concave mirror.
"Sir Ren is right." Tao Jiyuan saw that Ren Baqian had doubled the output of the iron ore in just one or two days. Furthermore, if Ren Baqian had done what he said just now, the output would have increased by three or four times. He immediately felt some admiration for him. "However, I'm afraid this matter will require His Majesty's orders."
"Let's go take a look." Ren Baqian got up and asked Gu Qiong to lead the way. They went to the foot of Mount Damo to study and observe. As expected, it was just a thin layer. The length of half a finger was about three centimeters.
"Physician Tao, I'll have to trouble you to submit a memorial to Her Majesty and explain the situation here," Ren Baqian said as he turned around.
During dinner, Tao Jiyuan and Gu Qiong's faces were still filled with excitement. Ren Baqian didn't want to disturb their enthusiasm and just said, "I'm going to have a good rest tomorrow. Don't disturb me no matter how big the matter is. You don't have to prepare food for me either."
"Yes, Sir Ren."
After bidding farewell to them, Ren Baqian returned to his room and returned to Earth when everyone was about to fall asleep.
…
It was evening on Earth. Ren Baqian first turned on his computer and searched for the news that he had read before. He typed in the keywords and quickly found more than one.
Seventy years ago, someone had done such an experiment. The first 50-kilowatt solar furnace made of liquid mirrors could melt a steel plate that was one centimeter thick in thirty seconds.
Fifty years ago, a laboratory was built using ten thousand concave mirrors. It could reach a power of 1,000 kilowatts and instantly reach a temperature of 3,500 degrees Celsius.
The melting point of iron was only 1538 degrees Celsius. Therefore, there was no need for such a large mirror. It just needed to be a little smaller.
In a video on the internet, a foreign guy used 5800 fingernail-sized mirrors to melt a satellite pot lid.
All these proved that Ren Baqian's previous idea was feasible.
It didn't need to be as big as the foreign laboratory. It only needed to be one-tenth the size. It could even be divided into ten parts and assembled together. After all, it was just to melt the wall of Mount Damo. There wasn't a high requirement for precision. As long as the focal point was within a certain range and the temperature within that range was sufficient, it would be sufficient.
That night, Ren Baqian contacted a physics professor from a university in the city through Chen Qing. They met up the next day and Ren Baqian told him his request. He needed a solar furnace that could be made of concave mirrors that could be moved and angled. It could melt steel that was three to four hundred meters away.
The other party needed to provide him with a solar furnace that could be carried by a single person. He also needed to make molds for the concave mirrors in Dayao and a series of installation plans for the concave mirrors.
To Ren Baqian, this was very troublesome. However, to the other party, this matter was very simple. After all, Ren Baqian didn't have high requirements for precision. He could even throw it to his students and the remuneration was 500,000 yuan.
After settling this matter, Ren Baqian rested for two days before returning to Dayao.
…
Mount Liucui was actually on the outskirts of the Sixty Thousand Mountains on the west side of Dayao. However, to reach the location of the iron ore mine, one would need to walk for two days. Furthermore, the mountain road was very difficult. It was the biggest difficulty in transporting the iron ore.
A few days after leaving Mount Damo, Ren Baqian walked on this mountain road.
When he first entered the mountain, the mountain road was still alright. After all, this road was often used by people.
However, after a day, the mountain road started to meander and it became difficult to walk. On one side was a mountain wall, and on the other side was a mountain stream. There was only a one meter wide road in the middle.
Even though people could walk, it was impossible for people to ride on mounts.
Even if people could walk, they wouldn't be able to walk fast.
At least, every time Ren Baqian glanced at the bottom of the cliff, he would feel dizzy.
One had to know that it was two to three hundred meters below the cliff. If he fell, he would immediately become a meat patty.
Ren Baqian suddenly realized that he had a big weakness. He was afraid of heights.
He didn't realize this previously.
Seeing him like this, Teng Ji was also on tenterhooks. He followed closely behind Ren Baqian, ready to pull him up at any time.
If something were to happen to this person, he wouldn't be able to go back.
After walking on this road for half a day, they finally arrived at a valley with cliffs on three sides. Ren Baqian could finally relax and felt that he was alive again.
The valley wasn't too big. Other than over a hundred guards, there were about seven to eight hundred people mining here.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
