Putting enough firewood into the sand was for the sake of smoldering. Only then could they get the desired charcoal. If they kept burning, then they would only get worthless charcoal ash. The timing was very important. If they didn't burn enough, then they would still get firewood. If they burned too much, then they would get charcoal ash without any energy. Or if they only got a small amount of charcoal, then most of it would be charcoal ash.
When burning firewood, they had to choose a place where there was no wind. This was because when there was wind, the firewood would burn unevenly. This would lead to some firewood not burning completely, and some would be burned into charcoal ash. As a result, the overall value of charcoal would be greatly reduced. Generally speaking, it was very windy in the mountains. There would always be a gust of wind from time to time. Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of the charcoal, they had to build a charcoal kiln. Fortunately, the construction of a charcoal kiln wasn't difficult. There was enough clay in the area, so building a few charcoal kilns was a piece of cake.
Ang Lee also gave them the drawings of the charcoal kiln and asked them to build it as soon as possible. After all, Ang Lee wouldn't stay here for too long. Ang Lee would leave sooner or later.
The patriarchs naturally didn't dare to be negligent. If Ang Lee left, then no one would be able to teach them the smelting techniques. Therefore, they mobilized the patriarchs in their prime overnight to get them to work quickly.
First, they chose an open space that was relatively close to the iron ore production location. This open space wasn't very large, but there were several pieces connected together. Although the land was somewhat uneven and there were a lot of protruding stones on the ground, as long as they spent some time cleaning, they would be able to get a large piece of relatively flat land. It was the most suitable place to build a smelting workshop. This location wasn't far from the Jiang Clan's Stone City. It was only about fifteen li, and they could reach it by walking for half an hour. It was very convenient.
In order to build the smelting workshop as soon as possible, the Jiang Clan recruited three hundred people from the Stone City to be responsible for the construction. Among them, one hundred were responsible for building various kinds of houses, one hundred were responsible for leveling the land, making this area as flat as possible, and the remaining one hundred were responsible for building the furnace and charcoal kiln. They were completely built according to Ang Lee's plan.
A team of three hundred people, and all of them were strong men. There was no need to say anything about their work. Under the premise of knowing that they had gained a big advantage, they worked even harder. Soon, this barren land was built up into a decent shape.
It was naturally very necessary to build a large number of houses. In the future, when the workshop was operating normally, there would be at least a few hundred people working here. So many people needed houses to eat, drink, and live. They also needed houses to store food, water, various minerals, tools, and so on. Therefore, the number of houses couldn't be small. The larger the scale of mining, the more houses there would be. And according to the different functions, all kinds of houses had to be built. Ang Lee also told the local clansmen about this, and let them build a large number of houses according to the requirements.
Because the area chosen by the patriarchs was a few small pieces of flat land separated by some protruding small hills in the middle, in order to facilitate the smelting work, the small hills between each piece of land had to be cleared. The ground of each piece of flat land also had to be leveled to a certain extent so that the entire area would become flat and convenient for later mining.
The leveling of the few pieces of flat land could be completed very quickly. Therefore, they immediately began to build houses, furnaces, and coal kilns. The one hundred people responsible for clearing the small hills in the middle were busy clearing the stubborn stones. The three hundred people did their own things, and there was no conflict between them. The efficiency of their work was very fast.
The area of these small pieces of land was not big enough, but if all of them were made into one piece, it would be big enough to build a considerable smelting workshop. For smelting steel, the necessary scale was necessary. Only when the scale was formed could the cost be reduced as much as possible. If the scale was too small, the cost would be relatively high, which was not cost-effective.
According to Ang Lee's design, after the workshop was built, it should be able to accommodate at least two to three hundred people working together, or even more. The houses in the residential area should be able to accommodate five to six hundred people. After all, in addition to the smelting workshop, they also had to prepare living quarters for the miners. This was only a smelting workshop, but the premise of smelting was that there had to be people mining. In order to increase efficiency, the miners could also live in the workshop. After all, they were all members of the same clan, so there was no need to be so particular.
If the Jiang Clan really wanted to mine more, they could continue to increase the manpower. As long as there was a slack period, the several branches would gather all the idle labor force. It wouldn't be a problem for them to organize thousands of people. During the busy period, they would let one or two hundred people maintain the operation, and the rest would go to work. The specific operation was flexible and not fixed.
The construction of the smelting workshop definitely couldn't be completed overnight. After all, whether it was leveling the stones in the middle, or building a large number of houses, furnaces, and coal kilns, it all needed time. The construction and trial production could be synchronized. There was nothing wrong with the construction and production at the same time. This way, after the construction was completed, they could quickly start the large-scale production.
Early in the morning, Ang Lee ordered his soldiers to continue to search the mountain for traces of Duan Jianhan. Ang Lee himself took a few guards and went to the workshop under the leadership of the Jiang Clan to see the progress of the Jiang Clan's work.
Li An could hear the sounds of construction from afar. There were three hundred tribesmen involved in the construction, and they were divided into two groups. One group worked during the day, while the other group worked during the night. This was the fastest way to progress. These six hundred people had almost emptied the labor force of the Stone City and the two tribes nearby. After all, the population of the Jiang tribe was not large. The Stone City of the Grand Chief could only mobilize four hundred people at most. The second chief had mobilized two hundred people, and the rest of the small tribes were a little further away. They were still mobilizing, and these small tribes could only mobilize about two hundred people. Adding all of them together, the Jiang tribe could mobilize about one thousand five hundred to two thousand people. Of course, they were all men, and most of them were between fifteen and sixty years old.
In the early stage of the construction, a lot of manpower was needed. But as long as the workshop was built, it was up to them to decide how much manpower to use for the smelting. At most, it was not a problem to mobilize everyone. At least 100 people could maintain the normal operation. The number of furnaces and coal kilns was not the same. If one furnace was opened, it would naturally not require many people. But if dozens of furnaces were smelting at the same time, it would naturally require a lot of manpower. The number of manpower mobilized depended on how many furnaces were smelting at the same time. It was the same for mining. If ten people were to dig the iron ore, the mining speed would naturally be very slow. If hundreds of people were to dig the ore, the mining speed would naturally be very fast. Before the farmers, they could mobilize everyone to dig the ore together and store enough ore in the workshop. Then, when the farming season was busy, most of them could go to the fields and leave a small number of people to slowly smelt the ore.
"Not bad, not bad. It's only been one night, and you've already built so many things. Very good, really very good."
Ang Lee said with great satisfaction.
According to Ang Lee's request, they had built a furnace and a coal kiln. They had also built several houses for people to live in. They were all simple houses made of wood and grass. The quality was a little poor, but it was good that they could all be used. As long as they could be used, it was fine.
In addition, they had also prepared hundreds of kilograms of firewood and mined thousands of kilograms of iron ore according to Ang Lee's request. A dozen people surnamed Jiang were sorting out the firewood, and dozens of people were crushing the iron ore that had been mined. They threw away the impurities in it, leaving only the best iron ore.
"Good, good. The selection is very careful. The remaining ones are the best. The more impurities are removed, the lower the cost of smelting. We can save a lot of charcoal!"
Ang Lee said with great satisfaction.
Because the local people didn't have the habit of lacking charcoal, they didn't know much about burning charcoal. Therefore, they still needed Ang Lee's on-the-spot guidance to use the coal kiln to burn firewood and get the best charcoal. These were the raw materials necessary for smelting iron ore. In the absence of coal, charcoal was the only hope.
Because there was no technical content, Ang Lee taught them easily. They only needed to learn it once. They just needed to pay attention to the temperature. Every time the charcoal was burned, they could break it open and check how it was burned. Then, they could make corresponding adjustments.
It took some time to burn charcoal. Before the charcoal was burned, the smelting couldn't be carried out. This was because the smelting of iron required fuel. Without fuel, the smelting of iron couldn't be carried out.
The thousands of kilograms of iron ore that had been mined were very fine. The smelting of iron required fine iron ore. The finer the iron ore, the easier it was to process it. Moreover, after smashing it, it was easy to find the impurities that might exist. They were just ordinary stones that had no smelting value. The existence of these impurities would seriously waste fuel and cause the quality of the smelting process to drop.
As for how to pick out the impurities, Ang Lee had already told the people surnamed Jiang the method. As long as they chose according to the color and the lines of the stone, there wouldn't be any mistakes. They just needed to adapt to it for a while.
The iron content of iron ore had a great impact on the quality of the smelting process. Iron ore with a higher iron content could be smelted into higher quality iron and used to make better ironware. Iron ore with a lower iron content could only be used to make lower quality ironware due to the increased difficulty of refining. For example, in some areas of the Tang dynasty, high quality iron ore was mainly used to smelt weapons and chisels and other ironware products with high quality requirements. Iron ore with a lower iron content was mainly used to smelt agricultural tools used by ordinary people. In the Tang dynasty, where the soil was relatively soft, even if the quality of agricultural tools wasn't good enough, they could still be used normally. Even if the quality of agricultural tools was average, they were still much better than stone tools and bronze tools.
Under normal circumstances, for the same iron ore, the darker the color of the ore, the higher the iron content. When choosing, they should try to choose the darkest color.
"Assistant Minister Li, is this okay?"
The second patriarch asked.
Ang Lee looked at these small broken iron ores and said, "It's already very good. However, the finer the broken ores, the better. This can save a bit of fuel. It would be better if they were ground into powder like flour."
For smelting iron ores, the finer the iron ores were, the better. The finer the iron ores were, the more fuel they could save during smelting. Powdered iron ores were undoubtedly the most finely broken and the most fuel-efficient. However, under normal circumstances, almost no iron ores were ground into powder in ancient smelting because grinding itself was very costly. In ancient times, there was no advanced grinding equipment. Large iron ores were hammered into small particles by manpower. If they continued to grind them into powder, the demand for manpower would be even higher. This would greatly increase the cost. Smelting workshops also needed profits. If the cost was too high, it was obviously not conducive to survival.
"Oh! It's too difficult to grind them into powder. With so many iron ores, it's too troublesome to smash and grind them bit by bit. It's already very difficult to smash them into powder. "
A young clansman said.
This young man was very strong. At a glance, one could tell that he was a very capable person. Even he couldn't accept it. From this, it could be seen that grinding iron ores into powder step by step was indeed somewhat unrealistic. The difficulty was indeed a bit high.
After waiting for a while, the furnace full of charcoal was finally smoldering. In fact, in order to ensure the quality of the charcoal, the longer the smoldering time, the better. However, Ang Lee's time was limited. In order to demonstrate smelting iron ores as soon as possible, he couldn't wait too long.
This furnace of charcoal weighed more than a hundred jin. For smelting iron ores, it was still a bit small. However, the charcoal from the second kiln was added. Soon, there would be new charcoal production. The patriarch who was cutting dead wood nearby also brought more firewood. In terms of raw materials, there was no need to worry about charcoal not being enough.
Of course, in addition to the fuel of charcoal and the raw material of iron ores, there were also two essential raw materials, water and limestone. Water was necessary for smelting iron, and limestone was a co-solvent, so it was also very important.
In the end, what was the use of limestone? After adding limestone, it would be mixed with the ore. When smelting in the furnace, it would be decomposed under heat to produce quicklime. The quicklime would react with the silica in the iron ores, thus increasing the fluidity of the slag. This would make the impurities melt and flow at a much lower temperature. This would facilitate the separation of the impurities from the iron ores. It would help to remove the slag, and when the slag was removed, the quality of the iron products would naturally be higher.
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