There were dozens of craftsmen working in the room. There were dozens of completed bows and crossbows. The number of arrows piled up next to them was no less than a thousand. Some of these weapons were for sale, and some were made for pirates. Selling bows and arrows could make a profit. Making bows and arrows for pirates was their mission. It was the price they had to pay to enjoy the protection of pirates. Moreover, they had no choice but to accept the protection. This labor was equivalent to the protection fee.
Because the ostensible purpose of this trip was to buy whaling crossbows, they still had to pretend. After visiting this weapon workshop, Ang Lee immediately bought two sets of whaling crossbows. They could be delivered in two days.
In addition to the weapon workshop, there was also an iron smelting workshop on Red Iron Island. This was the main business of Red Iron Island and also the industry with the most people. The iron ore on this island was enough for them to mine for hundreds of years.
Smelting iron was a laborious job. Iron ore needed to be mined. After mining, it needed to be ground and selected. After that, there was a series of steps. Without dozens or hundreds of people, it was difficult to ensure the normal mining process. Only with enough people could the work be more efficient and the cost of pig iron could be greatly reduced.
Because the wind was still blowing at this time, it was very inconvenient for mining iron ore. Therefore, the mining had been temporarily stopped. All the craftsmen were resting in the house, waiting for the wind to die down. If the wind blew for a day, they would not work for the day.
"You're all here? Haha! "
Niuer walked into the room with a smile. He took out the wine and meat that he had already prepared and gave them to the people waiting to work. There were more people, more than a hundred of them. However, Ang Lee and his party came here by boat, so they could bring more wine and food. It was enough for hundreds of people to eat a meal. Of course, it was not the kind of meal that was full. It was just a taste. The wine was enough to ensure that no one drank a bowl.
"Niuer, we met a rich man again. So much wine and food. How much is it worth?"
A craftsman said.
Niuer smiled and said, "We're lucky to meet someone who appreciates us. How many iron ingots can we produce in a day?"
The craftsman said, "Why are you asking this? It's different every day. At most, it's only a few thousand pounds. We can't make much money."
"No wonder you can't make money. You have to give a lot of pig iron to the Black Wolf King. Naturally, there isn't much left."
Niuer said.
"What you said makes sense. That is indeed the case. After deducting the portion of our profits that we have to pay to the Black Wolf King, there is almost nothing left."
The blacksmith said helplessly.
Ang Lee picked up some iron ingots that had already been made. He found that the quality of these iron ingots was indeed not very good. It seemed that their smelting skills were very ordinary.
Most of these craftsmen were from the Tang dynasty. Their ancestors were all from the Tang dynasty, so they were naturally from the Tang dynasty as well. Their skills naturally came from the Tang dynasty.
The smelting technology of the Tang dynasty could be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Hua Xia civilization had already smelted ironware.
The history of using meteoric iron had already begun in the primitive times. The primitive people had been able to use natural meteoric iron in the early days. At the latest, in the middle of the Shang dynasty, the ancestors of the Chinese people had mastered a certain level of iron forging technology, were familiar with the processing properties of iron, and knew the difference between the properties of iron and bronze. Obviously, the ancestors of the Hua Xia could only have known about iron earlier.
However, before the ancestors of the Hua Xia learned how to smelt iron, they learned how to smelt copper first. This had not only been confirmed by archaeological relics and historical documents, but also conformed to the development of metallurgical technology. The reason was very simple. Just like picking apples from a tree, they always picked them from a low place. Because it was easier to smelt copper than to smelt iron, the earliest technology to be born was, of course, the art of smelting copper.
The art of smelting copper originated from the use of natural copper by people in the Neolithic Age. Most of the natural copper was red copper containing more than 90% copper. Not only did it have a metallic luster, but it also had good processing properties. At first, people might only use natural copper as a stone to make stone tools. In practice, they would inevitably find that natural copper had an incomparable ductility that stone could not compare with, and it was easy to shape according to needs. Then, people would naturally find that after burning natural copper in fire, it would be easier to forge it. If the temperature of the flame was high enough, natural copper would melt, and the molten copper could flow. After solidifying, it could be shaped by containers. The repeated occurrence of this phenomenon inevitably led to the emergence of copper smelting technology and casting technology.
The situation of iron was different from copper. Iron was easily oxidized. Except for meteoric iron, iron in nature existed in the form of oxides or other compounds. The melting point of pure iron was more than 1,000 degrees. It was impossible to directly melt iron in the Neolithic Age. Although the reduction temperature of iron ore did not need to be so high, the reduction speed was very slow when the temperature was low, and it was meaningless for practical production. At the same time, the iron reduced at low temperature was easily oxidized again when it cooled down, and it became rust again.
Therefore, although copper and iron were always coexisting, after the birth of copper smelting technology, the birth of iron smelting technology still took some time. It needed a profound technological revolution to prepare enough conditions. In fact, this technological revolution really did happen. The time was between 3,500 BC and 2,600 BC. It lasted for nearly a thousand years, which was equivalent to the early period of China's copper and stone age.
Strictly speaking, iron smelting technology was actually a technological revolution of pottery. The main content of the revolution was to replace hand-made blanks with quick-wheel blanks, reform the furnace fire channel and furnace fire eye of the pottery kiln, make the fire inside the kiln more uniform, expand the diameter of the kiln, and change the kiln wall from vertical to inward. The inward wall was for the convenience of sealing the kiln. When the pottery was burned to a certain temperature, the drinking kiln would be sealed to create a reduction atmosphere and burn out gray pottery. At this time, if a large amount of pine smoke was let in, it would cause carburization, and it would burn out very good black pottery. The advancement from open oxidation firing of red pottery to a sealed drinking kiln to create a reduction atmosphere for burning ash and black pottery revealed a very important information. People had already mastered the knowledge of copper and iron smelting. The premise of the co-existence of copper and iron ore under high temperature had a practical significance for the birth of iron smelting technology. It was also the basis for the birth of iron smelting blast furnaces first in China.
In the early period of Hua Xia, copper smelting technology used a pottery furnace. The outside was coated with grass mixed with mud for heat insulation, and the inside was coated with a layer of refractory mud. The copper ore and charcoal were directly put into the furnace. This device was different from the crucible furnace that was heated from the outside. It could raise the temperature of the furnace even higher. It could be imagined that in this kind of inwardly heated pottery furnace, when there was a lot of oxidized iron ore mixed with copper ore, the reduction of iron from the slag was almost inevitable. And the first appearance of block smelting iron in the history of iron smelting was the best proof.
Block smelting iron was also called wrought iron. It was a block of iron obtained by reducing iron ore under a lower smelting temperature. In Southwest Asia and Europe, until pig iron was smelted in the fourteenth century, the block smelting method was used to smelt iron, which was much more backward than that of the Tang Dynasty. Block smelting iron was generally done by digging holes on the ground or at the foot of the mountain as a furnace. High-grade iron ore and charcoal were placed in the furnace. After the furnace was ignited, it was heated by blowing air. When the temperature reached about 1,000 degrees, the iron oxide in the ore would be reduced to metallic iron, and the gangue would become slag. Because the other unreduced oxides and impurities in the ore could not be removed, a large part or a large part of the ore could only be squeezed out by hot forging. There would still be a lot of large impurities left in the iron. Because the smelting temperature was not high, the chemical reaction was slow, and the solid product needed to be removed from the furnace, so the output was low, and the labor intensity was high. Unlike pig iron, block smelting iron contained very little carbon, was soft, and was suitable for forging. Because block smelting iron was porous before forging, it was also called sponge iron.
It was not difficult to see that the ancient Hua Xia Taozun copper furnace with internal heating was very suitable for smelting blocks of iron. Of course, the earliest artificially smelted iron product in history was the block of iron. In the history of iron smelting in Hua Xia, the block of iron, white cast iron, and steel appeared at the same time at the beginning. This was the merit of the ancient ironsmiths and a miracle in the history of iron smelting in the world. In short, the iron-smelting technology in Hua Xia bloomed in the Xia Dynasty. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, iron and steel appeared at the same time. In the Tang dynasty, the iron-smelting technology made a breakthrough and became the leading technology in the world. No other country could be compared with the iron-smelting technology of the Tang Empire. The gap was very big.
In addition, at the beginning of the iron-smelting technology, the block of iron that needed to be forged was dominant. The hard iron used for engraving could only be obtained by chance. The amount was very small. The problem was that when the iron-smelting technology was born, the bronze smelting technology was close to maturity. The copper furnace had also gradually developed from the short Taozun furnace to a certain height of the blast shaft furnace. This trend of technological progress would sooner or later have an impact on the iron-smelting technology. When the hard iron became more and more abundant due to technological progress, it could not be digested only for engraving. It became a problem to find a new way for the hard iron.
At this time, the blacksmiths of Hua Xia, who had the tradition of casting and forming technology, would certainly not regard the liquid pig iron and its aggregates as waste. They would certainly use the most convenient casting method to make use of the bad iron. Therefore, the iron casting technology was born. What followed was, of course, the continuous improvement and development of the iron casting technology. When the society finally recognized the role of the iron casting and began to vigorously promote it, this most revolutionary metal finally swaggered onto the stage of history. At this moment, the wheel of history was moving towards the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. It had been more than 1,400 years since the birth of the iron-smelting technology.
The technological progress of the iron-smelting technology was a matter of life and death for a country. For example, the State of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period had mastered the advanced iron-smelting technology. At the same time, the government enforced the monopoly of salt and iron, which laid the foundation for Duke Huan of Qi's hegemony. Without the monopoly of salt and iron, there would be no Duke Huan of Qi's hegemony.
At the same time, it also showed that the iron-smelting technology in Hua Xia had matured during the reign of Duke Huan of Qi, which was a very important piece of evidence.
There was a lot of evidence that the iron-smelting technology had matured during the Spring and Autumn Period. Later generations did not doubt this point. In the Warring States Period, the production of steel began to appear, and the technology further improved, which made the Hua Xia civilization far ahead of the surrounding civilizations.
Step by step, the technology continued to improve during the Tang dynasty. Not only could iron-smelting steel, but also rare metals such as tungsten could be added into the steel, which greatly improved the performance of metal weapons. As long as tungsten was added into ordinary iron weapons, the performance would immediately improve greatly, which allowed this kind of weapon to easily cut through ordinary weapons, making it invincible on the battlefield.
Of course, compared to the advanced cold weapons discovered in the later generations, tungsten weapons paled in comparison. The technology of the later generations was extremely advanced, far beyond the Great Tang era. Even if Li An could bring some advanced technology, he could only improve it a little. He couldn't improve it too much. If the technology was too complicated, Li An wouldn't be able to master it, let alone pass it to the people of this era.
At this time, the iron-smelting technology in the capital of the Tang dynasty had already used the technology brought by Ang Lee. The local technology of the Tang dynasty was also quite advanced, but the smelting technology on the Red Iron Island was still at the level of the late Sui Dynasty, which was far behind the local technology of the Tang dynasty. Although these craftsmen came from the Tang dynasty, they obviously did not learn more advanced technology, or the local conditions were too poor, so many equipment could not be manufactured. Therefore, they could only use a relatively backward smelting method.
Smelting required a blast furnace, and the blast furnace required kaolin to make pottery. Naturally, there was no kaolin on the island, nor on the surrounding islands. Even if it could be found in the Pyu Dynasty, it might not be as good as the local soil of the Tang dynasty. Since the blast furnace material was not good, the performance of the blast furnace would inevitably be affected to a certain extent, and the performance of the smelted iron ingots would naturally be limited to a certain extent.
Ang Lee held these iron ingots, shook his head helplessly, and gently placed them in the distance.
Each of these iron ingots weighed a few dozen kilograms. Normally, they would need two hands to carry them. However, Li An was able to pick them up with just one hand. This display of strength left all the blacksmiths dumbfounded and they couldn't help looking at Li An in a higher light.
After all, Ang Lee and the others were all wearing businessmen's clothes, and under normal circumstances, the physical strength of businessmen was very weak, far inferior to that of craftsmen. However, Ang Lee's strength obviously surpassed these craftsmen, so how could these craftsmen not admire him? Some craftsmen even doubted Ang Lee's identity. After all, a pampered businessman should not have such strength.
Of course, no matter what Ang Lee's identity was, it did not matter to these craftsmen. They did not care about it, and just put it aside after thinking about it.
"There's a honeycomb in these iron ingots!"
Ang Lee only gently knocked on the top of the iron ingot, and he could tell that there was a honeycomb structure inside the iron ingot, which was obviously not a good thing. It meant that the quality of the smelting was not good, and the quality of the iron ingot was relatively low, so naturally, it could not be sold at a relatively high price.
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