Chapter 277 Spring (Seeking votes and subscriptions)

The directions of the ten teams' explorations were also different. Six teams went to the east of the river, two went to the west, and two went to the north. These were places that the Han tribe had little contact with. According to the information provided by You Fu, there were the most small tribes in the east of the river, so it was also the direction with the greatest focus.

At the same time, in order to gain something as soon as possible, Luo Chong also focused on the personnel configuration of the ten teams. For example, the team going to the east of the river had mostly elderly people from the Black Rat Tribe, the Chestnut Tribe, and the Tree Tribe. The west had mostly elderly people from the You Tribe and the Bian Tribe, and the north had elderly people from the Lacquer Tribe and the Eagle Tribe.

These people were once local aborigines, and they knew the surrounding conditions best and knew the surrounding tribes. If they were allowed to negotiate, the possibility of success would be a little greater.

After sending these people, Luo Chong sat in Hanyang City and waited for the harvest of each team, but the construction of the Han tribe was still proceeding in an orderly manner.

The construction of wind-powered forging hammers and wind-powered automatic sawmills has greatly enhanced the production capacity of the Han tribe's manufacturing industry, especially the wood processing plant, which can now produce hundreds of benches every day. The benches are the simplest to make. A long wooden board with four legs is enough. Therefore, this most basic furniture was quickly distributed to every family in the Han tribe. As for the tung oil application, it was left to each family to do it themselves, thus shortening the processing time.

Benches, square tables, lattice windows, wooden doors, these furniture and decorations that the Han tribe urgently needs were also manufactured in the wood processing plant and then distributed to each family, changing the living standards and living habits of the tribe members.

The blacksmith shop is also constantly making more tools, iron spoons, kitchen knives, scissors, and steel needles.

Speaking of steel needles, in fact, not many are needed, but the technology for making steel needles is what the Han tribe must master, that is, the metal wire drawing process. As for the absurd thing of grinding an iron pestle into a needle, it is pure nonsense.

The Han tribe needed metal wire in many places. In addition to sewing needles, the most important thing was springs. The Han tribe needed springs. With springs, they could make more excellent instruments, such as improving looms, or making clips, weapon parts and the like.

Before the Han tribe found iron ore, Luo Chong thought about making springs, but at that time he only had bronze. Of course, it was not that bronze could not make springs, but it was too troublesome to make, and the effect of bronze springs was not as good as steel springs, so it was always delayed.

Bronze is an alloy with copper as the main material. By adding different materials to the fusion, bronze with different properties can be obtained. For example, phosphor bronze is the material for making springs. Phosphor bronze springs not only have moderate hardness and good elasticity, but also do not generate static electricity. Even in modern times, many sophisticated electronic instruments use phosphor bronze springs.

However, if you want to make phosphor bronze, you must first have phosphorus. Although this material is not easy to store and is very dangerous, Luo Chong still has a way to obtain it, but the method is disgusting, so he has never done it.

The chemical element phosphorus was first discovered and confirmed in medieval Europe. At that time, the common people in Europe were very poor, but they all dreamed of becoming rich overnight, so alchemy was very popular in the local area. Those alchemists kept doing various chemical experiments, dreaming of turning stones into gold one day.

It was in that historical background that a German businessman, who was not doing his job, did alchemy and had a wild imagination in his small dark room. He did an experiment of evaporating human urine at high temperature. As a result, gold was not produced, but a white solid substance was produced. This substance will spontaneously combust at room temperature and emit green or blue flames, which is what we often call white phosphorus.

Phosphorus reserves in nature are very large, but it does not appear in the form of a single substance. Most of it is contained in the bodies of organisms. Even the most common wood ash contains a lot of phosphorus, which is the most natural nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compound fertilizer. However, it is very complicated to extract, and it is far less convenient than directly evaporating human urine.

However, now that the Han tribe has steel, Luo Chong has no intention of continuing to boil human urine. Although white phosphorus has many other uses, such as making matches or making grenades, the Han tribe does not need these at present. Luo Chong just wants to make some springs.

Steel is the best material for making strong springs, but the premise is that the steel must be drawn into wire first. The most primitive metal wire should have existed during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. At that time, people would first melt the metal into thin plates, then beat them, put them into rollers and roll them until they were rolled into 0.5 mm thick gold foil, and then cut the gold foil into wires with a knife. The most powerful craftsmen could cut out gold wires with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm, and then wrap them around silk threads to embroider patterns on clothing.

However, this is not considered wire drawing. The real wire drawing is metal plate wire drawing. Simply put, it is to hammer a steel ingot into a thin stick, then burn it red, and pull it through a steel plate with a round hole drilled in it to make the steel stick thinner and rounder.

This requires first making a perforated steel plate as a tool, drilling a row of round holes of various specifications on it, and then you can burn the steel bar red and draw it thinner. Because the holes for wire drawing are smaller than each other, the metal wire drawn out will become thinner and longer.

This method has been used to this day. Although the wire drawing machines are becoming more and more advanced, the principle is still the same principle. Just like a generator, no matter how powerful it becomes, it still cuts magnetic lines of force in a magnetic field. This principle will never change.

Luo Chong currently does not have a tool that can punch holes in the steel plate, so in the end he directly chose to use the lost wax method to cast a steel plate for wire drawing. The steel plate was installed next to the windmill forging hammer, and the windmill was used to drive the gears, which were finally transmitted to the winch for wire drawing.

The original process of metal wire drawing is not complicated. The Han tribe quickly made metal wire under the guidance of Luo Chong.

After having the metal wire, you only need to make springs according to the required specifications, and then quench it to make the metal wire hard. Using the same method, you can also make thinner sewing needles.

While Luo Chong was staying in Hanyang City to make springs, the cavalry team that went out to seek small tribes to join finally brought rewards. Ten teams gradually brought back the people they traded with, or some small tribes with a small number of people. As a result, the population of the Han tribe increased rapidly. In less than half a month, the population of the Han tribe increased by two or three hundred people.

But this is not the most critical thing. Instead, these teams that were originally sent out to find people made an unexpected discovery on the way, which made Luo Chong very interested.

(End of this chapter)