Chapter 370 The First Iron Tool

After trading iron ore with the leader of the Bamboo Rat Tribe, Jiang Xuan checked other stones stockpiled by the Bamboo Rat Tribe, but unfortunately he couldn't find any coal.

But this is normal. How could a small bamboo rat tribe happen to have both of these minerals at the same time?

Even so, Jiang Xuan was already very happy to be able to obtain the iron ore successfully.

He couldn't wait to ask the warriors of the Vine Tribe to move the iron ore onto the boat, and instructed the Bamboo Rat Tribe to dig more iron ore in the future, and then started to return with Jingjie and others.

After returning to the new territory, Jiang Xuan couldn't wait to start trying to smelt iron.

In fact, there is not much difference between iron smelting and copper smelting. The difference is that the temperature required for iron smelting is higher than that for copper smelting.

Therefore, if you want to smelt iron, the first step is to build a blast furnace.

The members of the Teng tribe who were responsible for smelting were already very familiar with this process. They had even built a blast furnace with clay before Jiang Xuan brought back the iron ore.

The second step is to make charcoal.

In fact, the best way to make iron is to use coke made from coal through dry distillation, but the Fuji tribe currently has no access to coal, so it can only refine a large amount of high-quality charcoal as a substitute.

The people of the Teng tribe were also very familiar with this step, because smelting bronze also required a large amount of charcoal, and they had repeated it countless times.

The third step is to crush the iron ore to make it easier to heat and melt.

The warriors of the Teng tribe have plenty of strength, and they already have bronze hammers, so this step is relatively easy for them.

After completing these preparations and waiting for the clay blast furnace to dry naturally, you can officially start iron smelting.

On September 28th, Jiang Xuan personally guided the members of the Teng tribe in smelting at the blast furnace.

"First, put a layer of charcoal under the furnace, then a layer of iron ore, then another layer of charcoal, and then another layer of iron ore, and so on, until the blast furnace is filled."

Jiang Xuan demonstrated it once, and then suddenly remembered something. He walked to a nearby place, picked up a few fist-sized pieces of limestone, mixed them with iron ore, and put them into the blast furnace.

A warrior in charge of smelting asked curiously: "Chief, why do you want to add a few stones?"

Jiang Xuan said: "This stone is called limestone. It can remove some of the impurities in the iron ore, allowing us to refine iron with higher purity."

Another soldier asked, "Can we add other stones?"

Jiang Xuan thought for a moment and did not discourage their enthusiasm and creativity: "I haven't tried it either. You can try it later to see what the difference is when adding different stones to the iron."

Jiang Xuan believes that the courage to try and innovate is a rare quality. If they are lucky, they may be able to use different ores to refine alloys with better performance than iron, or derive some other products.

After all, there are many new stones in this world, and there must be some new metal minerals, which may be more powerful than the metals that Jiang Xuan is familiar with.

The soldiers nodded excitedly, eager to smelt the iron and make more attempts.

“Crackle, crackle…”

After the iron ore, charcoal and limestone were stacked layer by layer, Jiang Xuan personally lit the blast furnace.

At the bottom of the blast furnace, Jiang Xuan asked the tribesmen who were good at carpentry to make a simple hand-cranked blower, plug the outlet air into the fire inlet of the blast furnace, and then let a soldier be responsible for blowing the air.

With the help of the wind power from the simple blower, the high-quality charcoal burned fully, the temperature in the blast furnace rose rapidly, and the furnace gradually turned red.

When the temperature in the furnace reaches over 1,500 degrees, the iron ore begins to gradually dissolve into liquid. Some of the impurities in the iron ore react with the limestone and turn into slag, making the purity of the molten iron higher.

However, due to the poor smelting conditions, the molten iron in the furnace cannot flow out directly, but slowly flows to the bottom of the furnace at high temperature and becomes a lump of sponge iron.

Since charcoal does not burn as long as coke, it is necessary to add charcoal and new iron ore pieces every once in a while.

Thanks to the efforts of everyone in the Teng tribe, the sponge iron at the bottom of the blast furnace gradually piled up.

After the blast furnace had been burning for a day and a night, it was basically filled with slag and sponge iron. The warriors of the Teng tribe excitedly dug open the bottom of the blast furnace, and then dug out the slag and sponge iron inside.

At this point, the slag and sponge iron had already mixed together and were as red as charcoal fire.

“Pah pah pah…”

Jiang Xuan used a bronze hammer to smash a large lump of slag, revealing the sponge iron inside which had a more compact structure and higher hardness.

After Jiang Xuan carefully knocked off most of the slag, he clamped the lump of sponge iron on a flat stone nearby and said, "Water it."

"Okay!"

Jingjie volunteered to pick up the wooden bucket filled with water and poured it into the large mass of sponge iron.

“Chichi…”

When the cold water meets the high-temperature sponge iron, part of it evaporates immediately and turns into a large amount of water vapor, and the remaining water further lowers the temperature of the sponge iron.

When the bucket of water was poured, the red sponge iron revealed its true appearance.

It is dark brown in color and shaped like slag, but some smoother parts have a metallic luster.

To be honest, this thing looks terrible. It's black, bumpy, and contains a lot of impurities. It doesn't look like a treasure at all.

However, in Jiang Xuan's eyes, this thing is still very precious, because it is the first pig iron in this primitive world! It is said that the Japanese jade steel is also like this when it is just smelted. After multiple processing, it can be turned into the samurai sword they are proud of.

"Start another open furnace and continue to heat it. When it is red hot, use a bronze hammer to forge it to knock out the impurities inside."

Under Jiang Xuan's command, the warriors of the Teng tribe quickly built another furnace, filled it with a large amount of high-quality charcoal, and then buried the sponge iron inside to heat it.

With the help of the wind power from the hand-cranked blower, the sponge iron gradually turned red again.

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Jiang Xuan did it himself. He used bronze clamps to clamp the red-hot sponge iron onto a flat, hard stone, and then hammered it hard with a bronze hammer.

“Ding, ding, ding…”

Jiang Xuan was very strong, and under his hammering, the impurities in the sponge iron were hammered away bit by bit, and its structure gradually became more compact and the surface became rounder.

Half a day later, after repeated heating and hammering by Jiang Xuan, the sponge iron was first hammered into a long iron rod, and then after being cut off, it was hammered into five long iron sheets.

Finally, Jiang Xuan hammered the iron sheets into the shape of a short knife and immersed the blade in water to quench it.

“Dangdang…”

Jiang Xuan picked up two rough short knives and hit them against each other. The sound was much crisper and more pleasant than when he hit the sponge iron before.

Jiang Xuan said with satisfaction: "Not bad, continue processing!"

He took the rough dagger to the riverside and sharpened it with a rough stone. Soon the edge of the blade revealed a snow-white metallic luster.

After grinding the blade thin, he chose a finer stone and further ground the rough blade flat and smooth.

This is a job that requires a lot of patience and endurance, and an impatient person simply cannot do it.

Since there were five rough iron knives, in addition to Jiang Xuan, Jing Jie, Shi Qiu and others also went to the river to help. They followed Jiang Xuan's example and each of them sharpened an iron knife, and their speed was not slow.

When the sun was about to set, Jiang Xuan finally finished sharpening the dagger, and the snow-white blade looked very sharp.

Then he used thin bark rope to wrap around the handle layer by layer until it felt comfortable to hold.

At this point, the first real iron knife of the Teng tribe was finally born! With a nervous and excited mood, Jiang Xuan held the iron knife and chopped at the branches of a shrub by the river.

“Crack…”

The branch broke with a sound, and the break was very smooth.

After Jiang Xuan finished chopping, he immediately picked up the iron knife and looked at the blade.

Seeing only a shallow mark on the blade of the iron knife, and no cracks or curling, he was immediately delighted: "The forged iron knife is indeed better than the bronze knife!"

Although bronze knives can be sharpened to be very sharp, they are very easy to break when cutting things, and can generally only be used to cut softer things, such as peeling animal skins, cutting meat, peeling wild fruits, etc.

But iron knives are different. After thousands of times of forging, they become very tough. As long as the thickness is right, it can be used for cutting things or chopping trees. It is much more useful than a bronze knife.

When it was getting dark, the iron knives of Jingjie, Shiqiu and others were also sharpened. After simply wrapping the handles with ropes, everyone couldn't wait to use branches and weeds to test out these new materials and tools.

Soon, cheers of surprise rang out from the riverside. Like Jiang Xuan, they were very satisfied with the toughness and sharpness of the iron knife, a tool made of new material.

Thanks to the book friend "閒看苑" for the reward of 500 book coins.

Thanks to “Little Prince of Book Circle” for the reward of 500 book coins.