Chapter 142 Blast Furnace

The soap in the den had just been made and it had some effect, but it was very average.

The reason for the slow progress, apart from Rand's unclear memory, is that the focus of the hideout has shifted entirely to iron smelting.

The efficiency of traditional iron smelting was very low, and the quality of the iron smelted was also poor. The iron smelted in this way was passable for making farm tools, but it was very difficult to use for making weapons and armor, especially armor.

Rand has received many reports of damage to earthen armor in the past few days.

The construction of a blast furnace is imperative.

Ah Rand was quite clear about the manufacturing of blast furnaces. At least the prototype appeared in high school textbooks. It was a vertical cylindrical furnace body, which was divided into the throat, furnace body, furnace waist, furnace belly and furnace hearth from top to bottom, as well as the tuyere, iron mouth and slag mouth.

I don't remember exactly where Rand is, and it's still being studied.

1200 degrees is iron, 1600 degrees is steel.

But it is estimated that current technology cannot reach this furnace temperature. At that time, we can only use wrought iron and charcoal to draw cards to see if steel can be produced. If not, we can use ordinary iron, which is better than the traditional iron smelting method.

Even if a small furnace is built, it will have to be five or six meters high and need a high-temperature resistant structure.

What exactly is high temperature resistant?

It seems to be another long-term project. There are already many long-term projects in the den, such as breeding high-yield wheat that is resistant to lodging and pests, breeding cattle and horses, and now there is an additional project of iron smelting.

However, many projects can already benefit in the short term, such as distilled beer. The distilled beer in the den sells very well, even without ice cubes.

In comparison, the quality of mixed juice is slightly worse, but the sales are also good, and Rand himself also likes the taste of mixed juice.

But in this era, it seems that alcohol is more attractive.

Then comes the military supplies, which in short are clean and disinfected gauze, as well as high-energy and easy-to-store military rations.

There is no actual effect to be seen now, but when a long-term war breaks out, the effects of these details will become apparent.

Back in the lord's hall, Rand asked about the impeachment of Earl Feihu as usual.

Rand had sent letters to many nobles before, mentioning Earl Flying Fox's behavior, but many nobles were still afraid of Earl Flying Fox's power.

After all, although Earl Feihu was defeated in the civil war and lost a large amount of territory, his military strength will not be reduced too much in a short period of time. He will just gradually demobilize his troops in the future because he can no longer afford to support them.

But this will not be a process that changes dramatically in just half a year. For example, those knights loyal to Earl Feihu will not change their allegiance immediately.

As for the top-level adventurers hired, they will not leave immediately as long as Count Feihu maintains his treatment of them for a short period of time.

In addition, the total number of surrenderists is not small. Although the surrenderists are very weak in the overall Frost Moon Kingdom, their overall size is not particularly bad due to the protection of the king.

At least it was easy to crush some small nobles, and Earl Feihu was obviously the core of the surrender faction.

In contrast, although Rand had made a name for himself in the civil war, it had only been half a year, and he was already trying to challenge the dignity of the old nobles? Therefore, Rand's attempt to unite the nobles to put pressure on Earl Feihu instead aroused the rebellious psychology of some nobles.

In the end, only the Marquis of Black and Brown, the Earl of Buck, and the Little Earl of Green Leaf launched impeachment with Rand.

Originally, this impeachment was undoubtedly a failure.

But unfortunately, many noble knight raiding groups were defeated in the southern kingdoms, especially in the Kingdom of Lunsa which was closest to the Frost Moon Kingdom.

In particular, some nobles who went for revenge were defeated a second time.

Although they still made a lot of money overall, according to the original plan, they should have made huge profits, instead of what happened now, where many nobles lost their fortunes.

This alarmed the king.

The new king had just ascended the throne, and everything in the country was in ruins. He was just waiting for these nobles who went to plunder to pay him taxes after their spoils.

But now something went wrong.

At least the nobles in the country will not admit that their military strength is weaker than that of the nobles of the southern kingdom, whose energy is largely tied up in the northern coalition forces.

They will not admit that there is something wrong with their strategy or that they have not made adequate preparations.

At this time, a scapegoat is needed.

In fact, there are three scapegoats to choose from, one is Rand, another is Earl of the Stag, and the third is Earl of the Flying Fox.

Fortunately, Rand was not qualified to be the scapegoat.

So many great nobles, earls, marquis, together with their vassals, organized their knights into a raiding group, and then they failed, and blamed it on a newly promoted viscount.

Moreover, the Crescent Territory only borders the Snow Fox Territory of the Kingdom of Lunsa. In comparison, there are many similar noble territories that border the Southern Kingdom.

Excluding Rand, only Earl of the Stag and Earl of the Flying Fox are left.

Secretly destroying the defense line and passing the message to the Snow Fox Countess is just a small matter in terms of the overall strategy of the Frost Moon Kingdom's looting of the Kingdom of Lensa and other southern kingdoms.

However, this knight of Count Stag, who was bribed by Count Flying Fox, was caught and had not yet been successfully silenced, so he suddenly became an outlet for venting.

The new king, who had just ascended the throne less than half a year ago, also began to pay attention to this matter.

"Let's get ready. We probably have to go to the capital." Rand made the judgment after listening to Olenna's narration.

It is estimated that soon, Count Stag and Count Flying Fox will go to the capital for a confrontation, and Rand will definitely be present at that time.

After all, the only living evidence is with Taner. Rand plans to go to the Crescent Territory's defense line to take over the knight and then escort him to the royal capital.

It's really quite troublesome.

But this rare thing that can personally disgust and cause losses to Count Flying Fox, Rand plans to take action personally. Moreover, Rand has formed an alliance with Count Stag and Marquis Black and Brown. If Count Stag takes the blame, it will have a great impact on him.

"How many of us are going?" Olenna asked.

"Ellie, you," Rand said, "Let Lysa and Elsa stay in the territory. It won't take long to go to the king. It's estimated that the round trip will only take two months."

Olenna nodded.

Then he called Ellie over and asked her to hand over the things she was doing, and finally called Elsa and Lisa over.

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"Elsa, during this period, the teaching of the small classroom at the foot of the mountain will be handed over to you." Rand arranged, "Lysa, the overall administrative control of the hideout will be handed over to you. You can decide everything on your own. If you really need to ask me, just wait."

Everyone approved of this arrangement. The secret that Lisa was a pervert was known to all the high-ranking officials present.

But Lisa's abilities in all aspects and her reliability are also well known and recognized by everyone.

In fact, Rand sometimes even felt that if Lysa were to be the lord of the den, the den would also develop very well. Lysa had a kind of leadership temperament that might be natural.

Of course, the prerequisite is that Ryza is in a reliable form.

After everything is arranged.

Rand said, "Let's go."

The means of transportation to the Crescent Territory was the Centaur carriage, but since Rand had to bring his personal guards with him, he only temporarily occupied the road and did not take this carriage unique to the hideout.

The Guards are completely different now.

At least everyone was equipped with a horse, but unfortunately, except for the team of the White King's personal guards, the other members of the guards could only say that they had learned how to ride a horse without falling off, but they could not move as swiftly as real cavalrymen.

It is probably not realistic to train them into cavalry in the short term.

However, even the current form of mounted infantry possesses mobility that regular infantry does not have.

Rand currently trains them in two tactics.

One is to charge at weak troops casually and use them as cavalry barely.

The other method is to arrive at the battlefield on horseback and then dismount and fight on foot when facing a strong enemy.

As for the White King's personal guards who support him, they are all elite soldiers who are experienced in battle. They have been training together with the Rand Guards for some time and the coordination is going well.

Including the White King's personal guards, Rand's personal guards, with a total number of less than 100 people, have reached a terrifying level of combat effectiveness.

Under the escort of the guards, Rand arrived at the defense line of the Crescent Territory, which he had arranged for people to build a long time ago.

Very long trenches were dug, chevaux de frise were set up, and brick and stone bunkers were built at regular intervals.

Crescent Territory is a mountainous terrain, and only this place is relatively flat. If the defense line is set up for this distance, if the enemy wants to bypass the defense line, they will have to climb the steep mountain road to take a detour.

In fact, Rand had also sent people to keep an eye on the relatively easy-to-travel mountain roads nearby. At least a large-scale march would definitely be discovered.

Rand didn't want this line of defense to become like the Maginot Line, which could be bypassed.

When we arrived, Taner was already waiting outside.

I haven't seen Taner for a while. He is still wearing the same exquisite black armor, but Rand secretly gave him a magic steel armor vest to add an extra layer of protection.

Wearing full armor in the summer would be extremely hot, but Taner seemed to be adapting well to it, and there didn't seem to be much sweat on his face.

After Taner gave Rand a standard knight's salute, he took Rand into a main structure of the defense line, where the key prisoners were held.

Inside and outside the buildings within the defense line, many knights and magicians tried to stick their heads out to see what Rand, the legendary Viscount and Lord of Tanr, looked like.

Rand was already accustomed to being the center of attention, and followed Taner to the storage room that was temporarily vacated as a prison.

The prisoner had iron chains around his ankles. It was obvious that he was once a very strong man, but now he looked very weak.

(End of this chapter)