Chapter 270 The Emperor's Wrath (Please vote and subscribe)
The invention of the windmill has revolutionary significance for the Han tribe. It has many uses, not just for grinding flour. In fact, it is just a way to provide power. What it is used for depends on the specific situation, such as ironmaking.
Ironmaking is a very tiring job. You have to keep hitting with a big hammer and a small hammer. Once you start, it will never end. It is very physically demanding, but it would be much better to have an automatic forging hammer. For example, the hydraulic forging hammer was invented in the Western Han Dynasty. Now Luo Chong just wants to replace the hydraulic power with wind power.
However, this is not a device that can be built in a day or two. At present, if you want to forge iron, you can only use a hammer. Moreover, there is no blacksmith in the Han tribe now, so Luo Chong can only teach the first batch of people himself. Luo
Chong doesn't have to worry about carpenters. The Han tribe already has many carpenters. New members of the tribe must start as apprentices and are only responsible for sawing wood.
The blacksmithing project was launched, and the blacksmith shop was soon built next to the blast furnace. It was a temporary shed made of bricks and logs, and it would be moved after the wind-powered forging hammer was built.
However, although it was small, it had everything it needed. It had a brick stove, a wooden bellows, an anvil made of logs, on which was placed an ox-horn anvil weighing hundreds of pounds, two hammers, a quenching sink, and a few copper tongs. That was basically it. The
blacksmith apprentices were also in place. They were several wild men who had joined the Han tribe before. Among them was a guy named Yi, whose arm was straightened by Luo Chong. Later, this guy followed Da Zui to learn copper smelting, and now he started to learn blacksmithing from Luo Chong.
Since he already had wrought iron and steel, Luo Chong was ready to forge his own weapon, a long sword.
Swords have existed since ancient times. The most prosperous era was the Han Dynasty, which was the most glorious era of swords, but also the era of their decline. This does not mean that the performance of swords is not good, but because the cost is too high and it is not suitable for large-scale equipment, so it was quickly replaced by knives. After all, for the same straight bar, single-sided blades are much more time-saving and labor-saving than double-sided blades.
The sword that Luo Chong wants to make is the most typical eight-sided Han sword in the Han Dynasty. The name is taken from the cross-section of the sword, which is a flat octagon, that is, the sword body has a total of eight sides. The biggest feature of this sword is that it is relatively thick and upright. It can be used for stabbing and slashing. At the same time, it is very tough and not easy to break. This is also the characteristic of the Han sword.
However, these characteristics must be determined according to the material. If you want the sword body to be tough, you have to use wrought iron to make the sword tire, and finally use steel to wrap the blade, so that the long sword can be sharp and unyielding.
Luo Chong personally selected a piece of wrought iron and heated it in the furnace. The apprentice next to him immediately pulled the bellows to soften the iron ingot.
After burning for a while, he clamped the iron ingot with pliers and put it on the anvil to beat it. Luo Chong held the hammer, and Yi followed with a sledgehammer. Each hammer followed Luo Chong's landing point. Luo Chong hit a hammer, and he followed a hammer. Slowly stretch the iron ingot, and then fold it and forge it.
In order to maintain the toughness of the sword, it does not need to be folded too many times. It only needs to be repeated three times, and it can be used. Once it becomes two layers, twice four layers, and three times eight layers. This number of folded layers is very suitable for wrought iron. Too many layers will easily break.
The sword tire that was finally hammered out is one foot long and very thick. This is not the final form, but just a prototype. After the sword tire is made, it is necessary to wrap the steel on the edge of the blade. Because the sword is a double-edged blade, one piece must be wrapped on each side.
When a piece of steel ingot is red hot, it is smashed into a long and thin strip, and then placed on the edge of the anvil and smashed into two sections, and then folded and forged separately, and finally made into two angle steels, and then placed in the furnace to heat with the sword tire.
When wrapping the steel, first sprinkle some borax on the bonding position to eliminate oxides and impurities on the metal surface, so that the metal can be better connected together, and then wrap the two angle steels on both sides of the sword base to form an "I" shape.
After repeated hammering and stretching, the sword body is finally smashed into a long strip with a blade length of 108 cm. The thickness of the sword spine is about one centimeter, and the width is about 3.5 cm. It is narrow in front and wide in the back. The sword head is about 3 cm wide. The hilt is a slender flat iron with three round holes on it, and finally fixed with copper rivets.
The guard of the sword is also called the sword pavilion, which is the boundary between the blade and the hilt. The guard of the knife is called the knife tan. The names are different, but the functions are the same.
The sword pavilion of this long sword is made of copper, iron, and tin alloy, and is cast by the lost wax method. It is engraved with a dragon pattern and can be directly put on the hilt. It needs to be installed during the final assembly.
After the long sword is formed, it is not quenched immediately. It is necessary to grind the sword body while it is not particularly hard. Grind the sword body to the desired shape, and then quench it after finalization to increase its hardness, and then fine grinding, which is the final blade sharpening.
This is not something that can be done in a day or two. After the sword body was formed, Luo Chong spent five or six days grinding it at home. For this purpose, he also cast a vernier caliper with bronze to measure the data of each part, and finally ground out a long sword that is symmetrical up and down and left and right.
After the initial grinding of the sword body is completed, it is quenched. However, it should be noted that the quenching here does not require the covering and burning blade technology. The purpose of covering and burning the blade is to achieve different hardness of the blade and the sword body through different cooling times.
However, this is a long sword made by steel-clad technology, which has achieved this goal, so it is no problem to quench the whole sword directly.
After quenching, it is finely ground to grind out the sword edge, and finally assembled. The sword pavilion is put on the hilt, and then the hilt is put on.
The material of the hilt is extremely luxurious. It uses the only ivory currently in the Han tribe, which was broken off from the mouth of the cannibal ape from the gray mountain. Later, it was picked up by Luo Chong and kept until now, just to make the hilt of the weapon.
The shape of the hilt is an oval cylinder, hollow inside, with patterns carved on the outside. Three holes are drilled in the corresponding parts, glued together, and then the three holes are riveted together with copper rivets, and the sword is complete.
This sword is very long, and the hilt is also relatively long, suitable for two-handed grasping, convenient for swinging and slashing, and the center is a palm width in front of the sword pavilion, so it is also flexible to use one hand, and it is very easy to hold.
As a sword symbolizing the status of a leader, this sword also has a resounding name, - The Wrath of the Emperor. When
the emperor is angry, millions of corpses are buried and blood flows for thousands of miles, symbolizing absolute royal power and dominating the life and death of the world.
The name of the sword is engraved in official script on the sword body in front of the sword pavilion, and it is embellished with copper liquid to make three golden characters. Although it is troublesome and extravagant, because it is Luo Chong's sword, no matter how luxurious it is, it is not excessive. After all, it is a symbol of status, and it certainly cannot be the same as ordinary goods.
(End of this chapter)
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