Chapter 491 Blast Furnace Ironmaking
The coal ore was found by Yu Lao and his team on a collapsed gravel beach.
Although the quantity is small, it shows that the ore is shallow and it is easy to mine.
Song Liyun quickly noted the location. This kind of resource was so hard to find and had so many uses that she was even happier than receiving ten thousand taels of silver.
Mr. Yu had a fruitful trip, but what satisfied him most was not the flints, but the iron ore.
No one in the Wu Dynasty had ever searched for mineral veins in the Dilu grassland.
According to the information provided by Song Liyun, there is iron sand on the banks of the Kala River where the Wuda tribe is located, and there must be iron mines in the mountainous area upstream. Sure enough, a vein was found in the Kala Mountains.
The Wu Dynasty's iron ore mining technology was still very primitive, and it could not be used if it was too deep. It was really an unexpected surprise to be able to obtain a natural ore vein.
After getting the mineral source, Mr. Yu immediately went to Mida City to discuss the mining with Zhao Tingduo.
Coal mines and iron mines are both major matters and must be reported to the garrison immediately to deploy personnel.
As soon as they finished speaking, the three of them immediately went about their business. Yu Lao sent people to deliver the letter back to the city, and Zhao Tingduo also went to the military camp to arrange for people to go to the coal mountain to pick up ore.
Song Liyun returned to the backyard and looked for Wan Youyou everywhere.
She had something to trouble this research geek again.
As soon as I entered the side yard, I saw Wu Dan sitting in the flower hall under the corridor, talking and dancing.
In front of him, in addition to a group of children including Yiming Erfan Sanhe, Siyuan, Wuhong, Liuming, Qibao, etc., there was also Wan Youyou who was also listening with gusto, and Abu who was as strong as an iron tower.
He spoke seriously and listened even more seriously, and Song Liyun couldn't help but stop.
“…The land was white, without a single blade of grass growing, as if it were covered with a blanket of snow.
Mr. Yu said it was salt.
Hey! It looks like salt, but I can't collect it.
I've tasted it before, and it's bitter and astringent, not salty at all..."
Erfan interrupted, "It's bitter and astringent? Could it be poison?"
Wan Youyou said, "You can't do that. Even if you want to try it, you have to use animals. That means you have experimental data first!"
Wu Dan touched the back of his head and said naively, "That place is a dead land. There is no grass, no water, not even rabbits. There is no way to find animals!"
Song Liyun finally couldn't help but say, "Wudan, you can also make refined salt there!"
Her words made everyone present, young and old, open their eyes wide.
Wu Dan just said that the dead salt land is bigger than Mida City. If it is salt, how much would it be?
Wan Youyou didn't doubt Song Liyun's words at all, and just asked: "Young Madam, why don't we get salt from the Dead Land, but buy it from Wu Dynasty?"
Abu also expressed doubt: "Young Madam, there is no salt on the grassland. If there was, the old man would tell us."
This is what everyone wants to ask. The salt that the Dilu people have eaten for thousands of years was all purchased at a high price from the Wu Dynasty. If the salt from the dead salt land could be eaten, why would they have to go thousands of miles to buy it?
Song Liyun is full of confidence in extracting salt from saline-alkali land.
Salt is everywhere in the earth's soil, with only different concentrations.
Before the end of the world, most of what humans ate was sea salt. Thanks to mining technology and convenient transportation, as well as the control of state agencies, the price of salt was not high.
But after the social order was in chaos at the end of the world, the sea water was polluted by nuclear weapons, and the only thing left was the few well salts on the mainland.
Suddenly, the price of salt soared and was manipulated by a few capitalists, making it difficult for ordinary people to buy it.
Some people extract salt from the soil that has become saline-alkali land. The method is simple, but it consumes a large amount of clean, pure water.
However, clean water is also a precious commodity in the end times of nuclear pollution.
But on the Dilu grassland, water is no longer scarce.
You just need to put the saline-alkali soil into a large basin, add water to dilute and stir, let it settle, take some clean water, put it into a pot and boil it, and evaporate the water to get salt.
When Song Liyun thought of those coal mines, she finally felt what it meant to have good luck.
She laughed at the confused faces and said, "Abu, find a few people to take Wudan and go to the dead salt field to get a few hundred kilograms of soil. I will get salt for you!"
The next day, Mida City sent out several teams.
Abu Wudan carried a sack on his back and led his men straight into the depths of the grassland. They were responsible for collecting soil, while the other two groups went to pick up coal ore.
In the city, Old Yu was pestering Song Liyun.
In his hand was a simple blueprint of a tall brick tower.
When asked about the iron ore smelting process in the Qingwu Dynasty, it was found that the iron stones were piled in an open space, and then surrounded with flint and burned for a long time.
Until the stone breaks down and becomes a block containing iron slag, it is then sent to the blacksmith shop and hammered repeatedly to produce the finished product.
From stone to discus, this step is the most difficult.
Now Song Liyun came up with a method of blast furnace ironmaking.
It can continuously produce molten iron, directly solving the most difficult first step, and even produce pig iron with only a small amount of impurities.
Old Yu was so excited that his voice trembled a little: "Young Madam, what should we do with these refractory bricks?"
Because steelmaking requires high temperatures and a long time, ordinary earth bricks and stones cannot be used to build blast furnaces; special refractory bricks must be used.
"Refractory bricks are made from clay, quartz stone, and limestone, and the shape is..." Song Liyun told Mr. Yu what she learned from books.
Mr. Yu was afraid that he would not be able to remember it, so he quickly took out pen and ink to write it down.
Wan Youyou, who had been silent all this time, had already sorted out the content of the conversation: "Old Yu, I have sorted out what the young lady said. Please see if there is anything I missed."
Looking at Wan Youyou's neatly written meeting minutes, Old Yu sighed and said, "I'll have to trouble Miss Wan to write more in the future and write down everything the young lady said."
Wan Youyou's eyes sparkled, but he lowered his brows and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Yu, Youyou will record it!"
Song Liyun's face darkened. She would have to have a recorder by her side in the future.
She just mentioned that when blast furnaces are used to smelt iron, she also mentioned that the slag that is taken out is the best choice for road construction. It is not only as hard as iron, but also permeable to water and air.
Since iron can be smelted, calcining limestone to make cement is just a small matter.
Cement is the first material for construction and is almost a magical substance with many changes.
Listening to these sets of things, Yu Lao and Wan Youyou felt like they were walking in the starry sky, but they also felt that every item was simple and easy.
Even if Mr. Yu wanted to deny it, he couldn't convince himself.
Thinking of the wind wheel he saw in the Wuda tribe, Old Yu felt excited.
If he had not seen with his own eyes the spinning wheels that never stopped spinning, he would not have believed that it was the work of the wind.
That's the unpredictable wind!
Apart from flying kites and winnowing grain, who has ever thought of harnessing the wind?
Only the young lady has the ability to play with the wind so well.
Old Yu thought of the rumors in the tribe again, so he gave Wan Youyou a task to write down every word Song Liyun said.
If you want to smelt iron, you must first make refractory bricks, which you can do at the Wuda tribe.
There are also coal mines.
Originally, Mr. Yu wanted to build the blast furnace in the Wuda tribe, but was rejected by Song Liyun.
Iron smelting, stone crushing and coal washing are all highly polluting, so it is better to choose to work downstream of the river away from the tribe.
Although it is a bit premature to say that protecting the environment is everyone's responsibility, we cannot just ignore everything and sacrifice the environment for the sake of the economy.
Song Liyun didn't want this world to become the polluted and destroyed Earth.
In this way, mining, iron smelting and cement were put on the agenda. Soon, news came from Hecheng. Zhao Tinglei wrote a reply letter personally, naturally praising his younger brother and sister-in-law.
Mining requires a large number of manpower. The garrison will allocate 5,000 people from the Zhenbei Army to change their equipment and enter the Dilu grassland.
This was the second time that five thousand troops were mobilized, following the time when the Marquis of Zhenbei entered the grassland to rescue the Wuda tribe twenty years ago.
The reason why they are not afraid of the Di Lu royal court and can mobilize 5,000 people on a large scale is because the royal court has no time to take care of Mida City.
The throne foreshadowed by the princess' marriage to the Wu Dynasty ended the superficial peace that had lasted for many years among the four tribes. After several unpleasant encounters, the Xuyang Grassland War broke out.
(End of this chapter)
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