The coal ore was found by Mr. Yu and his team on a collapsed rubble beach.
Although the quantity is small, it indicates that the ore is shallow and easy to mine.
Song Liyun quickly noted down the location. This kind of resource was so hard to find and had so many uses that she was happier than if she had received ten thousand taels of silver.
Old Yu had a very fruitful trip. What he was most satisfied with was not the flint, but the iron ore.
No one from the Wu Dynasty had yet searched for mineral veins on the Dilu grasslands.
Based on the information provided by Song Liyun, there was iron sand along the Kara River where the Wuda tribe was located, and there must be iron ore in the mountains upstream. Sure enough, a vein of ore was found in the Kara Mountains.
The Wu Dynasty's iron ore mining technology was still very primitive; it could not be used if the ore was too deep. Finding a natural vein was a truly unexpected surprise.
Once Yu Lao obtained the ore, he immediately went to Mida City to discuss the mining with Zhao Tingduo.
The coal mine and iron mine are both major issues, and we must immediately report to the garrison headquarters to arrange manpower.
As soon as they finished speaking, the three of them immediately went about their business. Old Yu sent someone to deliver a message back to the city, while Zhao Tingduo went to the military camp to arrange for people to collect ore at the coal mountain.
Song Liyun returned to the backyard and searched everywhere for Wan Youyou.
She has something to trouble this research fanatic again.
Upon entering the side courtyard, one could see Wudan sitting in the flower hall under the eaves, gesturing animatedly as he spoke.
In front of him, besides a group of children including Yiming, Erfan, Sanhe, Siyuan, Wuhong, Liuming, and Qibao, there was also Wan Youyou, who was listening with great interest, and Abu, who was as tall as an iron tower.
He spoke earnestly, and listened even more attentively, so Song Liyun stopped in her tracks.
"...That area was completely white, not a single blade of grass grew there, as if it were covered with a layer of snow."
Old Yu said this is salt.
Ugh! It looks like salt, but I can't seem to save it.
I've also tried it; 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 it this way. If you're going to try it, you have to use animals, meaning you need to have experimental data first!"
Wu Dan scratched the back of his head and said in a simple-minded way, "That place is a dead land. There's no grass, no water, not even rabbits. There's no way to find any animals there!"
Hearing this, Song Liyun finally couldn't help but speak up: "Wudan, you can also get refined salt from there!"
Her words made everyone present, young and old, widen their eyes.
Wudan just said that the dead salt flats are bigger than Mida City. If it's salt, how much salt would there be?
Wan Youyou didn't doubt Song Liyun's words at all, but asked, "Young Madam, why don't we extract the salt from the deadly place, but instead buy it from the Wu Dynasty?"
Abu also expressed his doubts: "Young mistress, there is no salt on the grassland. If there were, the old man would have told us."
This is the question everyone wants to ask. For thousands of years, the salt consumed by the Dilu grasslands has been purchased from the Wu Dynasty at great expense. If the salt from the dead salt lands is also edible, why bother to buy it from thousands of miles away?
Song Liyun was full of confidence in her claim of extracting salt from saline-alkali land.
Salt is everywhere in the Earth's soil, only differing in concentration.
Before the apocalypse, humans mostly consumed sea salt. Thanks to mining technology, convenient transportation, and government control, salt prices were not high.
However, after the chaos of the post-apocalyptic society, the seawater was contaminated by nuclear radiation, and the only source of salt was the limited amount of well salt on the mainland.
Salt prices skyrocketed immediately, manipulated by oligarchs, making it difficult for ordinary people to buy.
Some people extract salt from soil that has turned into saline-alkali land. The method is simple, but it requires a large amount of clean, pure water.
However, clean water is also a precious commodity in a nuclear-contaminated apocalypse.
But on the Dilu grassland, water is no longer a rarity. All you need to do is put the saline soil into a large basin, add water to dilute and stir, let it settle, take the clean water from the top, put it in a pot and boil it until the water evaporates to obtain salt.
Thinking of those coal ore, Song Liyun finally understood what it meant to have good luck coming one after another.
She laughed at the bewildered faces and said, "Abu, find a few people to take Wudan and go to the Dead Salt Land to fetch a few hundred catties of soil. Watch me fetch salt for you!"
The next day, Mida City sent out several teams.
Abu Wudan, carrying a sack, led his men straight into the depths of the grassland. They were responsible for collecting soil, while the other two groups went to collect coal ore.
In the city, Old Yu was pestering Song Liyun.
In his hand was a simple design drawing, depicting a tall brick tower.
When asked about the process of smelting iron ore in the Qing Dynasty, it was found that iron ore was piled up in an open space and then surrounded with flint and burned for a long time.
The stone was kept until it cracked and became a block containing iron slag, and then it was sent to the blacksmith's shop to be repeatedly hammered into the finished product.
The most difficult step is turning the stone into a discus.
Now Song Liyun comes up with a method for blast furnace iron smelting.
It can continuously produce molten iron, directly solving the most difficult first step, and can even obtain pig iron with only a small amount of impurities.
Old Master Yu was so excited that his voice trembled slightly: "Young Madam, what should we do with these firebricks?"
Because steelmaking involves high temperatures and long processes, ordinary clay bricks and stones cannot be used to build blast furnaces; special refractory bricks must be used instead.
"Refractory bricks are made from clay, quartz, and limestone, and their shapes are..." Song Liyun told Old Yu about the knowledge she had learned from books.
Fearing he wouldn't remember, Mr. Yu quickly took out his pen and ink to write it down.
Wan Youyou, who had been silently standing by, had already transcribed the conversation: "Mr. Yu, I have transcribed what the young mistress said. Please check if there is anything I have missed."
Looking at Wan Youyou's neat meeting minutes, Old Master Yu sighed, "In the future, I'll have to trouble Miss Wan to write more, to record everything the young mistress says."
Wan Youyou's eyes gleamed, but she lowered her gaze and said, "Don't worry, Elder Yu, Youyou will take notes!"
Song Liyun's face darkened. When she was talking about blast furnace ironmaking, she also mentioned that the slag extracted from the furnace was the best choice for road construction, as it was not only as hard as iron but also permeable to water and air.
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