I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 64 The final sprint
While Zhu Shan was worrying about his status as the youngest of brothers, the Jingwang Mansion, thousands of miles away, was also not peaceful.

When Shi Lu walked into the Chief Secretary's Office, the officials there all avoided him as if he were the god of plague.

This kind of life has been going on for a month, and Shi Lu is no longer surprised and has even adapted to it.

He knew that there was an invisible big hand controlling everything in the palace.

Everyone in the palace ignored him, and he walked around the palace every day like a transparent person.

He was not a fool. He quickly figured out what was going on. It was Zhu Houxun who was instructing everyone to suppress and isolate him.

Such days were hard to bear, so after enduring this kind of life for half a month, he couldn't help but find Zhu Houxuan and have a big fight with him.

Although he knew that this would mean cutting himself off from the palace.

But after the quarrel, he suddenly realized that this was a good way to solve the current dilemma.

Wasn't he afraid that Zhu Houxun's reputation as the "Blacksmith Prince" would affect his official reputation and thus affect his future career?

Then make a cut with the entire Jingwang Mansion!
So he went around spreading his reputation for being upright and daring to speak out, and on many occasions in Qizhou City he criticized Zhu Houxun for not listening to his advice and going on to forge iron.

As long as he had a reputation for being upright and daring to speak out, he could offset the impact of Zhu Houxun's reputation as the "Blacksmith Prince."

Although doing so would mean cutting himself off from the Prince of Jing's Mansion, it would not make his current situation much worse, and his backers would be able to pull him out of the Prince of Jing's Mansion soon. As long as he could be transferred to another place to serve as an official, all of this would become a thing of the past, so it would all be worth it.

Thinking of this, a bit of joy appeared on his face, and he said to himself: "Be patient! Be patient! We will leave here soon."

At this moment, someone knocked on his door. It was the servant he brought from home.

The servant respectfully took out a letter and handed it to him.

When Shi Lu saw the familiar handwriting on the letter, his breathing quickened a little - the letter came at this time, could it be that the old man has been reinstated?
After sending the servant away, Shi Lu quickly opened the letter.

This is a letter from his master, Lord Wang, who is also his greatest supporter.

He opened the envelope with great joy, but the letter said that Lord Wang had failed in his restoration.
Shi Lu looked at the letter in disbelief, thinking that his eyes were blurry. He read it over and over again, but the result was still the same.
Shi Lu's psychological defenses collapsed at once. In order to move out, he had already cut himself off from the Jingwang Mansion. He had thought that Lord Wang would be able to pull him out after he was reinstated, but this hope was shattered at once.

His heart suddenly sank. After finding out that there was no hope of moving out, he suddenly felt that moving out was not so attractive. Although the position of Chief Clerk of the Prince of Jing's Palace did not have much power, it was actually quite good.
He suddenly felt very regretful that he had done such a drastic thing. He should have bowed his head, admitted his mistake and shown weakness, but now he had turned it into this.

There is no way Zhu Houxuan would forgive him now!
But now there is no going back. There are only two options before him: one is to resign and go home, the other is to stay in the Prince of Jing's Mansion with a thick face.

The first one is impossible. It would be better to kill him than to have him lose his position.

The second option was also not feasible because Lord Wang had previously asked him for a large sum of money, saying that he wanted to go to the capital to make some moves.

In order to collect the money that Lord Wang wanted, he not only took out all the rewards from the Jing Palace in the past two years, but also accepted a large sum of money from two merchants and promised to help them marry the princesses of the Jing clan (low-status merchants had the need to marry princesses of the clan to improve their social status).

If the relationship with the palace was not so strained, he could have secretly done things within his authority, but now he simply couldn't do it.

The job couldn't be done, the money collected had already been used, and it was impossible to return the money.

If those two merchants stir up trouble and expose this matter, then his position as the chief official will be over. It would be more painful than killing him to be without an official position!
Shi Lu was in a desperate situation all of a sudden.
Zhu Houxuan knew nothing about Shi Lu's situation because he was making the final sprint for the preparation.

Stacking and fusing the required Damascus steel blocks does not mean success.

There is also a hurdle to overcome, and that is quenching!

Quenching is a heat treatment process.

The quenching of steel is to heat the steel to a temperature above the critical temperature, keep it warm for a period of time to make it fully or partially austenitized, and then quickly cool it at a cooling rate greater than the critical cooling rate. During this process, austenite will be transformed into martensite, thereby obtaining an unbalanced structure dominated by martensite.

Compared with other structures in steel, martensite has the highest hardness and is an important factor in determining the hardness of weapons, so quenching is a necessary step.

In simple terms, it means burning the sword until it is red, and then putting it directly into water or oil to cool it down. This process will greatly increase the hardness of the sword.

This process sounds simple, but it is actually very complicated.

Because the rapid cooling during quenching will cause internal stress inside the workpiece, when it reaches a certain level, the workpiece will twist, deform, or even crack.

If it were ordinary steel, the stress during quenching would not be that much. However, the feather-patterned Damascus sword that Zhu Houxuan wanted to make was made of two types of steel stacked and fused together in hundreds of layers, so the stress inside was very complicated.

The first sword that Zhu Houxuan made from a block of Damascus steel broke into pieces when he gently picked it up with his hand after quenching.

This made Zhu Houxuan dare not continue, and he decided to study the knowledge related to quenching first.

And use discarded Damascus steel blocks to make weapons for quenching exercises.

Half a month had passed since this practice, and Zhu Houxun was preparing to quench the second feather-patterned Damascus sword he had made.

At this time, Yu Chunlai came to Gongzheng Institute.

"Eunuch Yu, you are a rare guest. How come you have time to come here today?" Zhu Houxuan teased.

"The Concubine Dowager asked me to ask about the preparations for the Longevity Festival. We have to set off quickly in the next few days, otherwise we will miss the festival." Yu Chunlai said respectfully.

"Success or not depends on the last two swords!" Zhu Houxun pointed at the two sword blanks on the table.

"Then I will watch you forge the sword. I will go back and report back once the result is known."

"Okay, Eunuch Yu, just find a place to sit."

"As ordered!"

Zhu Houxuan picked up a sword and put it into the box-type calcining furnace to start calcining. Before putting it in, he carefully sprinkled a few grains of coarse salt on it.

This is a little trick I learned from the "Sword Forging Competition". The best quenching temperature for steel is over 800 degrees, and the melting point of salt is 801 degrees. When you observe that the salt begins to melt, it means that the forge has heated the steel to 800 degrees.

It still takes a lot of time to calcine to 800 degrees. Zhu Houxuan plans to sit for a while and then observe whether the salt grains begin to melt.

As a result, he was unstable and tried to grab the corner of the table to steady himself, but he grabbed a sharp object. He felt his palms get hot and blood flowed out of them.
(End of this chapter)