My younger brother Zhuge Liang

Chapter 172 Pu Yuan, a young man

Although Zhuge Jin had been here for more than two years, he had never been concerned with the daily military equipment manufacturing affairs of Liu Bei's army. After all, Zhuge Jin had so many things to do and it was impossible for him to take care of everything.

Knowing that Liu Bei's army already had many skilled craftsmen who could be deployed, Zhuge Jin felt more confident and immediately said that he would go back and talk to the craftsmen to come up with a plan.

Feeling relaxed, Zhuge Jin casually picked up a wooden wine cup from the stream and said with emotion:
"If we can learn from famous craftsmen and improve the quality of iron smelting, we may even be able to create brighter ceramics. In the future, we can use porcelain cups instead of wooden cups when we drink wine from a winding stream."

Liu Bei also liked fine clothes and beautiful utensils. When he heard Zhuge Jin mention this, he asked curiously, "Oh? Ziyu has tried it? What color of ceramics can you make? The bright ochre glazes nowadays are really disappointing. Compared with drinking directly from an earthen bowl, it's just a little more shiny. It's better to use a wooden cup."

Although the most common color of wood is yellow, the dignitaries of the Han Dynasty rarely used natural wood color when drinking from wooden vessels.

The inside of the cups and bowls are painted red and the outside is painted black. They are essentially "wooden lacquerware", which is much more beautiful. This kind of red and black wooden painted props often appear in the TV series "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and later viewers should be familiar with them.

In comparison, although the primitive porcelain of the Han Dynasty can barely be considered porcelain, its color is the same as the shiny yellowish-brown glaze on the surface of rural earthen water jars in the 20th century, which is really ugly.

Moreover, the Han Dynasty's technology for coloring and painting ceramics was very primitive. Unlike the "Tang Sancai" technology of the Sui and Tang dynasties, there were not many rich people who used it for drinking and eating.

Facing Liu Bei's casual question, Zhuge Jin did not hold back and said proudly: "When I was in Poyang County, Yuzhang, I did have people try it repeatedly. If the kiln temperature of firing ceramics is raised a little, it can produce blue-gray porcelain. However, the experimental kiln is very unstable and expensive.

If we can learn from the skilled blacksmiths and build a kiln with a higher temperature, it will benefit both iron smelting and porcelain firing. However, these small things are just luxury toys, which can only be exchanged for some money, but they are of no great use. "

Liu Bei's army is not short of money now. Zhuge Jin started to open copper mines in Poyang County of Yuzhang and Chungu County of Danyang last summer. With his knowledge of chemistry, his efficiency in mining and smelting copper is of course far superior to that of the ancients.

Therefore, after a year and a half, the Tongling Copper Mine in Chungu had easily reached an annual output of more than 200 tons of copper. The Dexing Copper Mine in Poyang, which was later known as the Dexing Copper Mine, had an annual output of more than 300 tons.

According to historical records, Tongling will reach its limit after growing to an annual output of 60 to 300 tons of refined copper (in history, Tongling produced more than tons of copper in the -year imperial era, an average of tons per year, and had a stable output from the Qin Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty).
The potential of Dexing Copper Mine is even greater, and its limit has not yet been reached.

According to the current estimate of more than 500 tons of copper per year, about 300 coins are minted per kilogram, 300,000 coins are minted per ton, and the total is 150 million coins per year.

Of course, not all of this money has to be turned over. First of all, mining requires a large amount of investment. A lot of money was spent on road construction and dredging of shipping shoals in the past two years, and coin minting also has costs.

Moreover, the Dexing Copper Mine was directly under the jurisdiction of Zhuge Xuan, the governor of Yuzhang, and the Tongling Copper Mine was directly under the jurisdiction of Zhuge Jin, the governor of Danyang. In a comprehensive calculation, Liu Bei was to hand over 30% of the minted copper coins, and the remaining 70% was used as mining costs and infrastructure investment, as well as Zhuge's commission. This was a customary agreement between the two parties.

After the infrastructure investment has paid off and there is no need to invest in expanding reproduction, the profit sharing ratio can be adjusted, for example, 50-50.

In contrast, what Liu Bei lacked now was a way to spend money. His relationship with Sun Ce in the east was tense, and his relationship with Huang Zu in the west was also tense. He could not use money to buy strategic materials from Liu Biao and Liu Zhang, and he had no place to buy military rations.

The money can only be hoarded for now, hoping that next year after Taishi Ci defeats Huang Zu with the army, he will be sent to Donglai to contact Yuan Tan, open up the Liaodong sea trade route, and ask Gongsun Du to buy Liaodong war horses.

At that time, Taishi Ci's trip to Donglai could be combined with Liu Bei's negotiation to persuade Yuan Tan to invade Zang Ba in the south and seize the Langya and Yidong areas. They would complement each other and promote each other's success rate, making Yuan Tan more willing to provide convenience.

Therefore, Liu Bei was not in a hurry to make money from the so-called "celadon". It was just a by-product of the improvement of metallurgical technology and a casual move. Now he had money but not much place to spend it.

Taking advantage of the fun of the wine-cups playing at the winding stream, everyone chatted for a while about iron smelting and porcelain firing. It was getting late, and the gathering was finally coming to an end.

By the end of the time, Zhuge Jin had obtained all the resources he needed and no longer needed to coordinate anything.

However, Zhuge Liang still found the opportunity and put forward a new suggestion on domestic affairs, and asked Liu Bei for his approval.

Zhuge Liang suggested, "My lord, I just had an idea, but I don't know if it's appropriate. I want to ask you to decide. Because our army plans to receive the people of Xuzhou from Pengcheng, Donghai, Langya and other places who fled south after Cao Cao defeated Empress Lü in Guangling next year.

Therefore, during the off-season this winter, Jiang Ji and Hu Zhi in Guangling were actively using work-for-relief to further tidy up the polder fields and control salinization, so that when refugees from northern Xuzhou arrived next year, they could be allocated new fields as soon as possible.

Only the manpower of ordinary people is needed to rectify the polder, and the way to control salinization, according to what my brother had suggested before, seems to be to dig up guano and phosphate stone from the offshore islands as fertilizer, using acid to treat alkali, which is much more effective than natural erosion control and can greatly increase the fertility of the fields.

This method has been implemented to the fullest extent in the East China Sea. The Mi family's ships are now sailing near the coast, bringing back shiploads of guano and phosphate stone. However, there is a shortage of people willing to do the hard work of digging stones on the islands all year round. Even if the service period is doubled compared to ordinary corvée labor, no one is willing to do such a hard job.

Zi Zhong wrote to me asking for a solution, but I was at a loss as to what to do. Finally, I came up with a solution: could you please suspend the death penalty in all counties of Yangzhou and Guangling, and change the sentence of the serious criminals to digging feces on an isolated island for the rest of their lives until they die?

Other punishments such as flogging and caning can also be changed to digging feces and stones on an isolated island for several years. Heavy labor such as exile and ghost firewood can also be adjusted flexibly. As for light punishments such as Sikou and slave concubines, no adjustment will be made. "

The guano phosphate stone mentioned by Zhuge Liang is the natural phosphate mineral fertilizer that is well known in later generations.

Many people in later generations think that the most famous guano stones are those in the South Pacific Islands. For example, Nauru once claimed that the whole country relied on guano stones for survival (but now it has been mined out and has become a poor country again).
But in fact, as long as you know the principle of guano, you will not be surprised why all islands are more or less prone to guano - because seabirds need a habitat, as long as they land on the island, there will of course be guano.

However, due to the extreme environment of Nauru, there is no other place to stay within a radius of thousands of kilometers. Therefore, the guano accumulated by seabirds in millions of square kilometers of sea area over tens of millions of square kilometers over tens of millions of years is tens of meters thick. It took 30 years for phosphate fertilizer factories around the world to dig it out.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, even the island where Lianyungang is located in later generations still had guano. It was just that because it was too close to the shore, the accumulation was not so much. It is estimated that the average thickness of the entire island was only a few feet. Any layer of soil dug off the ground would be fertilizer.

(Note: During the Han Dynasty, the area where Lianyungang is located today was still an island. Later, during the Song and Ming Dynasties, the coastline of northern Jiangsu expanded outward, and the silt accumulation in the Yellow River and Huai River connected it to the land. Therefore, people at that time wrote novels that "Huaguo Mountain" was an overseas island. There were several small islands near the Yellow Sea in the same situation as Lianyungang at the end of the Han Dynasty, and later they all became part of the land of northern Jiangsu. According to geological surveys, these places had guano that had accumulated for tens of millions of years and could be mined, but the amount was very small.)
However, with the low efficiency of manual digging with shovels in the late Han Dynasty, and no excavators available, it was still possible to dig for decades, as these were gifts and accumulations from nature over tens of millions of years. Decades later, the country had long been unified, and it didn't matter if it was dug up, and there was no need for these resources to support the country's strength. It was originally used to save the country in special times.

Liu Bei had no idea how miserable it was to be imprisoned on an uninhabited island and dig feces day and night, so he did not take it seriously at first.

After listening to Zhuge Liang's retelling and reading Mi Zhu's letter of complaint to Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei realized that the degree of hard labor was far beyond his imagination. So he only hesitated for a moment before agreeing to the request: "Since this is the case, from now on, the labor service of ordinary innocent people digging feces and stones on the East China Sea islands will be gradually reduced, and serious criminals will be used instead.

We can also pick out the stubborn and unyielding soldiers from Yuan Shu’s army that were captured a few months ago and send them to the islands for reform.”

Zhuge Liang took note of the order and arranged for the Household Department and the Criminal Department to carry it out after returning.

Everyone chatted for a while, and as the sky got dark, the gathering finally ended. Everyone stayed at Meizhuang and returned to Wuhu the next day.

Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Gan Ning and others went to sleep on their own and drank until dawn and night.

Elegant people like Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Liang and Lu Su would certainly not participate in such activities. They could not drink much, so each of them had a separate guest room and their own maids to take care of their daily life.

……

A few days later, the decree that Zhuge Liang requested was issued.

Not long after Zhuge Jin returned to Wuhu City, Liu Bei also found the famous iron smelting and forging craftsman he needed - to be precise, Liu Bei gave Zhuge Jin an address, which was a large iron shop workshop in Wuhu City that had been newly renovated. The craftsmen Zhuge Jin wanted to meet and the production equipment he needed should all be available there.

Zhuge Jin took his guards and rode his horse to the address himself. He revealed his identity and then saw a young craftsman coming out to greet him.

Seeing that the other person was so young, probably about the same age as Zhuge Liang, and younger than himself, Zhuge Jin couldn't help but be surprised: "My lord, are you talking about you? What's your name?"

The young craftsman bowed to Zhuge Jin and said:
"My name is Pu Yuan, and I am here to meet you, General. My uncle is the master craftsman here, and I am just his assistant. Although I am young, General, I know a little about blacksmithing. My uncle is old and has poor hearing, so it would be impolite to ask him questions. If you have any questions, you can ask me."

When Zhuge Jin heard that he was Pu Yuan, he felt relieved and no longer worried about his age. Pu Yuan was a master of quenching technology in history. He did a very good job in the final surface hardening treatment of steel weapons, which was pioneering beyond his predecessors.

He was only about twenty years old, so when Guan Yu was forging the Green Dragon Crescent Blade fifteen years ago, he was just a child of five or six years old and could not help at all. It must have been his uncle who did it at that time.

Zhuge Jin nodded slightly and asked Pu Yuan to take him in.

Soon, we arrived at a steaming courtyard. In the open air, we could see furnaces more than ten feet high. There were more than one. A group of strong men, carrying bamboo baskets filled with iron ore and charcoal, poured the raw materials into the furnaces one by one through the opening on the top of the furnaces. The iron ore and charcoal were placed in layers, and the order could not be wrong.

There is a discharge port at the bottom of the furnace with a guide groove on it. The craftsman calculates the progress and opens the discharge port from time to time, using a crucible to catch it, and a small amount of molten pig iron can be seen flowing out.

When the pig iron is about to condense, someone rushes to transport it into the house for processing, or mixes it with the solid wrought iron that has been prepared in advance while it is still hot, and stirs it from time to time. It should be the steelmaking method of frying steel.

The principle of making steel by mixing raw and wrought iron is that the carbon content of wrought iron is lower than that of steel, while the carbon content of pig iron is much higher than that of steel. By trying to make the carbon content of the two become even, with more added and less supplemented, steel can be made.

As for the hundred-fold refining method, the steel-frying method, or the steel-pouring method, the only difference is the form of raw and wrought iron. In the pre-Qin period, raw and wrought iron were all large pieces, which were stacked and forged together. The contact area was small, the reaction speed was slow, and the efficiency was low. Later, one of the reaction materials gradually became small particles, which could be fried, and the reaction speed was faster. Later, one of the raw materials could be directly liquid, and the reaction speed was even faster.

To explain the progress of steelmaking technology from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Tang and Song Dynasties in the most simple and understandable way for ordinary people, it is nothing more than that the reaction speed became faster and the reaction efficiency became higher as time went on.

These strong men work very hard. They work shirtless outdoors in the middle of winter. Sweat continues to pour out of their bodies, and their skin has become bronze.

Zhuge Jin only took a glance and knew that the history books were not deceiving him. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, blast furnaces have been used for iron smelting throughout history. The only difference is that the size, performance, output and quality of molten iron produced by blast furnaces in different eras have been different, and the later the better.

The steelmaking process is almost the same as what is described in history books.

Therefore, there is no need for me to make any drastic changes, and I don’t have the ability to do so.

After all, his knowledge reserve was limited to mathematics, which he had learned after completing his postgraduate studies. The rest of his knowledge of physics and chemistry was only at the level of an undergraduate normal school student, and his knowledge of liberal arts was only at the level of high school teaching and training. He did not understand anything beyond what was in the chemistry textbook.

Zhuge Jin already had an idea of what to do this time. It was nothing more than finding a way to increase the temperature of the iron-smelting furnace a little bit, and then increase the reaction speed of steelmaking by adding carbon to raw and wrought iron.

For other existing production equipment, try not to move it if possible, otherwise it will be too troublesome and difficult to deal with if it breaks down.

While Zhuge Jin was inspecting and watching, Pu Yuan also helped an old man in his forties or fifties over, who should be his uncle.

The old man also bowed to Zhuge Jin and said, "I am Pu Sheng, and I am honored to meet you, General."

Zhuge Jin quickly supported him: "Don't be so polite, old man."

Pu Sheng looks healthy, but his eyes and ears are not very sharp, which should be due to his occupational disease.

Zhuge Jin helped him into the house, and they each found a stool to sit on beside the table. Then he explained his purpose:
"I came here at the request of my lord to find a way to use a higher furnace temperature and a faster carburizing speed for raw and wrought iron to make better steel and improve the quality of our weapons. I have no other intention.

I also know that there is a sequence of learning, and that each profession has its own specialization. I will not mess with things that I do not understand. I will try my best to preserve your existing technology and just make slight improvements. If you have any things that you are not comfortable with, or that you always feel laborious or unpleasant, you can point them out. "

(End of this chapter)