Mount & Blade: Warband in the Sengoku period of Japan

Leaving aside the iron ore issue for the time being, Chen Daoyuan officially entered the rhythm of industrial construction in the days that followed.

The first thing to be completed was a row of waterwheels erected on the Beishangchuan tributary next to the village.

These waterwheels were the power source for this riverside industrial base. Following Chen Daoyuan's rough drawings, the craftsmen used camshafts and cranks to transform the waterwheels into water-powered bellows and water-powered hammers.

Unintentionally, Chen Daoyuan illuminated a previously unseen technology for Japanese industry: the double-action bellows.

After the Song Dynasty, China basically mastered mature blast furnace iron smelting technology and porcelain firing techniques. The most crucial technological breakthrough was this somewhat inconspicuous large wooden box.

In real history, Europe did not develop a bellows with a similar double-acting mechanical structure until the mid-18th century, while Japan did not learn it from abroad until after the Meiji Restoration.

Thanks to the continuous blowing effect of this double-acting bellows, the ancient Chinese raised the temperature of the blast furnace from 1200℃ to 1400℃, melting pig iron into molten iron, which made steelmaking and frying widespread. At the same time, they also raised the temperature in ceramic kilns to over 1300℃, allowing glazes to form beautiful glaze surfaces, and also produced qualified crucibles needed for iron smelting.

Chen Daoyuan's second step involved building several kilns using the existing craftsmen in Gaoshui Temple City.

There's too much stuff that needs to be burned.

The first step is to dry distill wood to make "white charcoal." Giant trees felled from nearby mountains are sealed in a charcoal kiln to isolate them from oxygen and heat them. They are then simmered in the kiln fire day and night until they turn into charcoal with a metallic luster.

Shiba Tsugaku also had some coal mined over, but Chen Daoyuan didn't dare use it. Firstly, the quantity was still too small. Secondly, although Japan had coal, it didn't have high-quality anthracite; it produced bituminous coal and lignite, which were very difficult to coke. The key issue was that Chen Daoyuan couldn't distinguish between bituminous coal and lignite, so it was better to just use high-quality charcoal.

In any case, the world's steelmaking industry basically started with charcoal, and it was more effective than coal. The British cut down all the forests before they started burning coke, while the Swedes relied on the endless forests of Northern Europe to establish their outstanding reputation for steel quality.

Chen Daoyuan did not discard the wood tar and tobacco ash obtained from the dry distillation of charcoal. Instead, he mixed them with carefully selected, washed, and crushed kaolin and quartz sand, and sent them to the next kiln to fire refractory bricks and crucibles.

There's no other way; Japan really lacks everything. It has neither bauxite nor graphite, so this is the only way they can produce refractory materials that are passable.

Finally, after nearly two months and countless manpower and resources, a small blast furnace, more than five meters high, was erected on the riverbank industrial base next to Mikabori Village.

Looking at the blast furnace, which was almost identical to the example line drawing in the book "Technical Data on Small Blast Furnace Ironmaking," Chen Daoyuan finally felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders... half of it, the other half would only be lifted once the actual steelmaking was successful.

As early as after Chen Daoyuan started firing the kiln, several large carts of ore were delivered from Gaoshui Temple City.

Looking at these dark ores, Chen Daoyuan knew that old man Shibo had successfully negotiated with the Asonuma clan, and the ore trade had been successfully concluded. During the two months of blast furnace construction, these ore trucks came and went constantly, providing Chen Daoyuan with enough reserves to start the blast furnace.

The black magnetite was broken into walnut-sized pieces by fire forging and hydraulic hammering. These, along with carefully selected pure limestone and charcoal, were added in batches, layer by layer, into the blast furnace chamber, which had been heated to white-hot by the bottom fire.

Zato Mitsushiro, the most experienced and skilled blacksmith in Takasui-dera Castle, stood mesmerized at the blast furnace vent for three hours straight, witnessing the ore in the furnace transform into a pool of molten iron covered by slag.

"Open the furnace! Open the furnace!" As white sparks shot out from the vent, Kojiro jumped up excitedly, then rushed over with an iron bar in hand and personally pried open the outlet at the bottom of the furnace.

The slag was skimmed off by the baffle, and the molten iron flowed smoothly into the already prepared smelting pool through the sand channel. The water-powered agitator inserted three iron rods into the molten iron and began to stir it wildly, while the bellows on the side also blew air into the pool of molten iron at full speed.

As soon as Koshiro closed the furnace, he turned around and stood by the smelting pool with a silly grin on his face. While watching the molten iron bubble with blue flames as it was stirred, he grabbed a bamboo basket and began to sprinkle in finely ground iron ore powder.

Chen Daoyuan wasn't as enthusiastic as Mitsushiro. He stood aside and watched Mitsushiro finish spreading a basket of ore powder before asking, "How is it, Mitsushiro? How's the blast furnace performing?"

Kojiro exclaimed with satisfaction, "Fantastic! Fantastic! This one batch of iron alone is enough to keep us busy for a month!"

Chen Daoyuan nodded in satisfaction. He remained calm about the outcome. As Americans often say, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and then accept whatever comes your way.

He built this blast furnace to the best of his ability, following the requirements in the technical documents he had. He checked and verified every detail repeatedly. If it succeeded, it was expected; if it failed, it was because something was not done properly.

Clearly, Chen Daoyuan did a very good job this time.

The stirring furnace quickly churned the molten iron into a large lump of wrought iron. Then, the craftsmen worked together to cut and remove this still red-hot wrought iron, pulling it under the water-powered forging hammer to begin hammering. The iron "dough" was repeatedly hammered, folded, and hammered again by the tireless hammer, squeezing out the slag and impurities, and quickly transforming it into industrialized "refined wrought iron".

Chen Daoyuan lost interest in watching this noisy part. He gave Guangshilang a few instructions and went back to rest. He was already exhausted from working with a group of blacksmiths by the blast furnace from morning till night.

Chen Daoyuan woke up very early, his dreams filled with the clanging of metal. His little maid, Yixia, was kneeling at the door of his room: "Master, you're awake? Master craftsman Guangshilang is waiting for you in the outer room."

"Huh? When did he arrive?" Chen Daoyuan looked at the sky outside; it was just getting light, and the sun hadn't fully risen yet.

"About half an hour ago," Yi Xia replied, then quickly came over and helped Chen Daoyuan put on his clothes.

With still a bit of sleep in his eyes, Chen Daoyuan arrived at the main hall of the fortress. Guang Shilang was kneeling there, with a katana and a piece of iron in front of him.

Upon seeing Chen Daoyuan emerge, Mitsushiro immediately picked up two items, crawled closer on his knees, and glared at him with bloodshot eyes: "My lord, according to the secret technique you left behind, this sword and armor plates have been successfully forged!"

"Really? You made this all night? You must have worked hard." Chen Daoyuan took the knife from Guangshilang's hand.

This is a very rough katana. The blade is simply made of plain wood and doesn't even have a tsuba (handguard). The blade itself isn't finely polished and is quite gray. However, the edge is well-cut, with a standard clamshell-shaped edge. When you lightly touch the edge, it has a soft and full curve.

Chen Daoyuan carefully examined the blade and found some minor dents and scratches. He then smiled and asked, "Have you tried this knife?"

Kojiro kowtowed deeply to the ground, bowing respectfully and saying, "Please forgive my rudeness. After this sword was made, I did have some doubts, so I tested it with an old sword... and it truly cuts in two with a single stroke, just as you said!"

Chen Daoyuan laughed heartily. This knife was made from crucible eutectoid steel, a method he left behind for Koshiro to produce: wrought iron and molten iron cooled into pig iron were put into a crucible in precise proportions, then smelted, naturally cooled, heated and forged, quenched and tempered... The final result was this eutectoid tempered steel knife in his hand, which was at least 300 years ahead of Japanese Tamahagane technology and reached the steel technology standards of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution.

Putting down the knife, Chen Daoyuan picked up another piece of iron. This piece of iron was also rough, with many sand holes, indicating that it was simply cast from a clay mold. It was roughly shaped like a breastplate. One side had undergone preliminary polishing and was somewhat smooth, but there were a few faint knife marks on the smooth surface.

Kojiro, who had just raised his head, explained at the right moment: "I have also tried to split this armor plate, but I cannot split it, not at all. Even the precious sword in your hand, sir, is the same."

Chen Daoyuan smiled but didn't say anything. It would be a miracle if you could even cut this thing in half. This is the famous 65 Manganese. It's questionable whether he could even cut it with his modern Cru-wear greatsword.

While Japan may lack many resources, it's not entirely without them. Iwate Prefecture, where Chen Daoyuan lives, has a specialty: high-grade pyrolusite.

A while ago, when Spock sent people to collect minerals, they dug up a lot of these black stones with strange radial patterns on the mountain. They brought them back, ground them into powder, wrapped them in clay with carbon powder, stuffed them into a crucible, added pig iron and wrought iron in a calculated ratio, and put them in a kiln to be fired at high heat for several hours. What came out was this kind of non-standard homemade 65 manganese steel.

Chen Daoyuan looked down on knives made of manganese steel, as they were too elastic and lacked absolute hardness. However, armor made of manganese steel was practically an unbeatable weapon in the Warring States period.

Without further ado, Chen Daoyuan took the sample sword and armor plates, mounted Special Zhou, and headed straight for Gaoshui Temple City.

However, when Spogong saw the rough new sword and armor plates, his reaction was similar to Chen Daoyuan's; while satisfied, his expression was more one of calm.

"Not bad...very good...Brother Daoyuan, how much iron can this blast furnace produce per day, and how many of these steel swords and armor can it make?"

The relevant data had already been compiled for Chen Daoyuan by Guangshilang. The furnace had been opened three times since yesterday and this morning, producing 100 kan of molten iron each time. In recent days, Chen Daoyuan had also figured out the Japanese system of weights and measures. The commonly used unit of weight here is kan, and one kan is about six jin in the Ming Dynasty system. He knew that the Ming Dynasty system was about 600 grams, so the amount of molten iron produced each time was about 370 kilograms.

"It takes four to five times a day and night to extract iron, with each extraction yielding 100 strings of cash. After refining, it can yield 60 strings of steel. And two strings of this divine steel can be used to forge five swords?" Spokenko asked, playing with the sword in his hand and repeating the question twice.

Chen Daoyuan nodded: "This steel is already a finished product after it has been refined, so there is no need for repeated forging and slag removal, and therefore the loss is extremely low."

To forge a traditional tamasaka sword with a blade weighing one-third of a kanji, it requires at least two or three kanji of steel. That's how frighteningly high the forging losses are in handcrafted hundred-reinforcement steel.

Spogong simply nodded silently, then asked, "So, how much ore is needed to smelt one batch of iron?"

"It's a little over two hundred or three hundred strings of cash. Depending on the quality of the ore, the initial crushing and beneficiation process will wash away about 20% to 30%. When it's actually put into the furnace, it's roughly two hundred strings of ore to be refined into one hundred strings of molten iron."

Spokenko continued to nod in silence. After a while, he sighed softly, "After we've used up all the existing ore and iron sand in the next few days, let's shut down the furnace. We can restart it when we need it again. The ore from Asonuma isn't cheap."

Chen Daoyuan sighed as well. He had actually expected this to happen. He had learned about the agreement reached between Shibo Quangao and Aseng Numa in the past two days: one guan of rice in exchange for fifteen guan of ore. However, even though Zibo County was rich in rice, after exchanging two thousand guan of rice for thirty thousand guan of ore, they were already stretched thin. And that didn't even include the other materials needed to start the blast furnace...

However, after refining all the materials they had, Chen Daoyuan and Sibo Quangao would have at least 7,500 kan of eutectoid steel and manganese steel. What could they possibly do with so many materials...? Chen Daoyuan thought for a moment, and a smug smirk crept onto his lips.