Mount & Blade: Warband in the Sengoku period of Japan

"What is this?" Shiba Tsugaku held up the black cloth bag with both hands. Although he looked a little puzzled, as a samurai, the familiar feeling of the bag made him guess what was inside.

The old man immediately and nimbly opened the black cloth bag and took out a long knife from inside.

With a whoosh, the sword was drawn from its sheath, and Shiba Kenko's already round eyes, which resembled his granddaughter's, widened even more: "What a fine sword..."

Sheathing his sword, Shiba Tsuyoshi stroked the paracord tightly wrapped around the hilt and looked at Chen Daoyuan: "Brother Daoyuan, what is the meaning of this?"

Chen Daoyuan smiled confidently, not directly answering Spo Quan Gao's question, but instead suggesting, "Sir, do you know if there is a training ground in this palace? Once you have thoroughly tested this sword, I will explain it to you."

Shiba Tsugaku showed no urgency, simply nodding slowly before rising to his feet, supporting himself with his sword: "Then please."

As they spoke, the group arrived together at the central courtyard behind the imperial palace.

Shiba always flaunted his family's Kyoto heritage, and naturally took great care in the decoration of his garden. However, he was still a samurai at heart, so in one corner of the garden, he left an open space with several sword targets as a training ground.

These sword targets were made by binding thick hemp rope with thick wooden poles as thick as an arm, and many of them have clear cut marks, indicating that they were frequently used.

Spoken, carrying the sword, approached a scabbard. He raised the sword but didn't immediately slash. Instead, he held it up to his eyes and examined it closely for a moment in the bright sunlight. "The shape of the sword is a bit strange. It's not the kind of swords commonly seen in Akitsushima. It's too wide and a bit too heavy. But the steel..." The old man didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he flipped his hands and swung the sword down at the scabbard in front of him.

With a "crack," the sword target snapped in two. Chen Daoyuan was taken aback. This old man was incredibly skilled with his sword. He had great confidence in the sword, but he hadn't expected it to be used to this extent in the old man's hands. Of all the hack-and-slash games online, how many people can actually cut through a piece of wood as thick as an arm with one strike?

Even more astonished than Chen Daoyuan was Sibo Quangao. His eyes widened as he stared intently at the knife in his hand for a long while before turning to Chen Daoyuan and asking, "What kind of knife is this?!"

This knife was actually handcrafted by old Silvio in his backyard based on the most popular online tutorial video on three-metal fusion and clay tempering. The materials used were the most common 1095 and 5160 stainless steel found in such videos. Both the three-metal fusion and the clay tempering heat treatment were perfect, making it one of Silvio's proudest creations. That's why it was kept on the basement shelf alongside his expensive custom-made swords, accompanying Chen Daoyuan through time.

Of course, Chen Daoyuan wouldn't tell the truth. He just smiled and made up an excuse: "This is a game sword made by the old craftsman in my family workshop, using finely refined steel and modeled after a Japanese sword. I carry it in my bag as a spare sword when I go on campaign. Now I'm taking it out to present to Lord Imperial Household as a greeting gift."

"A game-like creation?" Spogong stroked the blade, his gaze shifting between the clay patterns on the edge and Chen Daoyuan. "Refined steel?"

Chen Daoyuan nodded: "It seems that the Imperial Palace Master has already seen through the clues. When forging this sword, the old craftsman was not familiar with the shape of Japanese swords and lost his balance when hammering, so he made the sword half an inch too wide. Therefore, the sword is not a very good one, but the steel was forged using a secret family technique."

When Silvio was making this knife, his skills were not yet proficient, so he did not use the standard Japanese sword specifications, but instead found a widened chopping pattern, which is why it is somewhat of a mishmash.

"Lord Imperial Palace, the essence of this sword isn't in cutting a single piece of wood... but in cutting ten or twenty pieces in a row," Chen Daoyuan explained with a smile.

In terms of absolute hardness, modern finished steels like 1095 do not actually have a significant advantage over high-carbon steels like "Yugang" from the Warring States period. What truly gives them an overwhelming advantage is the retention and toughness brought about by the uniform and pure texture of modern steelmaking technology.

Spogong immediately ordered his servants to bring timber and bamboo poles from the warehouse, and handed the knife to the guard, who then chopped down ten pieces of wood and five bundles of bamboo.

Each strike cut in two with a single stroke, leaving Chen Daoyuan speechless with amazement; the swordsmanship of these Warring States warriors was indeed remarkable.

Shiba Kengo stood quietly to the side and watched until the guards finished cutting the bamboo and wood, then he called out, "Zaemon."

Hearing the sound, the guard turned his head and saw Spoquan raise his hand and throw out a handkerchief. He immediately understood and with a swift stroke, sliced ​​the handkerchief in two in mid-air.

Only then did Spokenko reveal a satisfied smile. He took the long sword handed back by the guard, carefully examined the blade, and muttered, "Indeed... a fine sword."

Chen Daoyuan smiled and said, "How is it? Is Your Excellency satisfied?"

"Satisfied." Shiba Kenko responded, then took out a handkerchief to wipe the blade clean before sheathing the sword. His gaze towards Chen Daoyuan held a hint of surprise, but even more so, anticipation: "So, Lord Daoyuan, the meaning behind giving me this sword is…"

"If Lord Gosho can provide the manpower and resources, I can forge similar steel."

Spokenko's eyes widened suddenly again, but then returned to normal as he slowly sat down on the terrace of the house next to the training ground: "That's not bad. Such divine steel is enough to replace a batch of good swords for my generals."

Chen Daoyuan shook his head: "It's not about replacing the swords of the generals and warriors. As long as the Imperial Palace Lord can provide enough resources, I can produce hundreds of catties of this steel every day. Uh, I don't know how much a catty in the Ming Dynasty would weigh in Japan."

The old man jumped to his feet: "How much?"

Chen Daoyuan affirmed, "Several hundred catties per day. As long as Lord Imperial Household provides enough iron ore and fuel, I can produce several hundred catties of similar steel per day. Of course, it's difficult to produce every catty of steel as perfectly as this knife, but I can at least produce 80 or 90 percent."

Spogong looked somewhat bewildered: "Is that really true?"

"really."

Chen Daoyuan answered with great certainty.

However, this confidence is largely a routine operation when presenting PowerPoint slides to investors.

Chen Daoyuan is knowledgeable about steelmaking. He and Silvio are considered hardcore steel enthusiasts, and they've even studied steelmaking technologies together, including pre-industrial revolution systems like small blast furnaces and reverberatory furnaces. However, there's a significant difference between understanding steelmaking and actually implementing it in engineering projects.

Fortunately, Silvio's basement bookshelves contained a lot of reference materials he had accumulated during his studies, including a book that could be considered a cheat code... This was the main reason why Chen Daoyuan dared to make such a grand promise in a PowerPoint presentation.

It was also because of that period of study that Chen Daoyuan had a thorough understanding of the history of the development of steel industry technology in the world during the Industrial Revolution, which naturally included the history of Japanese smelting technology.

For a long time, Japanese blacksmiths have clung to the method of steel wrapping, and those who don't know the story might really think that these blacksmith masters have a deep love for three pieces of metal...

But the real reason is actually quite simple: Japan's traditional Tatara furnace ironmaking system is simply not suitable for China's large-scale pig iron and steel production route.

Limited by the availability of iron sand, furnace size, fuel, and blast capacity, Japanese ironmaking remained in a small-scale, intermittent production stage for a long time. Although it was occasionally able to produce steel of extremely high quality, the output was always very limited.

Thus, Japanese swords became famous throughout the world, but ancient Japanese society as a whole suffered from a long-term iron shortage.

Therefore, when Chen Daoyuan painted the pie-in-the-sky picture of mass-producing steel, Spogong's expression quickly changed from bewilderment to excitement, but this excitement soon cooled down.

"But there isn't a single iron sand vein in my Spo clan's territory that can produce 100,000 catties of iron sand annually," Spo Quan Gao said with considerable regret and resentment.

Chen Daoyuan almost rolled his eyes. In the past few days, he had figured out the exact geographical location of the Shiba clan where he was now. It was basically in the central part of modern Iwate Prefecture. And here, Shiba Tsugaku told him that there weren't that many iron ore mines... Later, the only high-quality magnetite mine in Japan with a grade of over 60%, the birthplace of Nippon Steel, and the Kamaishi Iron Mine that supported Japan's initial industrialization, was located in Hiei District, not far southeast of Takasui-dera Castle!

"When I was wandering in the mountains before, I discovered a large iron mine of excellent quality in the southeastern mountains."

"Really?!" Actually, the old man, Spogong, had quite a range of expressions, showing several different levels of surprise.

"Of course it's true. There's a lot of high-quality porcelain clay over there that can be used as refractory bricks. Plus, I can lead people to build a few kilns to dry-fire white charcoal. With the furnace, charcoal, and iron in hand, we can set up the furnace on the banks of the Beishangchuan River, build a weir to block the water, and use a waterwheel to drive the bellows. The furnace will burn day and night, and we can smelt nearly a thousand catties of iron a day. If we do this for three months, we can easily smelt 100,000 catties of iron."

This is still Chen Daoyuan's rather conservative estimate. The main reason is that kaolin, also known as porcelain clay, is a medium/acidic refractory material, which is not suitable for the alkaline reaction environment inside the blast furnace, resulting in a very short service life for the furnace. If magnesite or even bauxite were available, alkaline refractory bricks or even alumina refractory materials could be manufactured, allowing the blast furnace to operate year-round and doubling the output.

Unfortunately, Japan is such a bad place. At least there is a kaolinite mine for iron ore, and there are coal mines in Hokkaido. However, there is zero magnesite, almost zero bauxite, and even the graphite needed to make crucible steel is almost zero. In short, we can only make do with kaolin for now. Anyway, 100,000 catties of steel is enough to get things started.

"Is that really so?" Spo Quan Gao's face flushed with excitement and then turned pale with calm, going back and forth for a while before he calmed down again and asked Chen Dao Yuan for confirmation.

"Indeed," Chen Daoyuan affirmed. "As long as you provide me with enough manpower to cut down trees, smelt charcoal, and mine iron ore, that will suffice. In addition, it would be best to send people into the mountains to search for coal."

There are some broken coal seams in the Kitayama area of ​​Iwate Prefecture. They are not enough to support large-scale industrial production, but they are sufficient to support small blast furnaces for iron smelting. However, these coal seams are too fragmented and are generally not marked on maps as exploitable resources, so Chen Daoyuan did not know exactly where they were located.

By the way, Hokkaido is too far away and undeveloped at this time, but there are coal mines in the Tohoku region of Japan. Chen Daoyuan remembers that it is near the holy land of "Girls und Panzer" (that is, the Tokiwa Coal Mine in Tokiwa City, where Oarai Town is located, just south of Oarai Town). He doesn't know whose territory that place is now, but it is actually not close. He can probably only think about fighting his way there for the time being. He should ask around to see if he can get some coal through trade.

After explaining some details of blast furnace ironmaking to Shiba Kengo, Shiba Kengo finally suppressed his doubts: "Brother Dogen, since that's the case, then I entrust the ironmaking to you entirely. When the furnace is successfully completed, I will surely reward you handsomely."