Shi Daxuan smiled helplessly: "Although pig iron is much more expensive than iron ore, it saves charcoal. Everything here has to be transported from land. If we transport iron ore to smelter, we have to transport a large amount of charcoal to the island, which is even less cost-effective."

Gao Shixin understood what Shi Daxuan meant. Their pirates were not short of money at all, but what they lacked was the transportation capacity of the ship. If they transported iron ore into the island and then transported charcoal into the island, it would cost more than buying pig iron directly. So they would rather buy pig iron into the island at a high price than buying cheap iron ore into the island to refine pig iron by themselves.

However, when Gao Shixin visited, he discovered a problem: the efficiency of these blast furnaces is very low and consumes a lot of charcoal, but the success rate of practicing pig iron to mature iron is very low.

"The efficiency of this blast furnace is too low. I have a way to improve the blast furnace. The improved blast furnace not only has a much higher success rate of maturing iron, but also has a high steel yield rate. The most important thing is that it saves charcoal and can produce more steel with less charcoal." Gussin said.

Each of these is extremely attractive to Shi Daxuan. Pirate Group is not short of money, but the production of high-quality steel in Asia is not enough. It is priceless and it is difficult to buy it no matter how much money it is, so the brothers can only make steel by themselves. Improved blast furnaces can increase the steel yield. As long as the crude steel is forged, they can get better steel than ordinary 100 steel. Saving charcoal is more important. It is not that you are reluctant to buy charcoal. It is just that the transportation capacity is limited. It can save charcoal, which means that the output can be increased.

Shi Daxuan asked with a heart-warming look: "What's the solution for this little brother?"

"It's very simple. Let's first renovate the blast furnace. Chief Shi, can you let the craftsmen follow my command? I'll renovate a blast furnace first. If the effect is good, then all of it will be transformed."

"Of course there is no problem!" Shi Daxuan agreed, "If you want bricks, iron, manpower, and money, I can provide you with it, but you must do interesting things and don't spend money in vain."

Gao Shixin's method is actually very simple, which is to add a heat storage chamber to the blast furnace. The iron smelting furnaces in this era are all open, and the thermal efficiency of the fuel is very low. Using heat-resistant materials as a heat storage chamber to increase the thermal efficiency of the fuel, the consumption will be reduced. Moreover, the heat storage chamber can also increase the furnace temperature. The maximum temperature of these blast furnaces is unknown, which is estimated to be only a little over 1,000. After adding the heat storage chamber, the temperature can be increased to more than 1,500 degrees.

"A batch of refractory bricks need to be burned first." Guss Channel said.

"No need to burn it, we have a lot here." Shi Daxuan said, bringing Gao Shixin to a bunch of bricks. He saw that the bricks were hollow bricks, and the holes in the shape of honeycombs were all holes. These were refractory bricks.

As the materials were available, Gao Shixin took several craftsmen to start. They dug another hole directly on the top of the pit next to the blast furnace, built a small brick house with hollow refractory bricks, and then dug out a passage to the blower outlet of the furnace, which was also made with bricks. A passage was also made with bricks on the brick house, and a chimney was built near the middle of the furnace top channel, and a convex pipe structure was set up.

Kossin asked the carpenter to build a hand-pull blower, which was installed behind the convex tube and pulled by manpower, so that heavy smoke and dust could be removed from the chimney, and light hot air could be drawn into the heat storage chamber by the blower.

The blast furnace was renovated and the bellows were also created. Under the command of Gao Shixin, authorized by Shi Daxuan, the craftsmen began to add fuel to the blast furnace, add charcoal, and then ignite. According to Gao Shixin's instructions, only 60% of the charcoal was put in, and the smelting time was shortened from one hour on weekdays to half an hour and a quarter of an hour.

The blast furnace was lit, and some people were responsible for pulling the bellows, and some people opened the heat storage chamber from time to time. The others were fine, only one old craftsman was responsible for observation, and one person was pulling the bellows, and the rest were busy in other places.

The hourglass time has come, and the craftsmen opened the molten iron outlet of the blast furnace, and saw the molten iron flowing out. The molten iron flowing out is not fiery red, but bright and blazing blue molten iron!

"It's done! It's done!" The craftsmen cheered and succeeded. Looking at the bright and green molten iron flowing out, they knew that the temperature of the molten iron was much higher than before.

The iron flows into the iron pool with grooves carved at the bottom along the channel paved with pottery. After it cools down, a large piece of iron on it is cooked iron plate. The cooked iron plate can be directly used to build a musket. The rough steel left in the groove at the bottom is rough steel. As long as the rough steel is used to be forged, it can be made into high-quality high-quality steel.

As for those high-quality steels, Gao Shixin plans to disclose his food identity in the future. After the agreement with the brothers, he will buy all of them no matter how much steel it produces on Kinmen Island.

In this era, Min Tie was originally the best quality pig iron. Min Tiehan had fewer magazines. Then, using Min Tie to make crude steel and then made into fine steel, it was no worse than Su Steel. This steel has extremely high elasticity. With a large number of these steel sheets and iron pipes made by Zhang Yong's drilling method, it is a good thing that can make Jiannu and the Mongolians able to sing and dance.

"Zhang Sheng, you have made great contributions!" Shi Daxuan happily called Gao Shixin's pseudonym, "This is a familiar iron. As long as we have the mold to cast cannons, we can cast cannons directly! Not to mention the small Franc machine, the Red Cannons can be cast! By the way, do you know how to make the cannon mold?"

"I just know the cannon molds. I only know how to build cannon molds with mud and sand. There are more advanced sand molds and iron mold casting methods. However, I have a good brother who knows those methods. After a while, I will call him over." Gao Shixin replied truthfully.

Shi Daxuan was in a very good mood and said with a smile: "Okay, just know how to cast mud mold cannons. As for what you are talking about, what are sand mold cannons, iron mold cannons, etc. I don't know what it is. There is no need for the time being, and there is no rush."

Gao Shixin struck while the iron was hot: "Although I am not a craftsman for casting cannons, I know there is a way to make our existing cannons and muskets fire higher."

"What method?" Shi Daxuan was overjoyed.

"Take me to the gunpowder workshop." said Gu Shixin.

When he arrived at the gunpowder workshop, Gao Shixin first told the craftsmen that he had slightly modified the formula ratio of the three materials of gunpowder, and then actually performed the method of making granular gunpowder.

The particle gunpowder has been made, and some of the particles are larger and some are smaller. Gao Shixin told Shi Daxuan: "The larger ones are those who fire Red Cannon shells; the smaller ones are those who fire guns, small Franc cannons and so on."

Then he showed his hand to Shi Daxuan and the craftsmen: put the made pelleted gunpowder into a cloth bag and made a fixed charge pack; then rolled the gunpowder used to fire guns, together with the projectile, into the paper tube, and glued it with glue, and made a fixed charge paper shell bullet specially provided for bird guns.

The amount of medication used for fixed-loading ammunition for bird guns is set according to the level of effort of the craftsmen here. One thing that is certain is that the bird guns produced by the Brothers Alliance must have no quality problems.

"Here's a test!" Gao Shixin shouted.

"Give him your bird gun." Shi Daxuan shouted to a soldier beside him.

The soldier took off his bird gun from his back and handed it to Gao Shixin.

Gao Shixin took the bird gun and weighed the weight. He found that the quality of the bird gun was many times better than that of the Ming Dynasty Industrial Bureau that he had seen in Liaodong. He checked the gun barrel and was so exquisite that he could not even see the welds. The connection was very firm and there was no problem at all. After checking the inner chamber, he found that the inner chamber was extremely smooth.
Chapter completed!