After the reward was awarded, Zhao Xu, surrounded by Shen Kuo, arrived at the back office of the weapons manufacturing bureau.

Then, he stepped back and handed a drawing he had brought to Shen Kuo.

"This is the future focus of the Bureau that specializes in manufacturing weapons!"

Shen Kuo respectfully took the drawing drawn on a piece of Yuan calligraphy paper.

Above is a tall stove.

Shen Kuo was startled!

Naturally, he recognized it at a glance. It was a steel-making blast furnace.

Shen Kuo had heard of the legend of the blast furnace.

It is said that Beilu has a blast furnace that can produce molten iron.

The efficiency is better than the traditional steel frying and steel filling methods of the Song Dynasty, and more yellow iron (refined iron) is obtained.

However, the Beilu were strictly guarding against this and did not even know that they had done it?

No one even knows where the blast furnace was built to make steel in Beilu.

This is normal!

Although Beilu is a Tatar, the name of his country is Bintie.

With iron as the name of the country, it will naturally stick to steelmaking technology.

Shen Kuo was on an envoy to the Northern Barbarians, so he knew that the Northern Barbarians had implemented strict iron control over the entire grassland.

Not only that, the Northern Barbarians also worked with the Western Bandits and the Song Dynasty in a tacit understanding to maintain control over the iron weapons of the Zubu tribe in the grassland.

In order to prevent the divination people from possessing iron tools, the Beilu even deliberately mixed the iron coins they made with large amounts of other impurities, making the iron coins worthless for resmelting.

Therefore, Shen Kuo was shocked when he saw the drawings handed over by the officials.

After all, the Song Dynasty has always wanted to know how the Beibei built the blast furnace since the Zhen Temple?

Unfortunately, it has never been successful.

The Song Dynasty's many attempts to build blast furnaces all ended in failure.

Either the furnace collapsed, or the furnace wall was cracked.

so……

Shen Kuo swallowed his saliva and asked: "Your Majesty, is this from the Beilu side?"

Zhao Xu smiled and did not answer, but said to Shen Kuo: "Shen Tiju selected qualified craftsmen from the bureau specializing in manufacturing weapons based on this drawing pattern, and selected an abandoned military camp outside Bianjing City to slowly verify it.

, build this furnace..."

When he was studying abroad in modern times, Zhao Xu followed his teacher to the ruins of the blast furnace industrial park of the Liao Dynasty.

It was in a place called Shuiquangou Village in Dazhuang Township, 70 kilometers away from the Imperial City.

That place is surrounded by mountains and has a river running through the village.

It was roughly in the present Nanjing of the Liao Kingdom.

Before that site was discovered, people had only seen records in history books that the Liao people used blast furnaces to make steel.

After the discovery of that site, it directly pushed the history of blast furnace steelmaking in the world forward by hundreds of years!

It is a pity that the Liao people kept it secret for reasons of confidentiality.

It seems that it has been deliberately limiting the popularity of blast furnace technology, and it is also satisfied with primary blast furnace technology, and has not carried out technological iteration and upgrade.

Of course, this was lucky for the Song Dynasty.

Otherwise, if the Liao people pointed out the large-scale blast furnace steelmaking technology technology tree.

The Song Dynasty will probably face the iron pagoda cavalry a hundred years ahead of schedule. The iron pagoda that was founded by the Jin Dynasty. According to speculations by academic circles, its raw material should come from the refined iron stocks captured in the Liao Kingdom.

As for the large blast furnace steelmaking industrial park in Nanjing, Liaoning, it was probably destroyed during the war.

Since the Liao Kingdom did not value blast furnace steelmaking, Zhao Xu had to improve their strength.

"This is a reverberatory furnace." Zhao Xu reminded Shen Kuo: "You can directly use pebbles to smelt iron ore and pig iron!"

"But for refractory bricks, Aiqing needs to find a way."

The blast furnace drawings drawn by Zhao Xu were barely drawn by his memory.

There are definitely a lot of unscientific things, and a lot of details are definitely missing.

In addition, it is impossible for him to specifically memorize modern refractory brick firing techniques and recipes.

Therefore, these are all things that Shen Kuo needs to improve and experiment with.

Fortunately, Da Song's refractory brick technology should be passable.

Ding kiln, Ge kiln, and later Ru kiln are enough to prove that there should be refractory bricks that can withstand high temperatures of 1,300 to 4,000 degrees.

"Use charcoal directly?!" Shen Kuo was surprised.

In modern ironmaking, charcoal may also be used.

But as we all know, charcoal cannot be used in yellow iron (refined iron) and steel.

After using charcoal, the iron becomes brittle.

Why can’t the iron produced by the Baofeng Railway Supervisor in Xuzhou even make money?

Shen Kuo believed that it was because Xuzhou Baofeng used coal as fuel.

Zhao Xu smiled and said: "My dear, please look at the stove in the picture. The fuel chamber and the furnace are separated. The fire gas is reflected to the furnace through the fire channel. In this way, the influence of the charcoal is

Iron-based objects will not enter the molten iron!"

In modern times, Zhao Xu naturally read Mengxi Bi Tan.

So he remembered very clearly that Shen Kuo once specifically talked about steelmaking and iron smelting for several chapters in his Mengxi written talk.

Shen Kuo had a famous metaphor in those words: There is steel in iron, just like there are tendons in noodles. If you wash away the soft noodles, the gluten will be visible, and the same is true for steel.

He believed that making steel was like kneading dough.

After repeated kneading and beating, iron can become steel.

It can’t be said wrong, it can even be said that the observation was extremely careful.

However, what he saw was just a superficial appearance and he did not find the key.

However, for a scholar-official in a feudal society, Shen Kuo could clearly observe these details, which was already outstanding.

Don't force too much.

Shen Kuo took the drawing and looked at it carefully.

Then he discovered that the structure of this stove seemed unusual.

First of all, the height of this furnace exceeded Shen Kuo's imagination.

It's two feet tall.

Moreover, from the drawings, it appears that the stove is leaning against the mountain.

In addition, the furnace body is round, not square like the iron-making crucibles Shen Kuo saw.

This made Shen Kuo scratch his head a little.

Round?

How to build this stove?

He raised his head and looked at the official sitting in front of him.

The official just looked at him and smiled.

have to!

Shen Kuo finally understood that this official was just putting forward an idea and giving him a general direction just like last time.

The rest is all up to him and the craftsmen and officials of the Ordnance Manufacturing Bureau to figure out a solution together.

Through repeated failed attempts, we sum up experience, rules, and find out methods.

Fortunately, this official received an astonishing reward for this task that he personally assigned!

There must be brave men who are rewarded heavily. Today, the emperor came in person and rewarded people generously and generously.

Shen Kuo felt that everyone in the bureau dedicated to manufacturing weapons would work hard and compete to serve.

After all, this official is really generous and really willing to give money.

So Shen Kuo bowed and said, "I understand."

"Not only Your Majesty, but also is there a time limit on this matter?"

Zhao Xu smiled and said: "I give you one year, can you do it?"

Shen Kuo thought for a while and replied: "I will let your Majesty see this thing within a year!"
To be continued...