The King Chapter 76

  Chapter 76 Copy the original iron smelting process

  With an extra piece of fertile land, Hudson's original territory construction plan was directly pushed back to the beginning. The development of mining areas is very important, and food self-sufficiency is also of great significance.

  No one maintains it. This season's harvest is hopeless, but the next season cannot continue to be abandoned.

   Regardless of what to plant later, it will require a lot of labor. More than 20,000 mu of land, if you want to reclaim it with the current productivity, you need at least seven or eight hundred strong laborers.

   This is still based on the fact that there are enough livestock. Without four or five hundred horses/cows, it cannot be completed at all.

  Mining is a labor-intensive industry, and a series of links from "burning charcoal - mining - beneficiation - smelting - continuous casting" require a lot of labor.

   Without enough young and strong labor input, it is difficult to restore the previous production capacity in a short period of time.

  As the main source of income for the territory, production in the mining area must be guaranteed first. There is simply no surplus young and strong labor force that can be invested in land cultivation.

  Instead of old and weak women and children with a weaker labor force, it is necessary to double the manpower input. Considering that the number of livestock in the territory is seriously insufficient, manpower needs to be used to fill the gap. In fact, the labor force required will definitely be more.

  With solid mathematical knowledge, Hudson quickly came to the conclusion that the territory is seriously underpopulated.

  Don't say anything about expanding production capacity, just to restore the previous production, the labor force in the territory is far from enough.

   Now it depends on how many people can be fooled by the subordinates. There is really a shortage of labor, so we can only figure out a way at that time.

  After all, at this juncture, even if you want to buy slaves, the southeastern provinces are out of stock!

  The lords of the two counties of Wright and Wyton are all short of people, and the battle for people has already begun.

  Before the territory was determined, the price of young and strong slaves in the southeastern province increased by one-third compared to before. Now at this time, I am afraid that it has risen to the sky.

  Hudson, who is not rich in pockets, does not have the qualifications even if he wants to be taken advantage of. There was not enough money to buy slaves before, and it is even more unaffordable now.

  Part of the citizens were separated and went to the newly acquired land to resume farming. The patrol range of the army was also expanded, and Hudson's center of gravity returned to the mining area again.

  The simple barracks have been initially set up. Although the living conditions are still rudimentary, they finally got rid of the embarrassing situation of "the sky is the quilt and the ground is the seat".

   A lot of charcoal has been stored, and the mine is almost cleaned up. Although the rebels did a lot of damage, the Salam Mountains are mainly shallow mines.

  The places with the best conditions can directly carry out open-pit mining. In places that were close to it, the mine tunnel extended at most tens of meters.

  Mining technology is at this level, mining ore buried in deep areas is krypton life. Although the income from iron ore is good, it hasn't made the lords crazy enough to give up their integrity.

  If they encounter high-purity gold and silver mines, or higher-value magic crystal mines, the miners can only pray for the blessing of the Lord of Dawn.

  The territory has a serious shortage of labor force, and met the conscientious Lord Hudson, so naturally he would not have the idea of ​​​​deep mining areas, even if the ore deep underground is more pure.

  Under the strong request of the lord, the iron smelters who completed the preliminary preparations started the first smelting after the war.

   Watching the iron ore excavated by the workers and charcoal put into the furnace made of clay together, they started to ignite and dry.

  The bellows on the side replaced the alchemy blower and started working. It can be seen that the workers are very uneasy about this new gadget.

  As if he was a bystander, Hudson just took a few glances from a distance and left the smelting field directly.

  The original iron smelting process, coupled with the charcoal whose firing temperature is not high enough, the quality of the smelted pig iron is not up to standard, which is almost an inevitable result.

  No miracle happened. The iron block taken out of the furnace was very loose, like an ant's nest, with large and small holes, and the purity was so low that Hudson didn't even bother to complain.

  However, the workers were very interested. Obviously, the pig iron they usually smelt was of a similar level to this product.

   Nothing to say, continue to the next round of procedures, beating—calcination—beating—calcination—beating...

   After repeated tossing and tossing again and again, after a few hours, the iron block was almost solidified, and the workers put it in water to quench it.

   Poor-quality pig iron is processed and shaped. According to past practice, this thing can already be traded in the market, and the price is not low.

  According to the fineness of pig iron, according to the market price before the war, each pound of pig iron can be sold for about 30 to 55 copper coins.

   As for the post-processing, that is the business of the blacksmiths. Anyway, the previous lord, Viscount Alphonse, never provided after-sales service, and he didn't care what the customer used it for.

  Looking at the samples in front of him, Hudson stopped thinking about mass production immediately. The pig iron in front of me is undoubtedly inferior.

  If you want to improve the appearance, you can only go through continuous tempering and burning. There is no further processing, because the cost performance of continuing forging is not high.

   After all, charcoal is used. Under the current technology, even if it is tempered a hundred times, the strength will hardly reach the standard for making weapons.

  According to the original production model, it is true that selling pig iron can make money, but the profit is far less than Hudson expected.

   It seems that the price of pig iron is not low, but it cannot support the low production capacity of the mining area. According to the recollections of the workers, there were more than 4,000 workers in the Salam mining area at its peak.

   But as far as Hudson knows, Viscount Alphonse, the largest pig iron supplier in the southeastern province, has a monthly shipment of less than 180,000 pounds.

  Even if a part is used for personal use, the per capita daily iron production is only about 1.5 pounds, and the efficiency is so low that there is nothing to say.

  Considering that part of the charcoal needs to be outsourced, and miners consume more heavy physical labor and need more nutritional supplements, plus taxes and infrastructure equipment maintenance costs, it is estimated that the profit is only about 50%.

Considering that most of the pig iron produced in the territory is of low quality, and the large-scale wholesale price is still discounted, it is calculated based on the price of 25 copper coins per pound. The monthly income of 180,000 pounds of shipments is only about 3,000 gold coins, and the income is about Around fifteen hundred gold coins.

   It seems that this income is very good, and it can also rank among the top among the many baronies in the kingdom, but it is far from the huge profit that Hudson expected.

  In order to obtain higher profits, it is imperative to improve the smelting process, increase production capacity and improve the quality of pig iron.

  Without the support of an industrial system, high-tech technology is definitely out of the question, and Hudson can only choose traditional craftsmanship.

  Blast furnace ironmaking is familiar to many people, but it is not easy to operate it.

  Fortunately, Hudson likes to run around, and has personally come into contact with many blast furnace relics, and has a general understanding of the blast furnace ironmaking process.

  Following the gourd painting, the blast furnace was not built, but the workers were first taught to fire kiln bricks.

  Directing the craftsmen under him, Hudson tossed back and forth for more than half a month. After many failures, Hudson worked out the first batch of bricks.

  Maybe it is because the fire control is not in place, maybe the quality of the soil selected is not up to standard, or maybe the workers don't understand Hudson's words properly, the quality of the kiln bricks is hard to describe.

  Cracks appeared on most of the kiln bricks, only a small number of them were like that, and they could barely make do with it.

  Directing the workers to try to build the blast furnace, Hudson only felt physically and mentally exhausted. Climbing the technology tree is really not something ordinary people can do.

  A set of the simplest primitive iron smelting process is so troublesome to copy. If it is changed to advanced technology that requires supporting industries, is it still worth it?

  (end of this chapter)

Chapter end