Chapter 266 The First Iron Weapon
Although Zhuang Mengdie and Zhou Dachui did not know what the 'iron' the leader mentioned was, they knew it from the look of their leader looking up to the sky and laughing. Once again, I’m afraid I’ve found something good!
When everyone saw this, they all shouted in unison...
"Congratulations, chief!"
Amidst the congratulations from everyone, Zhou Xu's laughter subsided slightly, and then he started again Look at the iron ingot in his hand.
"Anyway, let's smelt all the ores that were sent into iron ingots first."
After briefly explaining this task, Zhou Xu turned back to his residence, sat at his desk and fell into deep thought. .
He now has a tangle in his mind, and the tangled question is 'whether to establish a forging department in Barren Mountain Village'.
It goes without saying that the value of iron is a superior substitute for copper in the field of weapons and even a large number of tools.
It is no exaggeration to say that when iron ore is discovered, most of the bronze wares can be eliminated directly.
But the problem now is that the iron ore production point is deep in the mountains.
In this era, the mining efficiency of ore is not high. After mining, it has to be carried out basket by basket from the depths of the mountain, and then transported to Black Moon Village for smelting and forging. The manpower required inside is extremely huge, and it is definitely not comparable to the mine in Salt Lake Village.
The easiest way to save this batch of manpower is to establish a forging department on the other side of the mountain.
When the time comes to open a mine and dig out the ore, you don’t have to put so much effort into sending it to Black Moon Village. The smelting and forging can be completed in the mountains.
But in this case, there will be a problem.
That is to use Black Moon Village as the base camp. The distance over the mountain is too far. The words "The mountain is high and the emperor is far away" are really apt when used here.
Under this premise, once iron is forged, it can basically completely suppress copper at the weapon level.
Although he didn't think Shi Lei would rebel, from the perspective of a ruler, arranging a forging department in a place beyond his reach so that there could have the ability to forge iron tools alone, it was unreasonable no matter how he thought about it. It's a dangerous move.
In the future, roads on the mountain will be opened up and movement efficiency will be further improved. He will consider this matter, but it is definitely not possible now!
Rather than take this risk, he would rather choose to put in more effort, which is safer.
In this way, the forging and repair of various metal tools are all under the control of Black Moon Village. Even though the mountains in Barren Mountain Village are high and the emperor is far away, they dare not act rashly.
In addition, as the population increases, the food produced in the fields in Huangshan Village will soon no longer be enough for them to be self-sufficient. By then, the supply of food will also have to rely on Black Moon. The village side can directly control it.
However, based on the efficiency of iron ore mining and transportation there, it may not be that easy to update and iterate metal tools on a large scale in a short period of time.
Fortunately, Zhou Xu was not in a hurry.
Now with his copper weapons, he is already rampant in this area, so there is no need to rush.
There was nothing to say all night. Early the next morning, Zhou Xu, who had already sorted out his thoughts, came to the forging department again.
This batch of iron ore delivered was all picked up by the villagers over there with bare hands near the ore veins. The quantity was not large, and after all was smelted, only four iron ingots were melted out. It didn't take much effort from the forging department.
Four iron ingots, one per pound. Now it depends on what their leader will use these four iron ingots to forge. Regarding this issue, Zhou Xu really thought about it carefully.
The first thing that came to mind was definitely the spear that Zhou Dachui had shown before, but he quickly rejected it.
The spear head requires iron casting, which saves materials. However, as only a small amount of iron can be forged at present, casting the spear is not cost-effective. In a complex mountain and forest environment, the spear cannot be used at all.
Thinking of this, Zhou Xu immediately said...
"War knife! Forge a war knife for me, but the length cannot be the same as the original copper knife. The toughness of this iron is better than copper. , so the length of the sword can be increased, just follow the length of the originally designed sword.”
At first, because the normal length of the copper sword was not tough enough, it was specially shortened, but as long as there is iron, this problem will be solved. can be solved to a great extent.
At the moment when their leaders had already spoken, as the leader of the forging department, Zhou Dachui had no doubt that he was there. While signaling the assistants on the side to melt the iron ingots, he quickly turned out the first The version of the war knife mold came over.
It takes a lot of time to make a mold. Although the mold was basically unusable due to the toughness of the metal, Zhou Dachui couldn't just throw it away.
I think it will definitely come in handy after this problem is solved in the future.
And this day has undoubtedly come!
With the help of the bellows, the temperature in the forging furnace continued to increase, and the four iron ingots placed in the furnace were quickly burned.
Seizing the time and confirming that the iron ingot had been burned, Zhou Dachui quickly took it out and poured the iron juice into the grinding tool.
The subsequent processes of hammering, forging, and polishing will undoubtedly take more time.
Not to mention that this was the first iron sword that came out of his hand, and it was given to their leader. Zhou Dachui didn't dare to be vague. How could he hammer it carefully?
Zhou Xu couldn't just watch here the whole time. During this period, he made a trip to the equipment department. While briefly confirming the manufacturing progress of bicycles and tricycles, he asked the equipment department to do a few more things. A bellows comes out.
Now that the Iron Age has begun here, ordinary forging furnaces will soon become useless, and they have to install bellows.
As for Zhou Dachui, it took him three days to present the iron sword in front of him.
Regardless of the plain wooden scabbard, Zhou Xu used his strength and pulled out a sharp blade. Under the sunshine of spring, it actually made him feel dazzled.
Zhou Xu did not do much research on cold weapons, but he did have some conventional ideas.
What is he pursuing in making this sword? That is of course durable enough to withstand frequent hacking and weapon collisions.
With this idea in mind, the first thing that came to Zhou Xu’s mind was that kind of machete with a thick back!
The copper sword they are using now has a blade length of only forty centimeters due to insufficient toughness of the material. Although it is a one-handed sword, the length is undoubtedly a bit too short.
Now, excluding the handle, the blade length of this newly forged machete has reached 60 centimeters. Including the handle, the total blade length can reach 80 centimeters.
The back of the blade is thick, the blade is curved and has a tip. At the same time, the blades on both sides are specially equipped with blood grooves to facilitate bleeding the enemy during a fight.
There is no doubt that this is the sword that Zhou Xu wants!
(End of this chapter)