Liu Heng felt slightly melancholic. He then handed the New Army Program to Ju Shou and Gao Shun, instructing them to build a new army according to the instructions. After the meeting ended, Liu Heng immediately rushed to the inn to pay his respects to the number one blacksmith of the Three Kingdoms, Zheng Hun.
After stepping into the inn, Liu Heng went straight to Zheng Hun's room.
At this moment, Zheng Hun was taking an afternoon nap. His thunderous snores were befitting of his status as the number one blacksmith.
Seeing this, Wu An frowned slightly and immediately went forward to wake Zheng Hun up. Liu Heng pulled him back and examined him carefully.
Zheng Hun looked to be about thirty-five or thirty-six years old. He had a simple and honest appearance, and his skin was tanned. His figure was obviously thinner than his peers. His palms were larger than ordinary people, and the joints of his palms were prominent. It was obvious that he had been holding a hammer to forge.
Liu Heng stood quietly in the room, admiring the scenery of early spring through the window.
Not long after, Zheng Hun slowly woke up. He opened his eyes and saw Zhao Feng's furious gaze. He was so scared that he shivered. He shifted his gaze elsewhere and realized that there was a youth in plain clothes standing in front of Zhao Feng.
Although Zheng Hun didn't know Liu Heng, Zhao Feng was an old acquaintance. He had been laughing and laughing on the way here, but why was he acting like a different person now? He stood up and immediately bowed deeply.
Liu Heng didn't wait for him to speak and said first,""Forgive me for disturbing Master Zheng's rest.”
Zheng Hun's reaction was extremely fast. He immediately continued,""It's fine, it's fine. It's Zheng Hun who made the two of you wait.”
The three of them sat down. Liu Heng was the first to speak,""I've long heard that Mister Zheng is quite accomplished in smelting and forging iron. I'm not talented, so I want to borrow Mister's power to experiment with a new method of smelting iron.”
Zheng Hun's spirit was immediately roused when he heard that. He leaned forward and asked anxiously,"Please come quickly."
Liu Heng smiled slightly and roughly explained the blast furnace iron-making method and the open pit steel-making method. He then took out a sketch of the blast furnace and the open pit furnace and handed it to Zheng Hun.
"The site of the blast furnace should be located in a place where the water flow is rapid. The bricks used to cover the furnace must be specially made. The ordinary bricks must be added with coal cinders and other materials, and then burned with coke. Only then can it withstand the high temperature.
The chimney of the blast furnace was thirty feet long and shot straight into the sky. A water tower was also needed next to the open pit furnace, and a mechanism was used to control the flow of cold water to control the cooling of molten iron.”
When Zheng Hun heard this, he shouted,"Wonderful! Wonderful! Such a method was unheard of and unheard of, but it sounded feasible. Zheng Hun felt inferior!”
After Liu Heng introduced the two methods, he changed the topic and said,"The most important thing in steel making is the control of the furnace temperature. The reason why we can't produce high-quality steel now is that the furnace temperature is too low. In other words, if we want to increase the furnace temperature, charcoal is no longer useful!”
"Yes, yes." Zheng Hun had an expression of wanting to hear more.
"I discovered a type of coal a few days ago. This stone can be used to burn for warmth and can also be roasted and charred. It is the best raw material for smelting steel!"
Zheng Hun immediately stood up and begged Liu Heng to show him the coal.
Liu Heng took out the wrapped coal for Zheng Hun to take a closer look. He threw another part into the brazier. Soon, the coal was heated up and burned. The fire was fierce and hot. Zheng Hun was itching to see it."Please allocate some manpower for me to build the furnace immediately.”
"Since Mister Zheng is so impatient, the prefecture will definitely support you with all its might!" Liu Heng smiled at Zhao Feng.”
On the 5th day of the second month of the 6th year of Guanghe (183 AD), in the dense forest east of Pingping Village, a blast furnace and an open pit furnace began to be built.
During this period, Zheng Hun focused on using the ordinary smelting furnace that had been built to test the effect of the coal. Of course, the results were unexpected.
The temperature of the furnace raised by burning coal was much higher than that of charcoal, and the quality of the iron ingots smelted was greatly improved. It was comparable to the refined steel of the same era.
Zhao Feng, who was in charge of business, kept sending back good news. Porcelains and cloth had already started to be sold in Youzhou and Jizhou.
According to Liu Heng's instructions, Zhao Feng gave each of the important officials of the prefecture and the seriously ill Youzhou governor a piece of high-quality porcelain. Firstly, he wanted to gain their support, and secondly, he wanted to promote the porcelain through their flaunting.
Of course, in order to keep it a secret, he only told them that the porcelain was bought from a tribe in the far north.
The cloth was mass-produced on a small scale. As the proficiency of the female workers increased, the production increased day by day, from the initial one or two bolts per day to the current five bolts, and the quality also increased.
Although the people who opposed it were still complaining and constantly petitioning Liu Heng to close the textile workshop, Liu Heng still laughed it off.
In the first few days, Xun Yu still tried to change Liu Heng's mind, hoping to use the high price of porcelain as a comparison.
However, Liu Heng did not change his mind and instead told Xun Yu,"The profit of each piece of cloth is about 800 yuan, and the supply exceeds the demand. Although porcelain is expensive, the sales are relatively low.
Moreover, porcelain was a luxury item. After the novelty, its sales decreased rapidly. It could not compare to the continuous and stable income of cloth.”
At the end of January, the female workers received their wages for the first time. There was also an additional bonus from Liu Heng to increase production. The most was 150 yuan, and the least was around 100 yuan.
Such a large amount of money could only be seen after selling a year's worth of grain. Of course, it was only seen, but it would be taken away by the tax collectors in the blink of an eye.
Looking at the money in their hands, many women could not express the excitement in their hearts with words. They could only stiffly shout,"Thank you, Mayor, for your great kindness." Then, they rushed home to report the good news to their relatives.
Soon after, these wages were quickly converted into rice, meat, and cloth, which began to enter the circulation field to stimulate the regional economic development.
Seeing the scene of the female worker's happy family celebrating, the voice of opposition became weak and disappeared.
Most of the money earned from selling porcelain and cloth was used to buy food, iron, copper, cotton, hemp, silk, and other materials.
What was shipped out was goods, and what was shipped back was raw materials. Just by looking at the appearance, it was the same as bartering.
Production and sales entered a virtuous cycle. The warehouses of the three counties were getting more and more full. The income and expenditure of the treasury funds were gradually balanced. Other than maintaining normal administrative expenses, production expenses, maintenance, and investment, there was a small surplus. Liu Heng knew that it was time to build new army equipment.
On February 10th, the second textile workshop was put into production. At the same time, a new work system was implemented, including rewards and punishments, division of labor, management, etc. Liu Heng also implemented the assembly line operation, forming a production line with a corresponding number of spinning machines and looms. The wages of the female workers in the production line were linked to the output and quality of the cloth to promote production efficiency.
The scale of the ceramic kiln had also doubled. The variety of porcelain gradually increased, and the rate of finished products increased rapidly.
Although the clay used for local porcelain firing was not very good, it also had a unique advantage due to the variety of products, rich colors, and novel styles.
Zhao Feng implemented the management method taught by Liu Heng: The porcelain products were divided into two parts. One part was a streamlined process, and each craftsman was only responsible for one part. Although the porcelain produced was of a single style, it had the advantage of high production and low cost. It could allow porcelain to enter the homes of ordinary people and become a mass consumer product.
The other part was specially made by professionals. Each piece needed to be meticulously crafted. Of course, it was worth a lot. It was mainly sold to large families to make money.
Because the porcelain itself had a noble and elegant quality, the officials of the state government simply borrowed flowers to offer Buddha and sent them to Luoyang.
The governor of Youzhou was directly sent to the hands of the Han Emperor Liu Hong. Not only did he win the praise of the Han Emperor, but he was also asked to collect as many tributes as possible. It would be best if he could get the method of burning porcelain!
Therefore, the Youzhou governor ordered the merchants to send it over for free and tried their best to get the production method.
Liu Heng laughed when he heard the news. He knew that he could not go against his superior for the time being, so he could only tell the merchant that he could not guarantee the delivery on time on the pretext that it was difficult to transport goods due to the long journey. Moreover, the tribe had extremely strict protection on the firing method and it was difficult to steal it.
The Youzhou Provincial Governor had no choice but to forcefully take it from a rich family, causing his already injured body to become even thinner.
Due to the Emperor's " propaganda ", porcelain quickly spread among the high officials and nobles of Luoyang.
They rushed to the Youzhou and Jizhou to buy them to show their status, and even more people competed to see who had more and who was better, as if they were crazy and not stingy with their money.
The constant attendants were even more powerful. They took advantage of various opportunities to continuously pay tribute to Liu Hong, causing nearly 90% of the high-quality porcelain to be concentrated in Luoyang.
The bidding in Luoyang caused the price of porcelain to increase in the areas where the rich people in Si Li were concentrated. The merchants in the three counties earned a lot of money, and a large amount of five baht money was turned into various materials and scattered back to the three counties.
A large number of logistics and merchants traveling between Ji City and Youbei had made Gongsun Zan a huge sum of toll fees. Originally, he had wanted to submit a copy to Liu Heng, but when he saw that the treasury was gradually filling up, he had no choice but to give up the idea and count his money in peace.
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