Chapter 99 Weapon Workshop

Maximus glanced at Capito.

Capito immediately introduced him: "The leader, his name is Kedesos. He was originally a slave, and now he is the steward of this weapons workshop I appointed. The original steward is Eraqus' confidant, Sarah Pia, a Roman citizen, who was unwilling to do anything for us.

And Kedessos is his servant. As you can see, the environment here is not very good. The steward usually doesn’t like to stay here. He usually instructs Kedessos to do things, so Kedessos has a negative attitude towards the workshop. On the contrary, he is more familiar with the affairs than that steward..."

Maximus nodded in agreement: "You are right. The weapons workshop is very important to us. Only those who share our hearts can be placed in important positions!"

Then Maximus smiled and patted Cadsos' thick shoulder intimately: "I know nothing about the weapons workshop. Next, I have to rely on you to take me around here carefully. Please explain it carefully so that I can learn from it."

"Yes... yes, leader." Kedessos was flattered. After calming down, he asked carefully in a questioning tone: "Shall we go to the gravel room first?"

"It's up to you." Maximus responded readily.

Cadsos led Maximus and Capito towards the river bank, followed closely by the heavily armed Guards soldiers. On the way, I met many busy people. When they saw this formation, they all quickly avoided it.

Soon they came to a tall building, which was built on a water channel and next to the hill to the west. The channel more than two meters wide introduced the gentle water of the Orfidus River from the hill. It became very turbulent as it poured down. The water hit a rather large wooden wheel under the building, making a loud rumbling sound. It also caused the fan blades of the wooden wheel to continue to rotate under the impact of the water...

Seeing this, Maximus suddenly became excited. He couldn't wait to walk into the building. What appeared in front of him was: at the other end of the wooden wheel deep into the building was a huge rotating gear, which was connected to the other side of the building. A smaller iron gear is fitted together, and the iron gear is fitted into another iron gear, through the connecting rod... Finally, an iron arm is revealed, with a large iron hammer at the end of the arm. The gears are linked together, eventually leading to The hammer moves up and down continuously to break the iron ore underneath...

"This is a water hammer!" Maximus couldn't help but said. When he was in Campania, he talked about the water mill with Volenus and Scapula, but instead of seeing the water mill, he saw another one first. An ancient machine that harnessed the power of water.

"First... leader, stand back a little more, be careful not to get hit by the gravel!" Kedessos reminded with concern. Due to the rumbling sound in the building, he had to speak loudly with great effort.

Maximus nodded, took a few steps back, and stared at several laborers not far away. They were wearing thicker clothes and their heads were tightly wrapped. They slowly moved the wooden boards covered with iron ore to the top. After all the iron ore was crushed, it was poured into the wooden frame, new iron ore was placed, and the hammer continued to hit...

After only staying for a while, Maximus felt that his eardrums couldn't bear it. He quickly withdrew, rubbed his buzzing ears, and then said: "We should call Spukala and let him study this water carefully." The construction of the hammer.”

"Chief, Spukala has been here a long time ago. The water hammer broke down before, and I invited him to fix it." Capito said.

"Oh, it turns out that you have known about such a good thing for a long time, and you have been hiding it from me." Maximus said half-jokingly and half-seriously.

Capito replied seriously: "Chief, I don't think this thing is very good. I heard them say that building a water hammer requires a lot of manpower, but this thing often breaks down and is troublesome to repair. And because of the water in the Orfidus River, The amount is uncertain, and the impact on water hammer is also greater...

Originally, Erakus planned to build a few more water hammers and use them more for forging molten iron. Perhaps because of these shortcomings, it was only used on gravel that had the lowest technical requirements. "

"Oh, that's right..." Maximus responded. Capito's words did not reduce his interest in water hammer. As a modern man, he knew that mechanical power is far more efficient than human power. , and can also promote the development of society...

He was about to catch a glimpse of Kedessos hesitating to speak out of the corner of his eye, so he asked with a smile: "Kedessos, what do you think of this water hammer?"

Cadsos glanced at Capito warily.

"Just say what you have to say! Neither Capito nor I know much about iron smelting and weapon casting. You have been here for so long, and you are the expert in this field. Your opinions are very important to us!"

Maximus spoke frankly, which made Cadsos feel unprecedented respect. He felt a surge of heat in his heart, and immediately blurted out: "I think the water hammer is very good. It can not only be used to break stones, but also It should be used for forging!”

"Oh, tell me carefully." Maximus encouraged.

"The Romans were hired to build this water hammer with a lot of money. I heard from the Lord... Erakus complained privately that the Romans were worried that the weapons and armor produced by this weapons workshop would exceed theirs, and the construction was not very careful, so it was often It broke down, and our carpenters here lacked the experience to repair it, so it was stopped from time to time. But we have the adult who came that day (referring to Spukala), so there shouldn't be so much trouble in the future.

When this water hammer is working well, it can crush more than 1,500 kilograms of iron ore a day. This can only be achieved by more than a dozen people holding hammers and hammering for a whole day, because they have to rest at night, but the water hammer does not need to be used.

In fact, the blacksmiths once brought molten iron here for forging at the request of my former master, which is actually much more labor-saving than their own. However, they complained that the power given by the water hammer was either too large or too small, and it often broke down, seriously affecting the quality of weapon output, so they finally gave up.

But I think-"

Kedos hesitated for a moment, lowered his voice and said: "The main reason why those blacksmiths strongly opposed it is that if the water hammer is used in large quantities for forging, some blacksmiths and laborers may be replaced..."

Maximus asked in a more amiable tone: "Then what kind of improvements do you think need to be made if the water hammer is to be used more in the weapon workshop?"

"This... I don't understand. "Cadesos touched his head, and seeing Maximus' encouraging eyes, he couldn't help but say again: "If this water hammer can be equipped with a special carpenter, regular inspection and maintenance, it should not malfunction frequently...

And I heard them say that the reason why the power of this canal is difficult to control is because the water flow of our Aufidus River is too slow and there is not much water in the river. Therefore, when the weather is hot and dry, it will..."

Maximus listened carefully and said with a smile: "You said it well! Where should we go next?"

"Go to... the ore washing room."

"Ore washing? "These... these iron ores contain not only iron, but also... soil and other things. We need to put the crushed iron ore into the water tank for stirring and washing to wash away the impurities in the iron ore, so that there will be more iron in the iron ore..." Cadesos explained: "I heard... the iron ore we use here comes from Noricum in northern Italy. It is better than iron ore from other places, and the ore contains more iron..." Maximus listened to Cadesos's explanation while carefully visiting the ore washing room, roasting room, and grinding room. The grinding room was built on the canal next to the gravel room, and the rumbling sound it made was equally deafening. Maximus found the water mill he had longed for in the room. Its entire structure was similar to a water hammer, except that the end was replaced by a large stone mill instead of a large iron hammer. However, it did not grind grains, Instead, it is the ore that becomes expanded and soft after roasting. Here, the ore is ground into granular powder, and then the powder is sent to the center of the weapons workshop.

There is a large tower-like house here, about two meters high, without a door to block it, and it remains transparent. There is a large round furnace in the house, which is one meter underground and about 1.5 meters in diameter. The furnace cavity gradually shrinks upwards and eventually becomes a straight chimney, sticking out of the roof and releasing billowing black smoke... People in the workshop call it a "vertical furnace".

The almost naked laborers mixed the ore powder and charcoal in a certain proportion, put them into the furnace layer by layer, ignited them, closed the furnace cavity, and blew air in through the airway...

I don't know how long it took, the house became extremely hot, which made Maximus unbearable. When he had to leave, he saw that the laborers were still Busy inside the house.

Since this is the most important part of iron smelting, Maximus waited patiently outside the house until he saw the fiery red liquid flowing out from the bottom of the furnace...

He thought it was molten iron, but Caedesos told him that these liquids were slag, and the real iron embryos were still in the furnace.

When the slag was drained, the laborers opened the furnace, carefully took out the semi-fluid iron embryos, and sent them to another large house connected to the vertical furnace chamber.

There were several heavy gate knives in the house, and there were several laborers next to them. Their task was to cut and stretch the freshly-made, still soft iron embryos into suitable sizes so that they could be better made into the required weapons.

There were also some strong men in leather robes and holding hammers in the house. Their task was to simply forge the cut iron embryos to remove the iron embryos. Slag, making it purer and stronger.

After this cycle, the iron ore was produced into pig iron ingots, and the iron smelting should have come to an end, but Caedesus told Maximus: Erachus spent a huge price to learn a method from the Roman military businessmen to make iron more durable, that is, to place the pig iron ingots and charcoal powder in a sealed container, and then heat it at high temperature for several hours...

Isn't this carbon mixing? ! ... Maximus was surprised. The reason why he knew about this was that he had taken over a job from a game company in his previous life, and provided illustrations for a game of ancient civilization hegemony, which included illustrations of various ancient scientific and technological upgrades. In order to draw good pictures, he was serious about his work and had carefully read historical materials and looked at the prototype structure. The carbon-doped raw steel method was an ancient technology.

Maximus thought about it and didn't find it strange anymore, because the armor and daggers they captured from the Roman legions were much harder than pig iron and could be considered steel. This showed that the Romans' steelmaking technology had become popular and widely used in the army, becoming a weapon for the Roman army to dominate the Mediterranean. Maximus frowned and followed Caedesos to the east of the weapons workshop, where weapons were made.

The first thing you enter is the foundry house, which is a large house divided into two parts: one is the crucible house, where small pieces of wrought iron ingots are put into the crucible, and then the crucible is sealed with clay. Repeated heating at high temperatures can eventually turn it into molten iron;

The other is the mold house, where various iron and pottery molds are densely packed, such as armor molds, spear point molds... Laborers pour molten iron into the molds, remove the molds after cooling, and the prototype of the weapon is formed. .

Due to material limitations, crucible casting is only suitable for small weapons. For the manufacture of large weapons such as daggers, helmets, shield cores, and greaves, wrought iron ingots of various sizes must be sent to the forging room.

The forging room is larger in area and is divided into various weapon rooms such as helmet room, dagger room, armor room... etc. Wrought iron ingots and weapon prototypes cast from crucibles are quenched, forged, polished, and ground by the blacksmiths. Front...

The formed weapons will then be sent to various assembly rooms. The people working in the assembly rooms are no longer blacksmiths, but mainly slaves who are proficient in carpentry and leather arts. They would add handles and scabbards to daggers, embed iron shield cores into square shields, pad linings and feathers on helmets, connect pieces of armor and assemble them into segmented armor... …

When Maximus visited the dagger room, he also saw an acquaintance - Paisianasis and his son Paisipidas.

In Pompeii, Maximus had met Peisianasis several times, and the two parties should have known each other, but Peisianasis clearly saw Maximus coming in, but deliberately turned his head and turned a blind eye.

However, his son Pasipidas took the initiative to greet him and shouted respectfully: "Chief Maximus!"

Maximus said with a smile: "Long time no see, Pasippidas, it looks like your injuries are all healed!"

Pasipidas touched his right leg with his hand, and said with both heart palpitations and gratitude: "It's all my fault for my reckless behavior. If you hadn't sent someone to rescue me, I'm afraid my leg would have been disabled long ago!"

"No, you shouldn't thank me." Maximus said seriously: "You should thank the medical team and Lucina who took good care of you!"