Chapter 6: You fight, I sell weapons and armor

After sending away the embarrassing emissary of the Duchy of Geddes, Marin suddenly heard the report-the steel plant was put into production ...

Before, in order to build a high-level reservoir, Malinte made fly ash cement, and then he built a steel plant, intending to produce steel bars to use the strongest reinforced concrete when building the reservoir.

In order to produce steel bars, Malinte collected materials and built a 5-ton (5 tons per day) iron smelting small blast furnace, a 2-ton open hearth furnace, and a coking furnace that specializes in coking coke into coke.

Of course, it is not difficult to build a small blast furnace, nor is it troublesome to build an open hearth furnace. What is really troublesome is how to collect the by-product of the coke oven, coke oven gas, and lead it to the open hearth combustion chamber for open hearth steelmaking.

For this reason, the craftsmen fought for several months, relying on labor, using expensive bronze, and making copper pipes that can prevent rust for a long time to guide the coke oven gas to the steel-making open hearth furnace.

After several months of trial and error, finally, at the end of April 1501, the commissioning was completed and the official iron and steel making began ...

Although it is said that the daily production of 5 tons of iron and the daily production of 2 tons of steel may be a joke in later generations, the output of a village-run steel plant is also much larger than that of the small steel plant of Marin. However, this also has to consider the historical environment.

In later generations, because the industry is extremely developed, steel is produced, and there is no need to worry about it. For example, the real estate that Hua Xia is engaged in, each building needs to use a lot of steel. In addition, the steel consumption in machine manufacturing is also very alarming. Therefore, steel output often becomes an important industrial indicator of a country.

However, in this era, because the machine industry has not yet appeared, the use of steel is very narrow. Steel is produced, either for the production of daily necessities such as farm tools, kitchen knives, iron pans, or for the production of weapon armor.

Therefore, the use of steel in this era is very limited, and the consumption of the entire society is not too large. If you really want to move the steel plant of later generations to produce so much steel, no one will buy it.

5 tons of pig iron per day, it sounds less, but after a year, there are 1825 tons. What is the concept of 1825 tons? Perhaps the boss of a township steel plant will despise it, but in ancient times, it was definitely a lot. You know, according to the data, in Russia in 1670, the annual steel output was only 2,400 tons.

And what time was 1670? That was on the eve of Peter the Great. At that time, Russia was already a powerful European country with a population of at least several million.

1825 tons of iron, counted as a catty, a huge 365,000 catties. It takes 1.85 kg of steel to build a 65-cavalry saber. Converted, 1825 tons of iron can build nearly 100,000. A pair of Gothic plate armor, but weighs 50 pounds, with these steels, you can build 7,300 sets ...

In short, let East Frisian Lambert digest it by itself, 1825 tons of iron can never be used up ...

So, just after it was put into production, Marin had a headache for the sale of steel ...

"Oh, how did you forget Saxony and Geddes who were fighting?" Marin tapped his head suddenly.

In future generations, what business is the most profitable? Naturally, it is a product of arms and poison. However, the manufacture of weapons and equipment in later generations is very technical, and most people cannot handle it. For example, the African black uncle could not get it by himself, so he had to buy it. Therefore, arms dealers can raise prices and squeeze buyers.

But in this era, whether it is a sword or armor, the technical content is not high, and everyone can produce it by recruiting a few blacksmiths. Therefore, it is difficult to sell weapons and armor at a high price.

However, in this era, the European iron smelting technology was too wasteful, and the low-level iron smelting technology of the “block smelting method” has been used in the early days. The iron smelted by this iron smelting technology is relatively soft. Moreover, some soldiers became bent after the sword was assassinated, and the soldiers needed to step on the sword again on the ground before using it.

However, with the development of the Renaissance, Europeans gradually came out of the early religious bondage, and science began to develop. The French first made large pieces of cast iron ingots in the middle of the 15th century. Then, during this period, the British iron smelting industry should also start to develop. In the early 16th century, the British produced the Hongyi Cannon.

But in 1501, the British estimated that they had not yet produced an excellent Hongyi cannon. Moreover, European steel, I do not know why, has been soft. Therefore, their plate armor was not used early. This also led to the fact that the French knights wearing plate armor were always given armor by the English longbow in the early years of the British-French Hundred Years War ...

But after the French made cast iron in the 15th century, the hardness of the plate armor greatly increased, and they no longer feared the English longbow. Therefore, the plate armor knight was very bright in the 15th century. It is a pity that after entering the 16th century, muskets rose again. Musketeers don't care how hard your plate armor is. Then, the plate armor knight is sent to the historical garbage dump by the Musketeer.

However, at this stage, plate armor is still very useful. Because there are very few troops in Europe that use muskets. And Marin made pig iron from the small blast furnace, which is very suitable for making armor and swords. Not to mention the steel produced in the open hearth furnace.

Now that Saxon and Gede are fighting, they definitely need a lot of sword armor. It happened that Marin was worried about the sale of steel. So, Marin planned to take part of the steel and use it to make weapons and armor, and then sell it to the warring parties ...

Know that in this era, iron swords and plate armor were still very expensive because of the backward iron smelting technology. A set of Maximilian armor from Innsbruck, Austria, priced at more than 200 gold coins. Of course, that's a fine product. Ordinary quality plate armor also has thirty or fifty gold coins. A two-handed sword costs around 5 to 10 gold coins.

Generally speaking, the two-handed swords used by knights are forged repeatedly, which takes a long time. But in fact, the blacksmiths mainly squeeze out the impurities in the sword under high temperature.

However, the steel smelted in Marin's open hearth furnace is excellent without forging. However, Marin did not intend to give steel weapon armor to others. What's more, both Saxony and Geddes are potential enemies of Marin.

So, Marin decided to use pig iron to build weapon armor and sell it to the Saxons and Gedes ...

Moreover, Marin is not a pit. Because at present, the mainstream weapon armor in Europe is of pig iron quality.

At most, Marin will add some quicklime to the pig iron molten iron to remove sulfur and phosphorus to improve the quality of the pig iron. Anyway, the quality will not be worse than others. As for the steel smelted in the open hearth, naturally its own weapon armor was used ...

So, Marin ordered to move to the weapons workshop near Aurich ~ www.wuxiaspot.com ~ began to make swords and armor on a large scale with pig iron, intending to sell to the warring parties.

Then, Marin sent messengers to Saxony and Geddes respectively, selling their own swords and armor ...

When Duke George and Duke Charles II received Marin's messenger and learned that Marin wanted to sell weapons and armor, he looked dumbfounded ...

However, think carefully, as the war continues, they really need to add swords and armor. After all, swords and armor are lossy due to battle. Even the weapons and armor used by the honor guards still have wear and tear, not to mention the two armies in the fierce battle?

Moreover, the samples of cast iron cast weapon armor brought by the messengers sent by Marin are not inferior in quality to others, and the price is also cheaper (blast furnace smelting iron is much cheaper and more efficient than the small furnaces of European blacksmiths in this era Higher), they have no reason to refuse.

But in fact, because of the high efficiency of blast furnace iron smelting using coke, the cost has been declining. A cast iron two-handed sword, Marin is profitable even if he only sells 1 gold coin. Today, he sells 4 gold coins, actually making a profit. But this point, as buyers Saxony and Geddes do not know, they are still happy because the price that Marin gave them is lower than the market price ...

Both buyers and sellers thought they were taking advantage of it, and Charles II, Duke of Geddes, thought, "Marin is indeed a good ally, and sell my armor at a low price!"

George thought-"The emperor's face is really big enough, the bad guy Marin is willing to sell him high-quality weapons and armor cheaply ..."

But in fact, Marin made a profit. Relying on the cost of iron smelting several times lower than the average blacksmith shop, even if it is lower than the market price, Marin makes more profits than other weapon suppliers ...