Chapter 444: Assembly Line 2

At the mine, the miners worked very hard; cart after cart of ore was dug out from underground and sent to the raw material processing plant, where the veteran masters of the Manufacturing Department would first select ore with high iron content and few impurities to improve iron smelting efficiency and the quality of the iron produced.

According to the typical iron smelting methods of the Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty, the bloomery process was used, which involved placing iron ore and Charcoal in layers into a smelting furnace, igniting it to heat, and using the carbon monoxide produced by the incomplete combustion of the Charcoal to reduce the iron oxide in the iron ore into iron.

Then, the pig iron was heated to a liquid or semi-liquid state and stirred continuously, allowing the carbon element in the pig iron to react fully with the oxygen in the air, thereby reducing the carbon content to obtain wrought iron or steel.

Some blacksmith masters also used the co-fusion steel process, which involved pouring molten pig iron onto wrought iron so that the carbon content could penetrate the wrought iron quickly and evenly, followed by repeated forging to squeeze out impurities, making the steel purer and more uniform.

After the steel was produced, it was then repeatedly forged with a Hammer to shape it into the rough form of the required weapon, such as the blade of a sword or the body of a saber.

Then, tools like Hammers and anvils were used to further hammer and refine the blank, making its shape more accurate and its dimensions more compliant with requirements.

Next was quenching, which meant heating the weapon to a certain temperature and then quickly placing it into water, oil, or another quenching medium to cool, causing a hard martensite structure to form on the weapon's surface, improving its hardness and wear resistance.

Finally, there was tempering; because the weapon's hardness was high after quenching but its brittleness was also great, it was prone to breaking. Through tempering, the weapon was heated to a lower temperature and held for a period, then cooled slowly to eliminate quenching stress, reduce the weapon's brittleness, and improve its toughness.

After undergoing so many steps, a weapon could finally be completed; it could be said that from digging out the ore to manufacturing the weapon, the entire process required one to three months, or even longer.

If one wanted to refine special steel weapons from ore, it often required more than three months, or even half a year.

However, the modernized iron smelting and casting equipment brought back by Meng Yifan was different; its work efficiency was extremely high, opening the eyes of veteran masters like Wang Dachui, who had been blacksmiths their entire lives, and leaving them marveling in wonder.

The modernized iron smelting equipment used a large amount of machinery, and many steps could be completed automatically, which was not only highly efficient but also saved on labor.

First, machinery was used to crush, screen, and grind the mined iron ore to ensure its particle size met the requirements for blast furnace smelting.

Then, the iron ore was mixed with coke, limestone, and other materials in a certain proportion; the coke served as a reducing agent and fuel, while the limestone was used for slagging and removing impurities.

Next was blast furnace iron smelting, where the mixed raw materials were loaded from the top of the blast furnace; inside the furnace, the combustion of coke produced high temperatures and reducing gases like carbon monoxide, and the iron oxides in the iron ore were reduced to metallic iron under the high-temperature and reducing atmosphere.

At the same time, the calcium oxide produced by the decomposition of limestone combined with impurities in the ore to form slag; the molten iron and slag separated under the force of gravity, with the molten iron flowing out from the bottom of the blast furnace and the slag being discharged from the side.

What followed was converter steelmaking, where the molten iron from the blast furnace was poured into a converter, a certain amount of scrap steel was added, and oxygen was blown into the converter; the oxygen underwent oxidation reactions with elements like carbon, silicon, and manganese in the molten iron, generating gases like carbon dioxide, silicon dioxide, and manganese oxide, as well as slag, thereby reducing the carbon content and impurities in the molten iron and adjusting the composition and temperature of the molten steel to meet steelmaking requirements.

After the steel was refined, the next step was the weapon manufacturing assembly line, mainly divided into barrel manufacturing, receiver manufacturing, bolt manufacturing, and the manufacturing of other components; then, the manufactured parts were assembled, followed by final assembly, testing, and quality inspection, and AK47 Assault Rifles, PP87-style 82mm mortars, and PF98-style 120mm Rockets were produced.

"Incredible, simply incredible." The blacksmiths of the Manufacturing Department, including Wang Dachui, followed the assembly line from the moment the ore was delivered, watching as the ore, wood, and other raw materials turned bit by bit into modern weapons like the AK47 Assault Rifle, and they were all left dumbfounded.

The modernized weapon manufacturing equipment completely shattered their perceptions, letting them know that weapons could actually be manufactured this way.

In fact, with the craftsmanship of Wang Dachui and the others, if they were given the manufacturing blueprints for an AK47, they could hand-craft a knock-off version of an AK47, but that would require highly skilled craftsmen, consume a massive amount of time, and still could not guarantee the service life or shooting accuracy of a hand-crafted AK47.

Following the operating instructions, the master craftsmen like Wang Dachui operated the machinery for each link once and roughly understood how to do it; then, these master craftsmen were assigned to various key links to guide the workers, with Wang Dachui serving as the chief engineer, responsible for patrolling the various links.

At the beginning, these workers, who had been transformed from refugees into military factory workers, were inevitably a bit flustered, but after they adapted for a period of time, everyone became proficient; this was, after all, a process where practice makes perfect.

Moreover, some key links were basically controlled by computer intelligence, and the work done by humans was limited to assembly, inspection, transport, and other links; these tasks were relatively much simpler, and some clever workers could quickly get the hang of them.

In the process of exploring weapon manufacturing, the genius students from the junior high division, such as Meng Qingshan, Meng Qingyu, Meng Qinghe, and Zhang Shitou, performed exceptionally well and played a major role; for many steps that the old blacksmiths like Wang Dachui could not understand, these genius students like Meng Qingshan would think about the physics theorems they learned in their textbooks, look at the operating guides, and be able to roughly understand the principles behind them.

Even the students from the primary school division, such as Zhang Mancang, were faster at mastering the modernized machinery and the assembly and inspection aspects than the blacksmiths like Wang Dachui, which made the blacksmiths feel inferior and forced them to admit that children who had studied were indeed clever.

Now, in the school in Luolong County, not only were students taught martial arts techniques, scientific knowledge, and trained in formations, but practical courses had also been added.

The so-called practical courses were meant to let students apply what they had learned, combining theoretical knowledge with practical application through the students' personal participation and actual operation, so as to cultivate the students' practical ability, innovative ability, and problem-solving ability.

Meng Yifan opened the school and taught knowledge to students for free not to cultivate bookworms who had high standards but low abilities; he wanted to cultivate talents who could apply their learning to the needs of the world.

Bookworms who only read dead books, no matter how high their scores on theoretical exams, were still useless.

The Great Wu Heavenly Dynasty was already in the end-times of a dynasty, with people dying at every moment; in such an environment, those bookworms were almost unable to protect themselves and were useless trash.