Everyone went down the mountain immediately, this time they were no longer impatient, but were all full of curiosity!

In fact, the mountain is not high, only halfway up the mountain, and the terrain begins to calm down.

So people saw that the miners transported the ore from the bamboo basket here and stopped because from here, a wooden track was built on the ground.

This track is like the rails of later generations, but it is made of wooden. Here, there are special frames on the wooden rails. The axles and wooden rails seem to fit together. People piled ores directly into the truck bucket, and then... the front of the truck bucket is pulled by horse.

Because of the wooden rails, the rugged road and the friction of wheels are greatly reduced, so... a horse can easily pull thousands of kilograms of ore!

Cars were waiting here, and when the ore was filled, the carriage drove the horses towards the end of the wooden tracks.

Changsun Wuji's eyes were straightened. The mine had so many wonderful ideas, so many times better than his own mine! The time and cost of mining were greatly reduced. Hundreds of miners could easily mine ore that miners could mine. The transportation time and cost were obviously greatly reduced because of this wooden track, because he saw horses easily carrying cargo and running along the track.

And at the end of the track, I finally saw a huge smelting workshop.

The smelting workshop was built on the river, which happened to be connected to Erpigou and Chang'an, so... here, a wharf has been built, and the smelted ore can be easily sent to Erpigou by ship.

What makes people even more spectacular is that huge chimneys have been built here.

There was a rolling smoke rising from the chimney.

When people approached this workshop, they felt a pungent smell. Here, it seemed that even the air smelled like cinder.

At this time, everyone discovered that not only were people sending copper ore on tracks here, but people also used tracks extending to another direction to deliver a large amount of coal.

Li Shimin was overwhelmed with his eyes. When he saw the dark ore in the distance, he was surprised and couldn't help but say, "What is that?"

"Mr.," Chen Zhengtai said: "That's coal, used to smelify copper."

Li Shimin said in surprise: "Why, the Chen family used charcoal to smelify copper?"

Li Shimin's words are actually nothing wrong, because charcoal is usually used!

But charcoal is very expensive.

The coal used here comes from the open-pit coal mine nearby.

You know, although the place of Zhengxian is mountainous, it is precisely because of its mountainousness that it contains countless mineral veins!

This coal can be used locally and has a low cost, which is much cheaper than cutting down trees, firing charcoal, and then smelting metals. It can also be produced on a large scale.

Changsun Wuji shook his head suspiciously and said, "This is a bit unreasonable. I also know a little about this black stone. It is not that it cannot be burned, but it is often not very useful when using it to smelter iron. Most of the iron smelting in the world is made of charcoal, so how can this black stone be used?"

Chen Zhengtai thought to himself that the fundamental reason why coal smelting was not popular in ancient times was that the coal had high sulfur content. If this thing was used to directly smel metals, the copper and iron refined were often of very poor quality, so it was normal for the Changsun family to use charcoal to smelter iron.

But the Chen family is different. The Chen family has Chen Zhengtai!

The coal was sent here, and the Chen family built a coal washing workshop here, which was specially used to desulfurize coal!

This coal washing workshop has a special coking oven, and then... after several processes, the coal can form coke.

Coke was called metallurgical coal in later generations, because after desulfurization, such coal was used for metallurgy, which was simply a magical tool.

The coal washing workshop is connected to the copper smelting workshop. There is a special wooden rail connected. After the coking coal is made, it is then sent to the smelting workshop by carriage along the wooden rails.

The metallurgical workshop built a blast furnace.

Of course... the blast furnace of this era was very simple. This blast furnace was made of steel plates as the furnace shell, and the shell was lininged with refractory bricks.

During the production of blast furnace, ore, coke, and slag-making flux limestone are loaded from the top of the furnace, and a blown airbag is set up along the furnace around the lower part of the furnace to blow in the preheated air. The coke burns, and the temperature in the furnace continues to rise, thus...the brass is extracted.

At this time, Li Shimin and his ministers entered the smelting workshop, and saw that everyone here was doing their homework naked. As soon as they entered the smelting workshop, a wave of heat coming towards them suddenly drove away the cold winter air.

Soon, Li Shimin felt sweating profusely.

Everyone looked at this workshop and was disdainful at first. Chen Zhengtai really didn't know anything about it. He actually brought His Majesty into this place!

Look at the naked and sweaty laborers working here. Isn’t this annoying?

Besides, everyone was wearing loose dresses. After a short while, they felt sweating all over, as if they were about to roast themselves.

Li Tai was obese and panting even hot, and couldn't help but say, "Father, please pay attention to your body. It's too hot here, so it's not suitable to stay for a long time."

Li Chengqian felt it was very fresh. He was not a well-behaved boy and kept in a strong interest in everything. He looked left and right, and even wanted to get close to the blast furnace. Especially under the blast furnace, the huge blower airbag driven by the water truck was now continuously heating the cold air in the hot air furnace to nearly seven or eight hundred degrees, and then the air was continuously and steadily entering the furnace cylinder through the air outlet. The hot air caused the coke in front of the air outlet to burn, producing nearly two thousand degrees of heat.

You must know that the melting point of copper is only a thousand degrees. Once it is burned by this blast furnace, it will instantly become copper liquid.

Li Chengqian felt it was rare and wanted to get closer, but was grabbed by someone.

Li Shimin smiled and said, "For the first time, I know that copper and iron were made like this. You should also take a look at the green bird."

Li Tai was bored, but unexpectedly his father criticized him.

Fortunately, "honest children" like him will never lack the great scholars around him to help him!

At this time, Xiao Deyan, who was standing behind Li Tai, said: "Your Majesty, Your Highness, King Yue is well-read, and what you need to do now is to learn how to cultivate oneself and manage the family. What is the use of this craftsman's skillful skill to Your Highness? I think that Your Highness is focused on cultivating virtue and seeking knowledge, rather than the craftsman's skills."

What he implies was that this thing was useless, it was something that ordinary people should do. Princess were noble, and they just need to cultivate virtue.

Another meaning is that, look at Chen Zhengtai and the prince seem to be very interested in this, they are not good things.

Xiao Deyan was a great scholar in Jiangnan and one of the eighteen bachelors. Li Shimin always respected him, and after hearing his words, he naturally would not argue with him!

But the next moment, Li Shimin's eyes fell on something under the blast furnace.

Here... is a hole, and then the molten copper liquid has been removed from other impurities, flowing out of the hole like stream water.

Under the hole, there are molds. The craftsmen put the molds below at any time. After a while, the copper liquid filled the abrasive tools. Then, everyone took the iron pliers and clamped the mold to one side for cooling.

This stream of copper liquid is endless.

In the cooled abrasive tools, Li Shimin looked closely and was immediately filled with surprise.

Because he found... these were pieces of brass, countless pieces of brass, each weighing several pounds, and then piled up to one side.

This process only requires more than a dozen craftsmen, and the brass is continuously produced.

It seems like there will never be an end.

Li Shimin couldn't help but say, "Look, please."

Seeing that Your Majesty did not answer, Xiao Deyan thought that he must have made Your Majesty speechless, and felt a little proud!

He even thought that if His Majesty refuted him, how should he quote the scriptures and oppose him? In any case, he must keep his attitude towards His Highness King Yue in the best state.

But now... everyone put away their thoughts and looked in the direction Li Shimin pointed.

In an instant, everyone was stunned.

Brass...is produced...

There were countless copper blocks piled up, and every once in a while, a carriage came to load the mountain-stacked copper blocks and then transported them away directly.

But although the copper blocks stored in this warehouse are continuously transported by people, new copper blocks will always be melted.

What's even more terrifying is that this copper block has a very good color, with almost no impurities on the surface, shining brightly, and even emitting golden light from a distance.

Xiao Deyan was still smiling, and the next moment... something suddenly happened to his face.

"Chen Zhengtai..."

Someone screamed excitedly, it was Changsun Wuji's voice.

Changsun Wuji said: "How many such brass are you melting every day?"

Just now, many people still felt dizzy, but at this moment, they were all excited. Something was wrong, something was wrong.

Chen Zhengtai smiled and said, "Not many, now only three such blast furnaces are built, so the brass that can be melted in a day is only 70,000 to 80,000 kilograms. The main reason is that the craftsmen are still very unfamiliar with their craftsmanship and many places need to be improved. If the production is full in the future, and a few more blast furnaces will be built at that time, things will be easier."

Seventy or eighty thousand pounds...

Some people began to be confused.

A hint of surprise suddenly flashed through Li Shimin's eyes.

But many people around them already felt that their bodies were shaking.

Changsun Wuji opened his mouth, unable to close it.

But Chen Zhengtai looked very regretful.

Yes... I, Chen, is simply the slag among this time traveler, 70,000 to 80,000 kilograms. If converted into the unit of measurement in later generations, it is only 40 tons!

This is the output of thousands of people in the mines, and it took three blast furnaces to produce them. In later generations, any blast furnace would produce five or six thousand tons a day, with a scary efficiency. Chen's crude blast furnace is only one percent of the past.

Very ashamed.

But this was already scary enough for Changsun Wuji, it was already an astronomical figure.

This is copper.

You know, a hundred coins are almost one pound of copper, and a one-month cost is roughly ten pounds of brass.

And these 70,000 to 80,000 jins are just the copper produced every day, which is enough for nearly 10,000 jin of copper coins?

That month was 300,000.

This does not include what Chen Zhengtai said about continuing to increase production.

If it is added, in the future...will it be possible to produce millions, or even two millions, or three millions in a month...

Everyone was shocked for a moment, it was so terrible.

No wonder...it's no wonder.
To be continued...