Roman Slave Owner

Chapter 10 Forge sword

These craftsmen and guards were no longer familiar with them. Soon, wooden houses were built in the style of a barracks, and 10 camps were built in units of brigades, and Li Wei was located like a star Gongyue. The manor was surrounded in the middle.

Those blacksmiths also got busy, building various weapons.

Li Wei discovered a great advantage of slaves, that is, the low labor cost is terribly low.

If you want any craftsman, just go and buy one, and you can use it whatever you want. Of course, this will cause many Roman citizens to lose their jobs.

Just like the sheep cannibal movement in later England, Rome is now slave cannibalism.

In an open-air blacksmith’s shop, more than two dozen slave blacksmiths are sweating like rain to forge weapons and armors, and the sound of Ding Ding Dangdang is endless.

A blacksmith handed a Spanish dagger that had just been built to Li Wei, and stood aside respectfully.

Li Wei looked at this dagger with a weird face. Is this the Roman sword-making method? It seems terrible.

“Don’t you know how to perform heat treatment?”

Li Wei asked.

“what is that?”

Geikes, the slave craftsman asked curiously.

Li Wei glanced at Getta, and Getta shook his head, not understanding what Li Wei was talking about.

Li Wei couldn’t help but caress his forehead. Later generations had a lot of disputes about the smelting process of ancient Rome.

Some people say that ancient Roman daggers were made of wrought iron. They were bent once they were pierced, and then they had to be straightened and pierced. Now he thinks that it is 80% of the time.

There are four major processes in the heat treatment of weapons, namely annealing, normalizing, tempering and quenching.

Geikes just carried out the simplest quenching, which is embarrassing to be called an excellent blacksmith.

“Geta, what do you think of this sword?”

Li Wei handed the sword to Getta.

Getta gently rubbed a few times, then took a short sword and chopped a wooden stick next to it.

The wooden stick fell, and the short sword was slightly bent…

Straightened the short sword without changing the face of the tower, and said, “It’s not bad, it’s barely a good sword.”

Sure enough, the reason why the Roman dagger is short and wide is that it is not long at all.

is easy to bend so short, not to mention making the sword longer.

Every country will use the most advanced technology in weapons. There is absolutely no doubt about this, especially in ancient Rome, which is keen on war.

If the short sword is more suitable for the Roman infantry phalanx, what about the gladiators?

They don’t need daggers, in fact all they use are daggers, and long swords are basically invisible.

He remembered reading it in a book. Aristotle said: “Put iron in a furnace and heat it several times to get high-quality steel.”

Isn’t this a bullshit? It becomes steel by heating it several times, which is too easy.

asked Pliny at the University of Rome, he wrote a book called “Natural History”, which said that there are many types of iron, but the iron from the silk country is the best.

The famous Roman short sword and the long sword Spatha, which appeared after the 2nd century AD, were not even heat-treated, which also verified Li Wei’s judgment.

Giikos said triumphantly: “I used to be a famous blacksmith in Spain. I used to build weapons for the Roman army there.”

Li Wei has no expectations for Roman weapons craftsmanship, and doesn’t even understand heat treatment, so he is ashamed to say that he is a famous blacksmith.

“Is there no better iron?”

Li Wei asked.

The sword bends when it is cut, which means that this is wrought iron with a carbon content of 0.5%, also known as wrought iron. Before the emergence of steel swords, humans have experienced the age of iron swords.

Many people in later generations say that this is actually a piece of iron smelting, a kind of wrought iron made at a low temperature of about 1000 degrees, and it contains a lot of impurities.

Due to the backward technology of iron smelting in ancient Rome, it was unable to make the furnace temperature too high, so it could only use the rich ore of Spain to produce iron smelting, because this ore contained less impurities.

“No more.”

Giikes said.

A group of weak chickens that can’t even be made from pig iron, Li Wei looked contemptuous.

Li Wei thought about whether to apply solid carburizing to these blocks of iron. Of course, he doesn’t like surface carburizing. At least he has to braise steel.

“You come here with me, don’t other people come. Getta, you go get a quenching tank, and then bring some olive oil.”

Li Wei said, solid carburizing is still forgotten, this material is not available.

He took Jikos into the only blacksmith’s shop. Although Geeta was a little confused, he went back to prepare the stone trough and table salt.

“Take another sword according to your method.”

Li Wei said.

Giikes didn’t dare to neglect, he quickly picked up the hammer and made an iron sword.

Li Wei looked at him quietly. When the sword slowly took shape and he was about to polish it, Li Wei stopped it.

” Put it in the furnace to heat up, and then take it out to cool down naturally.”

Li Wei said.

This step is called normalizing, and the purpose of normalizing is to granulate steel (crystal structure). In fact, every time the swordsmith heats a part of the blade, after forging, it not only changes the shape of the steel, but also changes the steel particles. After the steel is heated to a certain temperature, austenitization (iron atoms and carbon atoms begin to mix) occurs. Take the steel out of the forging furnace and cool it naturally. This can reduce the stress caused by the irregularity of the blade composition and ensure the consistency of the entire blade.

“why is that?”

Giikes asked.

“If you let you do it, just do it, and ask so much what to do?”

Li Wei said, UU reading www.uukanshu.com, fortunately, as a writer, steel craftsmanship is a basic skill, otherwise, I will be blinded.

Giikes had no choice but to follow Li Wei’s method.

It takes a long time to cool down. Li Wei went out to check the stone trough and found that it could be used as a quenching trough, so he was let into the house.

Getta originally wanted to watch, but was blasted out by Li Wei.

“Next is annealing.”

Li Wei said.

Annealing is to let the steel slowly cool down. Usually, the steel is wrapped with insulating material to ensure that the steel does not cool down quickly. The annealing process can vary from a few hours to a day. The purpose of annealing is to soften the steel and facilitate grinding and cutting.

The key is that the slower the better. Due to the limited conditions, Li Wei asked someone to make some clay to wrap up the blade except for the blade.

After putting it in the fire, let it cool down slowly.

This is a long time, so Li Wei walked out of the room and asked Gikes to continue looking at the stove.

“Patriarch, what do you think of this armor? Hey!”

At this time, Getta said while wearing a forged armor.

Looking at this armor, Li Wei couldn’t help frowning.

Now Rome has gradually begun to use connecting ring armor, weighing about nine kilograms, and its scientific name is patch armor.

But Li Wei knew that this kind of armor was inconvenient to repair, and sooner or later it would be eliminated by the scales.

Forget it, just use it. The meal has to be eaten one bite at a time, and there are many things that can’t be rushed.

“It’s okay. In addition, our output is very problematic. We need to buy more blacksmith slaves.”

Li Wei said.

So many blacksmiths can only produce a full set of weapons and armors for less than 50 soldiers in a month. This is a proper speed.