87 Episode 86: The Beginning of Modern Iron Making

side: Kuyuan Yima

Many people gather on this day in an industrial village on the shores of the Tsunami River, a short distance from Naguno.

Shinsu led the Oda family's chief minister, and the priests of Tsushima Shrine and Hota Shrine also decided to hold a blast furnace fire ceremony.

Well, it's Jing-soo who's working on it, not me.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

I didn't know this was going to make iron.

"We have improved it with reference to Ming and Nanban objects. Overwhelmingly more iron can be made than existing iron making methods. The downside is that you have to carry raw materials from abroad."

It's a time without a temple, but there are "Yagura" and "Five Towers" for the purpose of seeing things. The size and awesomeness of the building represent the power of the person. I think there is one side to it.

The fire-resistant brick blast furnace has an unparalleled sense of intimidation, and may be just right to boast of Shinsu's power.

I didn't aim for anything, though.

"Are the ingredients not in the Japanese book?

"There will be if you look, because I don't know whose territory it is. It's faster if we carry them from abroad."

Most people don't understand what to do. I've been teaching some craftsmen for a while now. We will need to manage it for the time being.

The industrial village is stacked with raw iron ore and cokes, and we're all surprised by the amount.

Apparently the blast furnace cannot be dropped once the fire is put in, and the raw materials cannot be stopped. Transport of raw materials can be nearer to the hot field in location, so they are being taken down from the Galeon ship in the hot field and transported by riverboat to the industrial village.

Given that it can't be transported due to typhoons and long rains, we need the corresponding reserves, don't we?

"If this runs, Ozhang will change. However, it's still the same that we don't have enough blacksmiths. I'll buy the excess iron from us. It can be processed or sold, because there are many uses."

"There's no way out of that."

"If we don't do business, we can't do it either."

It would be a little later in time, but in historical fact, I was buying iron from the Nanbans. It's called Nanban Iron, and it should have been imported to the clan. You can see that there is demand.

The problem is that we do iron making and refining here, but blacksmiths who make things out of iron also need to match the amount of iron that will be made again.

Naturally, guns on knives and spears are handmade by craftsmen, as are all daily necessities such as farm tools and tools.

Craftsmen gather from inside and outside Ozhang. But there are no craftsmen commensurate with the amount of production, and the strength of the craftsmen varies.

In industrial villages, the casting of money for the refining of iron and coarse copper is the main force for the moment. I'd also like to produce a sparkling gun or a casting cannon if I calm down.

I want to make it an industrial village that goes beyond Omi's Kunimitsu and Kii's Miscellaneous.

Anyway, the goal of starting industrial villages, ranches and agricultural testing villages by spring has been achieved.

No, I haven't been able to make a public bathing street outside the industrial village yet. The only thing completed as it stands is a blast furnace and a reflector, a coarse copper refinery and a money foundry and a substitute mansion at the artisans' residence.

The majority of industrial village sites may also still be untouched.

I can't help it all. The reflector still has to be increased if it's going to fit the blast furnace, and there aren't enough craftsmen. Ha, there's a long way to go.

side: A Samurai with the Sage Navy

"I didn't know the Navy crowd in Setouchi even had such objects..."

"You have extra money?

"They can't use it often either. But there will be more than us."

Going back to Nagorno to thank His Holiness Kuyuan, His Holiness brought back another hell of a thing.

It's a roasted ball that the Navy in Setouchi uses. Everything seems to have been prototyped by Lord Kuyuan, but it is a more dangerous substitute than rumours. Well, it's not as dangerous as Kuyuan's Nanban guns.

I envy the Navy in Setouchi, who can prepare this kind of stuff. Ise Bay's trade flourished, but Kichinai and the West will still have more trade.

"We can make this."

"Oh, the nitrous stones are expensive though. The Oda family is handed over by Lord Kurumoto, and if you want to buy it, you have to ask Lord Kurumoto."

"He looks generous, but if you read the back, he's trying to profit from us too..."

"Then would you buy it from someone else? From what I've heard, the values are different."

We cannot build the guns of Kuyuan's Nanban ship. But a roasted ball will make it. Baked goods also flourish here.

However, you will have to buy the nitrous stones necessary for the roasted jade medicine from Kuyuan Temple. Some of them are cheaper than others, and even though they are in the same Oda family, it would be interesting to buy them from others.

Well, it would be better if they made it convenient for no reason. If we do business over there, we won't be able to keep many of those ships.

They want to teach us technology and sell things.

"Speaking of which, is it true that Lord Kuyuan's island and all that?

"There will be. If not, where did it come from?

"No, there would have been rumors that Lord Kuyuan was between the countries of Nanban, right?

"If that's the case, let's think about it."

The story of just whether Lord Kuyuan is not really a Nambarian is a rumor that has flown from somewhere.

When we can have many of those big ships, we have to be far more powerful than we are. I hear you're making money doing business with Nanban, but there's no way for us to be sure of that.

Nevertheless, rumors of the mutineers came from the east. Perhaps it is a rumor of the river now.

In the first place, given the amount of goods carried by the Kuyuan Hall and the interests of Oda, it is not surprising to think that Oda's Great Hall is fine, even if it is a Nambarian.

"If you can use the ship as an example, why don't you go?"

"It would be like carrying a load."

"Ten days each way? It's a little scary."

Well, it doesn't matter if Lord Kuyuan is the wrong man or not. We learned Nanban and Ming techniques from the Kuyuan temple until we went out to sea.

If you stumble upon it, it's not necessarily that Kurumiya won't speak to the rest of the Navy. No, I wouldn't be surprised if the conspicuous marines offered to submit directly to the Kuyuan temple.

If it would be such a convenience, there would be a naval crowd that would go under his minister.

"How about an example net?

"That's amazing. It's big and easy to use, and fish are often caught."

"We must hurry to cultivate seaweed."

To be honest, we will also be essentially the kind of work of Lord Kuyuan's subordinates, but we are not saying luxury.

We have to work and earn money to eat.

Oda or Imagawa, but I don't care who you are. I can't afford to refuse a job that I can just eat.

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Naguno Industrial Village

It is a generic term for a facility centered on a blast furnace type steel furnace, built by the Oda Bullet Chung family in the spring of Astronomy 17.

It is said to have been an experimental facility for blast furnace-type steel furnaces, told by the Kuyuan family, who served in the Oda Bullet Chung family, but details are unknown.

But it seems certain that Shin-soo himself had spoken of letting him build it to try Nanban technology, and many tell him he was half-hearted.

The blast furnace was thought to be a Kuyuan-style blast furnace, and it is believed that it was a Cokes blast furnace that steamed and grilled coal from the materials of the time.

It is unclear why there was a blast furnace technique in the Kuyuan family that used cokes in times when only charcoal steel was still made in Ming and European countries at the time.

However, the Kuyuan Islands were a small group of islands, and the land was limited even on relatively large father and mother islands.

It is believed that steelmaking by charcoal could not have been possible in such a long distant archipelago, and that technicians who came from Europe or Ming had their eyes on steelmaking by coal.

There are traces of coke furnaces in small blast furnaces and reflectors that also appear to be in the Kuyuan Islands for the same period, and to some extent the technology seems to have been completed in the Kuyuan Islands.

In particular, the Kuyuan Islands are still all private islands of the Kuyuan family, details of which are unknown as no full-scale excavation surveys have been realized.

One theory already had possessions and exchanges, it is also said to have attempted to make iron somewhere in Siberia or the Southern Ocean Islands, but there is no solid evidence of this either.

In the first place, the ancestors of the Kurumiya family are considered to be the clan of the Kurumiya, but there is also no solid evidence of the influence of the creation of future generations, which was not well understood before the Oda family secretary.

The only thing that is found at present is that Kuyuan Islands is not suitable for full-scale iron production in charcoal, which is a small blast furnace until the technology is passed on to the Oda family, which seems to have been finely wrought using cokes.

The Kuyuan-style blast furnace in Nagono was about 9 meters high, and in an era when iron production in Japan was more than 3000 tons at the time, it seems that it produced 1600 tons per year.

Technically the world's most advanced blast furnace, it was a breakthrough that did not result in a decline in forest resources.

But knowing that fact seems to have been limited to the Kuyuan family, Shinsu, Nobunaga parents and children and some, and there is anecdote that even the technicians of the time believed it to be the skill of the Nanban emigration.

The impact is also said to have changed the warring age, but the technology did not spill out of the country, and it was in 1709, 161 years later, that Cokes was used out in Europe.

It should be noted that the Oda family also seemed to extract gold and silver from domestic copper, where the smelting technique was immature, and it is believed that other castings of copper coins took place here.

However, since Naguno Industrial Village has been later relocated and expanded, and all the facilities in the Industrial Village have been removed and further restored, there are no remains, etc., and the reality as a whole is not well understood.

At present, the site of Naguno Industrial Village is only home to a small monumental stone tablet called the birthplace of modern iron, and there is nothing else to commemorate the time.