The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing - Chapter 29

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 29: The Return (3)

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The banks of the Sázava River in Sternberg's domain were no longer a quiet stretch of countryside.

They had become the beating heart of a vast industry that spewed fire day and night.

Whoooosh!

On one side, a Blast furnace ran without pause, pouring out red-hot molten iron around the clock.

Gray Coke and red iron ore were fed into it without end, while rough, crude lumps of pig iron flowed through sand molds and hardened.

Yet the true spectacle was unfolding beside it, in the refining works.

"More air! Burn away every last impurity!"

Pig iron fresh from the Blast furnace contained too much carbon, making it as brittle as glass. Hammering it immediately would send fragments flying in every direction, leaving nothing but scrap metal.

That was why the finery process, which remelted iron in a forge to burn away its carbon, was essential.

Sizzle!

Skilled craftsmen stirred the thick mass within the forge with long iron rods. The flames changed color as excess carbon in the molten iron met oxygen, burned away, and gave off a harsh hiss.

Before long, a red, sponge-like mass that was neither liquid nor solid, a bloom, emerged from the flames in the grip of tongs.

"It's out! Move aside!"

Guild Master Hanuš, bare from the waist up and dripping with sweat, shouted. He wore thick leather gloves and held tongs as tall as himself.

He placed the hot bloom he had just drawn out onto a massive anvil.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

A huge Waterwheel powered by the river turned without rest, rotating an enormous oak cam.

With each turn of the cam, the shaft of a hammer made from a massive log was raised, then sent crashing down by gravity.

Whenever the hammer crushed the bloom, red, blood-like slag hidden within sprayed in every direction.

Shingling. It was the process of squeezing the spongy iron bloom until only high-purity steel remained.

"Good, all the impurities are out! Now stack them!"

At Hanuš's command, the apprentices moved in perfect coordination.

They scattered fine sand and borax over the flattened steel plates, then laid another plate on top.

Hammering one sheet at a time was work for amateurs. Trusting in the brutal power of the water-powered hammer, the Prague craftsmen stacked four or five sheets at once.

"It's going in! Watch the timing!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With every fall of the hammer, the layered steel sandwich spread thinner, wider, and denser.

Work that would have required hundreds of blows by hand was finished in just a few falls beneath the overwhelming weight of the water-powered hammer.

Tomáš, Sternberg's Technical Officer (Meister), marveled at the sight.

"So that's the water-powered hammer I've heard so much about... It's incredibly powerful."

Water-powered trip hammers already existed in the fifteenth century. But this continuous process of remelting pig iron from a Blast furnace, squeezing the bloom, layering it, and drawing it into plates was roughly three hundred years ahead of its time.

I had provided the chemical knowledge, but it was the craftsmen of Prague who made it a reality.

"More! Bring more! The Waterwheel never gets tired!"

There was no arrogance left in Hanuš's eyes. If anything, he looked like a fanatic.

He moved as though dancing to the hammer's rhythm, cheerfully wielding the dangerous tongs even though one mistake could send a wrist flying.

At first, the craftsmen of Prague and Sternberg had looked down on one another and kept each other in check.

But now, their origins no longer mattered.

All they could see was the mad productivity before their eyes, producing a year's worth of output in a single day.

Sizzle!

The hammered bundle of steel plates was separated and tossed onto the ground.

Clang, clang!

A mountain of steel still radiated acrid heat, not yet fully cooled.

They were tough, hard medium-carbon steel plates, their smooth silver-gray surfaces faintly marked by hammer blows.

It was a sight no medieval smithy could have produced.

After directing the hammering for some time, Hanuš ran over to me during a brief pause in the work.

His entire body was covered in splattered slag and soot, but his face shone brightly.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

Though he was panting, he couldn't hide his excitement.

"It's insane! This is truly insane! Look how little time it takes to melt iron, squeeze out the impurities, and turn it into plates! What would take ten blacksmiths an entire day is done in less time than it takes to eat a meal!"

"Is it really that impressive?"

"Yes! It's unbelievable! We used to hammer for three days and nights until our arms gave out just to get some stone dust out of the iron, but now it simply piles up like a mountain! What was all the sweat I shed over the past thirty years for?"

As he said it, Hanuš looked as though he had gained the whole world.

Normally, smelting natural iron ore into usable iron required an immense amount of labor.

They had to hammer thousands of times to force out the stone dust and sulfur trapped within the metal.

There was no need for that anymore.

The limestone melted inside the Blast furnace and absorbed all the sulfur and impurities.

The impurities became light slag and floated to the surface. All we had to do was collect the heavy molten iron that settled at the bottom.

Only one impurity remained now: carbon.

Thanks to the heat of the Coke, the pig iron was bloated with excessive carbon. Yet that was an opportunity.

Iron made through the old bloomery method was wrought iron, which contained almost no carbon.

Steel required the right concentration of carbon, but hammering thousands of times removed every impurity.

That was why methods such as carburization, which deliberately put carbon back into iron, were necessary.

And it was far easier to remove what was excessive than to add what was missing.

Forcing carbon into empty wrought iron through carburization was an ordeal that took days. Removing carbon that was already present in excess took no time at all.

Of course, even this was still primitive by my standards.

What we were doing now was close to the finery process, remelting pig iron from a Blast furnace and decarburizing it.

We had merely maximized productivity by adding massive manpower and water-powered hammers.

In truth, more advanced techniques filled my mind.

The puddling process, which burned away impurities using a reverberatory furnace, and the Bessemer process, which made steel in an instant by blowing air through it.

If I introduced them, I could produce steel dozens of times faster and of far better quality than this.

But.

'Not yet.'

I smacked my lips bitterly.

There was no time to make refractory bricks capable of withstanding a Bessemer converter. A steam engine or high-performance blower capable of forcing in that immense volume of high-pressure air was also still premature.

Above all, Sigismund was marching here with his army.

What I needed was not perfect steel a year from now, but enough usable steel for tomorrow.

'Still, this is more than enough to turn medieval warfare upside down.'

I picked up a freshly cooled dark-blue steel plate. It wasn't smoothly polished, but I could feel its weight and hardness beneath my fingertips.

"Sir Kuno."

"Yes, my lord."

"Let's go to the drill ground. We need to test it."

* * *

A temporary firing range had been set up in an open field behind the steelworks.

Hundreds of soldiers and laborers watched in silence as they stared at a target erected in the center of the field.

It was a silver-gray steel plate hanging from the chest of a straw dummy.

It was only three millimeters thick, not even the width of a finger joint.

Its smooth surface glinted in the sunlight, looking less like a shield than a fragile mirror.

Murmur, murmur.

"Hey, isn't that too thin?"

"Can that really stop anything? A crossbow tears through chainmail like paper."

"Want to bet? I'll put one groschen on it getting pierced."

The soldiers whispered among themselves.

They knew better than anyone how powerful a crossbow was, a weapon said to stop even a knight's charge.

They didn't believe such a thin plate could protect their lives.

Off to one side, Technical Officer (Meister) Tomáš and Guild Master Hanuš swallowed nervously.

They stood with their arms folded and wore arrogant expressions, but the hands hidden behind their backs trembled slightly.

'Please... Please hold!'

Their eyes seemed to say exactly that.

Sir Kuno took his position and raised his favored windlass crossbow.

"Ready?"

"Ready, sir."

He looked uncertain as well, but like a knight who had spent years on the battlefield, he expertly turned the winch.

Creak, creak, creeeak!

The crossbow's prod bent taut with a shriek.

It was a murderous draw weight that no human could pull by hand, one that could only be loaded with mechanical force.

Thirty-five meters.

The deadliest range against a charging knight.

Sir Kuno closed one eye and aimed at the target.

The firing range fell silent as though cold water had been thrown over it. Even the soldiers swallowed and held their breath.

"Fire."

Thwung!

A dull vibration ran through the air.

The bolt tore through the air too quickly for the eye to follow.

Then.

Clang!

A clear, sharp metallic sound rang through the firing range.

It was not the dull thud of a bolt piercing armor.

Everyone turned toward the target.

"...Huh?"

Someone let out a dazed sound.

The steel plate had not been pierced. No, it was completely intact.

Something lay on the ground instead.

A shattered steel bolt head and a broken shaft.

Sir Kuno couldn't even lower his crossbow. His mouth hung open.

As if possessed, he ran toward the target. Soldiers and craftsmen rushed after him.

"Good heavens..."

"It stopped it? That thin thing?"

The condition of the steel plate was even more shocking up close. Only a scratch the size of a fingernail remained where the bolt had struck.

Wrought iron hammered flat in a smithy would have been pierced. Pig iron straight from a Blast furnace would have shattered to pieces.

But the overwhelming defensive power of high-carbon steel had easily deflected the crossbow bolt.

Sir Kuno picked up the broken bolt head, trembling.

"Good heavens... It stopped a windlass crossbow at this range? This must be tougher than even the finest plate armor made by Milanese craftsmen!"

At last, Hanuš let out the breath he had been holding and laughed heartily.

"Ha, haha... Ahahaha!"

He tapped the steel plate as though boasting about his own child.

"Did you see that? This is Prague's steel, no, Sternberg's steel! A windlass crossbow? Hmph, even if you brought a siege ballista, it couldn't pierce this!"

The soldiers' expressions changed.

Doubt became shock, and shock became cheers.

No soldier would turn down an absolute shield that could save his life on the battlefield.

"Don't be impressed yet. Next."

At my gesture, a soldier stepped forward carrying a weapon made of an iron tube fixed to the end of a wooden pole.

A Hand cannon. In this era, it was called a pištala, an early matchlock gun favored by Jan Žižka.

It was a crude iron pipe fitted to a wooden shaft, but it was a devil's weapon that roared like thunder and turned a knight's armor into rags.

"Load it."

The soldier rammed Gunpowder and a lead ball into the barrel, then lit the match.

Sizzle!

Watching the burning match, the spectators instinctively stepped back. It was the primal fear people felt toward Gunpowder weapons.

"Fire!"

Bang!

White smoke rose with an ear-splitting blast. The acrid smell of Gunpowder stung our noses.

Once the smoke cleared, we approached the steel plate again.

"...Ha."

Sir Kuno gasped.

The steel plate had not been pierced. A deep dent was clearly visible, but that was all.

The lead ball had failed to overcome the steel's strength. Flattened, it dropped onto the ground.

I picked up the flattened lead ball. It was still warm from the Gunpowder.

"Perfect."

A smile spread across my face.

Firearms in this era had no rifling yet, and the explosive force of their Gunpowder was inconsistent. In terms of penetration alone, a modern nine-millimeter pistol was far more powerful.

In other words, no weapon in this era could pierce this steel plate, unless they brought siege weapons.

"Sir Kuno."

"Y-yes, my lord!"

Sir Kuno's voice trembled with excitement.

"Load these steel plates onto wagons immediately."

"Where should we send them? To Prague?"

"No. Send them to Tabor."

I looked south, toward Tabor Fortress, where Jan Žižka was.

"Deliver them to General Jan Žižka. Tell him to cover every one of his Wagenburg wagons with these steel plates."

"All of the Wagenburg?"

"Yes. Not wooden planks. Make wagon walls covered in this steel."

Wasn't the thought alone thrilling?