Blast Furnace & Flintlock Musket

Year 1563

It has been a week since he has arrived at his barony where he is building a branch factory of his Rudradeva khurd company on the banks of the Salandi river. The building of Barracks and compound for the factory was in progress along with the recruitment of workers to produce cement, soap and gunpowder.As for the production of steel and iron and muskets he has decided to hold it initially as he wanted to introduce new technology to produce better weapons and increase the production of iron and steel. 

Within the office in company compound prince Viraja was sitting with supervisor Hariharan, as the prince provided him with design and notes related to the blast furnace, finery forges, cementation process and flintlock musket and started giving him a overview of the same. 

He said "First is the blast furnace, it consists of a hollow, tapered structure, lined on the interior with a heat-resistant material called a refractory here we will use dolomite. It can be used to produce large quantity of pig iron and use iron ores which is not suitable for bloomery also.The molted iron run out of the blast furnaces and cooled in the main channel and adjoining molds. The large, central and adjoining smaller ingots is called cast pig iron or cast iron. This is much cheaper then bronze and can be used to make cheaper cannons".Though the prince thought that the wood charcoal which will be used in the blast furnace is too inefficient so he soon have to replace it with coke made of coal for now he will opt for wood charcoal.

Next he said "Second is the finery forges it basically involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation thereby producing wrought iron". 

"Third is the cementation process, in this process, bars of wrought iron were layered with powdered charcoal in stone boxes and heated to produce steel called blister steel".

"Finally is the flintlock musket it is a new type of musket which is to replace the matchlock completely. It includes a flint usually quartz held by set of jaw on the end of short hammer called cock.Pulling the trigger disengages the sear and releases the hammer, which swings forward causing the flint to strike a piece of steel called the frizzen. At the same time, the motion of the flint and hammer pushes the frizzen back, opening the cover to a concealed flash pan, which contains a small charge of gunpowder thereby firing the musket".

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"The details of all this process and the new musket is given with design and notes and minerals to be used in the official document I have given you. All of the minerals will be mined at Mayurganj county for which I had already made arrangements. Again I hope I don't have to remind you that this are all state secrets so you are to use the division of labour concept as before and also make sure the document I have given you do not get stolen or leaked".

Hearing this Hariharan had serious expression on his face and said "Your highness I will not even speak about this even to my wife or children and would protect this secrets with my life". With this supervisor Hariharan left with excitement on his face and spring in his foot to start working on this new technologies. Soon his personal attendant Bhimrao entered his office. Seeing Bhimrao the prince said "Send miners and horse or bull carts with competent supervisors to Mayurganj county to start mining the required materials to be brought here for the new manufacturing process".

After 3 months

Prince Viraja currently stands in-front of the newly constructed blast furnace which has already started producing cast pig iron or cast iron in large quantities and the same is converted into wrought iron and finally into steel which is being used for making the flintlock musket. His 4000 strong infantry is already being equipped with flintlock slowly and drilled with it in order to use it efficiently in both line infantry and bayonet charge. The pikemen and crossbowmen is also being trained to being musketeers as the flintlock musket with ring bayonet is for superior than both the pike and the crossbow.