Chapter 29
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Translator: Wjin
Chapter: 029
Chapter Title: Return (3)
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The banks of the Sazawa River in the Sternberg domain were no longer a quiet rural backwater.
This place had become a massive industrial heartland, belching fire day and night.
Kwaaaa—!
On one side, a blast furnace ran nonstop around the clock, spewing out glowing red molten iron.
Endless loads of gray coke and red iron ore were shoveled in, flowing down sand molds to harden into rough, crude lumps of pig iron.
But the real spectacle unfolded next door, in the refinery.
"Pump in more air! Burn out every last bit of slag!"
The freshly drawn pig iron from the blast furnace contained too much carbon, making it brittle like glass. Hammering it right away would just shatter it into scrap metal shards.
That was why the finery process was essential—remelting the iron in a hearth to burn off the carbon.
Chiiik—!
Skilled artisans stirred the thick, doughy mass inside the hearth with long iron rods. The flame's color shifted, and excess carbon ignited in the molten metal, reacting with oxygen and exhaling rough bursts of breath.
Finally, a spongy red mass—neither fully liquid nor solid, known as a bloom—was lifted out on tongs.
"Coming out! Clear the way!"
Hanush, the guild master, bellowed with sweat pouring like rain, his bare chest heaving. Thick leather gloves and tongs as long as he was tall gripped in his hands.
He slammed the steaming bloom onto a massive anvil.
Thung! Thung! Thung! Thung!
A gigantic waterwheel, powered by the river's force, spun tirelessly, turning a huge cam made of oak.
With each rotation, the handle of a massive log hammer rose high, then crashed down mercilessly under gravity.
Every time the hammer crushed the bloom, hidden red slag—like bloody pus—splattered everywhere.
Shingling. Squeezing the porous iron sponge to leave only pure steel behind.
"Good, all the slag's out! Now weld 'em!"
At Hanush's command, the apprentices moved in perfect unison.
They sprinkled fine sand and borax over the flattened iron plates, then stacked another on top.
Pounding them one by one was amateur work. Prague's artisans trusted the water hammer's brute force, stacking four or five at once.
"Here it comes! Time it right!"
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The stacked steel sandwich spread thin and wide, growing denser with each hammer blow.
A task that would take hundreds of arm-numbing strikes by hand was finished in just a few drops under the water hammer's overwhelming weight.
Tomasi, the Sternberg blacksmith, watched in awe.
"Is that the legendary water hammer... The power's insane."
Hydraulic trip hammers existed even in the 15th century. But this continuous process—remelting pig iron, squeezing the bloom, stacking and forging plates—was three centuries ahead of its time.
I'd provided the chemical knowledge, but these Prague artisans had made it real.
"More! Bring more! The waterwheel never tires!"
Hanush's eyes no longer held arrogance. They burned with near-fanatical zeal.
He danced to the hammer's rhythm, wielding the dangerously precise tongs with joyful abandon—grips that could snap a wrist in an instant.
Prague and Sternberg artisans had started out eyeing each other with suspicion and rivalry.
Now, none of that mattered. All they saw was the insane productivity pumping out a year's worth of output in a single day.
Chiiik—!
The hammered steel plate bundle was separated and tossed to the ground.
Clang, clang!
A mountain of steel still radiating acrid heat before it had fully cooled.
Smooth silver-gray surfaces etched faintly with hammer marks—tough, resilient medium-carbon steel plates.
Nothing like what medieval forges could produce.
After directing the hammering for what felt like ages, Hanush seized a brief pause and rushed over to me, his body caked in flying slag and soot. Yet his face shone with delight.
"My lord! My lord!"
He panted, unable to hide his excitement.
"It's insane! Absolutely insane! Look at the time it takes—from melting the iron, squeezing out impurities, to rolling plates! Ten smiths working flat out would need a full day. Now it's done in the time it takes to eat a meal!"
"That impressive, huh?"
"Yes! Unbelievable! We used to hammer for three days straight, arms falling off, just to remove some stone grit from iron. Now it piles up like a mountain! What the hell were those 30 years of sweat for?!"
Hanush looked like he'd conquered the world.
Smelting natural iron ore into usable metal had always demanded backbreaking labor.
Thousands of hammer blows to squeeze out embedded grit and sulfur.
But no more.
Limestone in the blast furnace absorbed all the sulfur and slag.
Impurities floated up as light slag; we just skimmed off the heavy molten iron at the bottom.
One impurity remained: carbon.
Thanks to coke's fierce heat, the pig iron was bloated with excess carbon. But that was an opportunity.
Traditional bloomery iron was wrought iron, nearly carbon-free.
Steel needed just the right carbon content, but hammering drove out all impurities—including carbon.
So processes like cementation were needed to force carbon back in.
And subtracting excess is always easier than adding from nothing.
Forcing carbon into empty wrought iron took days of drudgery. Removing excess from carbon-saturated iron was instant.
Of course, by my standards, this was still primitive.
What we were doing mirrored the finery process—remelting blast furnace pig iron to decarburize it. We'd just maximized output with massive manpower and water hammers.
Truth be told, my head was full of more advanced techniques.
Puddling to burn impurities in a reverberatory furnace, or the Bessemer process blowing air to make steel in minutes.
Implementing those would yield dozens of times faster production and superior steel.
But.
'Not yet.'
I grimaced bitterly.
No time to develop refractory bricks tough enough for a Bessemer converter. Steam engines or high-pressure blowers for that intense air blast were still premature.
Above all, Sigismund was marching on us with an army right now.
What I needed wasn't perfect steel a year from now, but enough "decent" steel usable tomorrow.
'Still, this is more than enough to upend medieval warfare.'
I picked up a freshly cooled, dark blue steel plate. Not mirror-polished, but its hefty, solid feel transmitted through my fingers.
"Sir Kuno."
"Yes, my lord."
"To the training ground. Time for a test."
An improvised firing range on the open lot behind the steelworks.
Hundreds of soldiers and workers held their breath, eyes fixed on the target in the center.
A silver-gray steel plate hung from a straw dummy's chest.
Just 3mm thick—barely a finger's breadth.
Glinting in the sunlight, its smooth surface looked too flimsy for a shield, more like a mirror.
Murmur murmur—
"Hey, isn't that too thin?"
"Think it'll hold? Crossbows shred chainmail like paper."
"Wanna bet? One groschen says it gets pierced."
The soldiers' whispers carried over.
They knew better than anyone the devastating power of crossbows that could stop knightly charges.
No faith that this thin sheet would save their lives.
At the range's edge, blacksmith Tomasi and guild master Hanush swallowed dryly.
Arms crossed, feigning confidence, but their hidden hands trembled faintly.
'Please... just hold!'
Their eyes pleaded as much.
Sir Kuno took position, raising his favored Windlass crossbow.
"Ready?"
"Ready, sir."
He looked half-doubting but cranked the windlass with veteran ease.
Creak, creak, creeeak!
The prod bent taut, screaming. A draw impossible by hand alone—lethal tension from mechanical power.
35 meters.
The killing range of a charging knight.
Kuno closed one eye, sighting the target. The range fell silent as death. Soldiers held their breath.
"Fire."
Thwung—!
A dull twang. The bolt tore through the air too fast to see.
Then.
Kaang—!
A clear, sharp metallic ring echoed across the range. Not the thud of piercing armor.
All eyes snapped to the target.
"...Huh?"
Someone blurted dumbly.
The plate wasn't pierced. Pristine.
Instead, something rolled on the ground. A shattered steel bolt-head and snapped shaft.
Kuno gaped, forgetting to lower his crossbow.
He stumbled forward in a daze. Soldiers and artisans surged after him.
"No way..."
"It held? That thin thing?"
Up close, the plate was even more shocking. Just a thumbnail scratch where the bolt hit.
Wrought iron from a forge would've been pierced; raw pig iron from the furnace, shattered.
But high-carbon steel's overwhelming resilience casually deflected the crossbow bolt.
Kuno shivered, picking up the broken head.
"Unbelievable... Blocking a Windlass at this range? Tougher than the finest Milanese plate!"
Hanush finally exhaled, bursting into booming laughter.
"Ha, haha... Hahahaha!"
He slapped the plate proudly, like showing off a child.
"You see that? This is Prague—no, Sternberg steel! Windlass? Hah, bring a siege ballista—it still won't pierce!"
The soldiers' eyes changed.
Doubt to shock, shock to cheers.
No warrior would refuse an invincible shield for the battlefield.
"Too early to gawk. Next."
At my gesture, a soldier approached with a weapon: a wooden stock topped by an iron tube.
Hand cannon. Called a pištala in this era—the primitive matchlock favored even by Jan Zizka.
Crude pipe on a stick, but it roared like thunder, shredding knightly armor to rags.
"Load."
The soldier rammed in powder and lead shot, lighting the fuse.
Chiiik—
Onlookers instinctively backed away as it hissed. Primal fear of gunpowder.
"Fire!"
Bang—!
Ear-shattering boom. White smoke billowed, acrid powder stench stinging noses.
Smoke cleared; we approached the plate.
"...Heh."
Kuno gasped.
Not pierced. A deep dent, but intact.
The lead ball, flattened against the steel's hardness, plopped harmlessly to the ground.
I scooped up the mangled shot. Still warm from powder heat.
"Perfect."
A smile crept across my lips.
This era's guns lacked rifling, powder inconsistent. Pure penetration? A modern 9mm outdid it.
Meaning no weapon here could pierce this plate. Siege engines, maybe.
"Sir Kuno."
"Y-yes, my lord!"
His voice quivered with excitement.
"Load these plates on wagons. Now."
"Where to? Prague?"
"No. Tábor."
I gazed south, toward Jan Zizka's Tábor fortress.
"Deliver to General Jan Zizka. Tell him to plate his entire Wagenburg with these."
"The whole Wagenburg...?"
"Yes. Not wooden planks—wagon walls clad in this steel."
Just imagining it thrilled me.
Invincible wagon forts shrugging off bullets, arrows, knightly lances.
Dozens, hundreds linked, facing crusader cavalry charges?
Not war anymore. Unilateral slaughter.
"When Sigismund brings his knights, it'll be quite the show."
I flicked the crumpled lead into the air, chuckling.