Chapter 39: The Imperial Decree

After the lively imperial meeting in the morning, Horn felt more tired than running a thousand meters.

What the hell is this Papal State of ours? It's just a makeshift team full of bugs.

My judgment was correct. This group of people will never be able to accomplish anything.

As for Horn's "promise" to take them to Black Snake Bay for refuge, I can only say that my promise does not mean I will fulfill it.

At this point, Horn has let it go. Now that things have come to this, instead of regretting, he might as well think about how to deal with the aftermath.

How else can we deal with this?
As soon as the thought of asking for the secret came to my mind, I suddenly felt the world was wide.

With Horn's ability, if he goes to the secret party's base camp, and considering his relationship with Jeanna Carrie, it will definitely be no problem for him to become a middle-class person first.

Whenever he thought of this, Horn was glad that he had not fallen out with Jeanne.

The secret party often cooperates with the nobles or even the church. After four or five years, when they have accumulated a certain amount of savings, they may be able to clean up their mess and come out again. It won't be too late to go to Norn then.

It's not that Horn is possessed by Song Jiang and is always trying to surrender and cleanse himself, but in this world, there is really no way out for being a gangster.

It is called a secret party, but in fact it is just a bandit alliance.

The living standards of those secret party leaders may be similar to those of ordinary citizens.

If the secret party was really capable, they would have escaped from Black Snake Bay long ago. Why would they have to hide from place to place every day?
There are so many poisonous snakes and monsters in Black Snake Bay, and there are also ghosts and savages running rampant. If there were no other choice, who would want to live there?
Using the scepter as a crutch, Horn did not return to the bedroom, but instead, under the guidance of Jeanne, went to the courtyard in front of the warehouse.

As for Grampven, he still followed Horn with two strong men, responsible for monitoring him.

"His Majesty the Pope."

As soon as he saw Horn, Rector immediately knelt on the ground, crawled forward for a while, and kissed Horn's feet.

The disgusting touch made Horn immediately pull his foot back.

Rector stood up with a flattering smile, standing there at a loss as to what to do.

He had no choice but to do so. It had only been a few days since his holy grandson was promoted to the position of Pope.

He didn't even dare to imagine what position he would be promoted to if he got promoted further.

"Stop flattering me. I told you to get ready. Are you ready?" Jeanne walked forward and asked unhappily.

"Ready, ready." Although Rector didn't know why the Saint Grandson wanted to watch him forging iron, he still made careful preparations throughout the night.

Walking to a shed in the monastery, Horn stood with the Pope's scepter, while Rector began to work at the blacksmith's table.

Instead of making a fire, he threw a basket of iron ore powder into a large stone jar and poured two large buckets of well water into it, filling it to two-thirds of the way.

Then he began to use a wooden ladle to scoop several large scoops of potion that was shining with a strange blue light.

"Your Holiness, this step is called crushing and soaking. It involves mixing a dissolving potion with clean water. This will connect the iron elements together and separate the stone chips. During this process, you need to keep heating over a low flame and stirring continuously. This will take about four hours."

Rector was clearly well prepared. As he introduced the materials, he picked up a piece of iron from the side and said, "Your Majesty, please look. This is the honeycomb iron I mixed yesterday."

Horn took the honeycomb iron, which was barely a sphere, but had countless holes in it.

Holding the honeycomb iron with long pliers, Rector immersed it in another basin of water, which was heated by charcoal and was boiling.

"This is a softening potion. Heat it to boiling and dip it into the honeycomb iron. After about a minute, the hard iron element will soften."

Taking out the honeycomb iron that had been soaked for a minute, Rector quickly picked up the hammer and began to cold forge the softened honeycomb iron.

After continuous soaking and hammering, the honeycomb iron gradually turned into a rectangular iron sheet. Recto immediately grabbed a handful of charcoal powder and sprinkled it evenly on the iron sheet.

By this time, Rector was sweating profusely and had no time to explain. He quickly folded the iron sheet, pounded it hard, and then soaked it again.

This process was repeated about ten times, and the original arm-length iron sheet was hammered into a palm-sized iron ingot.

Picking up the still warm iron ingot, Horn couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile on his face.

He knew that the memory of wet iron smelting in his mind was indeed true.

"Why not use coal or charcoal to make iron?"

Rector blinked, as if he didn't quite understand what Horn was saying: "Excuse me, Your Majesty, as for charcoal, it takes much longer than four hours to heat a piece of iron ore from room temperature to red hot enough to be processed, and the value of the charcoal consumed is far greater than that of the potion.

In that case, why don't I use the potion? As for coal, I'm ignorant and have never heard of it. Is it a stone that can burn charcoal?" Horn didn't answer. He walked around the stone vat and asked, "Generally speaking, how many iron ingots can a metallurgical workshop produce in a month?"

"This is a homemade medicine jar. A large metallurgical workshop would have a reflux furnace that can smelt 600 pounds of iron ore at a time, with an iron yield of about %."

"What about steelmaking?" Horn asked.

Recto thought for a while and said, "Steel? You mean refined iron? Refined iron is difficult to refine. It takes a lot of effort to refine a piece of iron into refined iron."

"Then give me an example."

"Well, for example, it usually takes five times of hammering to refine an iron ingot into fine iron. I mean the beaten iron ingot, not honeycomb iron. Five times of hammering will consume about 70% of the iron.

A 10-pound piece of iron will only be reduced to 3 pounds or even less after being refined, and the cost of each forging is about 2 dinars.

2 dinars are equivalent to 36 pounds of wheat.

“Refining fine iron has extremely high requirements for craftsmanship. It requires mixing and replacing potions and tools many times. The process is complicated. Generally, only the formal masters or master craftsmen of the blacksmith guild dare to do it.

But the harvest will be rich. One pound of iron ingots can only be sold for 1 and a half copper coins, while one pound of refined iron can be sold for 8 dinars, equivalent to 1 copper coins.

I dare say that refined iron is the most dazzling jewel in the crown of the empire's metallurgical industry!"

Horn did not respond to Rector's words. He walked around Rector's iron smelting shop twice thoughtfully.

Turning around, he said to Grampven behind him, "I'll give you a blueprint later. You build it for me. It's right here. And then help me get some iron ore."

"As commanded, Your Majesty."

"Also, go to the warehouse and help me find these things: charcoal, sulfur, saltpeter, bile... I'll make a list for you later."

After giving instructions to Granpuven, Horn looked at Rector in front of him with a playful smile on his face.

"Three days later, come to this location to find me again."

………………

"Uncle Madeleine, what's the matter with that wound on your face?"

Madeleine did not answer, but stretched out her hand to rub the heads of the children who came to greet them, then looked up at the other refugees present whose eyes were full of longing: "Everyone, come to the gatehouse in the evening, and you will still be given a day's ration."

"Praise my Lord!"

"And to you, too, Madeleine!"

The poor refugees cheered immediately, but Madeleine smiled and said, "Don't thank me. If you want to thank someone, thank His Holiness the Pope. If it weren't for him, how could the vampire Tongley release the food?"

"Holy Trinity! Your Holiness, we love you!"

With a smile on his face, Madeleine greeted and joked with the refugees one by one, then returned to his little hut.

Although they knew that many of these refugees had ulterior motives, they secretly made peace with Townley and only used him as a scapegoat and a mouthpiece.

But Madeleine was still willing to suffer for those who were truly pure-hearted.

He knew that many times, those villagers who seemed "evil and despicable" were just fearful.

Apart from this lose-lose, rustic meanness and cunning, they have no weapons to fight against the powerful.

Stepping into her tent, Madeleine grasped the belt of her trousers.

This wide leather belt was much better than the hemp rope that Townley had torn from his waist in a previous fight.

It was just that when His Holiness the Pope tied his pants for him, he seemed to be afraid that his pants would fall off again, so he tied them a little too tight, which made him feel a little uncomfortable.

After unbuckling her belt, Madeleine was about to fasten it again when she felt a foreign object falling from her waist.

He frowned, squatted down and looked at the foreign object. What was it? A folded piece of paper?

After taking a deep breath, Madeleine picked up the paper, spread it out and looked at it for a long time before he let out a long sigh.

"Alas, what on earth does your Majesty mean? I can't read."

(End of this chapter)