Ma Lin entrusted such a problem to 'Smarty Pants' as it seemed appropriate.
At least he demonstrated once how to raise the temperature of the furnace to melt the steel.
The remaining issues were actually much simpler.
Ma Lin advised 'Smarty Pants' not to feel constrained but to be bold and experiment.
Among the five newly forged steel knives, one had almost no flaws and everyone wanted it. Two had some flaws but the position of the blade was not affected, making them still very popular. The other two had one knife with impurities in the blade, making it neither sharp nor sturdy, and the other was too ugly, so no one wanted them.
This type of steel is truly remarkable.
Actually, the key to this steelmaking method is preheating the air entering the blast furnace.
Ma Lin believes that using twenty furnaces to heat the intake pipes is effective but wastes too much fuel; about ten tons of charcoal would be used to produce one ton of steel.
