I checked on the palisade's construction, which was coming along nicely, but not fast enough for me. After a good night's rest, we resumed our survey; this time of the interior of the valley.
Less than a kilometer away, we came across a tributary of Mara cascading down from the mountains, as a glorious waterfall.
"That's a fairly big waterfall. So much power!" I exclaimed.
"Power?" Theo asked.
"Yes, power. Do you know what a water wheel is?"
"Yes. They power grindstones."
"They can power a lot more than just grindstones."
"Like what?"
"Machines that we will build here soon."
I could always install a simple stream wheel on the river next to Cradle, but a well made backshot waterwheel would be four times as efficient, harnessing almost 90% of the water's energy; not that I was going to get anywhere close to that without ball bearings. A rough estimate, flow rate x density x height x gravity, gave me around a hundred kilowatts of power. If I could harvest even half that, it would be worth more than a hundred unskilled people working for us, all day, every day.
I pointed at the waterfall. "I name it, Powerfall!"
My giddiness at finding this treasure was interrupted by a deep growl, loud enough to be heard even over the crashing water. A large bear ambled it's way forward from the foliage, eyeing us all as if we were nuisances intruding upon it's abode, which I suppose we were. My six guards wasted no time in wielding their new Legolas bows and turned the poor beast into a pincushion. Even it's thick pelt couldn't save it from the barrage of thirty heavy arrows striking it within seconds. Heck, even the untrained me managed to land a shot.
Some might think me a coward for travelling with six guards, but I refuse to die for mere pride. After arranging for the carcass to be processed, we continued our journey and trudged along the foothills.
The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, except for another brush with the local wildlife. We found a large harvestable iron seam, but no coal.
"Drat, no coal anywhere!" I spat in frustration.
"You mean the black stone used in blacksmithing?" Lothar asked. "Don't we have plenty of wood?"
"We do, but wood's energy density is very low. The moisture and other non-combustible stuff in it makes it burn too cool to produce steel. Charcoal will work, but only barely for what I have in mind. We'll need a lot of it and will have to first spend fuel to convert wood into it."
"What about the biogas you keep harping about?"
"I don't harp about it, I sing its praises, which it deserves. Free fuel from poop! I would love to use it, but the biogas plant project can only begin after we have finished the palisade. Until then, our waste will just... go to waste." I lamented.
"That's not as funny as you think," he replied flatly.
"You take that back!" I roared in mock indignation. "What am I even paying you for?"
"You don't pay me anything."
"And why do you think that's the case? It's because of back talk like that."
We entertained ourselves with such banter on our way back to Cradle, as it took us a day and a half to get back while hugging the edge of the valley. By my estimate, it extended seven kilometer deeper from Cradle, making it twelve kilometers in length. It formed a rough U shape, so it was a little over 30 square kilometers (11.6 sq. miles) in size. There were countries on Earth with smaller land area and a population of more than ten thousand, so barring a disaster, we were not going to starve. We just needed to ensure the safety of our people. Easy to say, hard to achieve.
To build weapons, I needed a competent, reliable and adaptive blacksmith. Fortunately Aramid had one in mind and even vouched for him.
"Aramid has suggested you to be my personal blacksmith, Kovar. He told me that you're very good at your job and are coming up with new ideas all the time."
"He's too kind, milord. The only thing my ideas have gotten me is scut work.
"Why is that?"
"Old masters don't like someone new rocking the boat, even when the someone is proper journeyman smith himself." He huffed.
"Not here." I replied. "I am specifically looking for a competent smith with an active imagination. I will be introducing new methods of producing metals and new ways of working with them. Would you like to be at the forefront of this revolution?"
"Yes!" He blurted out quickly, then asked hesitantly, "If that is possible, milord?"
"Impress me with your work, and those secrets will be yours. Do the two of you know how to make crossbows?"
Only Aramid nodded in response.
"Please explain their construction to me."
"It's made of a prod made of laminated wood, mated to a solid wooden body." He replied.
"What other materials do you use for prods?"
"Just wood."
"Wooden prods can't handle much power though. What about composite ones? The ones that use sinew and horn?"
All I got were blank stares. I was about to tell them how to make a composite bow, when I realized it would be pointless. The glue that bound the wood to horn and multiple layers of sinew took months to cure. All that labor would be undone if the bow wasn't taken care of, as composite bows tended to delaminate without regular maintenance. Not something we could mass produce or give to non professionals. It was contrary to my goal of arming as many responsible adults as possible.
"Steel it is then. Do you know how to produce it?"
Head shakes.
"Would anyone of our people know?"
"No." Kovar chortled. "Steel making is a well kept secret."
"Not anymore," I replied. "Steel is just iron with a very carefully controlled carbon content. It doesn't rust as easily and it can flex more, hence much better for our crossbows' prods."
I needed steel if my crossbows were to be powerful, reliable and durable. The best material for them would be spring steel... well the best would be carbon fiber composites, but let's stay in the realm of possible. Spring steel requires trace amounts of chromium and manganese, and all I knew about them was that they were metals, nothing more. No proper industrial revolution happening here until God sends me a chemical engineer.
"You do know how to make iron though?"
"Yes, with a bloomery."
"Am I right in assuming that it's a tall chimney in which you pour crushed ore and charcoal over a continuously fanned flame?"
Both men nodded.
"Then you consolidate the mass that forms at the bottom and beat the crap out of it for hours, until you have a chunk of wrought iron?"
Nods again, with smiles.
Bloomeries were the most primitive furnaces capable of smelting iron, but produced very small amount at a time and had to be rebuilt, every single time. They just wouldn't do, so I decided to make my own furnace. The basic concept is to get the furnace as hot as possible. I planned to achieve that by making a big structure with double walls, so it could hold a lot of heat, while pumping pressurized and preheated air from multiple inlets. The big challenge was making the refractory lining, which requires silica sand and volcanic rock.
"I suppose we could crush the slag and use it as a poor replacement. Worst case, we'll be rebuilding the lining every time." I muttered.
The craftsmen stared at me, expectant.
"Make a lot of blooms, my friends, with extra air, and don't discard anything." I told them. "Just crush it all into powder, while you, Aramid, make some crossbow bodies."
I made another round of the valley, this time the interior, and enjoyed the beautiful view but made no significant discovery, other than a grove of wild grapes. Now we could make wine, and alcohol, which would be useful for disinfection, makeshift weapons, and chemical experiments.
I had refractory bricks made from limestone, sand, crushed bloom and slag, and used them to build a Frankenstein version of the cupola and blast furnace.
We built a massive trompe, an air compressor of very simple design. The heavily aerated water from Powerfall fell into one end of the "W" shaped pipe structure, while the weight of the water column on the other end created back pressure, forcing the air out into the middle pipe.
The compressed air roared into the furnace, turbocharging the fire as we fed it crushed ore, lime, soda ash and charcoal. We opened the spout, and out came red-hot liquid iron, instead of a sponge that is more slag than metal. Sure, it was extra brittle pig iron that's almost useless, but that's why I was building a puddling furnace. It would reduce the pig iron's carbon content, turning it into high quality steel.
In a few months, we would be producing more steel than other people produced iron! Now that we had plentiful iron, I could also do something about another problem we were facing: eating nothing but baked and boiled food. I was going to make a big frying pan, which would also work as a drying pan. Heh heh.
As I walked the settlement at the end of the work day, I noticed the people looked tired but content. Hope of a better future kept us all going. I had straight paths cleared to East Gate and West Point, while the palisade went up faster than I expected. After days of fiddling, the puddling furnace finally produced what I could call steel.
I worked with Aramid and Kovar to build the first prototype of our steel crossbow. It worked just fine, but I wanted to make it even more deadly, with a magazine and an integrated lever for quick reloading. Building such a complicated prototype and smoothing out all kinks might take weeks or even months, time which I wasn't sure I had. So I focused on the good enough rather than the perfect. As a terrible man once said: "Quantity has a quality of its own."
Weapons, however advanced, would be worthless without well trained men wielding them. Time to train some soldiers.