Herald of Steel

"So how much can you mix like that in a day?" Alexander decided to know his cement producing capacity.

"Ahem, using the hundred men under me, only about the amount the kiln makes, my lord. We are already at our limit," The caretaker answered in a slightly bitter tone.

Clearly processing such a large amount of the stuff was testing his resources.

Alexander's little frown deepened upon hearing this.

'Hmmm. perhaps I should halt the formation of the new kilns,' He then seriously reconsidered, understanding that it may not be his production capacity that was his bottleneck, but the ability to process the clinkers to cement.

And the realization that he might not have the men to process the huge amount of cement even if he could make them made Alexander displeased.

For he sorely needed the cement, as Diaogosis had been constantly hankering him for more.

But going by Yemin's numbers, if he were to increase the kiln number to eleven as he had instructed Jazum to do, it would mean he would have to employ fifteen hundred times eleven (1,500 x 11)- sixteen and a half thousand men.

And with the current labor shortage that was clearly impossible.

So Alexander deliberated for some time on whether to temporarily stop making more kilns.

'No! The kilns must be made!' But he decided.

This decision was made based on the fact that his demand for the white powder would only increase in the future, with the most recent one likely when he conquers the surrounding areas around Zanzan.

There was also the fact that he planned to base all his kilns in Zanzan, at least for the time being, to protect their secrecy and so the kilns here would have to support his construction works all over the province.

But making more kilns was a must.

He was not unaware of the soon-to-arrive additional workforce.

There was the imminent arrival of, by his estimate, sixty thousand (60,000) refugees, and shortly later the twenty thousand (20,000) slaves, followed by the almost forty thousand Thesians (40,000).

But he also remembered that a lot of them will be needed in the farmlands.

In fact, by his own calculations, only sixteen thousand (16,000) men would be available in total within the city.

So reality was beginning to make Alexander's plan of operating eleven kilns seem like a pipe dream.

'*Sigh*, using so many men to do such repetitive tasks is so wasteful!' Alexander lampooned at this conundrum, wishing that if only he could build a steam engine.

But as soon as he said so, a light bulb lit up in his head as the image of a stream engine spinning a wheel coincided with the image of another certain medieval construct.

'Repetitive! It's repetitive! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?' Alexander slapped his forehead metaphorically as his heart squealed in joy at the image conjured up in his mind.

If he could build that, and build it quickly enough in sufficient quantities, his cement production could soar to new heights.

'I will need to divert Diaogosis to that immediately,' Alexander promised.

Feeling pleased as punch with himself for solving such a critical issue, Alexander finally returned his attention to what was happening around him and then turned to Yemin to ask him about other miscellaneous things.

"My lord, those sledgehammers are proving to be inadequate," Was one of Yemin's complaints, saying, "They frequently crack or outright shatter after a few days of use. And then we have to waste a lot of time collecting the shattered pieces, remelting, and reforming them. Our blacksmiths can barely keep up with all the work."

Alexander was not too surprised by this as such behavior was natural for bronze.

In fact, being inherently weak, brittle, and lacking structural integrity. bronze was not a good metal, its only redeeming quality being its low melting temperature, which allowed these primitive people who could not attain a high temperature in their furnaces to smelt the alloy.

And this was why in Alexadner's earlier life it got replaced by iron as soon as the latter got available.

And perhaps all these weaknesses could be exemplified by studying the famous Egyptian sword Khopesh, which was a sword designed like a sickle.

And the reason for that was that there was a very specific motive behind the very particular design.

Because a long, straight piece of bronze was too weak to be used in heavy melee, and thus would be at risk of snapping in the middle of combat, they made the sword carved, so that the sword could be made shorter while still concentrating the same amount of force on its outer rims.

But Alexander could not really do the same for the hammers, and so under the exertion of the huge compressive forces, which were simply too much for the copper and tin alloy to handle, they would bend and crack.

"Does the lord know of any way to help?" Yemin, seeing Alexander in deep thought, then hopefully called out.

He was one of Alexander's original followers and having witnessed much of Alexander's knack for inventions, was kind of familiar with that thoughtful look.

'I need to get the blast furnace running,' Was Alexander's straightforward answer to the problem As other than replacing the bronze with iron, there really was no way to make the sledgehammers better.

For compared to that junk bronze, iron was close to a super metal, one which could be manipulated to nearly infinite degrees by alloying it with different elements.

But then why had Alexander not yet started the large-scale production of this super metal?

Because of lack of cement.

Because of lack of blowers.

And because of the lack of coal.

'I need to check up on Harun as soon as possible,' Alexander again reminded himself as he thought back on this problem and then turning to Yemin reassured the caretaker, "Don't worry. I will solve this problem by spring. So until then please bear with it."

There was really no difference between the blast furnace and the cement kiln, and so with the cement production already underway, he was confident about getting the blast furnace up and running by February.

"Thank you, my lord, thank you!" Came a wide relieved grin, the thin man's fists shaking in excitement.

Alexander then spent some more time with the man, had a few drinks in his house, and as dusk fell, decided to end his tour of the warehouse.

"Then I will set out Yemin. Work hard and keep the recipe secret," Alexander bid his goodbyes and returned to his manor. feeling a great sense of achievement at his cement production.

A feeling that instantly disappeared when he went to visit Uzak a few days later.

Uzak was in charge of making the roads, and the first thing that the man informed Alexander was that there was no cement for him to do his job.

In fact, his allocated cement was so low that it was work was not just slow, it had completely halted.

"My lord, look," The stonemason pointed to a few meters of road covered by concrete, "That's all we could do till today. Please, I need more!" He whined.

He then further went on to say that his workers were almost finished digging all the curbs and then filling them up with the appropriate aggregates and only needed the cement to make the concrete and give the road a finishing touch.

"But I can't do that if I don't have the cement my lord," Uzak repeated his difficulty.

Alexander too felt a slight migraine coming as he saw the abysmal speed of the road construction.

'Darn, I forgot about this,' Alexander blamed himself.

Being swarmed with all kinds of responsibility, because he really did not have anyone to help him, he had made a huge oversight by forgetting to calculate the required amount of cement for the road.

And now he was about to fall into a pit.

Reminded by Uzak, Alexander did the calculations on the spot, and the number that popped up inside his head made even the usually mentally resilient Alexander feel faint.

Because the number was not just large, it was astronomically large.

In fact, to Alexander, it appeared almost horrific

'I hate multiplication,' Then Alexander cussed and cursed at the answer, attempting to redo the maths again to double-check the answers.

And this time he decided to do the math for just one kilometer of road.

Going by the dimensions he had set up for Uzak, eight meters wide and five centimeters thick with a sub-base of ten centimeters thick gravel, he calculated that the volume of concrete needed would be four hundred, 400 Cum (1000 x 8 x 0. 05).

And since the concrete was made of cement, sand, and aggregate in the ratio 1:2:4, long answer short, the answer was about one hundred and thirty tons of cement per kilometer.

Yes, tons, not kilograms, with three zeroes at the end.

The confirmation of the answer made Alexander feel faint as he felt almost an overwhelming hatred for the number zero, a feeling similar to what many kids might have felt after getting their test papers.

Given that tens if not hundreds of kilometers of roads would be required to be made per day, there was no way Alexander could make roads at such an expenditure.

Not now, not next year, not even in the next few decades.

Even if Jazum and Krishok were to keep making cement kilns for the rest of their lives, they still would not be able to cope with the demand of just making roads, let alone anything else.