"Cutting iron like mud" is the highest evaluation of the sword by the ancients, and it is also the ultimate pursuit of the sword caster. The ten famous swords of ancient China: Xuanyuan Sword, Zhanlu Sword, Chixiao Sword, Tai'a Sword, Longquan Sword, Ganjiang Sword, Mo Evil Sword, Fish Gut Sword, Pure Jun Sword and Chengying Sword, can they all meet the requirements of cutting iron like mud?
Iron in the Eyes of the Ancients: This "Iron" Is Not The Other "Iron"
As one of the ancient short soldiers, the sword was highly respected by the ancient kings, and the ancient kings all had the spirit of a gentleman, so in the eyes of the ancients, the sword was known as the "king of a hundred soldiers".
Sword
The highest standard for the ancients to evaluate a sword, usually using words such as cutting iron like mud, blowing hair can be broken, and cutting people without blood. There are very few ancient swords that can meet the standard of cutting iron like mud, and the Qingyi sword in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is counted as one. In "Water Margin", Yang Zhizu's ancestral sword, although it is a sword and not a sword, we can count it as one, after all, people have done successful experiments.
But the "iron" in the eyes of the ancients and the iron in the eyes of our modern people are completely different things. In the Qing Dynasty Duan Yujie's "Notes on the Interpretation of Texts and Characters", it is said: "Five-color gold also." Where there are five colors. It is called the golden also. All gold belongs to gold. This means that the "iron" in the eyes of the ancients is a generic term, and gold, silver, copper, iron, and aluminum can be generally divided into the general category of iron.
Normal iron, Mohs hardness is generally around 4.5, while silver and copper Mohs hardness is much lower, about half of iron. In ancient times, people examined the color of silver dollar treasures, usually biting them with their teeth. It can be seen that if you use the ancient sword to cut metal and silver, you can really reach the level of "cutting iron like mud".
Yang Zhi sells knives
In "Water Margin", when Yang Zhi sold knives on the street and was harassed by Niu Er, what he cut was not normal iron, but 20 copper coins stacked in stacks. One knife down, cut in half.
The same is iron, the hardness is very different
According to the different carbon content, iron can be divided into pig iron, steel and wrought iron. Pig iron has a carbon content of more than 2%, steel has a carbon content of between 0.05% and 2%, and wrought iron has a carbon content of less than 0.05%. The higher the carbon content, the higher the hardness of iron, so the hardness of pig iron is the highest, followed by steel, and the hardness of wrought iron is the lowest.
Ancient iron smelting technology was limited, and the iron smelted by the ancients was usually wrought iron. Using wrought iron as a raw material, heating and absorbing carbon in a carbon fire, and increasing the carbon content can create steel. If the temperature in the iron furnace is high enough and the smelting level is good enough, the ancients may smelt birth iron.
Then the swords forged by the ancients with pig iron were very handy for cutting wrought iron. In this case, the ancient sword "cutting iron like mud" can naturally do it.
Cut iron like mud
In the past, we often saw stalls selling kitchen knives on the street, which usually attracted a large group of people to come and watch. The gimmick played by the vendors is "cutting iron like mud". Only to see him pick up his own dangling kitchen knife, and then find a long iron pipe, use the kitchen knife to cut the iron pipe, no pressure, really cut iron like mud. What the vendor did not tell the onlookers was that the iron pipe he found was actually very soft wrought iron.
Whether "cutting iron like mud" under the highest standards can be achieved
Theoretically, as long as the pressure is strong enough and the hardness is high enough, anything can be cut. The reality is that even in today's metal smelting process and sword casting technology, no one dares to claim that their swords cut iron like mud, because the standard of "cutting iron like mud" is too high.
Literally, "cutting iron like mud" means that a sword cuts iron as easily as it does. In fact, "cutting iron is as easy as cutting puree" is harder than chopping meat with a kitchen knife.
Therefore, "cutting iron like mud" under the highest standards is extremely difficult, and even the records of experiments are rare. However, in Japan, where sword casting technology is developed, Discovery has conducted an experiment with a local TV show.
Before the experiment, the maximum range of a gun is determined, and then a Japanese knife is placed at the critical point of the maximum range of the gun. Place a high-speed camera on the side of the knife.
Experiments on cutting iron like mud
After the experiment began, the Japanese knife was fixed upright upwards, and the blade was pointed in the direction of the muzzle. Then shoot the blade with a gun, and the whole process is recorded in its entirety with a high-speed camera. Through slow replay, the crew found that the bullets fired from the guns did not cause any damage to the blade, and the bullets themselves were perfectly cut, and seven bullets were cut in a row.