Chapter 612: What level are you at? How dare you fight me?

Hu Rugong said from the side: “What Zhang Changshi said is correct.

Su Steel is famous all over the world, and it is made by the upgraded method of pouring steel, which is to sandwich pig iron and wrought iron, and then cover it with straw ash and other materials, and repeatedly forge it into steel.

Su steel is made by placing pig iron into a furnace and shaking it back and forth until the furnace fire melts the pig iron and the iron drips into the molten wrought iron in the furnace to produce steel.

However, this method has extremely high requirements and low efficiency. Compared with the steelmaking method of Luanzhou Iron and Steel Plant, one is on earth and the other is in heaven. “

When Hu Rugong was the magistrate of Ningbo, he followed the order of Hu Zongxian and made more than 10,000 bird guns for the army to suppress the Japanese pirates within a year.

He is familiar with iron smelting and steel forging.

After hearing his words, Zhang Juzheng was also surprised and at the same time became very interested.

Steel!

Good steel is worth ten pieces of iron!
The new Ming army repeatedly defeated the northern barbarians and took over the grasslands south of the desert. Swords, armor and muskets made of fine steel were one of the important aids.

“Your Majesty, shall we go take a look?”

“Okay! Let’s go and take a look together.”

Everyone moved excitedly to the steelmaking workshop next door, and the first thing they saw was a large iron frame.

But what was strange was that there was no coking coal burning under the iron frame. Instead, there was a large round plate with eight bulging pipes leading to the outside through the wall.

Outside is a small steam engine. Looking at the gear set on it, people who know the business can guess that this steam engine does not require great force to work miracles. It can be done in one word: fast!

It spins so fast!

There was a round barrel hanging vertically on the iron rack, and it was unknown what material it was made of.

Liu Jianping also spoke vaguely: “My dear superiors, the material of this container is a secret among secrets, even I don’t know it.

Only one or two people, such as the chief engineer of the factory, know about this. They are always in a Class A confidentiality state, and are escorted by the factory security department when they enter and leave. “

“So strict?”

“Yes, the secret of steelmaking lies in this material.”

As Liu Jianping spoke, he gestured, asking the workers to follow the normal process and produce a furnace of steel to open the eyes of these high-ranking officials from Beijing.

A furnace full of molten iron was moved from the iron smelting workshop next door.

It is suspended by an iron chain, which is tied to a horizontal crane on the roof of the factory. The crane is mounted on tracks on the walls on both sides of the factory. People below pull the iron chain and turn the gears to drive it to move in a straight line forward, backward, left and right.

The red molten iron was poured into the round barrel on the iron rack in the steelmaking workshop. Everyone could then see clearly that this was a container that was one person deep. The molten iron gurgled into it and it was full in less than a minute.

Then the iron furnace in the iron smelting workshop slipped back like a scooter.

Bubbles were bubbling from the molten iron in the barrels in the steelmaking workshop.

Liu Jianping introduced: “This steelmaking furnace is two meters high and one and a half meters deep. It can be filled with 500 kilograms of molten iron at a time. Now we start making steel.”

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the exciting moment.

A worker turned a wrench, and the small steam engine on the other side of the wall started to work, humming as if something was spinning madly.

“This is the blower starting to work. The wind blown by the blower blows into the molten iron in the container from the eight air vents below,” Liu Jianping introduced, pointing to the disc and eight bulging pipes under the steelmaking furnace.

Ah, instead of burning the coal, just blowing air will do?

Amidst everyone’s confusion, they could clearly see the molten iron in the steel furnace gradually turning bright red, then brown smoke rising, and then the molten iron gushing out violently, with iron flowers and sparks flying everywhere, just like a volcanic eruption, scaring everyone back away.

After half an hour, the sound of the blower gradually died down and the molten iron became visibly darker.

At this time, the workers stepped forward and pushed the furnace with a long iron hook, pouring out the molten iron, no, now it is called molten steel, like pouring a teapot.

Or made into thin plates.

These thin plates were sent to the gun factory, where they were rolled into a cylinder by a machine, and the seams were welded to form a gun barrel. They were then bored smooth by a boring machine, and a smoothbore gun was half done.

Or it can be made into steel ingots, whether for making steel knives or steel parts, and then melted again and poured into the mold.

There are also machine factories that customize large steel castings. They send the mold over, install it here, pour the molten steel directly into it, and then perform exhaust treatment to obtain a primary casting.

When the molten steel cooled down, thin steel plates appeared in front of everyone. They flashed a grayish-white cold light that was different from cast iron. Everyone then realized that just by blowing air for half an hour, four or five hundred kilograms of steel could be produced?

It’s too easy!
Everyone’s eyes were focused on Liu Jianping. He spread his hands and said, “Gentlemen, don’t ask me. I don’t know this huge secret either.”

Yang Jinshui looked at Zhu Yijun with admiration. The emperor was truly a man chosen by heaven. God had actually bestowed upon him such a secret that would benefit the country and the people.

Zhu Yijun smiled faintly.

The principle is very simple, it is the oxygen blowing steelmaking method.

Blowing oxygen into the molten iron is the most effective method, but there is no way to produce oxygen now, and blowing air is only so-so.

After the molten iron is replenished with oxygen, it no longer needs to be heated by coking coal and will heat up on its own from 1,300 degrees to 1,600 degrees. During this self-heating process, many impurities are burned.

The brown smoke that just rose was the manganese and silicon that were oxidized first. Then the carbon in the molten iron was oxidized into carbon dioxide. When the carbon content is reduced to a certain level, the iron becomes steel.

This oxygen blowing steelmaking method has a huge secret.

Generally, the phosphorus content in iron ore is high, and the steel produced from it also contains high phosphorus, making it very brittle.

It is currently impossible to screen iron ore with low phosphorus content. We can only use limestone to line the furnace wall to maintain high alkalinity, produce a chemical reaction with phosphorus, and naturally dephosphorize, thereby smelting a furnace of qualified high-quality steel.

Why did Zhu Yijun know all this?
As mentioned before, after graduating from university, a senior civil servant went to work in a large machinery factory for two years before getting his job.

It was a large state-owned enterprise with its own steel mill. When I was doing internship at the factory, I went to various branches to receive training and education. When I was doing internship at the steel mill, I heard the technicians and engineers there talk about the history of steelmaking and mentioned these stories.

With doubts, everyone continued to visit.

The same Great Hall, but because the Luanzhou Iron and Steel Plant had many more workers, it generously built four identical Great Halls, one in the east, south, west and north, with a very spacious square in the middle.

The living area is a row of houses, as neat as fields.

Among them, the four newest residential buildings are the most luxurious.

There are six floors, three units on each floor, four suites in each unit, three bedrooms and two living rooms in each suite. Each room has double-opening windows, all of which are made of glass. The sunlight shines in, making the room bright.

There are master and secondary bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a toilet.

Toilet!
Well, Liu Jianping called it a toilet. Even the Prime Minister Zhang Juzheng couldn’t help but wander in to take a look. The ceramic toilet bowl led directly to the cast iron sewage pipe outside the wall.

There is also a ceramic basin next to the door with a cast iron faucet on it, and water flows out when it is turned on.

Zhang Juzheng, Zhang Xueyan, Hu Rugong, and a dozen other officials lined up to turn on the faucet, just like a child who had found a very interesting toy.

Zhu Yijun took a quick look and found a faucet in the kitchen. After turning it on, the sound of running water attracted Zhang Juzheng and others to line up here.
Liu Jianping introduced that this is called tap water.

Tap water?
The name is apt.

Liu Jianping continued to introduce.

The factory built a new water plant, which brought clean water from the Luan River into a pool, added limestone powder to disinfect it, let it stand and then filtered it, and then used a steam engine water pump to pump it to a 36-meter-high water tower.

The six-story building is only 18 meters high, and the tap water comes up easily.

There are 72 households in each of the four residential buildings, totaling 288 households. Those who are given priority are the annual outstanding workers, grade 9 workers, chief engineers and deputy chief engineers.

The extra empty houses were then used to accommodate the factory director, deputy director and other managers, and more than 40 households moved in.

These factories are so tycoon!

The officials of the seventh and eighth ranks who were accompanying him were very excited.

Being an official is a job, right?

The salary in this factory is not low, the benefits are good, and there is a family building with glass windows, a kitchen and bathroom with running water. Even Prime Minister Zhang Xiang is envious of it.

Alas! When the Imperial Academy and the Imperial Household Department selected factory managers from the Imperial College and low-ranking officials in Beijing, I looked down on them! I said it was a remote and poor place and I was determined not to come.

I regret it now, and I can’t come even if I want to.

Next, we visited shops, theaters, clinics, and schools. In addition to two primary and secondary schools, the steel plant also established a technical school to train skilled workers.

There is a large playground in the middle school, which is as big as the playground of Xishan Military Academy. Not only are sports meets held here every year, but Cuju competitions are also held here.

According to Liu Jianping, hundreds of factories in Kailuan have established hundreds of Cuju teams.

However, few workers were literate, and many felt that the word “Cuju” was difficult to write and pronounce, so they changed it to “football”. They also organized the Kailuan Football League, and after several rounds of elimination and mergers, they finally selected 36 teams to take turns playing against each other.

Luanzhou Iron and Steel Plant won the Kailuan Football League championship last year.

Also last year, Yang Jinshui asked the emperor for the imperial edict to change the name of football to football, and the league was officially renamed Kailuan Football League.

Looking at the empty green football field and the running track around it, the accompanying officials couldn’t help but feel envious and jealous.

How come we didn’t know anything about it before? There is a group of local tyrants hiding in Kailuan. They are so rich that they have no humanity and no friends. They are deep in the Luan River and no one knows about it!

After a tour, Zhang Juzheng couldn’t help but sigh: “Your Majesty, this factory is self-sufficient with food, accommodation and transportation. It is completely a city. I have been to many cities, and I feel that ordinary prefectural cities are not as good as this one.”

The workers and their families here, like those in Kaiping Coal Mine, have sincere and simple feelings for Zhu Yijun, and they love and respect him very much.

They stood quietly by the roadside, waiting anxiously and excitedly.

When Zhu Yijun and his entourage came over, they would applaud excitedly and shout “Long live the emperor!”

Zhu Yijun handled this situation with ease.

When you see an elderly person, start a conversation with him.

When asked about his age, how many children and grandchildren he had, they wished him a large family, a long life, and happiness as vast as the East Sea, the old man was so happy that he shed tears.

When he saw the child, he went up to him, picked him up, and gave him some candy. The talking child asked him how old he was and whether he went to daycare.

Zhu Yijun’s approachable style that was ahead of his time and his natural charm made the workers and their families around him fall in love with him. They were so excited that they jumped and shouted, and several of them fainted with excitement. They were urgently carried aside and treated by the imperial physician.

Looking at the amiable Emperor, the workers and their families’ loyalty and love index soared.

Zhang Juzheng felt mixed emotions as he looked at Zhu Yijun, who was standing among the crowd of workers and their families and was the center of attention.

Only then did he realize that Hu Zongxian and Tan Lun’s inspection of the nine borders and Qi Jiguang’s training of the new army and gradual seizure of military power were only open chess pieces; the crucial hidden chess pieces were here, Kaiping, Luanzhou, Taiyuan and Shanghai.

Here, the emperor, through Yang Jinshui and others, rebuilt many “new cities”, which are completely a new society. Perhaps they are the new productive forces and new production relations mentioned by the emperor.

Or perhaps, the new Ming Dynasty that the emperor has always dreamed of will start from here!
In the afternoon, Zhu Yijun took Zhang Juzheng and others to have lunch with the workers and their families in the cafeteria.

In the evening, twenty or thirty bonfires were lit in the big square and a party was held.

Zhu Yijun went on stage first, holding a large tin loudspeaker and sang loudly.

This time he did not sing “Three Variations on Plum Blossoms”, but sang another song.

“The river flows eastwards, the stars in the sky are the Big Dipper, ahem, the Big Dipper! A bowl of wine for a friend of life and death, let’s go when we say go!”

Zhu Yijun sang passionately on the stage, showing the style of the best microphone master in our bureau!
From today on, I will be the number one microphone master in Ming Dynasty!

The workers and their families below cheered and applauded loudly.

The next afternoon, the Eastern Tour Team left Luanzhou Iron and Steel Plant.

Sitting in the carriage, looking out the window at the steel plant gradually moving away, Zhang Juzheng couldn’t help but sigh.

“The Emperor really treats these workers very well!”

Zhu Yijun smiled and replied: “Of course I have to treat them well. They are the main force in strengthening the country and enriching the people. Our dream of a strong country and a rich people depends mainly on them to achieve it.”

Zhang Juzheng also laughed.

Your Majesty, you are so generous to them and treat them like your own trusted followers.

Before this, everyone in the world was kept in the dark by you, and no one realized that you were here, hiding a force that was powerful enough to subvert the world.

Zhu Yijun smiled in his heart and thought, of course I have to be nice to them. They are all workers and the mortal enemies of the big industrialists and business owners!

While others still need to grope their way across the river, I just cross it directly from the bridge.

I know what kind of people those business owners are. They become arrogant when they are successful, but I still have to be on guard against you.

Now that the factories are stable, the next step is to win the countryside over by taking advantage of opportunities such as re-surveying the land, implementing the land-based tax system, and having officials and gentry pay taxes together.

Most people are on my side. What level are you, that you dare to fight me?

(End of this chapter)