Chapter 1091 Construction in the North and Preparation in the South

Luo Chong's order was soon spread to all places, and active construction began in all aspects.

First, it was the steel mill in Xingang County. After Luo Chong left, Dali immediately found a construction team and started to build a new blast furnace in the steel mill, which was specially used to smelt stainless steel.

From then on, stainless steel existed as a long-term project of Xingang County Steel Mill. After all, according to Luo Chong, a large number of food industries will be built in the future, so more stainless steel will be needed, as well as weapons manufacturing and even people's livelihood. What pots and pans, which do not need stainless steel?

However, although it is a newly built blast furnace, the construction address is still in the original factory building. The new stainless steel smelting furnace is four times larger than the original blast furnace. It is the first steel shell blast furnace in the Han tribe. The exterior is riveted with steel plates, the inside is supported by angle steel keels, and then a layer of refractory bricks is built inside the furnace.

The advantage of doing this is that the furnace can be made larger, providing a larger volume, and more molten iron can be produced at one time.

In the past, the Han tribe would never have been able to build such a large furnace, not only because there were no hard conditions, such as being unable to process such large steel plates, drilling holes, and riveting. These are hard conditions. To put it bluntly, the manufacturing technology was not enough and it could not be made.

In terms of soft conditions, the Han tribe was also unable to complete it at that time.

Once the blast furnace starts working, it will not stop for 24 hours under normal circumstances. This requires a steady supply of coke and ore raw materials.

In the past, when the Han tribe relied on manpower to mine minerals, how could they dare to build such a large furnace.

I remember that in Hanyang City, the first brick blast furnace built by the Han tribe was only a little big. Even such a small furnace required the labor of the entire tribe of the Han tribe and the materials of a quarter to open the furnace once. At that time, the entire Han tribe could only smelt four furnaces of pig iron a year, let alone steel.

But now it is different. In the past, people used manpower to dig with shovels and pickaxes, but now people drive excavators and loaders to dig.

In the past, the ore was transported by more than a dozen oxen carrying baskets, and they had to use boats to transport them in the middle of the journey. Not to mention the trouble, each trip might only transport less than one ton, so they had to save up a quarter of raw materials before they could start the furnace.

Now, after using excavators and loaders to dig out the ore, the Han tribe can use a hydraulic dump tractor with a tipping bucket, and can also use trains to transport ore and coke.

This supply and transportation capacity is not comparable to the past.

Even if coke needs to be transported by ship, the ships of the Han tribe are no longer the same as before.

When copper ore was mined from Babaoshan and then pulled to Hanyang City for refining, they all used small boats with hand-rowed oars, but now they have become large three-masted sunken sand ships.

So in terms of soft and hard comparison, the Han tribe now has enough strength in both manufacturing technology and software support to meet the operation of such a huge blast furnace.

At the same time, this is also an experimental demonstration for the steel mills to be built in the south. If the new blast furnace in Xingang County can be successfully put into operation, then in the future, the south can build blast furnaces of the same level, or even larger ones.

On the other hand, Lu Guangzhu, the governor of Weishan County, also sent people to follow the guards sent by Luo Chong to the east to find a suitable lake island in Dazeli to build a suitable picric acid factory, an explosive weapons research institute, and an explosive weapons test base.

The guards sent by Luo Chong are mainly responsible for confidentiality and security matters, while Lu Guangzhu's people are responsible for transportation, construction, and living conditions. In addition, there are people from the Xingang County Power Research Institute and the Lake Island Comprehensive Research Institute. After all, it involves scientific research work, and it can't be done without the people from these two research institutes.

The group took a boat to inspect various uninhabited islands for four days and finally determined the final choice. Then Weishan County will provide people for construction, Xingang County will provide building materials, and the two research institutes will be responsible for forming a research and development team, and they will also move to the island to work.

Some of Luo Chong's guards will also be sent out, mainly responsible for security checks when entering and leaving the island, verifying identities, preventing confidential information from being leaked, and military defense issues of the new department.

As for the raw material coal tar used for fractional distillation of phenol, a lot of it has been stored at the coking plant on the lake island, just waiting for the time when phenol can be extracted and it can be used directly.

In Xingang County, a large amount of building materials were loaded onto trains and then transported to the dock of Weishan County, and then immediately shipped to the lake island. The craftsmen began to get busy. In the power research institute on the Xingang County side, Lin Fei also led people to tackle the manufacturing process of brewery production equipment.

As for those in the weapons research team, the team responsible for gun research and development has completed the design. The next task is to start the process and quality control of mass production. The rest of the unfinished explosive weapons will not start until they are moved to the new research institute on the lake island.

Now that there is a large amount of stainless steel, the problem of materials for brewery production equipment has finally been solved. They have already prepared the drawings. Before, they were stuck with the problem of insufficient copper materials. Now that stainless steel is available, the research institute immediately started working overtime to rush the production line.

The brewery's production line mainly includes a set of steaming equipment, which requires the production of an ultra-large tank body, and also requires the assistance of equipment such as boilers and steam engines. In addition, there are fermentation tanks, glass bottle filling lines, beer capping machines, etc. Except for a small amount of auxiliary equipment that does not directly contact beer, the rest are made of stainless steel as much as possible. This is a huge project.

However, compared with the brewery's production line, the glass factory on the other side does not need such advanced equipment. The glass factory also needs to be expanded and also needs automated production equipment, but they do not need stainless steel, only ordinary steel can meet the needs.

The glass factory is going to launch a set of supporting glass bottle production lines. To put it bluntly, this production line is an automatic bottle blowing production line, which requires a large number of metal molds of the same standard specifications, as well as a lot of air compressors, that is, air pumps. After all, blowing glass bottles mainly depends on this stuff.

The rest is the transfer equipment of the assembly line, which all need to use stainless steel, but it can be used on the molds for blowing bottles.

There are not many requirements for the molds for blowing glass bottles. There are basically two requirements: the surface is smooth enough so that the blown bottles have good appearance and no burrs or other defects, and the second is high temperature resistance.

In fact, the temperature of semi-molten glass liquid is not very high, only about 400 to 500 degrees. Such a temperature can basically be handled as long as the mold is not made of lead tin. However, now that stainless steel is available, it is also a good choice to use stainless steel to make molds.

Luo Chong originally planned to use bronze to make molds, but copper is the currency of the Han tribe, so the cost is much higher than stainless steel.

Luo Chong sat in his study room, paying attention to the construction progress in all directions through the news channels of the imperial guards, and actively preparing for the family's migration to the south.

Luo Chong is the leader of the Han tribe. His migration to the south means the strategic focus of the Han tribe has shifted. After so many years of hard work by Luo Chong, the north has been on the right track. The Tang tribe, Takuhai County and Qiongzhou Island in the south also have a population of more than 200,000, accounting for a small half of the total population of the Han tribe, but have not been vigorously developed by Luo Chong.

Now that the north is on the right track, Luo Chong no longer needs too much care. It is time to start managing the south.

If you want to start the large-scale development of the south, infrastructure construction is indispensable, so what Luo Chong is most concerned about now is the preparation work for the coal mine and steel mill in Youfu.

Originally, it was planned to build the Southern Steel Mill in Taigang County of Tang Tribe, but the relationship between Tang Tribe and Han Tribe is very delicate, so it is not suitable to make major changes at this time.

Now, under the urging of Luo Chong, Tang Tribe has actually completed the planning of the county system and promoted the currency of Han Tribe. Even the officials in various places are actually sent by Luo Chong.

Although it is still called Tang Tribe in name, it has actually been taken over by Han Tribe.

But even if it is taken over, there are still problems in name. Luo Chong is using time to dilute the resistance of the people of Tang Tribe and let them adapt to the lifestyle of Han Tribe first. As for large-scale reforms and infrastructure construction, it is better to wait until he goes there and marries Tang Yao before taking action.

In fact, there is another problem that Taigang County of Tang Tribe cannot be developed immediately, that is, the problem of inconvenient transportation.

If you want to make steel, you need a large supply of coke. Unfortunately, the coal mine in Youfu is a bit far from Taigang County, and there are a series of mountains in between. To build the Jian Railway, you need to build tunnels and bridges. The amount of work is too large and it cannot be completed in a short time. It will take at least three or four years, and that's when you use engineering machinery and a lot of blasting operations.

In this way, if Luo Chong wants to develop infrastructure in the south, he has to use the hematite mine near the Baiwu tribe first.

In addition, the matter of attracting the Baiwu tribe to join the Han tribe must also be taken seriously, because if the Han tribe wants to develop iron mines there, or even build a large steel mill, it must not be resisted by the local Baiwu people. Then the only way is to make them part of the Han tribe.

The Baiwu tribe has a population of 2,000. It is not realistic to kill them all or drive them away. Besides, Luo Chong is not a warmongerer. Every war he launched has its reasons. However, the relationship between the Baiwu tribe and the Han tribe is still good. You Fu is doing a good job there. When the time comes, Luo Chong will go there and make more efforts. It will not be a problem to absorb the Baiwu tribe peacefully.

At the same time, Dali and Lin Fei are also working on talent reserves. Many factories are currently implementing a system of multiple people per post, that is, one job position often has two or three people. Using old workers to lead new apprentices can quickly improve the technical level of these new apprentices. By then, the number of workers in each factory can be rapidly increased by two to three times. In this way, when the factory in the south is built, Luo Chong can take half of the people away and start work quickly.

At the same time, Luo Chong's migration to the south is also an opportunity for people from all walks of life to advance their status.

Take the factory for example. Luo Chong will definitely transfer some backbones to the south to build a new factory. When they arrive, their status will naturally be improved and they will become senior managers or technical engineers of the new factory. The lower-level workers can be transferred from the new people who have been trained recently.

Similarly, because the original backbones of the northern factory have been transferred, the old people who remain in the original factory will also be promoted accordingly, and then the remaining part of the trainee workers will be regularized.

In this way, the factories in the north and south have all completed the model of old leading new. At the same time, those old technical backbones have also been promoted, and the new trainee workers have also been successfully regularized, which can be said to be a happy ending.

Others, the political system and the military system will also get corresponding promotion opportunities. For example, after the Shen Ce Guards changed their equipment this time, because they have new weapons, they must increase their establishment. As long as the Shen Ce Guards are expanded, it is possible that all the officers of the original class will be promoted by one level.

In terms of the political system, after Luo Chong arrived in the south, he would definitely increase the construction and investment of the capital. When the capital was built, Luo Chong would definitely transfer all the county governors from various counties to the central government of the imperial capital. They were experienced and had a good cooperation with Luo Chong, and could assist Luo Chong in managing the country.

When all the county governors were promoted to the central government, the local officials from various counties would definitely be promoted quickly. The deputy officials would become the regular officials, and the petty officials would become the real officials with grades. This was a matter of course.

To accomplish all this, the most important thing was the factories, steel mills, coking plants, coal mines, and railway lines that Luo Chong had planned.

At present, the railway line from Chengkang County to Qi'an County in the middle and lower reaches of the Liuyang River has been opened, but the railway from Qi'an County to Taigang County in the Tang tribe will take three or four years.

You Fu is now in charge of the construction of Chengkang County and Qi'an County, as well as the development of coal mines, the wooing of the Baiwu tribe, and the investigation of the new railway route. He can no longer take care of it.

The people who are currently investigating the route on the mountain railway from Qi'an County to Tai'an County of the Tang Tribe are still the team under You Fu's command, but this time it is not You Fu who is leading the team himself.

This group of people is very experienced. In the past, under the leadership of You Fu, they explored many places for the Han tribe, so Luo Chong is also very relieved that this group of people is now doing the task of exploring the new railway line.

The road construction team that previously laid the Chengqi Line has now been transferred to Takuhai County, responsible for opening up a new railway line from the shore of Takuhai County to the capital.

(End of this chapter)