As we all know, unlike the Mongolian nomadic people, the Jurchens were a fishing and hunting people who also engaged in some agricultural production.
However, the Han people within the Liaodong border wall were still unable to be self-sufficient, and the Jianzhou Jurchens and Haixi Jurchens still lived in the Changbai Mountain area in northeastern Liaodong, with less arable land and a more difficult livelihood. They were also constantly oppressed and plundered by the Mongols, so they could not develop.
However, "when the time comes, heaven and earth are on the same side". Li Chengliang emerged in Liaodong, who beat the Mongols to the point of near death, but adopted an attitude of mainly supporting the weak Jurchens, giving them valuable space for development.
There were many complex factors behind Li Chengliang's change of attitude towards the Jurchens, one of which was that he could make money from it.
After the opening of the border in the Longqing reign, a large amount of silver from overseas flowed into China, and the rich had more silver in their hands. A large number of wealthy businessmen appeared in the Jiangnan region. The extravagant style of society flourished, bringing about a strong demand for high-end local products such as ginseng, mink fur, tiger bones, and deer antlers from outside the Great Wall.
These local products were soon in short supply and their prices soared, making Li Chengliang, who monopolized the trade outside the Great Wall, a fortune.
And these local products are basically in Changbai Mountain, outside the border wall, in the territory of the Jurchens! The Jurchens can bring wealth to Li Chengliang, so of course they will be looked at differently.
Therefore, the Jurchens had a great historical opportunity - they found that they could rely on the horse market trade in Liaodong and the Yalu River to maintain the survival of the entire tribe, accumulate wealth, and buy everything they wanted, such as bird guns, gunpowder, and armor. This provided the material conditions for becoming bigger and stronger and creating greater glory.
Therefore, after the beginning of spring every year, the men of various Jurchen tribes would form teams called "Niulu" and go into the mountains to dig ginseng and hunt, and would not leave the mountains until the beginning of autumn.
This transformed them from a loose group into a powerful militarized tribal group.
It can be said that it was the Age of Exploration that gave the Jurchens the opportunity to rise, and it was the power of commerce that made them strong. However, the parties involved, whether it was the Ming Dynasty that foolishly aided the enemy, Li Chengliang who nurtured the enemy and enriched himself, or the Jurchens who became strong without knowing why, never realized this.
Fortunately, Zhao Hao was very clear about this. After ten years of hard work, he had become one of the players in the Age of Discovery and the leader of Ming Dynasty commerce.
Therefore, he has the ability to wean the Jurchens and interrupt their evolution process by commercial means. He also hopes to deal with the Northeast King at the right time. This requires the Northeast Company to intervene and make plans, and it can only be done when the time is right.
Of course, it is too early to say this now. Let’s wait and see after the Northeast Company has established a firm foothold in Liaodong.
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In any case, Master Zhao completed the task assigned by his father-in-law and used one million taels to organize the engagement ceremony of Emperor Wanli beautifully.
This made Zhang Juzheng very happy, so he took advantage of the emperor's engagement to reward his entire family.
Zhao Hao was promoted to the third rank Jiayi official, and continued to serve as the Shaoqing of the Taichang Temple and the commander-in-chief of the Siyi Hall, and was also in charge of maritime affairs and other matters at sea.
Zhang Xiaojing was awarded the title of Second Rank Lady for her contributions in completing the circumnavigation of the world, visiting overseas fairy mountains, and presenting an auspicious divine turtle.
Jiang Xueying, Ma Xianglan and Fang Qiaoqiao were also promoted one level each. Jiang Xueying was promoted to the fourth-rank Gongren; Ma Xianglan was promoted to the fifth-rank Yiren; and Qiaoqiao was promoted to the sixth-rank Anren.
Because Li Mingyue was already a county princess, and would be promoted to a princess if she were promoted again, her salary was only increased by 200 shi.
Originally, Zhang Xianggong had said that he would give his sons official positions, but because his own grandson had not yet been born, Zhao Hao was polite and said that the matter would be discussed later...
As for why it is a grandson and not a granddaughter, Bu Gu is just so confident!
At this time, Zhao Liben finally returned to Beijing. As soon as he arrived in Beijing, the old man immediately held the 6th Chuiwan Invitational Tournament of the Northeast Company Cup.
Master Zhao and his family also moved to the manor in Qili Village, so that the old man could enjoy the happiness of playing with his great-grandson after competitions.
During the day, Zhao Hao watched his children running around on the green hillside. At night, he played cards with his grandfather, chatted with his father, and took the opportunity to sneak in some sleep. He felt greatly relaxed both physically and mentally.
But good news came from Tangshan, which made Zhao Hao unable to stay in the manor anymore.
This is an exploration report.
Since last year, the miners of Xishan Group and the researchers of the Iron and Steel Research Institute have jointly conducted a comprehensive survey of the Kaiping area of Tangshan.
The exploration team spent a year and a half to finally confirm that the Kaiping area was indeed as Mr. Zhao "guessed", with both rich coal and iron ore.
Although it is difficult to mine due to the abundant groundwater, and Kaiping coal is soft, difficult to agglomerate, and has a high ash content, its coking rate is much higher than Xishan coal, making it very suitable for coking and can be used as a raw material for ironmaking.
The most valuable thing is that after chemical composition analysis, it was found that Kaiping's iron ore does not contain phosphorus and coal does not contain sulfur! This means that the converter steel production problem that has troubled the 01 Institute for many years has finally been solved!
The top priority of the First Five-Year Plan - mastering steelmaking technology - had encountered major setbacks.
At that time, Mr. Zhao felt that the process of producing converter steel was simple, low-cost and possessed unparalleled advantages, so he naturally allowed Institute 01 to bypass the reverberatory furnace and go directly to converter steel.
The result was a disaster for the 01st Institute. Wang Yingxuan spent several years painstakingly designing the converter, but the steel he finally produced was full of pores and thermal cracks, which broke into pieces at a single blow, and turned into useless scrap steel.
Zhao Hao personally conducted research with Institute 01 for several months before basically determining that the problem was caused by too high phosphorus and sulfur content in the iron ore and too low manganese content.
Too much phosphorus will cause thermal cracking, too much sulfur will cause brittleness. Insufficient manganese will cause pores...
After finding the cause, Institute 01 heated the pyrolusite powder and charcoal for a period of time, reduced the metallic manganese, and added it to the molten iron, thus solving the last problem.
Moreover, manganese can also react with sulfur in molten iron, so the only problem left is how to remove phosphorus from iron ore.
Zhao Hao was helpless, so there were only two options for Lao Wang and his researchers. One was to continue to improve the process and find a way to remove phosphorus. The other was to find low-phosphorus iron ore as raw material.
As a result, it was already the last year of the Second Five-Year Plan, and the technical difficulty had not been overcome, nor had low-phosphorus iron ore been found.
Wang Yingxuan was so worried that he wanted to hang himself.
I didn’t expect that after searching hundreds of iron mines all over the world, I found phosphorus-free iron ore in Tangshan. It’s like searching for iron in vain, but it’s easy to find!
How could Master Zhao sit still any longer? He asked for leave from his father-in-law and promised that he would go to Tangshan and would never go out to sea before Xiaojing gave birth. He also returned to Beijing once every ten days. Only then did he get permission to leave Beijing and headed straight for Kaiping!
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Kaiping is located in the center of the Luanhe Plain, at the strategic point leading to Shanhaiguan and entering and exiting Beijing and Tianjin. It has been a prosperous town since ancient times and is known as the "Insatiable Kaiping".
Therefore, Kaiping Guards were stationed here and built a brick and stone castle here. Later, Tuman and Duoyan invaded in turn, and the rich people in the Luanhe Plain flocked to Kaiping City for refuge and then settled down there. When Kaiping City became too crowded, they left their homes and went to other places to make a living.
The desolation of the entire Luanhe Plain has made this place prosperous. When Xishan Group made a large acquisition before, most of the money was spent on Kaiping, which helped it to bite off this hard bone.
At that time, many people did not understand why the young cabinet minister was so determined to take Kaiping. Now I understand. The young cabinet minister is the young cabinet minister, and he would never do something without a purpose.
In fact, before the Xishan Group arrived, there were several small coal mines outside Kaiping City that mined coal to supply the city with heating and cooking. There were also people digging "iron sand", washing furnaces to smelt it into iron ingots, and sending it to the blacksmith shops in the city to make farm tools and weapons.
It is precisely because of the existence of these small coal mines and small iron mines that the exploration team was able to find the coal and iron ore veins so easily.
They spent a long time digging and exploring, and roughly figured out the distribution of the veins and confirmed that the reserves were extremely rich. Only then did the steady Xishan Group begin to prepare for mining.
And because of the limited technical conditions of Xishan Group, the samples of coal and iron ore had to be sent to the research center of Xishan Island for component analysis. So the good news that Kaiping's iron does not contain phosphorus and coal does not contain sulfur was still reported back from Xishan Island.
As soon as the news was released, Wang Yingxuan also took a boat with his technical team and a full set of equipment and rushed to Kaiping.
When Zhao Hao arrived in Kaiping, Wang Yingxuan also arrived.
The two were very excited when they met. The problem that had been stuck for six years finally had an answer.
Although the problem has not been completely solved, as long as we can produce qualified steel, it will be the biggest victory!
Without saying a word, they immediately built a test plant and assembled coking, blast furnace and converter equipment in the factory area which was simply surrounded by a wall and had not even had time to complete the three connections and leveling.
By the time the entire set of equipment was assembled and debugged, it was already midsummer in June.
In the factory where flames were blazing, eight huge hydraulic ventilation fans kept turning, but it was as hot as a steamer.
Including Zhao Hao, everyone was only wearing a pair of linen shorts, but they were still covered in burly mutton.
But no one cared about these. Everyone's attention was focused on the pear-shaped converter that was less than 1.5 meters high and sat on a thick iron frame.
"Add molten iron!" Wang Yingxuan, who was as thin as a bamboo pole, gave the order loudly.
The skilled workers opened the blazing blast furnace, and the molten iron slowly poured into the low converter mouth from the outlet at the waist of the blast furnace.
After all the 700 kilograms of molten iron in the blast furnace were poured in, Wang Yingxuan wiped his thick glasses and said in a trembling voice: "Blow the air!"
The workers quickly pulled the bellows, blowing air into the six tuyere at the bottom of the converter through six "J"-shaped pipes!
The reaction in the furnace was very violent, with loud bangs like a volcanic eruption. Soon, brown smoke rose from the furnace, which was the manganese and silicon in the molten iron being oxidized by oxygen.
Ten minutes into the blast operation, the combustion in the converter suddenly intensified, producing a large amount of white flames, which was the decarburization of the molten iron.
Countless sparks spurted out from the furnace mouth at the top of the converter, like fireworks, dazzling and dangerous!
Zhu Shimao and others who came to join in the fun were so frightened that they stepped back one after another, fearing that the molten iron in the converter would burst out and pour all over them.
Then it will burn to bones...
Only Zhao Hao, Wang Yingxuan and other researchers from Institute 01 were still standing on the high observation platform, watching the reaction of the furnace mouth intently.
Even with sunglasses on, the incandescent flames still made them cry. But they still looked anxiously at the furnace mouth. As the flames suddenly stopped, the decarbonization was completed.
The first batch of steel in Kaiping was produced.