Chapter 1019: Soaring Steel

Yancheng. Reading

When the Qinglong Army and the Marines approached Hanoi.

Zhao Xu was not idle either, and was inspecting the construction of Dasong, including agriculture, industry, education and other industries, in order to grasp the real national conditions.

For him, the most taboo thing for a high position is to stay in the palace for many years like the previous emperors, relying only on memorials to understand the situation of the country.

Because memorials are often the most unreliable.

This is why many emperors are fooled by powerful officials.

Even until the mountains and rivers were broken, these otakus who grew up in the greenhouse did not know what happened and why it happened.

It was precisely because of these considerations that he directly included the Propaganda Department under his direct jurisdiction.

In this way, he could learn about the bad deeds suppressed by some officials through newspapers.

At the same time, Xu Ke's Supervisory Four Institutes could also provide him with some real folk conditions.

But even with these two means of understanding the people's sentiments, he could not replace seeing with his own eyes and hearing with his own ears.

With the trinity, he could be as omniscient and omnipotent as possible.

The first stop of his inspection was naturally the Yancheng area.

After all, Yancheng currently represents the highest level of all industries in Dasong.

"At present, our steel workshop has achieved oxygen blowing smelting for steel with high quality requirements, which can not only meet the steel demand of Yanzhou, but also sell to other states."

Yancheng Steel Workshop, this is the new workshop after the relocation of the original steel workshop in the Armory Department.

Compared with the cramped space of the previous steel workshop, the Yancheng Steel Workshop covers an area of ​​more than 100 acres, 380 meters long and about 260 meters wide.

It is about the same area as a primary school in modern times.

In this wide workshop area, there are nine workshops with a length of more than 100 meters.

Each workshop is responsible for the production of different steel products.

For example, some workshops refine molten steel directly for the manufacture of steel bars for construction, some for the manufacture of steel wire for bundling, and some for the manufacture of steel plates, steel pipes and steel ingots.

Of course, there are also workshops dedicated to the manufacture of special steels needed by the Armory Department.

After the establishment of the canning factory, the steel workshop established a hot rolling workshop to produce thinner steel plates.

After tinning, these steel plates can be used to make cans.

Now, Zhao Xu is in the hot rolling workshop.

The red molten steel is poured out of the converter and formed in a long mold. After cooling slightly, the workshop craftsmen pinch the two ends with clamps and put them into the hot rolling mill.

The main structure of this hot rolling mill is two upper and lower rollers and a conveyor.

The one-centimeter-thick red-hot steel plate passes through the gap of the roller and is pressed into a half-centimeter steel plate.

Next, this steel plate will continue to pass through rollers with smaller gaps until it is pressed to about half a millimeter.

Finally, these thin steel plates will be rolled up and sent to other workshops.

"What is the production capacity per month?" Zhao Xu asked while nodding.

Yanzhou Iron and Steel Workshop and some important workshops have their own small power plants.

After the transformation, many equipment in the steel workshop have been replaced with electric motors, and traditional steam engines are no longer used.

Because the efficiency of electric motors is much higher than that of steam engines, the efficiency is naturally higher than before.

"Your Highness, 15,000 tons per month is no problem, and at least 200,000 tons can be guaranteed per year." The head of the steel mill showed a proud look.

"Not bad." Zhao Xu uttered two words and smiled.

In the contemporary Ming Dynasty, the annual steel production of the country was only 160,000 tons.

He surpassed it with a steel mill.

But even so, Yanzhou Steel Mill was actually just a small steel mill in Zhao Xu's eyes.

Which of the contemporary large steel mills covers an area of ​​6,000 acres or more?

Even the contemporary small steel mills can achieve a million tons of steel production per year.

Compared with this, Yancheng Steel Mill is ultimately a small witch compared to a big witch.

However, he was already very satisfied with this. Dasong had just entered the industrial age and was still backward in technology compared to the contemporary times.

Moreover, there was no coal or iron near Yancheng, and it needed to be transported from other counties.

He had no idea of ​​building a large steel mill in Yancheng.

The real large steel mills were concentrated in Shanggu County and Liao County.

These two places were originally steel bases in the contemporary times.

At present, the steel mills in the two counties have been put into production last year.

Otherwise, the Yancheng Steel Mill alone cannot supply the rails on the railway.

After observing the hot rolling mill for a while, Zhao Xu went to the North Square of the Steel Mill.

There is an electrolysis workshop here.

The oxygen needed by the steel mill naturally cannot be transported from other places, so the steel mill is also an oxygen production workshop.

Oxygen production is connected to each workshop from the pipeline of the electrolysis workshop.

When Zhao Xu arrived, some craftsmen were loading cylinders onto donkey carts and taking them away.

These cylinders contain oxygen and hydrogen, which will be used for hydrogen-oxygen welding.

Before there was electricity, the main way to connect steel parts was riveting.

Now, although the traditional riveting method still needs to be retained.

But they can use more advanced hydrogen-oxygen welding to sew steel components.

In this way, different steel parts can be combined to build more complex machinery.

And this is the subtle sublimation brought to industry after the emergence of electricity.