In fact, the old janitor's pretentiousness is just a routine. The steel plant is formally closed, but nominally still exists because no county leader is willing to take responsibility for shutting down a business. Under such circumstances, the steel mill had to be guarded, and as a result, several old workers, including Old Man Wang, were left behind as a symbol of the steel mill's continued existence. For the sake of this symbol, the county has to guarantee that they will be paid every month, and the payment will be more than ten years.

These old guards have their salaries, so they naturally have to do something, and for young people like Ning Mo and them who come in to hang out, they must come forward to interrogate a few words to show that they are serious and responsible. In fact, the walls around the steel mill have collapsed in several places, and thieves really come in to steal things, and there is no need to enter and exit through the gate.

After sending away the old man, Qin Hai and his entourage walked into the steel factory and began to visit this industrial site.

This is a factory covering an area of more than 1,000 acres, and when the factory was built, there was no family area due to the emphasis on "production first and then life". In addition to the workshop, there is only a lonely two-story office building in the entire factory area. All the doors and windows of the office building have been removed, leaving only the black openings. According to Ning Mo, all the furniture in the offices of this office building has also been removed, and now its only function is to serve as a habitat for wild cats and wild dogs.

Qin Hai was not interested in wild dogs, so he walked straight through the office building with Ning Mo and the others and walked towards the production area behind.

At the heart of the production area is an iron-making blast furnace with chimneys, hot blast stoves, and feeding belt trucks next to it, forming an open-air blast furnace workshop. Due to years of exposure to the sun and rain, all exposed iron objects were covered with thick rust, and the bricks were pitted by the rain.

Qin Hai walked to the blast furnace, looked up at the blast furnace, knocked on the hot air pipe by the blast furnace with his hand, sighed, and said, "Alas, it's a pity, such a blast furnace was scrapped like this. ”

"Is it good to scrap it?" Ning Mo said heartlessly, "Listen to my father, when the steel plant was still in production, the county was full of coal ash, not to mention, the county also forced all units to use the products of the steel plant. The steel they produce cannot be forged at all, and it cracks when it is smashed with a forging machine, which is no different from pig iron. ”

"It's a matter of technique." Qin Hai said, "In fact, if you improve the process, at least it won't be like this." Of course, it is also a good thing to shut down such inefficient small steel plants, and keeping them will only pollute the air. ”

"It turns out that there are steel mills in almost every county in our city, but now they are almost closed, and only the steel mills in Beixi City remain, and the steel used in our factory is mainly produced by them. By the way, Qin Hai, didn't you say yesterday that the quality of their steel is not good? Miao Lei said.

"Yes, there must be problems with their production process, so the quality of the steel is not up to standard, and we use such steel to produce farm tools, and the quality will definitely be affected." Qin Hai said.

A few people walked as they talked, and then came to the steelmaking workshop. The situation in the steelmaking workshop is better than that of the blast furnace workshop, perhaps because there are still some valuable equipment in the workshop, and all the doors and windows of the entire workshop are welded with iron railings outside, only the door can be opened, but the door is also locked with a large iron chain as thick as a child's arm, and the lock on it is as big as a palm, and it is easy to smash open.

"Is there a steelmaking furnace in this workshop?" Qin Hai asked Ning Mo and the others. These people all grew up in this factory area, and they all know about the surrounding factories, at least, Ning Mo even knows the old man's surname Wang.

Ning Mo said: "I haven't been in this workshop, when I was in elementary school, this factory was closed, and since then, this workshop has been locked like this." However, I've heard that there seems to be some equipment inside, and there were people who tried to pick the lock and steal wires and sell it for money. ”

"......" Qin Hai was speechless.

In the future, there is a machine repair workshop or something like that, because there are machine tools and equipment in the workshop, so it is also General Tie who guards the door, and Qin Hai and the others can only lie on the window and look inside. The equipment was coated with thick butter, but it hadn't rusted much, but the dust that had accumulated over the years had covered the true color of the equipment.

"There's nothing ahead, just these two hills." Ning Mo pointed to the two large mounds in front of him and said to Qin Hai.

"How can there be two hills?" Qin Hai asked strangely, those two mounds are quite large, and they can indeed be described as small hills. The mound was overgrown with weeds and a few trees that weren't too big.

Miao Lei explained: "These two mounds were left over from the production of the steel plant. This pile of iron ore is pulled from the mountains in the past. The pile over there is slag, left over for more than ten years. Because the pile has been piled for a long time, it will be overgrown with grass. ”

"Oh?" Qin Hai's heart moved, "Let's go and have a look." ”

Qin Hai said that he wanted to look at it in the past, and a few friends naturally had no opinions. In fact, they are also idle and wandering around after work every day. Of course, if Qin Hai wasn't here, they wouldn't be interested in looking at that big pile of slag, that was where they played hide and seek when they were children, and now that they are such big people, who would come to this kind of place to play.

Qin Hai walked quickly to the pile of slag, picked up a piece from the ground, and carefully examined it.

The slag left by blast furnace ironmaking is a kind of porous lump, which is still a little hairy and sloppy in the hand, and may even scratch the palm of the hand if you are not careful. Qin Hai took advantage of the afterglow of the sunset to look at it seriously for a while, nodded thoughtfully, and asked Ning Mo and the others, "These slags have been piled up here for many years, right?" ”

"No, it's been piling up since there was a steel plant, and when the steel plant closes, the slag stays here." Ning Mo replied.

Qin Hai asked again: "After so many years, no one has thought about cleaning up these slags?" ”

Miao Lei said: "Who is willing to pay to clean them up? I remember one year there seemed to be a unit that said it wanted to pull the slag to pave the road, but later it turned out that the slag was too hard to smash, and then it didn't want it. Anyway, now that the steel mill is closed, the slag is thrown like this. ”

Ning Mo saw something from Qin Hai's expression, and he asked tentatively, "What, Qin Hai, do you think this slag is useful?" ”

Qin Hai smiled and said: "I can't be sure yet, but in terms of the distribution of mineral resources in our Beixi City, iron ore is not our main resource, but those rare metals associated with iron ore are more valuable." The Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant only makes iron and does not extract rare metals, so those associated ores should be left in these slags. ”

"You're saying that the slag is capable of refining what you call rare metals?" Ning Mo asked, and the word "valuable" that Qin Hai said attracted him.

Qin Haidao: "I said it, I can't be sure yet." If my judgment is correct, the value of this slag is a hundred times more valuable than the steel made in a steel mill. Don't talk about it, and if anyone wants to dispose of the slag, you must tell me, and we'll find a way to keep it. ”

The three friends exchanged a look with each other, and they all had an inexplicable excitement. Ning Mo asked, "Qin Hai, are you saying that you have a way to refine the valuable things in this slag into money?" ”

Qin Haidao: "Not yet, to refine these rare metals, you need to have a blast furnace, but also a high-power electric furnace, this is almost the equipment requirements of a medium-sized smelting enterprise, with the four of us, we can't do it yet." ”

"What's the use of that?" Ning Mo was a little discouraged, he also thought that Qin Hai could make a small coal stove to smelt rare metals like quenching, if it took a medium-sized enterprise to do it, what did this have to do with a few of them?

Qin Hai patted Ning Mo's shoulder and said, "Fatty, the forging who doesn't want to be the factory director is not a good fat man, haven't you thought about waiting to earn money to open a factory and become the factory director yourself?" ”

"I don't think it's hopeful." Ning Mo said to himself, "However, Qin Hai, I think you have the possibility to be the boss, you have such great ability, and you also have business acumen." By the way, if you become the boss, we will all go to your factory to be a middle-level cadre, okay? ”

"Yes, it's enough for us to be a workshop director." Miao Lei and Yu Haitao also said playfully.

"Take my word for it, anything is possible." Qin Hai said, he saw that the sky was gradually turning dark, and it was not interesting to go down in this barren factory, so he said, "Let's go, let's go back." We still have some things to do when we get back. ”