Gu Shuhan wants to make a career, naturally she is not talking casually, after settling Gu's mother and daughter, she went to the steel factory assigned to her by Gu Zhenghong for an inspection. Naturally, she was accompanied by a hired person to keep her safe. The world is not peaceful, if she is really allowed to go out alone as a girl, Gu's mother will definitely not rest assured, and the location of the steel plant is relatively biased, even Gu Shuhan himself has to be cautious.

Zhang Wen wanted to go with Gu Shuhan on his own initiative, but Gu Shuhan refused. She could see that this young man was a little smart, but he was too calm. If he is of reliable character, it is not impossible to sharpen his character and train him to be his helper. Now, she still needs to observe for a while to see if Zhang Wen is worth cultivating.

Gu Shuhan took a rickshaw when he went out, and early in the morning, there were already many coachmen waiting on the street, waiting to pick up passengers. Usually early morning and evening are the best times for their business, these two times, people with jobs rush to commute, and the streets are especially lively.

There was a burst of fragrance from the shops selling breakfast, and many vegetable and fruit sellers also set up stalls, and from time to time there were merchants carrying goods from the street. There were newsboys along the street holding newspapers and selling them all the way, and Gu Shuhan took out the copper plate that had been exchanged for huàn and bought a copy of it.

The country of China in this era is not the same as she remembers, and if you want to understand domestic events, reading the newspaper is undoubtedly an excellent way.

Abroad, the First World War was in full swing as she remembered, with the northern government in the north, headed by President Han Jiang, and Zhang Xunchong in the northwest, and the area south of the Yangtze River being ruled by the southern government.

City B, where Gu Shuhan is located, is under the rule of the southern government. She is quite appreciative of Prime Minister Bai's style of conduct, and the cause she is fighting for will inevitably have to deal with people in the political and military circles. I just don't know if I can find a way to catch the line of the Bai family.

The rickshaw traveled all the way, and Gu Shuhan pondered all the way. About an hour later, the steel mill that Gu Zhenghong left her behind finally arrived.

After getting out of the car and paying the fee, Gu Shuhan couldn't help but start to inspect the environment of the factory.

Push open the rusty door, and there is a wide field.

The scale of the steel plant is medium, although the equipment is old, but it is quite complete, which Gu Zhenghong bought back from abroad at a large price, which shows that Gu Zhenghong also invested a lot of hope in it at the beginning of the establishment of the factory. There is also a vacant land next to the factory, which was also bought by Gu Zhenghong, thinking that it was reserved for future expansion, but unfortunately, the factory could not be done before it was expanded. The factory and the land next to it have become a heavy burden, but after all, the upfront investment has cost a lot of money, and if you want to sell it cheaply, Gu Zhenghong is reluctant, so he simply gave it to Gu Shuhan, and it seems that he is generous and affectionate.

Although Gu Zhenghong did this without his consideration and calculation, Gu Shuhan still thanked him for his generosity at this point. If Gu Shuhan wants to find such a satisfactory factory, it will be difficult to reach the sky.

Although the steel in the factory has been discontinued, but the team has not been disbanded, learning the news that the owner is coming, the factory owner Lao Zheng arrived in the factory early to wait. When he saw that only Gu Shuhan and her bodyguards appeared, Lao Zheng's eyes were obviously full of disappointment.

Gu Shuhan, who had already taken a rough look at the factory, also set his eyes on Lao Zheng.

"I'm Gu Shuhan, from today onwards, I will take over this steel plant, presumably Director Zheng has a lot of doubts and distrust of me, and similarly, I don't trust you, the owner of Zheng. I have a few questions that I would like to ask Master Zheng to answer for me. ”

Lao Zheng originally didn't take the little girl in front of him in his eyes, even if she became the new owner of the steel factory, she just relied on a good tire, how much does she know about steel smelting? But such a little girl who didn't know anything dared to doubt her professional ability, and Lao Zheng's heart was very unhappy.

"Since the day this steel plant opened, my Lao Zheng has been here. I know most of the things in the factory, I don't know what Miss Gu wants to ask? In his tone, he seemed to regard himself as a senior, and Gu Shuhan as an apprentice who needed the guidance and guidance of his seniors.

Gu Shuhan was not annoyed, and said in a non-hurried tone: "I want to know, the steel plant is so well equipped, why can't the steel produced be sold?" ”

When Director Zheng heard this, he said in his heart, he was really a layman, but he was afraid that he didn't even know how to identify the properties of the steel, and he just wanted to sell the steel as soon as he came up. Despite this, he still replied: "In several places where steel is needed, the strength, toughness and plasticity of the steel smelted in our factory are not good enough, and they are not as good as imported steel from abroad." However, the equipment used in our factory is eliminated, and the steel produced naturally cannot be compared with foreign ones. ”

"Owner Zheng is too conservative, right? Even if the quality of foreign steel is better than that of smelting in the factory, domestic steel mills have an advantage in price. If the steel smelted in the factory is only worse than that of foreign countries, the price is much cheaper, and some people are willing to ask for it. However, all the steel produced in the factory was piled up in the warehouse, and even one percent could not be sold. I'm afraid that the quality of the steel produced in the factory is not ordinary bad, right? ”

Director Zheng sank his face: "Miss Gu, is this doubting our technology?" ”

"Yes, I suspect that the quality of the steel in the factory is far from meeting the standard. Please inform me of the process of smelting steel in the factory. ”

"The smelting process of our steel plant is no different from that of foreign countries, all of which are to melt coke and iron ore in a blast furnace to make pig iron, and then melt and oxidize the pig iron to reduce the carbon content to a certain degree and smelt it into steel. The ingots are then cast to obtain the ingots. Dare to ask Miss Gu, what is your opinion on this process? ”

Director Zheng said a series of professional terms, but did not give any explanation, which made Gu Shuhan's intention to retreat in the face of difficulties obvious. He is also a little arrogant, how can he not be angry when he is questioned like this by Gu Shuhan?

I thought that these words could make Gu Shuhan dizzy, but I didn't expect that Gu Shuhan had been listening carefully, and there was no trace of confusion in his eyes. As she listened, she walked over to the smelted steel ingot and took a closer look.

"Three problems, first, the impurities in the process of smelting pig iron are too high, the toughness and plasticity of the steel are too low, the brittleness is too high, the strength is insufficient, the carbon content of the steel is obviously not up to standard, in addition, the factory may not have carried out the desulfurization and dephosphorization process, right?"

Truly high-quality steel contains very few impurities, not only must the carbon content be controlled in the appropriate range, but the content of sulfur and phosphorus as impurities must also be low to a certain extent, otherwise, it will affect the performance of the steel. The content of these substances in the steel produced in the steel mill is strictly exceeded, and the performance of the steel is extremely poor.

"Second, after the ingot is formed, it needs to be hot-rolled to make it have good plasticity and eliminate its internal stress, and the steel produced in the factory does not have a process of over-hot rolling."

"Third, the steel model produced in the factory is too single and the use is limited, so didn't Director Zheng consider producing too many models of steel?"

"I can understand the first two points, but what does the third point mean? Aren't all steels the same? What other models are available? ”

Gu Shuhan said seriously: "Of course it is different, the internal structure of the steel is different, the composition is different, and the use will be different." For example, No. 10 boiling steel can be used to make deep-drawing utensils and shell bodies, No. 15 boiling steel can be used to make bolts, screws and steam boilers, No. 30 steel can be used to make mechanical parts and mechanical shafts, and No. 55 manganese steel can be used to make gear shafts and springs...... With the advent of the industrial age, the demand for steel from our potential customers is huge. Therefore, it is advisable to produce several more common types of steel to meet more demand. ”

Lao Zheng looked at Gu Shuhan's gaze, from contempt at the beginning, to prudence now. He began to realize that the girl in front of him, who seemed to be too young, did not understand anything. On the contrary, she knew that it was probably no less than them. In such a short period of time, she has figured out the problem of zài in steel, which I have to say is a talent in itself.

Although he was not satisfied with the quality of the steel, he did not think of these aspects, and she only said a few words to make him pause. Perhaps, the new owner in front of him is not as bad as he imagined. Perhaps, if she takes over the steel plant, the factory really has the possibility of resurrection.

As a person who regards technology as a qiē, Lao Zheng bowed his head to Gu Shuhan for the first time: "Some of these words said by the owner are unheard of by me, and I am ashamed to boast that I understand steel very well." In the future, I don't dare to think like that anymore. ”

The purpose of deterrence has been achieved, and Gu Shuhan also slowed down his posture: "Before, in order to test Director Zheng's ability, I was rude, and I asked Director Zheng not to take it to heart. For a person like Director Zheng who has real talent and learning, anyone should be respected. ”

Lao Zheng waved his hand: "Hey, I don't deserve the praise of the owner, if I am really talented, I will not fail to see that there is such a big loophole in the steelmaking process." I don't have a clue about the desulfurization and dephosphorization process that the owner said. Obviously, he was still digesting Gu Shuhan's words just now.

"Alright, let's stop humbling each other." Gu Shuhan said: "Although the steel plant is in such a situation now, I look at the attitude of Director Zheng, but I am very confident in our factory. From tomorrow, Director Zheng will let all the people who carry out the smelting process and the final processing process come to the factory, and I will give them technical guidance. Although the existing substandard steel in our steel mill cannot be directly sold, it can be annealed and normalized to make its performance up to standard. If you're lucky, you'll soon get a big order. ”

Annealing, normalizing, quenching, and tempering are the four processes of heat treatment just now, and through guò heat treatment, the properties required by the steel can be obtained. The annealing process can reduce the hardness of the steel, improve its plasticity, eliminate the microstructure defects and internal stress, and normalize the hardness, strength and plasticity of the steel compared with annealing.

At the quenching stage, the steel gains high strength and hardness, but its plasticity and toughness are significantly reduced. Quenching and tempering are clearly inappropriate for steel mills that only produce steel raw materials, rather than processing steel products.

Gu Shuhan had already observed just now that the backlog of unqualified steel in the steel plant was really a lot. Although the quality is not up to standard, it does not mean that these steels are completely scrapped and cannot be used. With some follow-up treatment, the properties of these steels can be improved. As long as the quality inspection is qualified, are you worried that the steel in the steel plant cannot be sold?

You know, now many factories are importing foreign steel, and the price is expensive. If someone in their own country can make steel with low price and performance that is not inferior to foreign steel, will the bigwigs still refuse? Of course, how to produce high-quality steel is something that the workers under Director Zheng need to consider, and how to open up sales channels requires her to worry about it.

"In addition, I noticed that most of the steel produced in our factory is No. 65 manganese steel, which is very suitable for refining knives and farm tools. If possible, it is not a smart idea to reprocess the steel with acceptable quality and sell the raw materials directly, and the profit can be at least several times higher when the finished product is refined. ”

"The owner's idea is very good, but according to our technology, I don't know if it can be implemented smoothly. Moreover, even if something is made, it is a problem to sell it. ”

"Don't worry, I asked the factory to do this, I will say this with confidence, and you can only rest assured about technical problems. As long as the stuff is good, there will always be a market. By the way, how many workers are there in our factory? According to the number of machinery and equipment in the factory, Gu Shuhan estimated that there were one or two hundred people.

"This ......" Director Zheng looked at Gu Shuhan with a sad look: "There were originally two hundred and thirteen people in our factory, but because the factory lost money and couldn't pay the wages, more than half of the people have left, and now there are only fifty-eight people, including me." There was no work in the factory, and those people had no other jobs, so they had to stay at home. ”

Fifty-eight? It seems that the situation is indeed not optimistic. There are more than a few people on an assembly line in a big factory. With such a small number of people, first of all, the output cannot be raised, so you can only take the route of small boutiques. Moreover, listening to Director Zheng's meaning, those elites with a little technology have been poached by other factories, but this is also predictable.

Gu Shuhan didn't have a little discouragement on her face, she came over when she was poor and white, and now she has the skills to do it, is she still afraid of anything? Although the factory is currently facing difficulties, she believes that these are only temporary.

"Director Zheng, you will get all the workers back tomorrow, and I will make up all the arrears of wages in the factory. Tell them to do what I ask them to do, and if they do a good job, I will give them an additional bonus in addition to their fixed monthly salary. ”

It is said that the arrears of wages were done by Gu Zhenghong, and it has nothing to do with Gu Shuhan, but since this factory is already hers, she naturally has to take responsibility. At this point, Gu Shuhan will not shirk. Since she wants to run a good factory, she naturally can't let the employees in the factory chill. If they can't even return the arrears of wages in full, even if Gu Shuhan gets all the people back, they are afraid that they will not have the enthusiasm to work.

In addition to the remaining funds on the books in the factory, there is no extra money, which is less than the salary, and Gu Shuhan has to pay for it himself. Gu Shuhan's dowry was held in the Qin family, although the key was in her hands, and the Qin Li family couldn't move, but she couldn't hold it for a while. In order to pay the wages of the workers, Gu Shuhan paid 2,000 yuan from Gu's mother, and regardless of Gu's mother's opposition, he made an IOU. In her opinion, public is public, private is private, and cannot be confused.

Gu Zhenghong in the factory originally planned that the salary of ordinary workers was three yuan per month, and that of senior craftsmen was ten yuan per month, and that there were two hundred and one ordinary workers, eight senior craftsmen, one factory director, and one deputy factory director in the factory. Director Zheng's salary is 40 yuan per month, and the deputy factory director is 30 yuan per month. The factory was shut down after only one month of operation, and the total amount of wages owed was 753 yuan. Although more than half of them have resigned, in Gu Shuhan's view, the wages that should be given still have to be paid, and Gu Shuhan can't do it, and he doesn't want to do it. Therefore, after getting the money from Gu's mother, accompanied by Director Zheng, she went door to door to return the money to the workers.

At the end of the day, she had blisters on her feet, but fortunately she didn't have them and most of the workers lived in the same area, so she was able to pay off her wages so quickly.

In order to pay off the arrears, Gu Shuhan stayed in each house for a very short time, she naturally didn't know that after she left, many people were talking about her, the new owner of the Gu family's factory.