The Ordnance Bureau wants to return to normal as soon as possible in the chaos, this is the current priority, Feng Chengshi naturally understands, but he also needs time, so he will rush to Zheng Chenggong to ask for guilt.

Zheng Chenggong didn't embarrass him, and it seemed that he could understand that such a heavy task was pressed on him but could not be successfully completed. It's just that this understanding is so harsh in Feng Chengshi's ears, so piercing that even if he leaves Zheng Chenggong's mansion and sits in the carriage, he still thinks about Zheng Chenggong lowering his head to write, whether he is deliberately hiding the disappointment and pity in his eyes.

Feng Chengshi didn't want to think about it, and he couldn't bear to think about it. Returning to the Ordnance Bureau, Feng Chengshi issued an order to take a three-day vacation, preparing to use this time to reorganize the Ordnance Bureau. He summoned a small official and gave the order, and the little official, who happened to be about to knock on the door, took the order, and then sent a report.

"Join the army, this is just sent from the raw material warehouse, saying that a batch of Fujian iron has been put into storage, please review."

Fujian iron is naturally produced in Fujian, otherwise it would not be called Fujian iron. Ming Min iron is the best steel in the country, not only sold well in China, but also well-known overseas, such as Japan's Japanese sword is mostly made of Fujian iron, especially those that have been handed down to later generations. On the contrary, there are very few Japanese Japanese irons, all because of the heavy material difference.

The Ming army controlled the two prefectures in Fujian for a long time, and there were ways for Fujian iron to circulate, even if the Qing government had always been extremely strict in its control, it was also impossible to eradicate smuggling.

However, after hearing the word Min Tie at this moment, Feng Chengshi was immediately stunned on the spot. His expression was full of disbelief, and there were words in his mouth, all of which were "impossible" questions, and he didn't know if it was impossible for a large amount of Fujian iron to be put into storage, or something else that made him not believe it.

There is no doubt that Fujian Iron is still mainly supplied to the Ordnance Bureau, a "big iron eater". However, Guangdong's manufacturing bureau does not rely on Fujian's production, even if Fujian's iron-smelting industry is indeed second to none in the Ming Dynasty.

Changhua County, the capital of Qiongzhou, also surveyed the existence of iron ore as early as half a year ago. And according to prospectors, the scale of the iron ore mine is likely to be larger than the copper mine here.

Copper is the raw material for coinage, which is naturally more expensive than iron. However, as soon as he heard about this, Cai Yuan, the deputy general of Changhua who was in charge of local affairs, hurriedly issued an order to allocate most of the coolies to mine iron ore, and strive to increase the output of iron ore as quickly as possible.

When the order was given, the Green Battalion soldiers, who had long been trained to be like slaves, did not dare to complain, and under the leadership of the overseers, they went straight to the place where the iron ore was excavated and began to work.

The iron ore is constantly transported out of the mine and sent to the bank of the Changjiang River, where it is smashed by its own water cone, and then after sorting and other processes, it is sent to the wharf next to it for loading, and then it is transported down the river to the smelting workshop built in Changhua County in the past two years. Most of these workshops are still copper smelting, which determined the actual existence of iron mines, and Cai Yuan ordered the construction of iron smelting workshops at the first time, but it was inevitable that iron ore would be piled up.

Fortunately, with the accumulation of experience in digging copper mines, processing copper ore and copper smelting, those craftsmen who came here from the Chaozhou Manufacturing Bureau were also familiar with the work and started their work quickly, and it did not take too much time, and the iron produced by Shilu was loaded on a ship and sent to the headquarters of the Manufacturing Bureau in Chaozhou and the largest Hanjiang Hydraulic Workshop through the Qiongzhou Strait all the way to the east.

Shilu is still mainly based on mining at this stage, supplemented by smelting, and the weapons manufacturing industry is mainly in the Chaozhou Manufacturing Bureau.

This point takes into account the interests of the Chaozhou Manufacturing Bureau, and because Chaozhou is located in the easternmost part of Guangdong, and Qiongzhou is almost the westernmost part of Guangdong, it is difficult for Chen Kai to achieve timely remote control there. It is unrealistic to place an order one to a few months in advance, and then produce it one to a few months before sending it to Chaozhou. In this regard, Chen Kai can only hold a default attitude for the time being.

The ship traveled up the river and docked at the dedicated wharf of the Hanjiang Hydraulic Workshop. Under the command of the servants, the men unloaded the ships and transported the raw materials directly to the warehouse near the left side of the wharf.

Recently, however, the dock has been a bit busy, with cargo ships having to dock at other docks and wait for berths to become available. To this end, Ding Youyi, the head of the Hanjiang Hydraulic Workshop, has already reported to Chen Kai that a new wharf needs to be built to ensure the smooth flow of raw materials and finished products.

Some of the cargo ships here are going upstream, but more often are going downstream. In the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River, the three rivers dam where the three rivers of Meixi, Tingjiang and Meitan River converge, a large number of cargo ships come and go, such a scale, most of the local people who still hold the memories of the past two or three years are dumbfounded.

In April and May, Hao Shangjiu, the commander-in-chief of Qing Chaozhou stationed in Chengxiang, suddenly lifted restrictions on the trade of ore and metals in the direction of Chaozhou in Chengxiang, Xingning, and Changle counties. The local gentry and mine owners were naturally overjoyed, and hurriedly contacted the old relations of Chaozhou, and organized cargo ships to go south, eager to clear all the inventory that had been deposited over the years—lest one day Hao Zongbing's nerves be on the wrong line again, and he would not do anything to make a living.

A large number of ores and metals enter the Chaozhou market, which is the most simple market price law, so it is inevitable that it will affect the relevant prices.

However, when the ores and metals arrived in Chaozhou, the smelting, metal manufacturing, and handicraft industries of the people did have the phenomenon of lowering prices, but the manufacturing bureau that stood on the bank of the Hanjiang River and was not very obvious on weekdays, at least in terms of existence, seemed to be much inferior to the manure accumulation field, but it was crazy to buy ores and metals on the market, and even appointed many personnel to go directly to Chengxiang, Xingning, and Changle counties to contact and order goods with the mine owners there.

The receipt of the manufacturing bureau flattened the market price, and the gentry and mine owners of the three counties naturally flocked to it. In recent years, the ore and metal that have been hoarded and cannot be sold have all been emptied, and a large number of people have been hired to mine. For a time, the mining and smelting industries in those three counties flourished, and even the shipbuilding and chartering industries also flourished.

The boats along Meixi were insufficient, so these gentry and mine owners went to Chaozhou to buy and rent ships, and a large amount of ore and metals went all the way south and entered Chaozhou in a steady stream.

The dock has been non-stop day and night, and bonfires and torches abound on the dock, doing their best to maintain the light here. The officials and officials shouted loudly, but the people did not say a word, but struggled to carry the raw materials off the ship and carry the finished products onto the ship.

There is a lot of movement here, but compared to the factory area adjacent to the dock area, it is only a drop in the bucket.

The ore arrived in Chaozhou and was diverted to the government-run smelters in various counties of Chaozhou, which were subordinate to the Manufacturing Bureau, and all the systems were formulated by Chen Kai, many of which were copied from the former Ordnance Bureau. In contrast, the labor enthusiasm of craftsmen is much higher than that of the purely government-run period in the past, and the production capacity has naturally increased significantly.

At the various state-run smelters, the ore is smelted into metal and then passed through; Transportation by land and water to the manufacturing bureau. And the ready-made metal was shipped directly to the manufacturing bureau.

Near the wharf, rows of warehouses in which each batch of raw materials are placed in an orderly manner, waiting to be called. While the people at the wharf are transporting raw materials, there are also people who are sending the raw materials that have been transported in earlier to various workshops along the river under the command.

Huge water wheels are constantly turning, and in the workshop, hydraulic blowers push the furnace fire to extremely high temperatures, and the apprentices use pliers to clamp the iron into the furnace fire to heat it. Later, the apprentice's master saw that the iron had been heated to a sufficient temperature, so he took it out and turned around and placed it on the iron felt.

Next, through the linkage of gears, crankshafts and other parts with the water wheel, the hammer hanging on the iron felt hammered on the iron material at a speed of nearly 100 times per minute, causing sparks to fly.

The craftsman clamped the iron and constantly adjusted the position and angle of the iron under the hammer, and the iron began to deform at a speed visible to the naked eye - originally, the long strips of iron had been heated on the fire to change color, and at this moment, the relatively soft iron gradually began to thin out, and soon turned into an iron sheet-like thing. The craftsman adjusted the angle and position, and the iron began to curvature, and gradually, the outline became closer and closer to the lancet.

After hammering for a while, the color of the iron began to return, and the craftsman took it out of the iron felt and gave it to the apprentice next to him to continue heating, while he took another piece of iron from the furnace fire and continued to hammer it on the forging hammer.

And so on until finally, a raw lancet embryo that has not been polished, polished and sharpened is presented on the craftsman's pliers. The craftsman casually threw the beaten knife embryo into the basket and continued to beat the next knife embryo.

After a long time, a few knife embryos are beaten, the craftsman stops to drink saliva, rests for a while, and his own apprentice sends the basket containing the knife embryo to the craftsman for inspection, and after the inspection, the knife embryo will be sent to other workshops for the next process.

In front of Chen Kai and his entourage, an apprentice was pushing a cart carrying a basket to the craftsman. Ding Youyi, the director of the department, introduced that the apprentice also knew Chen Kai, who would come over every once in a while, but he didn't run over to kneel and salute, but nodded, and did his own thing.

After seeing the row of rough machining workshops using hydraulic forging hammers, they continued to walk to the next workshop under the leadership of Ding Youyi.

After the rough processing of the weapon was completed, the next step was nothing more than the installation of other parts and the opening of the blade, Chen Kai was not very interested in the installation, but came to the workshop of the cutting and opening of the blade.

I think that in the Armory Bureau, the blades and edges of each cold weapon were all polished by craftsmen on the whetstone. But here, it is a table-like main structure, and on the right side there is a perforated iron plate standing on it, which is not large, and a wooden shaft passes through it. The wooden shaft is fixed with an iron sheet through an empty section, and an iron ring is sleeved on the other side of the iron plate to think that it is fixed; At the other end of the wooden shaft is a round steel disc, also set and fastened, connected by a rope to the pedal under the table, and when the foot is forced, the disc will move on its own, polishing the rough knife embryo.

"It's kind of like that old-fashioned foot-operated sewing machine."

The old-fashioned word in Chen Kai's mind has not yet appeared now. The thing in front of you, according to Ding Youyi's explanation, is called grinding, which was originally used to polish jade in ancient China, and it is said that it is a tool that existed since ancient times, and it was not until the emergence of electric diamond abrasives that it was gradually lost in later generations.

This kind of thing, Ding Youyi and his craftsmen were originally not clear, but fortunately, it is recorded in "Heavenly Creation" that a quality measurement apprentice made it according to the cat and the tiger, and now it has basically replaced the traditional whetstone.

In the grinding workshop, there are rows of grinding mills, and behind each grinding is a trained apprentice who is grinding the knife embryo with his hands and feet. The constant friction between the steel disc and the knife embryo is gradually fading, and it is becoming more and more impossible to ignore the sense of existence that can kill people.

The purpose of the birth of the manufacturing bureau is to increase the production capacity with machinery, and replace the traditional handicraft industry with the efficient production of machinery, especially in the processing of weapons. Chen Kai remembers that there used to be a saying that it was better to buy than to build, and it was better to rent than to buy. From the perspective of short-term benefits, there is not much wrong with this, especially industrialization, which is definitely a money-burning business, with huge investment in the early stage and too low a rate of return, but the scale of formation in the later stage can create the value of the past few decades or even hundreds of years in the next few years.

Back then, when Chen Kai first entered the place called the Ordnance Workshop, he needed an apprentice to blow a gun head, a master to hold a small hammer and iron tongs, and an apprentice to pick up a sledgehammer. The blacksmiths in this group produce only three spears a day. Later, Chen Kai was restructured according to the process, and a master and an apprentice were also required to hammer the iron with manpower, and then the grinding team would carry out the grinding, cutting, and opening processes after completion. The daily output has climbed from three to six.

That's a lot, and it's hard to reach in the next place. As for the lancet, which is in great demand now, even after the restructuring, each group of blacksmiths can only make two. This is something that cannot be helped, after all, a three-foot-long lancet is bound to take much more effort and time than a four- or five-inch long lancet.

Two handfuls a day, so that it can be built for a long time, no need to work overtime, and the craftsman's body can also hold up. However, a group of blacksmiths only has a production capacity of two per day, and there are only one hundred groups of blacksmiths in the entire Arsenal Bureau's swords, guns, and spears, which are still scavenged from everywhere, and the daily output of lancets is only two hundred, and it will take three or four months to complete this task, and it is still in the case of fewer repair tasks. As for other iron weapons, they can only wait in the back.

But at this moment, a group of blacksmiths, a master and an apprentice in charge of the fire, two people, with the rapid tapping of the hydraulic forging hammer, the production speed is naturally far better than manpower - the hydraulic forging hammer strikes about 100 times per minute, while manpower, the small hammer is ignored, only the sledgehammer is counted once in two or three seconds, and the difference between the two is obvious.

What's more, the use of machinery, the fatigue of craftsmen is also lower, and they can work uninterrupted for a long time. Just like Fangcai, when the master is forging an iron material, the apprentice heats another one on the side, and after the heating is completed, the master changes the heated one and continues to forge it, while the apprentice changes it to heat.

The Han River has flowed since ancient times, and it has never been tireless, and as long as there is no damage to the hydraulic machinery here, it can be used uninterrupted.

"According to Fujun's requirements, there are now three shifts in the hydraulic workshop, and people stop and machines don't stop. As long as the raw materials are sufficient, weapons can be continuously produced, which is much faster than the original weapon craftsman slowly crafting! ”