To be honest, the current industrial development of the East Coast Republic of China is a bit deformed, basically concentrated in a few narrow categories, such as: textile, steel, military industry, shipbuilding and the emerging chemical industry.

Among them, steel is a basic industry and the top priority of the national economy. In the years since the founding of the East Coast Republic of China, the highest steel production year was 1635, before the outbreak of war, and the annual steel production reached a record 440 tons. Since then, steel production has never reached that level. Even last year (1637), the annual steel production was even a pitiful 70 tons, a record low. The main reason for this is that the trade is blocked, and the amount of iron ore and pig iron originally imported from Brazil, La Plata and other places has plummeted, and the local Changshanbao iron ore mine has been unable to increase its output due to a serious shortage of labor. The combination of the two reasons makes it easy to understand the sharp decline in steel production.

The lack of steel production does not seem to have a very big impact on the economy at this stage. Because with the current economic structure of the East Coast Republic of China, the demand for steel is not as large as imagined. As far as the present situation is concerned, the major iron users are still mainly concentrated in the military industry, and as for the production of agricultural tools and machinery, the demand for such things is not large, and it is really not enough to stop the production of some weapons for export, and it will not hinder any major events.

However, nothing can be considered only for the present, and with the gradual development of the country's industry, there will only be more and more sectors that use iron in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to increase steel production. Before the outbreak of the war, Ping An Iron and Steel Plant had built an iron-making blast furnace with a design volume of 100 cubic meters, which is estimated to produce an average of more than 30 tons of iron per day when it operates.

But in fact. This iron-making blast furnace has not been ignited once since it was built. The reason is simple. The iron ore production of Changshanbao iron ore is too small. Moreover, the transportation capacity on the Yihe River is not very sufficient, resulting in a pitiful amount of iron ore transported to the cargo terminal of Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant, which is not enough for the blast furnace to ignite and produce for a long time. Therefore, until now, graphite crucibles are still used for smelting production in the smelting furnaces of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant to maintain domestic steel demand.

To solve this bottleneck, there is no other way but to increase the number of miners in the Changshanbao iron ore area. And a large number of machinery and equipment to improve labor efficiency, but also to find a way to solve the bottleneck of iron ore capacity, only so multi-pronged, it is possible to fill the appetite of the steel monster of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant.

But this is very difficult to meet at this stage, because the human resources of the Eastern Republic are too tight. This is a hard injury, there is no way to solve it quickly, therefore, in the short term, the steel industry still has to rely on graphite crucibles with low production capacity to play the leading role.

Ping An Iron and Steel Plant could not operate normally, and there was no need for large-scale production of the coking plant supporting it. Because the coke produced has no place to use, it should not be used for fire. It just so happens that there are also a lot of technical problems in the coking plant at present. It mainly focuses on the separation and collection of gas, coal tar and asphalt. The dry distillation of coal produces a large amount of gas, the composition of which is extremely complex. However, it can be roughly divided into two categories: gas and coal tar.

Gas can be used to make fires; Coal tar can separate a large number of useful substances, such as fuel, marine tar, raw materials for synthetic dyes, etc. The coking plant currently has a brick-built condensate pipe for separating the gases coal tar and bitumen from the distillate gas. However, due to problems in the early design, the asphalt always blocks the condensate pipes, often leading to production stops. At present, the technical personnel are stepping up the demonstration and modification of the design, in order to solve this problem as soon as possible.

The process of industrialization really cannot be achieved overnight. No matter how perfect the simulation production is in the laboratory environment in the early stage, once it is put into large-scale industrial production for practical applications, it is always difficult to avoid various problems. The production of coal tar is unstable, and the production of tar, dyes, and asphalt cannot be stable; The instability of tar, dyes and asphalt has affected traffic construction, ship maintenance (the bottom of the ship should be tarred) and the production of high-grade dyed fabrics.

Don't look at the current industrial production on the East Coast, which has few categories and small scale, but it is also linked one by one, and there really can't be a mistake in any link. For example, after the glass industry, there are chemical experiments, and after chemical experiments, there is the development and utilization of coal tar, and then dyes, tar, asphalt and other by-products are derived; The production of coal tar requires the coal coking industry, which in turn is for steel smelting services; As a basic industry, steel is widely used in various industries.

Generally speaking, the iron and steel and chemical industries on the east coast have just started, and the technology is not mature enough, and they are in a state of gradual improvement, and there is still a long way to go before the real large-scale industrial production. At present, what can really make money from exports is the textile and military industry, especially the textile industry, which is the fist product of the East Coast Republic of China to earn foreign exchange. Therefore, the news that Ping An Machine Weaving Factory produced 20,000 pieces of cotton cloth in April was immediately sent to the desks of the central leaders of the Executive Committee, and the degree of attention it received can be seen.

In addition to the Ping An Machine Weaving Factory, the second to resume production is the Dayuhe Naval Shipyard and the Zhenhai Shipyard.

The Brazilians sold large quantities of high-quality Brazilian sumac, which led to the resumption of construction of the battleship "Free Trade", which had already been half built in the dockyard. At the same time, in view of the potentially extremely busy maritime trade after the resumption of industrial production in the coming period, the Government Council approved the application of the Nanhai Transport Company to build another 600-ton flute-class transport ship, the "Kunlun", which will be built by the Zhenhai Shipyard.

After several years of development, Zhenhai Shipyard now has two docks and more than 500 technicians, craftsmen and apprentices. The construction of the "Kunlun" flute-type transport ship is a piece of cake for them who have already built two similar ships, without any difficulty, basically only a small number of technical personnel according to the drawings to direct the craftsmen and apprentices to start construction.

At present, the two major shipyards in the Eastern Republic of China adopt an advanced modular production model. That is, try to stock up on ship boards of the same specification, and splice them according to the design drawings during production. This production method is not only highly efficient, but also conducive to maintenance. In those shipyards in Europe, once the ship is damaged, some of the planks need to be replaced, which often requires craftsmen to work on site, which is often time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, and wasteful of wood. After the implementation of modular production, the shipyard hoarded the board of various parts of the ship on weekdays, and the board specifications are all standard sizes. In such a situation, whether it is production or maintenance, the craftsmen will eliminate the step of temporary processing, and the efficiency will be greatly improved.

This increase in efficiency may not be so noticeable in peacetime, but in wartime, this method of producing ships that can be repaired quickly has a terrifying efficiency. Ships that used to take a long time to repair may be able to leave the port for overhaul and restore their combat effectiveness in just a few days.

In addition to the two existing docks of Zhenhai Shipyard, one of the "Kunlun" transport ships is under construction, and the other dock has also been busy since May. In addition to them, a group of researchers from the Ship Design Institute and the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Natural Sciences also rushed over and ate and lived in it with the workers.

In view of the excellent new capabilities displayed by the two "Yangwu"-class fast cruisers in previous naval battles, the Admiralty also attached unusual importance to this high-speed ship, which was originally positioned as a "pirate pursuit ship". In particular, Rear Admiral Lu Ming praised this type of battleship a lot in his work report, believing that it could be used as a powerful supplement to the main battleship. Therefore, the Admiralty decided to use the batch of Southeast Asian teak wood materials it had seized as start-up capital to apply to the Executive Committee for the construction of a new fast cruiser, the "Chaoyong".

Since the Admiralty had settled a considerable part of the shipbuilding costs on its own, the Executive Committee naturally approved the shipbuilding plan with great readiness. Soon, the Admiralty's staff officers and technical experts began to partially revise the design of the original "Yangwu"-class fast cruiser based on the opinions of the officers and men of the Navy -- including eliminating the design of the bow tower, reducing the number of gun doors, increasing the length to width ratio of the hull, and increasing the number of shouldsails to maximize the speed and enhance the ship's maneuverability.

After the Admiralty put forward the design requirements for the "Chaoyong," a group of technicians from the Ship Design Institute and the Institute of Mathematics began to demonstrate, calculate, and experiment day and night in order to perfect the design on the basis of the original "Yangwu" class fast cruiser as soon as possible, get the drawings out, and then immediately start construction.

They have valuable experience in independently designing the "Yangwu" level, and it is not difficult for them to modify the design on the original basis at the moment. No, the project was established in May, and they completed the design modification and demonstration at the end of June. Then, under the care of the Admiralty, the Zhenhai Shipyard immediately arranged a large number of technicians and skilled craftsmen to start the construction of the "Chaoyong" high-speed cruiser.

With a ship, naturally there must be sailors. For the East Coast, in addition to training the sailors themselves, it is also a good choice to absorb a large number of down-and-out pirate sailors who are scattered in the Caribbean. As a matter of fact, a large number of sailors and junior officers in the navy fleet on the east coast are pirates, and many of them are not bad in their will to fight and loyalty to the country, which is a good way to increase the strength of the navy at this stage.

Therefore, at the beginning of June, the Navy sent a group of pirate-turned-officers and sailors to the Caribbean Sea on ships, preparing to rely on some old connections to find a way to recruit a group of destitute sailors to the east coast to supplement the current shortage of sailors. (To be continued......)