"For what?" Shao Shude was a little puzzled, "Don't you make money by putting it away?" ”

"Have you ever heard of a child's downtown gold?" Ma Jia took a sip of coffee, and then said, "Why do you want to make so much money?" At the moment we have been able to break even and have a slight surplus. Next year, the East Coast cloth market will further expand, and the fiscal revenue will also usher in explosive growth, how much money do you want to make? To put it as a joke, the wealth created by nearly 13,000 of us is estimated to exceed $10,000 in terms of purchasing power in terms of per capita GDP, which is considered a developed country in later generations. We have so few people now, and our strength is so weak, why do we make so much money next? Create inflation for yourself? Or will it attract pirates or Europeans to rob them? ”

"Hey, hey." Shao Shude thought about it, too, population is indeed a bottleneck. But at present, they dare not open up to immigration, whether it is European immigrants or Ming immigrants, in fact, there is a fixed number every year. With the current number of cadres and missionary personnel, immigrants who exceed this certain number will suffer from indigestion and will be strangled, which is a real headache for the left and right.

The two chatted casually for a while, and Shao Shude saw that he really couldn't get more benefits, so he simply ran to the dock to take a boat to Zhenhai Fort. After arriving at Zhenhai Fort, he looked for a return coal ship and returned to Ping'an Fort, where he had been absent for three weeks. Before he arrived, several other shallow river vessels belonging to the Iron Ore Working Group had arrived at the Ping'an Fort dock, ready to load the new immigrants and some supplies.

Shao Shude didn't meet Qian Hao this time, it is said that this kid went to the Dayuhe Arsenal to urge the textile machine, and a large group of people near the dock were busy building something in the factory area next to the Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant.

The rise of the textile industry in the East Coast Republic of China is no longer questioned. As of November this year. A total of 82,000 pieces of white cotton cloth and nearly 4,000 pieces of woolen wool were sold throughout the year. The benefits are numerous.

Among them, the Gascony region in the southwest of France is the largest dumping ground for textiles in the East Coast Republic, and more than 65,000 pieces of cotton cloth have entered the French market through agents; In addition to the French, the second largest buyer of textiles in the East Coast Republic of China was the Spaniards, and the East Coast Calico resold to La Plata, Alta Peru and other regions through the city of Colonia also steadily climbed to 12,000 horses, and even the expensive woolen woolen was sold 4,000 horses; In addition, the number of cotton cloth sold in Brazil, Santo Domingo, East Florida and other places has reached 5,000 horses.

Overall, the situation is surprisingly good. Therefore. With the strong support of the Executive Committee and the Government Council, Tao Chenxi, director of the General Administration of Textile Industry, submitted the report on "A New Round of Expansion and Technological Transformation of Ping An Machine Weaving Factory" was approved at the first time. The central leaders are even more frequently asked, asking for money for money, equipment for equipment, workers for workers, all the way to the green light, Ping An Machine Weaving Factory for a time in the limelight.

Tao Chenxi's report can be summarized into three main points: First, considering the in-depth development of various markets next year, it is necessary to add a number of water-powered cotton gins, spinning machines and looms, and recruit enough workers to strive to increase the cotton production capacity to 200,000 horses next year. Second, in view of the current product is too single (only one white calico). This necessitated the development of new machines for the weaving of goods such as stockings, scarves, towels, cotton blankets (which in turn led to the bankruptcy of several artisans). Enrich downstream products and grab more benefits. 3. In order to impact the lucrative high-end markets such as dyed cloth and calico (currently basically monopolized by Indian cotton cloth), the chemical sector is urgently needed to artificially synthesize brightly colored dyes.

As soon as this report came out, various departments immediately jumped up. At present, the comprehensive workshop and the first machinery factory of the Dayuhe Arsenal are working overtime to catch up with the system; It is also good to say that the 800 new French textile workers and their families have been collectively relocated to the new city of Ping'anbao, and after a period of training, these former French handmade textile workers will be transformed into industrial workers in the textile industry of the East Coast Republic of China.

But those machines for weaving stockings, scarves, cotton blankets and the like can't be made in a while, this thing needs to be studied first, and then the parts are produced, and the whole process is estimated to be less than a year or two. Fortunately, this thing does not mean that you have to get it out now, and slowly develop it, and the hosiery machine seems to have a ready-made one in Europe at this time, and you can ask someone to buy a few next time to come back for research and research.

In addition, dyes are also a headache. At this time, Europe used natural dyes, such as: blue dyes extracted from indigo and woad; Red dye extracted from cochineal, safflower, Brazilian mahogany and ore; "Lichen purple" extracted from moss, "imperial purple" extracted from shellfish snails; Wait a minute. Due to the limited raw materials and the complex extraction process, the price of many dyes is comparable to gold, and most of them can only be enjoyed by nobles and royal families.

Moreover, the disadvantages of natural dyes are also obvious. For example, the chromatography is incomplete, or the staining fastness is poor, especially when the dyed cloth is washed with soap and exposed to sunlight, the color often fades. It is conceivable that if the East Coast Republic of China can successfully develop even one kind of chemical synthetic dye at this time, this will become a new generation of gold-making machines. The cloth dyed with these dyes will kill any cloth dyed by natural dyes similar to its color, because both the brightness and the fastness of the dyes are completely destroyed by chemical synthetic dyes.

Of course, both the Executive Committee and the Government Council have taken a more cautious attitude towards this matter. Coming up with these gold-like dyes will only cause you problems until you don't have enough strength, after all, there will never be a shortage of greedy guys who covet someone else's wealth. However, it is still necessary to do it, first find it out in the laboratory, and then talk about whether it will be industrialized. Moreover, at the level of the few talents who know chemistry (middle school chemistry teachers, a few chemical plant workers and technicians), it is still two questions whether synthetic dyes can be made, and the confidence of the Executive Committee and the Government Council in them is obviously not very strong.

Of course, the chemistry department can't be looked down upon. A worker at a former coking plant proposed that aniline in coal tar could be mixed with sulfuric acid to make sulfate, and then a strong oxidizing agent such as potassium dichromate could be added to make the synthetic dye aniline violet. Many people who study chemistry have heard of the story of the first synthetic dye aniline violet made by Baiqin, and many colors such as yellow, cyan, and red dyes can be artificially synthesized based on aniline.

People in the chemical sector couldn't help but get excited, coal tar is a by-product of coal coking, and people used it exclusively as a paint in the beginning. Coal tar can be refined and separated from benzene, aniline, asphalt, fuel oil and other substances, each of which is of great use.

A coking plant has been built on the site adjacent to the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant. The coking plant is mainly composed of coke ovens, and the refined coal powder is distilled at high temperature in the coke oven to produce coke, which can be used for ironmaking and steelmaking. Of course, in the original plan, the gases (coal gas, coal tar) produced during the dry distillation process of pulverized coal were directly emitted into the atmosphere. However, after the Government Council proposed to brighten up the science and technology tree of coal tar, the chemical department solemnly proposed to the coking plant to add a gas condensing device to separate the coal tar from the dry distillate gas.

In desperation, the coking plant was just ready to be put into operation, and under the order of the Government Affairs Yuan, the transformation began again. As for how to transform, to be honest, these half-baked engineers are completely blind, and can only transform while pondering. The chemical department was not idle, taking advantage of the attention of the above, they used a large number of simple experimental equipment produced by Henan Glass Factory and other units, and began many chemical experiments. The first thing they need to do is to obtain coal tar by condensation in a laboratory environment, and then separate the substances one by one through the fractions.

It's not that hard. They used small steel vessels to dry distill pulverized coal, which was then obtained by condensing the gas to obtain the coal tar. However, their level is limited to this, they only know a few of the complex components in coal tar, and even if they don't even know the boiling point of these ingredients, they only know a rough idea.

Well, then it's a boring and massive experiment to determine the boiling point of the various components in it in preparation for the later separation of coal tar.

This is what Shao Shude saw at Ping'an Fort at this time, as the construction workers demolished the original chimney on the coke oven and began to build a long condensate pipe. As for how to design and lay this condensate pipe, everyone does not know, and can only explore it by themselves.

"It is estimated that there will be problems at both ends three days after the official production." Shao Shude grinned unkindly, "Originally, you coking, but now you have to play a whole trick to recover coal tar." Yes, it's the first time for everyone, let's explore slowly, sometimes detours are also a kind of wealth. ”

A total of five shallow-water inland vessels belonging to the Coal Working Group were moored at the Ping'an Fort wharf. The 400 migrants who were going to be sent to the Changshanbao iron ore area will arrive here later today, and Shao Shude can only wait here. Of course, they are not without business, and some supplies are being loaded into the ship under the busy work of the dock workers, including vegetables, cured meats, dairy products, alcohol, potatoes and even precious rice.

Relying on the warm climate and abundant water in the vicinity of Ping'an Fort, immigrants from the Ming Dynasty opened up many paddy fields to grow rice, and last year there was already a harvest. The processed rice was definitely a first-class luxury in the East Coast Republic of China at this time, and they themselves were even reluctant to eat it, and all the rice was shipped to Dongfang County to be sold, where there was the largest consumer group in the country.

In the afternoon, the migrants finally arrived. Shao Shude immediately organized the sailors to arrange for these people to board the ship, and after the boarding was completed, the five transport ships sailed south, and Changshan Fort was still waiting for them. (To be continued......)