Tieling Fort is located on the banks of the Iron River. It is a small tributary that flows into the Heihe River, but it provides vital production and domestic water for more than 3,000 people around Tielingbao. Relying on this river and some nearby streams and wetlands, the people on the east bank of the country built seven or eight large and small reservoirs one after another, and then transplanted a large number of trees here, turning this desolate land into a new town with a lot of meteorology.

The construction of Tieling Fort originated from the urgent need for high-quality alloy metals in the East Coast Republic. At that time, when the industry began to burst out with its own unique vitality, the people of the East Coast were extremely eager for durable, strong, high-precision and special-purpose parts, so this led to the launch of the Tieling Special Steel Base project. At the same time, the construction of the Northwest Railway was undoubtedly invested in the connection between the only large manganese mine on the east coast and the eastern coastal areas. You must know that this railway line, which is hundreds of kilometers long, has invested a lot of money and consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, and if it were not for the great long-term interests involved, the East Bank Executive Committee would not have been able to make up their minds to build it at all. With the funds and energy, it is better to extend the Luomei Line to Qingdao Port, which is a line flowing with gold.

After several years of huge investment, the Northwest Railway finally repaired to the gate of Tieling Special Steel Plant, and the ironmaking workshop of Tieling Special Steel Plant has almost passed the initial trial production stage at this time, and is about to fully officially produce various proportions of ferromanganese to promote the comprehensive upgrading of the domestic machinery and machining industry on the east coast.

The plant has an iron-making blast furnace and a steel-making open-hearth furnace, except for the steelmaking furnace is still in the final commissioning, the iron-making furnace has now met the conditions for formal production: the machinery and equipment are in good condition, and the raw materials are piled up in the factory area. Even skilled workers have been trained several times. In the first half of this year. Various grades (different proportions) of ferromanganese produced by Tieling Special Steel have been tried in various units for a period of time. According to the feedback, the improvement of the strength, hardness, and flexibility of the metal is still relatively significant. The ferromanganese of Tieling Plant has been initially recognized by everyone.

Ma Jia himself is also very concerned about the Tieling Special Steel Plant, and he has to come to the factory almost once a week to discuss various affairs with the factory leadership, and get rid of the emperor of the factory. However, Ma Jia himself was born in metallurgy, and he had been in the steel mill for many years before the crossing, and his own attainments in the metallurgical industry were quite deep. Some of the proposed construction of special steel mills are also more pertinent.

For example, considering the difference between smelting ferromanganese and pig iron (iron can be fully reduced, but manganese cannot be fully reduced), Ma Jia told the technical department of the factory the ratio of a few kinds of ferromanganese sinter that he was familiar with. After that, the technical department of the Tieling factory made a large number of matching ratios under the guidance of Ma Jia, and obtained many valuable original numbers. After comparing and summarizing these numbers, the Tieling plant has basically figured out the proportion of manganese iron ore put into the furnace and the proportion of manganese in the corresponding waste slag in the production process (manganese cannot be fully reduced, and a considerable part of manganese will enter the waste slag, so it is an important technology to select the appropriate ratio of manganese to iron and reduce the content of manganese in the waste slag). These numbers are all East Coast people who spend a lot of time and money. The amount of real yàn that has been explored step by step through guò has been recorded in the book. It was locked in the office of the plant's technology section as a top secret for the plant.

Of course, Tieling Special Steel, as the first company in China on the east coast - and the only one in the world - to produce ferromanganese, has a lot of problems at this stage. For example, because the grade of manganese ore currently found in development is not good (low content), these greatly affect the recovery rate of manganese, coke load and energy consumption, and these undoubtedly raise the cost of ferromanganese. In addition, some impurities (mainly phosphorus) in manganese ore also caused great trouble to the steelmaking workshop of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant.

Since the successful production of ferromanganese, the Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant in the Yazihu Basin in the north has abandoned some of the high-priced additives imported from Europe and started to use ferromanganese as a deoxidizer and alloying agent for steelmaking (which can reduce costs and reduce the danger caused by the blockade of trade). The instability of the quality of manganese ore will inevitably affect the production of ferromanganese, and once the quality of ferromanganese is reduced, it will inevitably lead to an increase in the input of ferromanganese in steelmaking, which will additionally add a lot of phosphorus and carbon to the molten steel, making the steelmaking process more troublesome, and the cooling range of molten steel will also be expanded, increasing the energy consumption of steelmaking and increasing the cost of steelmaking.

Fortunately, at present, Tieling Special Steel Plant has recognized these problems. On the one hand, they began to look for manganese ore veins with high manganese content and few impurities in the vicinity, and on the other hand, they began to increase technical investment and prepare to optimize the production process and stabilize the quality of ferromanganese.

It is not for nothing that so many people up and down the East Coast Republic attach so much importance to manganese-iron-manganese steel. At present, the emergence of ferromanganese has greatly improved the quality and reliability of various machinery, such as the simplest sliding bearing, after the use of parts made of manganese iron alloy, the wear range is greatly reduced, and the life is greatly enhanced, and the use departments are extremely satisfied with this. For another example, after some steam engine cylinders are made of ferromanganese, it has been proved by tests that the pressure that the cylinder can withstand is greatly increased, and the output power is greatly increased, which virtually improves the "thrust-to-weight ratio" of the steam engine.

A while ago, the No. 1 Heavy Machinery Factory, which had been relocated to the Tieling mining area, worked together to manufacture some new ferromanganese steam engines under the personal command of the factory director Li Hongxing. Without increasing the volume of the cylinders, these steam engines were able to gain far more impetus than ever before by simply increasing the cylinder pressure, which shows that the efficiency of the steam engines produced on the East Coast has reached a new level, which is extremely important. At present, the plant is working hard to verify the technology, and the next step will be to design and produce new steam engines. After they are finalized and produced, the three major shipyards in China will be its first users, and the designers of these shipyards will design a new ship type according to the volume, weight and horsepower of the new steam engine, and this new ship, whether it is horsepower, tonnage or speed, will undoubtedly surpass the existing models on the east coast.

The development prospects of special steel and machining are booming, but as the chairman of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau, Ma Jia will obviously not be satisfied with just a special steel and machining base. In the plan of the former Central Executive Committee, the area under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau will take Tielingbao and Merlot Fort on both sides of the Heihe River basin as the core in the future, and at the same time move westward and northward, connecting this inland hinterland with the outside world, so as to build the many settlements in this area into a prosperous city comparable to the coast.

In this plan, Tielingbao, an industrial town that produces metals such as manganese, iron, and gold, as well as coal, an important energy source, and also has strong machining capabilities, will mainly develop westward, until the banks of the Wujiang River have access to the sea (a river port that can be navigated for large ships). At that time, the abundant agricultural products and external materials in the Wujiang River basin will be transported to Tieling by railway, and the commodities and energy of Tieling will also be transported to the port on the Wujiang River by railway, and then loaded and exported to the outside world. I believe that if this plan can be realized, it will be a great good thing for both the northwest region and the Wujiang region.

As for the other key node, Fort Merlot, in the plan of the vest, is to exist as a transportation hub. Ma Jia pondered that in the future, after the country's financial surplus was in place, he would once again promote the third and fourth phase of the Northwest Railway. That is, a branch line will be built from Merloburg to the north, which will be connected to the hilly area of Huxi, organically connecting the rich Duck Lake basin in the north with the hinterland of the grassland in the south, communicating with each other and prospering the local economy. If possible, the Majia even intends to build this so-called branch line into a railway trunk line, extending as far north as possible. This will also be beneficial to the Executive Committee's development of the hilly area in Huxi, and I believe that if the central government is not financially difficult, it should not be difficult to build it.

Of course, before "fooling" the central government into spending huge sums of money to build a railway trunk line, Ma Jia felt that it was better to enrich the population in the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau first. After all, if the population is not abundant and the productivity is not developed enough, even if the vest has no more face, the Executive Committee will not openly invest huge sums of money in such a place where birds don't, right? After all, there is nothing like the Tieling Mining Area that must be developed on the east coast and then quickly, and if the reasons are not sufficient, it will be difficult to convince the executive committee to do so.

Under this guiding ideology, Ma Jia intends to compete with several other regions (seven regions including the capital region, Xiling region, and Wujiang region) for population. Today is the beginning of October, and the batch of Polish female slaves that Mo San bought in Europe have arrived on the east coast under the escort of a few naval ships. When this group arrives, the population of the East Coast Republic of China will reach a record 195,000, an increase of nearly 30% compared with last year, and officials of the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Immigration will be caught off guard.

It seems that most of this group was to be placed in old settlements to balance the sex ratio, and the Northwest Reclamation Bureau under Ma Jia had a very high proportion of singles, so it would not be a problem to bring in a large number of Polish female slaves from them. In addition, Ma Jia also plans to go to the capital Dongfang County in the near future to talk with a few acquaintances in charge of the immigration department, and see if a considerable part of the Far Eastern Ming immigrants who arrived in the mainland more than two months later can go to various settlements under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau to enrich the population. If possible, the construction of additional settlements will also be on the agenda. In short, in Ma Jia's view, population is the primary productive force of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau. Only when the population is full, will the area under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Reclamation Bureau be built into a prosperous inland town. (To be continued......)