[The year-end dinner was too late, and there was only one shift. 】

Stepping on the thin ice and snow on the official road, just when the tenth year of Xining was about to end in a few days, Han Gang and his party were advancing towards Bianliang City in the east.

Shu Yan was certainly not in the team. The next day, he said goodbye to Han Gang and continued to move forward to investigate his case. I don't know what he will plan to do in the end, but Han Gang thought about it for a while and then left it behind.

The official road leading to Tokyo City was built near the Cai River, the main waterway in western Beijing. Han Gang and his entourage walked all the way, and the farthest distance from the Cai River embankment was not more than half a mile. Moreover, the Cai River is very important to Han Gang, if the Xianghan Cao Canal is repaired, it will also be connected to the Cai River, and then it will enter Beijing.

Because of this, when Han Gang walked by the Cai River, his attention was attracted by the waterways around him many times. The most surprising thing about the Cai River is that there are no sleds at all.

In the Cai River, there is living water, and it is much more difficult for vehicles to make the ice thick and passable. Although Han Gang's invention does not require very high ice, the current Cai He is still far from enough.

This year's Central Plains winter is warm, Han Gang and his entourage have just returned from Guangxi in spring and summer all year round, and they can't tell the difference, but Fang Xing has been an official for several years, and he is basically in the Central Plains, but he is very keenly aware of the difference between this year and the usual years.

"It's been warm this year." Fang Xing was full of regret, "I don't see the sleigh car anymore." ”

"But the Bianhe River should be frozen." Han Gang said with a smile. Every year at the beginning of the winter month, the Biankou that connects to the Yellow River, from the north of Fuli in Suzhou, there is no living water in this canal, and a little bottom water is easy to freeze. In winter, it continues to play a role as an important channel connecting Jiangnan and Bianjing.

Observing Cai He is just by the way, and it is better to arrive in the capital early for serious business. A group of more than 20 people galloped on the wide official road, and in the first few days of the Chinese New Year, the number of pedestrians on the road decreased sharply, which was just conducive to their rapid progress.

After running in such small steps for half an hour, Fang Xing suddenly screamed in surprise, and the speed of progress slowed down suddenly.

Just in the direction where Fang Xing looked over, a turbid yellow column of smoke went straight up into the sky. Being on the plain, without any mountains or buildings around them, even if the smoke column was almost on the horizon, Han Gang and his party could clearly see this strange scenery.

"Which way is the water?" Fang Xing looked at the place where the smoke rose in surprise, judging from the concentration and height of the smoke column, the fire could not be small, maybe even the villages and towns there were burned down.

"No, it's smoke from iron smelting and coking." When the house burns, it will not be smoke of this color. More importantly, where is the location and where, Han Gang, who once served as the Commander of Armaments, knows very well, "There is iron smelting under the jurisdiction of the Armament Supervisor, and there are iron-making furnaces and coke ovens. ”

The section of the Cai River near the city of Tokyo, not far to the north is Bianshui, where there is not only a forging workshop outside the city, but also an experimental iron smelting workshop, which was the first to experiment with the construction of a blast furnace.

"I see." Fang Xing nodded.

Although Han Gang took charge of the Ordnance Supervisor after he was released as an official, it was impossible not to understand Han Gang's merits in the Ordnance Supervisor, and he, a person who had already been marked with the Korean character on his body. Although the smelting of iron from blast furnace coke does not seem very eye-catching under the dazzling light of the spaceship and plate armor, as long as you know a little about political affairs, you will know which is more important.

"I didn't expect that there would be such a big battle in a mere iron smelter. At first glance, I really thought that all the towns were burned to the ground. ”

"An iron-making furnace produces at least one million catties of iron a year, and the momentum is certainly not small." Han Gang explained with a smile.

Fang Xing gasped, "Million catties?!" ”

"If there were no restrictions on the ore and coal that could be sent, the amount would be much higher." Han Gang's attitude was calm and calm, and his speech was calm and relaxed, but he was very satisfied with Fang Xing's surprise in his heart.

Despite the problems that billowing smoke can cause, water, land, and even the health of local people can be harmed to varying degrees. But this is a sign of industrialization, the result of exciting technological advances. The benefits relative to the damage caused far outweigh them. As for whether pollution is not polluted, it can only be put aside for the first time.

Fang Xing looked into the distance on his horse, and the surprise on his face did not change for a long time, "One million catties a year, I didn't expect that the iron smelting in the capital could have this amount." ”

Han Gang smiled, and felt a little proud in his heart, "This is only a small part of the iron consumed by the Ordnance Supervisor. Xuzhou alone transports more than 5 million catties of pig iron to the capital every year through the Wuzhang River. ”

"So much?!" The surprise in Fang Xing's heart was even worse, and he almost screamed.

In recent years, the number of iron classes in the imperial court has only been more than five million catties a year, which is the number of all parts of the country - since Xining, the pig iron smelting in the mining area has been gradually transferred to the private production of smelters, and the imperial court has taken 28 points from it, and the tax rate of 20% is used as an iron class - and now it is the first prison of Xuzhou Liguo, which has reached the number of the whole country in the past.

"Many?" Han Gang shook his head with a little disdain, the number does sound quite large, but it can be changed to another unit, that is, two or three thousand tons. If it is a thousand years later, the annual output of even a village-run iron factory will be several times or even dozens of times this number.

Han Gang has only been in the Armament Prison for more than a year, but the wealth he left behind is extremely rich, and after he left office, many of the various research and experiments he had arranged before have paid off, especially the production of steel, which has increased explosively.

When Han Gang was still in Guangxi, he received information about the development of the steel industry from several family members who he had left behind in the ordnance prison.

In just two or three years, the amount of pig iron in the imperial court's income has doubled, and the growth trend has not slowed down, suppressing all doubts and attacks on the outflow of techniques. At the same time, Han Gang's remarks about suppressing the two captives in the northwest with the advantage of national strength gradually became louder in the court

- Having said that, the strategy of defeating the opponent with wealth is not Han Gang's invention, Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once said to his courtiers that the Khitan soldiers are only 200,000, and if a person offers a reward of ten silks, only two million horses are enough, but this idea was shattered after the defeat of Taizong Zhao Guangyi's sorghum river, and when it came to the alliance of the Yuanyuan, it became to spend money to buy peace.

"At the beginning, after the people from the north came back, they said that the lord of Liao also built a spaceship for hunting, and some people impeached me at that time, saying that I was eager to seek fame and make the weapon of the military state fall into the hands of the enemy." After Han Gang said a few words about the current situation of the Ordnance Prison that he had learned, he smiled and said, "But now that I see the output of steel, no one will say anything about it." To deal with the two captives in the northwest is to rely on enough steel. 10 million catties is not enough, then 20 million catties; 20 million catties is not enough, then 50 million catties; 50 million catties is not enough, then 10,000 catties, 50,000 catties, 100,000 catties, can finally overwhelm the two captives. ”

"100,000 jin ......" Fang Xing suddenly smiled and sighed, "It's enough to distribute a piece of armor to everyone in the world." ”

Fang Xing couldn't believe that the annual output of pig iron had reached 100,000 catties, and he only thought it was an exaggerated rhetorical technique by Han Gang when he looked at him.

But Han Gang didn't think like this, he wasn't exaggerating at all. With the size of the population of the Great Song Dynasty, once it enters the process of industrialization, the annual output of five or six hundred thousand tons of steel is actually not much - naturally, this is a dream that can only be realized after decades of smooth development. And now, if it is only 30 or 50 million catties, it is an easy amount to reach.

The improvement of the old iron-making furnace did not stop in the two years that Han Gang left. From the old furnace body, which was less than two zhang, it has become a behemoth with a height of three or five zhang, and it is idle to produce 10,000 catties of iron at a time.

There are four such blast furnaces in Xuzhou and one in Tokyo - this is written in the letter that Han Gang received half a year ago, but it is unknown what the situation is now - and Hebei, because it is too close to the front line, so it blocked the technology and did not build a blast furnace.

To build a blast furnace, the technical content is not low, and it is very conspicuous, and it has to swallow a large amount of ore and coke, so it is only governmental, even if the people want to build it, there is no technical technology, no financial resources, and it can be found out at once.

In fact, this is also the reason why the pig iron production of Xuzhou Li Guojian has increased by leaps and bounds - although it is indeed the result of technological progress in mining and metallurgy - but more government-run smelting furnaces will not be divided with the smelters, but will be swallowed by the government.

Han Gang didn't like small private workshops, they were too fragile, and they were of little use to the technological progress of the steel industry, unless they could join forces, any technological development would push them down the abyss of bankruptcy.

If it weren't for the fact that the amount of ore produced by Xuzhou Liguo Jian had not relied on the tracks all over the mining area, the amount of ore produced would have far exceeded the acceptance limit of local smelters, so that the government-run blast furnaces would not have to compete for ore, and it would not have been impossible for tens of thousands of smelters to rise up and destroy the blast furnaces.

However, it is not far from this situation, with the national ban on the iron armor equipment is about to come to an end, the army's demand for steel will drop by an order of magnitude, and the excess steel will only flow to the people. The price of pig iron and ironware will immediately drop by a step, and at that time, I don't know how many smelters will go bankrupt.

The group continued to move forward, Fang Xing was still amazed by the output of millions of catties, tens of millions of catties, and tens of thousands of catties of steel, while Han Gang was thinking about how many impeachments he would receive after becoming a military superintendent to the production of civilian iron, and when the time came, a crime of competing with the people for profit would definitely be indispensable.

Han Gang didn't care about the crime, he had a way to get rid of it, but if someone used this as an excuse to sabotage the development of steel technology, then he would definitely not tolerate it.

If we want to destroy a large country with a population of 10 million and a million armor, it is not simply a competition of military strength, but a competition of national strength. The development of the steel industry is a milestone in industrialization. A large empire that is semi-industrialized, or even only rudimentarily industrialized, is a monster, a chariot with steel and gunpowder wheels, capable of easily crushing any barbaric nomadic tribe.

When the time comes, the so-called Northwest Eryu will also be within the palm of your fingers.