"What? The imperial court wants to engage in large-scale steel smelting!? Zeng Yuheng looked at the paperwork in his hand with a happy face and sighed.

The document in his hand is actually a report sent by the cabinet to the provinces and ministries, which is equivalent to the outline of the work plan decided by the cabinet after deliberation, and the tasks to be carried out in the next stage are to be notified to the provinces and localities so that they can be prepared and planned in advance.

The newspaper of the imperial court wrote several points, including immigration, conscription, and the establishment of industries, the most important of which was the special mention of the large-scale smelting of steel throughout the country. It was written in the newspaper that the cabinet members convened a cabinet meeting to implement the emperor's decree on speeding up the development of industry, especially the iron and steel industry. Under the chairmanship of Li Hongzhang, who had just been promoted to vice premier of the cabinet, the cabinet passed a resolution on "the whole country strives for the production of 800,000 tons of steel", preparing to set off a vigorous national steel industry popularization movement.

In this cabinet meeting, in order to implement the emperor's requirement to attach great importance to the development of iron and steel production, especially the steel industry, Li Hongzhang directly pointed out in the newspaper: "The iron and steel industry is the foundation of the entire industry of the empire, the outline of the entire industry, and the leader of the entire industry. It is proposed that this year, that is, in 1864, it is necessary to make every effort to ensure that the steel output will increase by more than 1.7 times compared with last year's 295,000 tons of steel, reaching 800,000 tons of steel, and provide guarantee for the urgently needed railway rails, which is the most important task of the entire Chinese Empire at present. ”

After reading this newspaper containing the great steel refining twice, Zeng Yuheng was happy and a little uneasy. I am glad that the Cabinet has so quickly carried out His Majesty's will and set about to vigorously develop the steel industry, so that the Ministry of Works will become the most important department, and even the newspapers have said that the other ministries of the Cabinet will give up funds for the Ministry of Works, and everything will make way for steel production. In this way, concentrate on the development of the steel industry, and it will not be long before the steel industry of the empire will rise strongly.

And Zeng Yuheng is very aware of the important position of the steel industry in the entire imperial industrial system.

The iron and steel industry is the basic industry of all industrialized countries in the world, and it is the most important basic industry, and the steel output is usually regarded as an important indicator to measure the degree of industrial development and strength of various countries. And with a strong steel industry, indeed, it can drive the development of railways, machining, military industry, civilian industry, mining and all other industries. Steel is indeed the most important priority of all industries.

But what made Zeng Yuheng uneasy was that Li Hongzhang had just been appointed by the emperor as the vice premier of the cabinet, and he was anxious to implement the emperor's decree with practical actions, so he hurriedly issued this newspaper without investigation, so that the whole country could carry out a program of action with steel as the key link. Abandon everything else and ignore all the other industries, and all the people pounce on steel, and in this case, it is likely to create a disaster!

Not to mention anything else, although Zeng Yuheng is the minister of public works, he still knows that there must be no relaxation in agriculture and grain. And some other industries, such as the textile industry, which has just been vigorously developed and improved, as well as the most characteristic holy fertilizer and holy oil industries of the empire, cannot be discarded or ignored.

Thinking of this, Zeng Yuheng became a little nervous. Originally, according to the itinerary, he also had to go to Shengjing's Fengtian Prefecture Liaoyang Prefecture, where there was a post station called Anshan Station, where a large reserve of iron ore was discovered, and Shengjing had begun to organize manpower mining, and although Zeng Yuheng had sent someone from the Mineral Resources Department of the Ministry of Public Works to investigate the specific situation, he also wanted to find out whether there were a large number of coal mines next to these iron mines, so as to build a nearby steel plant, and at the same time also consider how to transport out the steel, and the Ministry of Communications had to build an additional freight railway in addition to the original plan.

But now, seeing this newspaper, he felt that he had to return to Shengjing, and he had to give some advice to the cabinet.

..........

At the same time, the Cabinet's newspaper was copied to various places, causing a huge sensation. Because the cabinet responded to the emperor's will, so that all parts of the country have responded positively, quickly followed up the cabinet's call, and set off a frenzy of vigorously developing the steel industry.

Xianlin Town, a suburb of Hangzhou, a lively scene of gongs and drums, today is the mayor of Xianlin Town led more than a dozen officials of the town office to build a small blast furnace, and the soil method of smelting iron out of molten iron is a good day, with the first bucket of about 20 catties of molten iron flowing out, the scene is jubilant, the flag is waving, thousands of people gather together to celebrate.

Hearing that the county magistrate was going to come to check, the mayor of Xianlin Town immediately ordered to continue to speed up the furnace smelting, and strive to produce another furnace of molten iron after the county magistrate arrived.

Suddenly, after the mayor's order, the entire Xianlin Town jumped up. Under the leadership of the police sergeant, the town office went door-to-door to search for scrap steel and scrap metal, collected iron pots, tongs, hoes, shovels, iron swords, kitchen knives, etc. from shops in the town and farmers on the outskirts of the town, and threw them into a small blast furnace made of green bricks and cement. Because of the lack of coal, the mayor of the town ordered to collect firewood and stuff it into the bottom of the small blast furnace, the whole smoke was billowing, seeing that the wind was too small, he took a bellows from a blacksmith shop and began to blow the air, but because the blacksmith shop had been closed for a period of time, the bellows were damaged and leaking, in order to solve the problem of bellows, dozens of roosters in the town were killed, and chicken feathers were used on the bellows to block the air leakage problem.

Finally, at noon the next day, when the county magistrate and deputy county magistrate of Yuhang arrived in Xianlin Town, the small blast furnace officially opened the second furnace of molten iron, and watched some black and red molten iron flow out of the small blast furnace and into a clay pot, with a total of about 50 kilograms. The county magistrate was overjoyed and praised the mayor of Xianlin Town, the town office and the people of the whole town on the spot, and praised them for their creative spirit, overcoming difficulties, and responding to His Majesty's call for a large-scale steel-making campaign!

The county magistrate calculated an account, a small blast furnace like Xianlin Town, as long as 20 or so laborers can be built, 2 furnaces of molten iron can be produced every day, that is, 100 kilograms of steel can be refined every day, and 160,000 people in the county have nearly 50,000 laborers, that is to say, the entire Yuhang County can smelt 250,000 kilograms of molten iron every day, and in a year, it is 90,000 tons of steel! Even if a few months have passed, there are at least 60,000 tons!

In this way, the county magistrate became excited, and waved his hand with pride: In addition to eating and sleeping, the people of the county should put down other things and go all out to build a small blast furnace and make steel!

After that, the county magistrate rushed to the yamen of Hangzhou prefect and reported that Yuhang County would make 60,000 tons of steel this year! Miao Zi, the prefect of Hangzhou, was so happy when he heard it! He was still having a headache about how to make a contribution in this court report, but now it's okay, the opportunity to come out has arrived! After he immediately asked about the specific situation, he immediately reported the good news to Wang Youling, the governor of Zhejiang!