Wang Youling, the governor of Zhejiang, was a minister of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, he was not a serious scholar, but a donor background, but the purpose was not to collect money, but to be an official only to serve the country and benefit the people. Therefore, after he surrendered to the Chinese Empire, he was reused and appointed as the prefect of Ningbo. Then, when Luo Zenan, the former governor of Zhejiang, left as a member of the Gaosheng cabinet, he was promoted to the governor of Zhejiang.

It is precisely because of this that Wang Youling, who has been reused, is grateful to the court from the bottom of his heart, works diligently for the government, and wants to improve the government affairs of Zhejiang. At this time, the newly formed cabinet sent a newspaper calling for the vigorous development of industry, especially the steel industry. After receiving this report, Wang Youling had a headache.

As soon as he became the governor of Zhejiang, he encountered such a major event, and the former governor Luo Zenangui was a member of the cabinet and governed Zhejiang in an orderly manner. What's more, he also knew that the development of the iron and steel industry and the war of the great steel-making movement would be extremely beneficial to the entire Chinese empire and the entire Zhejiang Province. Not to mention, Zhejiang's railways are not developed, and the machine manufacturing industry is not fine enough, which is inseparable from the slow development of the steel industry. If Zhejiang's steel industry can really be upgraded, it will not only be recognized by the cabinet, but also greatly promote the entire industrial system in Zhejiang.

However, Zhejiang has always been relatively poor in minerals, and it is extremely difficult to develop the iron and steel industry without iron ore and coal mines. Therefore, as soon as Wang Youling saw this newspaper, he felt a little bitter.

When he was having a headache, he received the good news from Miao Zi, the prefect of Hangzhou, and was suddenly blindsided. I reacted after half a ring, and I felt a burst of ecstasy in my heart! The good news of Hangzhou came too soon!

However, after he took a closer look, he couldn't help but be stunned.

"The Hangzhou government earnestly invites the province to carry out a large-scale steel smelting campaign! The small iron ore found was raided and mined, and the local blast furnace was established on the spot for steel smelting, and the scrap iron of the people was collected in the town and re-furnaceed to smelt molten iron, and the two-pronged approach was a huge increase in steel production!

The Hangzhou government asked the province to follow the steelmaking model of Hangzhou Yuhang, set up a special iron and steel smelting bureau in all prefectures, prefectures and counties in the province, separated and independent from the public works bureau, and suddenly set up hundreds of iron and steel factories and workshops within a month, opened thousands of small blast furnaces, and achieved great development of the iron and steel industry with manpower and quantity! ”

After reading the letter from the Hangzhou prefect Miao Zi, Wang Youling couldn't hold back in his heart anymore, he wanted to send someone to quickly invite Miao Zi to the governor's yamen, but after thinking about it, it would be more appropriate to check on the spot, so he hurried to the Hangzhou prefect's yamen.

Just arrived at the prefect's yamen, but found a huge yamen, unguarded, Wang Youling and his entourage is really strange, but heard bursts of cheers from the yamen compound, straight in, in the yamen compound, there are three brick and earth made of small iron furnaces, one of the blast furnaces roared out of white smoke, the other two blast furnaces have not been completed, more than ten plasterers are building there, and the most people are besieged, or the small blast furnace that emits white smoke, while cheering.

Miao Zi, the prefect of Hangzhou, was also among them, wiping the sweat from his forehead and shouting: "Open the furnace!" ”

Two strong men dressed as officials stirred vigorously with an iron hammer, and the people next to them quickly pulled a clay pot and put it under the furnace, opened a furnace door, and after a while, hot molten iron flowed out of the furnace!

There were loud cheers from the scene.

It was the first time for Wang Youling to see such a scene of ironmaking, and he was also very excited and shouted.

Miao Zi, the prefect of Hangzhou, found out that the governor was coming, and hurriedly invited Wang Youling over for guidance, Wang Youling asked, the iron-making workers present turned out to be officials in the prefect's yamen, and these three small blast furnaces for iron-making by local methods were also established by themselves.

"Lord Futai, I found that this smelting of steel is not very difficult, as long as you have determination and perseverance, you can succeed in smelting! The key is to mobilize the people and attach great importance to it! Miao Zi excitedly said to Wang Youling: "After the humble post found out that Yuhang County had succeeded in making iron by the local method, he immediately mobilized the whole Hangzhou government to follow suit, and he also led a group of people to build these three small blast furnaces in the backyard of this yamen, and personally led people to find ore and scrap iron materials for smelting, and did not want to succeed in one fell swoop!"

As long as the manpower is enough and the iron ore is enough, a small blast furnace can smelt nearly 100 kilograms of molten iron a day, and it is not a problem to build ten such small blast furnaces in the prefect's yamen alone, so that it can produce about 1 ton of molten iron every day. And how many such small blast furnaces can be built in the entire Hangzhou Prefecture? According to the preliminary calculation, 20 people can build such a small blast furnace in three or four days, so to speak, my Hangzhou government has a total of 3.8 million mouths, more than 120 million laborers, and there is no pressure to build tens of thousands of small blast furnaces!

That is to say, our Hangzhou government can produce thousands of tons of steel every day, and after calculation, our Hangzhou government can achieve 900,000 tons of steel output this year! ”

After listening to the words of Miao Zi, the prefect of Hangzhou, Wang Youling was a little shocked! He never expected that in this way, the entire Hangzhou Prefecture could still produce 900,000 tons of steel, which is an astronomical amount. Nowadays, the steel output of the entire empire is only more than 3 million tons of steel, and one Hangzhou government can reach 900,000 tons, which is unlikely, right?

Wang Youling silently calculated two or three times in his heart, according to Miao Zi's algorithm, there are really so many! In this way, wouldn't a Zhejiang province be able to approach or even exceed the country's steel production? Although Wang Youling thought it was incredible, under the influence of the crazy and enthusiastic atmosphere at the scene, he was moved! That's a lot of credit. Think about it, a Zhejiang Province, which does not have a predominance in mineral resources at all, can produce so much steel, how much achievement should it be?

Thinking of this, Wang Youling was ready to immediately write a recital and report it directly to the imperial cabinet, he was ready to inform the cabinet of this huge good news, and at the same time begged the cabinet for some necessary support, such as iron ore, etc., to be transported to Zhejiang. At the same time, he was also ready to give a general order to the whole province to mobilize all prefectures and counties to search for iron ore ore everywhere, search for coal and scrap rotten iron, build small blast furnaces, and start a large-scale movement to smelt iron and steel, and make this work the most important task of the entire Zhejiang Province.