It didn't take long for the results of iron ore mining to come out.

Because it is an open-pit iron mine, the mining surface is very huge, and the surface soil on the site has already been cleaned up by the miners in advance, therefore, the excavation is very fast, and when encountering hard places, there are several steam engines driven by the mining machine drill, as well as the crushing of the machine, plus more than 3,400 miners 2 hours of continuous mining, more than 160 tons of iron ore have been mined.

After more than half an hour of beneficiation and crushing again, the foreman finally reported to Pei Yinggeng, the governor of Luanzhou, and obtained a total of 130 tons of hematite with a high average grade, and 20 tons of poor iron ore with a relatively low grade.

Tan Tingxiang, who heard the mining results, was a little worried, and he was so happy that he reacted halfway, patted Pei Yinggeng's shoulder vigorously, and shouted: "Great! I didn't expect this iron mine to have such an output just after it was mined! Master Pei, quickly let someone calculate for the official, in this way, how many tons of steel can be smelted in the Sijiaying iron mine here? ”

Pei Yinggeng hurriedly called the foreman of the iron mine, and asked a few staff members to take the abacus, and began to calculate it in the mine with a crackling sound, and after a long time, Pei Yinggeng said with a happy face: "Lord Tan, according to the degree of all the miners just now, 130 tons of high-grade hematite in 2 hours of mining, according to the previous roughly 58% iron content, 16 hours a day of mining around the clock, 58% of the refined iron ore can be mined every day about 1040 tons, a year down, out of the rainstorm weather and necessary rest days, The annual output of low-grade coarse powder hematite concentrate is about 250,000 tons.

According to this iron content, about 90,000 tons of pig iron with impurities can be smelted every year. ”

Tan Tingxiang's eyes were about to bulge: "90,000 tons!?" Is...... No, no, not much, expand the scale, recruit more miners, pay more wages, and open up this excavated pit a little bigger, so that the pit operation surface can reach 280,000 tons of iron ore output, so that the annual pig iron output can increase to more than 100,000 tons!

And that's just the pit face. We must continue to look for new iron ore mining operations, our industrial development in Zhili, depends on this mineral, and this mineral, mainly depends on coal and iron ore, especially His Majesty attaches great importance to the output of steel, Ben Fu promised His Majesty that the steel output of Zhili Province will increase by more than three percent next year, especially the output of steel to double! Therefore, this is a great opportunity for us to be directly affiliated and must be highly valued! ”

Speaking of this, Tan Tingxiang became excited, and said to Hong Guan, the governor of Yongping Mansion, and Pei Yinggeng, the governor of Luanzhou: "From today on, you two will not go anywhere, just stay in this Sijiaying iron mine!" Benfu will not leave, if this iron mine is not developed well, and if he does not build a steel plant that is the first in the entire empire, Benfu will not return to Beijing! ”

Hong Guan and Pei Yinggeng also knew the importance of iron ore, but they didn't expect the governor to attach so much importance to it.

Pei Yinggeng hurriedly said: "Lord Governor, according to the members of the survey team, the entire Sijiaying Township, especially the area around this Yanshan, is all iron ore mining areas. Therefore, in order to increase the output of iron ore, it is necessary to recruit more miners and explore more mining areas. ”

Tan Tingxiang laughed loudly: "It's okay, the entire Zhili supports you Luanzhou!" This official has already thought about opening a few new mining areas in the area of Yanshan, and this time this time he wants to surprise the entire empire for the rapid development of steel in Zhili!

These mining areas are directly taken over by Zhili Province, and Benfu is ready to follow the example of Daye Iron Works in the south and prepare to build a large-scale iron plant belonging to our Zhili, and Benfu will personally take charge of the iron plant as the general consultant of the iron plant, and open the iron plant as soon as possible! ”

After witnessing the output of this Sijiaying iron mine, Tan Tingxiang's heart fell into ecstasy. He is already planning to open a large iron factory, an iron factory that will make the whole empire a sensation, and only in this way can His Majesty value him.

Soon, under the coordination and arrangement of Governor Tan Tingxiang, the Sijiaying Iron Mine, which is more than ten miles south of Luanzhou City, soon officially opened four pits and recruited miners everywhere for mining. At the same time, in the Luanhe River bend next to the Sijiaying iron mine, in a valley with a lot of ground, a large iron factory began to be built.

............

At the same time, in Fanchang County, Taiping Prefecture, Anhui Province, a small mountain village called Taochong, which is about 20 miles northwest of the county seat, also began to boil.

Different from the mining of Sijiaying iron ore in Luanzhou, Zhili, this small mountain village called Taochong is no longer mining iron ore at the moment, but a new iron ore special transportation line has been completed and opened to traffic.

This small mountain village named Taochong was discovered to contain a large amount of iron ore by several deacons of the Mineral Exploration Division of the Mineral Resources Department of the Ministry of Public Works half a year ago. As a result, this small mountain village, which was originally so remote that birds don't poop, is no longer quiet.

On the third day, Yuan Jiasan, the governor of Anhui, led a large group of officials from the Public Works Department, together with many officials from the Taiping Prefecture, to rush to the mountain village to personally investigate the mineral reserves. Because of the suddenness of the incident, there was no time to prepare carefully, and led a group of officials and villagers to dig around to investigate, and it didn't take long to find that the mountains and fields centered on this Taochong village were full of hematite deposits of good taste.

Yuan Jiasan and these officials stayed for more than half a month, after full demonstration, the preliminary estimate is that this mining area named Taochong Iron Mine, mainly led by Changlongshan Iron Mine, three large iron-rich mines, with a total reserve of more than 60 million tons, and all of them are shallow hematite with an iron grade of about 70%. Yuan Jiasan was overjoyed and immediately ordered the construction of Taochong Iron Mine for mining. In addition, at the same time as preparing for the construction of iron ore, Yuan Jiasan proposed to the Ministry of Communications to jointly build a special iron ore transportation line, from Taochong Iron Mine to the Digang Wharf on the bank of the Yangtze River, which is only 7 kilometers away, and prepared to transport the mined iron ore to the Digang Wharf by rail, and then to the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant of the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Company that had been built downstream for smelting by steamer on the Yangtze River waterway.

After several months of emergency construction, the freight railway was finally completed and officially opened to traffic.

As for the Taochong iron ore, it has been mined for more than 100 days, and the accumulated iron ore has reached more than 80,000 tons. It would take two months to transport it by this single train.

Yuan Jiasan has been to this small mountain village no less than five or six times this year, because he knows that in the future, this small mountain village is no longer an ordinary small mountain village, but a large iron ore capital with nearly 5,000 miners and nearly 30,000 dependents.

All the iron ore is transported to the Ma'anshan Iron Works on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, where a larger phase II iron plant has just been built and iron ore and coal are being diverted from all over the country. The Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Company is the largest industry in Anhui Province, and so far, the steel smelted every year accounts for almost one-fifth of the entire empire.

And when this Taochong iron mine, with an annual output of 300,000 tons of high-grade iron-rich ore, is supplemented, I believe that Ma'anshan Iron Works can safely maintain the crown of the first output of imperial steel! It seems that he can report the good news to the court.

With the sound of a cannon, Yuan Jiasan's thoughts were interrupted, and the opening ceremony officially began......