(I've been working overtime these days.,There's only one change today.,If everything goes well,Tomorrow should be able to resume normal updates.,Thank you for your support and love!) )

The first month is about to come out, and the Daye Iron Works construction site, which has been silent for a month, is once again lively. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 infoIn the past year, Daye River has been a very lively construction site.

Although a year has passed, there are still thousands of craftsmen busy on the construction site, installing the first modern blast furnace in China, and even in the whole of Asia, although its daily output is only 35 tons, but it means the transfer of modern ironmaking technology from the West to the East, and the introduction of modern metallurgical technology to China.

In the middle of this construction site, Zhu Yifeng looked at the factories, although half of them have not yet been built, and the main body of the factory, the blast furnace and its ancillary equipment, have not yet been installed, but you have begun to show the modern industrial atmosphere.

Perhaps in terms of scale, he could not compare with the Hanyang Iron Works built by Zhang Zhidong 30 years later, but Zhu Yifeng believes that its future development prospects will be far from being comparable to those of the Hanyang Iron Works. The iron plant will be the mother of China's future steel industry. The scale of the iron plant is not large, but in the future, it will train a generation of local metallurgical experts and technologies in China, which is the most important thing, and it is also the mission of Daye Iron Plant in the next ten years.

"Lord, if everything goes well, at the latest, this year's lunar month, the iron factory will be able to produce iron!"

As the director of the Ministry of Industry, Xi Zhimo has spent most of his time in the iron factory in the past year and three months, and it can be said that this iron factory embodies too much of his hard work. He not only presided over the construction of the iron plant, but also inquired about the construction of the Hujiawan coal mine and the iron mine.

In fact, the iron factory has already produced iron, and even as early as last year, but it is the four blast furnaces designed by him in borrowing from the five iron-making blast furnaces of the old stone masonry in Europe, although this kind of coke blast furnace is the technology of forty years ago, but compared with the traditional hard furnace still has many advantages, now the iron factory can produce 20 tons of iron per day, most of which are used to make shells, farm tools, etc., of course, also used to cast artillery, hundreds of artillery guns sold to the Taiping Army every month are cast in the Dazhi Iron Works, although the performance of these cast iron 12-pounder guns is average, but it was extremely popular with the Taiping army.

The iron in Xi Zhimo's mouth refers to the 35-ton blast furnace iron, not even the iron mill that smelts wrought iron, before the Spring Festival, two iron furnaces have been put into use, although the output is not high, but to some extent reduce the import of wrought iron, instead of part of the import, which is also the fundamental reason for the establishment of the iron plant.

"Don't rush to tap the iron!"

Regarding this "good news", Zhu Yifeng shook his head and said.

"Now our top priority is not to produce iron immediately, but to master how to build an iron-making blast furnace, master its principle, and eventually we have to design our own iron-making blast furnace, after all, we are a big country, and it is impossible to import iron-making blast furnaces forever."

This is the fundamental reason for the establishment of the Dazhi Iron Works, not just for iron, but for the mastery of modern metallurgical technology.

"In the next 10 to 15 years, our task is to study, learn Western metallurgical technology, while building iron works, while constantly sending students, when the students return to China, they can practice here, and eventually replace the position of those foreign technicians, and when we can design the ironworks independently in the future, then we will really establish the steel industry, now, It's just an internship class for students, so don't be greedy for speed at this time......"

While speaking, he walked towards the workshop, which is different from other workshops, this is a steelmaking workshop, more precisely, it is a test workshop, and the reason why Zhu Yifeng came here today is because this 1.5-ton air converter will be put into use here.

Originally, it should be next year, that is, in 1856, the Englishman Besmarck invented the bottom-blowing acid converter steelmaking method, and out of the demand for steel, Zhu Yifeng personally "designed" this converter and "invented" the converter steelmaking method, but it is different from the bottom-blowing acid converter steelmaking method invented by Besmarck, which is the bottom-blowing alkaline converter steelmaking method.

The converter invented by Bessemer is an acid converter, and in an acid converter environment, phosphorus is difficult to be oxidized and removed. Therefore, Bessemer converter is only suitable for low-phosphorus and low-sulfur iron ore, which is what Daye iron ore lacks, but alkaline converter steelmaking can use high-phosphorus and high-sulfur iron ore, and its principle is very simple, using dolomite high-temperature firing clinker, mixed with tar to make alkaline refractory brick lining, blowing air and adding quicklime during the smelting process. In this way, the whole reaction is carried out under alkaline high temperature conditions, and the oxidized phosphorus is combined with lime, which remains in the slag and does not return to the steel, thus solving the problem of dephosphorization.

Looking at the pear-shaped movable converter in front of him, which is more than five meters high, and looking at the rivets densely packed on the furnace body, Zhu Yifeng knew that this was a converter that took the arsenal nearly four months to make, and it looked huge, but in fact, its capacity was only 1.5 tons, which was even lower than the initial expectation of 2 tons.

"Handu, it really doesn't need coke to make steel?"

When the furnace mouth was opened and the iron crane hoisted the iron furnace to pour 1.5 tons of boiling molten iron into the converter, Xi Zhimo asked with some uncertainty.

Don't say he doubts, anyone would doubt, how is this possible? Can you make steel without coke? Just need to blow in air?

"You'll find out in a moment!"

Zhu Yifeng nodded confidently, although he is not an expert in metallurgy, but as an engineering student, he knows very well the structure of the Bayesian converter that has created a new era in the steel industry.

After the furnace mouth was closed, Zhu Yifeng nodded, and the two students he had personally trained over there immediately signaled to turn on the fan to blow in the air, and the fan driven by the steam engine continuously pressed the air into the pipe.

As the air blew from the hollow shaft into the converter and into the furnace from the tuyere, the originally quiet converter immediately let out a roar like a beast, and the light at the pear-shaped furnace gradually turned yellow, and then into a beautiful white flame after just a few minutes. The light erupted for a full 4 or 5 meters, and the reaction was very violent, like a volcanic eruption. The furnace temperature rises from about 1,350 degrees Celsius when the molten iron is poured to about 1,600 degrees Celsius. Slowly, the dazzling flame dimmed.

30 minutes!

Looking at the time on the pocket watch, and then looking at the light flame at the mouth of the furnace, Zhu Yifeng knew that it was almost. So he signaled to stop blowing and then added a deoxidizer, that is, an iron-manganese alloy, to remove the pores in the ingot. What flowed from the converter to the pot was the red molten steel, and observing the color of the molten steel, Xi Zhimo could hardly believe his eyes.

"This, this is really steel!"

"That's right, it's steel!"

Watching the boiling molten steel being poured into the mold into a steel ingot, when the cooling water channel is then on the steel ingot, a cloud of white smoke immediately rises, only to make this workshop instantly like a fairyland.

The whole process takes about 30 minutes, and it doesn't require any fuel, so you can make a furnace of steel. In contrast, the churning method with a crucible not only takes several days, but also requires a lot of fuel!

It worked!

Looking at the steel ingots, Zhu Yifeng's heartbeat couldn't help but accelerate, at this moment, he knew that the door of the steel age was opened by himself, and today's success is the success of standing on the shoulders of giants. If there is no accumulation of technology for more than a century and a half, how can you "discover" this "spark", thus opening the door to the steel age.

"Lord...... It's really steel to sit on...... It's really a steel ......."

Xi Zhimo muttered with an incredible look in his eyes, as the head of the Ministry of Works, he was no stranger to steel, but he never thought that steel could be smelted like this, and the cost was so low.

"A ton of steel imported from the UK is 146 yuan, and the smelting in the factory was 127 yuan before, but now it is ...... It shouldn't be more than 24 yuan! ”

No more than 24 yuan a ton of steel!

What does this mean?

At least it means that the factory can supply steel that is not much more expensive than iron! In the future, factories can produce a wide variety of goods from these cheap steels, which are far cheaper than British steel goods, and even if they are sold at only a quarter of the price, they can still make far more profits than the British. And this means that the expensive steel that is refined by the churning method will be eliminated, and Xi Zhimo, the instinct of a businessman, immediately realized the importance of secrecy, and he said almost immediately.

"Lord, please also ask the lord to immediately transfer a team of gendarmes to isolate this plant to prevent the leakage of steelmaking secrets!"

Despite being an official, Xi is still a businessman, and more than four times as profitable as a European factory is enough to drive any producer crazy, and they will stop at nothing to try to steal the craft from here. Of course, this was before they learned of this, and now he seemed to understand why Han Du had set up this workshop in the Cannon Factory, because the Cannon Factory was easier to keep secret.

"Keep it a secret for now, but don't keep it a secret for too long!"

Zhu Yifeng naturally did not refuse the secrecy, he looked at the converter and said.

"We want to build another converter, and when the output is shipped, we can export steel to Europe at a low price and do patent licensing ...... at the same time."

How long can it be kept secret? Historically, Bessemer did not make much money by selling steel at a price 30% lower than the market, and he really earned millions of pounds in patent licensing, which is still because of the limited use of acid converters, otherwise he would have been able to make more lucrative returns.

Is it true that the patent is transferred?

Transferring a patent can be more profitable, and Bessemer's invention of this technology next year guarantees maximum profits, although there are some difficulties, but it does not mean that it cannot be tried.

Suddenly, Zhu Yifeng's brows furrowed, in history, the universal application of steel will be almost 20 years later, what restricts the application of steel?

Is it just an acid converter? It seems that after the invention of the open hearth, iron is still the most popular! All kinds of wrought iron are still the mainstream of steel, and the application of steel is still very limited.

What is the reason why high-performance steels are not gaining popularity immediately?

It is the processing of the steel!

Now the tools are made of high-carbon steel, compared with iron, the hardness of steel is too great, with high-carbon steel tools processing, is backward tools to restrict the application of steel!

That's right, that's right!

The method of steelmaking is not the root cause of its application!

Processing technology is!

Without a suitable processing method, to be precise, even if the price of steel is reduced, it can only be used as cast steel, and cannot be processed into various parts to replace cast iron and wrought iron parts.

That's right, that's it!

In an instant, Zhu Yifeng realized that compared with steel, what is the most important technology, in this "iron age" when "iron" is widely used, and "steel" is subject to its cost and processing and has not been applied, steel alloy naturally does not exist, and even the most ordinary high-speed steel will not be invented until more than 40 years later.

Now I have just knocked on the door of the steel age, and the application of converter is just a crack in the door! The more critical core technology has not yet been broken through, which means that there are still many limitations to the application of steel. And this means that even if countries get the converter technology and are trapped by the limitations of knives, they still can't apply better steel to all aspects, at most they just dump Shelfield scissors and kitchen knives to the world at cheaper prices. Even their production costs are not necessarily much lower, because the tools are much more worn out than in the past.

What really opened the door to the "Iron Age" was the modern knives! And not just steelmaking technology. Perhaps, you can solve this problem yourself!

Maybe Zhu Yifeng didn't study metallurgy when he was in college, but as an engineering student, he always knows a little bit about metallurgy, at least he knows the principle of alloy steel - alloy steel composed of one or more alloying elements on the basis of ordinary carbon steel. In fact, the development of alloy steel is due to the increasing production and use of steel, and the machinery manufacturing industry needs to solve the problem of steel processing and cutting, so that hard steel, chromium steel and high-speed steel and other alloy steels have been invented.

"The Forest!"

Zhu Yifeng looked at Xi Zhimo, who was still in shock, and said.

"Isn't there a steelmaking tong pot in the factory? When I go back to Wuchang this time, you prepare a small tong pot and install it in the governor's mansion! ”

Perhaps the cost of smelting ordinary steel in a tong pot is too high, but in this era it is the best choice for smelting high-quality steel, and even until a hundred years later, some high-quality alloy steels are still smelted in tongs, at least most of those high-quality alloy steels were originally born in graphite tong pots. (To be continued.) )