On the way back, the group also followed Downing to visit British Steel's Birmingham outskirts factory. Birmingham is the capital of coal, a scary place, in this era there are no purification measures for coal emissions, in addition to the black soot that can be seen by the naked eye, there is also a large amount of hydrogen sulfide, which smells bad and poisonous.

British Steel's "crystal factory" is an outlier of this era, with heavy use of exhaust gas purification equipment, except for carbon dioxide, you can sniff the exhaust gas with your nose, and you can't smell hydrogen sulfide. When I first saw the white water vapor bubbling from the "chimney" of the crystal factory, everyone thought that it was just the exhaust port of the steam engine, so where did the real chimney go? The group walked around the factory and didn't see it.

The good treatment of coal-fired exhaust gases has laid the foundation for the beautiful and clean building of the crystal factory, and the ubiquitous and lush greenery in the factory has turned the steel plant into a garden factory. The smiles on the faces of the workers who rest by the "woods" in their spare time perfectly illustrate the happiness of working in the garden factory.

Yes, it's a wood. This is the outskirts of Birmingham, far away from the squalor and poisonous of the coal capital, there was originally a large forest, after the establishment of the factory, a large number of trees were retained, this is a combination of the countryside and the factory!

After all, a beautiful factory is surface engineering, and British Steel's world-leading financial resources can certainly do enough to do the surface work, but it remains to be seen what happens inside. One of the most important aspects of a worker's quality of life is food.

It coincided with lunch time, and the group joined the workers' dining team, and Tang Ning, as the big boss, joined the queue with everyone, and completely experienced the same treatment as the workers, and even no one among the workers knew him. This is a scene that makes the "republicans" go back at night and may bring tears to their eyes.

Chicken, pork, lamb, beef and fish are the staple dishes of five dishes, accompanied by tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, carrots and other vegetables, as well as apples, cherries and oranges. In order to protect the workers' teeth, there is no sugar in the working meals, and there are advertisements on the walls that say "eat less sweets to protect your teeth". There is nothing sweet in even the salad dressing. The British have a bad habit of sweetness, and they are very uncomfortable at first without sweets, so the chef finally found appetizing small side dishes, mainly sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, don't underestimate so many small appetizers, which is a great improvement for the diet.

Such a nutritious working meal is actually free. Due to negligence in management, some workers secretly brought their minor sons and daughters to dine here, but the number was not large, and it seems that the consciousness of the workers was quite high. Consciousness is also manifested in the fact that everyone has to take the plate to the swill bucket after eating, brush it clean, and put it on the empty plate frame, so that the staff of the restaurant can quickly push it away.

The group noticed that the workers' clothes were quite clean, which is incredible for a steel mill that should be in poor working conditions, and Downing explained: "The factory has a special person who is responsible for washing clothes, and it doesn't take much manpower to wash it by machines. ”

Wallace was amazed: "There is a washing machine!" Take me to see it, I'm curious what kind of machine it is. ”

He thought that the laundry machine must be a big rotor or something to stir around the clothes, and then use a lot of water to wash the detergent clean, but this machine is completely beyond everyone's imagination, and it does not use washing liquid or rotors, but instead of a huge barrel.

Tang Ning explained to everyone that this washing machine actually has detergent, but it is not the kind that everyone imagines, but the ozone produced by electrolysis, which is a strong oxidizing agent, which can oxidize the small particles of inorganic matter and organic matter on the clothes, making it easy to fall off, and it is matched with the ultrasonic generator, using the cavitation phenomenon and vibration generated by ultrasonic, when the ultrasonic wave vibrates, the vibration and bubbles meet to produce a strong water pressure on the clothes, causing the fabric to vibrate, so that the stain and the fabric are peeled off. Achieve the purpose of cleaning clothes.

The combination of the two means makes the washing machine can produce a good cleaning effect without detergent, ozone is also a strong sterilizer, this washing machine was originally developed by Windsor Medical Machinery Factory for doctors and nurses in hospitals, in order to improve the quality of life of workers in steel companies, it is also used. Since ozone also has a decolorizing effect, only workwear that does not use dyeing agents can be used, and household washing machines are not suitable for the time being. Besides, the electricity here comes from the windmill on the top of the factory, which is in the experimental stage of technology, which is more rudimentary than Leica cameras, and families do not have this condition now.

Hugo couldn't help but admire: "What a wonderful technology." ”

The next place they visited was the workers' quarters. Charles? Charles Dickens's "Orphan of the Fog" is a realistic depiction of the miserable life of London's lower classes, but London is already a paradise compared to industrial cities such as Manchester and Birmingham. Birmingham is called the coal capital, Manchester is called the cotton capital, and it is the textile center of the United Kingdom. Mrs. Gaskell was married from 1832 to the Manchester writer William? Gaskell's life in the cotton capital provided her with the source material for becoming a great industrial writer, in her famous book Mary? In Patton, her description of the hardships of the workers is more thorough and decisive than that of her friend Dickens.

In Mary? In Patton, she realistically recreates the miserable life of British workers in the 40s, living in dark, cramped, ugly, and filthy slums, where workers' children play with rats coming out of the sewers, and when they grow a little older, they have to go into factories to dig under looms to help adults pick up scraps of cotton and other tasks to make ends meet. It was still a good life, because in the 40s the potato harvest in Europe was poor, the ****** spread, and the British workers who did not have a job were in danger of famine.

Hugo's impression of the life of a worker is mostly like this. Therefore, when he saw the neat, clean, simple, hygienic and well-equipped rows of staff dormitories of the crystal factory, he was completely shocked. The factory is no longer a human tragedy intertwined with blood and tears, but a place where you can live and enjoy. A steel mill has such good accommodation. In the eyes of the populist Hugo, the capitalists were vampires who drank the blood of the workers, and even if Downing was willing to finance their French republicans, Hugo was still unwilling to treat the big capitalists as close friends, until now. Now Hugo has completely changed his prejudice against the capitalists, and it turns out that the factory can be run so humanely, no worse than rural life. This is the hope of mankind.

Hugo was already so excited that he estimated that he would write a poem and an essay when he went back, regardless of the fact that he was considered by the outside world to be in league with Downing, and he wanted to tout this kind capitalist who is unique in the world.

The workers were happier than the peasants in that they had a richer recreational life, and the factories had a large number of billiard tables and football fields. Downing himself is very fond of the sport of football, and is happy to let the workers enjoy the joy of this sport, there are three large formal football fields in the whole factory, in addition to 30 small training grounds, enough to accommodate hundreds of people at the same time, the scale is so large that you would think this is the training base of the national football team. It turned out that Tang Ning didn't want to do so much, but the workers' enthusiasm for sports was high, and they were overcrowded, so they had to do more and more, and the big stadium became three, and the small training ground 10 became 30.

In this era, only gentlemen have the money and leisure to engage in sports, and the 33 football fields of the crystal factory have completely subverted everyone's cognition, sports and joy, which is the greatest charity in the world. Workers are divided into teams according to where they work, and there are often friendly matches, which improves the health of the workers and unites their morale.

The crystal factory spent a huge amount of 100,000 pounds just to buy land, and the land was enough, and because of the large area of the factory, transportation was the key, but fortunately, the Round Table Rider bicycle has been mass-produced, providing the factory with a large number of free bicycle transportation, and the workers can ride freely through various corners of the factory. Tang Ning and his entourage also rode around the factory.

In addition to entertainment, workers also have access to free education, mainly a large library for self-study. For illiterate workers, there are full-time teachers in schools, so simplifying English textbooks can play a role.

In addition to education, workers also receive 90 per cent free medical care and free medical check-ups once a year. The best medical device factory in this era came from the Windsor Medical Equipment Company founded by Downing, and the equipment of the crystal factory hospital is the most formal and best, which is famous throughout Birmingham, so that people outside the factory often come to the hospital secretly, they have the identity of relatives and friends, and the hospital is not strict enough to distinguish between these guys, there are too many workers.

Hugo and Alexandre Dumas had their Leica flashes in their hands, and they want to take as many historic photos as possible of this visit to the factory, which represents the future and hope.

In other words, any capitalist who can run a factory like this has to boast that he is Christ, but Downing has not done so, because the level of productivity of the whole society is still relatively low, and the beauty of a factory does not mean the beauty of the entire industry, only BS with extraordinary profitability can do this. It's impossible for others to do this, and if you're too high-profile, you'll only attract the envy of other entrepreneurs. Besides, even the coal mines and iron ore that provide raw materials for BS are still in dire straits. This is the sorrow of the whole human race at the beginning of the industrial revolution, the whole society is crazy for profit and loses its mind. All Downing can do is improve people's livelihood within the limits of his ability.

It takes time for society to improve, and it also takes time for ideas to improve, since Tangning left the Sewerage Treatment Committee, under the influence of the new leadership's conceptual differences, the committee has stopped the central heating and underground cable projects carried out at the same time in the sewage pipes, which is not a failure of Tangning, but a temporary pain in human growth.