Before returning to Chongming County, Li Weiguo took Shen Ziyan to the construction site, which Li Weiguo called the cradle of China's industrial base.

The reason why we dare to name the cradle of China's industrial base is mainly because there is no industry in China at present, at best all kinds of large-scale workshops, but that obviously cannot be called industry.

The first batch of machinery and equipment imported from Europe and the United States included an iron-making plant, a steel-making plant, a cement factory, a textile factory, a match factory, a printing factory, a paper mill, a fertilizer factory, a water plant, and a gas plant.

On the issue of the location of the industrial base, Li Weiguo originally planned to place the industrial base in Chuansha Hall, that is, the Pudong New Area in later generations, because the Pudong New Area in this era was a barren grass area, and there were not many people living there, and the price of land was almost the price of cabbage, which could greatly reduce the cost of factory construction.

However, after comprehensively considering the two major factors of economy, people's livelihood and national defense and security, Li Weiguo found that Pudong is surrounded by water on all sides, the Yangtze River in the north, the East China Sea in the east, Hangzhou Bay in the south, and the Huangpu River in the west.

Li Weiguo knew that the Pudong New Area had never been developed by successive governments since ancient times, and that it had always been in a desolate state, and that even later generations of China did not develop the Pudong New Area until the 90s.

Li Weiguo therefore gave up the construction of an industrial base in Pudong, and instead looked for land on the south bank of the Huangpu River, because most of the good land around the county seat of Shanghai was demarcated by Britain, France, the United States and other countries to make concessions, most of the remaining good land was occupied by Haoqiang, considering economic factors and national defense factors, Li Weiguo finally chose to be in the Jiangwan area (now Wujiaochang), which is moderate from the Baoshan military camp and the county seat of Shanghai, and meets the requirements. However, most of the good land in the Jiangwan area was also occupied by Haoqiang, and Li Weiguo finally bought 5,000 acres of land by the Huangpu River to build factories, temporarily meeting the construction needs of the first batch of factories.

As for how to buy good land at a low price from these powerful people in the future and expand the industrial zone, Li Weiguo already has an idea in his heart, but the time has not yet come, and it is not convenient to carry it out.

Standing on the sentry tower by the river, Li Weiguo looks at the entire industrial area through a telescope.

All factories are located according to heavy industry, light industry, and polluting areas, so Li Weiguo studied Shanghai's monsoon climate, and the future workers' dormitories will be upwind, away from the highly polluting industrial areas.

The most important thing in heavy industry is the iron and steel plant, which is a key project explained by Li Weiguo, and it is required to give priority to construction and strive to be completed and put into operation within the year.

The reason why it can be put into operation within the year is that the scale of the steel mill in this era is very small, the scale of the blast furnace for steelmaking and ironmaking is small, the output is small, and the technical equipment is also very simple, these factors are combined, the scale of the largest steelmaking furnace in this era is only 3 tons, and the largest ironmaking furnace is not more than 15 tons, which is weaker than the steelmaking blast furnace of more than 10,000 tons in the twentieth century, because the construction technology is simple, so it can be completed within the year. The steel produced will be used to support the subsequent establishment of military industries and mechanical processing industries, such as the manufacture of guns and ships.

The mill consists of five 2-ton furnaces, three 3-ton furnaces and one 1-ton steel remelting furnace, which is expected to produce 19 tons of ordinary steel and 1 ton of high-precision steel per day. In this era, open-hearth furnaces were used for steel smelting, which was a steelmaking method that used coal gas or heavy oil as fuel and was directly heated by a combustion flame to melt and refine raw materials such as pig iron and scrap into molten steel.

To this end, Li Weiguo also added a gas factory to the first list of purchased equipment, which was used not only for steelmaking, but also for urban lighting, because there were no electric lights in this era, and gas lamps were modern lighting systems.

In addition to the steelworks, there are a total of 20 ironworks, all of which are 10-ton iron-making furnaces, which will produce 200 tons of pig iron per day when completed.

Don't look at the total output of the steel mill is only 220 tons, for the steel demand of the entire Qing Dynasty, it will be enough in the next five to ten years, Li Weiguo knows very well that he is just starting now, and his steel base will exceed that of Europe and the United States in the future, and it is possible to produce tens of thousands of tons per day, what he has to do is just step by step.

In addition to the steel plant, the cement plant is Li Weiguo's priority development.

You must know that the cement industry in this world has just started, it was only invented in 1824, and it has not been popularized on a large scale all over the world, mainly because the cost of cement is high, and the civilian class cannot afford to consume it, and the power of firearms in this era is not enough for all parties to spend a lot of effort to use cement to make fortifications (civil structures are enough), so although cement has appeared, it has not been taken seriously.

However, Li Weiguo attaches the most importance to cement. Because Li Weiguo regards Shanghai as his old nest, and Shanghai is a flat river, the highest terrain is only about 90 meters, in the event of a war, there will be a great loss without strong fortifications. So Li Weiguo thought of cement, the cement equipment he ordered can produce 200 tons per day, he will use cement and steel bars to strengthen the county seat of Shanghai, and the buildings in the city will be built of reinforced concrete in the future, there is only one reason, if one day the foreign enemy invades, Li Weiguo can not hold the defense line around Shanghai, Shanghai County will become Stalingrad, which is also Li Weiguo's last line of defense.

Of course, Li Weiguo will not explain this kind of thing to anyone, he only said that the cement factory is so that people's houses no longer have to worry about being blown away by typhoons like wooden houses, and the embankments built do not have to worry about being washed away by floods.

The last project of the first batch of heavy industry was the fertilizer plant, which on the surface was a project to benefit the people introduced by Li Weiguo in order to increase the output of farmland, but in fact, only Li Weiguo knew that the ultimate goal of his introduction of the fertilizer plant could not be separated from the military industry.

Li Weiguo knows that there are many by-products produced in the fertilizer production process, and one of the by-products can obtain * ammonium nitrate, which is a high-performance explosive* and will play a huge role in Li Weiguo's military industry.

Of course, this is also Li Weiguo's choice, after all, the synthetic ammonia industry has not yet been invented, although Li Weiguo knows the principle of synthetic ammonia, and he can deduce and manufacture it if he is given enough time, but after all, it takes time, and the turmoil in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is imminent, so Li Weiguo can only use the fertilizer factory first to deal with the emergency, and then have time to drum up the synthetic ammonia industry in the future.

There are also match factories related to the military industry, although matches are not gunpowder, but they involve the processing and production of potassium chlorate and sulfur, which only need to be nitrated, and it is easy to obtain the raw materials of gunpowder** and sulfur.

Of course, Li Weiguo's plan to hide military industries in these civilian industries was a year ago, and at that time, he was worried that his direct introduction of military industries would be discovered by the imperial court and cause trouble, so he carried out it secretly. Now, with the promulgation of the imperial court's regimental training decree, the magistrates can recruit the army on their own, so it will not be long before the magistrates set up their own military factories and the ban will be lifted.

Therefore, at this moment, Li Weiguo no longer needs to transfer these civilian industries to military use, and the match factory specializes in the production of matches.

Among the first batch of equipment to arrive, there are also textile mills, printing houses, paper mills, water plants, etc., and it is not difficult to see Li Weiguo's intentions, the textile factory is very well understood, and the textile cloth is mainly supplied to Li Jiajun's clothes, hats, quilts, pantyhose and other military supplies, and the surplus is sold to the people.

On the surface, the printing house and paper mill are convenient services for the people, but in fact they will become Li Weiguo's secret factories for counterfeit banknote manufacturing, and in the future, Li Weiguo's counterfeit banknotes from various countries will go to the rest of the world.

As for the water plant, Li Weiguo deeply felt the helplessness and worry of the Chinese people drinking water directly from rivers and lakes, you must know that in this era of underdeveloped medical care, the disease enters from the mouth, and the parasites in this drinking water are the culprits, and when you think about the average life expectancy of Chinese people in these years is less than 30 years old, they feel heartache.

Therefore, Li Weiguo included the tap water project in the first batch of machinery and equipment procurement list, and also gave priority to construction, he first wanted to let the people of Shanghai drink clean tap water, and then as Li Weiguo's strength continued to grow, in the future, with the continuous expansion of the territory under his rule, he wanted to let the whole Chinese people drink clean tap water in Jiankang.

At this time, Shen Ziyan inadvertently picked up the binoculars and looked at the construction site in the distance like Li Weiguo, and saw the workers working in sweat, and immediately exclaimed.

"Hey, I saw it!"

Li Weiguo's thoughts were interrupted by Shen Ziyan's voice, and when he saw Shen Ziyan holding a telescope, he immediately smiled and said: "Are you just short-sighted, this telescope is equivalent to a nearsighted mirror, and you can naturally see it with the help of it." ”

Shen Ziyan suddenly said: "Then you can give me this telescope, so that if you do things in Chongming, I can see you in Jinling." ”

"Introduce ......"

Li Weiguo rolled his eyes, but said with a smile: "The multiple of this telescope is not enough, and I will give you a big one in the future, so that you can see the scenery thousands of miles away." ”

Shen Ziyan tilted her head, looked at Li Weiguo and said, "I'm not interested in seeing things thousands of miles away, as long as I can see you every day." ”

Li Weiguo's heartstrings moved, and he was moved a little, so he smiled: "Don't you say that I forgot, it's inconvenient for you to do things with high myopia, I'll take you to get a pair of myopia glasses." ”

Shen Ziyan shook her head and said, "Don't want it, it's ugly to death, don't you see my bookkeeper with that broken eye?" Wouldn't Miss Ben be ugly with that thing? ”

Li Weiguo smiled bitterly, so he had to coax her and said: "Your bookkeeper is wearing reading glasses, I want to give you myopia glasses, you can rest assured, you will be more beautiful after wearing myopia glasses, I like four-eyed sister paper." ”

"What do you call a four-eyed girl paper?"

“……”