The expansion of the steel plant seemed to be thought of by Luo Jian, but it was actually forced by the situation.

Due to the advent of the steam engine, the industrial development of Yangzhou is extremely fast, and the Yangzhou government, at the insistence of Luo Jian and Shi Kefa, has rejected the request of more than a dozen merchants to build factories.

The reason is that Luo Jian feels that Yangzhou is not suitable for the development of a heavy industrial city, and now Yangzhou's territory is not too large, that is, the size of a province in Luo Jian's era, if all the industries are concentrated in Yangzhou, it is obvious that the center of gravity is a little unstable.

At the same time, Anqing, Fengyang and Huai'an have successively introduced a series of preferential policies to attract businesses to invest and set up factories in these places.

These preferential policies have played a big role, and they have really attracted many businesses to invest, most of them are wealthy businessmen in Nanjing and Hangzhou.

Liu Lan was also very busy during this time, because she wanted to set up two factories.

The reason for setting up the first factory is that she sits on the Grand Duke's Taishi chair every day, which is really uncomfortable, and the freshness of the furniture in the house has passed after looking at it for a long time, and she begins to miss the sofas and all kinds of exquisite furniture that can be seen everywhere before.

The production of springs is no longer difficult in Guazhou, which directly brings the possibility to the production of sofas.

As for the canned food mentioned during the trial voyage of the "Weiqing" last time, Liu Lan began to build a factory for production after coming back.

Liu Lan transferred Xing'er out of the quilt factory and directly managed the canning factory, although many people are not used to being commanded by a girl, but Xing'er is really capable, and soon the canning factory is very smooth, and everyone is slowly convinced.

The furniture factory still invited a shopkeeper from Yangzhou to manage, this thing has to seize the time to seize the market, and soon people will imitate, Liu Lan directly put her name as the brand of the furniture factory, which is really not generally good.

"Brother Luo, we have to keep the income of these two factories, Xiao Liu and Xiao Wang are both very busy, and they don't have time to make money, I want to divide the shares of these two factories into three and give them one-third each, what do you think?" Liu Lan found Luo Jian and said.

"You can just look at this, I don't care about it." Luo Jian didn't care too much about these, as long as he had food and shelter, he didn't pay much attention to the others.

"Brother Luo, you!" Liu Lan said helplessly.

Luo Jian and Shi Kefa have all focused on the expansion of the steel plant during this time, and this matter has indeed reached an imminent time now.

Luo Jian and Shi Kefa took turns to go to Wuhu to personally supervise the expansion of the steel plant.

Fortunately, the speed of the steam ship is very fast, and it is not too hard to walk up the river, after more than a month of hard work, the two blast furnaces of the Wuhu Iron and Steel Plant have finally been completed, and they will be put into production in the next few days, which makes Luo Jian and Shi Kefa greatly relieved.

The expansion of the Guazhou Iron and Steel Plant was much slower because Chen Zilong began to study various alloy steels, and the blast furnace for smelting alloy steel was much more complex than the blast furnace at the Wuhu Iron and Steel Plant.

Despite the difficulty, it took more than a month to complete half of the work.

As soon as Shi Kefa had time, he still had to go outside the city to see the growth of the rice in the field that used chemical fertilizer, and the more he looked at Shi Kefa, the more anxious he was about why Xiao Liu's progress was so slow.

Although he went to Guazhou to see it a few times, Shi Kefa did not urge Xiao Liu, he always remembered what Luo Jian said, this thing is not in a hurry, quality is the first.

In fact, Liu Weimin is really the most anxious now, the laboratory has been successfully prepared, how to transform the laboratory results into industrial production, this is a big problem.

Luo Jian felt that this was an opportunity, and new scientific and technological achievements would continue to appear in the future, and these achievements would gradually be transformed into industrial products, and this transformation process was also essential, so Luo Jian asked Xiao Liu to use this opportunity to make some explorations and explore a suitable path for the future.

Luo Jian still finds time to go to Guazhou to take classes, and he wants to gradually lead the research of electromagnetism to the orbit.

What Luo Jian didn't expect was that Zhu Cihuan was most interested in electromagnetism, and after listening to a few classes, Zhu Cihuan actually ran from Guazhou to Yangzhou and lived in the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion, saying that it was good to ask Luo Jian for advice every day.

Luo Jian is also happy to accept this little disciple, Zhu Cihuan's good education foundation allows him to accept new knowledge very quickly, and there is not so much time, Luo Jian found a lot of information for Zhu Cihuan to study on his own, and then concentrate the problem to solve it together.

It's just that the learning of physics knowledge must have a good mathematical foundation, and Luo Jian strengthened the teaching of Zhu Cihuan's mathematics, and Zhu Cihuan's rapid progress made Luo Jian feel that it was all worth it.

Zhu Cihuan's arrival gave Zhu Yuanjiao more reasons to run to the Dadu Governor's Mansion every day, whenever Luo Jian gave Zhu Cihuan a lecture, Zhu Yuanjiao sat next to her and watched quietly, even ignoring Liu Lan's shouting at her.

Every day was spent in a hurry, and time passed very quickly, and soon almost two months had passed since the second merchant ship went to sea, and Shi Kefa began to talk about it every day.

"Xinghua, I'm not worried about the safety of the fleet this time, I'm in a hurry, we have too many places to spend money, so I hope they can bring some back." Shi Kefa explained to Luo Jian.

Now Yangzhou does have too many places to spend money, in addition to the expansion of the steel plant needs money, the establishment of schools in various places also need a lot of funds.

These schools were open to the general public, and the Metropolitan Governorate issued a strict decree that children between the ages of seven and fifteen should be admitted to the school, and that not only books were free of charge, but also that the schools provided free breakfast and lunch, and that the Metropolitan Governor's Office had detailed food standards.

The Metropolitan Governor's Decree stipulates that girls must be educated in the same way as boys. Although many people were quite unimpressed with girls going to school like boys, and some even strongly opposed it, Luo Jian was not moved at all, and this executive order was strictly enforced.

The newspaper once again became the battlefield of debate between the two sides, Liu Lan took the lead and attacked the remarks that "a woman is virtuous if she is not talented", and even the princess Zhu Yujiao published the first article in the newspaper, which was to strive for girls to receive the same education as boys.

In the end, this controversy was over, and neither side persuaded anyone, Luo Jian didn't care so much, as long as this regulation was still strictly enforced, it was enough.

Education funds account for a large part of Yangzhou's financial expenditure, but Shi Kefa, Ren Minyu and Yuan Jixian and others have no objection to this expenditure.

There were also some peasants who did not want their children to go to school because their fields were too busy to work, and the Metropolitan Governor's Office then issued a rule that if it was found that there were school-age children in the family who did not go to school, the agricultural tax would be tripled.

This method worked so well that the children were no longer visible in the fields except for holidays.

Yangzhou's development momentum seems to be excellent, but Luo Jian has seen a lot of problems from it.

The biggest problem at present is that the gradual industrialization of production has carried out a relentless impact on the handicraft industry and folk workshops throughout the Yangzhou region.

Under the pressure of the situation, many workshop owners had to join forces to make production large-scale and efficient.

However, these alliances are all on a spontaneous basis, without official and legal support, and although there are not many problems caused so far, there are many hidden dangers.

The second is that although many factories have been opened, the phenomenon of rushing up is widespread.

At present, what kind of products are selling well, with high profits and fast money, everyone is rushing to them, while some basic industries are few and very popular.

Luo Jian talked about these problems with Shi Kefa and others, but everyone was encouraged by the current good momentum of development, and they did not have a deep understanding of the hidden dangers, and Luo Jian believed that some problems in development were inevitable, and there was no good way to solve these hidden dangers at present.

Entering May, the weather is significantly hotter than usual, and people have already changed their summer clothes.

Luo Jian and Shi Kefa rode horses on the way to Jiangdu.

This time it was Shi Kefa who came out with Luo Jian, the two of them were busy enough during this time, and Shi Kefa was also a little unbearable by the businessmen, so he used the excuse of going to Jiangdu to inspect the school situation, and escaped from Yangzhou with Luo Jian.

The situation in Jiangdu is very different from the last time Luo Jian came, it is close to Yangzhou, and the water transportation is extremely convenient and fast, so that Jiangdu has more opportunities for development.

Looking at the big chimneys erected everywhere along the way and the black smoke floating in the sky, Luo Jian was a little speechless, although Luo Jian knew that the pollution and damage to the environment caused by modern industry with coal as the main fuel was extremely serious, but this way was the last thing Luo Jian wanted to see.

Shi Kefa was very excited, pointed to the big chimney in the distance and said: "Xinghua, you see, there must be some kind of factory there, this factory has been built in Jiangdu, I think Yangzhou will not be able to get rid of its dependence on the imperial court next year." ”

In fact, Luo Jian and Liu Lan had already calculated a fine account at home, and by October this year, Yangzhou's finances would be completely free from the millions of taels of military salaries from the imperial court, and this was still under the condition that the Manchu Qing Dynasty was now tightly sealing Yangzhou's products.

Luo Jian thinks it is a little difficult to completely open the Japanese market, because at this time, Japan's policy of closing the country to the outside world was more thoroughly implemented than that of the Ming Dynasty, and Luo Jian was even ready to use cannons to open the Japanese market, but he had not said these words to Shi Kefa.

"Brother Xian, although Yangzhou is developing rapidly, the damage to the environment is also quite serious, if we don't pay attention to this problem from now, we will inevitably pay a heavy price at that time." Luo Jian said solemnly.

"Alas, Xinghua, I also know that these black smoke are very damaging to the environment, but if we want to develop Yangzhou, these are inevitable." Shi Kefa said with a sigh.

"We need to establish the awareness of environmental protection now, and I am ready to ask Liu Lan to publicize this knowledge in the newspaper, so as to establish everyone's awareness of environmental protection as soon as possible. Later, when there is a new energy source, although there is still pollution, it is much better than that. ”

Luo Jian refers to the development and utilization of petroleum, with the production experience of ammonia, oil distillation and separation is not a difficult technology, but the extraction technology is relatively complex, which has to be studied slowly.

However, the study of the internal combustion engine must be put on the agenda as soon as possible, and now the steam engine used in Yangzhou is using a very perfect technology, in addition to some improvements in the material in the future, there is not much room for technical progress.

The two inspected several schools in Jiangdu, and these schools near Yangzhou were very strict with the implementation of the rules, which made both of them very satisfied.

On the way back, Shi Kefa nagged about the merchant ship again.

"Xinghua, it's been almost three months since the merchant ship went out this time, why hasn't it come back yet?"

"Maybe it's a storm, maybe it's because the goods don't sell well in Japan, but I'm full of confidence that Weisheng and Daki can handle it." Luo Jian said.

When the two returned to Yangzhou, they were overjoyed, because Lu Wei and Zheng Chenggong were already waiting in the Dadu Governor's Mansion.