Chapter 16: The Age of Iron

Another three months have passed, and it has been half a year since I returned to the Philippines.

The machines and equipment that were transported together were already moved into the newly established factories, and many high-precision industrial lathes in the space were reinstalled and debugged, and joined the trial production stage in the factory buildings that had been arranged for a long time.

In the past three months, Mr. Chen has upgraded his own mines across the Philippines.

Through the relationship between his father-in-law Wu Miaoyuan, Chen Zeyu purchased a large number of new mining machinery.

As a result, the extensive production model of mines in Luzon in the past has been completely changed, and Chen Zeyu selected an iron ore distribution zone not far from his territory in Luzon in the resource distribution map. What's more, less than 20 kilometers to the northeast is an open-pit coal mine with significant reserves.

Optimistic about the unique geographical conditions here, Chen Zeyu is ready to build a large-scale steel plant nearby.

Today, the mine can supply nearly 100,000 tons of high-quality iron ore per month, which is only less than one-third of the mine's capacity utilization, and it is believed that the ore resources provided by the mine will gradually increase to the design data over time. The corresponding steel plant has also entered the initial construction stage, according to the current construction schedule, the medium-sized steel plant is expected to be basically completed within two years, and the first phase will be completed and put into operation in nine months at the earliest.

It is expected to supply Chen's with 400,000 tonnes of steel per year when it is put into operation. When the steel plant is completed, and the fuel and ore raw materials can be supplied in time, its production capacity will skyrocket to about 1.7 million to 2 million tons, and then the steel industry complex in Chen Zeyu's heart can be regarded as laying a good foundation.

Prior to this, the high-grade ore mined in the iron ore mine was stored for later use, and the rest was pocketed by the newly established mining company of Chen Zeyu's Avalanche Group.

All of this iron ore was sold by the Avalanche Minerals Company to the Qing Dynasty's Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, even if the cost of shipping to Hankou on the Yangtze River was added. The iron ore provided by Chen Zeyu is also much lower than the price of iron ore manufactured by Zhang Zhidong's own Han Yeping. Chen Zeyu looked all over the Asia-Pacific region, and this was the only one that could eat Chen Zeyu's iron ore.

In addition, there is a steel company that has just become a scale, but it was directly ignored by Chen Zeyu. In his future plan, he is the main opponent in one of the stages, and Brother Chen will naturally not raise tigers for trouble.

It's better to let them import the high-priced ore of the British, as for the Americans, Chen Zeyu has the heart to do their business. Unfortunately, the distance is too far, whether it is the eastern United States or the Midwest there is no shortage of coal and iron resources, although the ore produced in this mining belt selected by Chen Zeyu is much higher than the taste, but the cost is not advantageous, Chen Zeyu immediately gave up.

Zhang Zhidong, a famous minister of the Qing Dynasty, is now vigorously building a railway in the Lianghu area, but because the phosphorus content of the steel produced by the newly built Hanyang Iron Works exceeds the standard, the quality is not good, so the final production of rails is unusable.

For modern iron and steel enterprises, the choice of plant site is crucial. According to the experience of setting up factories in European countries in the nineteenth century and the principle of economic efficiency, iron factories were either coal and iron, or coal was used for iron, but Zhang Zhidong chose Hanyang, where coal and iron were not available.

Even though this was a decision made by Jang Zhidong in all aspects, it also laid a deep disaster for the Hanyang Iron Works.

In addition, steel production requires a large amount of coke raw materials, but the coal mines near Hubei are either of poor quality or have small reserves. The lack of raw materials makes the iron plant open and stop, and it is in an abnormal production state for a long time, and the production efficiency is extremely low.

Zhang Zhidong and the others imported steelmaking equipment from Europe to build this steel mill little by little, and the original purpose was to make railroad tracks. The railroad tracks that were finally built could not be used, and the blow to Zhang Zhidong can be imagined.

To be sure, rails are generally made of crude steel produced by converters in steel mills, which is less expensive than stainless steel produced by open hearths. However, due to Zhang Zhidong's lack of relative understanding of modern scientific and technological knowledge, they urgently purchased equipment from Britain without finding out the iron ore and coal-fired coal mines, and the result was that the purchased equipment was not suitable for refining the ore with high phosphorus content provided by Daye Iron Mine, and the steel-making materials did not meet the requirements of railway rails and could not be put into use in the railway under construction.

As a result, the newly commissioned Hanyang Iron Works suddenly fell into an embarrassing situation.

According to the original history, in order to speed up the construction of the railway and the planned Hanyang Arsenal, Zhang Zhidong had to buy finished steel raw materials from abroad on the one hand, and on the other hand, in order not to abandon the Hanyang Iron Works, which had just been put into operation, he had to buy enough coal from Kaiping in the northeast at a high price to buy coke imported to Germany and Sweden, and finally solved the problem of insufficient raw materials.

However, the distance between Northern Europe and Hankou is not much more than 10,000 miles, and the cost of coking coal purchased by Hanyang Iron Works can be imagined, and the cost of high-quality steel rails put into production is more than three times that of Western imports.

Fortunately, there is such an outlier as Chen Zeyu in history now.

Chen Zeyu sent someone to Hankou to meet Zhang Zhidong in the name of the Pittsburgh Avalanche Company of the United States, and expressed his willingness to provide qualified iron ore from Luzon and high-quality coal for the Hanyang Iron Works under his name. The win-win situation between the two parties hit it off, and Chen Zeyu promoted the production of his own mineral company, preventing the coal and iron mines it had produced from idle, and earning a lot of wealth. Zhang Zhidong, on the other hand, reduced the cost of railway construction and prevented the closure of the iron plant that had just been put into operation, so as to avoid the blame from above.

In this way, benefiting from the help of Chen Zeyu's avalanche group, Zhang Zhidong's original railway construction plan was greatly accelerated, and the two lakes railway, which was originally built only a few dozen kilometers in history and was forced to be shelved, was finally built in 1893 with a total mileage of 372 kilometers of two-way railways connecting Hankou and Changsha.

Chen Zeyu's iron ore mine production capacity is so amazing, thanks to the fact that the ore layer he originally selected is located on the surface of the extremely easy to mine, and the closest point to the surface is only a few feet away.

Not only the avalanche mining enterprises under Chen's name, but by the beginning of 1891, thanks to the data provided by Chen Zeyu's mineral resources exploration company (the best one is kept for yourself, you have to give it to your friends), the Chinese mining enterprises throughout the Philippines have achieved great development.

Later, in order to speed up the development of electrification in the Luzon territory, Chen Zeyu built several large-scale thermal power plants around Sizhejiang to supply the living and production needs of the surrounding industrial enterprises and ordinary people.

With a large thermal power plant, Chen Zeyu has improved the surrounding power transmission system, mainly the production and adoption of new transformers, which greatly reduces the energy consumption in the transmission process and reduces the power operating costs from the side.

In April, Chen Zeyu organized the recruitment of Chinese workers to build several huge round-arched U-shaped factories in a basin near the Sizhejiang Iron Ore Plant, and then asked the workers to reassemble the equipment they had "planed" from several American steel mills using space, and formally established the Sizhejiang Special Steel Company, which is one of the members of the Avalanche Iron and Steel Consortium, and will continue to develop various steel materials for iron and steel enterprises in the future.

Looking at this gradually forming enterprise, Chen Zeyu remembered his past unit in his heart.

In terms of personnel appointments, Chen Zeyu specially hired his senior brother Deng Shicong at MIT as the general manager of the steel group.

In order to facilitate the supply of raw materials for this iron and steel conglomerate, Chen Zeyu also deliberately built a large-scale coke production enterprise in the northern part of the Sizhejiang Basin, which will also supply coke to the Hanyang Iron Works in Zhangzhidong after the completion of the second phase in the future. In order to facilitate management, Chen Zeyu did not directly assign it to the name of United Iron and Steel Group, but set up a separate energy company specializing in industrial coal-fired energy.

It should be said that the scale of the Avalanche Steel Group after completion will be very terrifying.

Counting Chen Zeyu's normal purchase and "abnormal means" to get the iron and steel smelting equipment, after completion, United Iron and Steel Company will have 9 large-scale steel-making open hearths, 22 large-scale steel-making converters, and 19 medium-sized steel-making furnaces, if the demand is strong and can provide sufficient raw materials and manpower, the maximum annual output of the steel plant in Sizhejiang will be able to reach the scale of 3 million tons, of course, taking into account the cost of maintaining the operation of the equipment and other factors, the final optimized design capacity is about 1.7 million to 2 million tons.

Even so, this yield is already terrifying.

You must know that in the vast Pacific coast, the original historical industrial boss is left with nothing to talk about except for the United States. Until the beginning of World War II, as a newly industrialized country, the annual steel output of the company was only about 2 million tons, and the raw materials of the company were still subject to the export of the United States. The production capacity of an enterprise is enough to be equivalent to that of a medium-sized industrial country, and the steel industry in Sizhejiang has begun to show the demeanor of a young supertrust.

Fast forward to August 1891, and the first phase of the steel plant was completed.

The equipment built in the first phase has also been officially put into operation, and the nascent avalanche steel plant can provide various qualities of pig iron, steel, stainless steel, billet, charge, plate, profile, wire rod, pipe, rail, rail, and various steel alloys depending on the needs of all aspects.

Of course, Chen Zeyu's old business, all kinds of special steel will not be thrown away, and the special steel research institute and special steel experimental department are personally commanded by Chen Zeyu, code 707, which can be regarded as a sustenance for the previous time and space.