Chapter 153: The Dream of Steel

Chapter 153 Steel Dream

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"Feng Ru ()! He's not dead? ”

When Dong Yongwei brought Zhang Wenjing's telegram, informing him that dozens of overseas Chinese in the United States who were studying machinery had arrived in Hanyang, and also brought the news that the American Zhigong Court had purchased fifteen Curtiss wings for him, he was very surprised that Feng Ru was actually among them. Calculate the time, in history, Feng Ru fell to his death in February 1912 during a domestic air show, and he purchased an airplane from the United States in Shanghai Tomiaoluo in the second half of January.

Yang Qiu smiled dumbly, this may be the butterfly effect, one of his own requests actually changed other people's lives. But he didn't care too much, there have been a lot of things that have changed, Ming Zhao appeared on the merit table for the battle of Guiyang, Bai Chongxi's name was on the list of the Second Division to be admitted to the National Defense University, and Long Yun was also on the list of recruits of the Seventh Brigade, didn't their lives quietly change because of themselves?

Feng Ru can be excited to come here, whether he can create the aviation era of the Chinese people or not, he is a respectable person. What made him even more interested was the hidden energy shown by the American Zhi Gong Court this time, a telegram and a remittance can bring fifteen planes and dozens of mechanical students, no wonder even President Sun Da has to bow to his subordinates. This is a huge overseas Chinese force, and now it is only slightly pushed, and even people like Feng Ru are willing to obey the dispatch, which shows how strong its background is.

In fact, it is normal to think about it, it is not easy for Chinese to live overseas, a typical oppressed class, the American Zhigong Court has always been famous for helping overseas Chinese, and overseas Chinese living in Europe and the United States have more or less received their help (). There are many unknown talents among overseas Chinese, and they all hope that the motherland will be stronger, but many people finally choose to wait and see in the face of reality, so if this force is used well, it can greatly help themselves.

Thinking of this, he suddenly remembered that beautiful face, Miao Luo.

"Yongwei, are you married?"

Dong Yongwei just pushed open the window, wanting to disperse the filth of the night, when he heard this, his face turned red and scratched his head, and he said, "I'm not married yet." ”

Yang Qiu smiled dumbly, thinking to himself what was wrong? was so stupid as to ask Dong Biwu about marriage and love, and hurriedly said: "I have already discussed with the German minister, next month to select a group of young officers and students to study in Germany, do you want to go?" Is there a desirable major? If you don't want to go, I'm going to let you go to Guizhou to exercise. ”

During this time, the matter of the selection of students to be sent to Germany in the three provinces and the army has been spreading, Dong Yongwei not only knows the news, but also knows that there are many expatriates this time, and he also wants to go to Europe to see and see, but he is a little old, and he has not dared to bring it up for fear that he will not be selected, and now Yang Qiu can no longer suppress his excitement, and nods vigorously: "Patrol, I want to go!" With Wei Xiang went to Europe to study law and law. ”

"And the law?" Yang Qiu glanced at him and said with a smile: "Those boys in the army are noisy and want to learn military command, and most of the other people who signed up are mechanical, chemical, engineering design, business, etc., and there are not many laws." ”

"Reading can promote progress and broaden people's horizons. The law teaches people to obey the rules, to create justice, and to do what they want in this life. After Dong Yongwei finished speaking, Yang Qiu glanced at him, nodded and said: "After returning to Wuchang, I will go to the evening German cram school, and I will leave at the end of next month, and all the funds will be paid by me, and how much you can learn depends on yourself." ”

"First go and call back Zhang Wenjing, the aircraft factory is located in Chongqing, and 50 soldiers who are bold and careful to volunteer to join the flight team are selected to form an aviation school, which is also placed in Chongqing. Feng Ru, these technical experts, he must send guards to take care of them, and he also tells everyone that what they learn and think is a valuable national wealth, and they must protect themselves well, and dangerous tests can be completed by workers and pilots. In addition, it will spend money to charter a few high-powered river ships to transfer the equipment delivered by Germany as soon as possible. Seeing the figure that Dong Yongwei was about to provoke, Yang Qiu smiled and said: "Inform Chief of Staff Song again that we will leave for Hubei after the Chengdu University ceremony on the tenth day of the first month." ”

After Dong Yongwei left, Yang Qiu began to get busy again, and after arriving in Chengdu, he seemed to have endless documents and guests to deal with every day, and the location of Sichuan Provincial Government was also very lively because of his arrival.

According to the telegram sent back by Su Xiaohu, the two brigades of the Fifth Division have all arrived in Guiyang, and the mortars transported from Hunan have also arrived and are undergoing adaptive training. At present, Tang Jiyao and Liu Cunhou are still entrenched in the southwest of Guiyang, not to mention the wanton looting, and they have also forcibly incorporated many local bandits. In particular, Tang Jiyao, under the recommendation of Liu Xianshi and others, also called himself the governor of Guizhou without authorization, set up a political agency, and tried in vain to split southwest Guizhou, putting on a long-term entrenchment plan.

It was already the consensus of the National Defense Staff to defeat them as soon as possible, so after receiving the military funds voluntarily taken out by Zhang Taiyan, he ordered the formation of the Eighth Mountain Brigade in Guizhou. Guizhou's mountains are high and densely forested, and some of them are young people with thick lower limbs, short stature, climbing mountains and mountains as if walking on flat ground, and carrying heavy loads well; these are the best quality soldiers of the mountain brigade; in addition, he also handed over the plan of changing the Fifth Division into a mountain division to Song Ziqing and others for the first time, and asked the General Staff Department to study the implementation methods. If you can train a total of four brigades of elite mountain troops through this battle, then it will be worth spending a little more money for a long time.

In addition to the war in Guizhou, the most headache for him is how to activate Sichuan's economic development. Everyone knows that Bashu is a treasure land, not only has the fat meat of well salt here, but also the coal, sulfur and phosphorus in southern Sichuan, and the gold, silver, zinc and cadmium reserves in northwest Sichuan are relatively rich. Vanadium and titanium have huge reserves and are of world significance. Traditional industries such as raw silk, tung oil, tea, tobacco, and porcelain are also very prosperous, not to mention the grain of the Hanzhong Plain. Therefore, he attaches great importance to the progress of the Hanchuan Railway, once this lifeline is opened, these resources will be continuously transformed into industrial products.

When discussing with Deng Xiaoke and Zhang Taiyan to support business and speed up the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, Lei Meng walked in with Hao Wenbao and several soldiers of the guard company, they were all carrying big baskets, and they were followed by two men in Miao family costumes who were nearly fifty years old. ”

The two of them thanked each other, but they were still a little restrained, and their buttocks were only half a stool under the stool. Yang Qiu didn't say much, Qing Zheng Fu had just fallen, and many things had to be changed slowly, what he cared about was the basket behind Hao Wenbao and others.

Before entering Sichuan, Yang Qiu sent them to Hengduan Mountain on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan, because he was obsessed with the Panzhihua Iron Mine. When the soldier untied the basket and removed a few shiny brownish stones, he suddenly became short of breath. Hao Wenbao introduced: "Commander, these are dug up from the place you said. Both of them were local Miao farmers, and they said that there was indeed iron ore there, but no one knew how much it was, but local Miao families and collectors would often send people to dig there and use it to forge machetes. ”

Hao Wenbao took out a Miao knife and said: "The steel mouth is very good, and it is all made of ore over there." ”

"Iron Mine! Where is it? Far from it? Zhang Taiyan and Deng Xiaoke's eyes also lit up, Hubei Huangshi Iron Mine contributed to the Chinese giant Han Yeping, if Sichuan also has a good iron mine, it can really greatly promote the development of local industry and commerce.

Speaking of the location, Hao Wenbao scratched his head, and asked the two Miao farmers next to him to explain, both of whom spoke local dialect, but fortunately, Deng Xiao might understand some and acted as a temporary translator. After the two of them said the specific location and indicated it on the map, Yang Qiu was both excited and disappointed. I was excited that I had finally found the location of Panzhihua. Disappointingly, according to Hao Wenbao and others' personal surveys, the old farmer's explanations made him understand that there were no feasible roads at all, and the existing technology and funds could not build such a huge project as the Chengdu-Kunming Railway.

"Is it okay to take the Jinsha River waterway to transport the ore out?"

Zhang Taiyan asked after reading the map, but soon the two seedling farmers shook their heads, the water depth of the Jinsha River is insufficient, and there are many reefs and reefs on the beach, which cannot be used for ships to navigate, unless it is large-scale dredging, it will not work at all, but large-scale dredging is several times larger than the railway in terms of technology and capital.

Yang Qiu finally realized what it meant to quench her thirst.

After letting Lei Meng take everyone down to rest, Yang Qiu couldn't help but sigh in his heart. Panzhihua can't count on it, Guizhou Liupanshui needs to wait for the Hanchuan Railway to extend to Guiyang before it can be developed, except for these two places, there is no good iron ore in the southwest, and the dream of steel seems to have reached a dead end all of a sudden. When he meditated all the way to what to do, before he could sit down in the room, Dong Yongwei took a man about thirty years old and returned: "Inspector, this Mr. Pan Tianzhu has been waiting for you outside for a day, and he said that he must see you if he has something important." ”

Yang Qiu didn't think of this character when he searched his intestines, and asked, "Who is Mr. Pan?" ”

Pan Tianzhu has a Chinese face, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and brown skin, as if he has been engaged in outdoor labor for a long time, but he looks like he has returned from studying abroad in a dress, and when he saw Yang Qiu, he immediately bent over excitedly, took out a yellowed letter from his arms, and handed it to him with trembling hands: "Heavenly Grant See the Inspector, I came today to ask my father to restart the Qingxi Iron Works." ”

Restart Guizhou Qingxi Iron Works? After reading the letter, Yang Qiu learned that Pan Tianzhu was the nephew of Pan Fei, who patrolled Guizhou that year, and his father Pan Lu was also the general manager of the Qingxi Iron Works at that time.

After his death, Qingxi Iron Works suddenly lost its leader, coupled with the lack of funds, poor management, poor roads, and the lack of awareness of steel among the Chinese people, and finally Qingxi Iron Works was only brilliant for a few months before it could not be run, and finally the property rights were sold to Britain and France. But Britain and France didn't need steel mills, they only needed mercury mines from nearby mines, so they let the machines be exposed to the wind and the sun and gradually became barren. Later, after the Manchu government took back the mercury mine, it once planned to reopen the iron factory, but due to lack of funds, the workers were lost and had no choice but to let go.

Pan Tianzhu followed his father since he was a child to see the glory and failure of Qingxi Iron Works, which had a great impact on him, especially before his father died, he still remembered the rejuvenation of the country with steel, so he chose to stay abroad to study metallurgical survey in France, and continued to pursue the dream of steel in the French Iron and Steel Plant.

After the Xinhai Revolution, he once again had the dream of finding and saving Qingxi, so he took the initiative to resign and return to China, but when he arrived in Nanjing, he heard that he came to ask for money to rebuild the Qingxi Iron Works, and his head shook like a rattle, and later he heard that Hubei had introduced a large number of machinery and equipment, so he held hope all the way from Nanjing to Chengdu.

In him, Yang Qiu saw a resolute figure who had been pursuing the road of steel to save the country for decades, but it was no longer possible to restart the Qingxi Iron Works. In fact, as soon as he took Hunan, he sent people to inspect the old site of the Qingxi Iron Works on the border of Hunan and Guizhou, and got the news that most of the machines had disappeared, and the rest were aging and rusty, and there was no saving value. Moreover, it will take at least three years for the Hanchuan Railway to open to traffic, and even if the iron works restart in these three years, the narrow waterway will not be able to support the task of transporting steel.

"Mr. Tianzhu's heart to serve the country Yang admires, but with all due respect, it costs a lot of money to restart Qingxi Iron Works, and there are problems with the surrounding roads and coking coal supply, so start again." Seeing Yang Qiuzhi shaking his head, the last bit of extravagant hope in Pan Tianci's heart was gone, and he sighed and was about to leave.

"Don't be discouraged, sir." Yang Qiu hurriedly said: "Don't hide it from Mr., Yang has ordered a complete steel plant from the United States to renovate Hanyang, and is also preparing to build another iron plant in Dangtu County, on the border of Anhui and Nanjing, I wonder if Mr. is willing to give in?" ”

It's reasonable to stay in Hanyang, but what can you do when Tu County?! After hearing him say this, Pan Tianzhu trembled with anger, and thought that Yang Qiu was deliberately entertaining himself, and said angrily: "Tianzhu has no power, no power and no money, if the patrol envoy doesn't want the villain and doesn't dare to force it, why bother with me!" "After saying that, he was about to leave.

How could Yang Qiu let him go, he hurriedly asked Dong Yongwei to stop him, and said solemnly: "Mr. Tianzhu has wronged me!" Yang Qiu dared to vouch for his life, there must be a big iron mine there, since Mr. has studied ore surveying, Yang can immediately let the students of the School of Surveying and Mapping go to investigate together. The need for the degree is also borne by the next force, after the discovery of the iron ore I can also immediately allocate funds to build a factory, if there is a regret of the world is not allowed! How is it? ”

Pan Tianzhu didn't believe it at first, but those firm and hot eyes made him seem to see the shadow of his father when he built the Qingxi Iron Works, and it didn't look like he was lying, anyway, he agreed to do nothing now, and promised that if he really found the iron mine, he was willing to take on the heavy responsibility of building the steel mill. Yang Qiu was very happy, and immediately asked people to give him 10,000 yuan to use, and asked Song Ziqing to send a few officers from the School of Surveying and Mapping to go with him

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