In July of the first year of the Apocalypse, this is a stage that will be remembered by later history. Zhu Youxiao, the Emperor of the Apocalypse, promulgated the "Ming Patent Law" during this period and established the "Royal Iron and Steel Company".

The birth of the "Patent Law" stimulated the enthusiasm of craftsmen to invent and create zào and disclose technology, which was praised by later generations, but it was later discovered that the biggest beneficiary of the "Patent Law" was actually the royal capital.

The establishment of the 'Royal Iron and Steel Company' means that the former state-run steel mills of the Ming Empire have all closed down, and they have made a comeback again.

The Royal Iron Works is still controlled by the Royal Bank, and the emperor owns all the shares, and there are no other shareholders, but the treasurers at all levels can get share money (dividends).

Jin Yiwei recruited a big shopkeeper named Huang Liangwen from a private steel factory, who is proficient in the steel market of Daming and has extremely rich experience.

It's generally difficult to dig up a big shopkeeper like this, if you want to talk about dividends, which big shopkeeper doesn't get dividends for their owners? Moreover, many shopkeepers have worked for a proprietor for several generations, and outsiders can't dig this corner at all.

Fortunately, Zhu Youxiao is the emperor, so it is much easier to dig the foot of the wall.

Although the treatment of private capital is good, the treatment given by the emperor is even better. Zhu Youxiao poached people and has always been generous. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, commerce was developed, the commodity economy was overflowing, and business talents were extremely popular.

Such talents are worth spending a lot of money to dig up.

The ancients attached great importance to the status of the lintel, and they had to marry or marry each other. Doing things for private owners, that is, a big shopkeeper, at most, has a few stinky money, and it still can't be put on the table. But if you do things for the emperor, it's different. The forced character of this lintel will immediately rise a lot, and if you mix up an official position or something, then you will be among the upper class, which is a good thing only when the ancestral tomb is smoking.

When Zhu Youxiao asked Jinyiwei to dig up the corner of the private capital, he would make such a promise. As long as you can manage the royal assets well, money is not a problem, and it is not a problem to hold a half-official position. Rich and rich, to have status and status, it is definitely rich and noble.

Under such a promise, how many big treasurers can resist such temptation?

However, before taking office, the ugly words were still said ahead, if there was any corruption and benefit transfer, it would be a disaster for the three clans.

Huang Liangwen doesn't care about this, if the big shopkeeper doesn't have some professional ethics this year, how can he get to this height?

The commerce of this era is very credibility, and the commerce of the Ming Dynasty has formed a very mature mode of operation after nearly two hundred years of development. In ancient times, when both parties to the transaction may lack protection of rights and interests, people were very cautious in the process of business transactions, so they needed to confirm whether the other party was creditworthy.

If a businessman does not have credibility, it will be difficult to do business. If a shopkeeper has no credibility, it is also a matter of smashing his job.

The shopkeepers of this era all want to eat this bowl of rice for life, but also select those who have enough talent from among their children and grandchildren, and then pass on the experience, so that the next generation can continue to eat this bowl of rice.

This kind of business experience has been passed down from generation to generation, and these excellent shopkeepers (professional CEOs) in the Ming Dynasty are no worse than businessmen in later generations in terms of business methods, and are even more proficient in business operations. Moreover, the shopkeepers of this year know how to do business more carefully, so the style is more conservative than that of later generations. This business philosophy still influenced later generations of Chinese businessmen.

Just like stock trading, when Western businessmen in later generations made money by trading stocks, they would sell their factories and land, and then invest their money in the stock market. However, Chinese businessmen generally use their surplus money to speculate in stocks, and not most businessmen will gamble on it. Even if you lose money in stock trading, you still won't throw away the most essential things.

Huang Liangwen has worked in the management and operation of the steel business in the Jiangnan area, and is very familiar with the steel industry of the steel industry, and he also knows the export aspect very well.

After coming to the capital, Huang Liangwen learned about the background of the establishment of the Royal Iron and Steel Works, and immediately felt that there was something to do. Royal Steel has state-of-the-art smelting technology and surprisingly low smelting costs. Royal Steel also has the advantage of having a lot of free labour. Those who are serving prison sentences can be transferred to the steel mill to work as coolies.

It was in an advantageous position in terms of competition, and at the same time, the emperor also came up with a patent law to restrict private capital from stealing technology. At the same time, it is also possible to crack down on private steel mills by collecting taxes, and it is easy to achieve monopoly operation.

Monopoly means profiteering.

In terms of high-quality steel production, Handan's iron-rich ore and low-sulphur coking coal need to be controlled first. This task was directly assigned by Zhu Youxiao to Huang Liangwen.

What to do, Zhu Youxiao didn't explain, but asked Jinyiwei to cooperate. Huang Liangwen naturally understood that the emperor meant to do whatever he wanted. In this way, it is okay to rob openly. As long as you ask Jinyiwei to find some charges or something, these minerals can be obtained casually. But in doing so, the royal reputation would be damaged.

And to be a man and leave a line, and see each other well in the future, Huang Liangwen still decided to pay for these minerals, although the price is not high, but it is not an open robbery.

As for whether to sell or not, it depends on whether these mine owners are conscious.

After Huang Liangwen came to Cizhou, he first sent people to discuss the acquisition with those mine owners, but only two mine owners knew each other better, and the other mine owners were unwilling to sell.

Only then did Huang Liangwen ask Jinyiwei to come forward and seal up those mines that were unwilling to sell. These mine owners also wanted to encourage the miners to make trouble, but after Huang Liangwen's recruitment list was posted, all the miners went to the Royal Mining Company to report. The Royal Mining Company is treated much better than they were treated before. There are 2 silver dollars per month, and there are other benefits.

The mine was sealed, and those mine owners had no choice but to take the money and settle the matter. No one can fight the emperor! The emperor wants to buy and sell by force, what can they do. Fortunately, the price is barely acceptable, and it is not a loss.

After a few salutes, the iron-rich mines in Cizhou were successfully controlled by the Royal Mining Company, and at the same time, a lot of land was enclosed in the area where the low-sulfur coking coal was explored. These iron-rich ores and low-sulphur coking coals soon began to enter the full-scale mining phase.

Royal Steel chose the choice between iron ore and coal mines, which was the most convenient choice. It doesn't have to cost much to transport iron ore and coal to get raw materials to steel mills.

After the site selection is completed, it is the stage of building the blast furnace and converter.

The larger the blast furnace, the higher the efficiency, but due to technical limitations, it is almost the same to build a 50 cubic meter blast furnace at present. No matter how big it is, the blower or something like that has to be redeveloped.

Therefore, the first phase of construction is to build three blast furnaces with a capacity of 50 cubic meters, which are expected to produce 20,000 tons of iron per year, and then expand the production capacity according to market demand.

Zhu Youxiao allocated 800,000 yuan from the internal fund to the Royal Iron and Steel Plant, such a capital to run a steel plant is absolutely unprecedented, 800,000 yuan is actually a lot, and it can definitely form a crushing scale for any privately-funded steel plant.

At this time, the annual steel output of Daming is expected to be no less than 100,000 tons, of which pig iron is the majority. For a country with a population of 200 million, 100,000 tons of steel production per year is not much, but compared to Europe, it is a big cut away Europeans. From this aspect, it can also be seen that the productivity of the Ming Dynasty is actually higher than that of the Europeans. But it lagged behind in some military technologies, such as the creation of artillery.

At this time, the Royal Military Factory, because of the availability of high-quality steel and wrought iron, has entered a rapid breakthrough stage in the development of artillery.

Wrought iron cannon is the current mainstream technology, because the problem of high sulfur content is solved, so that the royal military factory smoothly cast a quality cannon from wrought iron. Such a cannon, which is also known as the Hongyi cannon in these years, this kind of artillery is actually like an enlarged version of the Ming army's gun.

Historically, the Ming army relied on the introduction of technology from the Portuguese to make the Hongyi cannon. However, after equipping the army, the boar skin obtained technology and artillery, so that the wild boar skin had the means to siege the city.

At this time, the Royal Military Factory developed its own cannon and easily developed it. The manufacture of artillery is still the use of clay molds, and the technology of iron mold cannon construction has not appeared, mainly because the speed of iron mold cannon construction is fast, but the quality is obviously not very good.

However, the Royal Military Factory is developing steel cannon technology, because converters can produce mild steel. Iron guns were prone to blow-ups and were too bulky, so although they were developed, they were not put into full-scale production.

In other words, the emperor did not look down on this kind of cannon.

Some craftsmen proposed to develop bronze cannons, but because the cost was too high, they were vetoed by Zhu Youxiao. The bronze cannon is a kind of artillery that has been used until the mid-nineteenth century, which is equivalent to the ** war, and many of the artillery used by the British are bronze cannons. The materials used in the bronze cannons at that time were actually also specially made, and their properties were close to those of steel.

The Royal Iron and Steel Company is already being established and can produce low-carbon steel from open-hearth furnaces, so Zhu Youxiao naturally vetoed this research and development direction. The point is that a lot of copper is currently used to mint copper coins.

Because the Ming army on the front line urgently needed to equip artillery to strengthen the Quang Ninh defensive line. Therefore, Zhu Youxiao went to the Royal Military Factory for several days and participated in the development of artillery with the craftsmen.

Because of the recent unpleasant uproar in the court, or the frequent deflatation of the Donglin Party, the Donglin Party has once again intensified the spread of rumors in order to portray Zhu Youxiao's mediocrity. Seeing that the emperor was running to the military factory all day long, the nickname of 'Blacksmith Emperor' was once again widely circulated.

"This group of people is really idle!" Zhu Youxiao was very disdainful of such rumors, and still went his own way, without the slightest intention of refuting the rumors, but felt that the behavior of the Donglin Party was really idle.

At this time, there were rumors in Jingshi that the mediocre blacksmith emperor had misappropriated a large amount of silver from the royal bank for personal pleasure, which had caused a deficit of millions of taels of silver. A run on the Royal Bank is rapidly brewing.

Jinyiwei and Dongchang were originally strictly controlling the rumors about the Royal Bank, and Zhu Youxiao naturally knew the news as soon as possible.

It's just that the Royal Bank, which has been prepared in advance, doesn't even bother to refute the rumors, and in the face of the menacing run, it has a completely indifferent attitude. PS: One more today!