When he came to the Royal Military Factory, Xu Guangqi had already made preparations, and the iron ore and coke were ready. The blast furnace is still the same 50 cubic meter, and the converter is rebuilt with a 30 cubic meter one.

The emperor came, and he bowed again. Zhu Youxiao hurriedly helped Xu Guangqi up, and said kindly: "Xu Aiqing, you have worked hard during this time. ”

"Wechen didn't work hard, this time he lived up to expectations, and finally found ore and coal. Majesty, do you think it's time to open the furnace? Xu Guangqi asked impatiently.

"Okay, open the furnace now." Zhu Youxiao ordered.

"Turn on the furnace and light the fire." Xu Guangqi immediately ran to the scene to command, and a group of workers ignited the blast furnace, added the charge and ore, and the smelting work began again.

The blast furnace ran smoothly and was in continuous use during this time. Although the smelted pig iron is too brittle, it is still possible for civilian use. Therefore, during this time, the pig iron smelted in this blast furnace was used to make agricultural tools, as well as some military weapons that did not require high quality of pig iron. In the continuous production process, the smelting details of the blast furnace have been improved a lot, and the workers have explored a relatively mature set of blast furnace operation experience.

The iron ore and coke used this time are low-sulfur and low-phosphorus, which is obviously much more convenient to smelt than those high-sulfur ores. The blast furnace continued to melt, and everyone watched intently. The horses are constantly spinning, pulling the blower around. In the sound of whirring, the iron ore in the furnace is constantly melted by the high temperature, reacting with the oxygen blown in.

After a long wait, the molten iron finally flowed out.

This is not unusual, but what is the quality of the molten iron?

The workers immediately separated a part of it and used it directly for pouring pig iron devices. At the same time, a part of the molten iron is poured into the converter. The molten iron in the converter soon began to undergo a violent oxidation reaction with the operation of the blower.

This oxidation reaction is as violent as a volcanic eruption. However, the workers were already familiar with the sound, and although the movement was relatively loud, the danger was not high. They installed a baffle above the converter to prevent the sparks from splashing out.

After three large blowers continued to blow for fifteen minutes, the oxidation reaction in the furnace finally began to slow down and then disappeared. Apparently a furnace of molten steel has been smelted.

It's just that this time the molten steel, whether the quality can meet the standard, is the most concerned issue.

"Steeled." With a shout, the furnace slowly flipped on its side, pouring out the molten steel in the furnace. The workers saw the molten steel again, and then proceeded with the follow-up treatment.

Craftsmen pour molten steel into molds and begin artificial forging.

A miracle happened, and the steel still maintained its toughness during the hot forging process, and the previous brittleness did not occur. Obviously, the problem of too high a sulfur content has been solved, and after the steel has cooled down a bit, it has been cold-forged, and there is no brittleness, and the problem of too high phosphorus content has also been solved.

"Your Majesty, we succeeded." Xu Guangqi was overjoyed and shouted excitedly. All the craftsmen were also jubilant and excited.

With such technological advances, steel will no longer be so precious in the future.

Zhu Youxiao was also extremely excited, and hurriedly said to Xu Guangqi: "Xu Aiqing, I have decided to open a government-run steel plant in Cizhou, and you should estimate the cost of steel immediately." ”

"Yes, Your Majesty." Xu Guangqi took the order, and then said: "The minister roughly estimates that the cost of a pound of steel will not be higher than Wuwen if blast furnace ironmaking is used, plus converter steelmaking, and the main cost is mining and coking. ”

Blast furnace ironmaking is efficient, and coke is used, which is much less expensive than firewood in the south. Efficiency, combined with fuel savings, reduces costs by a factor of three or four, and the larger the blast furnace, the lower the cost.

Converter steelmaking is more cost-effective, the converter does not even need fuel, and the oxidation rate of molten iron is relatively fast. If it is a traditional steel frying method, it not only needs to consume a lot of fuel, but also needs to be continuously forged after being baked, and the manpower and material resources consumed are unknown.

And now, the price of a pound of good steel transported from the south to the north is as high as 150 yuan. The steel required for a flintlock pistol is about seven catties, and the material cost alone is 1.75 taels, and the craftsman's salary to build a musket is only 5 yuan of silver.

In terms of mining, coking, and transportation, the cost of steel per catty is not more than three cents, and the smelting cost is even lower, and the final cost will never exceed 5 cents.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youxiao was very excited.

The cost of 5 cents, which means that the cost of a flintlock pistol, will be reduced to less than 0.6 taels of silver. And the cost of military weapons such as steel knives, which are easier to forge, has plummeted.

This means a reduction in military spending. With the same military spending, more soldiers can be armed into battle.

At the same time, the huge profits of steel smelting are also placed in front of Zhu Youxiao. Because of the poor quality of steel in the north, high-quality fried steel is sold for 150 wen per catty. If you use blast furnace ironmaking and converter steelmaking technology, this is no different from grabbing money.

Of course, demand is a problem, after all, civil steel does not need such good quality steel. However, the efficiency of blast furnace ironmaking is extremely high, and the people need agricultural tools, as well as production and living tools such as iron pots, which contain a huge market. In particular, the purchasing power of the market in the South is even more impressive.

As long as iron and steel smelting develops, the problem of economic imbalance between the north and the south can be initially resolved.

As the so-called benefits of salt and iron, now the development of the salt industry, it is obvious that the boiled salt in the Huaibei region can be revoked in the future, and the salt can be developed in Hebei and Shandong. Iron and steel smelting is developed in Handan and Xingtai areas. As long as the salt and iron treatment is grasped in the hands, there is basically no shortage of money.

At this time, Zhu Youxiao was thinking about how to monopolize steel smelting.

Obviously, blast furnace and converter technology, if you want to make high-quality steel, then you must have high-quality ore and coking coal, which are relatively scarce in China.

Without this resource, the quality of molten steel produced by private steel mills will definitely not be good, and the same is true for molten iron. But if it wants to sell at a high price, once the private steel mill has mastered the blast furnace technology, it can also compete with the government.

So the question arises, how to block the spread of blast furnace technology?

The three big words 'patent law' suddenly appeared in Zhu Youxiao's mind. This kind of thing, naturally, has the benefits, encouraging people to invent and create zào and improve production technology! However, the disadvantage is obviously also great, that is, it hinders the diffusion of technology and makes it impossible to put some advanced productive forces into use.

However, patent law is a great weapon for capitalists! Although the inventor can benefit from the invention and creation, he or she may not receive a penny, or only a small part. Because for a patent to be put into use, there must first be a platform, but these resources are in the hands of capitalists. Capitalists can buy these patents to prevent other competitors from using the technology, or gain a cost advantage through the patents.

In later generations, there were many open source technologies, but they did not charge royalties. However, in the future, capital is king, so even if some technologies are open source, no one will promote them. For example, computer operating systems, among the open source technologies of later generations, there are operating systems that are better than Microsoft's operating systems, but they are not popular.

Now that Zhu Youxiao wants to develop royal capital, it is time to come up with a patent law.