When Wang Chenhao returned to the mansion, his wife Li Youyi was playing mahjong with the three noble ladies in the back hall.

During this time, Wang Chenhao has been busy running around in order to encircle his subordinates and cultivate personal power. Li Youyi, as Wang Chenhao's wife, was very worried that her husband was too hardworking, so she secretly helped.

In the social interaction of the middle and upper class under the feudal system, female dependents with a certain status have a certain influence on their respective husbands and families. This husband's family can be their husbands, children, parents-in-law, uncles, protégés, etc., and this small social circle between the female relatives is of great help to the men of their respective families.

Li Youyi is such a character, as the second-grade lady of the decree and Li Hongzhang's goddaughter, with these two identities, she can talk to the Fujin ladies of many powerful families in the dynasty, and through talking with them, many things that are inconvenient for the officialdom between men to say and mention are revealed by their respective female dependents, but it saves a lot of trouble.

For example, the Empress Dowager Cixi had a lot of things that were inconvenient to order in front of the ministers of civil and military affairs, and her method was to call a group of high-ranking officials Fujin and their wives to the Summer Palace every once in a while, and then secretly accept the opportunity.

As Wang Chenhao's wife, Li Youyi often invited the wives of officials of the newly built army yamen in Zhili to gather in the mansion or travel together, so as to envelop the wives of these officials, and then let them go back to influence their husbands. In this way, if Wang Chenhao has any big or small orders, these officials will also do their best to do things for Wang Chenhao.

For Li Youyi's silent dedication, Wang Chenhao is naturally very grateful. Behind a successful man, the support of a woman who pays silently is indispensable, and when Wang Chenhao felt it personally, he found that hidden happiness.

Wang Chenhao went back to the study and waited, during which the maid came over to deliver tea and water.

"Go and tell Madame, sir, I'll take her to the beach in a while."

"Yes, sir, the slave maid will go and tell Madame, Madame must be happy!"

The waiter smiled and took the order, and turned to leave.

Wang Chenhao sat down to rest, and then the housekeeper Li Dehai came to report that Wang Shizhen asked to see him, Wang Chenhao thought of what he told Wang Shizhen to do a few days ago, and he must have eyebrows, so he hurriedly asked someone to bring him over.

Not long after, Wang Shizhen led the way to Wang Chenhao's study.

"Humble Wang Shizhen, see your lord!"

"Shizhen doesn't have to be polite, please take a seat."

"Master Xie."

Wang Shizhen bowed his hand and put his robe next to him.

"How's it going?" Wang Chenhao couldn't wait to ask.

Wang Shizhen replied: "In accordance with the instructions of the adults, they have done a detailed survey in the area of Qian'an and Luanxian, and with the help of several senior local prospectors, they really found that there is a large amount of iron ore in the remaining veins of Yanshan near Qian'an, and Luanxian County has raw coal reserves of the same scale as Kaiping Coal Mine. Both coal and iron are shallow and easy to mine. Congratulations, sir, you've caught two big fish in this net. ”

"That would be great!" Wang Chenhao was already prepared in his heart, but he couldn't help but be surprised when he heard it.

It turned out that after Wang Chenhao made a gambling contract with a cadre of officers that day, Wang Chenhao, who was guarding the 100,000 taels of silver, thought that it was not enough to have rights, but also to have his own small treasury, otherwise the funds were controlled by others and everything had to be listened to by others.

Wang Chenhao decided to start his own side business at that time, Li Hongzhang not only had a Huai army and a Beiyang naval division who dared to fight with the imperial court, Li Hongzhang was mainly supported by dozens of Beiyang industries, and he had enough financial power to have the ability to bargain with the imperial court.

Wang Chenhao learned a lot from Li Hongzhang's words that day, which strengthened his idea of starting his own side business.

Wang Chenhao is well aware that the second industrial revolution is in a period of vigorous development, and all the world's major powers are vigorously developing their own steel industry, and steel has become a standard to measure the strength of a country's industrial capacity.

In China, the slow development of the steel industry under the Qing Dynasty led to a fraction of the output of steel and iron in developed countries, and with the continuous development of the Westernization Movement, the domestic demand for a large amount of steel had to be imported from abroad at a high price. And the serious bureaucratic habits have made the country's steel enterprises languish, and they have run one by one.

In 1875, Li Hongzhang supervised the Cizhou Coal and Iron Mine in Hebei Province and ordered iron-melting machinery and equipment from the British, but the transaction could not be completed due to the difficult and expensive transportation in Cizhou. The first attempt to hold a new steel business failed. In 1886, Pan Wei, the governor of Guizhou, founded the Qingchang factory, first using an earthen furnace, and then ordering iron-making and steel-making equipment from England, which was installed in 1888. In the end, due to the lack of capital, coal and iron ore of the Qing court, coupled with poor management, no one was proficient in technology, and the operation was discontinued in 1893. This was the second attempt to build a modern steel plant. In January 1890, Zhang Zhidong built the Hanyang Iron Works in Dabie Mountain, Hubei, and it was completed and put into operation in September 1893. The whole factory includes 6 large factories such as pig iron factory, Beise hemp steel factory, Simmons steel factory, rail factory, iron goods factory, wrought iron factory and 4 small factories such as machine factory, iron casting factory, iron making factory, fish fillet hook and nail factory. The initial funding was set at more than 2.46 million taels, but in 1892, the Qing government allocated an additional 420,000 taels, and by the time it was completed, the actual expenditure was about 5 million taels.

Due to poor planning, the purchased equipment is not suitable for refining the ore with high phosphorus content provided by Daye Iron Mine, the steel-making material does not meet the requirements of railway rails, and the transportation cost of coal, coke and iron ore is high, and the substandard steel produced is higher than the international price, so Hanyang Iron and Steel is in trouble as soon as it is completed and put into operation, and China's steel industry has been hit hard at the beginning.

Of course, the main reason is that the domestic mineral exploration team is not skilled enough, and they are helpless in the face of the vast underground mineral deposits, and they cannot find a suitable steel production base.

In January 1895, the Hanyang Iron Works lost 1.7 million taels of silver after more than a year of operation, and was ordered by the imperial court to suspend business for rectification. And Li Hongzhang, the first governor in the world, also experienced the failure of the preparation of the Cizhou iron mine, and then did not mention the construction of the iron and steel plant.

The two most powerful feudal officials of the Qing Dynasty both hit nails in the steel industry, and since then, people have chosen to avoid the affairs of the steel mill as if they were not talking about state affairs.

Wang Chenhao decided to intervene in the steel industry after combining the domestic and foreign situation and market. This is not only a profiteering industry, but also the foundation and economic lifeline of the country's industrial development in the future. Only by grasping the lifeline of the country's economy can we be invincible.

At that time, China was the world's largest steel country, and several large steel bases in the country were well known. Wang Chenhao combined his current situation, he is in Beiyang Zhili Province, so he chose to build a steel base in the Qian'an area. The iron ore belt around Qian'an has reserves of more than 5 billion tons, with a grade of more than 30%, which is very easy to mine and is the steel pillar of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Base.

Under Wang Chenhao's instructions, Wang Shizhen was suspiciously fooled by him into going to the villages around Qian'an to investigate. Because Wang Chenhao clearly told him that there are iron ore belts under the remaining veins of Yanshan around Qian'an, the work of the exploration team brought by Wang Shizhen is very simple, dig a hole and see if there is iron ore to know if it is true or false.

As a result, as Wang Chenhao said, the exploration team found iron ore deposits in the first hole not deep. Wang Shizhen still couldn't believe it, and then ordered people to dig holes in several nearby mountains in turn, and all of them found iron ore belts. It wasn't until that moment that Wang Shizhen believed Wang Chenhao's words, and from then on he worshipped Wang Chenhao as a living immortal.

Next, Wang Shizhen immediately led the team to Luan County, the next county, and also dug holes in the mountainous areas around Luan County to find coal according to Wang Chenhao's instructions. Even the people of Luan County were dumbfounded, suffering for several lifetimes but not knowing that there were treasures buried under their feet.

The exploration technology of this thing is very backward, the average explorer wants to find mineral deposits, at least one and a half years of exploration if he is lucky, and it is good to be able to find it in three and five years if he is unlucky, and the saddest explorer can not find it if he wanders around in the mountains all his life until he becomes a wild man.

However, in such an environment, Wang Shizhen and a group of nameless exploration teams found a super-large iron ore belt and a super-large coal mine belt in less than 20 days, which was like a slap in the face to the authorities in the exploration industry.

Of course, Wang Chenhao definitely does not admit that he discovered this mine, and Wang Shizhen is no exception.