Outside the northwest, the beacon is full of fire, and Dangtu, not far from Nanjing, is also lively.

In just six years, the former dilapidated Dangtu County has become one of the most important cities on both sides of the Yangtze River. The county is bustling with people, and less than three miles south along the newly built cement road is the famous Dangtu Iron and Steel Plant in the country. After six years of development, it has not only become an important steel base in the country, but also produces more than ten kinds of steel products such as seamless steel pipes, cold-rolled plates, I-beams and rail steels.

When Bernard, the British ambassador to China, arrived here, he was also attracted by the bustling county town and followed the dragon dance troupe towards the steel mill. When I arrived at the gate of the factory, it was already crowded with people, including villagers from all over the neighborhood who watched the excitement, as well as industrialists from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai who came from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, as well as a large number of reporters and government dignitaries, and even saw a lot of people with the same face as him. In the center of the festive banner at the entrance of the factory, a vermilion plaque was piled up with huge red cloth flowers, and several huge Chinese characters on the plaque made him frown!

It is written a big news that inspires China, even ahead of the Far East.

"Millions of prosperous countries, China's first."

"Your Excellency, let's go inside." The counselor saw him staring at the plaque in a daze, and thought he was looking for something. But Bernard shook his head in surprise: "Let's take a look first." "Take a look? The Counsellor couldn't figure out what was there to see about it. But I didn't want to ask too much, so I had to mix with him in the crowd to watch the Chinese celebrations.

This figure is nothing for Europe and the United States, but it is extremely eye-catching in the Far East! You must know that last year, Japan's steel production was only 300,000 tons! But here it has already reached a million. And this is one of them, the Republic of China currently has six steel mills, with an annual crude steel output of at least about 2 million. So a decade ago, almost equal two countries have rapidly widened the distance on this issue, which casts a shadow over the future of the Anglo-Japanese alliance.

Bernard searched the middle-aged man who was being interviewed at the factory gate. Although he had never dealt with him, he had heard of Pan Tianzhu, because he was able to run this steel mill completely because of Yang Qiu's strong support. For the current Far Eastern diplomats, Yang Qiu's every move has become the focus of everyone's usual collection and discussion, so everything related to him is worth noting.

But he didn't know that there were several pairs of eyes in the crowd staring at him as well.

Chan Ho-fai is in a wheelchair. The legs are covered with a thin blanket. He is now the head of the National Strategic Intelligence Section, a new organization that is different from the Security Bureau and the Military Intelligence Bureau, which is mainly responsible for some work at the national strategic level, and Yang Qiu also hopes to divide the increasingly powerful Security Bureau. So that several departments can contain each other, so that one will not dominate. It's a pity that he no longer has the ability to become an excellent agent sent overseas, so he patted his leg with some regret, looked at the eager but a little nervous disciple around him, and said with a smile: "Yunong, don't be so nervous. Do you know the purpose of his trip? Does it have anything to do with the train in Japan? ”

23-year-old Dai Chunfeng was a student at Zhejiang Normal University, and after marrying in Shanghai in 1915, he joined the National Guard as a customs patrol military policeman, and was admitted to the National Defense University in 17. He is a second-year student in the fourth phase of the Intelligence Division. It was precisely because of this application that I met Chen Haohui, who came back from Japan as a temporary lecturer. Because he is intelligent and talented in intelligence, Chen Haohui brought him as an assistant after he returned to the mountain, focusing on cultivating and investigating his mind.

Dai Chunfeng went out on a mission for the first time, although the teacher was by his side, he was still a little nervous, and said: "The intelligence said that it was for the northwest, and Britain has repeatedly asked us not to continue to expand the war in the northwest. I didn't say that it had anything to do with the Japanese car. However, I heard that the Military Intelligence Bureau and the Security Bureau had different opinions on when to take the Japanese cargo, and yesterday Director Fang and Director Zhang also had a meeting, and I heard that they were going to wait for the Japanese to go to sea before seizing them in the name of smuggling! ”

"These bastards. They are afraid that the world will not be chaotic! Chen Haohui scolded with a smile and said: "Let them toss this matter, since it was proposed by the Military Intelligence Bureau, the General Staff must deliberately do it." ”

"Teacher, you mean the navy."

"It's none of our business!" Chen Haohui glared at Dai Chunfeng, this disciple has a flexible mind and a careful mind, and is very talented in intelligence, but he has a strong desire for power, and he always likes to inquire about some internal things, so he took the opportunity to knock and said: "Yunong." If you want to do this well, there are some things that you don't want to touch! If you want to get wet, change your career. ”

Dai Chunfeng is the dream age when he wants to do great things, how could he change careers, not to mention that he also likes this kind of work. Hearing the warning in the teacher's words, he nodded hurriedly: "Don't worry, teacher, Chunfeng knows that it is wrong." ”

"That's good. I'll go back and tell the northwest side. If that's right, the poor party should also send someone. ”

"Yes." The two talked quietly without causing a ripple.

Pan Tianzhu, who was surrounded by a group of reporters, was unaware of this ubiquitous undercurrent like ordinary people, and his eyes bloomed in a suit and leather shoes. In 1912, as the son of Pan Lu, the founder of Guizhou Qingxi, he went to Sichuan to meet Yang Qiu, and immediately obtained investment, and when the Tu Iron and Steel Plant began to explore the site. At the beginning of 1913, he took the ore to the United States to experiment and select equipment, and later that year purchased smelting equipment such as open-hearth furnace from the American Iron and Steel Company, and purchased 7 kinds of profile processing equipment such as nickel steel, rebar, I-beam, seamless steel pipe, H-beam, and rail steel. In the spring of '14, the steel mill broke ground, and in '16, all American technicians arrived and workers were trained, and 100,000 metric tons of crude steel were produced that year. By 1917, steel production had reached 400,000 tons. In 18 years, 2 self-produced open-hearth furnaces in Hanyang were added, with an output of 750,000 tons, and at the end of the year, 1 large hydraulic forging machine of 6,000 tons was shipped back from Russia, and 2 electric furnaces made in Sweden were added. In the only 10 months since January this year, crude steel output has soared to 1.01 million tons, becoming the first largest steel mill in Asia with a million tons of crude steel smelting capacity in the country and even in Asia.

This is not only his personal honor, but also a true portrayal of Yang Qiu's determination to revitalize the industry! Dangtu has also become a microcosm of the industrial progress of the Republic of China.

The two factories in Hanyang and Chongqing are taking the high-end route of military industry, and the iron ore resources are not abundant, so they are not in a hurry to increase production capacity, and have been stable at an annual output of 500,000 tons. However, the former has a joint venture with France in Changchun, and the latter has also gone to Almaty and East Kazakhstan to prospect for minerals, so it has not stopped expanding. The Anshan steel mill in Fengtian initially had a design capacity of only 150,000 tons, and has already ordered smelting equipment from Hanyang, Italy and Sweden, and they are trying to catch up with better resource advantages. The Sino-French joint steel mill in Changchun is designed to have a capacity of 1 million tons, but it was previously due to a shortage of workers. The railway has not been connected to the Maoshan mining area, so it has been using Anshan's iron ore, and the output is seriously insufficient, but with the opening of the railway is imminent, it is expected to reach 400,000 tons next year. Baotou has started construction. Next year, there will also be at least 200,000 production capacity, plus the million-ton Kunming Shuicheng Iron and Steel Plant, which has broken ground, and the planned Urumqi Iron and Steel Plant in Northwest China, crude steel output is expected to break through the 5 million tons before 1925.

In addition to large enterprises, the Taiyuan Steel Mill in Shanxi Province brokered by Yan Xishan, the Shandong Coal and Iron Plant invested by Liang Shiyi, the former minister of transportation of the old Beiyang, the Wuchang Shipyard and the Ningbo Shipyard jointly run by Song Weichen and several wealthy businessmen, the Hunan Aircraft Factory founded by Ba Yuzao who resigned in Chongqing and several classmates studying in the United States, and the Changsha Automobile Factory invested by Tan Yanmin are also booming.

There are also concerns that government officials' involvement in industry and commerce will lead to some bad practices. But this is the choice of the times! In the era when consulting was not developed, these people had first-hand information, and only they could catch up with the pace of the world, even if Europe and the United States were originally engaged in industry, it was the government and the aristocracy, so Yang Qiu turned a blind eye to this phenomenon, because with the development of society, education, and the improvement of the law, it will gradually get better.

Numbers have been refreshed, and steel production has increased year by year. Yang Qiu's first five-year industrial plan for the Republic of China proposed in 1915 was entering the final sprint stage. Hanyang, Chongqing, Zhengzhou, Jiangnan, Mawei, Qiuxin, Qingdao, Qinzhou, Dangtu Anqing, Xiangtan (coal and chemical industry), Guangnan (Guangxi Yunnan non-ferrous metals), Fengtian, Changchun, Baotou and Jiujiang, 15 state-owned or private group enterprises have taken shape. They alone have 21 military-industrial projects. There are also 3 aircraft factories, 5 shipyards, 5 boiler and steam turbine plants, 6 tractor and truck plants, and 4 engine plants. 3 locomotive plants, 24 different machinery and metal processing plants, 7 chemical and fertilizer plants, 19 coal and non-ferrous metal smelters and 117 other sub-enterprises! The total number of workers has increased from 20,000 at the beginning of Hanyang to 350,000 at present. At the peak of the European War in 1918, the highest annual output value was as high as 1.5 billion people! They alone have brought nearly 400 million yuan of financial revenue to the country.

The output value of 1.5 billion yuan seems to be a lot, but it is still far from enough compared with the equipment manufacturing industry of European and American industries, so the fiscal revenue of the Republic of China has not completely gotten rid of its dependence on agriculture. Moreover, some of these factories are still very primitive, and some have only just begun to be built, but this does not prevent them from gradually supporting the backbone of national industry. Protected by repatriated tariffs, they can temporarily avoid the onslaught of cheap international goods, they can concentrate on expanding and accelerating, and the procurement bias in population and state construction projects ensures that they survive the initial phase of capital accumulation. What's more, because they all use the subsystem contracting and primary assembly line methods proposed by Yang Qiu. So the invisible gross output is much more than several times, and there are about 2 to 3 million people living around them all over the country.

New industries such as electric power, transportation, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, communications, and optics have gradually surfaced as the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has begun to draw up the second five-year plan, and the Ministry of Finance has also begun to draw up a list of private enterprises to support the second round. No wonder Li Yuanhong smiled from ear to ear, the more he became a cheap president, the more he became more and more experienced, he was very enthusiastic with Pan Tianzhu and others, and he was also in front of workers and reporters. Demonstrated his ability to speak and encouraged everyone to keep up their efforts.

It was rare to be in high spirits, Li Yuanhong was shy and wanted to say more, Wang Anlan came over and grabbed him: "President." The British ambassador has come and wants to see you. ”

"What is he here for?" Li Yuanhong's small eyes squeezed and looked at Yang Du on the side, who smiled slightly: "The vice president ordered to send troops to Russia, and also transferred 3 more brigades from Irkutsk and Xinjiang to support Andijan, they are in a hurry in the northwest!" ”…… (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point (qidian) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support, is my biggest motivation. )