The news that Huang Hao brought back from Xiangshan was indeed good news, and according to the Germans, even building an iron factory with an annual output of more than one million in Xiangshan was more than enough.

"If everything really goes well, then in the future, Dangtu will become a heavy industry base in Anhui..."

On the other hand, Lihe and the foreign company also received Victor's report, in fact, when reporting to Huang Hao, Victor had some reservations, but he didn't need to do so in the face of Lihe and the foreign company, so soon the Lihe foreign company got the most real situation.

"At least hundreds of millions of tons..."Looking at the telegram sent back by Victor, Galio frowned slightly, this data was somewhat unexpected by him.

At the same time, Urgat, who was sitting next to him, looked a little strange when he saw him. "What's wrong? Any questions? ”

"Question—" Galio shook his head. I'm afraid the situation is a bit unexpected..."

As he spoke, Galio handed the telegram from Victor to Urgat, and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

Taking the telegram from Galio's hand, Urgart looked a little surprised. "Hundreds of millions of tons?"

"It's at least hundreds of millions of tons, not counting the iron ore found in Gushan and other places, I'm afraid there are hundreds of millions of tons in total..." Maybe we're in a big problem for ourselves this time..."

With hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore reserves, it may not be enough to build an iron plant with an annual output of more than 10 million, but there is no problem with a few million. At this time, the combined crude steel output of France and Russia did not reach 5 million tons, and an iron mill with an annual output of several million yuan was almost the same as the crude steel output of the two countries combined.

Of course, if it's just like this, Galio won't be worried. After all, the iron factory is no more than anything else, and it is very difficult to make a profit, especially for China during this period.

If a businessman wants to run an iron factory. In a few years, if you don't want to make a profit at all, it's already good if you don't lose money. The iron factory, which costs nearly 10 million yuan, will undoubtedly be an extremely important burden during this time, and few Chinese businessmen may be able to bear this burden at this time.

But Yan Shao is different, his family property even Galio has heard of it, and the extremely large burden for others is actually no different from a stone with a big fingernail in his eyes.

Although Galio is a businessman, he is also a white man. If a country as huge as China does leap into the ranks of great powers, it will not be good news for any European country...

"You're really foolish..."Ergart frowned at first after hearing Galio's thoughts. But it didn't take long for it to unfold. "China is within the power of the British, and the British don't say anything, so you want me to talk about it. The stronger the Chinese, the better. It would be better to drive the British out of Northeast Asia..."At this point, there was even a hint of anticipation on Ergart's face.

Because of Yan Shao's troubles, relations between the British and Germans, at least in Shanghai, were not as tense as in cities such as Tianjin, which also made the atmosphere between the two businessmen much friendlier.

But even then they knew very well that when Europe was already divided into two camps, war could break out at any time, and then they would be two hostile countries...

Asia is arguably the most important region for the UK. India, in particular, is known as 'the most brilliant diamond in the crown of the British crown', and if there is one in Asia, it can contain the power of Britain. It would be a pleasure for Germany to even be able to attack India—————— of course, this is somewhat unlikely, because no Asian country has such strength at the moment, not even Japan...

Of course, Ergart knew this, but even so, as long as the Chinese could expel the British from the Yangtze River valley, it would be a good thing for Germany, so he didn't care about it at all...

Listening to Urgart's thoughts, Gallio shook his head and didn't say anything.

He was well aware that there was a big difference between the two men's views on the matter, that is, he was looking at the problem from the point of view of all white people, while Urgarte was from the point of view of Germany and the Allies...

"Maybe he's right—" Galio drank the remaining whiskey from his glass, thinking of the growing tensions in Europe.

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After arriving at Xiangshan, Huang Hao quickly gathered people to start construction not far from the discovery of the iron mine. After learning the news that Yan Shao was going to invest nearly 10 million yuan in Xiangshan to build an iron factory, Tu Zhixian was also overjoyed.

For Wuhu Zhixian, Tu Zhixian has long been jealous, after all, such a large-scale industry has appeared under its jurisdiction, whether it is in terms of annual benefits or political performance, it is a jealous thing.

Now that this kind of good thing has finally fallen on his head, how does this make him unhappy.

Therefore, after Huang Hao rushed to Xiangshan with people, Tu Zhixian was quite cooperative, and almost every link was convenient, so that Huang Hao didn't even encounter any trouble when he built a factory in Xiangshan.

On the other hand, after selecting the main source of iron ore, Yan Shao was also busy with the road.

"The highway mainly leads to Dangtu County from Xiangshan, so that the steel coming out of the iron factory can be directly transported from Dangtu County to Wuhu or other places..."

This time's plan is not as good as the last plan for the living quarters of the workers, although it is quite grandiose, but after all, there is no need to invest more than 10 million, so Yan Shao just called Li Liang and Ke Fu to the office.

"Highway...", he pondered the word carefully in his heart, and Ding Mao didn't understand the meaning of the word. Highway is road, what do you do with a highway? ”

It's no wonder that he would be so strange, after all, the first highway in the world appeared more than 20 years later, and at this time, although there were already cars. However, people really use horse-drawn carriages or trains to travel, and the use of automobiles is still quite rare, and Ford's most famous Model T in the United States only appeared after 1908. Naturally, he couldn't figure out why he had to add the word "high-speed" in front of the highway.

Not only did he not understand, but even Li Liang and the others couldn't figure it out.

However, if they don't understand it, they can't understand it, and this does not prevent them from understanding the road.

"If it is really a road from Xiangshan all the way to Dangtu, it will indeed be much more convenient in terms of transportation, but..."After touching his chin with his hand and thinking about the roads he had seen in the United States back then, Li Liang frowned slightly. Boss. What kind of roads are you going to build? Asphalt, or ash? ”

Of course, Yan Shao understood what Li Liang meant, so he replied without hesitation.

Generally speaking. Asphalt pavement is better than ash pavement on the highway, especially in later generations, the asphalt pavement layer is relatively soft, so cars will feel very comfortable walking on it. There is a certain degree of elasticity. Whereas, concrete is hard. The car will feel hard when walking on it, and some small defects on the road surface will give people a strong vibration feeling.

However, at this time, the cars were all horse-drawn carriages, and even the highway was mainly for horse-drawn carriages, so there was no need to be so particular at all.

And the asphalt is easy to age, the color of the pavement is dark, it is easy to absorb heat, resulting in a certain degree of dissolution, Anhui belongs to the south, the climate itself is very hot, and it will be very troublesome to encounter this kind of problem.

In addition, the cost of filtering the road surface is much higher than that of the ash road. So no matter how you look at it, it's more cost-effective to be a gray road.

But most importantly, there is a lot of filtration required to pave the road. If you want to pave from Xiangshan to Dangtu, the required filtration is even more astronomical, not to mention the highway from Xiangshan to Dangtu, there are also roads from Dangtu to Wuhu and roads linking other iron mines. Not to mention the price of these filtration needs, Yan Shao has a problem of where to find so much asphalt, and he can't import it from the United States or Mexico, right?

"Gray Road..."Li Liang smiled. Fortunately, the expansion of the ash factory has ended, otherwise it would be really difficult to supply so much ash, especially now that the company has projects everywhere..."

Because the original ash factory used equipment of more than 20,000 silver dollars given by the British, the amount of ash that could be produced per day was only less than 100 barrels, and it was not enough to supply Yan Shao for their own use, let alone export it.

However, when the funds for the oil field are in place and Yan Shao has made a huge additional investment, the ash output of the ash plant has increased from less than 100 barrels to more than 10,000 barrels per day, which means that it can produce at least nearly 4 million barrels of ash per year.

Even in 1936, China's largest ash plant, Qixin, produced just over 1 million barrels a year, while Yushi's ash plant was at least twice as large as Qixin's.

If this were not the case, Yan Shao would not have been able to consider the planning of the Wuhu 'new area' and the expressway.

————————————————————

The matter of the iron factory had already surprised Dangtu Zhixian, and after learning that Yan Shao also planned to build a gray road on the distance from Xiangshan to Dangtu, he was even more happy to have a smile on his face for several days.

"It's all a political achievement..."

After nightfall, facing his favorite concubine in the seventh room, Tu Zhixian said so.

On the other hand, Huang Hao, who was busy with the affairs of the iron factory, was busy with the highway affairs, fortunately, Dangtu itself also has a port, so there is no need to worry about transportation, only need to transport the ash from the port in Wuhu to Dangtu.

After taking over the task, Huang Hao also hired thousands of migrant workers in Dangtu to build roads from Dangtu Port.

Fortunately, although neither Huang Hao nor anyone else has any experience in building highways (or no one in the world has this kind of experience), but in this era when even cars are not practical, the requirements of highways do not need to be very high, after all, at this time there is not even a decent truck, and the traffic is by horse-drawn carriages, so there is no need to worry about overloading, and the geography of Anhui is not very complicated, so Huang Hao's work is going very smoothly... (To be continued......)