When Lin Yuan heard this, he was surprised: "What the hell? ”

Cheng Jiuzhen said: "After turning over the hillside, there is a large open space, there is no grass on it, if you turn over a layer of soil, a pale red stone will be exposed below, those things are too evil, once they stick to the body, the sticky place will hurt, and it will be good in a few days." ”

Lin Yuan suddenly thought of something in his heart, and he said, "Let's go and have a look together." ”

Cheng Jiuzhen hurriedly stopped and said, "You can't go, the ancestors have said that you can't go to that place." ”

The woman was already crying and kneeling on the ground, Cheng Jiuzhen sighed and said, "Go back, die in this place, it's fate!" ”

Lin Yuan said: "Ninth Master, I'm afraid that place is not a ghost land, but a treasure land. ”

Cheng Jiuzhen frowned and asked, "Venerable guest, what did you say?" ”

Lin Yuan smiled and said, "Ninth Master, let me go and have a look." ”

Cheng Jiuzhen gritted her teeth and said, "Then I will give up my life to accompany the gentleman, and let's go together." ”

Lin Yuan smiled: "Get two towels with water." ”

Soon the towels were brought, Lin Yuan and Cheng Jiuzhen climbed over the hillside, and Lin Yuan couldn't help but sigh: "It's so windy." ”

It turns out that the mountains on all sides of this clearing are exactly wide on the outside and narrow on the inside, and when the wind blows in from the outside of the mountain, it is equivalent to being accelerated, so the wind here is very strong.

Lin Yuan walked to the open space, took a shovel, shoveled on the ground, turned over the soil on the surface, and revealed a pale red and yellow stone layer, Lin Yuan saw these things, and almost jumped up excitedly, these are sodium saltpeter!

These things are excellent materials for the production of potassium nitrate, potassium nitrate and iron sulfide are burned together in the air to form sulfuric acid, what is the basic raw material of inorganic chemicals? Three acids and two alkalis! After having sulfuric acid, it can react with potassium nitrate to obtain nitric acid, and sulfuric acid can be mixed and heated with sodium chloride to obtain hydrochloric acid, so that the triacid is there, and the inorganic chemical industry has taken an important step!

It stands to reason that albite is the easiest to hydrolyze and lose, but on this island, there is such a large mine of albiter, and I have to sigh at the magic of nature!

Lin Yuan explained the reason to Cheng Jiuzhen, although Cheng Jiuzhen didn't know the purpose of these stones, but when he saw Lin Yuan so happy, he was also happy.

The two looked around, but did not find the child, at this time the sky was slightly bright, and the two felt that this place did not look like someone had been here, and the child might not have been here.

When the two returned to their place, everyone was still waiting for them, and when the woman saw them, she said apologetically: "I'm really sorry, my child didn't go to the ghost land, he just ran out of the land to play, I must teach him a good lesson when I go back." ”

Cheng Jiuzhen smiled: "It's okay, we have found a treasure this time!" ”

Everyone was overjoyed, Lin Yuan didn't care about celebrating, and quickly returned to the Beijing ship station, Su Zhengming heard the news, patted his thigh and smiled: "Great!" ”

But Su Zhengming's face quickly sank, and he said worriedly: "Our chemical industry needs equipment!" These machines require a lot of steel, but we don't have even a little bit of steel right now, and we urgently need machining equipment such as lathes. ”

At this time, someone came to report that the British cargo ship was coming with coal and iron ore, and now it was in the port, and the British who came quarreled with Old Man Liu, and people on both sides were going to do it!

When Lin Yuan heard this, he hurriedly followed the man to the port. As soon as Lin Yuan arrived, he saw a group of stevedores with shovels standing in the clearing, standing there at a loss. Liu Jinqiu sat cross-legged on the coal pile, panting for breath, and across from him stood an Englishman with a red face and a thick neck, and it was obvious that the two had just quarreled.

When Liu Jinqiu saw Lin Yuan coming, he picked up a piece of coal and stretched it out under the nose of the British, and said angrily: "You girl, DoyourEnglishcallthisbituminouscoal?" (Do you British call this bituminous coal?) ）”

Lin Yuan couldn't help but snort when he heard Liu Jinqiu's combination of Chinese and English scolding, he helped Liu Jinqiu up from the ground, and said with a smile: "Old Liu, why did this group of Brits provoke your old man?" ”

Unexpectedly, the Englishman said angrily: "Who do you call the British!" ”

Lin Yuan didn't expect this Englishman to understand Chinese, so he hurriedly said, "Sorry, nooffense!" (Sorry, no offense)"

Liu Jinqiu said angrily: "Just call you British, are you bullying us We haven't seen bituminous coal!" Take a boatload of lignite to fool us. ”

In the process of smelting steel, coke is needed as fuel, and there is very little natural coke, which needs to be coking from bituminous coal. Coal can be divided into many kinds according to the degree of coalification, this lignite is a kind of coal with a relatively low degree of coalization, and this kind of coal cannot be coking to obtain coke.

The price of lignite is indeed much cheaper than bituminous coal, and the British supplier thought that no one in the Ryukyus understood the difference between bituminous coal and lignite, so he secretly replaced bituminous coal with lignite.

The Englishman knew that he was wrong, but he still argued strongly: "We are obviously bituminous coal, good bituminous coal!" ”

Liu Jinqiu said with a smile: "When you went to school, did you skip class!" Bituminous coal has a metallic luster, you look at your ship's coal, that piece has such a luster! ”

Liu Jinqiu had taught at a university, and it was common for college students to skip classes, and in a hurry, he never thought that there was no such word in the 19th century. The Englishman also didn't understand it, and wanted to argue, Liu Jinqiu threw the piece of coal back into the coal pile and said: "How did you bring the coal from your boatload and how to pull it back for me, I want to see your iron ore now, I estimate that the grade of your iron ore is not enough!" ”

The British commanded the workers to unload a batch of iron ore and pile it on the open field, there were three ships of iron ore, after unloading, Liu Jinqiu looked at the red stones and said to Lin Yuan: "The British didn't play tricks on the iron ore, these are hematite, the main component is ferric oxide, so it will show red or light red, so it is also called red ore." The iron content of this iron ore is usually around 70% in theory, and although there is no magnetite (the main component is ferric oxide), the grade meets the requirements of our contract. ”

The Englishman smiled and said, "There is no problem with this batch of iron ore, we can sign a contract, right?" ”

Lin Yuan smiled: "We still have to go to the boat to have a look." The Englishman looked displeased and muttered something in English, but Lin Yuan and Liu Jinqiu didn't understand, knowing that he must be scolding them in the British vernacular.

Lin Yuan and Liu Jinqiu boarded the ship and inspected them one cabin after another, the first two ships were fine, but when they arrived at the third ship, Liu Jinqiu became angry as soon as he saw the iron ore, and said to Lin Yuan: "You actually used pyrite to fool us!" ”

As he spoke, Liu Jinqiu picked up a shovel and turned over the ores, only to see that under the red stones, there were yellow-green stones, Liu Jinqiu was so angry that his face turned red, and he said angrily: "Do you know the way?" I hate cheating the most, when I was in college, I copied a thesis when I had an undergraduate graduation project, and I didn't let him graduate! These foreign devils actually dare to fool me!

Lin Yuan was really afraid that he would pick up the shovel and shine it on the head of the British profiteer, so he hurriedly took the shovel and said with a smile: "Teacher Liu, you are angry, beware of being angry." ”

When Lin Yuan heard the three words "pyrite", his heart suddenly moved, and he whispered a few words to Liu Lao, then pulled the Englishman aside and said with a smile: "What? The price of pyrite is lower than that of hematite? ”

The British knew that the trick had been discovered, so they had to say: "Now Britain is crazy about building warships, and the demand for steel is huge, and now the price of iron ore has doubled by half." ”

Lin Yuan smiled: "We can sign the contract, but you have to give us some benefits." ”

Looking at the British with a confused face, Lin Yuan said: "These iron ores were originally worth 250,000 pounds, and now we pay you 200,000 pounds, you must not suffer a loss, because these iron ores are worth up to 180,000 pounds, but our contract still says 200,000 pounds, so that 50,000 pounds will fall into my pocket." Do you understand? But we can't take that coal. ”

The British nodded yes again and again, and so the two sides settled. When it was time to leave, Liu Jinqiu smiled and said: "You really have a way, so you can save us 50,000 pounds, and you can also get the pyrite that we urgently need for the development of the chemical industry." ”

While they were talking and laughing, a new crisis was looming over the stormy Qing Dynasty in the north.