A few days later, in early June.

Zhu Shuren, who has lived in Nanjing for half a year, finally made his first trip since the beginning of summer this year - to Taiping Mansion to inspect the Ma'anshan iron ore mine, which has only begun to be explored and mined in recent months.

As the prince, Zhu Shuren of course had to provide at least thousands of cavalry to provide escort, and a group of military horses went out of Nanjing to the southwest, passed through Dasheng Pass, and arrived at Dangtu County in Taiping Mansion.

This distance will be directly reached by the Nanjing subway in later generations, but now it takes two or three days to walk.

Everyone on the earth knows that Ma'anshan is the younger brother of Nanjing. Therefore, since Zhu Shuren is going to sit in Nanjing in the future, it is absolutely reasonable to establish a new military industrial base under his nose as a backup to add an insurance to the military industrial system of the Ming Dynasty.

You can't put all your eggs in one basket. Although Huguang is his early base, he will not have time to stay in Huguang in the future, and now he can let his henchmen Zhang Huangyan and Fang Yizhi stabilize the situation, and these people will continue to rise in the future.

Before Zhu Shuren arrived in Ma'anshan, the Ministry of Industry and other departments had been operating in the local area for two or three months, but they did not use too much private labor when they were busy with agriculture before, and only the Ministry of Labor's own people were the mainstay.

Now that the summer double robbery is over, the surrounding farmers are generally idle, so a large number of people are hired to speed up the construction progress.

When Zhu Shuren arrived at the place, he was taken directly to the Nanshan Iron Mine, and when he climbed high and looked into the distance, he saw that under the scorching sun in June in the south, tens of thousands of people were carrying soil and stones, filling in roads, laying railroad tracks, and building various factories for future mineral processing.

Different from Daye's iron ore, although Daye's side is also an open-pit iron mine, it began to be mined on a large scale as early as the Northern and Southern Dynasties. On the side of Ma'anshan, large-scale mining began in the late Qing Dynasty in history, and now it is only the end of the Ming Dynasty, so naturally there is no infrastructure at all.

It took a few months to prospect for minerals before, and it was to take advantage of the busy farming season to let professional and technical personnel take a small team to do it first. It was not easy to accurately locate and confirm the grade with a small amount of sampling, and then it was built on a large scale when the farming was slack.

Originally, other iron mines in the late Ming Dynasty did not lay railroad tracks, and there were no iron-wheeled track minecarts that looked like those in western films. But Zhu Shuren had already pushed it in Daye Iron Mine before, and now it is being copied here in Ma'anshan.

Railroad minecarts can greatly improve the efficiency of ore transportation in the mine, reduce most of the future transportation accidents, and facilitate the management planning of the open-pit mine to dig down the pit road.

After Daye Iron Mine and Steel Mill got on the right track, this kind of inferior steel, which was of worse quality than the strip steel of later generations, was no longer so valuable. This kind of inferior steel can't be used to make weapons, and it's not even easy to use as a farm tool, so it can be used to lay trolley rails, which is a combination of high and low quality.

Everything starts from scratch, the conditions are naturally difficult, and accidents during the construction process kill a little people, all of which happen from time to time. This is not that labor protection measures are not enough, but it is limited by the technology of the times, even in the 20th century, there were occasional deaths of migrant workers building houses on construction sites.

"In the autumn of national disaster, we have to hurry. It's not easy for the people, and there's no way to do it. Zhu Shuren put his hand on his eyebrows to shade the sun, looked around, and sighed compassionately.

Next to him, there was Song Mingde, who was transferred from Daye, that is, Song Yingxing's nephew.

He followed Zhu Shuren a few years ago, and when he was in Daye, because of his years of meritorious service, he has now climbed to the position of the head of the Liupin Ministry of Industry, and his uncle Song Yingxing has now climbed to Langzhong.

At this moment, hearing the prince so sympathetic to the poor, he couldn't help but point out from the bottom of his heart: "The prince is benevolent and virtuous, and it is no longer comparable to the ordinary government.

As for the imperial court in previous years, the imperial court levied and issued conscripts to build water conservancy, open mines and build roads, and there was no silver money to subsidize it, and the most food in charge was gruel, which was not enough to eat at all, and the people had to pay for food by themselves.

When the Ministry of Industry organized, it also deliberately selected more displaced people who had fled from the north and south according to what you had previously allocated, and the yamen in charge of the military camp raised manpower. Although the work is hard, these homeless people have just arrived, they have no foundation, and they can sell more strength and earn some rations for their families when they are slack. ”

Zhu Shuren listened carefully and did some mental calculations.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, because of natural disasters for many years, the price of goods was already very expensive, and the price of two taels of silver or more in the big cities in the south abounded, and places like Suzhou that were rich in the world were even more common.

Therefore, the wage of 30 copper coins per day, which is equivalent to a little more than one or two per month, is still heavy physical labor, and it is impossible to survive in the late Ming Dynasty, but it is different to manage food.

(Note: At the end of the Ming Dynasty, copper coins and silver were no longer theoretically one thousand to one, because there was more silver input, and silver actually had about two percent depreciation, and in the later period, 760 to 780 wen full of good money could be exchanged for one or two feet of silver.) Nine hundred wen can be discounted by one or two and a half dollars a month. ）

Zhu Shuren is very concerned about the people's livelihood, and it just so happens that he came to the point where he almost caught up with the people's husband's meal, and today he specially did not notify in advance, in case of fraud below, so he took the opportunity to raid and check the people's food.

The small officials and supervisors below, seeing that the prince personally inspected the mine, naturally knelt on the ground a long time ago, Zhu Shuren walked to the pot to take a closer look, and the people really ate a thick porridge cooked with lotus root taro and a little miscellaneous grains, and they could also get a little bit of tilapia meat and pickled fish soup cooked separately as a dish.

Of course, the pickled fish broth is limited, but the porridge can be full, and it can be added after drinking, but the meal time is limited, and it is eaten in batches, and it is eaten too slowly in each batch.

This is also a necessary management measure, otherwise all links will be delayed, and the construction period will definitely be affected. Whether there is a chance to add food with the meal speed card is also a more reasonable indicator, after all, eating slowly means that you are not too hungry.

Zhu Shuren randomly asked a few homeless people who came to work, and they all knelt down and said that this was already an unimaginable good day, as long as they could eat enough, it was nothing to sell more strength.

Especially those displaced people from Shaanxi and Henan, they have said that they don't even have elm bark to eat in their hometown, and they have enough miscellaneous grains and vegetables here.

Zhu Shuren was still among the people, and saw some children who were obviously too young, estimated to be less than ten years old, doing some relatively less difficult work such as sieving soil, as long as they were careful and patient.

He still didn't go down to the grassroots level, and when he saw this, he inevitably asked the person in charge of the department why there was such an arrangement.

Song Mingde, who was on the side, hurriedly came over and explained: "Lord Wang, this is already a blessing for Si Kai, and ordinary people can't grab it." The subordinate knows that you are benevolent and has already instructed that it is okay to use children, but you can only use children in those jobs at fixed stations.

As for the work that requires going down potholes, climbing mountains, paving roads, and filling pits, the environment is too complicated, so children are not allowed to be used, so there is no danger.

Lord Wang, you don't know that these newly arrived homeless people, even if they have an official organization, life is very difficult. If the child is not allowed to come out to work and give birth to a baby, he will have to be strangled to death and drowned, where is the food to feed?

Let the older children come out to work, so that their unexpectedly born younger siblings can eat more porridge and water, so that they will not be killed directly, which is already benevolent government. ”

Zhu Shuren was also silent when he heard this, he had done a very good job in the resettlement of displaced people in Huguang a few years ago, and it was rare for him to have such a miserable situation.

This year, the problem of displaced people has worsened again, and in the final analysis, there is a steady stream of new displaced people, all of whom have come to the south for the first time, and they have no foundation, so it is naturally more miserable.

Dolgon is desperately "suffering the people" in the north, drawing an internal line to exploit some of them, it is conceivable that in the next year or two, this crazy wave of displaced people fleeing south will continue, unless the Zhu Shuren destroy the Qing State, it will not stop.

Therefore, he didn't say much about the problem of child labor for the time being, but affirmed Song Mingde's "children are not allowed to do those jobs that require work in complex environments", and only fixed workstations are allowed, which is the limit.

In addition, the daily wage for those jobs with fixed workstations in a safe environment will be 5 to 10 cents less than that for jobs that require drilling holes, depending on the level of hardship. This is also a bowl of water that is leveled, so as not to disobey the people who do dangerous work.

……

Zhu Shuren briefly inspected for two days and confirmed that the progress of various projects was still very smooth, and the use of people's power and logistical support were also stable, so that there would be no problems.

The remaining key is to see if the iron ore and steel plants in Ma'anshan have new technology problems that need to be solved that are different from those of Daye.

After all, the mineral deposits in each place are different, and the natural environmental conditions are also different, and there are always differences in the specific details of "water and soil adaptation".

Song Mingde is also more experienced, so the iron mine is still under construction, and he has already let people build the first blast furnace and the first preheated air steelmaking furnace of the supporting steel plant, and start trial production on a small scale.

After the blast furnace was built, some ore mined by the soil method was made, and the coal mines pulled from Guangde and Huzhou were used to directly test a few furnaces.

In the future, the metallurgical plant here will add some copper-smelting production lines in addition to steelmaking, making full use of the local transportation convenience and sufficient fuel distribution.

The water network in the south of the Yangtze River is vertical and horizontal, and the copper ore of Tongling can directly follow the Yangtze River, and the Yangtze River waterway of 200 miles will arrive at Ma'anshan, and the cost of water transportation is very low.

The coal mines in Changxing, Guangde and other places can directly enter Taihu Lake, take Lishui in Yixing and Liyang, Changzhou Prefecture, and enter the Yangtze River from Dangtu County through Shijiu Lake and Gaochun Lake, so it is also a direct waterway, and there is no need to go over the mountains by land.

In this regard, the location advantage of Ma'anshan is much better than that of Daye Iron Mine in Huguang. The coal needed by Daye still has to go through some land transportation.

On the third day after Zhu Shuren arrived, he got the first batch of samples of iron smelting and copper smelting in Ma'anshan, he personally inspected it, and asked the accompanying professionals to conduct quality inspections, and soon found some problems that needed to be debugged.

After Song Mingde confirmed it again and again, he reported worriedly: "Lord Wang, the grade of iron ore here is not low, and the output is larger than that of Daye, which is easier to dig on a large scale in the open air.

It's a pity that the quality of the iron smelted is still slightly worse than that of Daye, and sure enough, the sulfur content is still slightly higher. ”

From Song Mingde's reply, it can also be seen that he has grown a lot in recent years. Originally, he only had some practical experience in engineering, but he was extremely lacking in theoretical foundation.

After several years of training in Daye, I occasionally listened to Zhu Shuren's commanding advice, followed Fang Yizhi to learn theories, and now even the crude chemical conclusion that "the quality of iron ore is not good is because it contains more sulfur" can be summed up.

】

Zhu Shuren was quite satisfied with this kind of growth, and heard that the sulfur problem was not easy to solve, so he first asked on a regular basis: "Daye uses the method of coking first, and then uses coke to make steel, can't this method be solved if it is transplanted?" ”

Song Mingde hurriedly replied: "Part of it can be solved, but first, coke is expensive and small, and it is mostly used for refining steel.

Second, not only the iron ore in Ma'anshan contains more sulfur, but even the coal mine in Changxing Guangde also contains more sulfur, and direct coke often produces defective products. ”

Zhu Shuren didn't know much about metallurgy and chemical engineering, and his level in his previous life was the level of high school physics and chemistry.

"Let's take some iron ore and coal to see, the iron ore over there in Daye, have you transported some to compare?" Zhu Shuren decided not to pat his head to make a decision, without research, he would not have the right to speak.

Song Mingde has a lot of ideas for scientific comparison and analysis, and he really had people transport a few boats of iron ore from Daye, and even coal and coke from Daye, and immediately let people take them and show them to Zhu Shuren.

Song Mingde's preparation is also to try to refine Daye's ore here in Ma'anshan, and make a control group with the local ore refining to reduce the variables-

Because if Daye ore arrives in Ma'anshan and is smelted with Ma'anshan's coal, and something goes wrong in the end, it can be speculated that there is a problem with the environment or coal mine quality in Ma'anshan.

If you replace it with coal from Daye, there are still problems, and it can be further positioned that there are problems with the geographical environment of Ma'anshan, such as air, water, pollution, etc.

In this way, iron ore, fuel, and environment, three groups of variables are combined in pairs to set up a control group, and a total of eight groups of control experiments can be done, and each group of dichotomous methods can be used to solve problems. With the blessing of such scientific ideas, it is much more reliable than the random experiments of the ancients.

Regardless of the final result, this scientific investigation method is worthy of recognition in the first place.

With Song Mingde's early investigation, Zhu Shuren's thinking became much clearer, and combined with the superficial chemical knowledge of later generations and the common sense on the Internet, he quickly got some inspiration:

"It seems that this Ma'anshan is really an iron ore coal mine that contains a lot of sulfur, but it should mostly exist in the form of 'iron sulfide', that is, pyrite impurities. The iron ore itself is mixed with pyrite, and there is also pyrite in the coal.

Before smelting, the ore here has to be crushed in one more step and finer than that of Daye, and the finer the grinding, the easier it is to screen out the impurities.

I don't know if the density method can be sifted, but even if it can, the estimated cost is not cost-effective, this is mass production, not gold panning - it is better to think about using the magnetic separation method. The pyrite in the iron ore may not be able to be screened, but the pyrite crumble powder in the coal mine can definitely be magnetically separated. ”

The common sense of "magnetic separation sieve impurities" can basically be thought of in later generations as long as they are not too liberal arts intellectuals, but it is enough to watch a little more B station video or Douyin popular science.

Iron sulfide retains a relatively strong ferromagnetism, which is easier to be adsorbed by magnet magnets than iron oxide and ferric oxide, and is easier to adsorb than non-magnetic coal.

It's just that there is no electricity in ancient times, and there is no electromagnet, and it is necessary to rely on natural magnetic materials to screen ore, and the material is more difficult to make, and the magnet magnet is not an absolute permanent magnet, and the magnetic consumption is too large for a long time, and it also needs to be supplemented by man.

Thinking of this, Zhu Shuren also roughly understood why the coal mines in Ma'anshan were not mined until the end of the late Qing Dynasty - at the beginning of the 20th century, alternators and power stations were gradually popularized, and the first batch of power plants in China was only available at that time, and industrial-grade electromagnets could be used.

The mineral resources of Ma'anshan are much more and much better than Daye, but before the magnetic screening, the output here is only large, and the product quality is not as good as Daye.

After thinking about this, Zhu Shuren also knew that the positioning of Ma'anshan in the future would first of all be a base with large quantities and low-quality steel that could be mass-produced. But the main iron production here is still used for the needs of tools and people's livelihood, and it is a replacement for low-end civil steel in Daye.

After replacing Daye's production capacity, Daye can concentrate all its production capacity on weapons-grade steel.

As for the magnetic beneficiation and high-end routes on the Ma'anshan side, it is not impossible to climb technology. As long as the total input cost is controllable, it is still good to use it for technology verification.

Perhaps Zhu Shuren pointed out the idea of "magnetic separation" and predicted that the guiding ideology of "changing magnetism to generate electricity, and changing electricity to generate magnetism" would enable Chinese scientists to become the father of human electricity in the future and put forward the prototype of electromagnetic induction theory first.

Of course, it is also a prototype, in history, Faraday proposed the theory of electromagnetic induction, and it took nearly a hundred years of development for human beings to really make industrial-grade generators.

Even if Zhu Shuren coincidentally helped people come up with ideas, he should not be able to see a generator in his lifetime, or at most he would see an unreliable toy-grade product in a laboratory, it would never be industrialized, and the industrial base would be too poor.

Song Mingde wrote down the guiding ideas of the prince of E, and immediately went to arrange the purchase of natural magnets, conduct mineral processing experiments, and then refines the coal and iron that have been screened out of pyrite impurities as much as possible.

The coal used for the production of coke can also be crushed later and slightly magnetically coarsely screened. If the magnetic force is weaker, then put more effort into crushing, which can also be compensated to a certain extent - the lighter the debris that needs to be magnetically adsorbed, the smaller the screening magnetic force required, and the magnet is not a big problem.

For a time, Song Mingde arranged several preparations, while organizing more migrant workers to build dams to raise the water level at the mouth of the Yangtze River when Tushui flows into the Yangtze River, as well as at the location of the upstream Shijiu Lake and Gaochun Lake.

Then build a large number of giant stone grinders driven by waterwheels, and crush the coal that will be used in steelmaking in the future under these waterwheel stones first, and then magnetically sieve again.

While building a large number of hydraulic grinders, he prepared magnetic materials by himself, and also went to Daye in the rear to ask Song Yingxing and Fang Yizhi for technical guidance.

Not to mention, the level of Song Yingxing and others is really much higher than Song Mingde. However, on the tenth day, Wuchang gave a reply,

Song Yingxing also taught his nephew in the letter that he was not careful in reading, and he had not even seen the method of artificially making magnets by "rapid cooling of thin steel sheets after hot forging to form paramagnetism" mentioned in the "General Essentials of Wujing" written by the Song Dynasty.

And Song Yingxing also went one step further and elaborated on some of his own ideas on artificial magnets to his nephew, so as to ensure that the supply of magnetic materials will not be interrupted, it is nothing more than a little more fuel consumption and a higher cost in the manufacturing process, which can be regarded as leaving a hole card.

And once large-scale production, continuous trial and error, after the process matures and sums up experience, the cost will always slowly decrease.

Isn't the progress of industrial science and technology the result of throwing resources into large-scale production again and again, and losing now does not mean losing money in the future, and there must always be people who suffer losses and be pioneers in industrial mass production.

Zhu Shuren has no opinion on smashing resources, but he just requires that all the experience gained from smashing resources should be summarized as completely as possible. It must be written in a book, and even if it is not made public, it must be treasured by him first.

As a result, the Ma'anshan Iron Mine and Iron Plant, under the construction of a digital prong, are gradually on the right track, and a bumper harvest in output and quality is just around the corner.

A large number of hydraulic grinders were built, magnet magnet beneficiation was purchased in large quantities, a large number of artificial magnetic materials were explored, and finally a higher quality steel was further produced with better refined ore and refined coke, and every hand should be hard.

The total amount of silver that will be spent on all this is estimated to be at least one million, and the specific number of millions can be stopped, but it is not yet counted.

But Zhu Shuren even paid the price of the truce, the imperial court did not have to fight in the past two years, and the saved money was first laid a good industrial foundation, and the cost of making weapons in the future could also be greatly reduced, and it would definitely be cost-effective in the long run.

Finally, considering that Ma'anshan is relatively remote, after all, it is a rural mining area, and the adjacent Dangtu County is too small, so it is difficult to attract high-end talents. Zhu Shuren felt that in order to better coordinate scientific research, it was better to set up a research institute in Yingtianfu next door.

To this end, he allocated hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and ordered to choose Jiangning Town, a southwestern suburb of Nanjing, to set up a "Magnetism Research Institute".

At the beginning, the research direction was nothing more than how to use heating/quenching to produce artificial magnets with higher efficiency and lower energy consumption, based on the ideas in the "General Essentials of the Wujing" and "Tiangong Kaiwu".

As for whether the people in the research institute will tinker with magnets and discover electricity in the future, that is a long way off.

The person in charge of the research institute naturally also has the official rank treatment of the director of the Ministry of Industry, and in the future, the technical talents from Wuchang Daye can be gradually diverted over, and the development of more directions can be made together.