The establishment of the Imperial Capital Coal and Iron United Company means that Xialin's industrialization plan has taken another big step forward.

In fact, Xia Lin's suggestion to Empress Dorothea to establish this union on the grounds of the expansion of the new army is simply untenable, because it will take at least a month or two to complete the process of site selection and construction around the remote Blue Lagoon Mountain Range, and this is still on the basis of mobilizing the Royal Magic Guard as construction workers.

After all, in Xia Lin's design drawings, the three factories this time are not trivial things, the washing plant, the coking plant and the ironmaking plant are all large factories covering an area of more than 1,000 square meters, and among the factories under the name of the entire Xinye Chamber of Commerce, only the newly established gun factory near the R&D center has such a large scale.

Moreover, after the completion of the construction of the plant, there are various furnaces and supporting facilities, among which the blast furnace of the ironmaking plant and the coke oven of the coking plant still need to be operated for a period of time, and it will take two months to officially put into production.

However, after the establishment of these factories, the steelmaking plant in the industrial park was able to add electric arc furnaces, expand production, and meet the needs of the Second Guards Division and several other divisions that obeyed the will of the Empress.

According to the mine shares and human resources provided by these participants, after a day of intense discussions, the specific shape of the Imperial Capital Coal and Iron United Company was soon determined.

In the total of 10% of the shares, Xia Lin occupies 20% with technology and management shares, the royal family occupies 30% with land, capital, policy support and a total of 22 iron mines and coal mines of different scales, and the remaining 40% of the shares, the Brooke family, which contributes the most, occupies 20%, and the last 30% is distributed according to the various mines and resources provided by the participants.

There are a total of thirty-seven members of the board of directors of the company, and the chairman is a representative appointed by Her Majesty Queen Dorothea, and the general manager is naturally Xia Lin.

The quantity and location of coal and iron minerals provided by the company's directors in detail were coordinated, and according to the report obtained by Xia Lin, the unanimously elected general manager, the newly established Imperial Capital Coal and Iron United Company had a total of seven large mines, 25 medium-sized mines, and 45 small mines.

The classification is based on the daily production of iron ore in large mines exceeding four tonnes, coal mines producing more than ten tonnes, medium-sized mines producing more than two tonnes of iron ore and coal mines producing more than six tonnes, and small mines producing less than these two standards.

The production of four tons of iron ore a day may seem a bit bleak, but it is not bad in this era, and the vegetation in the Blue Lagoon Mountains is full of vegetation, and the roads are tortuous and complicated, if it were not for the location of the nearest ore vein in Hurgana, it would not be favored by the mine owners of the imperial capital.

In this kind of terrain, a mine can accommodate one or two hundred people working at the same time, which is considered a huge scale, and there are some small mines because the conditions are so poor, the mine owners are set up a few tents near the mine near the water vein, and there are miners or miners and security management personnel stationed in them, just seven or eight people, a dozen people in a small handful of digging.

The transport work is all carried out by a kind of flat and slender small shuttle, which is more common on the Seine River, has a rudimentary sail, and can run at a considerable speed in the downwind, so it is very popular with some fishermen and transporters, and this kind of shuttle boat also has a wide range of uses in the Blue Lagoon mountain range where lakes and rivers are all over the lake.

Due to the inconvenient transportation, mine owners often give priority to the development of mines near convenient rivers, and some mines that are far away from the river, even if they have rich reserves and easy excavation, will not be included in the list of them for development.

As the general manager of the Coal and Iron Complex, Xia Lin also needs to consider the order in which these coal and iron minerals will be developed.

After careful study of the only accurate map of the era provided by Her Majesty the Empress, Xia Lin divided three mineral development areas among these minerals, each of which had similar water conservancy and transportation conditions, and if it was to be developed, it was possible to carry out early development along the river.

Xia Lin then organized a team of 15 people to go to the Blue Lake Mountains to conduct a field trip to see which mineral development zone has better conditions, and the most important thing is that there must be a suitable site nearby for the construction of a coal and iron complex.

In this delegation, in addition to Xia Lin, there were also the general manager of Sharp, the first construction company, and two technicians.

During this period of construction, the two technicians who were born as stonemasons and carpenters respectively showed excellent architectural talents and were able to complete the construction of the project according to local conditions, so they were quickly promoted to project managers all the way, and were in charge of the reconstruction of six blocks respectively, and now Xia Lin felt that the two of them should also be worthy of the title of "engineer".

In addition, there are some managers and security personnel of the New Leaf Chamber of Commerce, as well as Viscount Pound, who is responsible for guiding the way.

These managers were not sent by Xia Lin to inspect the two coal mines and iron mines that had previously been purchased through the alliance under the name of the Xinye Chamber of Commerce, but were ready to use them as the backbone to implement new management methods in various mining areas.

Viscount Pang still attached great importance to the Imperial Capital Coal and Iron United Company, which looked very bright in the future, so he personally accompanied Xia Lin and his party to guide the way in the Blue Lake Mountain Range with complex terrain.

The Blue Lagoon mountain range takes its name from a lake in the mountains called the Blue Lagoon, which is surrounded by beautiful scenery.

Under the introduction of Viscount Pound, Xia Lin learned that this land was given by the royal family one hundred and thirty-two years ago, Brooke and several other families who had made meritorious contributions in the war.

The Brooke family originally planned to build a summer manor in the mountains, but when they excavated the soil layer, they found a large reserve of iron ore of quite good quality, and the Brooke family focused on the mining industry.

After running between mountains and rivers for three days in a row, the huge Blue Lake Mountain Range still hasn't been completely traversed, and even only a little bit of it has been seen, but Xia Lin has already completed the first purpose of this trip.

Of the three mining areas he has demarcated, the two in the northeast corner and north of the Blue Lagoon mountain range are in decent condition, but there are no suitable sites around them to accommodate the construction of the coal-iron complex, so they are included in the second and third phases of the development plan.

Only the mining area in the northwest corner of the Blue Lagoon mountain range, which is only fifteen kilometers away in a straight line, has a flat terrain located by the river, and the empty plain is scattered with three dense forests and bamboo forests, but it does not affect the initial construction work.

Xia Lin investigated for a while and did not find a better location nearby, and soon decided on this river valley plain as the construction site of the coal and iron complex, and by the way, this originally uninhabited river valley was named the Steel Ridge Valley, hoping that it could become the backbone of steel in his industrial plan, and the originally nameless river flowing through the river valley was named the Steel Ridge River.

After deciding on the site of the coal-iron complex, Xia Lin immediately arranged for manpower to level the site and build the workers' camp.

Ships hired by the Coal and Iron Company worked around the clock to transport all kinds of equipment and personnel from Hurgana to support the establishment of the Coal and Iron Complex, and soon a camp was opened in the valley of Steel Ridge to accommodate a thousand people to live and work.

The workers in these camps were urgently dispatched by Xia Lin after the reconstruction of three blocks was suspended, and his support for this coal and iron complex can be said to be unsparing, and even in his planning, there will be a branch road to the Imperial Capital-Blue Lake Mountain Highway in the later period, so as to realize the smooth flow of land transportation.

(End of chapter)