Two two-wheeled carriages drove on the road, and Zhou Shifeng took several stewards from Beiping to Miyun.

Gao Changzhen, Wan San's shopkeeper and craftsman, received them in Miyun and led them to see the iron mine and iron factory.

"Jingle bell."

People dig a mountain with a pickaxe on a mountain, and what they dig out is iron ore.

"Miyun Iron Mine is worthy of its name."

Zhou Shifeng, the treasurer of China Heavy Industry, sighed after watching the scene.

The master craftsmen of the iron ore took the drawings, and according to the drawings on them, the miners dug all the way down the circle.

Hollow out the mountain and dig it down to create a huge pit in the ground.

Then continue digging from the side.

"How much iron ore has to be dug up?"

After reading the drawings, the accompanying steward was full of disbelief, and he also understood why the little prince wanted to monopolize the Miyun iron mine.

The mining conditions here are so unique.

It is equivalent to the legendary cornucopia.

Isn't this drawing just a basin when it is dug to the end?

While digging around the mountain, the miners used bucket trucks and mule carts to transport the ore to the iron factory, dug a layer at the top of the mountain, and continued downward.

It's like peeling dough, and it ends up leaving a wide road down the mountain.

The Miyun Iron Works is the iron-smelting workshop of the large steam engine factory.

But there are more new workshops.

Stone crushing workshop, ore picking workshop, sorting workshop, smelting workshop......

A wooden frame several people high, on which hung a huge iron block, was pulled up by a winch.

To the right of the wooden frame is a one-and-a-half-man steam engine.

The steam dish heats up, the piston moves up and down, and the power provided is pulled to the highest point by the traditional non-rotating winch, which is held in place by a bayonet.

Then put a large stone on the iron platform directly below the large iron block, and wait for the workers to place it, then knock down the mechanism to release the bayonet and release the rope, the large iron block falls quickly, and the stone is smashed into gravel by its own weight.

Generally, it can be successful once, if it doesn't work once, you need to do it again.

The bucket truck next to it carries away the gravel, and then the workers use chisels and hammers to continue to smash the larger gravel into smaller gravel.

"It's new technology." Zhou Shifeng said curiously.

"The R&D department has adopted the nine-iron-making process, creating iron cranks and flywheels that are mounted on steam engines, which retain more power than water power, which can be used anywhere, and all year round, which is more powerful than water power."

"These large pieces of stone, which would have taken a day to be cut into crushed stone by hand, now only take a quarter of an hour."

Wan San laughed on the side.

The principle is easy to understand at a glance.

The steam engine is the water drain and pressurized well, the crank, the flywheel, the winch and other parts have been there since ancient times, but all of them have been replaced with iron.

Most workshops are either powered by water or all by hand, so the components are mostly wood and stone.

For example, in ancient times, the water drain, the upper and lower two flywheels, and the crank in the middle, were mostly made of wood.

Compared to iron, wood and stone can be sourced locally, which not only meets the needs of the workshop, but also costs less.

Naturally, there is no incentive for the family-based workshops to change to iron.

When the factory was built to replace the family workshop, the huge output made the machine that could only meet the needs of the family workshop no longer suitable for the factory.

Then more expensive machines, such as all-iron water drains, came into being.

This is the difference between a factory and a family workshop, just as a workshop can only accept the cost of a machine within ten taels of silver.

Then the price of the factory for the machine, as long as the efficiency is higher, can accept more than ten taels of silver,

The cost of iron water drains is several times higher than that of wooden water drains, but it is also more efficient and can accept high-intensity work.

The first technological revolution.

It can be seen that the factory replaces the family workshop, and the machine made of materials below ten taels of silver is completely changed to a machine worth more than ten taels of silver and is made of better materials.

Countless inventions, most of which were made of wood and stone from the firewood era, were changed to iron tools.

It's not all.

Coal replaced firewood as fuel, solved the bottleneck in the production of iron smelting, led to a decline in iron prices, and so on.

The UK has abundant coal resources, while countries such as France and Italy are not rich in domestic coal and need to purchase coal from the UK.

So there was an industrial revolution in Britain, which was a change in technology.

The same goes for the forging shop.

A stone-crushing machine, with a slight modification, can be used to wrought iron.

countertop.

The whole piece of red iron was struck piece by piece under a huge hammer, which was ten times and a hundred times higher than that of traditional manpower.

"There are countless cheap ores from Miyun iron ore, and with new technology, the cost of iron ore has been reduced by at least three times compared with the past."

"With these new technologies, coupled with the assembly line operation, the cost of the iron-smelting plant has been reduced by at least double, and the output has increased by several times."

"Iron on the market is six cents per catty, and our cost is less than two cents per catty, and the selling price is set at one penny."

"By next year, the price of the iron mill will continue to fall."

The iron output of the common people in Jeonbuk is more than 5 million catties, and if they monopolize this market, even if it is only one dollar per catty, it will be a profit of more than 500,000 taels of silver.

"No wonder the little prince built the railway in Beiping."

Zhou Shifeng said with a smile, "Thanks to your iron factory, the cost of each catty of iron is less than two cents, if it is the traditional cost price, the price of the rails of the railway alone, the little prince will be many times." ”

Wan San's face was proud, and there was no idea of modesty.

"The next workshop is a forging shop specializing in the production of rails, and I'll take you there." There are more than a dozen forging workshops.

The hammer iron machine is different in every forging shop.

The workshop for the production of rails uses pig iron, which is poured into a mold for pouring, which belongs to the casting process.

The long grooved embryo mold is made of a 7-shaped one.

Last year's rails were originally concave and the wheels were stuck in the grooves, but after half a year of use, many drawbacks were found.

The grooves of the rails are too easy to fall into stones, etc., causing the wheels to get stuck easily.

After research, the 7-shaped rails were adopted, and the iron wheels of the four-wheeled carriage were also changed to the outer 7-shape, which solved this problem.

Zhou Shifeng and others reached out and touched the railroad tracks formed in the workshop, and there was a cold and heavy feeling.

The next workshop is the workshop where the wheels are forged.

The workshop for forging wheels belongs to the miscellaneous workshop, I don't know if it is forging wheels, and there are various other small parts.

Including cranks, flywheels, irons, etc.

These parts, including the wheels, are all made of nine iron, or steel as it is later called, using a forging process.

In the firing process, various miscellaneous materials such as grass ash are added to decarburize.

In ancient times, frying iron was almost the only way to get wrought iron from pig iron.

However, the method of using pig iron to make wrought iron described in the "Fire Attack Strategy" and "Artifact Spectrum" is different from the traditional iron-frying process, and the method of smelting wrought iron is the decarburization and steelmaking process of pig iron without frying.

The reason why it is not fried is that the purpose is to be able to obtain purer wrought iron, and the firearms forged with such wrought iron will not burst when fired, which is a process that appeared in the Ming Dynasty.

This process is also recorded in Tiangong Kaiwu.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the mixing method invented in England and became the mainstream steelmaking method in later generations, which is also this process theory.

The next workshop is the pipeline workshop.

The wrought iron machine here is no longer suspended from a large round piece of iron, but a long piece of iron.

"In the past, the iron was divided into eight pieces, beaten like tiles, one foot four inches long, one foot one inch wide, medium thick and thin edges, and one piece needed craftsmen to build for a day."

Mansan pointed to the large piece of iron under the machine.

Everyone looked over curiously.

"The whole piece of iron is clamped by workers with iron tongs, and the edges are gradually thinned by machines from the inside to the outside, saving ten times the time and manpower."

"Bang."

With a hammer, the edge of the whole piece of iron is concave to the naked eye, and so on, you will get the required forged iron sheet.

"These pieces of iron are forged in a double-layer composite method, and finally two iron plates are made into a section."

Wan San sighed with a smile on his face, and introduced to the people: "Just this pipe, how many craftsmen used to need to forge to get it. ”

"And the craftsmanship of each craftsman is different, and the pipe obtained is also slightly different, and now it is a complete piece of iron forging, and the number of forgings is also fixed."

"The craftsmen only need to exert force on the thin vertical edge of this iron plate, so that the two edges can be forged together, and the edges of the transverse ends of the iron plate can be slightly forged to connect the two shingle-shaped iron pipes in series."

Zhou Shifeng stared at these iron pipes and wrote them down vigorously.

As the leader of China Heavy Industry, he knows more information than others, and these iron pipes can be used to make firecrackers.

However, the little prince did not allow the iron factory to put forward this idea to avoid arousing the suspicion of outsiders, but the technology of the research still needs to be studied.

At the sound of an order, these iron pipes can be turned into a mass of firearms.

As far as he knew, Xiao Wang Ye and Xiao Jiu had also discussed the development of firearms, and they had some ideas for a lighter, more powerful, and more convenient firearm to shoot.

Zhou Shifeng memorized everything he needed to remember.

The big shopkeeper of Zhonghu Heavy Industry came to Miyun.

Although it is white, it can manage tens of thousands of people, which cannot be underestimated, and there is Yanwangfu behind it.

Zhou Shifeng made the east, specially set up a banquet, and invited several officials from Miyun.

Whether others can afford him or not, whether they are willing to give him face or not is someone else's business, and whether he invites a treat or not is his problem.

First of all, he does his own things to others blamelessly, and as for what others do, he doesn't care.

However, it is true that no one did not give him face, and several officials invited to the banquet, and they were very polite between talking and laughing.

After inspecting Miyun, all the people who changed their views were met, and then Zhou Shifeng left Miyun with a few stewards.

Next, I went to inspect various railway construction sites and visited the honeycomb coal workshops that have joined the Cellular Coal Chamber of Commerce.

It took a month to return to Peiping Province.

The drawings brought back by Zhou Shifeng were carefully read by Zhu Gaochi and Xiao Jiu, such as iron pipes and iron plates.

In the office, there are also some firearms.

Handcuffs, bowls, large guns, etc.

"These firearms have a slow launch, a short range, and a small power, Xiao Jiu, you can study more and how to improve these shortcomings."

"Start with airtightness, materials." Zhu Gaochi nodded.

The flintlock pistol can't reach it, and the bird gun is still fine.

The Bird Gun as an arquebus, showing superiority, received a large number of preparations in the Southern Army.

The flintlock pistol is called a self-generated firebolt, technically there is no problem, it is rare that the Ming Dynasty does not have a high-quality flint origin, can not solve this problem, and the flintlock pistol cannot be used in the army.

Ten blows can sound less than one percent, how to equip the army?

1,000 self-generated firearms, with an order, only less than 100 shots were successfully fired, so they could not be equipped at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

There are a large number of high-quality flints in the West, and the imperial court in the late Ming Dynasty once bought them from Portugal, but they used inferior flint to pit the Ming Dynasty.

The flint used by the people, as long as it can make a fire, as for how many hits, anyway, it is that kung fu, and I don't care much.

However, the army's intensive shooting is different, and the pursuit is efficiency, and the shortest time is used to fire the most lead bullets.

Otherwise the enemy and the enemy are rushing in front of you, and the muskets have already lost their advantage.

"With the new machine, the gun tube is no longer a problem, and you can also try to use rifling on the inner wall of the gun to see if there is a better effect."

Xiao Jiu carefully wrote down the ideas provided by the little prince, and turned back to start researching.

"There are also these iron plates, which can also be made into plate armor in large quantities, and what assembly line is used to produce them, you also have to explore the process of maximum efficiency."

"But try it within the R&D department and try not to spread it." Zhu Gaochi explained.

Even if someone knows, they are not afraid.

He is the eldest son of Yan Wangyan.

However, these heavy military weapons are easy to attract the attention of the imperial court, and as a killer weapon, Zhu Gaochi will wait at least three years before he will start to promote them in Beiping.

At that time, it would take half a year to go back and forth, and by the time the decision was made, the sky had changed.

"Ammonia proves that it can fertilize the field, and this thing is very profitable." Seeing that Xiao Wang Ye had no follow-up words, Xiao Jiu closed the book and brought up the recently researched ammonia effect.

"However, it should be diluted with water, otherwise it is easy to burn the crops."

"There is also ammonia that is not easy to preserve and easy to lose its effect."

"As for Xiao Wangye's method of distilling into fertilizer, I have also tried it, and it can indeed solve this problem, which is not only suitable for preservation, but also convenient for transportation."

Zhu Gaochi was not surprised by Xiao Jiu's discovery.

Ammonia and fertilizers, as well as tar, are the easiest products, not very technical, and large-scale production is not difficult.

"Let's go to the coke oven together, let's have a look with you."

Zhu Gaochi got up, there is a recipe for the future, you don't need to hide it, just call it out, and there are still people who are greedy for his things.

He is the only one in the whole of Peiping who has a coke refinery.

The top of the coke kiln is a blast furnace with exhaust vents on both sides.

"There are many kinds of air, ammonia is produced by the combination of ammonia and clean water, smoke is discharged from the chimney, and dense gases are discharged from the exhaust outlet."

"Is it possible to build a pipe directly at the exhaust outlet, and these dense gases will enter a large sealed iron cylinder through the pipe?"

"A large amount of hot gas enters the sealed iron cylinder, and a water pipe is built to introduce cold water into the iron cylinder, with the water inlet on one side and the water outlet on the other, which can accelerate the condensation."

Zhu Gaochi was in the open space next to the unrefined empty coke kiln, pointing fingers and explaining.

Xiao Jiu is even busier, dancing in the notebook.

The company worked overtime last night, and there is only one shift today.

(End of chapter)