After the Mentougou Coal Mine was fully acquired by the Imperial Palace, six coal mining areas of 3 large and 3 small coal mines were formed. Among them, the three coal mining areas with the best geographical location, two large and one small, have been linked by a mining railway to Longquan Station, the terminal of the Jingxi Railway. In the other three coal mining areas, due to their remoteness and rugged roads, coal can only be transported by camel teams and manpower.

Although the Yongding River flows through this area, it is too steep to use the river for navigation, but it is the best source of crushing limestone ore and iron ore.

Of course, because the upper reaches of the Yongding River are located in the Inner Mongolia Plateau, the sediment content of the river water is large, and it cannot be directly used as the power of hydraulic machinery. However, compared with unstable windmills and inefficient manpower and animal power, water power is already a very stable power.

Mentougou originally had more than 300 large and small coal kilns, and after the Xishan Coal Incident, the owners of these coal kilns either sold their coal kilns to the newly established Mentougou Coal Industry United Company, or converted the coal kilns into shares and became shareholders of the company.

Up to now, more than 95% of the coal kilns in Mentougou have been controlled by the Mentougou Coal Industry United Company. Some of the remaining kilns either closed down because of the high cost of coal mining, or had to sell their own coal to the United Corporation.

After the Coal United Company took control of the coal market for the residents of Beijing, the power of a monopoly naturally emerged from the coal United Corporation.

According to the survey report received by Chongzhen, the daily residents in Beijing have reached more than 854,000, and by the end of September of Chongzhen's first year, the per capita coal consumption had reached 390 catties. Although such a detailed survey was not conducted last year, according to the investigators' estimates, the annual coal consumption of Beijing residents did not exceed this amount last year.

The use of coal as fuel by urban residents in the north was already very popular as early as the Song Dynasty. By the time of the Ming Dynasty, it had been greatly developed. In the past, although coal produced in Xishan was the bulk of coal used by urban residents in Beijing, it never exceeded more than one-third of the coal used in Beijing.

In addition to the Xishan coal kiln, there are small coal kilns in all counties on the outskirts of Beijing, and even some coal comes from Shandong. However, after the Mentougou Coal Industry United Company integrated the Xishan Coal Kiln, the daily output of Xishan Coal has exceeded one million catties, and the coal employees have exceeded 50,000 people.

This is still the result of the coal kiln transformation has not been fully completed, the Beijing-West Railway has not been opened, and the coal industry joint company has consciously suppressed the production capacity.

At present, half of Xishan's coal production is mainly supplied to iron-smelting plants, cement factories, glass factories and other operating workshops, and the coal transported to the capital every day is only 4 to 500,000 catties. At present, the daily coal consumption of residents in Beijing is only more than 90 million catties, that is, the coal industry joint company occupies about half of the coal market in Beijing.

But since the Wensi Institute developed the honeycomb coal stove, this new type of coal-saving stove soon became a daily necessity in the homes of the people in Beijing.

Because the use of honeycomb coal is convenient and does not take up space, the simple earth-blended coal that was originally on the market was quickly eliminated. The way to make honeycomb coal is not complicated, as long as you make a mold from a blacksmith shop, it can be made at home.

At Chongzhen's suggestion, Daming Daily also published a special way of how to make honeycomb coal at home.

In such an atmosphere, honeycomb coal soon became the mainstream of the residential coal market in Beijing, and the coal stoves made by Wensi Institute also became in short supply.

There were concerns that the demand for coal from Beijing residents would decline after the introduction of honeycomb coal, but the coal sales data quickly dispelled these unnecessary concerns.

The advent of new coal stoves and honeycomb coal has increased the daily coal consumption of Beijing by almost half. The original 9 yuan per ton of coal in the market has now risen to 10 or 11 yuan per ton.

Honeycomb coal, made from Xishan anthracite, has become the most popular product among the residents of Beijing, and the coal produced elsewhere in the capital market cannot be compared.

This is because the quality of Xishan coal is better, and the second is that Xishan Coal Industry United Company first set up a distribution system in various squares in Beijing. Naturally, the shops that still use the old way of doing business in the coal business cannot compete with this modern sales system.

The reason why these shops can still occupy half of the coal market in Beijing is that the Beijing-West Railway has not yet opened, and the workshops located in Xishan have an extremely amazing ability to digest coal.

However, after the opening of the Beijing-West Railway, the cost of coal arriving in Beijing will soon fall from 5 yuan per ton to 4 yuan per ton. And the amount of coal delivered to the capital every day is even more incomparable before. Under such circumstances, as long as the Xishan Coal Mine increases its output, there will be no coal from other places in the coal market in the capital in the future.

After visiting one of the largest coal mines, Chongzhen obviously felt that the current development trend of Xishan Coal Mine was good, and his face was full of smiles, which made the officials and eunuchs in charge of Xishan Coal Mine very excited.

However, when Chongzhen arrived at the iron-smelting factory, the most important destination of this trip, and saw the quality of pig iron smelted by the new iron-smelting small blast furnace, he was suddenly disappointed.

The design of the small blast furnace for iron smelting modified by Chongzhen is completely different from the iron smelting shaft furnace of this era. Although this small blast furnace does not seem to be as large as the old iron-smelting shaft furnace, the amount of iron produced far exceeds that of the iron-smelting shaft furnace.

Even iron-smelting craftsmen are still exploring the use of this new type of small blast furnace, and now the output of iron per day and night has reached 1 ton. For every ton of pig iron produced, about 1,000 kilograms of coke, about 700 kilograms of limestone, and about 25 tons of iron ore are used.

However, although the output of pig iron has increased, the quality of pig iron is not as good as that of the old charcoal iron smelting. Neither the craftsmen nor the officials of the ironworks felt that this was a defect.

This pig iron is used to cast rails, and the quality is sufficient. In their opinion, the quality of iron obtained in this way is much better than that of pig iron smelted directly from coal, and the speed is much faster.

The Ministry of Works officials and several craftsmen also identified the problem that could not improve the quality of iron, that is, the high sulfur content of locally produced iron ore, which led to the poor quality of the molten iron.

Zhu Youzhen was also a little at a loss at first, but he soon woke up to the fact that the iron ore used in the Capital Iron and Steel Plant built in Shijingshan in later generations did not seem to come from the iron ore in Mentougou.

He frowned and thought for a long time before he remembered the Longyan Iron Mine between Zhangjiakou and Xuanhua. This is a rare iron-rich ore in northern China, and it is also the main source of iron ore in the early stage of Shougang's development.

But it's one thing to know about Longyan Iron Ore, it's another thing to want to pull iron ore to the outskirts of Beijing. The reason why the Republic of China established an iron-smelting plant in Shijingshan was mainly because of the existence of the Beijing-Baozhou railway line.

And the current horse-drawn railway track has just been connected to Mentougou. Extending the railway line to Zhangjiakou is not a simple task. After crossing Mentougou, the road to Zhangjiakou is a mountain road through the mountains and mountains.

After realizing this, Zhu Youzhen dispelled the idea of developing Longyan iron ore. However, the completion of this small blast furnace still brought him a lot of surprises.

After exploring two furnaces of molten iron, the craftsmen of the ironworks began to understand the design concept of this small blast furnace. For these craftsmen who are transferred from all over the world, they can be regarded as the most experienced craftsmen of Daming Iron Smelting, they do not lack iron-smelting technology, but they lack the guidance of a complete iron-smelting concept.

When this small blast furnace proved with the first molten iron that the iron smelting proposed by Chongzhen was nothing more than an oxidation-reduction reaction, the craftsmen's understanding of smelting technology deepened.

For Zhu Youzhen's vague concepts such as blowing wind and making slag, the craftsmen also began to understand, and began to try to improve.

However, the biggest surprise was that an official and several craftsmen from the Ministry of Industry who presided over the construction of the small blast furnace had completely experienced the construction and commissioning of the small blast furnace. It is believed that on the existing basis, it is possible to design a small blast furnace with a daily output of more than 10 tons.

Regarding this official's report, Zhu Youzhen naturally looked forward to it. Although the Longyan iron ore mine cannot be developed for the time being, the iron ore mines in Tangshan and Qian'an areas can already start to enter the development stage.

The Tangshan Iron and Steel Plant, which was originally under construction near the newly established Tangshan County County, has begun to build two small blast furnaces the size of the Xishan Iron Works.

However, since there is a more suitable design for small blast furnaces, Zhu Youzhen naturally does not mind changing one of them into a small blast furnace with a daily output of 20 tons. In his opinion, even if this small blast furnace fails, at least it can give these craftsmen some experience.

After all, the development of iron-smelting blast furnaces in later generations was developed step by step during the entire industrial revolution, and the premise of the continuous expansion of the capacity of these iron-smelting blast furnaces was based on the countless attempts of the predecessors.

And now the Ming craftsmen, they have been in contact with the small blast furnace structure in advance, has completely surpassed the process of technology accumulation, only by constantly giving them the opportunity to try, this new way of iron smelting can be truly digested by the Ming craftsmen.

When Zhu Youzhen, under the urging of Wang Chengen, reluctantly returned to the special train, the sun had already begun to set westward. To be honest, compared with the grand and majestic capital, Zhu Youzhen felt that these factories hidden in the ravine gave him a sense of intimacy.