Chapter 235: The Early Stage of the Steel Mill
Received a reply from Williams's room, which is an excellent thing, but for Yang Yuanzhao, it represents busyness, coming to the time and space of 1908, the first Spring Festival, spent in the tense search for information, in the whole New Year, more in the calculation of all the input, the steel plant, not only the steelmaking furnace itself, but also a large number of supporting machinery, these in the previous United States, purchased a part, during this time, Yang Yuanzhao read some information, simple matching, Preparations have also been made for the preliminary construction of some steel plants.
Preliminary preparations have begun, Yang Yuanzhao has recruited a large number of workers from Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant, as well as other small steel plants in China, these workers, temporarily distributed in various factories, since the steel plant is about to be established, he gathered these people together, formed a new company, began to survey Baiyun Obo, although he has a general distribution map of minerals, but the national standard mineral distribution map, simply can not show the necessary location of the veins, to find the veins, but also need to investigate on the spot.
Similar surveys have been done several times before, and those iron ore specimens that were brought to the United States and let Williams test were found on Baiyun Obo Mountain, and now, they are more refined.
Fortunately, Baiyun Obo is a large iron mine, the reserves of iron ore are not deep, more than a dozen old miners, plus some mineral experts recruited from abroad, to conduct a carpet search for Baiyun Obo, a not too high hill, a radius of dozens of square kilometers, soon, some relatively large ore veins have come out, sure enough, it is a large iron ore vein, but, it seems that the taste is not too high.
There are few high-grade iron ores in China, I am afraid that there are more than 50 tastes, only Hainan Island, Hainan Island is thousands of miles away, at least not what Yang Yuanzhao can achieve now, when, get Australia, this is a continent sitting on ore.
Later military forums, it was mentioned that if the Americas are a great geographical discovery belonging to Europeans, then in a sense, Australia is a geographical discovery belonging to Asia, Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, and even reached the coast of Africa, which is much farther than to Australia, and even Zheng He even reached Guawa Island as farthest, from Australia, it is close on the map, but unfortunately, the monsoons and ocean currents did not cooperate, Zheng He took the road to the west, which missed the opportunity to discover Australia.
In the 20th century, Australia has been occupied, but the British control is not strict, you know, in later generations, the huge Australia is only 25 million people, in the era of 1900, the number of people is even less, if you can control the South Seas, Australia is almost a ripe peach.
Suppress the ambition in his heart, now he is just in the northwest of China, not even Baotou has not developed, let alone thousands of miles away from the distant country, to 1908, is his luck, with an all-in-one machine, it is the luck of luck, but the road has to go step by step, and the meal has to be eaten bite by bite.
Looking up to the north, in the distance, more than 100 kilometers away from Baotou, where there is a huge iron ore vein, here, will become a pen fun pavilion www.biquge.info for him to take off.
Yang Yuanzhao's actions did not hide from others at all, even during the New Year's Festival of singing and dancing, most of the merchants and workers went home for the New Year, and this action also attracted the attention of many people.
Before, the factory built by Yang Yuanzhao, many times, was decided by a pat on the brain, from the design to the production of a very fast, such a large number of actions, why, the eight major Jin businessmen, are very concerned about Yang Yuanzhao, a little investigation, all kinds of information will come out, although there is no clear news, but all kinds of information, all point to a direction, steel plant.
Iron and steel mills, even Jin merchants, were stunned by such a plan, how important steel is, they all know that as a new generation of Jin merchants, as in the late Qing Dynasty China, the big businessmen, they have more or less been in contact with foreign countries, what the great powers are dominating the world, and how they have crossed the ocean to cross the senior forces to the whole world, in which steel has played a very key role.
Many years ago, the Jin merchants once combined to raise 15 million taels to build an iron plant belonging to Shanxi, and establish a steel consortium based on Shanxi's abundant coal.
It's a pity that the example of the failure of the Hanyang Iron Works is in front, what kind of person is Zhang Zhidong, one of the leaders of the Westernization Movement, is an evergreen tree in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty, such a person, single-handedly promoted the development of Hubei, the establishment of the Hanyang Iron Works, is one of the benchmarks of the Westernization Movement, it took more than 20 years, spent tens of millions of dollars, what was built, 80,000 tons of iron, 40,000 tons of steel, not even a small steel mill of the great powers, this also extinguished the majority of people, the idea of establishing a steel plant, the alliance of Jin merchants, It's also self-defeating.
Yang Yuanzhao had said before that he would build Baotou into China's Ruhr, they didn't all know what the Ruhr was, Yang Yue's explanation, they knew that it was Germany's heavy industry base, which could produce coal and iron, and crown Germany.
Germany is one of the great powers, and it is also a big country known for its machinery and steel, since Yang Yuanzhao wants to build Baotou into the Ruhr of the East, then the coal and iron project is inevitable, but on the soil of China, will there be heavy industry, and if it is established, can it be profitable.
A Hanyang iron factory, spent 20 years and tens of millions of funds, Baotou's foundation is weak, before the textile factory, spent a lot of money, although it is said that the textile factory achieved profitability in the same month, a few months in a row, as if a money printing machine, crazy to earn profits, the daily production capacity has climbed the peak, so that many shareholders have obtained rich income, but compared with the textile factory, the steel mill is a greater gold-swallowing beast, and there is no hope.
Yang Yuanzhao now, unlike before, is completely different, in the current prestige of Baotou, the right to speak in various enterprises, if he independently implements this project, no one can stop it, so they can only inquire on the side and ask Yang Yuanzhao what step he has done.
For these gossips, or bright or dark words, Yang Yuanzhao did not put it in his eyes at all, in Yang Yuanzhao's plan, Baiyun Ebo Iron and Steel Complex, with a total investment of more than 30 million US dollars, that is, 60 million of the current ocean, although the investment is huge, but in the plan, many advanced technologies are used, and it costs 1 million oceans, and the first-rate experts in the American metallurgical industry, Professor Williams personally designed, the first phase of the planned production capacity, It is equivalent to 100 Hanyang Iron Works, and after it is put into operation, it will produce 4 million tons of steel and 8 million tons of iron per year.
This is a huge number, you know, 4 million tons of steel, just such a number, the whole world exceeds this number, I am afraid that only the United States, Germany, Britain and a few other countries, the traditional powers, France is also above this number, Russia has not even reached this number, as for Italy, Turkey, etc., their output is mostly around one million tons, 4 million tons of steel mills, compared to the Ruhr is not much better.
The whole steel plant looks huge, the numbers are also extremely amazing, but in the past few decades, it is a decades of rapid change in steelmaking technology, new steelmaking methods and steelmaking furnaces, one after another, Yang Yuanzhao also carried out a special transformation, using the new technology of oxygen blowing top steelmaking furnace, according to the feedback from the United States, the new oxygen blowing top of the open hearth, only 150 tons of volume, can be carefully designed by Williams, greatly enhance the efficiency of the open hearth, a furnace of steel refining time, Greatly reduced, through the precise cooperation and measurement of the amount of oxygen used, all the way from refining to completion, from the original 6-7 hours, reduced to about 2 hours, only one-third of the previous is a little less, this improvement, absolutely **, the news from Germany and the United States, Williams did not pay much attention to this project, after getting this real result, and even put all his energy into this project, even the previous plan of the 10 million ton steel plant, They were all thrown aside and put all their efforts on this project.
150 tons of open-hearth steel-making furnace, in this world, is no longer the highest level of steel-making furnaces, 200 tons, or even 250 tons of steel-making furnaces appear from time to time, and even some people began to study 300 tons, or even 400 tons of large open-hearth furnaces, more than ten years later, there will even be 600 tons, or even 700 tons of open-hearth, those are already giant steelmaking furnaces.
However, after adding the process of oxygen blowing, the time is shortened to one-third of the previous one, which means what, the general large-scale steel plant, the steelmaking furnace is almost 24 hours a day, reducing two-thirds of the time, it means that the efficiency has been increased by three times, 150 tons of furnace, played a 450-ton effect, therefore, the daily production capacity of a blast furnace can reach 10 furnaces, and the limit can even reach 12 furnaces, what does this mean, it represents a blast furnace, It can produce more than 1,500 tons of steel a day, 10, that is, 15,000 tons, and 10 steelmaking furnaces, you can achieve the effect of 400 tons, instead of considering 30 steelmaking furnaces before.
This alone, the investment in design, at least can reduce a large amount of investment, based on 60 million investment, all of a sudden reduced by tens of millions, which is also the fundamental reason why he has confidence, efficiency produces profits, science and technology to improve quality, with less investment, more steel production, which is also the root of China's ability to dominate the first steelmaking in later generations, than labor, China has never been afraid. R1152