Chapter 252: Steel Plant and Ore

Unlike Workshop 1, which was packed with Apprentices, Workshop 2 had actual Transmigrators on site. Any place producing "precision instruments" required Industrial Party members who understood computers to hold the fort. Correspondingly, nearly all the "intermediate" skilled workers were employed in this workshop.

The Transmigrators' classification of worker skill levels was nowhere near as complex as later generations would make it — just three simple tiers: Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced. Each tier was divided into only two grades, meaning a Level 6 Worker was the absolute peak.

Even so, at present, not a single person had managed to advance to the Advanced tier. The factory's requirements for an Advanced Worker were actually quite simple: basic programming ability, and then, following the Blueprint specifications, setting the tool-head feed parameters on the control screen.

Yet this was the chasm.

What any secondary vocational school graduate in later generations could do with ease was, in the eyes of these illiterate craftsmen, nothing short of heavenly scripture.

The highest-ranking Level 4 Workers currently in the workshop could only manage to input pre-set, fixed programs on the keyboard using the two-finger "eagle-claw" technique — exactly as they had done back in the Ming Dynasty: first rote-memorizing a set of data, then producing the part.

Knowledge determines a person's ceiling. These craftsmen, lacking foundational theoretical knowledge, instantly revealed their true colors the moment they encountered cutting-edge technology.

Of course, they couldn't really be blamed for this; the Ming Dynasty was simply that kind of environment. Besides, the young people of later generations were all phone-addicted, internet-café-LAN-partying, chicken-dinner-chasing types; tweaking a few simple data points on a keyboard according to Blueprint requirements posed zero difficulty for them.

These craftsmen, however, could not. First, they had never attended middle school, so the majority of them could not read Blueprints that required basic geometry knowledge. Second, they had never played LOL, so when faced with an industrial control screen the size of an iPad, this bunch instantly went numb in the claws — comprehension impossible.

Thus, the current situation was this: whenever a new workpiece came in, the Transmigrator on duty had to set all the parameters first, and only then hand it over to these workers to execute.

As for Advanced craftsmen capable of independently handling the entire program — at present, there were none. The so-called Intermediate skilled workers would need a few more years of cramming basic knowledge before they could reach that level.

Workshop 3 was the core workshop exclusive to the Transmigrators. The several Giddme CNC Machining Centers imported from later generations were the Industrial Party's most precious assets. This kind of 5-axis CNC machining center could handle complex curved surfaces, theoretically capable of machining Propellers and BMW car engines — true industrial mother machines.

Of course, for now, a certain silk-pants faction's Propellers were all cast from Pig Iron, and they couldn't build BMW cars anyway, so they could only use the machining centers to produce components for low-end lathes — a classic case of wasting great talent on petty tasks.

The seemingly dazzling and bustling production activity was, beneath the surface, still hollow at its core. Take the most critical material, steel, for example: aside from qualified rough steel, the Kiln District Steel Plant could neither roll the special thin sheets needed for car bodies, nor smelt the steel grades required for high-end engines.

Therefore, high-end goods like BMW cars would forever remain legend; crude, low-efficiency, old-style Coal Gas Engines were the Industrial Party's current goal.

Industry is a chain of interlocking rings.

The simplest places are also the most difficult. Starting from a single steel ingot, a single screw, if any link fails to meet the standard, the system will ultimately amplify that flaw and make it glaringly apparent.

The Kiln District was now precisely in such a situation. Aside from relatively strong machining capability, every other link, including raw materials, could only be described as feeble. In fact, even within the machining domain, if separated from the Transmigrators, the Ming People still couldn't make things work — it was a crippled domain.

After inspecting the machinery plant, Yao Zhesheng and Zou Guoqing, not particularly satisfied with the current state of affairs, boarded an electric three-wheeler and made a tour of the neighboring Steel Plant.

The Steel Plant today was long past its humble beginnings of just two Electric Furnaces. Besides importing two more 5-ton Electric Furnaces later on, the plant had also, through self-reliant DIY methods, cobbled together a batch of metallurgical Equipment such as cupola furnaces and Reverberatory Furnaces.

As the Haedong Chain Firm established itself at every major dock along the Fujian coast, the vast community of Fujianese mine owners suddenly discovered that business was booming.

At first, whether it was Pig Iron, Wrought Iron, or ore, anything that crossed the dock was purchased by the Commercial Firm. These newly arrived merchants, wealthy and powerful, backed by the increasingly prestigious Mobile Corps Commander General's Office, had been slowly driving up the price of Iron in Fujian for the past half year.

To the excitement of the local toughs, the Haedong Chain Firm not only bought Iron materials without limit, but also scattered silver freely to form joint-stock mining ventures. In traditional Iron-smelting regions like Youxi County and Jian'an County, the Haedong Trading Company dispatched dedicated personnel to negotiate business.

The terms for establishing mines were exceedingly generous: any local powers around the mines — mountain owners, mine owners, Old Wealth, rural gentry, local toughs, and the like — could come empty-handed to the Haedong Trading Company and discuss cooperation.

Influential local powers could essentially get something for nothing from the Commercial Firm, receiving large sums of silver as shareholders. Under the Organization of the Commercial Firm, these people would often pool resources, Recruit large numbers of miners, and massively expand existing Pits and furnace yards to boost Iron material output.

The benefits provided by the Haedong Trading Company went far beyond this: mining Tools forged from fine steel, transport carts, rails, experts who used "secret maps" to prospect ore veins, and "master craftsmen" wielding rechargeable thermometers who could build new types of Ironmaking furnaces — all these soft conditions for improving Ironmaking efficiency were available to partners from the Haedong Trading Company.

And all the local powers had to do was ceaselessly transport Iron materials and surplus ore to the docks, then exchange them at the Commercial Firm's warehouses for top-quality Private Salt, grain, and Tools. As for silver, that was the last option; Private Salt and grain were always more useful than silver in the mountains.

As time passed, the entire metallurgical industry of Fujian was undergoing a profound transformation under the regulation of the Crossing Faction's invisible hand.

The most significant aspect of this transformation was the rapid growth in Pig Iron output.

Capital chases profit. When the shareholders of the Ironworks discovered that the Haedong Trading Company's purchase price for Pig Iron had risen considerably, they naturally demanded that furnace masters smelt more Pig Iron and less Wrought Iron.

Ancient traditional Steelmaking methods were numerous: bloomery carburizing and forging for hundred-refined steel, the Pouring Steel Method, the Su Steel Method, the Stir-Frying Steel Method, low-temperature crucible Damascus steel, and so on.

These methods, despite their variations, were fundamentally the same — all were low-temperature Ironmaking. The so-called "steel" produced by the above methods was, without exception, an Iron product with unqualified impurity content. One must understand that the melting point of pure Iron is 1538 degrees. Before the advent of Huntsman Crucible Steel in 1740, humanity had no way to melt Iron into a liquid, let alone control its Phosphorus and Sulfur Content.

The Steel Plant far away in the Kiln District naturally had no need for the so-called Wrought Iron that medieval Workers painstakingly refined. Because in the eyes of the Industrial Party, any product smelted by the Ming People was substandard waste with failed quality control.

Therefore, based on this principle, Pig Iron — which took less time, consumed less material, and saved processing steps — instantly became the hot commodity: the Transmigrators deliberately raised the purchase price of Pig Iron.

The Ming mine owners naturally did not reject this change: a native furnace that originally produced 800 jin of Wrought Iron a day could now easily produce over 2000 jin of Pig Iron. Why wouldn't they be happy to oblige?

Yet this was not the end. The mine owners soon felt the even more voracious appetite of an Industrial Society. Before long, the "master craftsmen" dispatched to guide production everywhere made an even "looser" demand regarding the Ming people's products: we want inferior Pig Iron.

This so-called "Pig Iron," which had undergone only cursory Smelting to maximize savings in time, labor, and fuel, was essentially no different from the Ground Bar Steel of later generations — garbage that would shatter if dropped on the ground.

Yet it was precisely this garbage that the Haedong Trading Company purchased in full at the promised price.

From then on, there was no stopping it. Upon hearing the news, Ming mine owners began switching production en masse to this stuff that was neither proper Iron material nor proper ore; meanwhile, the Kiln District Steel Plant gleefully began accepting large batches of this "high-grade ore."

Yes, in the eyes of the Industrial Party, these Iron materials were tantamount to high-grade ore. In essence, they were high-grade ore that the Ming people had jigged out; only the jigging tool was not a machine, but flame and a native furnace.

Now, after consolidation, the Fujian Ironmaking industry had become increasingly tailored to the Crossing Faction's appetite — just like an early colony, exporting population and raw materials with the left hand, and receiving industrial goods with the right.

During the commercial system's tireless campaign of Attacking Cities and seizing territory, the frequency of scheduled ships heading from Across the Sea to Dayuan steadily increased. Now, roughly every 15 days, a cross-strait fleet would Depart from ports like Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou.

The fleet included not only Iron-material ships and Coal ships, but also passenger ships packed with people and merchant vessels laden with White Sugar, Indigo, and Porcelain. Guided by a Pilot Ship emitting a white beam of light, these Ming ships sailed through the night, crossing the strait in a day or two to reach Dayuan.

And with the increase in "high-grade ore" throughput, along with the successful operation of the Taipei Iron Sand Mine, the Kiln District Steel Plant finally dared to set the 1628 steel output target in the unit of "thousand tons."

Of course, "steel output" here referred to the Total Amount of all metallurgical products, including refined Iron. In truth, the Kiln District's actual steel output was not high. For a faction in the 17th Century, various cast Iron products, not steel, were what society most needed as metallurgical products.

Among the Kiln District Steel Plant's daily products, the largest shipment volume was Round Steel Bar, followed by some rough steel ingots for machining. These two product types, in fact, consistently accounted for less than 30% of the plant's total product volume; the rest consisted of various cast Iron products.

This quantity allocation scheme was very reasonable. One must understand that, in this plane of existence, a Wood-Gas Engine built from cast Iron plates and Nodular Cast Iron was already cutting-edge technology. And the Crossing Faction did not need higher technology to sweep away enemies armed with bows and Matchlocks — with the Resources to develop Five-Pair Road Wheels, the Wood-Gas Truck and the Type 38 Rifle would have long since annihilated all foes.

Thus, various cast Iron products were the current mainstream of the Steel Plant.