Chapter 1644: Development and Reform of the Smelting Plant

The year-end meeting was held as scheduled; outside, heavy snow was falling, but inside the Chaotang, it remained warm. For the officials and representatives who were not qualified to enter, shelters were thoughtfully constructed so they could be guaranteed protection from the snow and cold.

Although the weather was poor, the date had been set and could not be changed, so it proceeded amidst the heavy snow; besides, a timely snow promises a good harvest, which was a good omen.

This time, Baifeng was still sitting in his seat, but an extra table was placed beside him, where Yulong sat; Yulong presided over this meeting.

Following the usual rules, each department first reported on the year's situation to conduct a year-end summary, followed by arrangements for each department for the coming year, and the final item was collective commendation.

Judging from the reports, the development of each department was quite good, but they all revealed a problem that had existed for years: a shortage of manpower, especially in specialized technical departments—they were short of people, always short of people, short every single year.

Even though the schools were training more students each year, it was still not enough because the speed of Huaxia's development was equally rapid; expansion required people, and there was always a shortage of people.

The good news was mainly concentrated in industry: the Magnetite discovered last year had already been mined on a large scale. Coupled with the Magnets distributed to those children and women, they had collected a massive quantity of Iron Sand from various riverbeds, and because of its high purity, the annual output almost equaled the iron production of Huaxia's original Iron Ore.

Furthermore, because the purity was high, the difficulty of smelting was lower. The mining department's opinion was whether to suspend Iron Ore mining and focus on the collection of Iron Sand and the smelting of Magnetite, because although Magnetite was far from Huaxia and transport was slow, with very little being shipped over in a year, its higher iron content meant that the actual iron yield was greater.

In addition, the current number of Workers in Huaxia's smelting plants was insufficient to smelt iron from three sources at once; it was impossible to keep up, and the ore had already piled up. However, because Iron was the top priority for Huaxia, production could not be stopped even if the ore was backlogged.

During this period, Yulong had also issued orders to reduce the mining volume of Iron Ore, cutting the quota by one-third at once and arranging for people to go to the riverbeds to pull Iron Sand, but the problem was still not solved. Yulong did not want to make a sweeping decision on such an important matter and still had to consult Baifeng's opinion.

Regarding this, Baifeng certainly wanted to maximize the benefits. Baifeng's arrangement was to conduct mining and smelting by quarter; for instance, the original Iron Ore could only be mined and smelted during the Winter and Spring seasons because it was close to Huaxia City, so mining and transportation had less impact even in Winter.

Riverbed Iron Sand was heavily affected by the seasons; it could not be collected during Winter and the flood season. There was also Magnetite, for which the season for mining and transportation was even shorter. Therefore, smelting should be done by season and in batches, but no source of Iron could be abandoned; Huaxia needed Iron too much.

At the same time, new iron smelting plants were to be built in two places. One was to be built directly next to the Iron Ore; after the ore was mined, it would be smelted on-site. Transporting coal over was slightly more cost-effective than transporting Iron Ore over, and it would be smelted directly into Iron Ingots before being sent over.

The second was to find a suitable place around Suiren City for smelting. Although Baifeng could not determine the specific location of the Suiren territory, it was certain that most of its territory was in the later Shaanxi region. There were many high-quality Coal Mines there, and it would not be difficult to find a suitable Coal Mine. If it could not be found in one year, then two or three years; this was a long-term layout that could not be abandoned because of current troubles.

Another point was the energy utilization of the iron smelting plants. In the smelting plants, they would attempt to install large boilers to boil water, and then, through Cement pipe casting, pull a heating system under the ground of Huaxia City to make full use of the heat energy from the iron smelting plants.

Although the distance between the iron smelting plant and the residential area of Huaxia City was very far, as long as this energy could be utilized properly, Huaxia's heating would certainly be more convenient in the future.

For houses already built, it was indeed difficult to use hot water because the old water pipes had been patched up, and now the tap water in many areas could no longer be used. Most people still used well water because it was stable. Besides, trying to pipe in tap water after a house was built was truly too troublesome and difficult, so many people just gave up.

The annual expenditure Huaxia spent on tap water was also very large, but after years of effort, some areas could still use tap water stably. It was almost impossible to supply the whole city because it would require renovating the underground of the entire city, which was not worth it.

As for heating, it could be installed in places that were being prepared for construction or planned for construction. Although there were no radiators, it could be laid out like floor heating, which could also be effective.

But this was currently just Baifeng's vision. Whether it could be successfully implemented would only be known after a few years of testing, because there was no guarantee whether the Cement pipes would leak, whether the temperature could be maintained after long-distance transport underground, and whether there would be safety hazards after laying them underground; these were all problems.

If this problem could not be solved, then they would abandon the floor heating and change it to an outdoor hot water supply for the city in Winter, setting up some water collection points so that people could get hot water in Winter; at the very least, it could provide some convenience for everyone. This was Baifeng's vision, and as the saying went, whether it could be successfully implemented would only be known after testing.

Setting up an iron smelting plant in the Suiren territory was also for convenience; in the future, the Iron from the Suiren region could be produced locally. Some of the former smelting Artisans of the Suiren had already been brought to Huaxia and were undergoing training; they were now basically skilled workers, and there would be more such Workers in the future.

The training of good Blacksmiths required a long time. They could craft items like Swords and Knives that needed to ensure quality and hardness, while for some farm tools and implements, like hammers and axes, Huaxia would rely entirely on the casting method, which was faster and had a higher output.

They did not need to be perfect, but as long as they were usable, they could be distributed to the Residents of Huaxia, and there would be things to use for future land reclamation and expansion.

Therefore, Baifeng also gave instructions to the Ministry of Works to reduce the quota for weapon production next year and increase the production of more farm tools and implements to meet the current development needs of Huaxia.