Chapter 1016: The Soaring Steel

Yancheng.

When the Azure Dragon Army and the Marine Corps were approaching Hanoi.

Zhao Xu was not idle either; he was inspecting the construction situation within Da Song, including agriculture, industry, education, and other sectors, in order to grasp the true state of the nation.

To him, the greatest taboo for someone in a high position is to be like the emperors of the past, staying in the Imperial Palace for years on end and relying solely on memorials to understand the country's situation.

Because, the thing known as a memorial is often the least trustworthy.

This is also the reason why many monarchs are fooled by powerful officials.

Even until the mountains and rivers are shattered, these shut-ins raised in greenhouses still do not understand what exactly happened, or why things turned out this way.

It is precisely because of these considerations that he brought the Propaganda Department directly under his direct jurisdiction.

In this way, he can use the Newspaper to learn about some of the misdeeds that officials have suppressed.

At the same time, Xu Ke's Supervision Four Courts can also provide him with some real information about the situation among the people.

But even with these two means of understanding the public sentiment, they cannot replace what he sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears.

Only by combining the three can he be as omniscient and omnipotent as possible.

And the first stop of his inspection was naturally the Yancheng area.

After all, Yancheng currently represents the highest standard of all industries in Da Song.

"Currently, our Steel Workshop has achieved oxygen-blown smelting for steel that requires high quality; not only can we meet the steel demand of Yanzhou, but we have also achieved sales to other prefectures."

Yancheng Steel Workshop, this is the new workshop area after the original Steel Workshop within the Ministry of Military Supplies was relocated.

Compared to the cramped space of the previous Steel Workshop, the Yancheng Steel Workshop covers an area of over one hundred mu, three hundred and eighty meters long and about two hundred and sixty meters wide.

It is about the same size as the area occupied by a contemporary primary school.

Within this spacious workshop area, there are nine workshop buildings, each over a hundred meters long.

Each workshop building is responsible for the production of different steel products.

For example, some workshops smelt molten steel directly for manufacturing steel bars used in construction, some for manufacturing steel wire used for binding, and others for manufacturing steel plates, steel pipes, and steel ingots.

Of course, there are also factory buildings specifically used for manufacturing special steel needed by the Ministry of Military Supplies.

After establishing the cannery, the Steel Workshop also built a hot-rolling workshop to produce thinner steel plates.

After these steel plates are tinned, they can be used to manufacture tin cans.

Now, Zhao Xu is inside the hot-rolling workshop.

Red-hot molten steel is poured out from the converter, shaped in a long strip-shaped mold, and after cooling slightly, it is gripped at both ends by the workshop craftsmen with tongs and fed into the hot-rolling machine.

The main structure of this hot-rolling machine is two rollers, one above and one below, and a conveyor device.

A one-centimeter-thick red-hot steel plate passes through the gap between the rollers and is pressed into a half-centimeter-thick steel plate.

Next, this steel plate will continue to pass through rollers with smaller gaps until it is pressed down to about half a millimeter.

Finally, these thin steel plates will be coiled up and sent to other workshops.

"What is the monthly production capacity?" Zhao Xu asked while nodding.

The Yanzhou Steel Workshop and some important workshops have their own small Power Plants.

After modifications, many pieces of equipment in the Steel Workshop have been retrofitted with Electric Motors and no longer use traditional Steam Engines.

Because the efficiency of Electric Motors is far higher than that of Steam Engines, the efficiency is naturally higher than before.

"Replying to Your Highness, fifteen thousand tons per month is no problem, and we can guarantee at least two hundred thousand tons a year." The person in charge of the Steel Workshop revealed a proud expression.

"Not bad." Zhao Xu spat out two words and also revealed a smile.

During the contemporary Ming Dynasty, the annual steel production of the entire country was only one hundred and sixty thousand tons.

His one Steel Workshop had already surpassed that.

However, even so, in Zhao Xu's eyes, the Yanzhou Steel Workshop is actually just a small steel mill.

Which contemporary large-scale steel mill doesn't cover an area of over six thousand mu?

Even a contemporary small-scale steel workshop can achieve an annual production of one million tons of steel.

Compared to that, the Yancheng Steel Workshop is ultimately a small fish in a big pond.

However, he is already very satisfied with this; Da Song has just entered the industrial age, and its technology is still lagging behind the contemporary era.

Moreover, there is no coal or iron near Yancheng, and it needs to be transported from other commanderies and counties.

So he did not have the idea of building a large-scale steel workshop in Yancheng.

The real large-scale steel workshops are concentrated in Shanggu Commandery and Liaojun.

These two places are already steel bases in the contemporary era.

At present, the steel workshops in both commanderies went into production last year.

Otherwise, relying solely on the Yancheng Steel Workshop, it would be impossible to supply the rails for the Railway.

After observing the hot-rolling workshop for a while, Zhao Xu went to the Beifang District of the Steel Workshop.

Here, there is an electrolysis workshop.

The oxygen needed by the Steel Workshop naturally cannot be transported from other places, so the Steel Workshop is also an oxygen production workshop.

Oxygen production is piped from the electrolysis workshop into various workshops.

When Zhao Xu arrived, some craftsmen were loading steel cylinders onto donkey carts to be hauled away.

These steel cylinders are filled with oxygen and hydrogen, and these cylinders will be used for Oxyhydrogen Welding.

Before the advent of Electricity, the main connection method for steel parts was riveting.

Now, although the traditional riveting method still needs to be retained.

They are now able to use more advanced Oxyhydrogen Welding to join steel components.

In this way, different steel parts can be combined to build more complex machinery.

And this is the subtle sublimation brought to industry after the appearance of Electricity.

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