Daming Crazy Emperor

Chapter 314 Opening a precedent

The Aegis ship has been drawn, but it is not easy to manufacture or even mass-produce it.

Because this Aegis ship has assembled almost all the top technologies of Ming Dynasty, its internal and external structure is extremely complicated, and the materials used are more than twice that of the Dragon Tooth battleship.

In order to build the Aegis ship, a new dock was even built, and the structure of the waterway was completely different from the past.

Because the self-weight of the Aegis ship is quite amazing after it is covered with iron armor, the draft is definitely not comparable to that of ordinary ships. If the waterway is not dug deeper, it may touch the bottom when it is covered with iron armor.

Moreover, its external structure is also different from all previous warships. The original platform cannot be used at all, and a new platform needs to be redesigned and built.

Wang Zheng and his disciples are left to work on these Taichangs, because he still needs to prepare a lot of things for the mass production of the Aegis ship.

For example, the production and processing of plates requires the construction of a super factory.

It’s okay to say, just add another grid to the south of the Haihe River. Anyway, the area here is very large, and they haven’t used one-tenth of it yet.

However, the machine tools and materials for processing plates are a bit troublesome, because the machine tools and materials needed by plate processing plants are massive.

You must know that the Aegis ship is seventeen to eighty feet long and four to five feet wide, and the iron plates they are building now are only two feet square, and they all have to be made into double-layer basalt shields.

Calculated in this way, the number of plates required is quite terrifying.
There must be dozens of each of these machine tools, such as plate presses, shears, punches, and drills, otherwise, the Aegis ship would not be able to be mass-produced.

He can also hand over this bed to Bi Maokang, and let the Ministry of Industry rush to make it.

As for the materials, he had to raise them himself, or organize mining and smelting, because the pig iron needed to build the Aegis ship was too much.

How much pig iron does it take for an Aegis ship to be covered with basalt armor?

Originally, Yuan Keli said that the Longya battleship still has at least 60 million jin of seed-carrying allowance, which means that there is no problem with the Aegis ship's approval of 60 million jin of iron armor.

Wang Zheng and the others estimated that although the amount of pig iron needed to cover a full armor of an Aegis ship is not as exaggerated as 60 million jin, 34 jin is still needed.

Speaking of this pig iron, it is really a headache.

Daming originally had no shortage of pig iron, because during the Hongwu Dynasty, Daming’s pig iron output reached more than 9000 million catties, which was more than the combined pig iron output of all other countries in the world at that time.

However, his father, Wanli, a prodigal bastard, exhausted his resources and sent mine supervisors and tax envoys to crack the bones and suck the marrow everywhere, so that the miners who hired the ore did not dare to mine.

Therefore, during the Wanli Dynasty, the output of various mineral deposits in the Ming Dynasty plummeted like a cliff, and the iron ore fell particularly tragically.

Historically, at the end of the Wanli period, the mining and smelting of iron ore in the Ming Dynasty basically stagnated, and the annual output had dropped below 100 million catties, which was a drop of nearly 90.00% compared to the Hongwu Dynasty!

In the Chongzhen Dynasty, Daming even had to import Japanese knives from Dongying.

In other words, at that time, the pig iron output of Daming was not even as good as that of a small Dongying!
After he took power, although the mining and smelting of various mineral deposits were gradually resumed, his focus in the past few years was on the two urgently needed materials, copper and coal mines. Therefore, Daming's pig iron production did not recover very quickly.

So, what is Daming's pig iron output at this moment?
In the conference hall of the Wenhua Palace, a group of officials from the Ministry of Industry sat on both sides, and Taichang sat on the top, frowning and looking at the ledger in front of him.

At this moment, Daming's pig iron output has recovered to about 1000 million catties a year, but the Ministry of Industry is organizing subcontracting, mining and smelting according to demand.

In other words, they can produce as much as they want, and there is no surplus of pig iron at the moment.

At the moment, the commerce and trade in Nanzhili is developing unprecedentedly, and various handicraft workshops are springing up like mushrooms after rain, and the demand for pig iron is already astonishingly high.

This year, 1000% of the [-] million jin of pig iron was consumed by Nanzhili, and the remaining [-]%, [-]% was consumed by other provinces, and [-]% was almost consumed by Wubei City.

As for the surplus, basically none.

Taichang flipped through it for a while, couldn't help but sighed slightly, and then slowly closed the ledger.

Don't you know that with the development of production technology, the demand for pig iron will increase explosively?

He scanned around slowly, and then said helplessly to Song Yingxing: "Chang Geng, have you ever thought about how much pig iron you need to make the rails and carriages after the steam locomotive is developed?"

Uh, this.

Song Yingxing was a little ashamed and said: "The emperor forgives the sin, now my mind is full of the high-hardness alloy you mentioned, and I don't think about other things."

Alas, there is still a shortage of people.

Now there are only a few real scientific and technological talents in Daming, and each of them has a lot of things to do, so it is inevitable that they will lose sight of others.

It seems that the imperial examination system has to be reformed. We can't just select liberal arts talents, and we can't let all scholars study in liberal arts.

He must find a way to get a large number of scholars to study technology or science.

Otherwise, Daming will lack technical talents as it gets to the later stage. In a few years, it may not be enough to split these few people!
Thinking of this, Taichang couldn't help but sighed again.

There is no way there is no one now, so he can only helplessly say: "Okay, you have too many things to work on, and I can't blame you for this, but the demand for pig iron in the future will not be normal. We have to Hurry up and find a way to increase the production of pig iron. Is there any iron mine near the capital, the construction of the Aegis ship is about to start, we have to mine and smelt pig iron quickly."

I am not very clear about this problem!

Song Yingxing couldn't help looking at Bi Maokang, Minister of the Ministry of Industry.

Bi Maokang quickly introduced: "Your Majesty, in fact, there are many iron mines near the capital, such as Jizhou, Luanzhou, Qian'an, Zunhua, Funing, Miyun, Huairou and other places. The area between Haizhouwei and Liaoyang is even more famous for its iron mines, where the iron mines are even exposed, so there is no need to open a mine, just dig it directly.”

There are so many iron ores, so hurry up and dig them!

Taichang said without hesitation: "Since there are so many iron mines near the capital, there is no need to think about it. Immediately organize manual mining and smelting. You ask the people below to plan carefully. In the future, the annual pig iron production will increase by at least 1000 million catties."

Ah!
Although the content of this iron ore is much higher than that of copper ore, mining and smelting are not generally laborious.

For 1000 million catties of pig iron, at least two or 3000 million catties of iron ore must be dug to smelt it, and the coal consumed to smelt pig iron is not ordinary, and 1000 million catties is probably not enough.

Just this, we have to increase the output by 1000 million catties every year!

After making a rough estimate, Bi Maokang couldn't help but say: "Your Majesty, it may be very difficult to increase the production by 1000 million catties a year!"

is it hard?
Taichang said lightly: "Tell me, where is the difficulty?"

Bi Maokang counted with his fingers: "The mining and smelting of iron ore requires too many people. The annual production of 1000 million catties of pig iron requires at least tens of thousands of people to mine, and tens of thousands of people are needed to smelt it. Carrying coal and even pig iron requires a lot of manpower, and there are more workshops and shops in the capital, so there are not so many idle young laborers nearby!"

How difficult is this?

Taichang said without hesitation: "I've said it all, you have to be more courageous, and go to other places to recruit if you don't have manpower. Aren't there a lot of young and strong people in Henan and Shanxi? They will rebel if they have nothing to eat. It's a lot of work to recruit them." Well, they can also earn food money, and we don’t have to worry about them gathering together to rebel.”

Uh, this, okay.

The reason why Bi Maokang didn't think about this was because he was imprisoned by his original thinking.

You must know that before the Ming Dynasty, they tried their best to restrict the movement of the population. Even when people left their hometowns, they had to go to the county government to find the county magistrate to apply for guidance.

If people don't agree, don't even think about traveling far away.

Under this background, who would think of recruiting tens of thousands or even tens of thousands of people to work in other places!
However, with the continuous development of Ming Dynasty, a large-scale movement of people is inevitable. Taichang even thought about migrating coastal fishermen to Nanyang to seize colonies!
Lu Yin had been abolished a long time ago, it's just that these court officials haven't realized that people can flow on a large scale.

This time, he can be regarded as the first of its kind in the large-scale movement of people within the Ming Dynasty. I believe everyone will get used to it in the future.

(End of this chapter)