Opening game, American Tycoon

Chapter 276 The world's largest steel production complex (second update, please subscribe)
December 1868 was the summer in the southern hemisphere, which was the harvest season and the hottest season of the year.

Even in midsummer, the temperature here is only about [-] degrees, and the weather is extremely comfortable.

However, in front of the blast furnace and the flat furnace of the steel factory, summer is often the most difficult. Furnace workers in protective clothing stuff the steel pestle into the furnace, and the scorching air blows towards the face, scorching the workers.

In the busy workshop, the workers are busy, the sound of the blower and the roar of the machine overwhelm any sound in the workshop, and only the harsh whistle can cover all this.

After several years of development, Dahua Iron and Steel Company located on the banks of the Nan River (River Negro) has already become the largest steel plant in the world in the southern hemisphere. It not only has as many as six iron-making blast furnaces, but also has three most advanced steelmaking plants. The steel open hearth furnace has a steel output of more than [-] tons, which is enough to make Dahua Steel proud of the world-there is no "steel complex" larger than it in this era.

After all, most of the iron and steel enterprises in this era are "small factories" with an annual output of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of tons, and Dahua Iron and Steel has been aiming at the goal of a large steel complex from the very beginning.

From the ironmaking blast furnace in the first phase to the open hearth steelmaking, the early construction of ironworks had a certain emergency nature. Except for the profiteering open hearth steelmaking, there were only simple steel rolling equipment. From the second phase of the project, it was a A steel complex unprecedented in this time and space.

From the mining and beneficiation of iron ore and coal mines more than [-] kilometers away in the south, to ironmaking, steelmaking and steel rolling, the newly built blast furnace and larger open hearth furnace will not only greatly increase the production of steel, but also the production of steel plantation will also increase. From a few types of steel such as rails, it has evolved into various types of steel such as steel plates, steel beams, and wire rods.

"...In the past, there was only a shipyard rolling mill in Nanhua, which introduced a two-roll plate rolling mill to produce steel plates for shipbuilding, and rolled steel plates with a thickness of less than 2 inches. Three years ago, the United States built a three-roll Lauter Plate rolling mill, this kind of rolling mill can roll thick plates with a thickness of less than 10 inches. After receiving the information provided by the students studying in the United States, we immediately introduced this kind of rolling mill..."

It is a characteristic of Nanhua that international students provide information. Those international students are not only responsible for studying abroad, but also collect technical information in related fields. These information are public, but they are scattered in various fields, and they only rely on the company to collect them. , not only slowly but also with mediocre results, but now the company has thousands of international students studying in foreign universities and doing internships in factories. They are equivalent to intelligence personnel in related fields, who are responsible for collecting the latest information and intelligence, and then the company will have targeted Introduce relevant technologies to improve their own technical level.

To a certain extent, those overseas students are the intelligence personnel stationed by Nanhua in various places, but they are specially used to collect technical intelligence.

And this is one of the reasons why Nanhua has been able to develop rapidly in the past few years. International students can collect all kinds of the most advanced technologies in the fields they are best at, thus promoting the technological development of Nanhua.

Accompanied by the roar of the machine, a steel plate with a thickness of 5 inches rushed out from under the roller. The fiery red steel plate was washed by the cooling water, and the steel plate was rapidly cooled by the rising steam. When the steel plate was conveyed to the rear, Zhu Xianhai stood there, He looked at the steel ingot without saying a word.

"Every piece of steel hides the secret of a country's rise and fall."

Who said this sentence?
He has no memory of it, but what is certain is that this sentence is naturally reasonable, especially in this era, what is steel?
It's country!
It is the symbol of the strength of the country!

Only with steel can a large number of weapons be manufactured, and only with steel can warships be built. Just like this, steel plates with a thickness of 5 inches to 10 inches are the necessary steel plates for building capital ships.

"Master, with this rolling mill, we can continuously produce 10-inch thick steel plates. Without it, we can only forge with a big steam hammer. The speed is not only slow but also the production cost is high. Using a rolling machine to produce , not only the cost can be reduced a lot, but the speed can be increased ten times, if..."

Before Li Jiebai, a naturalized French engineer, could finish speaking, Zhu Xianhai said,

"If it is used to build warships, especially capital ships, it can continuously produce thick plates, but we don't need to build so many warships right now, but we can build merchant ships first. Iron-hulled merchant ships will definitely replace them in the future. Wooden-hulled merchant ships and iron-hulled ships are also the future development direction, and most of the ships of our shipping company are old ships purchased a few years ago. With this rolling mill, we can provide cheaper steel plates to produce cheap iron Hull ships replace old ships..."

In fact, it's not that Nanhua doesn't build combat ships, and it's not that there is no need for them. The most important reason is... lack of technology.

Although Nanhua Shipyard has built more than 27 iron-hulled ships in the past few years, both warships and merchant ships, the largest tonnage is only 4000 tons. It seems that the progress is rapid, but the construction of large warships is still more than enough. Insufficient!
However, it is possible to accumulate technology through the construction of large merchant ships.And Nanhua does have a need in this regard!

For example, coal needs to be imported from the Cape Colony—with the industrial development of Nanhua, the demand for coal is increasing. The steel factory alone needs millions of tons of coal every year.In the case of insufficient local production, importing from abroad has become the only option.

This also means that Nanhua needs to build large ore transport ships, at least tens of thousands of tons. Not only that, but from the perspective of immigration transportation, the efficiency of large fast immigration ships is much higher than that of small ships.

It's a pity that Nanhua's shipbuilding industry's technical strength is still too weak, and its experience is also lacking!
"It seems that a plan is going to be proposed to stimulate the development of the shipbuilding industry!"

On the way back to Nanhua, Zhu Xianhai who was sitting in the carriage said to himself.

What is the plan?
It must be a "key project", which is to concentrate manpower, material resources, and financial resources to carry out "scientific research" on "key projects" so as to improve the overall industrial technology level.

For example, many "tackling key problems" of later generations of Huaxia have obviously improved the level of related industries.

"shipbuilding……"

Zhu Xianhai said to himself.

"You can try it, after all, there is no problem with Nanhua's technology right now."

Soon, an idea in Zhu Xianhai's mind roughly took shape.

(End of this chapter)