The wind blows from the South Sea

Chapter 84 The ingenuity of workers

"Tieshan Town needs to be equipped with a town team that is capable and willing to do things. I think some established Chinese businessmen meet this condition. The premise is that since you are in politics, you cannot be in business, and you must completely separate it from the business at home, otherwise It is easy to breed corruption and use power for profit.”

During his inspection, Feng Guohui did not forget to explain to Zheng Xiucai and others about the arrangements for the selection of relevant municipal committee members.

Unlike Hu Laohu and others who focus on the military field, Zheng Xiucai, Ma Ganqiang and their second uncle Feng Zhaoliang focus on administrative management. Today, the three of them shoulder the heavy responsibility in Surabaya City.

Zheng Xiucai replied;

"Master, I have been repeatedly considering suitable candidates these days. I am planning to transfer Mr. Lu Zhenchao from Tianjia Town back to take up the post of Mayor of Tieshan Town.

Mr. Lu has done a good job in Tianjia Town. He not only sorted out the affairs in the town, but also completed the payment of land taxes on the leased land in the town and surrounding areas very well. His ability is extraordinary.

With a few experienced businessmen as his deputies, he will be able to coordinate the affairs of Tieshan Town. "

"Well, I'm very impressed by Lu Zhenchao's ability. This candidate is suitable." Feng Guohui nodded and that was the decision. The next step was to issue a transfer order.

This trip was from Tieshan Town to the mineral processing plant. Since it was only four or five kilometers away, everyone in the group went there on their legs, just to inspect it along the way.

On both sides of the upper and lower reaches of Tieshan Town, there is a larger military camp on each side, where more than 3,000 new recruits in closed training are stationed daily.

Repeatedly, the task of transporting hundreds of tons of ore every day was solved.

Finally, it is broken for the third time, and then broken into pieces the size of melon seeds.

Feng Guohui and others did not enter the military camp, but went straight across and continued deep into the valley.

A production line consists of a first crusher, a second crusher, and a third crusher, a total of three crushers, a ball mill, and a magnetic separator. It can process about 450 tons to 500 tons of iron ore every day.

The iron ore powder produced from the ore dressing plant is loaded onto the mine car and winds down to the final steel plant stockyard, which is also reached directly by its own gravity.

The gear accuracy of this kind of crusher is very low, especially the first crusher that crushes large pieces of ore. What is required is that it is big and clumsy and can chew large rocks as easily as eating biscuits.

From afar

Tall wooden watchtowers stood on both sides of the gate of the military camp, heavily guarded by soldiers. Inside were rows after rows of neat wooden barracks, as well as empty training grounds.

At this time, workers need to push the empty mine carts aside, and after gathering 3 to 4 empty mine carts, they will be dragged by mules and horses back to the ore dressing site or higher iron mines.

The concentrator is built on a hillside from high to low, and the ore trucks arriving here from the mine basically unload the iron ore halfway up the mountain.

In the crushing workshop

After the iron ore needs to be broken once, twice and thirdly, the large rocks are broken into finger-sized pieces of melon seeds, and then sent to the ball mill for grinding into powder.

After arriving at the end, there is a cleverly designed turning table that can dump the ore while holding the mine cart, and then flip it back after completing the action.

Today, such a crusher can be manufactured in the casting workshop of a steel plant. Its running parts use not bearings but brass sleeves as thick as three fingers, and lubricating oil or animal grease is used to lubricate the surface of the parts.

These iron ore trucks do not need to be transported. When they are filled with ore from the mine, they circle down from high to low. They will naturally slow down at every turn until they reach the unloading yard.

The principle of the crusher is very simple. The gears in relative motion rotate under the drive of the steam engine. Through extrusion and impact, large rocks are broken into fist-sized pieces, and fist-sized rocks are broken into quail egg-sized pieces.

Watching the normal operation of the mine car, Feng Guohui was quite satisfied. This was an ore transportation line designed by the working people based on their wisdom and combined with the current conditions, and it proved to be quite effective.

The so-called ball mill is like a gas tank placed horizontally, supported by a thick steel shaft at each end, and requires two high-horsepower steam engines to drive it.

On an open field not far from the ore dressing site, unprocessed iron ore is piled as high as a hill. From time to time, mine cars arrive along the rails, and then directly flip over and dump the ore out.

There are hundreds of large iron balls built into the ball mill. Ore the size of melon seeds enters and is then rotated and ground at high speed. A furnace of fine iron ore powder is produced in about an hour.

Entering the gate of the mineral processing field, the harsh noise made by the crusher and ball mill when working becomes more and more obvious. It is the sound of the impact and crushing of ore, which is quite uncomfortable to listen to.

After walking along the mine car rail for more than 20 minutes, I saw a row of tall buildings in the distance, and the deafening noise could be heard from a distance.

The first step for the large pieces of iron ore mined from the iron mines is to be sent here to be processed into iron ore powder.

These iron ore fines contain a high proportion of earth, sand and gravel, accounting for almost half of it.

Finally, the two need to be separated by a magnetic separation belt conveyor. The magnetic iron ore is adsorbed at the upper end, while the useless soil is deposited at the lower end.

The soil will eventually be transported out of the mineral processing site as waste and deposited at planned sediment dumping points.

The produced iron ore powder will enter the stockyard and be transported to the stockyard of the steel company through mining trucks...

It has been more than a month since the concentrator was officially put into production. The amount of iron ore powder produced is at least 7,000 to 8,000 tons, which is enough for the steel plant to operate at full capacity for two months.

After Feng Guohui inspected here, he came to the small mound outside the mineral processing site. His body was already gray and full of dust.

In the high-noise and high-pollution environment of the mineral processing plant, you can't even hear your speech clearly.

The guard next to him took out a white towel and wanted to help him clean it up, but Feng Guohui reached out to stop him and joked with a smile;

"Forget it, you guys are all dusty now. I want to clean it up, but I'm going to be a maverick. Let's clean it up when we get back. How do you think this mineral processing plant is running?" "Sir, although the smoke and dust are huge, but If the output of the current mineral processing plant is done manually, it will require at least six to seven thousand people. Now only three to four hundred people can complete it, which is really the power of steam machinery." Zheng Xiucai had a say in this, and he couldn't help but sigh. .

"It's true, manual rock crushing is labor-intensive and unpleasant."

"The Gui Lao steam engine is really sharp. The key is that it doesn't tire of itself and can work 24 hours a day. It's really magical."

"If thousands of people are mobilized to crush rocks, the food supply alone will be a huge expense that is unavoidable, and the profit will not be huge!"

"Indeed, steam machinery is really powerful."

Everyone else nodded frequently, most of them had gone through the early days of smashing stones with hammers.

Compared with thousands of people using sledgehammers and small hammers to smash rocks, a set of mineral processing plant equipment is enough to withstand the heavy labor of thousands of people, and the results are extremely obvious.

I recall that the Huang family's earth-made iron-making furnace was fed directly into large and small iron ores for calcination. It was basically half earth and half iron ore. It would be crazy if it could smelt good iron.

In addition, the furnace temperature is insufficient in all aspects, isn't it in vain?

Standing on the small mound, Feng Guohui felt particularly refreshed. He looked at the clear water of the Gourd River rushing down the valley, and felt like making history in his heart.

Polished waste soil, after adding coal gangue powder, is the best raw material for making bricks.

The black-core red bricks made through this method are stronger and more durable than ordinary red bricks, and their strength is more than twice as high. They are excellent materials for building houses or fortresses.

Today, more than a dozen brick kilns of various sizes have been built in Landa Valley. One kiln of bricks costs 3500 to 4000 pieces, and it takes about two to three days to bake one kiln of bricks.

On average, 16,000 to 7,000 bricks per day is no problem, and this output is still increasing.

Today's Tieshan Town needs to build large-scale barns to store more grain.

It is now the summer harvest, and every day, two to three hundred mules, horses and carts of rice are gradually transported to Mount Landa, and finally stored in large warehouses.

After being rolled in the rice mill, these rice will become white rice.

Because of the difficult terrain that is easy to defend but difficult to attack, Feng Guohui plans to build Tieshan Town into an important industrial town, an important economic town and an important logistics and warehousing town.

Of course, this is also the most heavily defended fortress.

You can lose Surabaya City or Yanwang City, but as long as you hold on to the Tieshan Town Fortress, you can make a comeback at any time.

Therefore, Feng Guohui spared no effort to invest millions of dollars to build factories and towns here, reserve a large amount of grain, and develop this place into the foundation of Nanyang Company.

Looking forward from the small mound where Feng Guohui stands, one can vaguely see a large area of ​​light red exposed mountains surrounded by lush mountains in front of him.

There is a mining field and a concentration camp for convicts in the deepest part of the valley. They mainly work by blasting rocks to quarry, which is the most miserable and tiring job.

Feng Guohui was not prepared to inspect the mining site because in addition to tracks and ore carts, the convicts could only use the most basic tools such as shovels and hammers to work.

After working hard day and night, the food is still poor. Just think about it and you will know what it is like.

Once you get in there, the chances of getting out alive are slim.

This is not the epitome of the Nanyang Company's brutal rule, but a common phenomenon in all mines in today's era.

Even in Britain, which is making great strides towards the age of steam industry, underage miners aged 12 or 13 are lying naked in a mine like a dog hole, struggling to drag out baskets of coal.

The vast majority of these miners rarely live to reach adulthood at the age of seventeen or eighteen, and often die at the age of fourteen or fifteen.

The famous French writer Victor Hugo described in the novel "Les Misérables" that the protagonist Jean Valjean was thrown into a hard labor camp in a mine for a total of 19 years for stealing a piece of bread. This is the most realistic portrayal of today's era.

If the Nanyang Company wanted to complete the initial accumulation of capital, it had to go through the process of slavery and oppression. These local indigenous tribes and other resistance forces who did not listen to the call became the main group of people who were enslaved.

Feng Guohui only looked at it for a moment and then withdrew his gaze.

He had no psychological burden in doing this. If he had to choose between indigenous people and Chinese, of course the former would be the main target of suppression.

If you are not of my race, your mind must be different.

As for the number of white people, they are too small, and there won’t be much after a little fussing, so it’s okay not to mention them.

(End of this chapter)