Jagged Warlord

The battlefields in the Northeast and Shandong were in full swing, but Li Mohan, who was originally commanding the front line, sneaked away to Ma'anshan, Anhui, where an expert assessment team mainly composed of American engineers was waiting to report the assessment results to Li Mohan.

这个专家团的专家主要來自美国钢铁公司,是美国最大的钢铁垄断跨国公司,成立于1901年,由卡内基钢铁公司和联合钢铁公司等十几家企业合并而成,曾控制美国钢产量的65%,总部设在匹兹堡,而在1919年的今天,美国钢年产量超过4000万吨,其中近3000万吨是由美国钢铁公司生产。

The predecessor of the U.S. Steel Company was the Carnegie Steel Company, which was established in 1864. The Carnegie Steel Company became strong after the United States implemented tariff barriers in the mid-19th century. It was not until 1913 that the tariffs on the U.S. steel industry were lifted Protection was completely abolished. Prior to this, most of the U.S. steel industry relied on tariff barriers to gain profits in the competition with Britain’s free trade. Carnegie Steel Company gained an advantage by establishing a large-scale steel production complex from scratch, and It has maintained the status of the world's largest steel plant for decades.

The company has dozens of domestic subsidiaries and more than 30 bulk carriers responsible for transportation. Foreign subsidiaries and affiliated companies are located in Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Japan, India, Nigeria, Brazil In other countries, the company produces a wide range of products, including the mining of iron ore, coal, dolomite and other non-ferrous metals, the manufacture of various steel pipes, steel plates and rails, chemical products, oil drilling and oil extraction equipment, tank bodies, heavy artillery It occupies an important position in the manufacture of weapons and other weapons, and also participates in construction, shipbuilding and other businesses.

Li Mohan invited these experts to China with a lot of money. In addition to evaluating and planning the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant, there is also an ongoing evaluation plan for Hanyeping. The Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant of Hanyeping Company currently produces nearly 7 tons of steel per year. It accounts for more than 90% of the country's steel production, but in fact it has already accumulated a lot of debts. It owes 2000 million silver dollars in loans to Japan. It is now under the control of Japan. Li Mohan has plenty of money. After clearing the debt of Han Yeping, the Japanese had nothing to say, and then invited engineers from the U.S. Steel Company to evaluate and prepare to expand the factory. Unexpectedly, after the evaluation, the American engineers sent a report suggesting that he directly abandon the Hanyang Iron and Steel Factory and rebuild it. Site selection and construction from scratch.

The Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant was built by Zhang Zhidong, governor of Huguang. At that time, iron ore was discovered in Daye, Hubei. Someone suggested that the iron and steel plant should be built in Daye. Zhang Zhidong said: "Daye is too far away. You can see the chimney of the factory.” So the site of the factory was chosen in the paddy fields under Guishan Mountain, where the terrain is low-lying and humid. When building the factory, it was necessary to start with raising the foundation, and a total of more than 300 cubic meters of soil was filled. There are more than 1 taels of silver, and the total construction cost of Hanyang Iron and Steel Works is 10 million taels, and the landfill has already taken up [-]/[-]. Calculated into the production cost of the factory, at the same time, he entrusted Xue Fucheng, the ambassador to the UK, to order steelmaking machines. It was tested in the UK, depending on its quality, and then decided on the design of the steelmaking furnace.

Xue Fucheng sent a telegram to Zhang Zhidong, and Zhang Zhidong said: "China is so big that there is no good coal or iron anywhere. You only need to purchase it according to the British style." A beise hemp stove was made and shipped to Hubei.

However, in the middle of the 19th century, there were two kinds of steelmaking methods in Western countries: one was the Beiser method of acid smelting, and the other was the Martin method of alkaline smelting. The difference between the two steelmaking methods is that the Beiser method cannot be removed. Therefore, it is not suitable for iron ore containing more phosphorus; if the iron ore contains more phosphorus, the Martin method should be used, and the biggest feature of Daye iron ore is precisely that the phosphorus in the ore is more Many, if it is smelted by the Martin method, of course it will not be a problem, but the steelmaking furnace of Hanyang Iron and Steel Works is designed according to the Beiser method, which cannot remove the phosphorus in the iron, and the steel produced is easy to be brittle and broken. Zhang Zhidong He didn't know this at all, but let the British manufacturers decide on their own with his rough style of doing things, and the machines ordered from the UK were shipped to China in 1891. In 1894, the products of Hanyang Iron and Steel Works began to go on the market. The selling price in Shanghai is more than 23 taels of silver per ton, while the steel at the Hanyang factory can only be sold at [-] taels of silver per ton, and there are still few people interested in it.

钢铁工业的基本原料是煤与铁,为了节约成本,办钢铁厂或以铁就煤,或选择煤铁二者的中点,由于汉阳钢铁厂选址错误,使工厂与铁矿和煤矿分别位于相隔遥远的三个地方,铁矿砂來自120公里外的大冶,每吨运费银元3角4分；焦煤來自开平煤矿,运到汉阳,每吨要卖银16两,把这些生产成本加起來,即使不包括员工薪金,已经超过产品的售价,到了1898年,汉阳钢铁厂累计亏损一百余万两,张之洞在建厂之初种下的先天性缺陷,无法补救,最终使他的一腔热忱都成了画饼。

All in all, the location of Hanyang Iron Works is wrong, the cost is too high to be competitive, the type of steelmaking furnace is wrong, and the quality of the steel produced is not good. These two fundamental shortcomings make the product price exceed the cost, and it is bound to lose money , has no value in existence at all, and should be completely abandoned and demolished, and the furnace should be restarted in Daye, and the blast furnace should be re-selected to build a new steel plant. This is the conclusion of a report by a senior engineer of the US Steel Corporation.

其实汉冶萍的胎里毛病李默涵比这些美国工程师更加清楚,但是汉冶萍在中国近代化历史上的特殊地位让李默涵多多少少有些下不了手,不过,小疮不治变大疮,李默涵有些遗憾滴摇摇头,大笔一挥,从此以后就沒有汉阳铁厂,也沒有汉冶萍公司了,只有大冶钢铁厂与冶萍煤炭公司,大冶钢将以与马钢相同的规模兴建,因此这两个厂加起來就是一年后每年200万吨钢、100万吨铁,四年后达到每年总计800万吨钢、300万吨铁的产能了,至于所雇用的工人估计将达到8~10万,工人的训练自然也包含在合约之中。

The U.S. government and the U.S. Steel Corporation happily signed this contract, and because of the active promotion of the U.S. government and U.S. Steel Corporation, the two steel construction plans and progress were so fast, which was simply amazing for China at the time. Of course, it is entirely thanks to the European War.

During the European War, the iron and steel industries of European countries were severely damaged by the war. In addition, a large number of Allied ships were sunk by U-boats, a total of 1320 million tons were sunk. In order to make up for the possible gap, the United States began to desperately expand the steel and shipbuilding industries. During the war, the steel production capacity of the United States increased by 60%. After the end of the European War, the steel and shipbuilding industry in the United States experienced huge overcapacity overnight. The idle rate of the shipbuilding and steel industry exceeded 60%, resulting in huge losses.

The reconstruction of the destroyed Europe certainly needs steel, but this demand is far less than the gap caused by the u-boat torpedoes, and it is not even enough to meet the idle production capacity of the United States before the war. That is to say, the U.S. government and U.S. steel companies are actually reselling production equipment and some technologies to China to solve the losses caused by the idleness of their industries. This large amount of paid transfer to the U.S. steel industry is the rapid construction of China’s steel base. The reason for the rise is that most of the machines are ready-made anyway, and they can be dismantled directly from American factories and shipped to China.

According to the private estimates of American engineers, only in these two factories, the United States will transfer about 8% of its steel production capacity to China in the next four years. Of course, if there is an opportunity in the future, Li Mohan would not mind moving another 8% In the past, these production capacities were surplus for the United States, but just needed for China.

如果这两个钢铁基地全部建完,则以其计划的产量与目前钢价,每个厂每年约可有3,500万美元的纯利,如果完全用这钱來偿还贷款的话,那么需要14年,算上4年建造时间内的部份产值,约需10年才能还完贷款,也就是说,基本上这两个钢厂可以说在未來10年内都是不能真正创造有效利润的,或者说利润钱都拿去填办厂费了,若非如此,美国政府与公司也不会把它们卖给中国。

In fact, Li Mohan built these two factories not just to make money, but to promote the construction of related upstream and downstream industries. In addition, when these two factories are completed, and when the overseas students come back, and the software and hardware are available, then they can expand on their own The scale and even the construction of new factories based on this, fundamentally get rid of the dependence on the US steel industry, this is his biggest goal.

At the same time, in a secret fully enclosed dock in the Lianyungang shipyard, Chinese shipbuilders have begun to try to build a self-made Chinese U-shaped submarine under the guidance of German engineers, and the Shanghai Arsenal has also begun to build a torpedo production line.

At this point, some people may say that the old China was not poor and white, and even iron nails had to be imported. At that time, could China build submarines? The answer is of course, not to mention that there were only submarines with a few thousand tons to several thousand tons, and now they are building ships in the south of the Yangtze River In the dock of the factory, there are four [-]-ton ships under construction, which were ordered by the United States during the European War. The four ships are all of the same type of ocean-going high-speed transport ships, and they are all steam-type cargo ships with fully sheltered decks.

分别命名为「官府号」（mandarin）、「天朝号」（celestial）、「东方号」（oriental）、「震旦号」（cathey）,船长135米,宽16.7米,深11.6米,排水量14,750吨,巡航速度10.5节,其中第一艘「官府号」预计将于于1920年6月份下水,这些船使用的引擎,3430和3668马力蒸汽机,则都是由上海兵工厂(原名江南制造局)制造。

美国方面为这四条船付出的钱是1800万银元,即单价225万美元,而江南造船厂预估获利是200万银元,也就是说他们的单艘制造成本只有200万美元,剩下的25万美元是纯利,约12.5%左右,不过这是他们最后一批获得的外国订单了,欧战已经结束,需求大幅降低,美国又有大批战时急造商船剩余,以后这江南造船厂只能靠自己下的订单了。

According to several veteran technicians at the Jiangnan Shipyard, although they cannot build the current foreign battleships, they are actually capable of building iron-clad cruisers of the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan levels. However, the main guns still need to be imported, but At the beginning, Li Hongzhang advocated that "building a ship is worse than buying a ship", so Germany took the list.

Those old craftsmen mentioned with some regret that Mr. Li advocated this, firstly because the cost of building this kind of iron-clad ship in Jiangnan Shipyard is indeed much higher than that in foreign countries, and the reason is that the armor steel of Hanyang Iron Works, which is the main source of steel plates for domestic warships, is of extremely high quality. It is poor, and the price remains high, and the use of imported foreign steel naturally cannot compete with foreigners in their own domestic shipbuilding. Another reason is that Mr. Li can take back the deductions if you buy a ship. The cost of Dingyuan Zhenyuan is 170 million taels of silver, and it is said that Mr. Li and his men received a rebate of 30 taels for each ship. If it weren't for this, Jiangnan Shipbuilding could develop by building these ships, and maybe it would be able to build battleships now.

Li Mohan comforted the distressed old technicians, telling them that the Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant and the Daye Iron and Steel Plant are already under construction and will be put into operation next year, so that such things will not happen in the future, he clapped his chest and said I don't take back deductions, I must love to use domestic products, and I must try my best to help them with technical transfer and construction. The few old people are grateful, and they also pat their chests and promise that they will build China's own battleship for the Prime Minister in their lifetime.

Li Mohan smiled and said: "Forget about the battleship, this thing is already outdated, you have to build an aircraft carrier for me,"

The old technicians were taken aback and asked, "What is an aircraft carrier?"

Li Mohan replied: "An aircraft carrier is a big ship for airplanes to take off," and while drawing a sketch on paper, he introduced what an aircraft carrier is to the old technicians.

……Dividing line……

In the subsidiary area of ​​Sujiatun Station of the South-Manchuria Railway, there were about a thousand Japanese expatriates at this time, but most of them didn’t know what was going on outside, so most of them just hid behind doors and windows and watched cautiously. The shooting took place all night, and the Chinese soldiers and the Japanese railway garrison suffered casualties, but these Japanese expatriates never knew what happened.