The Rise of Ming Dynasty 1646

Chapter 21
Zhu Linmei thought for a while, since she decided to make steel herself, there is no need to spend too much on steel knives.

So he announced that the quality of the saber required [-] steelmaking, and asked the two companies to bid again.

The steward of Zhen's family smiled and seemed confident.Regardless of the scale or cost of Longnan's ironware manufacturing industry, his Zhen family is firmly in the top spot.Even in the whole of Ganzhou, Zhen's iron workshop is one of the best.

Sure enough, when the bid was opened again, Longnan Heji offered 440 taels, while the Zhen family offered only 410 taels.

All the bidding projects are over, and the merchants are busy going back to stock up.They appreciate the novel transaction method of bidding. The transaction speed is fast and the cumbersome worldly experience is eliminated. Although the price is a little lower, it usually takes the time to negotiate a deal.

In fact, Zhu Linmi had no choice but to bid for military supplies alone this time. Of course, he knew that small-scale purchases would lead to higher prices.

But his military uniforms, military boots, etc. have special shapes and cannot be purchased together with Daming's ordinary military supplies.Secondly, the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty were notorious for corruption. He was really worried about the quality of official procurement channels.

Su Cheng has his own plan. When the team expands in the future and he has enough influence, the bidding cost will be further reduced.He even plans to extend the bidding mechanism to the government in the future. It is estimated that Ming's war costs can be reduced by [-] to [-]%, and the quality of military supplies can be more guaranteed.

After he made a routine tour of the barracks, he put aside other things for a while and began to devote himself to his steelmaking business.In fact, as for the construction of the military camp, as Chen Xiongfei and others gradually became familiar with his plan, they were basically able to take over the construction command work.

Zhu Linmei first made a preliminary plan for building a steelmaking plant.The planned scale is controlled at about two tons per furnace, and a larger scale will be built after the process is mature.

As for the specific steelmaking technology to be used, he initially liked open-hearth steelmaking the most.The output of crucible steelmaking is too low, and it is not easy to refine low carbon steel.The converter has too high requirements on the processing capacity of the equipment, and it is also difficult to meet the requirements on the blast, and the converter has strict requirements on the iron material.

In summary, the open hearth method is more suitable in all aspects.Although the construction of heat storage and heat conduction systems is somewhat troublesome, they can all be solved by investing manpower.In addition, the open hearth furnace is not picky, and pig iron and scrap steel can be used as raw materials.

So Zhu Linmi proceeded to list the main components of open-hearth steelmaking on paper: warehouse, blast furnace, smelting room, melting pool, melting furnace, blast system, sedimentation chamber, regenerator, etc., even to ensure the gas used as fuel Supply, he also plans to build a gas furnace separately.

He picked up the list of facilities he had just written, and immediately frowned—even if labor costs were not counted, it would definitely cost a lot just to complete the construction of these equipment.

He hurriedly calculated the funds at hand, and brought Longnan a total of 7000 taels of silver, some of which were lost during the chaos in Qingliu County. In addition to the cost of building the military camp in recent days, there are now less than 6000 taels of silver left.

The 8000 taels of "military funds" in Ganzhou have already set off and should arrive in Longnan in the near future.In other words, he now has 4000 taels at his disposal.

However, after deducting the first batch of nearly 3000 taels for the purchase of military uniforms, leather boots, etc., as well as the reserved food expenses and military pay for the troops, the silver that can be used to build a steel factory is at most 8000 taels.

This amount of money is definitely not enough to build an open hearth steelmaking plant, and Zhu Linmi's rough calculation would cost 5 to [-] taels.He subconsciously wanted to take out a loan...

"The bank is really a good thing, but it's a pity that it doesn't exist." He sighed, and could only face the reality again. If he wanted low investment and fast output, there was only one choice—crucible steelmaking.

He took a piece of paper again and listed the equipment for the crucible steelmaking: warehouse, crucible, hearth furnace, blower, over.The total expenditure is about three to four thousand taels.

Changing to crucible steelmaking, Zhu Linmi also had to reduce the target output to less than one thousand catties per furnace.

After deciding on the plan, specific problems followed, such as the size of the crucible and the hearth furnace, the air volume of the blast equipment, how many people are needed for the furnace, how many people are needed for the casting and forging process, and even what products to produce have to be planned in advance. .

He just felt dizzy for a while, looking at the problems in his hands, it seemed that the matter of finding craftsmen could be handled by others.

So he called Qiao Qian and Hong Si, and asked them to lead people to look for iron yards and iron workshops in Longnan.Not to mention poaching people, just sell the whole shop directly, and if there is a larger one, come back and inform Zhu Linming, and he will come forward and talk about it in person.

After the two left, Zhu Linmi thought of some other necessities—refractory materials.He had no choice but to send someone to purchase refractory bricks, kaolin, graphite and other materials, and specially instructed that if Longnan couldn't buy them, he would go to Ganzhou. In short, they must be purchased as soon as possible.

After giving these instructions, Zhu Linmei was finally able to calm down and draw a pen to calculate the parameters of the pot and furnace.

According to the amount of steel tapped in each furnace, the size of the crucible is nearly [-] centimeters in diameter and [-] centimeters in height, with a hemispherical bottom and a lid with an observation hole.The ground furnace is paved with refractory bricks, and the size only needs to be a few tens of centimeters larger than the crucible, plus the tuyere and chimney.

It was easier said than done, but by the next morning, he had finally completed the design drawings of all the components.It's just that whether it is suitable or not will not be known until it is actually put into production.

But even if the design is not so perfect this time, it doesn't matter, it is just to accumulate experience for the future, after all, it is just a small one-ton stove.

As for the ratio of furnace materials, blast volume, etc., he doesn't even know how to calculate it right now, so he can only test it slowly during the specific production process.

Ancient industrial production was a process of accumulating experience through repeated attempts and finally reaching the goal.Zhu Linming laughed at herself, not long after she came to the Ming Dynasty, she had to start learning the ancient production mode.

He put down his pen and was about to sleep for a while, when he heard the guard report that Qiao Qian had returned.

After Qiao Qian went into the tent to salute, he said excitedly, "Master, I'm so sleepy, I'm so sleepy, someone wants to sell an iron yard in Dongli Renbao."

Immediately, Zhu Linmi lost all sleepiness, and ordered her horses to rush to Dongliren.

This is a relatively small iron yard in this era, covering an area of ​​more than ten mu, and it is built on the bank of a wide river.

A water drainage was also built along the river, and the stone mill was driven by the force of the water to crush the ore.

From a distance, Zhu Linmi could see the two-foot-tall iron-making blast furnace in the iron yard.Although it is an earthen blast furnace, its structure is quite reasonable. The tall furnace roof is billowing with black smoke.

Hearing from the buddy that a military lord was coming, the owner of the shop hurried over and paid homage to him from a long distance away.

Zhu Linmi was immediately overjoyed when she saw the person coming. Isn't this the shopkeeper He who came to bid yesterday?
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(End of this chapter)