Daxin Steel Plant is the largest private steel enterprise in Songhu.
Daxin Iron and Steel Plant, which mainly produces small steel ingots and steel castings, introduced advanced foreign electric furnace steelmaking technology and equipped the country's first 0.75t electric arc furnace in the 1930s.
But this will only happen after Boss Yu returns to China in 1933 and opens a steel factory with his people.
As of now in 1931, this steel factory has not yet appeared.
But Zhou Wenhua discovered from his father Zhou Jiawei's hidden assets that the reason why he had conflicts and contradictions with the Japanese army was because his father owned a steel factory.
Private steel companies such as Xinhexing Steel Plant, Zhonghua Steel Plant, Xing Steel Plant, and Hedaxin Steel Plant in the future are all small-scale steel plants with limited production capacity and low steelmaking levels.
Although the iron and steel industry in Songhu started from the foreign affairs movement in the late Qing Dynasty.
And before the Second Songhu Battle broke out, there were also Jiangnan Manufacturing Administration Steelworks, Hanyang Arsenal, Daye Ironworks, Taiyuan Northwest Steelworks, Wang Clan Central Steelworks, Chongqing Special Steelworks, Central Machinery Works and
Xiangtan Central Steel Plant and the famous Shenyang Arsenal.
Among these steel plants and arsenals, Commander Yan's Taiyuan Northwest Steel Plant and the Northeastern Army's Shenyang Arsenal are the most complete, capable of producing and selling weapons, equipment, ammunition, and steel.
Unfortunately, the Northeastern Army's Shenyang Arsenal has been occupied by the Japanese army.
As for Commander Yan’s Taiyuan Northwest Steelmaking Plant, Commander Yan is too shrewd, so he shouldn’t consider it.
The development of other steel plants is not very good.
It has not established more arsenals and steel plants that are as complete as the Northeastern Army's Shenyang Arsenal and can produce and sell their own goods.
It is also because of this that during the ten years of the golden development of the Republic of China, the highest level of industry during the Republic of China was the production of "medium formal rifles", or Type 24 heavy machine guns and Czech-style light machine guns.
However, most of the firearm parts can only be assembled and developed by relying on imported parts from foreigners and Japanese arsenals...
This is completely different from the Northeast Army and Commander Yan's arsenal.
While Zhou Wenhua was distracted with his thoughts, he was riding in a car, protected by his bodyguards.
When he arrived at his father's hidden asset, the Tianjin Steel Plant located on the outskirts of the capital Nanjing,
He also began to enter the factory. Accompanied by Li Zhipeng, the current director of the factory, he visited and took stock of what kind of equipment there was in the steel factory.
Soon I got a rough idea of the main equipment in the steel plant, including a 30-ton iron-making furnace and its ancillary equipment.
In addition, there are two 1.5-ton Bainite steel-making furnaces, one 3-ton electric furnace, and one set of 10-inch and 17-inch steel rolling mills; the mining equipment includes 250 air drills with straight weight lifting equipment, 4 100-ton crushers, 500
tons of royal ore.
In addition, there is the former "Nippon Steel" with a storage capacity of more than 1.2 million tons of iron ore.
The reason why there are still so many tons of iron ore in storage is entirely because this steel plant has stopped production after several months of losses.
The purpose of Zhou Wenhua's coming here is to develop and produce vanadium steel for automobiles.
Vanadium steel is an alloy steel with vanadium as the main alloy element or playing an important role.
This is one of the steels used by the Henry Ford Motor Company to make cars,
It was Henry Ford who discovered during a French racing competition in 1905 that the steel used in a certain racing car was not only light but also tough.
So after his research and investigation, he discovered that this French steel contains vanadium, which is vanadium steel.
So, he found a British engineer to conduct blast furnace experiments in a small steel factory, and developed this kind of vanadium steel, which was eventually combined with 20 different kinds of steel to make various parts of the car.
At the same time, Ford bought a lot of land in Brazil to plant rubber trees for the purpose of manufacturing his cars, and had a factory to produce and sell tires himself without having to outsource them.
Of course, the vanadium steel used now is the same as the high-strength steel types used in later generations of automobiles, such as dual-phase steel, complex-phase steel, phase transformation-induced plasticity steel, martensitic steel, quenched ductility steel, twin-induced plasticity steel, etc.
Steel is completely different,
Anyway, when Zhou Wenhua is manufacturing cars of this era, he plans to first use Henry Ford's vanadium steel, and also mix it with 20 different kinds of steel to make various parts of the car.
As for the manufacturing process of steel,
Mainly for the aforementioned process of steelmaking, it can be divided into long process and short process.
Long process: coking sintering blast furnace converter
Short process: electric arc furnace
In the long process, steel plants purchase iron ore and sinter it to produce sinter and pellets, and purchase coking coal to produce coke.
Afterwards, coke, iron ore, and flux (mainly limestone) are put into the blast furnace, and molten iron is generated through an oxidation-reduction reaction. The molten iron is then injected into the converter to make steel.
The short process mainly inputs scrap steel and a small amount of molten iron into the electric arc furnace, and can produce molten steel.
To build an automobile factory industrial chain, capital, technology, machines, talents, and industrial chain are all indispensable, so Zhou Wenhua must first solve the problem of steel used in manufacturing automobiles.
The first step is to develop vanadium steel, the second step is to match various steel materials to develop the rest of the car's parts, and the last step is to purchase plantations in the rear areas of the country to build rubber factories.
Produces tires, other industrial products, and daily products.
"How many workers are there in the factory who have not left with the master?"
"Or have they all left?"
After Zhou Wenhua completed inspecting the ‘Tianjin’ steel factory left behind by his father,
He also immediately asked Li Zhipeng, the current factory director who had been following him.
"They haven't left yet because they haven't found a job in a new steel factory, and they also hope that our steel factory can continue to have jobs! It won't make them unemployed!"
"Because they are already familiar with this industry, it is not easy to transform all of a sudden!"
"Master!"
Regarding Zhou Wenhua’s inquiry,
Li Zhipeng, the current factory director, responded very frankly.
"Well! Let them continue working tomorrow!"
"Have all the previous wages been paid to them?"
"If not, ask the finance department to give me the accounts. I will settle their wages and then start calculating wages for the new month again!"
As soon as he heard that he wanted the steel factory workers and masters, they had not left yet.
Zhou Wenhua suddenly felt happy and immediately asked them to get back to work.
"Yes! Master!"
"By the way! Master, recently those Japanese and Japanese people who want to buy our steel plant come to ask about the price every day. In addition to these Japanese devils, there is also Boss Lu of Hexing Steel Plant, because he submitted a report to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce
They asked for a huge sum of money to assist them in resuming business and developing Hexing Iron and Steel Works, but failed again, so their boss has been coming to see the young master and the boss every day these days!"
"They want to ask whether we can enter into a joint venture with them to build a new steel plant to save the country through industry or something like that."
"Now, young master, you have come to our steel factory to take over all the business and finance here. I wonder if you want to meet Boss Lu of Hexing Steel Factory?"
After Zhou Wenhua finished speaking,
However, the current factory director Li Zhipeng immediately changed the topic and reported after agreeing.
"Huh? Boss Lu from Hexing Steel Factory actually came to see us?"
"Okay! You go and tell him that we can arrange a time to meet and discuss cooperation in establishing a new steel plant!"
"As for those Japanese devils, you have to pay attention to them. I will dispatch a group of security teams to station here starting tomorrow. If they dare to cause trouble here, I don't mind and let them know what the consequences will be!"
After hearing this,
After Zhou Wenhua thought for a moment, he replied decisively.
"Yes! Master!"
Li Zhipeng, the current factory director, was also very happy and quickly nodded in agreement.
Because he also has a good relationship with Boss Lu of Hexing Steel Plant, so this time he was able to help the other person who had been thinking about it day and night to revive his steel plant business, and he felt good about it.