The preliminary commissioning of the open-hearth furnace has been completed. This is a modern open-hearth furnace in an abandoned small steel plant.
Following Fu Laoliu's order, the open-hearth furnace was officially ignited. The gas produced in the gas generator next to it rushed into the open-hearth furnace and was quickly ignited.
Zhao Fu slapped his thigh excitedly, "Okay, the ignition was successful in one go."
After a while, the entire open-hearth furnace was burning red. The iron ore and auxiliary materials inside had begun to react.
When smelting begins, the fuel burns on the fuel surface when it encounters the introduced hot air, with temperatures as high as 1800 degrees Celsius.
The heat is directly transferred from the flame to the charge, causing the charge to melt rapidly (the melting point of iron is 1535 degrees Celsius, and that of steel is slightly lower).
At the same time, part of the melted pig iron generates ferrous oxide, and the impurities silicon and manganese in the pig iron are oxidized by the ferrous oxide and become slag.
Because there is excess limestone in the furnace, impurities such as phosphorus and sulfur generate calcium phosphate and calcium sulfide and become slag.
Secondly, the carbon also undergoes oxidation, producing carbon monoxide that emerges from the molten metal as if the metal is boiling.
An hour passed. Fu Laoliu and others looked at the boiling liquid steel and were so excited that it was hard to express. This big guy the master got was so powerful.
The successful putting into use of the open-hearth furnace had a huge impact on Zunhua.
First of all, the raw materials were not enough. In addition to further increasing the scale of mineral processing in the slag mountain, it also began to develop new iron ores and even purchased iron ore on a large scale from other iron ore mines.
All of this caused a chain reaction due to the opening of the open-hearth furnace.
Open-hearth furnaces need to be heated by gas combustion, so a large amount of coal is needed. Coal mines receive orders one after another. In order to complete the orders, the coal mines begin to recruit people and increase mining efforts.
The horse-drawn carriage shops, shipyards, and stevedores responsible for transportation have also expanded due to the increase in orders.
With Zunhua as the center, a profound change took place.
In modern society, production capacity has been severely reduced in recent years. Many small steel plants with low output and substandard exhaust gas emissions have been shut down. This complete set of equipment was purchased by a fool at the price of scrap iron.
This is how the open-hearth furnace was installed.
Now the wasteland in the northwest corner of Zunhua City has been purchased by Xinghe Iron Works. The land has been leveled and the track from the river to here has been laid. It is transported using the rails and mine cars purchased by Er Lengzi from the abandoned mine.
When water transportation reached its end, it was directly converted to rail transportation, achieving smooth logistics.
The completion of the open-hearth furnace has actually made this place the real smelting center of Zunhua. The quality of the steel produced by the open-hearth furnace is very high, far exceeding that of Suzhou Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. by many times.
Because after the open-hearth furnace was built, the demand for pig iron and iron ore increased significantly. Pig iron is smelted in the blast furnace, which is of great importance to blast furnace steelmaking workers, as well as upstream iron ore miners, iron ore dressing miners, and iron ore transporters.
Demand has increased significantly.
The expansion of recruitment at Xinghe Iron Works directly led to two consequences. First, fewer refugees were recruited as trackers. Second, a large number of trackers dragged their families to Zunhua in search of new ways of living.
The small-capacity open-hearth furnace installed at Xinghe Iron Works can make four furnaces of steel a day, which is about one furnace of steel every six hours.
When people change shifts, the furnace keeps working.
This furnace has a capacity of 25 tons, so it can produce 100 tons of steel a day and tons of steel a year. This is not a small amount.
This is almost double the output of Daming Steel at this time.
According to statistics from some scholars, the national pig iron production during the Chongzhen Dynasty was estimated to be 200,000 tons, and the wrought iron production was estimated to be about 70,000 tons. However, steel production was relatively small. Suzhou Steel, Fujian Steel, and Yue Steel in this era all used pig iron.
Go and water the wrought iron bars to get the inferior steel produced by the steel pouring method.
This kind of steel is not much better than modern strip steel.
The introduction of rail transportation has completely changed the way iron ore is transported.
There are no steam engines now, so we can only use horse-drawn mine carts. However, despite this, the efficiency of transportation is amazing enough.
After local refugees in Zunhua were absorbed into building reservoirs and mineral processing, more refugees from other places rushed to Zunhua.
The weather has become increasingly cold and dry in the past two years, and the government's taxes have become increasingly heavy.
Every time the average temperature drops by one degree Celsius, crop production will decrease by about 15%. In the past two years, the average temperature has dropped by four degrees. The situation is very scary. In many places, agricultural production has dropped by more than half.
In addition, the gentry became even more frantic in annexing land during the lean years. In the past two years, a large number of farmers lost their land due to debt and were forced to become refugees.
In the past, the refugees had no choice but to pull fibers and drag heavy canal boats naked in the cold river until they died of hunger and cold.
But now there is another option, which is to come to Zunhua to find a way out. Zunhua has been recruiting workers since the summer, and it has been recruiting workers non-stop.
No one knows why.
Just know that there is something to do when you go, and the whole family can survive.
Since the beginning of winter, food prices have increased everywhere, but in Zunhua, food prices have dropped slightly. A new type of food called corn has been sold at the price of one penny and three pounds. Each family can buy 20 yuan a day with household subsidies.
catty.
There are two types of corn grits and cornmeal to choose from.
You can cook porridge, steam buns, and make cakes. You can also make sweet cornmeal pancakes. They are all very delicious.
Many restaurants even got corn recipes from Xinghe Liang Store, which sells grains. Especially the stewed river fish and pancakes, it is really a delicacy.
There are also stalls selling roasted corn, stalls selling popcorn, and stalls selling corn flour steamed buns on the street. These are the families of workers at Xinghe Iron Works and the mine. They push small carts and sell these cheap food to
Dock workers, as well as pedestrians on the road, earn money to support their families.
The income of workers' families in Xinghe has been greatly improved. Their wages are relatively high, their families have something to do to make money, and their children go to kindergarten and Xinghe Academy for free.
These people became the first full-time industrial workers in the Ming Dynasty. Their income also ensured their purchasing power, which in turn led to the prosperity of Zunhua's commerce and handicraft industry.
The subtle changes in Zunhua gradually spread to the surrounding areas.
People and refugees from surrounding prefectures and counties have recently heard the news that the number of miners needed by Zunhua has suddenly increased significantly. A large number of refugees and urban poor from surrounding prefectures and counties have flocked to Zunhua. Even refugees from Daming Prefecture
Thousands of people gathered in groups and rushed over.
Daming Mansion was Handan City in later generations, which was quite far away from Zunhua. Not to mention the refugees around Zunhua.
Even Tianjin has begun to experience a shortage of trackers. Both the River Governor and the Tianjin Governor's Office have begun to worry about the shortage of trackers after next spring.
Every year, the government and gentry have to provide grain to help the victims in winter, mainly to prevent too many people from starving to death and freezing, which will affect the number of trackers next year and thus affect the transportation of the Grand Canal.
But we can't let them all be full. After all, starving some to death will help keep the price of fiber drawing low.
Therefore, they accurately calculate the number of refugees who join the tracker industry every year, the number of trackers' losses each year, and the scale of their relief efforts for disaster victims.
It is necessary to maintain enough labor force to ensure smooth transportation of the canal, and at the same time, it is necessary to starve some people to death every year to maintain sufficient pressure on the entire group of trackers.
But the situation has changed this year. If they don't provide more grain to help the victims, there may not be enough trackers to pull the grain transported by water to Tongzhou District next year.
The last section of this thousand-mile Grand Canal will become a decoration, causing a large amount of food and materials to accumulate in Tianjin.
But many people are reluctant to part with enough food.