Big Iron Factory

May 25, 1591.

A place not far from the northeast of Shenchi Castle is crowded with people and bustling in the sky.

Here, an iron smelting factory is being built, with a huge scale, with as many as a thousand iron smelting workers alone. And the division of labor is meticulous. Among the iron smelting workers, there are specialty divisions of furnace stewards, casters, fitters, hammers, etc.

This iron smelting factory under construction was named Shenchibao Iron Factory by Huang Laifu. Compared with Shenchibao Big Coal Mine, the establishment of Shenchibao Iron Factory was relatively smooth. Huang Laifu's thunder methods in Taipingzhuang shocked the local snakes near Shenchibao. Even the great wealthy Liu family in their eyes were uprooted by Huang Laifu, let alone these little snake rice. Therefore, when Huang Laifu recruited these small iron ore owners, they all seemed very cooperative. Huang Laifu did not treat them badly, and promised to pay them a few dividends every year in the future.

After everyone's efforts, the Shenchibao Iron Mine Factory was built very quickly. Most of the workers were miners from Wuzhaibao. In addition to the Shenchibao Big Coal Mine, there were more than 1,000 miners and their families here. There were also experienced miners invited from all over the country. In addition, there were many miners from the local small iron mines of Shenchibao. Because of the rich moonlight, even some soldiers from Shenchibao secretly went to the iron smelting factory to work. After statistics, the miners working near the Shenchibao Big Iron Mine had exceeded 3,500 young and strong.

Shenchibao Iron Factory is the center of gravity of iron smelting. There are also many mining furnace fields distributed around the iron smelting plant, from mining, charcoal burning, smelting to transportation, forming a complete production line.

After the establishment of the Shenchibao Iron Factory, at the beginning of the iron smelting, various merchants gathered in the Shenchibao area. In addition to the Wuzhaibao merchants who cooperated with Huang Laifu, there were also merchants everywhere, such as Shuozhou. The merchants in Ningwu purchased ironware and sold them everywhere. Some wealthy merchants even had 200 cattle.

In the current Ming Dynasty, due to the increasing demand for iron tools in the market, the sales of iron tools have been in short supply, which has also stimulated the continuous development of iron tools. As early as the Yongle period, the iron output of the Ming Dynasty had reached 162,550 tons, which was equivalent to the total output of 180,000 tons in Europe in the early 18th century. Since then, until the Wanli period, the iron output of the Ming Dynasty has maintained a steady growth. The sales of iron tools have become an industry with very profitable profits, and therefore countless people have emerged.

"Ah, what a big iron plant. It's comparable to Zhang Shouqing and Zunhua Iron Plants in Wutai Mountain."

The smoke stove next to the iron plant was constantly emitting thick smoke, making the surrounding air look gray and making people feel a little difficult to breathe. However, accompanied by Huang Laifu and Tian Dafu, the guardian of Shenchi Fort, Ma Jiuying's father-in-law still visited the iron plant with great enthusiasm and kept making emotional voices.

Eunuch Ma was naturally very concerned about Huang Laifu's mining in Shenchi Castle. In the end, he couldn't sit still at Wuzhai Castle, so he came to Shenchi Castle to check. Huang Laifu naturally accompanied him to inspect. Because he was concerned about the mining in Shenchi Castle. During this period, Huang Laifu has been staying in Shenchi Castle. Some of his affairs in Wuzhai Castle are currently managed by his father Huang Sihao.

The Zhang Shouqing, the father-in-law Ma Jiuying, just mentioned, was a local hero who mined in Wutai Mountain. He had more than 3,000 miners under him. He was regarded as one of the largest mining iron plants in the Ming Dynasty. Huang Laifu's several minerals in Shenchi Castle. The scale was larger than Zhang Shouqing.

According to Huang Laifu in the large iron factory of Shenchibao, the annual output of iron tools was about 10,000 tons, and the output was the highest in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the price of pig iron in the Ming Dynasty was about 20 taels of silver per ton. The annual output of 10,000 tons of iron was more than 200,000 taels of silver per year. After the cost was divided, the profit was very generous.

Given the importance of this iron plant, in nature, this iron plant is an official method. But Huang Laifu, the production and operation of iron plant, still lets merchants carry out the business. Huang Laifu knows the disadvantages of official enterprises.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the court used the state's iron tools to operate. At first, they used the method of official mining and smelting. The laborers in the company generally included civil craftsmen, civil craftsmen, military craftsmen, shift craftsmen, and firing prisoners. These people, except for military craftsmen, were paid very meager, and the management officials were beaten and scolded and humiliated at all. They were similar to slaves and had no enthusiasm for their work.

However, in the late Hongwu period, private iron mining industry had dominated.                                                                                                                       �

Private iron ore in various places usually adopts the tax licensing law and operates with the government's investment and undertaking method. The government levies one-fifth of the iron ore class on them. However, there are still fewer such law-abiding private iron ore owners. In various parts of the Ming Dynasty, there are mostly bullies like the Liu family in Taipingzhuang, who illegally occupy mines in various places. They are rich because of this, but the court cannot collect one or two taels of silver.

For Huang Laifu, he managed the iron ore and coal mines of Shenchi Fort, and he would probably get a gross profit of more than 200,000 taels of silver a year. In addition to 40% of these silver was owned by Emperor Wanli, 30% of them belonged to Huang Laifu, and 30% of them belonged to various partners. In addition, Wuzhai Fort, Shenchi Fort and Bajiao Fort paid 100,000 taels of silver in the Ministry of Revenue every year. In short, the interests of all parties are taken care of.

After listening to Huang Laifu land budget, Ma Jiuying was very excited when he heard this. In a poor place like Shenchi Castle, Huang Laifu could give Wanli a bonus of more than 80,000 taels of silver a year, which was very amazing. Ma Jiuying could see the excitement of Wanli Emperor in the future, as well as his own ability to do things, and his future position in the emperor's mind.

Thinking of this, Ma Jiuying said to Huang Laifu with a smile on his face: "Mr. Huang is loyal to the country. The emperor must be very happy. Lord. Just let go and do it. If there is anything, the emperor will support Lord Huang."

While he said, he thought about giving the secret letter to Emperor Wanli tonight and telling Emperor Wanli this good news. As for Huang Laifu in Taipingzhuang, Ma Jiuying's father-in-law knew that from his perspective, he certainly supported Huang Laifu fully.

"Yes, as long as the emperor supports, what are we afraid of Laifu?"

The third brother-in-law Tian Dafu also smiled and said happily. After receiving Huang Laifu's money, he also thought about it. As long as he had the emperor's support, what if he offended the general? In this world, only the emperor's thigh is the thickest.

"Eunuch Thank you." Huang Laifu smiled. He felt very accomplished when he reached this point today. He saw the changes in several places he managed step by step, and it was impossible to say that Huang Laifu was not proud.

Everyone walked to a blast furnace, where smoke was rolling, and a furnace of coke was burning. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, coke was widely used for iron smelting in various places, far earlier than coke iron smelting that was only used in Britain in 1709. The coke method used in the Ming Dynasty is still used in some places today. Since the Taipingzhuang Coal Mine, Wenling Coal Mine, etc. are next to the Shenchibao Iron Factory, there are a large amount of high-quality coal here, and it is very convenient to burn coke, which greatly saves costs.

The coke blast furnace that everyone is now in front of everyone is a rectangular coke blast furnace. The bottom of the furnace is slightly higher than the ground, paved with bricks, and a soil wall is built around it. The foot of the wall is about one foot deep, the wall is three feet high and one foot four inches thick. The furnace is eight feet wide and five feet long. The fire door is built symmetrically, and the fire door is about three feet apart. The fire door is shape, square outside and round inside, large outside and small inside.

There are several furnaces around the iron plant. When the coal from the Shenchibao Coal Mine is transported here, it will start firing. The coking time is three days, and the coking rate is more than 60%. Each furnace can coke twenty tons at a time.

With coke, the iron smelting rate was greatly increased. In front of the iron smelting furnace that was several meters high, the ironworkers pulled a huge wooden bellows pulled by four people and continuously supplied air into the iron smelting furnace to increase the intensity of the smelting.

If the iron after the oven is not fried, it is pig iron. If the iron is fried, it is cooked iron, and when it is cooked, it is steel. After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, iron frying was almost the only way to prepare cooked iron from pig iron. In the Ming Dynasty, iron frying furnaces were floor furnaces, reflective furnaces and raw iron smelting furnaces. Compared with simple floor furnaces, reflective iron frying furnaces were more advanced.

In the Ming Dynasty, I had known to use iron smelting furnaces in series with iron smelting furnaces to improve production efficiency and reduce energy consumption. The same is true for Shenchibao Iron Factory. After the pig iron group was released, it was immediately transferred to the frying furnace. At this time, the entire Shenchibao Iron Factory was busy, and the fitters and hammers went together to make the pig iron into mature iron.

As for steel, in the current Ming Dynasty, it is difficult to directly train iron into steel, and some technical difficulties must be overcome. His information includes later generations of "mixing method" and "rolling method". The so-called "mixing method" refers to stirring when the pig iron turns into a semi-fluid state in the furnace to burn off the carbon contained in the pig iron, thereby making the cracked iron. Its invention enables the smelting of high-quality cracked iron with coke. The so-called "rolling method" refers to the use of rolling machine to roll the cracked iron into steel. Its invention increases the efficiency of wrought iron by 15 times.

To use these two methods, a large number of technical difficulties need to be overcome. The most important thing is to have market demand. The current Ming Dynasty, if it has iron, will be sold well everywhere. It is rare for steel to be used, and steel is very expensive and has a small market for use.

For Huang Laifu, it would be enough to make some armor and weapons with mature iron. Anyway, Wuzhai Fort cannot make cannons now, so what can I do when I practice steel? In fact, until the early 19th century, even if I make cannons, bronze was the most common, and steel cannons were rare.

Huang Laifu still said the same thing, how far should the technology be developed? Let’s wait until the market demand reaches.
Chapter completed!