I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 131 Daye (Part )

"Even if the cost is only one-tenth of the current iron price, the cost of building railways is still relatively high. But compared with the function of railways, these costs are acceptable," Zhu Houxuan explained.

Zhu Houzhao stopped talking and silently admired the scenery along the road.

Ma Lie continued to move forward and saw more and more railway branches on the road. Every few meters on the roadside, he could see places for horses to rest, and people were feeding the horses with grass and water.

However, Zhu Houzhao also noticed that some railways were built in a long circle. When passing an uphill slope, the horse resting point nearby led out four horses and tied them to their horse train to help them climb up the slope. After the uphill slope, there was a downhill slope. The four horses that temporarily helped to pull were untied. The master driving the horse train pulled up a handle, which was a brake device. The friction between the brake and the railway directly produced a row of sparks. The deceleration of the brake offset the acceleration of the downhill slope, and the speed of the vehicle remained constant.
Zhu Houzhao realized that the railway had very high requirements for terrain.

Fortunately, there were not many such slopes, and they soon arrived at the first destination of this trip.

"This is the largest iron ore pit in Daye Iron Mine," said Zhu Houxuan.

They walked down the Malie and saw that the diameter of the mine was very large, about four or five miles, and the deepest part was more than ten feet deep. There were many smaller iron ore pits in Daye Iron Mine, and some of them were easier to mine.

There are one or two thousand miners digging in the mine. They are divided into many small teams and are working in an orderly and enthusiastic manner.

A railway winds along the edge of the mine and extends deep into the mine, with many branch lines in the mine. From a high place, it looks like a dense spider web.

The miners are loading pieces of iron ore onto the mine cars on the railway, and then pushing them onto the main railway and connecting them into trains.

"What is that?" Zhu Houzhao suddenly pointed at a machine emitting black smoke and steam in the distance.

There are six such machines at intervals along the main railway line. These machines are fixed in place and are constantly retracting a long iron chain to pull a train of mine cars upwards.

There are more than a dozen places where machines are placed, and mine carts filled with ore are pulled to the ground one by one.

"Steam engine!" Zhu Houxuan said proudly.

"My Royal Highness, do you know that two years ago, the ore in this mine was carried up step by step by the miners. It was very hard work. At that time, there were several times more miners in this mine than there are now, but the ore they mined every day was less than half of what they mine now."

"My royal brother, don't you want to know why our iron is so cheap? A large part of the cost of iron is the cost of mining iron ore. With these steam engines and railways, miners only need to focus on mining and no longer have to worry about how to transport the iron ore. This greatly improves mining efficiency and reduces mining costs. I dare say that now the mining cost in the entire Ming Dynasty is no lower than mine." Zhu Houxuan said confidently.

"Take me to see those steam engines!" Zhu Houzhao said excitedly.

They soon arrived at a traction station. Actually, setting up these traction stations was a helpless move, because the Watt steam engines available now were not powerful enough, and they could not make steam locomotives that could be used here. Moreover, this section was all uphill. Zhu Houxuan had no choice but to come up with the plan of a traction station, combining the power of four steam engines to tow the rows of mine cars up in a relay manner. Although it was a bit troublesome, it was a dimensionality reduction attack compared to the transportation methods of that era.

They soon arrived at the steam engine, and Zhu Houzhao was very interested in these monsters emitting steam and black smoke.

The principle of the steam engine is not complicated, and Zhu Houzhao quickly understood the principle. He suddenly understood why there were so many chimneys in Qizhou City that were emitting black smoke. "These steam engines do not need to eat, drink, defecate or urinate. As long as there is coal and water, they can keep working. They don't need to rest even when people are resting. Putting these steam engines here is like putting one or two hundred strong men here." Zhu Houzhao said in a boastful tone.

"It takes more than ten years to train a strong man, but it only takes more than ten days to build a steam engine like this," Zhu Houxuan said lightly.

Zhu Houzhao opened his mouth wide, and the numbers that Zhu Houxuan had just said kept echoing in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more frightened he became, and he didn't know what to say for a moment.

Perhaps even God couldn't stand Zhu Houxun's pretense, and a running steam engine suddenly broke down, emitting a large amount of white steam. The surrounding workers rushed forward to repair it.

This made Zhu Houxuan a little embarrassed, and he quickly said: "This problem can be solved quickly, and it will not affect the use."

Zhu Houzhao nodded silently, not knowing what he was thinking.

Then they went down into the mine to comfort the miners.

The miners respected Zhu Houxun very much and their morale was very high because Zhu Houxun gave them very generous treatment. They were paid one or two taels of silver a month, with food and accommodation provided. They would receive bonuses if they exceeded production targets and had three days of work and one day of rest. This treatment was far better than that of miners in other places in the Ming Dynasty at that time.

In addition, there are workers' night schools that provide opportunities for advancement, art and cultural propaganda teams often come to perform, and children can go to school for free.

Moreover, most of them were refugees from the north, and they were all grateful to Zhu Houxuan for such treatment.

In fact, there are people who do miners, a job that requires little technical skills, even at a low salary. Zhu Houxuan deliberately raised the salary for a very simple reason:
Since ancient times, miners have become elite soldiers!
He was prepared to assist Zhu Houzhao well, but he still had to have some emergency plans in place to avoid being completely unprepared when encountering unexpected events.

Therefore, Zhu Houxun believed that it was worth spending the money on the miners.

After visiting the mine, Zhu Houxun took Zhu Houzhao to the second place - Daye Iron and Steel Plant.

There are many blast furnaces and open-hearth steelmaking furnaces in Daye Iron and Steel Plant, and the air quality here is a little worse.

But the steel workers were completely unaware.

"Another cost of iron is the fuel cost of iron smelting. Now that we have mastered the technology of coking, the fuel source for iron smelting has become more stable. With the use of steam engines and railways, the cost of mining coal has also been greatly reduced."

"In our coal mines, there are many steam engines (improved Newcomen steam engines) used to pump water. With these steam engines to pump water, our workers' mining range is no longer limited to the surface of the ore layer, but can dig deeper." Zhu Houxuan took the initiative to explain.

"After the cost of iron ore and fuel was greatly reduced, we improved the technology of iron and steel making, so our iron is so cheap."

(End of this chapter)