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

Chapter 158 Yongping Prefecture

"Yes! Her name is Luo Meisu! How did you know, Dad?" Wang Xiang replied quickly.

"I met her when she went to the factory to look for her father, Master Luo. She's a pretty good girl." Wang Li's mouth curled up.

"Yes, it's very good." Wang Xiang nodded repeatedly.
"Grasp the opportunity and work hard. I'm a model worker, and you have to work hard to become a model worker in the future too, do you understand?" Wang Li stared at Wang Xiang and said.

"Of course, of course." Wang Xiang said with a smile on his face.

Wang Li nodded in satisfaction and drank the wine on the table.
The mobilization order from the Prince of Jing's Mansion received a lot of response from workers. In addition to the workers' trust and love for Zhu Houxuan, the subsidy given by Zhu Houxuan for going north also attracted many workers.

The mobilization order mainly mobilizes workers at level 3 and above to go north, and the corresponding subsidies are as follows:
The third-level workers received a monthly subsidy of two cents in silver;

The fourth-level workers received a monthly subsidy of 5 cents in silver;

Level 5 workers receive a monthly subsidy of one ounce of silver;
Level 6 workers receive a monthly subsidy of two ounces of silver;

The seventh-level workers received a monthly subsidy of five ounces of silver;

The eighth-level workers received a monthly subsidy of 10 taels of silver;

This subsidy is still very attractive.

The first batch of 2,000 people going north were quickly filled up. The first batch mainly consisted of steel workers and bank employees.

These two are the most urgent industries after moving north.

Zhu Houxuan has used the past two months to make changes to the organizational structure, with Hou Sen taking overall charge of all industries in Qizhou.

As for his family, Zhu Houxuan only brought two concubines. His eldest son was too young and could not leave his mother Qin Yuelan. Princess Liu Yourong was pregnant, and Concubine Liu and the others had to stay in Qizhou.

In addition, he also took with him a complete management team, and all the guards in the attendant's room would also follow him north.

The children of various families in the attendant's room had just gotten familiar with the Prince of Jing's Mansion and Qizhou when they were about to be taken to the capital. This made them a little overwhelmed, but they had no choice but to overcome it.

Although he had just received the imperial edict, Zhu Houxuan had already entered the working state in advance. He immediately submitted a petition, requesting that the Zunhua Iron Smelting Factory be taken over by the Ming Royal Group and that the annual iron tax be borne by the Ming Royal Group.

The Zunhua Iron Smelting Factory was the largest and longest-running official iron smelting factory in the Ming Dynasty. It was located 80 miles west of Zunhua County in Jizhou, northern Zhili. It was affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and successively appointed a director of the Ministry of Industry and a doctor in charge of factory affairs. In the fourth year of Zhengde, it smelted more than 700,000 kilograms of steel.

This output was not worth mentioning in Zhu Houxuan's eyes. He was mainly attracted by the skilled iron workers in Zunhua Iron Smelting Factory. There were 2,500 craftsmen of various types working in Zunhua Iron Smelting Factory all year round.

Moreover, he could not think of any reason for the Ministry of Industry to refuse, because due to the deteriorating ecology in the north, the price of charcoal in the north had soared, forcing the Zunhua Iron Smelting Works to switch to coal-based ironmaking. Because they did not master the coke ironmaking technology, the quality of the iron they produced was relatively poor, and now they are basically in a state of continuous losses. The Ministry of Industry has wanted to close the Zunhua Iron Smelting Works several times, but considering Beijing's demand for iron, it has not been closed yet.

The Ministry of Works must be happy to see Zhu Houxun take over this money-losing project.

On the tenth day of the first lunar month in the ninth year of Zhengde, Zhu Houxuan bid farewell to his relatives in Qizhou and led 2,500 people on a journey northward.

He did consider using sea vessels to land directly in Tianjin. Sea vessels are relatively large, and only a dozen are needed to transport so many people. However, considering the navigation technology of the time and the workers' adaptability to sea vessels, he decided to go through the Grand Canal. After all, this first group of people was the best group of people in Qizhou's industrial and educational system, and he didn't want them to suffer losses for this reason.

The team continued on this journey until they arrived in Tianjin on February 25, the ninth year of Zhengde.

Zhu Houxuan had received an imperial edict from Zhu Houzhao on his way north, allowing him to merge the Zunhua Iron Smelting Plant into the Ming Royal Group, so the team was divided into two in Tianjin. The employees of the Ming Royal Bank continued to go to Beijing, while the workers of the steel plant went ashore in Tianjin, bought a bunch of mules and horses, and continued to head northeast of Tianjin.

Zhu Houxuan was in the steel plant's team. He was not in a hurry to go to the capital first. His destination was Yongping Prefecture, and he wanted to go to Yongping Prefecture in person for an on-site inspection.

If you are not familiar with the place called Yongping Prefecture, then you will know where it is if you change it to its modern name.

The administrative divisions of Yongping Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty included most areas of modern Tangshan City and Qinhuangdao City.

In later generations, there was a joke about Tangshan City: China ranks first in the world's steel production (excluding Hebei Province), Hebei ranks second (excluding Tangshan City), Tangshan ranks third (excluding underreported production), the United States ranks fourth, and Tangshan's underreported steel production ranks fifth.

Zhu Houxuan's main target of inspection this time was the Kailuan Coal Mine in Tangshan City.

It can be said that Tangshan’s reputation as the steel capital in later generations was due to the Kailuan Coal Mine, but people at that time had not yet realized the huge role of the Kailuan Coal Mine.

Kailuan Coal Mine is a famous Carboniferous-Permian coalfield in the North China coal-rich region, rich in high-quality coking coal.

There are not many places in China that can produce high-quality coking coal, and Kailuan Coal Mine is one of the best.

In fact, Daye Iron Mine cannot be considered a coal-iron complex in the strict sense. Although the quality of the iron ore is relatively high, there are no places around that produce abundant coking coal.

For coal-iron complexes, proximity to coal mines is more important than proximity to iron mines, because steelmaking consumes more than twice as much coal as iron ore, and proximity to coal mines can greatly reduce transportation costs.

Tangshan City has such an advantage - it is close to Kailuan Coal Mine.

Moreover, there are many large and small iron mines around Tangshan. Although the quality of the iron ore varies, it is sufficient considering the current technical conditions.

Therefore, Tangshan City is an extremely suitable place for developing heavy industry.

Moreover, Tangshan City has an extremely advantageous geographical location. To the north is Jizhou Town, an important military town of the Ming Dynasty, to the northeast is Shanhaiguan, which is connected to the Liaoxi Corridor, to the west is the capital, to the southwest is Tianjin, and Tangshan is also on the sea.

Therefore, Zhu Houxuan did not have to worry about the threat from the Mongols.

Even in modern times, modern steelmaking industry has no requirements on the distance between coal mines and iron mines, but has extremely high requirements on transportation convenience. For example, Tangshan City can rely on its advantages in sea transportation to use iron ore and coal from overseas to push steel production capacity to a new level.

Therefore, Zhu Houxuan could not find a place in the north of the Ming Dynasty more suitable than Yongping Prefecture to establish a heavy industrial base.

That's why he personally joined the team to conduct a field investigation.

At that time, Tangshan City was still a field, and the nearest Ming Dynasty town to Tangshan City was called Kaiping Zhongtunwei.

(End of this chapter)