Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 440 The Age of Iron and Fire (Part 1)

On August 18, at around 8 p.m., the "MRT-5" slowly entered Fenzhou Port, which was more than two hours later than the scheduled arrival time.

This was because, at six o'clock in the morning, when the boat was about to depart from Liguzhai on Dongpu Island (now Henghe Town on Yanquan Island), a dozen or so immigrants, perhaps because they were too weak or because they had not slept well the night before, were accidentally pushed into the water while queuing to board the boat.

Among them was a woman holding a child, whose constant exclamations caused chaos on the dock.

Although more than a dozen sailors and fishermen from the island quickly jumped into the water to rescue the people, two people still drowned, causing the ship's departure time to be delayed by more than an hour.

Fortunately, the rest of the journey went smoothly, and they arrived safely in Fenzhou.

With his face pale, Liu Yao leaned on the gunwale with the help of two companions, looking at the emerging town nestled between the mountains and the sea, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Damn, this trip is finally over.

Seasickness is absolutely awful!
Looking into the distance, he found that this small town seemed completely different from the desolate settlement he had imagined.

Several concrete piers at the port extend into the deep sea, and several coal barges are queuing up to load cargo. The shiny black coal is poured into the hold like a waterfall by the conveyor belts.

In the distance, several brick chimneys continuously spewed thick smoke, outlining the contours of an industrial landscape under the afternoon sun.

The air was filled with the sulfurous smell of burning coal, mixed with the salty smell of the sea breeze, creating a strange sense of vitality.

"Wow, this branch state is much more lively than when I came three years ago!" Liu Yao patted the side of the ship and pointed to a group of buildings on the west side of the port. "See that? That's the coal washing plant, built specifically for the coal used by our Guangfeng Steel Plant. It can wash more than 120 tons of coal every day."

"Of course, this factory does not only wash coal, but also produces coal briquettes and coal cakes needed by urban residents, which are then transported to various counties and towns in Xinhua."

“Over there…” he said, pointing to the southwest of Fenzhou City. “That should be the Fenzhou Coking Coal Plant. It is said that it was just expanded last year and produces 80-100 tons of coke per day. In addition to meeting the needs of local industrial production, it also transports a large amount of coke to Guangfeng by sea.”

"It can be said that Fenzhou is the largest coal chemical base in Xinhua in China."

The coal chemical industry in Fenshu began with coke.

Fifteen years ago, when Guangfeng Steel Plant first went into operation, charcoal was still used for iron smelting.

As blast furnaces expanded and the demand for higher-quality pig iron increased, the calorific value of charcoal was found to be insufficient and its supply unstable, forcing the Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry and the Ministry of Mining to seek alternative fuels.

Because of its abundant and shallowly buried coal reserves, Fenzhou immediately caught the attention of the Xinhua Decision-Making Committee.

In 1629, the settlement was established in Fenzhou, becoming the third settlement after Shixing and Guangfeng, and the only settlement far from the core headquarters at that time.

In April of the following year, Fenzhou sent its first shipment of coal to Shixing Port. Subsequently, with the continuous increase in development efforts and manpower investment, the area quickly became Xinhua's largest coal supplier.

Located in the northern suburbs of Bunju, the high-quality bituminous coal vein is characterized by low sulfur and high volatile matter content, making it an excellent raw material for coking.

Correspondingly, around the abundant coal resources, a series of coal chemical industries have been built in the area, including more than ten heavy industrial enterprises such as coking coal plants, carbon distillation plants, coal tar refining plants, coal pitch plants, and coal briquette manufacturing plants.

The coking coal plant can provide a continuous supply of coke to the two steel plants in Guangfeng and Fenzhou.

Coal tar refineries can stably extract coal tar from coal dry distillation, and can synthesize more than a dozen chemical dyes for use in the cotton textile and woolen industries.

In the coal tar processing, the residue after distillation to remove the liquid fraction is coal tar pitch. When the pitch is combined with crushed stone and slag, it becomes the best paving material, which is more stable and flexible than cement pavement.

Meanwhile, coal briquette manufacturing plants provide essential fuel and heating supplies to residents of many cities across the country.

Because this area is home to a large number of coal chemical enterprises, the demand for coal is enormous.

Correspondingly, this has led to an extremely high demand for labor in the Fenzhou coal mines.

Indigenous people from the surrounding areas and within a radius of tens of kilometers inland were almost all "recruited" to work in the mines as coal miners.

However, the ever-increasing demand for coal cannot be met by just two or three thousand laborers. This has led the local government and mines to turn their attention to the northern part of the island and the mainland to the east. Through various means, they have continuously increased their efforts to recruit laborers in order to cope with the increasing coal production capacity year by year.

During this period, coal mining was typically carried out using pickaxes, crowbars, and explosive blasting.

Miners dig a groove about 1 meter deep under the coal seam near the surface, and then use picks, crowbars or iron bars to break up the coal.

For harder coal blocks, a fist-sized hole is drilled using a hand-operated rotary drill, and then a certain amount of loose black powder is filled in for a small-scale blast.

Manual coal mining is an extremely arduous and tedious job. Fenzhou Coal Mine once tried to introduce some mechanical equipment to assist in coal mining, hoping to replace this manual mining work, which consumes a lot of manpower and is extremely inefficient, to some extent.

But more than a decade later, apart from the addition of some auxiliary machinery, most of the mining work here still relies on manual labor.

However, in recent years, the increasingly mature steam engine has been rapidly and widely applied to coal mine surface machinery, including water pumping, rail coal transportation, and hoisting operations in and out of pits.

During this period, whether in the Ming Dynasty or in Europe, coal, after being mined, was initially transported out of the mine using wicker baskets or wooden barrels, hoisted out by ropes. Later, in some places, wooden sleds were invented for transport, dragging the coal along the mine tunnels.

In some places, even ponies or donkeys were used to carry baskets of coal between the mine and the surface.

In order to save labor and reduce workload to the greatest extent, Xinhua’s mine began using wrought iron light rails and winches more than a decade ago to transport small mine cars fully loaded with coal to the outside of the mine.

Roughly estimated, the coal production of several mines, including Fenzhou and Hejiang, reached more than 57,000 tons last year, making it stand out in the entire New Zealand continent (at this time, the British North American Territories only had small-scale coal mining for heating and handicrafts, with a production of only a few hundred tons, while the Spanish American colonies had no coal mining activities).

However, this output was negligible compared to the UK's coal production during the same period.

In the mid-16th century, shortly after Elizabeth I ascended the throne, England produced 20 tons of coal.

By the 1640s, this figure had reached 600,000 tons, three times the total coal production of all European countries!
However, considering that Xinhua's coal industry is just starting out and its population is only over 200,000 (excluding indigenous people), this output is quite commendable.

However, in terms of steel production, Xinhua's data is not so bad; it can still rival that of Britain.

By the end of last year, the steel production of the Guangfeng and Fenzhou steel plants reached more than 3,600 tons, a 17-fold increase compared to ten years ago, almost on par with that of the United Kingdom.

The steel production amounted to more than 250 tons, which was widely used in many industrial products such as weapons manufacturing (swords and firearms), battlefield protective gear (armor), tools and agricultural implements, construction and shipbuilding (high-strength materials such as steel nails and hinges).

Even so, the members of the decision-making committee and the officials of the Ministry of Science and Technology are still very dissatisfied with the steel production!

Upon learning that Liu Yao and his entourage had arrived at the port, Ding Huaichu, the head of the Fenzhou Mineral Bureau, quickly led several officials and personnel from the Fenzhou Steel Plant to greet them.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the group boarded the carriage and headed into the city.

On the way, Ding Huaichu gave a brief introduction to the current basic situation of the Fenzhou Steel Plant and the various preparatory matters they had made for the renovation and expansion.

When discussing domestic steel production capacity, a serious expression appeared on his face.

"According to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry's development plan for the next ten years, Xinhua's pig iron production is to reach 15,000 tons per year and steel production is to reach 1,000 tons per year in five years, which is equivalent to increasing production by more than four times on the basis of the current production. To be honest, this task is quite difficult."

“Not only must the supply of upstream iron ore raw materials maintain a substantial increase, but the corresponding coal mining, coke refining and steel production capacity must also expand in tandem. And the Fenzhou Steel Plant, which has only been established for one year, will play the largest role in this incremental growth.”

"However, the steel plant currently lacks enough technical personnel, and the various equipment are still in the break-in period. Last year, the pig iron output was only 900 tons. How many times would it need to be increased to meet the planned requirements? Therefore, it is quite challenging to increase output in a short period of time."

"Chief Engineer Liu's arrival is timely; it's like rain after a long drought for us!"

"Not at all, not at all!" Liu Yao waved his hands repeatedly and said modestly, "We are under the orders of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the strict orders of Guangfeng Steel Plant. We will do our best to help Fenzhou Steel Plant clarify its operation process and optimize its production methods, so as to significantly increase its production capacity in the shortest possible time and contribute our modest efforts to the great development of Xinhua Steel."

"In that case, thank you for your trouble, Chief Engineer Liu." Ding Huaichu nodded slightly, gently stroking the iron rivets on the carriage window frame. "Chief Engineer Liu, have you ever thought about why the imperial court attaches such importance to steel? This small iron ingot may seem insignificant, but it is actually related to the fate of our Xinhua nation!"

"The members of the committee have said that steel is to industrial development what food is to human survival; it is the basic material that supports the industrial civilization of our new China. Therefore, we should treat the expansion of steel production capacity as the highest political task and must not take it lightly."

“The supervisor is right,” Liu Yao echoed. “Back in the Ming Dynasty, when we were craftsmen, most of our utensils and tools were made of wood with a small amount of iron. Even the Jiangdong plow (the curved plow) used for farming was mostly made of wood, except for the blade, which was made of refined iron.”

"Looking at our Xinhua territory today, in all walks of life, many tools and instruments are made of iron, and the amount of iron consumed is naturally countless. Not to mention, in recent years, a large number of machines, equipment and molds in the country have been converted to be made of wrought iron, which has led to an increase in the use of iron in Xinhua year by year."

“That’s exactly right!” Ding Huaichu nodded and said, “You should know that the primary use of steel is in the military industry. Needless to say, swords and spears are used for that. But just considering artillery, it consumes a huge amount of iron. Even a light land artillery piece weighs three or four hundred kilograms. If you were to manufacture a thousand or more at once, it would consume a whopping three hundred tons of iron!”

"A single warship, including its gun emplacements, fastenings, and anchor chains, requires tens of tons of iron. Ten or a hundred warships would require hundreds or even thousands of tons of iron. Without sufficient steel, how can Xinhua defend against the powerful ships and cannons of foreign barbarians?"

"Oh, and the railway tracks laid on the ground also consume a lot of iron," Liu Yao said with a smile. "Besides that, everything used in our steel plant—blast furnaces, steam engines, rolling mills, forging hammers, winches, and vehicles—is made from iron."

"Hehe..." Ding Huaichu chuckled twice: "I've heard that Xinhua Heavy Industry and the First Shipyard are developing a new type of ship with wrought iron ribs and wood hull. At that time, the shipbuilding industry will probably become a major iron consumer for Xinhua again."

The carriage crossed a stone slab bridge, and a dull rumble came from the bridge surface before entering the city of Fenzhou.

Ding Huaichu looked out the window at the bustling street: "The demand for iron for people's livelihood should not be underestimated. Nowadays, the sewage pipes laid in towns and cities, the steel beams of newly built factories, and the steam cranes at docks—which of these can do without steel?"

“Take this prefecture city for example. Seven or eight years ago, it was mostly wooden houses and thatched huts. Now, brick and cement buildings have become the mainstream. Some of the key parts of some grand facilities have also added a lot of iron, which has further increased the demand for steel.”

"Actually, the most crucial thing is still machine manufacturing," Liu Yao said softly. "Steam engines, textile machinery, mining winches, heavy industrial forging hammers—these are the real fundamental factors that will change the nation's strength. I've heard that the Ministry of Science and Technology is working hard to improve the application of steamships. Once they are officially put into use, just the sets of steam-driven equipment alone will consume a lot of iron."

"That's why our Xinhua court attaches such importance to steel production capacity!" Ding Huaichu exclaimed. "Steel is the backbone of our Xinhua industry. Without sufficient steel production capacity, all talk of machine manufacturing and military development is just empty talk. This time, the arrival of your senior master craftsmen from the ironworks will surely help the production capacity of the branch state ironworks reach several more levels."

A group of four carriages stopped in front of the brick building of the Fenzhou Mining Bureau. As Ding Huaichu helped Liu Yao out of the carriage, he suddenly pointed to the distant mountain valley: "A new coking coal kiln is being built there, using the latest smoldering method. The calorific value of the coke produced will increase by about 10%. Once the new steelmaking furnace at the Fenzhou Ironworks is operational, we will be able to produce a large quantity of high-quality steel."

As Liu Yao gazed at the plumes of smoke rising from the mountain valley, he suddenly realized that those seemingly distant figures—15,000 tons of pig iron and 1,000 tons of steel—might not just be ink marks on a planning outline.

A sea breeze blew by, and the faint sounds of steam whistles, forging hammers, and machine roars could be heard, like countless hands hammering these numbers little by little into heavy iron ingots.
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(End of this chapter)