Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 219 You Play with Me, I Play with You (Part 2)

Hong Chengchou thought he could get away with it by claiming illness and returning to his hometown.

Who would have thought that he had only been home for a short time when the Imperial Guards came knocking and arrested his entire family!

Immediately afterwards, the family was crammed onto a fast naval ship and escorted to the capital.

Zhu Jue did not allow Zheng Zhibao to use the Zhiyuan merchant ship to escort Hong Chengchou's family.

This is because the capital city is still under lockdown, so the Zhiyuan merchant ships can only take people to Lingshanwei. They will have to go ashore and travel by land, which will take about the same amount of time as the navy's centipede ships.

He wasn't in a hurry to kill Hong Chengchou's family; he was preparing to develop the outer city in the northwest.

Although the latest batch of payments from Spain has not yet arrived, all the shops in the northern outer city have been sold, and the inner treasury has more than ten million taels, which is enough to purchase the remaining land in the northwestern and even southwestern outer cities.

The key raw rubber and copper ore will be delivered soon, and he needs to quickly organize manpower to build the copper smelter and rubber plant.

Early that morning, around 7 a.m., he summoned Song Yingxing, Song Yingsheng, Zheng Zhilong, Wei Zhongxian, and others to the main hall of the Yuxi Palace to discuss matters.

Leaving aside the rubber factory, he knew it better than anyone else present.

The key issue is the copper smelter, which he's really not familiar with.

Seeing that everyone was seated, he solemnly said, "The Spanish are too inefficient at smelting copper, which cannot meet our demand for copper at all. Therefore, I want them to smelt the copper ore to remove most of the impurities and then sell it to us so that we can smelt copper ourselves."

In other words, we need to build a copper smelter, and the smelter needs to be large enough to meet our own copper needs. Chang Geng, do you think 20,000 catties a day is enough? If not, we'll produce 30,000 catties a day.”

Uh, is 20,000 catties a day enough?

If the daily output is 20,000 jin, that's 6 million jin a month, and more than 70 million jin a year!

If that doesn't work, then produce 30,000 jin a day?
That would mean an annual production of hundreds of millions of kilograms!
That output sounds truly staggering.

Actually, the output isn't that high, because they're calculated by weight, which is why it sounds so intimidating.

If we calculate it by the ton, then it's nothing. Ten thousand jin is only five thousand kilograms, which is five tons. More than seventy million jin is only thirty-five thousand tons, and more than one hundred million jin is only more than fifty thousand tons.

This output is really nothing. In later generations, the countries with the highest copper production produced millions of tons a year. Fifty thousand tons a year is not even considered a number among small countries.

However, people at that time had no idea how high copper production would be in later generations; more than 70 million catties a year was already quite frightening.

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing was secretly startled, and then carefully said, "Your Majesty, I believe that a daily output of 20,000 catties should be sufficient for the time being, at least for the next few years."

If all else fails, we can increase production in a few years. For now, let's refine 20,000 jin a day. Copper smelting is quite troublesome; it not only consumes a lot of manpower and resources but also takes up a lot of space.

Hmm, I was just about to ask you what the process of copper smelting is these days.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "Tell me properly, how exactly is this copper smelted?"

This copper smelting is really troublesome.

Song Yingxing explained in detail: "There have always been two types of copper smelting: one is water-based copper smelting, and the other is fire-based copper smelting."

Water-based copper smelting involves boiling copper in water, adding iron blocks to produce copper shavings, which are then collected and smelted into copper. Fire-based copper smelting involves two steps: first, melting the copper to remove impurities; second, high-temperature refining.

Is this complicated?

The water-based copper smelting process involves replacing the copper in copper sulfate with iron; once a certain temperature is reached, a reaction will occur.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Jue pondered and said, "Chang Geng, this water-based copper smelting method seems to be simpler, doesn't it?"

How do you say this?

Song Yingxing thought for a moment before carefully saying, "Your Majesty, water smelting of copper is indeed simpler than fire smelting. However, not all copper ores can be smelted by water. Only special copper ores such as white alumina and copper sulfate can be smelted by water. No matter how much you boil ordinary copper ores, you will not get copper."

Oh, these days copper sulfate is all natural; it's not made by using sulfuric acid to dissolve copper ore.

Natural copper sulfate is out of the question; if you want to smelt copper on a large scale using the water method, you first need to produce sulfuric acid.

Making sulfuric acid is more complicated than smelting copper, therefore, the water method is not advisable, at least not in this day and age.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly, then asked, "Then why does the fire-based copper smelting method require two smelting processes?"

This is experience gained by predecessors through trial and error.

Song Yingxing explained in detail: "Your Majesty, different metals have different melting temperatures. Fire smelting of copper is simply a method of cutting off the head and tail. The first smelting does not require a very high temperature. You only need to keep blowing air into an ordinary furnace to make the copper and other metals with lower melting temperatures melt into liquid and flow out."

The second furnace requires extremely high temperatures to vaporize and separate most of the impurities in the crude copper. Furthermore, depending on the type of copper ore, auxiliary materials such as charcoal, limestone, yellow ore, and black ore are added to aid in the separation process.

Oh, cut off the beginning and the end.

This is easy to understand. For example, copper has a melting point of 1,000 degrees Celsius. So, the temperature is raised to around 1,000 degrees Celsius, causing copper and other metals with lower melting points to melt and flow out as liquid. Those metals with higher melting points than copper cannot be dissolved and become slag.

Then it is smelted at a high temperature, roughly to a temperature slightly lower than the melting point of copper, so that metals with a melting point lower than copper will almost all vaporize and separate.

As for the auxiliary materials, they are mainly used to separate metallic impurities that have a melting point similar to copper.

Zhu Jue nodded slightly and then asked, "So do you think the copper ore smelted by the Spanish is the first step or the second step?"

Their simple smelting method is nothing.

Song Yingxing slowly shook his head and said, "If they just use a furnace to burn it, they won't reach the melting point of copper at all. They can barely burn off some water vapor, sulfur, wood debris, or coal. I estimate that not much lead and tin will be dissolved."

Alright, you're the expert, so I'll leave the construction of this copper smelter to you.

Zhu Jue bluntly asked, "Then how many furnaces do you think we need to build to produce 20,000 catties of copper per day?"

How do you say this?

Song Yingxing estimated, "It depends on the quality of their copper ore, or rather, the quality of the refined copper ore. If we use the quality of our copper ore, it would be good if an ordinary furnace plus a high-temperature furnace could produce fifty catties of copper a day."

"Based on this calculation, producing 20,000 catties of copper per day would require 400 ordinary furnaces and 400 high-temperature furnaces. I don't know the quality of their refined copper ore, so it's hard to say exactly how many furnaces we'll need."

This one is simple.

Zhu Jue replied without hesitation, "Hong Kui and his men have already brought over 20 million catties of raw copper ore from there. It's currently stored in Dongfan. It can be brought over once the ice on the North Canal melts at the beginning of next month."

Then you can use their most rudimentary method to refine it, and test it to see what the quality of the refined copper ore really is.”

It turns out that Zheng Hongkui brought back so much raw copper ore.

That would be great.

Upon hearing this, Song Yingxing nodded repeatedly and said, "If there is so much raw copper ore, then there is no problem."

As they were discussing, Fang Zhenghua suddenly strode in, carrying a memorial, and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, General Pan has sent an urgent report from eight hundred li away."

This General Pan refers to Pan Guozhong, who is also Pan Yunteng.

Zhu Jue took the memorial and glanced at it, but his face remained expressionless.

Pan Guozhong reported that the rebel Zhang Yun had set out from Baihe, captured Yunxi, entered the Central Plains, and then attacked and captured Xichuan before heading north to capture Shangnan, thus blocking the Wuguan Pass.

This seems normal; it's just reporting on the movements of the traitor Zhang Yun.

Actually, Pan Guozhong was asking on behalf of Pan Yunteng: Where should we fight next?
Shangnan was roughly the intersection of Xi'an Prefecture, Nanyang Prefecture, and Henan Prefecture. After Pan Yunteng took Shangnan, it seemed that it would be very convenient for him to attack Luoyang from the northeast or Nanyang from the southeast.

However, this is not the best time for Pan Yunteng to start a war with Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong.

This was all because Hong Chengchou had not yet executed his entire family.

Pan Yunteng, who impersonated the rebel Zhang Yun, was from Hanzhong Prefecture, and he even had Pan Yunteng put the Rui Prince's family under house arrest. Logically speaking, Yang He should also bear responsibility.

Right now, the three powerful clans and eight imperial merchants of Puzhou were so caught up in his games that they forgot to bother Yang He. If Pan Yunteng were to suddenly lead his troops to seize territory from Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong, the three powerful clans and eight imperial merchants of Puzhou would definitely remember this incident.

Hong Chengchou condoned the rebels Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong, and Yang He also condoned the rebel Zhang Yun. Hong Chengchou wanted to execute the entire family, so why shouldn't Yang He's entire family be executed as well?

If these guys use this as an excuse to make trouble, then we're in trouble.

He needs to get these guys to execute Hong Chengchou's entire family first.

Zhu Jue thought about it carefully, and then decisively said: "Ruoyu, approve the reply, and instruct Pan Guozhong to pay attention to the Dengzhou and Xinye line, and be careful that the rebel Zhang Yun may sneak into Huguang from the south of Nanyang Prefecture."

This essentially meant that Pan Yunteng should lead his troops to capture Dengzhou and Xinye to prevent Zhang Xianzhong from infiltrating into Huguang!

(End of this chapter)