Chongzhen Daming: Starting from Coal Mountain

Chapter 377 Hanyang Iron Works
Zhu Cijiong said: "I don't know how long the naturalization battle will last."

Xu Yingwei said: "If the battle of naturalization lasts for half a year, Khalkha Mongolia, Chahar Mongolia and even Junggar Mongolia will definitely not sit idly by, and will definitely intervene in this war."

"I believe it." Chongzhen said, "But it's hard to say who will help."

Xu Yingwei said: "What does your majesty mean to say that Khalkha Mongols, Chahar Mongols, and Junggar Mongols may not necessarily stand in the pseudo-shun camp? Maybe they will fall to build slaves?"

Chongzhen said: "It is estimated that Khalkha Mongolia will stand in the pseudo-Shun camp, but Chahar Mongolia and Junggar Mongolia are hard to say. After all, Junggar Mongolia is now bordering on Puppet Shun, but Jiannu and Junggar are separated by Pseudo-Shun and Kazakhstan. Erka Mongol, if the diplomatic principle of long-distance friendship and short-term attack is followed, Junggar should stand as a slave."

Although Chongzhen is just guessing, there are countless historical facts as the basis.

In fact, the envoys of Jiannu have indeed found the Mongolian tribes of Khalkha and the Mongolian tribes of Junggar, and are engaged in a fierce diplomatic war with the envoys of Pseudo-Shun.

As for Chahar Mongolia, the pseudo-shun is gone.

Dorgon has greatly strengthened his control over the Chahar tribes.

After a short pause, Chongzhen said again: "To be honest, I can't see clearly the prospect of the war of naturalization, but one thing is certain, that is, it will definitely not end in a short time."

Xu Yingwei said: "In other words, we have enough time to deploy troops to the southwest."

Yan Yingyuan said: "Since ancient times, the Central Plains dynasty has been extremely cautious in deploying troops in the southwest, because the roads in the southwest are dangerous, transportation of food, grass and luggage is extremely difficult, and the local climate is also extremely harsh, so they must be fully prepared."

Xu Yingwei said: "Brother Huo Heng said that it is absolutely true that we must make full preparations for deploying troops in the Southwest. One is the strength of the army. We need to recruit a sufficient number of troops. The other is the food and fodder. At least we must transfer enough food and fodder to maintain the army for a year. The third is strategy. It is necessary to determine the chieftain policy after the Shadingzhou Rebellion is put down in advance. Otherwise, the Yunnan chieftain will easily rebel, and the court will fall into the predicament of futile work, and the Southwest will become a burden."

What Xu Yingwei said hit the nail on the head.

Zhu Cijiong said: "The chieftain of Yunnan must change the land and return to the local people."

Yan Yingyuan said: "Not only the chieftains of Yunnan, but also the chieftains of western Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan and Guizhou. However, I believe that reforming the land and returning it to the local people is a long-term process, and we must not rush it."

Chongzhen said: "Wu Heng's words are old-fashioned words for seeking the country."

Xu Yingwei said: "There is no problem with the strength of the troops in the southwest. The new army alone is enough. What's more, the Holy Majesty is also planning to recruit the chieftain soldiers from the west of Hunan, Hubei and eastern Sichuan. Then there is no problem. The only thing I worry about is the logistics. The road from Wuchang to Yunnan is long and full of high mountains and rivers, and there are chieftains of all sizes along the way."

"These chieftains may not have the guts to raise troops to rebel, but there is no guarantee that they will not sneak attack on the imperial court's transport team."

"Especially the chieftains in Yunnan, because of the chaos in Shadingzhou, there will always be more or less disagreements, so it becomes extremely difficult to guarantee the logistics supply channel."

Zhu Cijiong said deeply: "The army has not been transported, and the food and grass go first. If the safety of the logistics supply channel cannot be guaranteed, the more troops gathered on the front line, the more dangerous it will be."

Yan Yingyuan said: "So we need an elite army to ensure the safety of the food road."

Chongzhen said: "As long as there are five thousand flintlock guns, it is enough to ensure the safety of the supply line."

After a short pause, he continued: "Speaking of flintlock guns, the iron smelting workshop in Hanyang has already been built. It is said that the first furnace of molten iron was smelted three days ago. Let's go to the workshop now to have a look."

Zhu Cijiong, Xu Yingwei and Yan Yingyuan gladly accepted the order.

At present, Chongzhen crossed the river to Hanyang under the escort of Yi Ding.

After Wu Jinxi received the news, he brought people to meet him by the river in advance.

Then he took Chongzhen and his party to the Hanyang iron smelting workshop at the northern foot of Guishan Mountain.

I saw that rows of earthen houses had been built between the northern foot of Guishan Mountain and the Han River, at least thousands of them.

The entire ironworks was surrounded by a [-]-foot-high fence, and there was a watchtower every [-] steps. On the watchtower, there were already new troops standing guard, and there were also new army patrols patrolling back and forth inside and outside the fence.

Therefore, this is not only a smelting workshop, but also a large barracks, and even more so, a large prison.

"My lord, this area is a detention area. After work is over in the evening, all the laborers will be brought back here for centralized monitoring." Wu Jinxi first pointed to the rows of dirt houses, and then pointed to Guishan Mountain in front of him. Beilu said, "The smelting workshop is at the foot of the mountain ahead, covering an area of ​​tens of thousands of acres."

After walking for about half an hour, I finally came to the foot of Guishan Mountain.

Chongzhen saw two earth mountains at a glance, one was brown and the other was black.

"Look, Your Majesty." Wu Jinxi pointed to the two earth mountains and said, "The brown one is mineral material, and the black one is coal, both of which are mined from nearby mines. There are a lot of mineral deposits underground in Wuchang Prefecture and surrounding counties. Not only iron ore and coal, but also copper ore, it’s just that the good and the bad are mixed and it’s hard to sort through.”

Chongzhen is very aware of this situation, and the grade of domestic metal ore deposits is generally not high.

For example, in iron ore, there is almost no rich ore with more than 40% in China, while the grade of iron ore in Australia is mostly 60%.

More importantly, almost all iron mines in Australia are shallow, unlike the iron mines in China that are hidden deep underground and are very difficult to mine. To be honest, such a rich land has finally become a sinful place where criminals are exiled. The truth is a waste, so in this world, Chongzhen will never tolerate such a thing happening again.

When we got closer, we saw teams of laborers using cockroaches to continuously transport mineral materials and coal from the wharf by the Han River to the earth hill.

From the riverside to the factory, there are new troops standing guard all the way.

After turning around two dirt hills, towering furnaces suddenly appeared in front of them, and they were smoking.

There are also teams of laborers with bare chests and backs, standing in front of the bellows in front of the furnace, trying their best to blow the wind.

"Please look here again, Your Majesty." Wu Jinxi brought Chongzhen to a blast furnace, "This is the iron-making furnace that has just been built. Each furnace can smelt [-] catties of ore, and each furnace can produce iron every six hours. Six thousand catties is amazing, so it is amazing that such a furnace can produce twelve thousand catties of iron in one day."

Chongzhen circled the iron-smelting furnace carefully.

This thing looks no different from a blast furnace from a certain era.

The soil blast furnaces of a certain era have caused great damage to the environment, especially irreparable damage to the forest coverage, but in this era, there is no need to consider environmental protection.

Even the industrial age has not yet officially started, so what about environmental protection?
Chongzhen carefully observed the construction technology again, and it was built quite elegantly.

This is enough to prove that Daming's iron-making process is actually very mature. Whether it is building a blast furnace, making coke, or frying steel, or pouring steel, there are already mature processes.

What surprised Chongzhen was that Daming already had coking technology.

For example, at this time, piles of coke were piled up next to the ironmaking furnace.

Seeing Chongzhen staring at the coke, Wu Jinxi immediately explained: "My lord, there is too much coal sludge near Wuchang, which is really not good. Even if it is refined into coke, it is not as good as the coke produced in Shanxi. Because of this, the refined iron The quality of the material is not good, let alone compared with Fujian Railway, even Guangdong Railway is not as good.”

The best iron material in Ming Dynasty is Fujian Iron, which is refined with charcoal.

Under Fujian Railway, it was the turn of Guangdong Railway, which was refined in Foshan, Guangdong.

Chongzhen said helplessly: "But now Shanxi is under the control of the establishment, not to mention that the roads in Shanxi are far away, and it is impossible to transport coal from Shanxi to Hankou. What can I do?"

If it has entered the industrial age, it is possible to build a railway.

But the problem is that even the steam engine test machine has not been built, so what is the use of repairing the railway?

Wu Jinxi said: "Shanxi's coal cannot be transported to Hankou, but Shizhouwei's coal can be transported to Hankou through Yishui and Yushui. In addition, Shizhou's iron mines are better than Wuchang's iron mines."

Speaking of this meal, Wu Jinxi said again: "So please open mines in Shizhouwei."

"It's no problem." Chongzhen agreed, "As long as you think it's necessary, you can do it."

"Including the [-] laborers, you have full power at your disposal." Speaking of this meal, Chongzhen went on to say, "I only want you to guarantee one thing, and I will produce [-] million catties of iron every year! If you can't do it, I will I'm going to ask you."

"Twenty million catties is no problem at all." Wu Jinxi pointed to the iron furnace and said, "It's just this furnace, as long as the ore and coke can be supplied in full, it's amazing that four million catties of iron can be produced a year."

"Therefore, we only need to build five such furnaces, and we can produce [-] million catties of iron a year!"

"That's really good." Chongzhen asked happily, "How many iron furnaces like this have been built?"

Speaking of this, Wu Jinxi showed embarrassment on his face, coughed lightly and said: "Returning to the Holy One, ten iron furnaces like this have been built, but it is rare to make one furnace in three days."

Hearing this, Chongzhen understood that the problem was not in the iron-making furnace.

Building a steel mill is a systematic project, not just finding a place to build an iron-making furnace.

You have to have iron ore, you have to mine, you have to transport the mine, and you need to process it after transporting it to the ironworks, and then you have to mine and transport coal, and you have to make coke.

From nothing to building a large ironworks, there are too many things to do.

Wu Jinxi was able to build a workshop and smelt the first furnace of iron in such a short period of time. It was not easy, and he could not be more demanding. It must be said that Daming did not lack talents.

There is no shortage of soldiers and administrators, and technical officials are also full of talents.

However, no matter how many talents there are, they still lost to land annexation, which is really embarrassing.

Immediately Chongzhen said: "Wu Qing, don't be too anxious. This year, you only need to build the venue first, and then straighten out all the links. From next year onwards, I will ask you for the full amount of iron materials."

(End of this chapter)