national surname chiming

Chapter 147

It was definitely a surprise to Song Mingde that Shen Daotai was willing to generously hire his clan uncle to work in the mountains.

So when he was in the middle of the inspection work that day and during the lunch break, he hurriedly edited a book, asked Shen Shuren to read it, and immediately dragged the courier to his hometown in Nanchang.

From Wuchang Daye to Nanchang, the Yangtze River also has more than 400 miles of waterway. After entering Poyang Lake, it has to turn overland. It takes four to five days to travel to a normal post station.

Considering that Song Yingxing is already old, at 57, he will have some hesitation about his future, and he needs to prepare to move before departure, and he will have to sail against the trend for the return journey, so it will be at least half a month before he arrives in Daye.

During these half a month, Shen Shuren would not waste it. He happened to discuss the layout of mining and metallurgy with his nephew first. When Song Yingxing arrived, he would ponder over the improvements in machinery and technology.

There is a sequence of hearing the truth, and there is a specialization in the surgery industry.

Song Yingxing is not all-knowing and omnipotent. Science and technology are also divided into many detailed categories. His strengths lie in mechanical structure and agricultural technology.

As for metallurgy, mining, geological materials, etc., Song Yingxing didn't dabble in much. This can be seen from the content of "Tiangong Kaiwu". Of course, Shen Shu's employment must be based on the other party's strengths.

……

After Song Mingde sent the letter home, he continued to accompany Shen Shuren to inspect the Daye Iron Mine that afternoon.

On the first day, Shen Shuren was also quite tired, and he rode for thirty miles all the way, so he didn't arrange any inspection sessions that were too difficult, and just had a look at the whole situation.

What Song Mingde talked with him was also general and general information.

While visiting the iron mine, Shen Shuren also had an understanding of the current metallurgical industry data of Daming and the data of Daye Iron Mine.

The Ming Dynasty had very few official statistics on steel production, but Song Mingde was interested in this industry, and he had collected historical materials. According to him, the annual steel production at the peak of the Ming Dynasty was 2000 million catties.

Ming Jin is about 600 grams, divided into 16 taels, 37 grams per tael.Therefore, the data Song Mingde said is roughly equivalent to an annual output of [-] tons.In addition, there are tens of thousands of tons of raw and wrought iron.

Of course, this number should be in the heyday of the middle and late Ming Dynasty. Now it is the end of Chongzhen, and the productivity of all walks of life is severely damaged. Therefore, the national steel output should be equivalent to seven to eight thousand tons, and [-] to [-] tons of raw and wrought iron. .

This figure still includes the enemy-occupied areas, and the provinces controlled by the Ming government are estimated to add up to [-] tons of steel.

Combining Joseph Needham's "History of Science and Technology in China" and other historical materials he had read in his previous life, Shen Shuren felt that this number should be reliable.

The metallurgical industry technology of the Ming Dynasty did not make much progress compared with the Southern Song Dynasty, and basically the technological progress stagnated in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

Historically, at the peak of the late Northern Song Dynasty, the national steel output approached [-] tons, and [-] to [-] tons of raw and wrought iron.Compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the scientific and technological progress in the Southern Song Dynasty was quite obvious. Unfortunately, half of the country was lost, and the resources and scale were shrunk. Although the per unit yield increased, the total output never surpassed the peak of the Northern Song Dynasty.

After the Ming Dynasty, although the technology was not much improved compared with the Southern Song Dynasty, the whole land of Han was restored at any rate, the territory and resources were larger, and the total production capacity was doubled compared with the Southern Song Dynasty.

[-] tons of steel and [-] tons of iron, this is the production capacity currently available in the Daming occupied area.

As for the Daye iron mine in front of me, according to Song Mingde's statistics from the previous year, it can produce about 200 tons of steel and [-] to [-] tons of raw and wrought iron.

It accounts for the vast majority of steel production in the entire Huguang region, one-third of the southern region, and nearly one-fifth of the national production capacity.

In the three regions of Sichuan, Chu, and Wu south of the Yangtze River, the production capacity of Daye Tieshan has surpassed the entire production capacity of Wu, and is only lower than the full production capacity of Sichuan (Sichuan has many mountainous areas, and there are also many ancient mining exploration and mining. There are less minerals in plain farming areas)
"With an annual output of 200 million jins of steel and 1000 million jins of raw and wrought iron, Zuo Liangyu held such a treasure land in his hands for two years, yet he didn't develop a powerful army. It's really blind.

Calculated on the basis of an average of five catties of iron material to make a weapon, the 1000 million catties of iron were used to make weapons, and 200 million knives and guns were forged. "

After Shen Shuren learned about the production capacity, he couldn't help but sigh with emotion, what a fortune this is.If I had known that I would be able to make so much money without him doing additional farming and expanding production, if I had given it to him in the past two years, I would have been able to take off.

Of course, the account must not be calculated in this way, so Shen Shuren just talked about it casually.

Song Mingde was more serious, and also explained from the side: "To make weapons, you can't use ordinary raw and wrought iron. The 1000 million catties of iron are mainly to make farm tools, tools, and iron pots for the common people.

Huguang has a vast area and the Jianghan Plain is fertile. There are more than 1000 million people in one province, not counting volunteers and hermits.Each commoner spends an average of one catty of iron every year to make agricultural tools, and the 1000 million catties will be spent.

200 million catties of steel is the material for making knives, guns and other heavy weapons, and there will be losses during the manufacturing process. If all knives and guns are cast, 50 pieces can always be produced, but in fact there are not that many.

Also, armor is a big consumer of steel, and a piece weighs dozens of catties.Heavy weapons also consume a lot, and 10,000+ pieces of heavy weapons can consume all the steel.

During Zuo Liangyu's two years in Wuchang, the imperial court's control over the local area was stronger than it is now.Although Zuo Liangyu is like a warlord, after all, his meddling in local civil affairs is not as good as you are now, my lord.He can deceive and intercept a small half of the steel from the hands of the court for his use, which is very good. "

I have to say that the last few sentences of Song Mingde's remarks are actually very lacking in emotional intelligence. It can be seen that he has dealt with science and engineering every day, and he is neglected in the world. He said that Zuo Liangyu didn't have enough control over the local economy. Doesn't it make it clear that Shen Shuren's current "warlord" attribute is actually not weaker than Zuo Liangyu at all.

After Shen Shuren listened to it, he groaned for a moment and thought about it for a while. Now it seems that 1000 million catties of iron per year can meet the daily needs of people's livelihood.In order to increase production in the future, we should focus on high-end, high-quality steel instead of blindly increasing the quantity of low-quality raw and wrought iron.

Unless there is a demand for large-scale construction, construction and development in the future, there will be a large amount of new demand for raw and wrought iron.

For example, Shen Shuren had read "Wuzhong Water Conservancy Notes" by Zhang Guowei, who was formerly the minister of the household department in Nanjing and has now gone to Beijing as the minister of the household department. At that time, when he was building seawalls in Suzhou, he had to consume 10,000+ catties of iron tools at a time.

A large amount of stone mining, logging, river building, wetland remediation and fish pond polder will cause huge wear and tear of iron.This part of wear and tear can also be regarded as the largest expenditure in government projects, second only to artificial rations.

If Shen Shuren can expand the production of raw and wrought iron here in the future, meet the needs of other construction projects, and raise iron tools by himself, then at least one-third of the government project expenditure can be reduced.

……

After thinking about all these, Shen Shuren has a rough idea of ​​how to build the iron and steel industry: increase the production of raw and wrought iron according to his own engineering needs, and add a little extra to benefit the people's livelihood.

In the case of resource priority, it is guaranteed that after reaching this level, the remaining metallurgical, mining and construction resources will be tilted towards high-end steel.

The inspection on the first day ended after these outlines were clarified.The tired Shen Shuren went back to rest for one night, and continued the next day.

In the evening, Liu Minsheng, the magistrate of Daye County, who followed him to inspect, originally wanted to flatter him and invite him back to the city to live in the county government or a post house, so as to entertain him.

But Shen Shuren thought it was troublesome, and he had to ride sixty miles on horseback every time he came and went, wasting time, so he insisted on living on the iron mine, in the yard of the mine manager.

Liu Minsheng had no choice but, the masters of Daotai were so approachable and friendly to the people, and it was difficult for him to go back to the city alone as a county magistrate, so a group of entourage had to live in the mine.

Everyone's views on Shen Shuren also changed subtly, and they realized that this Daoist who came from a wealthy background can really endure hardships.

In the early morning of the next day, Shen Shuren, who was well-rested, used the same standard as ordinary miners to burn the dead noodles and drank pickled vegetable porridge. Under Song Mingde's leadership, he finally went down the mine for the first time in person.

Originally, there were many local officials in the Wuchang area, and some were concerned about the production of Tieshan, but almost none of them went to the mine in person.

Shen Shuren also specially wore a pair of thick hemp rope sandals to prevent slipping when climbing, and Song Mingde did the same.The other accompanying officials and small officials were still wearing official boots, and they didn't look like they were working.

After roughly climbing and inspecting the mine, Shen Shuren quickly realized that there are really not many mines that require mine operations in this era——

Daye Iron Mountain has been mined since the Three Kingdoms period. It can be seen that the iron ore layer is relatively shallow, and a considerable part of it is open-air and can be dug directly.Only a few spots with particularly good-grade rich ore layers have been excavated for thousands of years, gradually forming deep pits and even mines.

There were no technical standards for mining operations in the Ming Dynasty. The roof reinforcement was simply cut down by cutting a few trees to support it, and no one knew how to calculate the stress points of the structure.

Shen Shuren took a general look, but he didn't dare to go deep. It wouldn't be worth it if he was buried alive in the landslide.

After exiting the cave, he just asked casually: "How many such cave mining sites are there in Daye? Will there be landslides and death?"

Song Mingde: "There are only five or six places in total. Last year, two caves collapsed once each, and buried seven or eight to a dozen people each time."

Shen Shuren couldn't help but twitch his temples when he heard this: "This is too dangerous, there are so many rich ore areas here, and it's not like there are no open pits to dig.

Occasionally, if the iron layer and the rock layer overlap, at worst, use iron drills to drill holes and bury gunpowder blasting to remove the whole rock layer, and then dig out the iron layer below.Don't add new mines in the future, and try to be as open-air as possible. "

Song Mingde was stunned for a moment, but also praised: "My lord is benevolent, thinking of what the predecessors have never thought of... I am ashamed to say that I only study how to look at mines, and I have never thought about how to dig out stones from bitter tools. However, I just feel that these hard workers are too far away from us scholars, and they always have their own ways."

Shen Shuren didn't make things difficult for him, he knew that the scholars in the Ming Dynasty could pay attention to how to improve their craftsmanship and production capacity, which was already very good, and they were among the top [-]% of scholars who cared about industrial practicality.

But production safety, whether workers will die, and the improvement and optimization of these safety technologies, they don't think about it. This is a limitation of history.

Only the workers themselves are responsible for their own lives. It is a pity that this kind of hard work often does not know a word, does not know how to plan, and does not think about the long-term.So the accumulated problems, in Shen Shuren's eyes, were all very strange.

This production capacity has not yet been figured out how to increase it, so Shen Shuren has to think about how to reduce the death of some workers every year.

"The road in this mine is not good. Find a way for me to make a circle of gentle slopes, coiling around the mountain pit and going up. The hard workers nowadays are all digging the ore and climbing out of the pit directly?

After making a flat and gentle slope, at least you can use a wheelbarrow, and you can even ride a donkey and mule cart on a more gentle road. Isn't this easier than carrying a burden?No matter how I look at this place, it is not pleasing to the eye. There are too many things that can be changed. "

(End of this chapter)