Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1748 Big Inspection ([-])

After listening to the report from the director of Tieling Special Steel Plant, Qi Wangping listened to the report from the management of the western rolling mill. It was already past ten o'clock in the evening after the end.Because it was too late, he simply rested in the train station for one night, and went to Tieling Mining Bureau with great interest the next day for a visit.

The Tieling Mining Bureau is famous, and its reputation faintly exceeds that of the Pingan Mining Bureau, which was established earlier and has earlier qualifications. However, in terms of production scale, it is really not that big.The reason is that firstly, the industrial scale of the east bank is still very limited (internal and external markets cannot digest too much production capacity), and secondly, the production of iron, manganese, gold and other metal mines is the main production here, and the production capacity of coal is not counted. It is very large, and it is mainly consumed by the people in the mining area and surrounding counties and towns. Compared with the Ping An Mining Bureau, which almost supplies most of the coal needs of the people and enterprises in the core essence of the east coast, it is indeed not enough.

Qi Wangping didn't have much interest in the production of coal and iron. He just listened to the report and asked the person in charge of the mining area about safety facilities such as coal mining mechanization, transportation mechanization, and mine ventilation. He praised him politely, and finally turned his attention to the production of the Tieling Gold Mine, which he was most concerned about.

The Tieling Gold Mine is the only gold mine that has been discovered and has mining value in the Eastern China Republic. Historically, it took Uruguayans to mine for 19 years in the 60th century before the gold mine output began to decline and gradually dried up.If the mining period on the east bank is far less than 60 years, this gold mine is still in its young and middle-aged stage, and it will provide the east bank with a steady stream of 300-500 kilograms of gold every year, worth 15-25 yuan (in fact, it is still Not only that, because silver will be added when it is cast into gold coins), it will also make a small contribution to the finances of the east coast-at least last year (1676), the Admiralty built the "Executive Committee" class three-deck battleship and the third ship "Liberation" The money for the "Zhe Zhe" came from here.

Of course, the East Bank gets more than that amount of gold every year.The gold mined by the Far East Denglai Pioneering Team and the Blackwater Pioneering Team every year, the gold traded by Japanese companies on the east coast from Japan, the gold traded or looted from Africa, and the gold traded or looted from mainland China add up to Twice the output of the Tieling Gold Mine, the value is about 40 yuan.It's just that the cost of obtaining these golds is relatively high, and it is far inferior to the local production on the east coast.

The gold produced by Donganren's Tieling Gold Mine is currently being refined in the Tieling Special Steel Plant.Different from the treatment of gold by jewelry merchants or bankers in the Old World, the people on the East Coast can more effectively separate silver, copper and platinum group metals in gold, which is due to the fact that they are much higher than the Old World. double the knowledge of chemistry.

Generally speaking, it is common for gold to be mixed with silver, copper, or platinum group metals, and it cannot be effectively separated by the usual methods, unless a strong acid such as nitric acid is used (this substance exists in the Old World, but people The nature of this strong acid may not be understood, and it was prepared by accident, which is relatively rare).However, on the east coast, because the budding of the chlor-alkali industry has emerged, chlorine gas has become familiar to people (currently it is mainly used to disinfect or bleach cotton cloth), so it has also been applied to the refining and purification of gold.

This kind of purification process can only be designed by people from the east coast, and it is very simple to say, that is to heat and melt gold in a crucible and add borax.When chlorine gas is passed into the crucible, metals that are baser than gold will react to form volatile chloride fumes. At this time, impurity metals such as silver, copper, and lead are slowly purified.Of course, some people will try to recycle the silver inside, which is actually very simple, that is, pour the liquid silver chloride into a container containing strong acid, and then obtain it by electrolysis (this is also a way that Europeans cannot understand ).

Of course, the above methods can only separate silver, copper and other metals. For the platinum group metals in gold—especially the gold produced in South America, which has a high content of platinum group metals—it has no effect. If you want to purify platinum, We have to find another way.That is to put gold into aqua regia to dissolve it, then heat to evaporate the acid, and add ammonium chloride (prepared in the laboratory, obtain ammonia water by dry distillation of coal, and then prepare ammonium chloride, which is extremely costly and low in output. Very precious), causing the platinum group metals to precipitate out, generally in the form of platinum powder.

The rest of the work is to collect these platinum powders and put them into crucibles, then heat them, and finally forge and roll them into platinum sheets.This kind of platinum thin plate is mainly used in the jewelry industry on the east coast. The various rings and earrings produced are popular in the upper class and have recovered a lot of currency for the government. It is the same as South African diamonds. As for the golden weapon, the benefits generated each year are quite large. Although the profits of metals such as steel and copper alloys cannot be tolerated, they are firmly ranked third, earning 5 to 10 yuan for Tieling Special Steel every year. It is not a problem, and this number is likely to increase year by year, because there are too many "stupid women" who love these things.

Qi Wangping's wife and daughters also have a lot of platinum jewelry, especially his old wife, who has collected a lot, probably due to the factor of nostalgia for the time before time travel, and it took decades of hard work to see people from the east coast The precious metals of the previous life restored by time in the 17th century almost burst into tears, and naturally there is nothing to spend money on.

Chairman Qi himself is naturally not very interested in platinum group metals, he is only interested in the continuous progress of people on the east coast in the field of metals.In particular, they import a large amount of silver bars from Chalkas every year (because they have not been refined, so the price is relatively cheap), and Tieling Special Steel Works can separate a considerable amount of gold and platinum group metals from them. Small industries, if they scale up, should have considerable profits in the future.

Qi Wangping finally stayed in the Tieling Mining Bureau for three days, and then he spent some time visiting key enterprises such as the Western Rolling Plant, Tieling Boiler Plant, and the First Heavy Machinery Plant, especially the latter. He conducted a key inspection, Very pleased with the increasing precision of the machinery produced at the plant.Especially after learning that this improvement was due to the invention of manganese steel high-speed cutter head and marking machine, which is an epoch-making national treasure, he became even more excited, so that he was very excited about the various marine and land-use equipment produced by the factory. They all inquired one by one, and it took several days to end the trip.

After the inspection of these large enterprises, the trip to Tieling is almost over.Because to be honest, this city prospered because of industry is a bit "boring". He just spent a day looking around, listening to some reports on the content he had seen in the documents, and then on February 1677, 2, he boarded the long-awaited Laura again. The Plata Star special train departs and continues westward, passing through Yuexi County and arriving at Daxing Port, the end of the Northwest Railway and the end of Wujiang Shipping.

Of course, it may not be accurate to say that Daxing Port is the end of the Wujiang River in the East Coast Republic, because strictly speaking, this is only the limit that large ships can go up.If you go up from Daxing Port, the 72-ton small steamer can still "play" well, although the navigation in the meantime is not a small risk.

The biggest “selling point” of Daxing Port—well, it should be said to be the focus of Chairman Qi’s visit—is actually the Daxing Ship Lock that is under planning.The existence of this ship lock is mainly to allow all types of ships to freely pass between the lower reaches of the Wujiang River and the middle and upper reaches, so that they will no longer be blocked by the sudden waterfall.

It's just that maybe the project volume is too large, or the Ministry of Communications doesn't have the courage to build this kind of ship lock on the big river. Therefore, after repeated planning and demonstrations for several years, this project has never been finalized.No, Qi Wangping went to the riverside to have a look, and found that the construction site was almost empty, only a small engineering team was repairing the flood control dam, which was disgusting.

"The ship locks can't be repaired, and a large-scale water conservancy project like the Shipu Reservoir is probably out of the question, right?" Qi Wangping, who was sitting on the boat, pointed to the magnificent Daxing Waterfall, and said, "It's surprising that even a little big thing in the Shipu Reservoir can The astonishing ability to generate hundreds of horsepower has provided dozens or even hundreds of machines of various types powered by water power, which shows how powerful it is. Daxing Waterfall is ten times or a hundred times better than that, but it is a pity that it cannot be improved. It’s a pity to use it. The Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Construction still don’t have the courage to build water conservancy facilities of this scale?”

"I'm afraid it's still a bit late." The Daxing county magistrate who accompanied him explained in a low voice: "When the district administrative office was still there, the district and county governments jointly responded to the above. The Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Communications, The Ministry of Construction has also sent a joint working group to investigate for many times, but in the end still did not give a clear letter of approval to start construction, so it is still investigating and demonstrating, and it is not known when it will end. Of course, funding is also a problem. The amount of this project is too large, and the cost will be extremely staggering.”

"It's a pity, it's a pity." Qi Wangping shook his head, as if he was also slightly disappointed by this.Of course, he also has reason, knowing that such a large project must be the power of the whole country, and it may not be completed, because the technology and construction may not be able to meet the requirements.In addition, it is not a particularly urgent need, so it is not surprising that this project has fallen into the vicious circle of "argumentation, argumentation, and argumentation" for many years.

After watching the waterfall from a distance, the boat carrying Qi Wangping and his party entered a dock in Daxing Port for maintenance that afternoon.Coincidentally, a large three-masted sailboat affiliated to the South China Sea Transportation Company and dedicated to running the mainland-Xinhua Island route is also undergoing maintenance.

This ship is repairing the propeller propeller of the ship. At this time, the water in the dock has been drained, and the workers are dismantling some damaged propellers.The magistrate of Daxing County, who accompanied Qi Wangping and others, seemed to be relatively knowledgeable about industry. Seeing that everyone was watching with great interest, he explained softly: "This ship is also an old acquaintance to our county, because The shipping port is our place, and the key point is Xinhua Port, where all kinds of mechanical equipment, iron products, hardware products, and mechanical parts are shipped from here, pulled to Xinhua Port for unloading, and then loaded with rubber, sisal, dried fruits, and coffee in large quantities. , cocoa, cane sugar, tobacco, coconuts and other special products, and ship them back to our Daxing Port for sale. Look at the bottom of this ship, which is covered with a relatively thin layer of copper plates, and the parts below the waterline are copper bolts instead of iron bolts. It’s worth the cost.”

"This ship was remodeled about two years ago. At that time, the bottom of the ship was covered with a layer of copper skin. As a result, there is only a little wear and tear (corrosion in sea water) after sailing. What's more, there are no weeds on the bottom of the ship that greatly affect the speed of the ship. And barnacles, the caulking parts are also intact, and there are no nasty sea maggots entering the bottom of the ship to affect the service life of the ship. Therefore, it is very necessary to use copper plates to cover the bottom of the ship, but the demand for copper may be a bit large. "The magistrate of Daxing County continued to explain: "In addition, at the beginning, iron bolts were used at the bottom of the ship, but they were almost corroded, so that the connections of many parts became not firm at all. Of course, the Academy of Natural Sciences later Experts gave an explanation, they think it is caused by the electrolysis between copper and iron, because iron is more active than copper, figuratively speaking, even if copper gets rusty, iron can sacrifice itself to replace copper Come out. Oh, this is what the experts said at the time, and I don’t really understand how the iron sacrificed itself, but I saw that the iron was completely rusted, so now the bolts at the bottom of the ship are almost all copper bolts.”

"The Europeans don't have the awareness, let alone the capital, to cover the bottom of their boats with copper? They can't even cover the bottom of a boat with cheaper brass, let alone pure copper. Their boats are not the same as our sail-powered boats. Same, the bottom of the boat is treated with a mixture of tar, sulfur, broken glass slag, and iron nails, but it is very unreliable, and the bottom of the boat is full of plankton or seaweed after sailing for a long time, and the bottom planks are full of disgusting The fat and fat sea maggots, so that it will not take long to replace the cost and clean the bottom of the ship. Speaking of which, the maintenance cost is also high, and it does not feel much cheaper than covering the bottom of our ship with copper plates.” The county magistrate pointed to the Wujiang River outside the dock The last 650-ton flute-shaped transport ship that was going down the river said: "We are now copper-clad all 1200-ton sailboats and naval capital warships. I think it is correct, and we have money."

The words of the county magistrate made everyone laugh, and Qi Wangping also laughed, but he did laugh at the progress made in metal materials and processing by the East Coast Republic of China in the past 50 years.The progress of this basic industry actually affects all aspects of society and the economy. Its value is immeasurable and it is definitely something to be proud of.

(End of this chapter)