Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 201 Restorative Development ([-])

To be honest, the current industrial development of the East Coast Republic of China is a bit deformed, basically concentrated in a few narrow categories, such as: textiles, steel, military industry, shipbuilding, and the newly emerging chemical industry.

Among them, iron and steel is a basic industry and the top priority of the national economy.In the few years since the founding of the East Coast Republic of China, the year with the highest steel output was 1635 before the outbreak of the war, and the annual steel output reached a record 440 tons.Steel production has not reached that level since.Even last year (1637), the annual steel output was only a meager 70 tons, a record low.The reason is mainly due to the blockade of trade, the iron ore and pig iron originally imported from Brazil, La Plata and other places have dropped sharply, and the local Changshanbao iron ore area has been slow to produce due to a serious shortage of labor force. Can't get it up.Combining the two reasons, it is not difficult to understand the sharp decline in steel production.

The lack of steel production does not seem to have a great impact on the economy at this stage.Because with the current economic structure of the East Coast Republic of China, the demand for steel is actually not as large as imagined.As far as the current situation is concerned, the major users of iron are mainly concentrated in the military industry. As for the production of agricultural tools, machinery, etc., the demand is not large.

However, we can't just consider the present. With the gradual development of the country's industry, there will only be more and more departments that use iron.Therefore, it is necessary to increase steel production.Before the outbreak of the war, the Pingan Iron and Steel Works had built an iron-making blast furnace with a design volume of 100 cubic meters, and it was estimated that it could produce an average of more than 30 tons of iron per day during operation.

But in fact, this ironmaking blast furnace has never been ignited for production since it was built.The reason is very simple. The iron ore output of Changshanbao Iron Mineral Equipment is too small, and the transportation capacity on the Yihe River is not enough. As a result, the amount of iron ore transported to the cargo wharf of Pingan Iron and Steel Factory is pitifully small and not enough. How long does it take for the blast furnace to ignite and produce.Therefore, so far, graphite crucibles are still being used in the melting furnaces of Pingan Iron and Steel Works to maintain domestic steel demand.

To solve this bottleneck, there is no other way but to increase the number of miners in the Changshanbao Iron Mine Area and increase the number of machinery and equipment to improve labor efficiency. At the same time, we must find a way to solve the bottleneck of iron ore transportation capacity. Only with a multi-pronged approach can it be possible to fill the appetite of the steel monster of Ping'an Iron and Steel Works.

But this is precisely difficult to satisfy at this stage, because the human resources of the East Coast Republic are too tight.This is a flaw, and there is no way to solve it quickly. Therefore, in the short term, the iron and steel industry still has to rely on graphite crucibles with low production capacity to play the leading role.

The Pingan Iron and Steel Plant cannot operate normally, and the coking plant supporting it has no need for large-scale production.Because the coke produced has no place to use, so it can't be used to burn fire.It just so happens that there are not small technical problems in the coking plant at present, mainly focusing on the separation and collection of gas, coal tar and asphalt.A large amount of gas is produced during the carbonization process of coal, and its composition is extremely complex, but it can be roughly divided into two categories: coal gas and coal tar.

Coal gas can be used to burn fire; coal tar can be separated into a large number of useful substances, such as fuel, marine tar, raw materials for synthetic dyes, etc.The coking plant currently has a brick condensate line for the separation of gaseous coal tar and bitumen from the retort gas.However, it may be due to problems in the previous design that the asphalt always blocks the condensing pipes, often causing production to stop.At present, technicians are stepping up demonstrations and modifying the design in order to solve this problem as soon as possible.

The process of industrialization really cannot be accomplished overnight.No matter how perfect the simulated production is in the laboratory environment in the early stage, once it is put into large-scale industrial production for practical application, it is always difficult to avoid various problems.The production of coal tar is not stable, so is the production of tar, dyes, and asphalt; the instability of tar, dyes, and asphalt affects transportation construction, ship maintenance (the bottom of the ship needs to be tarred), and the production of high-grade dyed cloth.

Regardless of the fact that the current industrial production in the east bank has few categories and a small scale, it is also linked to each other. Really, no link can go wrong.For example, after the glass industry, there were chemical experiments, and after the chemical experiments, the development and utilization of coal tar came, and then by-products such as dyes, tar, and pitch were derived; and the production of coal tar required the coal coking industry, and The coal coking industry serves for iron and steel smelting; and iron and steel, as a basic industry, are widely used in various industries.

Generally speaking, the iron and steel and chemical industries on the east coast have just started, and the technology is not yet mature enough. They are in the stage of gradual improvement, and there is still a long way to go before real large-scale industrial production.At present, the two industries that can really make money from export are textile and military industry, especially the textile industry, which is the key product of the East Coast Republic of China to earn foreign exchange.Therefore, the news that Ping An Machine Weaving Factory produced 4 bolts of cotton cloth in April was immediately sent to the desks of the central leaders of the Executive Committee, which shows how much attention it has received.

In addition to Ping An Machine Weaving Factory, the second ones to resume production are Dayuhe Naval Shipyard and Zhenhai Shipyard.

The Brazilians sold a large amount of high-quality Brazilian sumac, which restarted the construction of the half-built battleship "Free Trade" in the dock.At the same time, in consideration of the extremely busy maritime trade that may occur after the resumption of industrial production in the next period of time, the Government Council approved the South China Sea Transportation Company's application to build a 600-ton flute-shaped transport ship - "Kunlun", The ship will be built by Zhenhai Shipyard.

After several years of development, Zhenhai Shipyard now has two docks and more than 500 technicians, craftsmen and apprentices.The flute-shaped transport ship "Kunlun" undertaken this time is a piece of cake for them who have already built two ships of the same type, without any difficulty. Basically, only a small number of technicians are required to direct craftsmen and apprentices to start construction according to the drawings That's it.

At present, the two major shipyards of the East Coast Republic adopt an advanced modular production model.That is, try to hoard ship plates of the same specification as much as possible, and splice them according to the design drawings during production.This production method not only has high production efficiency, but also facilitates maintenance.In those shipyards in Europe, once a ship is damaged, some ship boards need to be replaced, which often requires craftsmen to process on-site, which is often time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, and waste of wood is also serious.After the implementation of modular production, the shipyard usually stocked up the planks of various parts of the ship, and the specifications of the planks all have standard sizes.In such a case, whether it is production or maintenance, craftsmen save the step of temporary processing, and the efficiency will be greatly improved.

This increase in efficiency may not be so conspicuous in normal times, but once it comes to wartime, this production method that can quickly repair warships has terrifying efficiency.Warships that used to take a long time to be repaired may be able to leave the port for overhaul in just a few days and restore their combat effectiveness.

In addition to the construction of the "Kunlun" transport ship in the two existing docks of Zhenhai Shipyard, the other dock has also started to be busy after entering May.A large number of technicians and craftsmen were busy inside. In addition to them, a group of researchers from the Ship Design Institute and the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Natural Sciences also rushed over and lived and ate with the workers.

In view of the excellent new performance of the two "Yangwu" class fast cruisers in previous naval battles, the Ministry of the Navy has also paid unusual attention to this high-speed ship that was originally positioned as a "pirate pursuit ship".In particular, Lieutenant Commander Lu Ming praised this type of warship in his report, believing that it can serve as a powerful supplement to the main battleship.Therefore, the Ministry of the Navy decided to use the batch of Southeast Asian teak wood ships it seized as start-up capital to apply to the Executive Committee for the construction of a new fast cruiser - "Super Brave".

Since the Ministry of the Navy has solved a considerable part of the shipbuilding cost by itself, the executive committee naturally approved the shipbuilding plan very readily.Soon, the staff and technical experts of the Ministry of the Navy began to partially modify the design of the original "Yangwu" class fast cruiser based on the opinions of naval officers and soldiers-including canceling the design of the forecastle, reducing the number of artillery doors, and increasing the length and width of the hull Ratio, increasing the number of schooners to maximize speed and enhance vessel handling.

After the Ministry of the Navy put forward the design requirements for the "Super Brave", a group of technicians from the Ship Design Institute and the Institute of Mathematics began to demonstrate, calculate and experiment day and night, in order to make the foundation of the original "Yangwu" class fast cruiser as soon as possible. Complete the design online, get the drawings out, and start building right away.

They have gained valuable experience in independently designing the "Yangwu" class, and it is not difficult for them to modify the design on the original basis.No, the project was approved in March, and they completed the design modification and demonstration in early May.Then, under the care of the Ministry of the Navy, Zhenhai Shipyard immediately arranged a large number of technicians and skilled craftsmen to start the construction of the "Chaoyong" high-speed cruiser.

With a ship, of course, there must be sailors to drive it.For the east coast, apart from cultivating sailors themselves, it is also a good choice to absorb a large number of down-and-out pirate sailors living in the Caribbean Sea.In fact, many of the sailors and junior officers in the East Coast Navy Fleet are pirates. Many of them have good fighting will and loyalty to the country, which is a good way to strengthen the navy at this stage.

Therefore, at the beginning of May, the Navy selected a group of pirate-born officers and sailors to take ships to the Caribbean Sea, planning to rely on some old relationships to find a way to recruit a group of impoverished sailors to the east coast to supplement the current shortage of sailors dilemma.

(End of this chapter)