Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 271 Deepening the Roots ([-])

The existence of labor camps in Changshan Iron Mine has a long history.It was originally established to punish those South African laborers who sneaked, raped or tried to escape during work. Later, due to the occasional harassment of the Charuya tribe and the gaucho horse bandits, some of the above two types of people who were captured also was sent in, and over time the labor camp became a permanent institution.

In the past six months, with the promulgation of the new regulations of the Executive Committee, all parts of the country began to send prisoners to the Changshan Iron Mine.If these prisoners stay in the past, they may still be able to go to the Falklands, South Africa or New China to "start a new life".But now they are considered unlucky, and they all go to the notorious hard labor camp of Changshan Iron Mine to do heavy work.

Zhou Dahe didn't even want to stay longer in the labor camp.The low, solid, and dark cell-like residence, the dull-eyed, lifeless miners, and the ferocious overseer who wandered around with his wolfhounds all gave Zhou Dahe a great shock.Especially after the head of the Norwegian supervisor who was in charge of receiving them looked at the two men's handling opinion form, Zhou Dahe felt an unspeakable sense of discomfort when he looked at them coldly.

After leaving that room as if escaping, Zhou Dahe, Ronald, Bogdan and others embarked on the journey back home.The journey back was relatively smooth. It took them just over three days for the small steamer they took to pull the ore from Changshan Iron Mine to Ping’an County to arrive at Zhenhai Port at the mouth of Yazi Lake. A short stop at the pier, while supplying fresh water, while adding coal and water to the small steamer.

As the only node for north-south transshipment, Zhenhai Port at this time is a time of turbulent crowds.Groups of new immigrants from the old continent were transported here by ship after they came out of the quarantine camp, and then they were assigned for the second time according to their respective destinations.

In 1640, the East Coast Republic of China had a total of more than 500 active or passive immigrants from overseas. In addition, two Guarani tribes were newly conquered in the northwest of Meihe Township this year. Therefore, the national population was 1640 in 12. At the beginning of the month, it broke through [-] historically, reaching a scale of more than [-] people.

Compared with the whole year of 1639 (the number of immigrants in that year was about 6000), the number of European immigrants, especially French immigrants, dropped rapidly this year.In addition to more than 600 adult immigrants from the three provinces of Gascogne, Languedoc, and Haut-Gallon, there are only about 2000 French children, plus some active immigrants from North Germany and Livorni The Baltics in the Asian region, and the white immigrants from Europe are only in the early [-]s.

Corresponding to this is the explosive increase in the number of Ming immigrants. In 1639, the number of Ming immigrants was only 1200, but this year it suddenly increased to 3000 (including Japanese and Koreans), surpassing that year for the first time. Number of European immigrants.Of course, these soaring Ming immigrants almost bankrupted the finances of the East Coast Republic of China—although the East Coast Republic, which is currently carrying nearly 50 yuan in debt, is not far from bankruptcy.

In addition to Europeans and Ming people, people on the east coast also bought a large number of slaves from Muscat merchants and the Ottoman Empire this year.These included 800 Persian female slaves, 700 Persian children, and nearly a thousand Cossack, Tatan, Berber, and Maghreb slaves.Regarding the total of about 1500 children (more than 600 French, 700 Persian and other orphans), they were basically sent to the expanded Bingtuanbao in the Xiling area without any delay.There, they will receive a ten-year systematic and rigorous education with their seniors and sisters from the previous five classes.

Excluding children, there are about 3700 adult immigrants.After the construction of three new settlements in the Duck Lake basin, the remaining 700 immigrants to be allocated were split up and distributed to various places.Among them, about 1000 people were assigned to the two shipyards and their supporting factories; 1 people were assigned to the cotton farm township, which was used for the newly reclaimed cotton fields of more than 100 mu; Zhenyuan Township, Ranch Township, Dingyuan Township and Chengguan Township were assigned 400, 200, 500 and 800 people.In the end, the 400 people were assigned to Ping'an County, an important northern town and heavy industry center of the East Coast Republic of China, to fill the personnel gaps in Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant, Coking Plant, Northern Armory Factory, First Machinery Factory, Northern Gunpowder Factory and other heavy industrial enterprises. .Among them, the Pingan Iron and Steel Factory, which is the most important, has [-] people, which can be said to be the best.

Speaking of the Pingan Iron and Steel Plant, it has really become a heartache for the Executive Committee and the Government Council.Since the successful ignition and production a few months ago, the iron and steel plant has recently started to have frequent accidents, and the quality of the steel produced has many problems.In particular, a batch of cast iron that was going to be used by the mechanical department to make parts was even more unusable, and the goods were returned directly, making Gao Xiaogang, the director of the steel factory, jumping in anxiety.

Gao Xiaogang worked in a steel factory for several years before crossing over, but what he did was rolling steel.After time travel, under the guidance of Ma Jia, he turned to learn iron and steel smelting. After Ma Jia became the dean of the Government Affairs Council, he also took over the position of director of the Pingan Iron and Steel Factory that was under construction.

Being the director of this possibly the most important factory in the East Coast Republic, the pressure cannot be underestimated.In particular, this factory started construction a few years ago. Although it was temporarily suspended due to various reasons, it was immediately restored. It took two or three years for such an extremely important factory to officially go into production. As a result, various problems occurred frequently within a few months after it was put into production. How could this make Gao Xiaogang feel extremely depressed.

Since the first ignited production was successful a few months ago, and [-] tons of iron were produced that day, the production has been abnormal these days, and most of the problems are concentrated in the ironmaking workshop.After several in-depth analysis and research by the technical staff of the factory, several problems in the current production were summarized: one is the furnace cold accidents that occur from time to time, the other is the poor efficiency of the steam blower, and the third is the sulfur content of coke The amount is too high, and the fourth is that the iron ore sent is too large and the reduction is insufficient.

Therefore, after summing up the problem, Gao Xiaogang immediately gathered several technical backbones in the factory together, and then held a meeting to discuss the solution collectively.

"First of all, let's talk about the furnace cold accident." Gao Xiaogang held a large teapot in the meeting room of Ping'an Iron and Steel Works and said with a serious face: "I think this kind of accident is essentially caused by improper operation. In place. Pierre, you are an engineer, how does the vocational education of workers usually go?"

"These workers are the last batch of newcomers to the factory, and they are currently being rotated for internships." Pierre, a former Swiss blacksmith and now an engineer at the Ping'an Iron and Steel Plant, said in a low voice: "This time it happened because the workshop at noon The master craftsmen went to the cafeteria to eat, so they were temporarily responsible for feeding. As a result, they fed too much at one time, causing the lower part of the furnace to freeze. Now in order to avoid such a situation from happening again, on the one hand, we will increase the training of new workers On the other hand, we have also developed a new method of layering and grading fabrics, that is, batches, layers, and small quantities of multiple fabrics, so as to ensure that furnace cold accidents will no longer occur.”

"Write down this question and discuss it in detail after the meeting." After listening, Gao Xiaogang turned his head and ordered his secretary to make a record, and then said to everyone: "Then the next question. About the efficiency of the steam blower, um, this question Let me tell you. In the past, we used animal blowers, because they have been used for a long time, and there have been no problems. This time, in response to the national call, our factory carried out steaming technical transformation on the entire plant equipment, so we removed the Many animal-powered blowers have been replaced with small steam blowers. But now there is a problem, these steam blowers are not designed properly, and they are not designed according to the performance parameters we require! These bastards from a machine factory are completely blind Nonsense! The number of times the steam engine pulls the bellows is only about 120 times per minute, which is not enough. I will negotiate this matter with Li Hongxing from the No. 200 Machine Factory, and ask him to pull all the steam engines back for me and replace them with a new batch. , the number of times the bellows should be pulled at least [-] times per minute."

The people below have long complained about these faulty steam engines.Although it is very efficient to work, it does not need to rest and eat like manpower or animal power, but the disadvantage is also very big, that is, limited by the quality of product processing, it will give you some small problems from time to time, which will affect the quality of steel. normal production.In fact, the iron and steel plant is not bad. In the past, there were tragedies of boiler explosion and death in other units. Since then, as long as there is no weight requirement, many boilers are generally made very thick, just to prevent such things. happened again.

In fact, who here doesn't know the benefits of steam engines?Moreover, the improvement of the steam engine quality by No. [-] Engine Factory in the past two years is indeed obvious to all, and the average time between failures has been several times or even ten times that of the initial one.But who told them that they have been used to using animal blowers before, and now they have to change to such a new one, and everyone is a little uncomfortable.In addition, there are many production accidents at this stage, and everyone needs to find an excuse to shirk responsibility, so the steam engine has been hacked by everyone "just right".

"The third question is that the sulfur content in the coke is too high." Gao Xiaogang looked at the notebook in his hand, and then said to the person sitting behind: "Mr. Hu, you are in charge of connecting with the coking plant, tell me about it." What is the reason. Don't talk empty words, just get straight to the point."

(End of this chapter)