When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 624: Thousand River Valley Steel Guild and Cold Spring Castle Smelter
The discussion about divine magic and necromancy soon reached a deadlock.

Because these conclusions are just the random inferences made by Shilov's mother, the specific reasoning process is not written in the book at all.

Although Horn had doubts about this unfounded speculation, he thought it was of no benefit at the moment, so he put it aside and focused his main energy on the next financial meeting.

When the news of the autumn wind in mid-October and the completion of the centurionization of South Mound County reached the Holy See, Meliati arrived at the Holy See at the invitation of the Holy See of Horn to receive salary without wearing armor.

After a simple welcome ceremony, Meliati arrived at the Holy See Building in a black oak carriage for the first meeting.

"Come in." Horn opened the door of his office himself, and with the heavy sound of Meliati's footsteps on the ground, she raised her fist to her chest and walked into the office with her chin raised.

Horn stood at the door and ordered Pettier: "Don't let anyone disturb you for the next hour."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

After closing the door carved with gears and sun patterns, Horn turned around and saw Meliati looking around the whole house.

The study is about 50 square meters, and there is a 20-square-meter reception room outside. There are three or five walnut cushioned chairs, two cabinets and a bookshelf against the wall.

Facing the six floor-to-ceiling windows, there is a large mahogany desk and an exquisite armchair.

The entire desk is made up of two tables joined together, with a total length of about 5 meters. When the regular meetings of the cardinals in front of the emperor are held, the cardinals will sit in a row in front of the long table.

Meliati sat down in Horn's seat without any hesitation, and when she looked up she could see the cool, icy blue sky of autumn.

Witt imported expensive light blue-green flat glass with white sandstone, and inlaid it piece by piece in the circular gear stained glass windows and huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the Holy See Building.

Walnut-core tables, velvet-cushioned chairs, silk drapes, and blue-leaf scroll-patterned porcelain were all cheap spoils purchased by the Holy See City Hall from veterans.

However, the furniture in Horn's office is all new, some of which were ordered from outside and some of which were customized internally.

Compared with the luxurious furniture and decoration of the great nobles, the decoration of the Holy See Building can only be regarded as that of wealthy businessmen.

Of course, as luxurious as this Holy See building is, it still belongs to all believers.

Horn just happens to work here.

Horn didn't mind her sitting in the wrong place, but picked up the black tea on the cupboard: "Do you want sugar?"

"One third of a cup of milk and half a spoonful of sugar."

After preparing the black tea, Horn handed over the cup and said, "Have you finished organizing your Iron and Steel Guild?"

After taking a sip of black tea, Meliati took off her iron mask and said, "It's just the last bit of finishing work. Your double-entry bookkeeping method is quite useful."

While Horn had been rectifying the reform of the Hundred Household Districts for three or four months, Meliati in the north was not idle. She called Catherine to carry out a large-scale reconstruction of the mines and iron smelters in the northern Mound area.

To put it simply, it is to provide housing and allocate mines to the Dragon Cult dwarves in accordance with the previous agreement.

During this period, Meliati took advantage of the situation to merge a large number of mines that originally belonged to the nobles.

These mine owners and nobles were either treated to a banquet and sent to Pingyuan County to enjoy a good life, or were beheaded and directly stripped of their titles, or were taken in as dogs and acquired by Meliati.

After four months from June to October, a steel industry consortium called "Thousand Valley Steel Guild" appeared in the north.

"I have built the Cold Spring Steel Smelting Plant in Cold Spring as you requested and hired a dwarf from the Cult of the Dragon to serve as the master. The annual output is about 70 tons." Meliati took the financial budget plan handed to her by Horn.

To be honest, Meliati didn't understand Horn's intention of asking her to open a new smelter. The Kingdom of Leia had blockaded them, so even if it took into account military spending, they should reduce production.

"This year, we estimate that we will have an extra 800 tons of iron. Where are you going to sell this extra iron?" "No need to sell it. The steel demand for farm tools, bridges, and railcars alone is enough to absorb the excess production capacity." Horn waved his hand and said, "When the time comes, we will order 10 sets of farm tools from you."

"Do you have the money to pay? That's more than 6000 pounds."

"Don't worry, there must be money." Horn took a sip of sobering black tea, "We can raise funds from the Franks, farm tools to increase grain production, and transport them to Black Snake Bay to exchange for more sugar, and then use the sugar to repay the bonds... You will know when the time comes."

To be honest, Horn wanted to laugh when he heard about the annual excess steel production of less than 1000 tons, because this is the output of pig iron or cast iron!
If it is steel, with the steelmaking efficiency of this world, 90 tons would be good.

Tramways have a low load capacity, so they don't require very good iron; cast iron is enough.

Horn calculated that one hundred meters of track would require 5000 pounds of cast iron, which is almost 2 tons of cast iron, and one kilometer of track would require more than 20 tons of cast iron.

This does not even take into account the water-powered reel spinning machines and lathe and parts workshops that Horn is going to build next, which require refined iron, or steel.

Not to mention civilian household items, including pots and pans, as well as a host of smaller parts for buildings, such as doors, nails, pipes, locks, bolts, etc.

As infrastructure is gradually rolled out, including a large number of construction machinery and clockwork engines, steel will be needed.

In other words, as productivity continues to increase, a large number of emerging industries will require steel, and the demand for iron will only increase in the future.

But so far, Horn has not heard from Meliati that the dwarves have made any new breakthroughs in wet iron smelting, and the lightning furnace that takes a different approach is still just a fantasy.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

"Didn't you say that Jeanne could store lightning in the Moon Pool of the Ether Tower by striking the ether with lightning?" Meliati asked as she flipped through the financial plan.

Horn shook his head: "That's too unstable. We can't build the Lightning Furnace in the Ether Tower, right? So far, we haven't even been able to analyze what the water in the Moon Pool is."

Ether, a special astral substance, can give gears unique power on the one hand, and on the other hand it can even guide magic.

For example, the time when Horn's head was nearly sucked away by the astral realm accidentally verified that the ether could also guide lightning spells.

Because the power of that ether explosion and the lightning were obviously greater than the upper limit of the lightning spell that Jeanna could use.

Later, Shilov even tried a series of energies such as fire, light, and ice, but only lightning could be guided by the ether and stored in the Moon Pool.

Horn once thought of using the Moon Pool to store lightning to make a lightning furnace, but the problem was that the water in the Moon Pool could not be replicated.

Later, after seeing the Moon Pool, Bachelor Kelben of the Dragon Alchemy Society identified it as Water of Light at first glance because it could store a small amount of magical energy.

But after discovering its ability to guide lightning, Maester Kelburn quickly became confused, because this was obviously a property of spiritual mercury.

After three days of analysis, Maester Kelburn's head was about to explode.

He suspected that someone had used some incredible alchemy to combine the alchemical properties of mercury and the water of light.

The outrageousness of this matter, according to Horn's analysis, is roughly equivalent to someone combining strawberries and potatoes together, with each strawberry being as big as a potato and producing 3000 kilograms per acre.

It is almost impossible. At least so far, this high-tech Horn has not been able to replicate it.

I really don’t know how Shilov’s mother did it?

Thinking of this, Horn quickly asked Melia: "Will the Sicheng Hermitage be willing to send someone to meet us?"

"They appear and disappear like ghosts. My mother had to work very hard just to find them." Meliati put down the financial budget book. "They are not willing to reveal the whereabouts of their senior executives. They volunteered to meet you in Black Snake Bay."

"Well, forget it. I'm going to go on a southern tour to Black Snake Bay when spring comes anyway." This was indeed on Horn's schedule. "After all, we have to finalize the sugar and grain trade."

(End of this chapter)