Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

Yandu.

Dawn Research Institute.

"Dean Ren, our Materials Research Center has a huge shortage of rare metals, especially tantalum and niobium. The gap is now irreparable."

Professor Zhou Yunhe, who is in charge of the Materials Research Center, came up to complain.

"We need more tantalum and niobium to meet the needs of many domestic industries in this area."

"Haven't we already opened two tantalum-niobium mines? Why is there still such a big gap?" Ren Zhong said with a headache. He had already tried very hard to find traces of the whereabouts of various rare metals in the main world, and then conducted targeted surveys and mining in the Bright Sword world.

"We can't do anything about it. The demand is too great. Let alone other things, even the demand for these two rare metal materials in the production of alloys for the steel industry cannot be met. Our steel industry is developing too fast now, having already exceeded 6 million tons and heading towards 7 million tons. Among them, the production of special alloys is far ahead of the world. Our aerospace, shipbuilding, and nuclear industries all require a large number of special alloys." As the highest person in charge of the domestic rare metal coordination, the Materials Research Center is not only responsible for the research of the smelting and production of these rare metals, but also for the development of new materials such as alloys based on rare metals, as well as the supply of rare metals.

Its subsidiary Dongda Rare Metals Co., Ltd. controls most of Dongda's rare metal resources and production and sales. In this regard, unified purchase and sales have been achieved.

Niobium and tantalum are two important rare metal elements that are widely used in many fields.

Thanks to Ren Zhong's intervention, these two rare metals have begun to shine ahead of schedule.

Initially, niobium and tantalum were often used as alloy additives in the steel industry to produce a variety of high-performance alloys, such as heat-resistant, heat-resistant and magnetic alloys. These alloys are important materials for manufacturing structural and protective materials for atomic reactors, nozzles for rockets and missiles, cutting tools, etc.

Niobium can significantly improve the strength, oxidation resistance and welding performance of steel. Adding 0.03% to 0.05% niobium can increase the yield strength of steel by more than 30%, so it is widely used in high-strength low-alloy steel.

Secondly, in the nuclear industry where the University of Tokyo started very early, niobium is suitable for structural materials of nuclear reactors and cladding materials of nuclear fuel due to its low capture cross-section for thermal neutrons. For the big black fish and the compact nuclear reactors that are now being promoted on a large scale, as amphibious assault ships also use nuclear power, the number of nuclear reactors has increased significantly, which has also increased the use of niobium.

In addition to the production of special alloys, tantalum is also used in the electronics industry. Tantalum is used to make electrolytic tantalum capacitors, which have the characteristics of large capacitance, small leakage current, good stability and long life. They are widely used in electronic products such as electronic computers and high-end electronic precision instruments.

Precisely because of such numerous uses, the domestic tantalum-niobium ore is still insufficient even though it has been excavated by the Golden Finger and the smelting technology of the main world has been introduced.

"In this case, there is no point in tapping domestic potential. Next, we have to start overseas mining in advance." After thinking about it, Ren Zhong pressed his hand between his eyebrows. He felt that there was really no other way. Now he could only look outward for resources.

The reserves of tantalum and niobium resources in Dongda are relatively scarce, and even the tantalum and niobium concentrates in the main world need to be imported from overseas.

The main source of imports is black Africa.

However, there is a problem now. In the current world of Bright Sword, the two main production areas have not yet had time to become independent.

What can we do?

Fog.

Ambassador Kim visited Downing Street.

"You want to mine iron ore in Nigeria?" Harold was a little surprised when he saw Ambassador Jin. "That's right. Dongda is now one of the top three in the world in the steel industry. In this regard, I really admire the speed of your country's development."

Harold didn't hesitate too much. "If you can solve the problem of ore transportation by yourselves, I will call the colonial authorities and apply for a mining license for you. It shouldn't be a problem."

"Thank you for your help, Prime Minister. Due to the growing domestic infrastructure construction, the demand for steel is quite large. We have also purchased a lot of iron ore from the Kangaroo Country, but it is still not enough. If the Nigerian iron ore can be mined, I believe it will be very helpful in promoting the local development of your country." Ambassador Jin said with a smile.

"We will pay resource taxes in accordance with international practice. Our only small request is that we hope to get some security guarantees, such as protection by your army and that our mines be allowed to have a certain degree of self-defense capability, which of course is self-defense under the coordination and management of local authorities."

Harold thought about it carefully for a while. He didn't feel there was anything wrong with what Ambassador Jin said, and the request was reasonable, so he nodded and agreed.

With the help of Ambassador Jin and Dongda behind the scenes, John Bull and Gallic Rooster from the Bright Sword world withstood the pressure this time and still controlled the canal. After all, legally speaking, their canal contract was still valid, and they had enough military force to crush Pharaoh's populist populism. However, they had to withdraw from the area they occupied on the north bank of the canal and reached a new agreement with Pharaoh in a relatively decent manner. They not only retained the canal, but also kept two military bases on both sides of the canal.

Compared to leaving the main world in disgrace, this ending is naturally a thousand times better!
The crisis created by the rogue hawks selling off the pound was also quickly overcome.

The rift with the Rogue Eagle is now known to everyone.

More than ten million-acre plantation projects were approved for the University of East China in an effort to compete with the rogue Eagle.

Of course, apart from this, the progress of other relations between the two sides has been average. After all, the two countries have deep historical entanglements.

You can show a positive expression, but you really can't turn your face against someone.

Harold did not find anything unusual about Dongda's proposal to open an iron mine in their colony.

It doesn't matter who sells Nigeria's iron ore to. Harold doesn't think it's a loss if someone can exchange resources for wealth.

Most of the licensing issues have been resolved, but mining and transportation are not easy.

Ambassador Kim traveled to Nigeria without delay to hold friendly consultations with local authorities.

The most important thing in this negotiation process was to build a railway from the iron mine to the coastal port.

In the central and western part of Nigeria, there is a gold and pegmatite rare metal mineralization belt: there is an obvious northeast-southwest pegmatite belt in the mineralization belt, and the main minerals are pegmatite lithium ore, niobium iron ore and cassiterite. There is also a Jos-Bauchi rare metal mineralization belt: this mineralization belt is the only tin mining area in Nigeria, and the main minerals are placer tin ore and niobium-tantalite placer ore.

Gold and tin mines are naturally not mined, as they are also conspicuous and easy to be targeted and ruined. However, niobium iron ore and niobium-tantalite sand ore mainly contain iron ore. For most survey engineers in this time and space, it is difficult to distinguish rare metals from iron ore.

Today's ordinary exploration companies do not have this ability, and the authorities of these iron ore colonies are roughly aware of this, but due to the local conditions, transportation conditions and social production levels, without large amounts of external funds injected to build roads and mine mines, these resources cannot be turned into wealth.

So to be realistic, if the University of the East is willing to invest in mining these iron ore, it will be a great thing for the colonial authorities. Now John Bull's strength is somewhat useless for mining this kind of iron ore. Investing a large amount of money is far less likely to dig mines in places like Kangaroo Country, which seems to be easier.

After all, most of the local people are civilized.

There are uncivilized tribes everywhere in Heifei. Although the armed forces of the colonial authorities can silence most of the tribes, some tribes are different.

Or there are smart people who want more things, but usually these smart people don’t live long.

After hearing, through the coordination of Staff Officer Ye, that the early part of the matter had been settled, Ren Zhong learned that Ding Wei was still responsible for the final implementation!

"Brother Ren, it seems that your bad idea is to lock me up in Heifei." Ding Wei couldn't help but complain when he saw Ren Zhong.

"In addition to growing crops, I am now asked to open a mine."

Ding Wei is also the chairman of the newly established Dongda International Mining (IMC) company.

According to Staff Officer Ye, those who are capable should do more work. Since Ding Wei has no problem growing crops, it seems nothing wrong for him to do mining as well.

After all, Ding Wei is now familiar with external development. Although the location has been changed to a new one and the field has also been changed to a new track, this is not a big problem for the top leader. It seems that all he needs to do is give proper command.

"It's good to open a mine. In the early stage, there are thousands of troops and it's very exciting. If time permits, I would like to recruit more people to satisfy my desire to be a commander." Ren Zhong said with a smile.

"But Lao Ding, we have to be careful about the road construction and don't let others cheat us. Since our road is a bit long, it's best to let them exchange the land for free and have a good discussion about jointly building this road. Our demand is to transport the ore back, and the authorities may want to operate passenger transportation. We can take advantage of this demand difference and strive to build this road in half."

"Specifically, they provide the land, we provide the machinery and labor, and both parties invest equally in materials. Following this principle, we can reduce our investment intensity. After all, other than transporting ore, we cannot guarantee other benefits from this railway."

Ding Wei nodded, lit a cigarette, and carefully thought about and understood Ren Zhong's instructions.

Honestly speaking, this is too professional. Considering Ding Wei's background, it's really too big a step to cross disciplines, which is a bit ridiculous.

Fortunately, there are people with foresight and guidance. If it comes to purely execution-level operations, Ding Wei feels that he can still do it. However, if he really has to think about how to make these things bigger and stronger on his own, that would be a bit beyond the scope of Ding Wei.

Roads are necessary for mining. For something as heavy as iron ore, highways cannot meet the demand, and heavy-duty railways are required.

The dog-head train that Ren Zhong introduced to Dongda in the early days had evolved into a new E5 diesel locomotive based on the E7 diesel locomotive, which increased the total output power to 3000 horsepower and could pull 110 carriages to transport more than tons of coal or iron ore!

It has become the main model of Dongda’s current heavy-duty trains.

Now that Nigeria is opening a mine, Ren Zhong has chosen this mature new dog-head heavy-duty train for them!
Even when towing more than 80 tons of cargo, it can run at a maximum speed of kilometers.

Of course, for passenger transport, the classic E5 dog-head train is still an ideal diesel locomotive, and high-speed trains with a speed of 100 kilometers per hour can be launched to meet passenger transport needs.

Both of these trains are mature models of Dongda. Although they are a bit outdated compared with the current advanced models in the world, they are cheap and have a high cost-effectiveness.

For an iron ore with a capacity of tens of millions of tons, ten trips a day are enough in a year. For railway transportation, it can run day and night, with 5 pairs of locomotives and ten pairs of carriages for loading and unloading. Basically, it can complete an annual transportation volume of tens of millions of tons.

It is about 500 kilometers from the Nigerian port of Lagos to the mining area. Currently, there are only roads and more than 200 kilometers of railways. However, the specifications of this railway cannot meet the needs of heavy-load trains and need further transformation.

This is equivalent to rebuilding 500 kilometers of heavy-duty railway, which is naturally costly.

If all the investment had to be converted into money, then this amount of money would be too much for IMC of Dongda University to bear. But now, after division of labor and sharing, a foundation from the Rothschild family assumed the investment of the colonial authorities and took 30% of the shares. The colonial authorities took 20% by providing land, and IMC invested in labor construction and 30% of the material costs, taking 50% of the share.

After integrating funds from multiple parties and local strength, several engineering teams from Dongda University soon arrived with a 10,000-ton ship carrying machinery and equipment, and quickly began multi-line construction.

The route design work here had actually been done a long time ago, but the old empire was now a bit on the decline, and before Dongda got involved in mining, it was unable to raise the money to build the road.

Of course, mining will be even less profitable.

Therefore, even if these iron mines had been discovered long ago, there is no chance of turning them into money.

The engineering team from Dongda did not have the habit of working half a day and resting half a day like the non-local engineers. They had a complete set of excavators, bulldozers and rollers, and the daily progress of the project could be seen extending at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Even so, this is still not enough to help in an emergency.

Therefore, while Ren Zhong was directing the mining of Liang Jian World, he also did not give up on cautiously purchasing high-purity tantalum and niobium materials in the domestic and international markets. The annual output of high-purity tantalum and niobium materials in the international market is several thousand tons, so it is still possible for Ren Zhong to carefully purchase a few tons in batches.

This channel now allows Ren Zhong to import several hundred kilograms into the world of Bright Sword every month. Although it cannot completely solve their needs, it can greatly alleviate them.

This problem can only be truly solved after the black African mine is mined. (End of this chapter)