Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry.

Chapter 76 This open-hearth steelmaking is somewhat useless

After nearly ten hours, the molten steel finally flowed out.

Suddenly, there was a cheer at the scene as everyone watched the molten steel flow into the ingot mold.

Ren Zhong was also very excited, this is steel!
According to the information he found, the national steel production in 1940 was 1500 tons!
1500 tons, not 2023! In 101908.1 in the main plane, crude steel production was tons!

There really aren't enough places after the decimal point.

Any steel plant with one more or one less furnace will surpass the others.

If this open-hearth furnace can continue to produce, each furnace will produce about ten tons a day. Although it is simply built and the main refractory components have to be replaced with new ones after about 100 furnaces, at least 200 furnaces can be produced in a year, which exceeds the current national steel output!
This is the fragility of our nation after the knowledge blockade. We simply cannot find a development path that suits us.

If Ren Zhong's open-hearth steelmaking system was replaced by foreigners' finished product supply, it would cost at least a million dollars. In the previous dynasty, Li Weige went to Europe for inspection and introduced a 30-ton Martin furnace. A set of equipment cost 16 pounds, equivalent to 110 million taels of silver!

Such expensive equipment simply does not allow us to popularize the steel industry. A Hanyang Iron and Steel project with an annual production capacity of 5 tons of pig iron and tens of thousands of tons of steelmaking capacity cost a full 582 million taels of silver!

If we have our own intellectual property rights, most of the equipment can be manufactured independently and the construction price will be greatly reduced.

The Japanese built the Manchuria Railway, with a designed annual iron production of 1 tons, with a total investment of a mere 5 yen (at that time the yen was roughly equal to one silver dollar), which meant that our costs were dozens of times higher than theirs!
Ren Zhong returned to the world of Bright Sword and built an earthen blast furnace with an annual output of more than 3000 tons of pig iron. The cost was only about two months of hard work day and night by a few hundred hard-working people!
Now that steel can be produced, how can we not be excited?

Watching the slowly flowing molten steel, Ren Zhong found a steel bar mold, scooped a spoonful of molten steel into the mold with a long-handled crucible, let it flow into the shape of a steel bar, and then poured water on it. Layers of white mist rose up with a sizzle.

The fiery red molten steel cooled down quickly. Ren Zhong poured a few buckets of cold water on it again to allow the steel bar to cool down completely. When it was no longer steaming, Ren Zhong picked up the steel bar and took a closer look. It was gray and black with cold blue markings, and looked like carbon steel after rapid annealing.

Ren Zhong clenched his hands and tried to bend the steel bar with force, but as soon as he exerted force, the steel bar broke with a loud bang!
this.
Ren Zhong was a little dumbfounded. He originally thought that those people who were bending steel bars by hand in the previous videos were fake. Who knew that he could do it today!
This thing is too fake.

Ren Zhong felt as if a basin of cold water was poured over him, chilling him to the bone!
"Mr. Kong, the quality of this steel is not good. We need to stop and improve it before continuing production." Ren Zhong said to Kong Jie, holding the tofu-like steel bar.

"It's not right, it's too slow, brother Ren, we are all rough and don't understand this thing, I'll leave it to you to improve it." Kong Jie responded with a serious face. But he was not too disappointed, it would be strange if this steel plant could be successfully put into production at once.

"Brother Ren, don't worry about this. We can wait." Kong Jie continued to comfort him.

Ren Zhong had almost no free time in Yangcun. To be honest, Kong Jie could see that Ren Zhong really treated the independent regiment as his own home, rather than building it for the profit of a businessman.

Although the steel plant and other industries in Yangcun are now trialing a joint management model between the Independent Regiment and Ren Zhong, with Ren Zhong providing technology and management and the Independent Regiment mainly responsible for construction and labor input, the small amount of parts that must be purchased from outside are now also paid for by Ren Zhong.

Kong Jie could not see any real benefits that Ren Zhong could gain from this industrial model at present, not to mention that Ren Zhong also provided the Independent Regiment with several tons of scarce raw materials such as copper.

This doesn't seem like something a pure businessman would do.

In this regard, Lao Li saw it clearly and pulled Ren Zhong into the development and construction of the independent regiment early on, and almost everything was done without being hidden from Ren Zhong. Kong Jie found that Lao Li's move was really effective, and allowed Ren Zhong to work hard and preside over the development of the entire industry in Yangcun, and he never mentioned a single thing about the ocean!

Of course, the independent regiment is also extremely poor. Apart from being able to guarantee food and drink for the soldiers, no one from Li Yunlong to the soldiers has a penny of allowance!
Everyone eats the same food and wears the same clothes!

Truly sharing the joys and sorrows.

The same thing happened to Ren Zhong in Yangcun. Kong Jie was surprised that such an overseas young master would find it difficult to adapt to the simple meals here. However, Ren Zhong never once said that the food here was bad, except that Lao Li's sweet potato stew tasted unpalatable.

"Lao Kong, I can understand this matter. Next we will let the organization carry out some analysis work. I believe we can solve this problem." Now that the matter has come out, Ren Zhong is no longer in a hurry.

With his limited knowledge of steelmaking, he roughly knew that it was because of the excessive residue of a certain ingredient, which caused some of the chemical reactions in the whole process to be incomplete, resulting in abnormalities in the composition of the steel.

Once he takes the steel bar back for a composition test, he will soon have a new conclusion.

However, the adjustment methods in the world of Bright Sword are limited, and Ren Zhong is still a little worried that even if the abnormal components are figured out, it will be difficult to make improvements. After all, there are too few areas where they can have precise control.

The temperature can only be controlled roughly by adjusting the amount of gas supplied, and there is no way to accurately quantify it.

Another thing that can be adjusted is the ratio of the materials, but this can only be an approximate one. There is currently no very precise measurement method to set the exact amount of raw materials such as iron ore, pig iron, and scrap steel.

However, Ren Zhong knew that these problems were beyond his control. When he returned, he would ask Associate Professor Hu Rentao to hear his thoughts.

After returning to the main plane, Ren Zhong contacted Hu Rentao, who suggested sending the samples to him, and then conducting a round of analysis in the laboratory and then reviewing the entire process before analyzing the exact cause.

Hu Rentao had strongly suggested that he go to the site to have a look, but Ren Zhong played a trick and said that the school was opened abroad, so it was not convenient to go to the site. Instead, Ren Zhong took the samples and flew directly to the location of Hu Rentao's school!

In this way, Ren Zhong can analyze the problem with Professor Hu as soon as possible.

Although Kong Jie said he was not in a hurry, Ren Zhong knew that the brigade commander and even the division commander were very anxious.

After all, this is an unexpected hope for them. If the steelmaking can be successful, with the additional production capacity in the next few months, the Eighth Route Army's production of guns and artillery will be taken to a higher level, and they can stockpile more weapons to fight the Japanese!
The third update, please give me some monthly tickets, brothers!
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(End of this chapter)