Europa Universalis 1867: Start by inheriting an armory

Several weeks passed in the blink of an eye, and Christmas Eve arrived.

Richard arrived at Siemens' Landor Smelter by carriage and entered the workshop, where the furnaces were burning brightly.

The scorching heat radiating from the gaps in the dazzling furnace, along with the waves of heat hitting him, made him want to take off his coat.

Siemens stands at the entrance of the workshop, as if praising the factory's rebirth.

He heard the sound of wheels and footsteps, turned around and saw Richard, and strode over to him.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Brian!" Siemens sounded very energetic; the newly built open-hearth furnace must have been a great help.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Siemens," Richard replied just as eagerly. "How's the stove?"

"Please come with me." Siemens led him to the furnace, where the edges of the refractory bricks on the outer wall of the furnace were still showing the corners of new bricks, and the surface was covered with a layer of water droplets condensed from the steam.

"The preliminary tests and high-temperature tests went very smoothly." Siemens reached out and felt the still-warm body of the device. "This is all thanks to your Baiyun brick."

Richard smiled with satisfaction. With the support of the Morgan family, the stones quarried from Lanelli Hill were fired into bricks directly in Monmouth, loaded onto trains, and transported all the way to Swansea. Never before had the connections between the various stages of the journey been so smooth.

"You flatter me. I've brought you a Christmas present this time." Behind Richard was a heavy carriage, pulled by four horses, with a tarpaulin covering it.

He snapped his fingers, and the driver ripped off the canvas.

It turned out that there was a steam blower underneath. Its impeller was encased in a cast iron shell and could not be seen, but just from the thick shaft and the interface connecting the steam pipe, one could feel how much power it would unleash once it started rotating.

Siemens was taken aback.

"What does this mean?" he asked Richard, puzzled.

“Traditional blowers probably won’t meet our needs,” Richard said, walking over to the cart and patting the machine, which made a deep, resonant sound. “This machine can raise the furnace temperature to 1,600 degrees Celsius.”

Siemens frowned and walked to the blower, touching the rivets on the casing as if to check its quality and workmanship.

"I am very grateful for your gift." Siemens looked up at him, "But if I may be frank, it turns out that 1400 degrees Celsius is more than enough to turn molten iron into steel. This excess heat..." He hesitated for a moment, "...is it a bit excessive?"

Richard replied with a smile, "Smelting steel at 1400 degrees Celsius is no problem, but we won't smelt steel in the first batch."

"What else should we refine if not steel?" His speech quickened, his brows furrowing even more deeply. "Wasn't that what you said when you came?"

Richard shrugged helplessly: "Plans can't keep up with changes, Mr. Siemens."

He put his hand on Siemens' shoulder and said, "We are about to do something that no one has ever done before. The British government needs your talent, and our efforts today will be recorded in history books."

Siemens remained silent for a few seconds, knowing that Richard was not one to make empty boasts.

From their first meeting, every suggestion Richard made had come to fruition, and he had no reason to doubt that this time would be no different.

"So what do you plan to refine?" Siemens asked.

"Chromium-nickel alloy".

Siemens' eyes widened in surprise, because this concept was unheard of.

Chromium steel has been patented for several years. Using chromium to improve the hardness and wear resistance of steel has already been applied in cutting tools and bearings, but nickel…

Nickel is still almost entirely in the laboratory purification stage. Those metals that are burned in test tubes and weigh only a few grams and are as white and bright as silver have not even touched the edge of industrial applications.

Richard's immediate goal was to create an unprecedented alloy by adding chromium and nickel to steel. While the outcome was predictable, the process was bound to be fraught with difficulties.

"This..." Siemens swallowed hard. "It's a very creative idea. But we don't have the best raw materials; we can't just come up with something out of thin air, can we?"

Richard took his hands off Siemens's shoulders and put them behind his back.

"I'll take care of the raw materials," Richard explained. "You just need to keep an eye on the furnace."

Siemens stared at him for a few seconds, then waved to the foreman behind him.

"Install this machine," Siemens ordered. "Connect the steam pipes and test the pressure."

The foreman responded and led two workers over, carefully pulling the steam blower to the side of the furnace by the horse's lead rope.

The iron wheels rolled over the concrete, making a dull thud.

Richard moved closer and whispered to Siemens:

"Mr. Siemens, the reason I chose your steel plant for this experiment is because Her Majesty the Queen's government trusts you." He paused for a moment, "These days, the details of the experiment... cannot be told to anyone."

Siemens' eyes darted around, then he turned back and waved to the foreman behind him.

The foreman walked over, and Siemens whispered a few words in his ear.

The foreman frowned, glanced at Richard, then nodded with difficulty, turned and walked towards the workers. In the noisy workshop, his voice was drowned out by the echoes of the machines.

However, Richard noticed that several workers put down their tools, looked at each other, and then left the workshop in twos and threes.

Richard watched the workers leave, then turned to look at Siemens.

"What is this...?" Richard asked.

"Since it's a confidential experiment, we need to use trustworthy workers," he said. "The rest are basically on vacation."

Richard pursed his lips. He understood that Siemens was doing this not only out of trust in the British government, but also out of trust in him. Siemens was willing to turn its factory into a secret testing base.

"Thank you for your understanding and cooperation," Richard said sincerely.

"I hope it's worth all this effort," Siemens murmured.

"Don't worry." Richard smiled as he looked at the steam pipe fitting being tightened. "Our invention will change the world."

At this very moment, at the Swansea docks, a cargo ship is quietly moored at its berth.

The ship had a deep draft, and the bottom of the hold was filled with heavy boxes of ore.

The crew members remained silent; they were simply porters, hoisting wooden crates from the cargo hold ashore, loading them onto carts, and, under the cover of dusk, transporting them out through the side gate of the dock.

The wooden crates were marked with the words "Clock Repair Raw Materials." The customs inspector glanced at them casually, stamped them, and waved them away.

This is what Richard Byrnehans was about: at the time, Britain did not have high-quality chromite or nickel silicate, and such materials had to be imported from Prussia and Tsarist Russia.

Richard stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the empty concrete floor of the steel plant, but he could already see the ore being poured into the furnace and cast into blocks of chromium-nickel steel.

Those steel ingots were transported away and processed into cannon barrels and breechblocks, which would determine the outcome of the power struggles between nations.

These steel ingots, spanning thirty years, will earn him the trust of Britain and prove that every step he has taken has not been in vain.

He put his hands in his coat pockets and walked toward the workshop.