That sound is really loud! It was so earth-shattering that even the concrete floor beneath his feet shook. The loyal guards and new members of the Royal Forest Army immediately rushed forward to protect Emperor Tongzhi.
Zhou Mingkui's face turned pale with fright, and he jumped up quickly, "It's not an assassin... it's not an assassin... it's a thousand-ton hydraulic press from the steel plant!"
"It's the sound of a forging hammer hitting, not an assassin, really not an assassin..."
The alarm was lifted, and all the welcoming officials in the Tanggu Special Administrative Region, whether from the Qing Dynasty or Chinese, proved to Emperor Tongzhi that this was not an assassination rebellion at all, but that the steel factory was forging crude steel.
Weng Tonghe said angrily, "This is simply treason! Why don't you stop work and production when Long Live Lord is here in person? Is there anything more important in this world than picking up a driver?"
"Zhou Mingkui! Aren't you afraid that the court will punish you?"
Seeing Weng Tonghe's shouting, all the Chinese officials who greeted him looked scornful, thinking where did Lao Dongheng come from? He really didn't understand any of the truth.
Zhou Mingkui sighed deeply and raised his hands to Weng Tonghe and said, "Sir, it's not that I didn't coordinate with the SAR, and it's not that the SAR doesn't want to give workers a holiday. It really can't be done!"
"Why?" Prince Chun Yipei asked.
No one expected that Emperor Tongzhi actually spoke at this time, "How many steel plants are there in Tanggu City? What is the annual production capacity?"
"To tell you your Majesty, there are a total of six steel factories in Tanggu, with a total annual production capacity of more than 10,000 tons of steel and more than 25,000 tons of iron!"
"It's no wonder!" Emperor Tongzhi nodded. "Although this scale is not as large as Prussia and Britain and France, it is still considered a large industrial area in Tsarist Russia or other European countries!"
Zai Chun smiled and said to Weng Tonghe and Uncle Wu Wang, "This modern industrial steelmaking is based on blast furnace technology, not the earthen furnace steelmaking of the Qing Dynasty!"
"The cost of investing in a blast furnace is hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and such a blast furnace cannot be turned off. It must continuously produce steel twelve hours a day!"
"Ah?" All the Qing Dynasty officials present were stunned. "Can't turn off the flame and keep making steel? This person must be exhausted to death? The furnace can't stand it..."
Zai Chunna was a new emperor who had visited the industrial areas of England and Prussia, so he still had these basic knowledge.
"The workers will not be exhausted and can work in three shifts! As for the furnace, there is no problem, it is all made of refractory materials! The iron ore and coke are put into the blast furnace together, and after high-temperature combustion, the iron ore turns into molten steel..."
"Just think about it, of course the molten steel can flow when it is in a liquid state, but if you turn off the flame at one point, will the unclean molten steel stick to the inner wall of the blast furnace?"
"This is a nuisance. The cooled molten steel will turn into a solid iron shell. The next time you open the furnace, you will have to manually clean off this iron shell..."
"It's too time-consuming and cost-intensive. If you spend four or five times on cleaning it, you'll probably be able to build another blast furnace!"
"So in the modern iron smelting industry, the blast furnace never goes out, and furnace after furnace is fired continuously to make steel until the blast furnace is completely burned out!"
"My dear friends, now you know why Xiyi can use iron to pave roads, right? We can't even imagine that they produce so much steel!"
"The blast furnace can't listen. If the work of the iron factory is stopped to welcome me, the loss will be too great..."
There were also some technical officials from the Industrial Zone in the welcoming team. When they heard Zai Chun's explanation, they were stunned. No one expected that the Qing emperor could explain the basic concept of blast furnace clearly. It was really an anomaly!
"Your Majesty!" These officials of the Qing Dynasty didn't care whether they understood the emperor's words or not, but at least they could see the shock on the expressions of the Chinese officials.
This was a matter of honor, and the compliments came like a cloud, almost giving all the credit for the development of human steel smelting technology to the emperor!
Zai Chun had just returned to China and was a bit unable to adapt to such flattery and whispered, "What emperor is wise? I didn't invent this blast furnace technology. I just inspected it in Europe and saw the real thing!"
"Your Majesty, you don't have to belittle yourself. It's the Holy Emperor's ability to see the whole thing at a glance. People as stupid as me can't figure out the trick even if they read it ten times!"
"Long live the Holy Ming, Your Majesty the Holy Ming..."
Zai Chun really couldn't stand the siege of this kind of flattery, so he quickly coughed twice and changed the subject, "Since you have heard the sound of the hydraulic press working, let's go and take a look for yourself!"
The temporary appearance of Emperor Tongzhi caught the workers in the steel plant off guard. People's fear of imperial power has never changed. When they saw the emperor in dragon robes coming, almost everyone in the entire iron plant knelt down.
Emperor Tongzhi quickly issued an order: "The work in the iron factory is high-risk, and life is in danger if you are not careful... All workers are not allowed to kneel down and watch your molten steel and machines!"
"Life is important, don't be in danger because of me!"
Of course Zai Chun knew the power of this. In Europe, he saw with his own eyes many workers in factories who had broken arms and people whose faces were disfigured by hot metal.
Heavy industry is indeed too dangerous. Rules and regulations are the lifeline, and nothing less will work!
Weng Tonghe next to him burst into tears with excitement, "What a benevolent monarch! This is a benevolent monarch from the Qing Dynasty! All he thinks about is the safety of the workers, for fear that the common people will be in some danger..."
"There is hope for the restoration of the Qing Dynasty! There is hope for the restoration of the Qing Dynasty! O benevolent king!"
There was another wave of flattery, my dear, these officials have already boasted that Emperor Tongzhi was a saint like Yao, Shun, and Yutang!
Weng Tonghe's face was full of grief and anger, with tears streaming down his face. He pointed his trembling fingers at the workers who had just stood up to work, and shouted with all the strength of his heart.
"Do you still have a human heart? Aren't you just animals?"
"The Qing Dynasty has such a wise and kind monarch, but you still dare to cut off your braids! You are unfilial, unfaithful and unjust!"
"Is there no one who appreciates the gratitude of the Emperor for these two hundred years?"
The old guy's arrogant tone immediately angered the radical elements among the workers. Suddenly, a worker wearing blue overalls with armbands on his sleeves appeared. He was obviously a foreman-like lower-level manager.
The muscular man jumped up, pointed at his nose and retorted, "You fart! Two hundred years of support? Damn it, that's the support of the emperor by the people of our world. It's the wealth we created that supports you officials... There is an emperor in the Forbidden City!”
"Remember the friendship, it is you who remember us!"
"How brave! Who are you?" A group of guards immediately surrounded him.
The foreman took off his hat and threw it on the ground, "I'm Xin Jian! I can't change my name, but I can't change my surname! When I was ten years old, my family was slaughtered by your Manchu soldiers. I didn't have enough food from the head of state until I was fifteen." meal!"
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