After listening to Yuan Gaofeng's basic introduction to the industrial base, Luo Zhixue led everyone into the industrial base.
The first factory they inspected was the large iron smelting plant.
This iron smelting plant can be said to be the absolute leading upstream factory in the entire Daye Industrial Base, and even in the Xiangyang Industrial Base and many handicraft workshops in the vast Dachu Empire controlled area.
The iron materials produced by the factory supply all the iron materials needed by Daye Industrial Base and Xiangyang Industrial Base, and also supply the iron materials needs of most other private handicraft workshops.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the industrial core of the Chu Empire.
Such an important iron smelting plant has a very prominent status even in the Daye Industrial Base. It is valued at the same level as the Hantian Arsenal, and both are directly under the leadership of the Ministry of Industry.
Du Minghui, the supervisor of the factory, was a senior official within the Ministry of Industry. After being transferred to Daye to preside over the construction and production of the factory, his rank was Congsanpin, which was one level higher than the rank of an ordinary prefect.
The scale of the large iron smelting plant is extremely large. According to the design, the plant occupies almost half of the entire industrial zone.
It has more than thirty large iron-making furnaces and hundreds of small and medium-sized iron-making furnaces for various purposes.
And a large number of hydraulic machinery were built along the river, which were used as the source of power for blowers to drive the large blowers required for large iron-making furnaces.
The entire large iron smelting plant, no matter how advanced its technology is, it doesn’t really count. At least it is still unable to raise the furnace temperature to a high temperature above 1,500 degrees to directly smelt pure iron into molten iron. Iron making is still based on production. It contains many impurities and is mainly molten pig iron with a melting point of only over 1,100 degrees.
As for directly practicing steel, don't even expect it.
Nowadays, if the Chu Empire wants to obtain steel, it often needs to conduct a second step of smelting pig iron, that is, by frying steel or forging.
But it doesn't matter if the technology is low. The Da Chu Empire's industrial technology has never been very good. After all, the rise was too short and there was no time to make any technological innovations.
The magic weapon of the Dachu Empire is to throw money at people.
Use more capital investment to build a large number of original machinery and equipment, use more workers, and increase production through extensive flow-type operations.
The game is about strength in numbers.
It fully embodies a basic principle of the Chu Empire’s current industrial development: the principle of concentrating its efforts on big things.
If it were other countries or regions, such as the Ming Dynasty, it would be impossible for them to build an iron smelting plant as large as the Great Smelting Iron Plant even if they were killed.
The initial construction capital investment alone would cost two to three hundred thousand taels of silver. At the same time, strong means would be required to obtain enough raw materials, including iron and charcoal, and finally tens of thousands of workers would have to be recruited and trained.
Du Minghui introduced to Luo Zhixue in detail the construction of the large smelting iron plant, and also introduced the current production situation and the ongoing second phase of the construction project.
Regarding these situations, Yuan Gaofeng has actually said it before, but Du Minghui said it in more detail.
Therefore, Luo Zhixue listened more carefully. After listening to the introduction and seeing the production situation of the ironmaking plant, Luo Zhixue gave instructions on the spot in the factory: "Now the scale of our ironmaking plant is large. The output has been increased, but the efficiency is still too low. Such a large factory with so many workers can only produce tens of millions of kilograms of iron every year, which is too little!"
Luo Zhixue continued to speak the words he had prepared before: "Our iron-making technology will continue to improve."
"Now we use charcoal to make iron. Massive charcoal requires a lot of forest resources, manpower and material resources, and the cost is high."
"Then can we use lower-cost coal to make iron? I know that if coal is used to make iron, the iron produced is relatively brittle. Now that we know the problem, we will find a way to solve it."
"Mobile manpower and organize more research. Why is the iron made with charcoal not brittle, but the iron made with coal is more brittle? Is there something more in coal than charcoal? What we don't know yet, in the end This caused the iron material to become brittle during ironmaking."
"Furthermore, the temperature of our current iron-making furnace is still too low. If the temperature is too low, we cannot directly refine pure iron into molten iron, and we cannot directly refine pure iron!"
"Can the furnace temperature be increased by improving the blower? If coal is used in the future, combined with the improved blower, can the furnace temperature be raised to directly refine pure iron?"
As Luo Zhixue spoke, he waved. A lecturer from the Hanlin Academy behind him immediately stepped forward with a pamphlet in his hand. Luo Zhixue took the pamphlet and handed it to Du Minghui, the supervisor of the Great Smelting Iron Works. : "These are some experimental reports and data from the Iron and Steel Research Institute. Recently they plan to experiment with coal-based ironmaking. Please cooperate with me later!"
"Also, this time, some people from the Iron and Steel Research Institute will be stationed in Daye for a long time, and a branch will be set up here for large-scale testing. If your iron smelting plant cooperates well, this research will produce good things. It's still your iron. The factory benefits!”
When Du Minghui heard about the Iron and Steel Research Institute, his eyes immediately lit up.
He knew about this Iron and Steel Research Institute. The institute had not been established for long, but it had a big background. It came from the Royal Institute of Technology, and its members were all students from the Royal Institute of Technology.
Speaking of this, we have to mention the Royal Institute of Technology. When the imperial examination was held last year, Luo Zhixue instructed the Ministry of Ethical Education, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Personnel and other departments to select geniuses and supernatural powers from within the full control range.
These so-called geniuses will be tested after being selected. The test items are simple, one is memory, and the other is logical thinking ability.
How to take the test?
It's very simple. Just like the traditional imperial examination, they are asked to write down the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics silently. People with poor memory cannot write down the content silently.
Then let them temporarily recite the words or pictures temporarily written by the examiner, and then let them use their temporary memory to write and identify.
In the end, they were asked to write eight-legged essays or cut out questions...
On the one hand, the eight-part essay is something that all geniuses and supernatural powers are familiar with.
Secondly, the Eight-Parted Essay may seem very old-fashioned to you and has no practical use, but what is the Eight-Parted Essay test? It relies on memory, understanding, and logic.
If you don't have strong skills, you won't even be able to solve the cross-section questions.
As for breaking the topic, to put it bluntly, it is nonsense. As long as you have something to say and can round up the nonsense, then it will be fine.
Because the question itself has no meaning... the examiners just randomly cut out a few words from the Four Books and Five Classics, which itself has no meaning.
But when you answer the questions as a candidate, you must give the questions meaning.
To put it simply, it means asking you to talk nonsense about something meaningless. If it makes sense, you will win. If it makes no sense, you will lose.
And this requires imagination and logical thinking skills.
You can't answer this kind of question just by memorizing it.
As for the Royal Institute of Technology, it does not require candidates to write eight-legged essays that have good or bad meaning. What is required is that candidates have imagination...
Specific to the article, the more outrageous the statement, the better. Well, the premise is that it can be justified.
In short, if you brag enough to scare the examiner, then you will pass.
After the preliminary screening, the so-called geniuses selected, let’s not talk about other things, at least all of them have particularly good memories, and their ability to brag is not bad.
If you say one, they will tell you ten...
And this is the so-called genius that the Royal Institute of Technology needs for the time being, because they need to study the limited teaching materials written by Luo Zhixue himself, and there are many gaps. In this learning process, they have to think on their own and fill in the missing content in their brains... …
Furthermore, scientific research is inherently very abstract and cannot be learned without any imagination.
After passing strict review, the Chu Empire selected more than a hundred so-called geniuses.
These geniuses were then sent to Hanyang together. For them, Luo Zhixue even established the Royal Institute of Technology.
After these geniuses entered the Royal Institute of Technology, they took up many science and engineering subjects that Luo Zhixue had written down and compiled into books every day, including mathematics, geometry, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography and other subjects.
And Luo Zhixue also goes to give lectures in person whenever he has time.
After a few months, it has been proven that most of the more than one hundred geniuses selected from the first batch are parallel imports...
Facts have proved that the talent selection model used by the Dachu Empire in the early stage still had great flaws, and the proportion of parallel imports selected was too large.
But it doesn't matter, no matter how bad the chosen person is, he still has a good memory.
Even if they rely on rote memorization, they are stronger than ordinary students.
After several months of study, these people's learning progress varied.
Those who are poor in basic mathematics are still at the level of the second or third grade of elementary school, and they are all parallel imports with no future...
But some of the better ones have already begun to study the mathematics content in middle school.
Facts have once again proved that mathematics relies on the brain.
And the difference between brain and brain is worlds apart!
And these people who are good at mathematics often learn other things very quickly, and seven or eight of them have already started learning junior high school physics content.
And the learning progress of these people is so fast that sometimes it makes Luo Zhixue doubt his own IQ...
We are all human beings, so why is there such a huge gap?
He remembered that when he was a child in middle school, he couldn't learn so fast.
The more than ten main members of the Iron and Steel Research Institute are people who study steel at the Royal Institute of Technology, and the three leaders are still the ones with the best academic performance.
While they were learning various science and engineering knowledge, they were studying iron and steelmaking.
In addition to these dozen young people, there are also a group of senior craftsmen who assist in research.
Although the Iron and Steel Research Institute was established not long ago, and was led by a few teenagers who didn't even have hair, it has achieved a lot of results.
Now they are coming to conduct experiments and set up a branch. Du Minghui welcomes and even looks forward to this!
If they can solve the problem of raising the furnace temperature or solving the problem of using coal to make iron, then Du Minghui can treat them as guests.
If the production can be increased by improving the process, then Du Minghui can hold them in the palm of his hand!
The question is, can they do it?
