In the military factory, there was nothing else that Yang Rui paid attention to. Xu Jiabao also understood his thoughts and only accompanied him to wander around the workshops where he made artillery. The chapter was updated the fastest, with Yang Rui starting from the steelmaking workshop and reading the entire process. However, production had stopped at this time, and only the raw materials and equipment could be seen. Seeing this, Xu Jiabao had to introduce the raw materials to confirm that the cannon steel can indeed be produced by itself. "Previously, the steel made artillery was made from British Haimo Taisheng Iron.

It is mixed with 70% pig iron in Hunan, and then added 30% scrap steel in Ximenshi or our factory. Simenshi crushed steel or our factory's steel in fact is also made of low-phosphorus pig iron. Na Haimota pig iron contains very little phosphorus, only 20,000, while Hunan Zikou pig iron contains 50,000 parts of phosphorus, and not high sulfur content. In addition, the factory also contains Swedish pig iron, which contains less phosphorus, and is even less sulfur content, usually one in ten thousand. However, Swedish pig iron is not used to cast cannons, but is only used to make mild steel sheets."

Yang Rui had no idea about the data mentioned by Xu Jiabao. He only held a piece of dark blue pig iron and asked: "Is this Haimo Tai pig iron? Then how do we refine our pig iron?"

"This is Swedish pig iron," Xu Jiabao said, and then pointed to the lead-colored pig iron in another grid and said, "This is Haimotai pig iron, which produces more iron than Swedish pig iron. Therefore, Haimotai pig iron was used for the cannon steel in the past; this is Hubei No. 1 pig iron," Xu Jiabao pointed to the pig iron produced in Hanyang and shook his head and said, "The phosphorus content is more than 14,000%; this is Ma'anshan pig iron, which contains 7 to 8,000% phosphorus," Finally, he took out a piece of pig iron that is also dark blue: "This is Huoqiu pig iron, we made it with charcoal. The phosphorus content is 2.5% and the sulfur content is 1.5%."

"Charcoal refining?" Yang Rui was a little surprised. Isn't this charcoal iron refining technology in Foshan in the Ming Dynasty? At that time, the cannons seemed to be made of Foshan pig iron.

"Yes. There are iron ore with low phosphorus and sulfur content in Liaodong, and coal mines with low phosphorus and sulfur content in Huainan. However, there are no such coal mines in coal mines, so now iron smelting is made of charcoal. Not so, the ratio of phosphorus and sulfur in iron cannot be lowered." Xu Jiabao said.

"Oh. Where are the coal-iron ore with low phosphorus and sulfur content outside the pass?" Yang Rui asked.

"Coal mines with low phosphorus and sulfur content are more common, but there is no one in Huainan. But iron ore with low phosphorus and sulfur content is rare. This can only be made by heaven and earth, and it is beyond the reach of manpower. Even if it takes a lot of effort, like Ma'anshan, it only reduces the phosphorus and sulfur content to 80,000 at most. When metallurgical, iron ore with low phosphorus and sulfur content can control the phosphorus and sulfur ratio below 50,000 without paying attention to metallurgy. We have investigated the known iron ore outside the pass, only Miaoergou in Benxi Lake is an iron ore with low phosphorus and sulfur content. It has become. That mine must be kept tight. It cannot be taken away by the Japanese.

But you have to know that if the steel contains more phosphorus, it will be cold and brittle, and if the sulfur content is more, it will be hot and brittle. When the cannon refining, it must use pig iron with less than 30,000 parts of phosphorus and less than 20,000 parts of sulfur content. When the navy builds ships, the most fear of the steel plate being cold and brittle in winter, and the requirements for the phosphorus content in steel are higher, and it must be less than 20,000 parts of the steel. The revolution is successful, and China cannot not build warships by itself. Next to Miaoergou there are coal mines with low phosphorus and low sulfur, which match the two. Then it can be produced on a large scale. You must know that the Manganis iron that builds ships costs 160 taels per ton, the Sinig iron needs 80 taels per ton, and Haimota pig iron needs 46 taels per ton. Once the low phosphorus and low sulfur pig iron can be produced by itself, just building ships can save a lot of money." Xu Jiabao said solemnly.

He was in the Northeast for a long time. In order to test the Cannon Steel, he clearly understood the coal and iron ore there. A few months before he was transferred to the pass, he tried several qualified pig iron with the Miaoergou iron ore. He was obsessed with Benxi Lake Miaoergou iron ore. He emphasized that he had issued several reports on the purchase of Miaoergou iron ore. However, Yang Rui did not inform him of the real situation because he kept it confidential. In fact, Benxi Lake, Anshan and Fushun were all within the territory enclosure of the Fuxing Society, but it was only enclosed in the name of Zhang Rong's family. These places have registered mining companies with the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and started to mine in a small amount, because the Fuxing Society did not invest heavily, and the scene was not big.

"Don't worry, Brother Xianting." Yang Rui said, "I've been optimistic there for a long time. But now I have to use money everywhere. I will put it in Liaodong first. When the revolution is successful, we must see a large iron ore in Benxi, and even mine the Fushun coal mine."

When he heard that Miaoergou was in his own hands, Yang Rui said it himself, Xu Jiabao felt relieved. Unlike Yang Rui's concern for the finished products, he only cared about the raw materials and skills. Both of these are indispensable for practicing steel and making good cannons. In fact, many of the skills are ready-made, such as the imitation of Krupp cannons, which have been studied by colleagues from the Jiangnan Bureau for a few years, and they just took them over, but the raw materials are not achieved overnight. If they don't have them, they can only buy foreigners. Once they are out of stock, nothing will be done.

Yang Rui finally left until dark in the military factory. Before leaving, several people talked about the hydraulic press again. Xu Jiabao meant that if there was no hydraulic press, it would be possible to build Krupp 75mm field cannons at most. It would be impossible to build 105,155mm cannons. Yang Rui thought that the elevation angle of the gun mount had been from fifteen degrees to thirty-eight degrees. That is to say, when the two armies were facing the Qing Dynasty, facing the 75mm field cannons of the Qing Dynasty, under the high elevation angle, the range of the artillery completely suppressed the other side. However, the Qing Dynasty also trained the imperial guards of two or three towns. Each town was equipped with 18 150mm howitzers, so I don’t know what the range was?

"It's true, Brother Xianting said it's a matter. If you can train the iron in Miaoergou, you will have a lot of money." On the way back, Du Yaquan thought about the Miaoergou iron mine, and even wanted to put the Tonghua Iron Plant that had been expanded and under construction in Benxi Lake District.

After being interrupted by Du Yaquan, Yang Rui had to not think about howitzers first and said: "Ma'anshan raised money because the iron plant is in the pass, so he raised money to build it. Although it was his own money, once money was needed, the stocks could still be cashed on the exchange. If it was fast, you could go to the bank to mortgage it. The expansion of Tonghua Iron Factory was within its own sphere of influence. If it was like Ma'anshan, it would be moved out of Tonghua and placed in Benxi Lake, if something happened, the iron plant would be out of the safe place. Don't think too much, all the foreign iron and steel will be driven out by us!"

The price of pig iron in the Chinese market was maintained at about 27 taels per ton before the opening of the factory in Ma'anshan. The price of pig iron in Hanyang Iron Factory was after using Pingxiang coke. When the more expensive casing coke in Hanyang was used, the price of pig iron in the market was 32 taels per ton. When there was no Hanyang before, the price of iron was 40 to 50 taels per ton. It can be said that foreigners sold iron because of the cost of iron produced by China. However, this law was completely changed after the iron was released in Ma'anshan. The iron price in Ma'anshan was one tael lower than that of Europe. Including ocean freight, the tariff was paid for 5% of the tariff when transported to China, and the cost of foreign iron was only more than 23 taels.

The cost of Ma'anshan is 16 taels, which does not include the profits of the coal mine. It can be said to be an overwhelming advantage. Just to take into account Hanyang, this pig teammate, Du Yaquan could not let go of the price to sell. After all, Hanyang and Ma'anshan belong to the same company, and even if it is not the same company, Yang Rui and Sheng Xuanhuai would not accept the sale of pig iron at low prices in Ma'anshan. Yang Rui considered that Hanyang was a Chinese company no matter what. After investing 20 million taels, the money could not be wasted; Sheng Xuanhuai has turned Hanyang into his own industry. Once Ma'anshan sells at a low price, Sheng Xuanhuai will face bankruptcy.

To this end, Sheng Xuanhuai and Yu Huizu discussed several times that the entire Coal and Iron Factory and Mining Co., Ltd. made some adjustments. First, the old iron plant located in Hanyang will no longer be expanded, and the additional iron plant with an annual output of 50,000 tons will be placed in Daye to reduce transportation costs. The coking coal used in the new factory will no longer use 11 taels of Pingxiang coke, but will use 9 taels of Huainan coke. In addition, the managers of the entire Hanyang will go to Ma'anshan for training to reduce material waste and management costs. The average cost of the two new and old factories in Hanyang can be reduced to 21 taels in the short term, and in the long term, it can be reduced to 18 taels. However, during this adjustment process, the domestic price of Ma'anshan must take care of Hanyang, and can only be set at 23 taels per ton, which gives foreign iron room to survive.

Du Yaquan is in charge of Ma'anshan, assists in Hanyang, and remotely controls the expansion of the call iron plant. He is already the steel king of the whole Asia. If it weren't for the Japanese Hachiman iron being protected by tariffs, he would have gone bankrupt and closed. Now he can let go of his hands and feet and be the Nanyang market, and the western market is the western market. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, the US steel plants were all in the east, and the steel in the east was transported to the west by train for ten dollars per ton, so the eastern steel was only transported for Europe and not to the west. The western market has always been occupied by the British. When the British bought American food.

, and even transported his steel to the west, with a freight rate of 3.5 US dollars plus a tariff of 4 US dollars. 7.5 US dollars is still lower than the freight rate of 10 US dollars from rail to western Asia, because the pine wood from the United States is exported to countries in the Middle East, and the freight ship comes and goes back with a full load. In order to bring the goods back, the freight rate given by the ship owner is only three US dollars per ton, and a tariff of 4 US dollars is only seven US dollars. This seems to be fifty cents less than the British, but the freight rate is fluctuating in many cases, and the steel price is slightly more expensive than that of the UK, which makes Ma'anshan and British steel compete fiercely in the western North American market.

Feeling that he threw Du Yaquan into a larger Colosseum than Tonghua, Yang Rui only smiled and said, "Brother Qiufan is just a lion, wherever he goes, your territory. This was the case in Liaodong before, but now in the inner city, you will be able to occupy half of Asia and America."

"You're not forgetting that I'm a chicken and I'm not bound by the lion." Du Yaquan was very self-deprecating and only patted the snow on his body, saying: "I know that there are only two ways to make money in this steel. One is to make ordinary steel, which is cheap and saves money. You also need a fleet, which can transport this thing to all over the world, not more expensive than others. Another is to make those special steels, such as Haimota pig iron, which is more than 40 taels per ton, which is more expensive than rail steel, and Swedish pig iron... Both of these wins by quality, and it doesn't matter how high the freight cost is."

Seeing him express his thoughts, Yang Rui asked, "Then what kind of steel do you want to make? Is it cheap ordinary steel that cannot be cheaper, or is it an outrageously expensive special steel?"

"I want to build the one behind, but I just want to build it, but I can't make it. Didn't Brother Xianting say that this cannon steel is made, one is the raw materials and the other is the skills. We do not have the advantage over others. The skills are also behind others. It can only start from ordinary things. But it turns out that Americans have been building that canal? Once the canal is opened, our steel will be driven back by the Americans. At that time, we had nearly 500,000 tons of iron and 150,000 tons of steel. With such a large amount, can it be sold out in China and Nanyang?" Du Yaquan, who is in charge of such a huge steel company, is often walking on thin ice, afraid that external changes will cause the already balanced production and sales market to be imbalanced.

"No." Yang Rui shook his head. He didn't know when the Panama Canal would be built, but after it was opened, it was probably about the beginning of the battle. At that time, due to the unlimited submarine warfare of the Germans, the price of steel in the world was doubled. Although Yang Rui didn't know that the price of pig iron would be sold at a sky-high price of 260 silver dollars per ton, he thought it would be possible to double the price of iron by two or three times. His plan was to borrow money to build an iron factory after 1911 to build an iron factory to build an iron production plant.

One million tons. The industrial scale of producing one million tons of steel. After the war, it sold steel and cargo ships, making a big profit for foreigners. If the iron price fell sharply after the war, it would start to build railways in China. Whether it was borrowing or self-raised funds, it would invest at least 150 million taels a year, build 5,000 kilometers of heavy-gear railways and lay double-guards. There was no need for wood to sleep. Use reinforced concrete sleepers to consume 150 tons of steel per kilometer, and consume 750,000 tons of steel per year. In addition, shipbuilding...

When Du Yaquan asked about steel, Yang Rui suddenly thought about the topic, and his thoughts ran out of the blue. Du Yaquan was also familiar with him, and he didn't speak when he saw him like this. After only staying for a long time, Yang Rui said: "Submarines are still extremely important."

The question was about steel. When answering the submarine, Du Yaquan smiled and said, "It turns out, what does this steel have to do with the submarine?"

Yang Rui only thought that if the Germans could sink more cargo ships from the Allied countries, the price of steel would be higher at that time. But how can Germany sink more ships? Wolf pack tactics? At first, Yang Rui thought so, but this required the Germans to pay attention to submarines and install radios on submarines...

It is difficult to explain his ideas clearly, Yang Rui had to say: "There must be a road before the car reaches the mountain. When the Panama Canal is opened, the domestic iron plants will be almost integrated. At that time, if the cost of the old factory in Hanyang is still high, then shut it down. In fact, it is okay not to close it. At that time, the steel production was huge, and the 60,000 tons of high-cost iron could not increase the cost of the entire company. It is not difficult to occupy Asia with local advantages. Besides, after China's development, the demand for steel is still quite large."

Yang Rui thought about his thoughts, and only made Du Yaquan vain after a few words. When he returned to his residence outside Bagong Mountain, he asked Chen Guangshou to get the information of the German submarine to see how it was going.

It has been more than a year since it was involved in the submarine project. This can be said to be the first project to invest so much but not profitable. In order to deal with the German Navy, Yang Rui's information on British ships was also exhausted by the German consul. It took so much effort, but the early situation was not optimistic. The submarine named U-1 was only more than 200 tons, equipped with two kerosene engines of 400 horsepower, rather than the diesel engines that Yang Rui expected. The submarine itself had extremely poor performance, poor wave resistance, and could not sail far away. Xu Huafeng also came to report halfway and asked to suspend cooperation with the Germans and returned to Shanghai to study for himself. However, after several telegrams, he was convinced by Yang Rui and eventually stayed in Germany to fiddle with the submarine with only more than 200 tons.

"Sir, Mr. Huafeng sent a telegram some time ago. He got the second German submarine, which was an experimental ship, two kerosene engines, a displacement of 340 tons, a kerosene engine of 600 horsepower, a speed of 13 on the water, nine underwater... Generally speaking, it is better than the previous ship, including the waves during the water navigation, but the range is still too short, only 600 nautical miles." Chen Guangshou took out the previous telegram and reported to Yang Rui again.

"It's still a kerosene engine?!" Yang Rui was a little dissatisfied. The Germans are still trying to improve the problem of miniaturization of diesel engines. It seems that they are not that awesome.

Within thirty years after the invention of the diesel engine, it was only installed on a ship rather than a truck. The reason was that the fuel injection pump was not miniaturized. The diesel engine was compressed, so it was necessary to be equipped with an air tank, which used the compressed air in the air tank to inject the diesel into the cylinder. In order to obtain enough air pressure to completely atomize the fuel, the diesel engine was equipped with a large enough gas tank. This was not a problem for ships, but for tractors, cars, and submarines with a drainage of only two or three hundred tons, the air tank was very troublesome. In later history, it was not until the 1920s that the mechanical oil pump was invented by Bosch, Germany, to truly miniaturize the diesel engine and then installed it on cars. German submarines were sure of the technology of the diesel engine before they installed diesel engines on the U-19 with large displacement.

The problem of oil pump is not a big problem for Yang Rui, who sells fruits. The wax spraying system of the fruit bag factory waxes apples and citrus is a replica of the diesel oil pump. There are two versions: one is the same mechanical oil pump as Bosch, and the other is the oil pump for air compressor plus gas tanks. He has disassembled and washed both oil pumps. Of course, he did this because the fruit wax in the wax pump was frozen in winter and delayed delivery of goods in the supermarket. The threat of supermarket purchasing on the phone made him extremely familiar with these two things. After drawing a sketch of the two oil pumps, the internal combustion engine laboratory created the real thing, but now it is just a simple air compressor gas tank type.

"What else did Mr. Huafeng say? Didn't we sell the gas tank oil pump to the Germans? When will they be installed on the submarine?" Yang Rui asked after being proud. He felt that he should pay close attention to some German submarines. If more submarines can be built, perhaps the battle will last longer.

"Mr. Huafeng said that the Germans now use u-2, so they probably have u-3. If they want to see a diesel engine installed on a submarine, they will probably have to wait for u-7 and u-8." Chen Guangshou said.

"What about the battery? Are there any changes?" Yang Rui asked. Lead-acid batteries are also bottlenecks for submarines. Although they were invented very early, from the photos sent by Xu Huafeng, this thing is still extremely simple. The grid is not made of plastic but wooden boards, and the efficiency guess is also very low.

"The battery has improved after we provided the technology, but the effect is still not ideal. The ultimate goal is to release hydrogen during charging and discharging. "Chen Guangshou said.

"Well. No one can solve this." Yang Rui shook his head. A battery containing dilute sulfuric acid will release a large amount of hydrogen during the charging process. Once this hydrogen reaches a certain concentration in the air, it will explode. The inherent explosion hazard of this lead battery is that Tianzi, which has emerged in the world battery market, is helpless. Regarding the hydrogen discharged from the battery, Yang Rui can only hope that the hydrogen storage alloy that was introduced in the high school chemistry textbook can be developed, and the others are just waiting for the researchers to develop their brains.

"Has Mr. Huafeng not heard some news from the Germans, such as how big are the submarines they are building now? Has the Germans attached greater importance to submarines? And has the Germans also found the German named Denitz?" Yang Rui asked. He really wanted the wolf pack tactics to be realized in one battle, but he didn't know whether it was realistic.

"Sir, Mr. Huafeng said there was no such person in the navy. He also said that although the Germans opened two submarines for us to study, they were still very wary of us. The reason why we got the U-2 so quickly is because we helped it solve the problem of miniaturizing the diesel jet tank. He now only knows that the German U-3 boats should be built, and it seems that the Germans have already set up the submarines and speculated that they have built such submarines on a large scale in batches. It is estimated that we will get the U-3 boats." Chen Guangshou said: "Mr. Huafeng also said that as long as the steel problem can be solved, we can build such submarines now."

"Is it the steel used to build submarines or the steel used to build large diesel engines?" Yang Rui couldn't help laughing when he heard the steel again. Today, from building guns to building ships, to building submarines and diesel engines now, it's still steel.

"Both are!" Chen Guangshou replied to the original words in the telegram by Xu Huafeng.

"Okay. I understand! You go out." Yang Rui said. He only felt that he had thought about steel for a long time, and he didn't want to go around in again.
Chapter completed!