Lord Harland

Workers queued up and climbed up to the charging port, put the selected iron ore and charcoal into the steel-making furnace, lit the fire and started making iron.

Dawn Continent Iron Smelting has developed a unique technology tree.

Alchemy includes steelmaking technology, and the refining of many special steels requires the help of magic.

Sophia had seen alchemy blowers and special catalytic reduction substances in Markholm Kingdom.

The alchemy blower can provide energy through magic crystals, and the ventilation effect is very good, which can be compared with large electric blowers.

However, the price of the alchemy blower is very high, and the Grant Kingdom does not sell it.

If you want to buy such large alchemical items, you can only order them from countries with developed magic such as Markholm.

Buying the alchemy blower from Markholm costs tens of thousands of gold coins.

Without the alchemical blower, the vents had to be replaced with large bellows.

The bellows manufacturing technology is very simple. Richard found two carpenters and after a brief description, the carpenters made a qualified bellows.

There was no shortage of wood in the territory, and large bellows were quickly manufactured.

The three people worked together to pull the large bellows, and streams of air entered the steel-making furnace.

The primitive smelting process, coupled with the insufficient burning temperature of charcoal, results in the quality of the smelted pig iron being average.

Not only is the texture loose, but there are also large and small holes on the surface.

However, the workers' interest was very high.

After all, without using magic alchemy technology, several tons of pig iron can be smelted in one furnace. This efficiency has never been seen in the Dawn Continent.

The pig iron produced by ordinary iron-smelting furnaces in Dawn Continent is not only of average quality, but also weighs very little. One furnace can produce about dozens of kilograms of pig iron.

This kind of iron-making furnace is a clay furnace over one meter high.

After the pig iron is smelted, the iron-smelting worker hands the pig iron to the blacksmith and enters the next round of the process.

Continuously beating, forging, tempering, and quenching in coolant, it became a qualified steel material.

This kind of steel is very expensive. According to the normal price in peacetime, one kilogram is about twenty copper coins.

If it enters a wartime state, the price of iron materials may increase several times.

Of course, the price of steel will fluctuate with the quality. The better the quality, the higher the price of steel. The lower the quality, the lower the price.

The lowest quality pig iron just out of the furnace costs about six copper coins per kilogram.

Working part-time in the market, each person can earn about four copper coins a day.

A day's work can exchange for less than one kilogram of the lowest quality pig iron.

Purchasing a long knife weighing a little more than two kilograms costs more than three silver coins and requires an ordinary person to work for a month without eating or drinking.

In fact, ordinary people need to support their families, and it usually takes half a year to a year to save enough money to buy a knife.

A set of full-body armor weighs more than 20 kilograms, and the materials cost about two gold coins.

Making armor also requires a large amount of charcoal and labor.

Blacksmiths who can make iron armor are excellent talents wherever they go, and their wages are higher than those of the soldiers of the main army.

A piece of armor often costs more than ten gold coins in the market.

An ordinary family may not be able to save enough to buy a piece of iron armor after ten years of hard work.

In addition to blast furnace ironmaking, Richard also knows a crucible steelmaking technology.

But Richard still didn't know what proportion of graphite clay was mixed into the crucible. In addition, manufacturing high-temperature refractory crucibles is also a prerequisite technology for crucible steelmaking.

Richard didn't know the technical details, so he could only tell Thomas, the director of the steelmaking plant, to study this technology.

Thomas successfully cast a large iron pot and became the foreman of the blacksmith.

His blacksmithing skills are not the best among many blacksmiths, but this man is very smart and likes to specialize in smelting technology. He successfully made an iron pot and received Richard's reward, standing out from many blacksmiths.

The steelmaking plant is divided into four workshops: mining, selection, steelmaking and forging.

There are currently more than 600 male and female workers. In addition, there are more than 500 elderly people and children living in the steel plant barracks, all of whom are family members of steel workers.

After these people entered the Harland territory, they also became indentured servants and needed to work for the lord for five years before they could be freed.

After the steel plant is put into operation, it can open the furnace four times a month and produce about eight tons of steel a month.

The output of eight tons of steel per month seems very funny. In the previous life, a steel factory in a village in a major steel province could produce several million tons of steel.

However, the monthly output of eight tons of steel in the Haaland territory is already the largest steel output among the lords in Gedda Province.

Only a few big nobles produced more steel than Richard. The number of people invested by the great nobles in the steel industry is at least more than 10,000.

The efficiency of the territory's steel plant is already about ten times that of other lords.

Eight tons of steel, one and a half tons for the territory's own use, mainly used to make farm tools, weapons and equipment.

If there is a surplus of roughly produced steel products, a shop can be opened in Heihe Fort to sell them.

Two and a half tons were used to make weapons, equip new squadrons, and increase the coverage of iron armor.

With the increase in the number of blacksmiths, Harland's annual output of iron armor has reached the level of 80 pieces of iron armor.

Richard is preparing to sell the remaining four tons of steel.

Four tons of steel cost about 222 gold coins according to the market price.

Even if a large amount of steel from the Harland territory is put into the market, causing certain market fluctuations and causing the steel price to drop by 10%, Richard will still be able to earn an income of 200 gold coins every month.

In one year, there was an increase of 2,400 gold coins in cash, and the cost of purchasing steel was saved.

Coupled with the income from city brick orders every month, the development of the territory finally formed a positive cycle.

By August, Richard had begun to repay the debt he owed.

After the Harland family was granted a territory and William became a hereditary baron, he has owed a debt of eight thousand gold coins in recent years.

In the first year of buying slaves, he owed 4,000 yuan to run the territory. In the next two years, he needed to borrow money to survive. With some interest added, the debt has doubled to eight thousand gold coins.

The first thing to pay back was the loan shark owed by William.

These usurious loans have an annual interest rate of 20%, and with the annual interest compounding, the loan will approximately double in three years.

To be able to make loan sharks in Black River Fort so that people like William don't dare to default, there must be a big shot behind him.

The Harland family cannot afford to offend such a big shot.

With the territory having income, Richard felt confident and immediately transferred cash to repay the usurious loan.

As for the money borrowed from uncle Thoros and Mrs. Ola's brother Rand, he could only repay part of it first and slowly pay it back in two years' installments.

The Haaland family is now a relatively important noble in Geda Province, controlling three territories and a population of more than 17,000.

There are five squadrons of soldiers in the territory, and their strength has exceeded that of most baron families.

Having such noble relatives is very beneficial to the development of in-laws.

Rand does business in Black River Fort and Wright Fort and will not be bullied easily. Uncle Soros can also use the Harland territory as a channel to achieve military exploits without worrying about being deducted.

Although we owe money to relatives, everyone can accept it for the time being.