Lord of Industrialization

Fatih visited and inspected many places in Weissenburg and its surroundings. He thought he had become resistant to many new things and would no longer make a fuss, until he came to the ironworks and stood in front of the ten-meter-high ironmaking furnace. .

Little Louis and others were so surprised that they were speechless. Their mouths were open so much that they could stuff a goose egg into them.

Frederick stood aside and looked at the guests triumphantly. He deliberately arranged the place for the first meeting here to achieve this effect.

The iron-making furnace used here at the beginning was the five-meter-high simple short blast furnace he remembered from "Homemade Iron Making". With the efforts of Alfred, the director of the smelting plant, the furnace gradually became taller and fatter, and the output increased. It is also rising steadily.

Little Louis winked at Armand, who immediately went over to ask Frederick.

Armand pointed to the metal "hat" as tall as a person on the top of the blast furnace and asked Frederick: "What is that hat used for?"

Everyone has seen an ordinary iron-making furnace, which looks like an upside-down bucket with a hole in it. This is the first time I have seen one wearing a big hat.

Frederick said nonchalantly: "That is the air supply preheater, which heats the air."

Air supply preheating is his first "invention" in the smelting industry after he came to this world. Think about the time when he, a little kid, went to the blacksmith shop to improve the air supply of the furnace while his father was away at war and no one was paying attention. No matter what, if I hadn't been lying on the ground rolling around and no one cared about me, I would have been quite sad.

This small improvement could increase the furnace temperature, but he didn't make it public, so others never knew about it.

There is nothing wrong with making it public now. Small stoves are more efficient. If you want to learn from big stoves, you should first solve the problem of materials.

The biggest problem in building such a large blast furnace is the material. Because the furnace volume increases, the coke burned also increases, and the temperature rises. The silica-containing refractory bricks used in the inner wall were copied from "Soil" after two years of experiments without a breakthrough. This is one of the core technologies.

Frederick led everyone around the feeding table to the other side of the furnace. Here you can see a steam engine driving a blower to blow air into the furnace. An air duct climbs from the furnace body to the top and connects to the preheater. At the same time, another air duct extends from the preheater and leads into a row of boxes with pointed bottoms on the shelf next to it.

"That's the dust collector," said Frederick.

The smelting plant is located to the north of Weissenburg. When the north wind blows in winter, the smoke drifts into the city. Moreover, Frederick's castle is high on the top of the mountain. There is so much smoke that the maids want to cover the castle with big plastic bags. stand up.

The guests were not interested in the environmental protection facilities and watched the blowers outside the iron fence.

Frederick immediately vaccinated them: "Some people used to reach out to touch out of curiosity, but they were swept away and the entire palm was gone. Now they are working as janitors thanks to the employment policy for the disabled."

"In the factory, behind every rule and every safety measure are lessons learned in blood and even life."

Someone really wanted to reach out and touch it, but was so frightened that he took half a step back.

At this time, there was a rhythmic whistle sound not far away, and the area around a similar iron-making furnace nearby suddenly became busy.

Frederick often came to inspect and said to his guests: "That furnace is about to produce iron. Let's go and have a look."

It was at this time that the guests were waiting, and they came to the fireside area specially designed for people to visit and study. There were also two doctors on standby with first aid kits in case of an accident.

In front of the taphole of the furnace, there is a pit for placing molten iron ladles, as well as rails for human-powered gantry cranes and small steam locomotives.

There is already a locomotive that is reversing all the way to deliver the car dedicated to the molten iron ladle to the furnace. The preheated molten ladle is surrounded by fixed brackets and insulation materials. Workers use a gantry crane to place it in front of the taphole.

After everything was ready, the workers opened the tap hole, and bright orange molten iron suddenly poured out and flowed into the molten iron ladle.

After this batch of molten iron is discharged, the taphole is closed and the molten iron packaging truck is transported away. Workers open the slag discharge port on the side and clean out the slag from the bottom of the furnace.

The hot slag is loaded into a heat-resistant minecart. After the minecart is filled, it slides forward along the sloped rails. At the end of the rails is a huge pool. After the slag is poured in, it is immediately affected by drastic temperature changes and other reasons. And broken.

The pool is made of cement, with a slope at the bottom. There is a shovel like an excavator at the bottom of the slope to pick up the crushed slag and prepare it for delivery to the cement factory.

At the ironmaking furnace, workers opened the upper feed inlet, and the belt sent the pellets mixed in proportion with concentrate powder, coke powder and lime powder into the furnace. There was a device on the top of the furnace to distribute them evenly. In the hearth.

The guests could not take their eyes off this series of operations. As soon as the ingredients were added here, the furnace next to it started tapping iron again.

Fatih estimated that such a furnace could produce at least one ton of iron a day and night. Looking at this furnace, this was just one of them. It was initially estimated that the entire Wesson state could produce about 100,000 tons of steel a year.

Steel is fighting power. As long as Frederick wanted to, he could easily assemble the entire territory into iron cans in one year.

Fatih sighed. If he could have thirty thousand armored soldiers, there would be no warlords in the country.

Little Louis subconsciously bit his lip, it would be great if he also had so many iron-making furnaces.

It's just that the Kingdom of Gaul has developed agriculture and has iron ore, but it is short of coal, while the Rhine League is short of iron ore but not coal.

In the past, there were calls in the country to capture the coal-producing areas of the Rhine League. Now just look at the steel production in Wesenzhou. It would not be fun if someone is forced to use a national iron can.

For Frederick, the biggest obstacle restricting the development of the steel industry is the supply of iron ore. Now he is looking for iron ore everywhere and is looking crazy.

He also had his mind set on the Ghazi Empire and the Kingdom of Gaul, but let’s not mention it now until they find out that their trade deficit is too large.

Fatih needed to arm himself the most now, and said to Frederick on the spot: "I intend to purchase weapons and equipment for 10,000 people this year."

According to his standards, an elite soldier's chain mail, scale armor, and weapons together require a total of about 30 kilograms of steel. For 10,000 people, that is 300 tons.

It is not a problem for him to purchase so many things in places under his control in China. The problem is that it takes too long, but here it is much faster. It only takes a few days to purchase raw materials.

However, Frederick said with some embarrassment: "I plan to expand the army to 120,000 people this year and start recruiting troops in September. The Springfield Arsenal has a heavy task and cannot spare any time."

Before Fatih could react, everyone in the Gallic Kingdom next to him took a deep breath. The Weisen Army was so capable of fighting with only 20,000 people. There were 120,000 people and such a high steel production capacity. Who else could stop them? ? !

Frederick brought these two groups here today just to show off his muscles. Naturally, he would not tell them that among the 120,000 people, they were only at the same level as the current army. The rest were second-line city defense troops and border guards, equipped and trained The level is much different, and the maintenance fee is naturally much lower.

Now it seems that the effect has been achieved. Not to mention that Fatih is far away, everyone in the Gallic Kingdom has just experienced a period of eye contact.

Under Frederick's prestige, many people would not notice a problem for a while. The current Wesson Army has been trained for ten years. Expanding several times at once is like pouring a bottle of strong wine into a water tank, at least in the future. Combat effectiveness will be seriously affected in a short period of time.

What's more important are officers, especially senior officers. The lack of officers is the most fatal.

There is a difference between commanding 100 people and commanding 500 people. There is a bigger gap between commanding 10,000 people and commanding 100,000 people. The latter requires talent bonus. Those who can command so many people in various countries are battlefield veterans, and The officers in Wesson's army are all terrifyingly young, and none of the senior officers are over forty years old.

It can be seen from this that in a short period of time, the combat effectiveness of Wesson's army will be greatly reduced.

Frederick did not tell them that his army expansion plan was actually completed in several years.

This year 1034 is the second year of the territory’s second five-year plan from 1033 to 37. Due to a series of problems caused by the territory’s expansion, the original plan was almost scrapped.

The main tasks in the next few years of the Second Five-Year Plan are to reorganize the new territory, clean it, build a complete administrative system, and get a thorough understanding of the economy, population, resources and other data, so as to prepare for the development of the third five-year plan starting in 1038. Be prepared.

The related military expansion and reorganization and improvement of the administrative system will be gradually completed during the Second Five-Year Plan, and there is no rush.

But outsiders didn't know it. As soon as the news spread, the neighbors were frightened, fearing that Frederick would slap his head and send the army to his door one day.

In just one sentence, Frederick created a good external environment and bought himself time to get through his period of weakness.