Material Empire

Zhang Laosan was very straightforward on this issue. He said: "I am just helping Mangu to contact you. This knife must be handed over to you. First, I don't have such good steel, and second, I know how to quench it." The skills are all taught by Master Xiao Qin, how can we compete with Master Xiao Qin for business."

"Well, if it is to make a dagger, the steel material and heat treatment process must be different, which is different from what we made yesterday." Qin Hai said.

"Really?" Zhang Laosan felt itchy again, "Master Xiao Qin, can you also teach me when the time comes?"

Qin Hai shook his head and said, "These technologies are not considered secret technologies, but there are some methods of smelting metals that cannot be done with your blacksmith's furnace, so it is useless for you to learn these things."

"Yeah, I see." Zhang Laosan didn't insist, he knew what Qin Hai said was the truth.

Qin Haidao: "Master Zhang, did you just say that that person wants a good knife, and he is willing to pay any money."

Zhang Laosan said: "Yes, Mangu told me that his nephew is very fond of knives, and he paid a high price for this knife to be made for him, so if you can get him a better one Knife, he is willing to pay some money."

"Since that's the case, if I make him a good knife that is ten times better than the farm tools yesterday, I don't know what price he can get." Qin Hai smiled and threw out a bait.

"This..." Zhang Laosan hesitated. The request made by the other party was only as good as Mangu's shovel, but Qin Hai claimed that he could do ten times stronger than that shovel. A god-defying artifact. And such an artifact must cost a lot, can Mangu's nephew afford it? For a while, he began to regret that he had spoken too much earlier.

"How about this, Master Zhang, you ask Master Mangu to bring his nephew here, and we can talk face to face. We can produce whatever he can pay, and we will definitely not let him suffer." Qin Hai Finally said so.

It was enough to say that, Zhang Laosan promised to have someone bring a message to Mangu tomorrow, to see if his nephew who was a soldier would come to the county to communicate with Qin Hai and the others face to face. After talking about this matter, Zhang Laosan drank with Qin Hai and the others for a while, chatted some gossips, and then left in a hurry on the pretext that there was still something to do at home.

Seeing Zhang Laosan walking away, Ning Mo asked Qin Hai eagerly, "Qin Hai, are you going to make money from that soldier?"

Qin Haidao: "Yes, isn't this an opportunity?"

Yu Haitao said: "How much money does a soldier have? Besides, this dagger should be the equipment issued by their army. How could he pay for it and find someone to make it?"

Qin Hai shook his head and said: "This dagger is not a standard equipment. I have seen several kinds of military daggers, and it is not the same as this one. I thought, this person must be a fan of equipment, I don't know where to find someone to help I made such a dagger myself. A person like this will definitely not be able to move when he sees good equipment, so it is not a problem to ask him to pay some money."

"But, how much can you ask someone for a dagger? 20? 50? Besides, he is a soldier, so it's not appropriate for us to kill him like this?" Ning Mo said, he has always had some respect for soldiers , I always feel that it is not good to hack a soldier.

Qin Hai smiled and said: "Remember a saying that everything is possible. Since we want to make money, we can't just focus on a few hoes. How much money can we make? I asked the soldier to meet, mainly I want to know if there is any channel to contact the troops. If I can make some small equipment for the troops, it will be much more profitable than making hoes and shovels. Don’t worry, I will not cheat our troops. This is a A win-win outcome."

"Qin Hai, how did you grow your brain, and why are you so smart?" Ning Mo looked at Qin Hai with admiration, "I just wanted to ask him to pay 10 yuan, and we'll give him a dagger. You have focused your attention on the army. However, the equipment of the army is made by the military factory, and their technology is much better than our Qingfeng factory."

Qin Haidao: "The ruler is short and the inch is long. We also have our strengths, so we may not be worse than them in everything. Don't worry, I will always have a way to convince them of us."

"That's natural, Qin Hai, once you make a move, there's no reason why you can't do it." Ning Mo chuckled, Qin Hai's self-confidence can also be infectious.

"I'm full, where should I go?" Miao Lei put down the bowls and chopsticks in his hand, and asked his three friends.

"How about playing cards? Doudizhu, do you like Qin Hai?" Yu Haitao asked in a flattering tone.

Qin Hai shook his head and said: "I haven't played cards for a long time, and I can't remember how to play cards. By the way, isn't there a steel factory here? Before it's dark, let's go to the steel factory Bar."

"What's wrong with the steel plant? It's been closed for more than ten years." Yu Haitao said casually.

Ning Mo raised his hand and knocked on Yu Haitao's head, and said, "What do you know, Qin Hai said that he must have a plan when he thought of going around the steel factory, how do you know? Right, Qin Hai?"

Qin Haidao: "I don't have any specific ideas yet. However, hearing you guys talking about this steel factory just now made me somewhat interested in it, so I want to go in and have a look while it's still early."

"Let's go and have a look together." Ning Mo responded positively.

The four stood up together, and under Ning Mo's leadership, they walked towards the gate of the steel factory, or more precisely, to the gate of the site of the steel factory.

The Pingyuan Iron and Steel Works was built in a certain era when it was striving for the top, and it was the product of steel production surpassing Britain and catching up with the United States. After spending a lot of money to build it, the iron and steel plant faced the problems of shortage of raw materials and backward technology, and has been operating at a huge loss.

The main raw materials needed to make steel are iron ore, coal and limestone. The latter two items can be satisfied locally in Pingyuan, but the first item is quite difficult. At that time, Pingyuan County organized a large number of people to search various mountainous areas in the territory and found some iron ore, but the grade was astonishingly low, and the other elements doped in the iron ore were very complex, and it was difficult to remove them during smelting. , seriously affecting the quality of steel products.

In terms of technology, Pingyuan Iron and Steel Works is a typical "indigenous method", and all kinds of equipment are very backward, resulting in high production costs. The price of locally produced cast iron and steel is actually higher than that of products from other provinces that have been transported over long distances.

In the spirit of swollen faces and fat people, Pingyuan County insisted on sustaining this enterprise until the early 1970s. Finally, it could no longer sustain it, so it had to announce that the factory was discontinued, and the original workers and cadres were transferred to various enterprises. A few people were left to guard the large factory area and the gradually rusting equipment.

In the early years, Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory also used the products of Pingyuan Iron and Steel Factory under the high pressure of the county government. As a result, Qingfeng Factory was almost dragged into the abyss. Later, Ning Zhongying went to the county to make a big fuss, and promised to give 5,000 yuan a year as compensation to the steel factory, on the condition that the county never force fake and inferior steel products to Qingfeng Factory. This has been subsidized for several years, until the steel factory closed down.

Just now, when Ning Mo took Qin Hai to eat fried noodles at the stall in front of the steel factory, he had already told Qin Hai about the past and present life of the steel factory. Of course, Ning Mo didn't know much about some technical issues. Qin Hai could only supplement with his own imagination.

After listening to Ning Mo's introduction, Qin Hai has been thinking about this factory. He wanted to see if such an abandoned factory still had any potential to be tapped.

If you want to select the material that contributes the most to human society, steel should undoubtedly be ranked first. Maybe it's because things like steel are too common in people's lives, so many people don't think it's anything worthy of attention. However, Qin Hai, as a material expert, had the most research on steel in his previous life, and his mind was filled with countless wisdom about steel. Things that other people can't find value, in his eyes, may become magical.

"Where are you from!"

As soon as the group entered the gate of the iron and steel factory, an old gatekeeper came out from the gatehouse and shouted to them. The old man was wearing a faded old military uniform and a red cuff on his arm. He looked like an old Red Guard member, but he was holding a cooking spoon that was not made in Hanyang, but a cooking spoon that was too late to put down.

Ning Mo replied carelessly: "We belong to Qingfeng!"

Ning Mo and the others ran out to eat right after work, so they didn't have time to change their work clothes. Everyone's work clothes had the words "Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory" written on their chests, which couldn't be faked. The old man turned his eyes around the young people a few times, but his attitude became a little bit more kind, and he asked, "Why are you going?"

Ning Mo replied rather nonsensically: "Let's go in and have a look around, and fall in love, okay?"

"The four of you... are in a relationship?" The old man was a little confused, what kind of lineup is this.

Ning Mo stepped forward, took out a cigarette from his pocket, stuffed it into the old man's mouth without any explanation, and said with a smile: "Okay, old man Wang, the steel plant has been closed for decades, and there are still What was stolen? Don't worry, we just have no place to go when we are full. We go around the factory, take a walk, and we won't steal anything."

The old man was defeated by Ning Mo's cigarette. He took the cigarette from his mouth, looked at the brand, and then carefully clipped it to his ear, preparing to keep it for a while to enjoy slowly, while still muttering in a low voice. He said: "This broken factory, how can it get better... You really didn't come to steal iron?"

"Are we stupid?" Ning Mo said disdainfully, "I don't even want these iron lumps left over from your factory for free. You should hurry up and cook. I can smell the vegetables in your pot from here." Burnt."

"Just walk around casually, don't mess around!" The old man obviously also smelled the burnt smell coming from the guard's room, so he hurriedly warned, and then ran back to continue cooking.