I am farming in the real world

Chapter 56: The Plunging Price of Steel

With the emergence of [Iron Bars], inheriting the characteristics of MC blocks, Chen Jue finally completed the last important link in his plan to expand the Minghua Shipyard through public means.

However, there are still a few things that need to be resolved at the moment.

First of all, the [Ultra-Poor Iron Ore] previously discovered underground in Chen Village has been completely consumed by the Iron Golems.

Most of the produced [Iron Ingots] were used to synthesize [Rails] to lay the existing underground lines of the 'Chenping Line'.

The newly dug single-track tunnel leading to the Myanmar jade mining area has only been dug as an empty shell so far, and has not yet been truly connected with rails and minecarts.

If we want to allocate a portion of [Iron Blocks] to make these [Iron Bars], we must quickly replenish the steel resources at hand.

"Before finding the next iron mine, it seems that we can only purchase from the market recently."

"Mixing the real with the fake will also help to confuse the public," Chen Jue muttered to himself.

Instead of looking for Zheng Bocheng to get casting waste from Zhongbo Machinery, he flipped through his phone's address book.

He found a seller in the Wenshi area who used to supply steel when he ran his auto and motorcycle parts factory, asked about the current price of mixed scrap steel from Sanxin Steel, and asked the other party to deliver 200 tons of scrap steel to the warehouse location of Wanqiang Logistics Park.

Scrap steel on the market is generally divided into several categories for recycling and circulation: heavy scrap, mixed scrap, zinc plate edge material, cold-rolled silicon steel sheet for remelting, and iron filings.

The price of each type of scrap steel is different, and there are also differences between tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive.

The scrap material Chen Jue previously obtained from Zheng Bocheng belonged to the mixed scrap type, which is suitable for ironmaking using the MC [Furnace].

"200 tons of mixed scrap? No problem!"

"Little Chen, where have you been making a fortune recently! Why aren't you buying round steel anymore?"

"It's been almost 2 years since we last contacted! I thought you weren't doing this anymore."

Manager Wang Qing of Sanxin Steel sent a few slightly joking voice messages, and also sent a real-time price list of heavy scrap steel for today.

Wenshi is full of processing plants engaged in forging, hardware, and auto and motorcycle parts, and the competition for this kind of supply business is very high.

Generally, bosses in this industry will not randomly delete a customer they've added, regardless of whether they return or not, or whether they can cooperate in the future. Keeping contact information and WeChat may always lead to future cooperation.

After seeing the price list, Chen Jue couldn't help but exchange pleasantries with Manager Wang: "Manager Wang, mixed scrap is only selling for 1900 a ton including tax? Is the price of steel that bad now?"

Upon hearing this, Wang Qing began to complain bitterly on WeChat: "There's no way, Little Chen! Business is very difficult now! The competition is fierce, and Australian iron ore has re-entered the market recently, and the price of steel is much worse than it was two years ago."

Since he was an old customer and they had cooperated for a long time, Chen Jue prepaid 100,000 as a deposit.

By evening, the scrap steel, packaged in ton bags, was transferred to the warehouse of Wanqiang Logistics Park by several semi-trailers.

Chen Jue withdrew all the sales revenue of over 300,000 from Chen Ji today into his account, and barely managed to pay the remaining scrap fee to Manager Wang.

In the past, businesses in the Wenshi area dealing in steel and machinery processing liked to play the game of defaulting on debts. Party A owed Party B, and Party B owed material suppliers, delaying payments again and again, causing everyone's financial pressure to be very tight.

Relying on this delaying tactic of defaulting on debts, many bosses of processing plants spent all day wining and dining material suppliers, often going to KTVs, clubs, and bathhouses, relying on high consumption to build relationships.

Those material suppliers, seeing that the other party was taking care of their business, sang songs and played with the KTV princesses, and everyone turned a blind eye.

It wasn't until the outbreak of the epidemic a few years ago that a bunch of people's capital chains broke, directly collapsing this triangular debt defaulting game.

The Wenshi bosses who can still survive in the business world now basically use cash to do business.

Even if they rely on favors and face to delay payments, they have changed from settling accounts at the end of the year to settling accounts quarterly or monthly.

In a word, the overall situation is very bad, and these big and small bosses in Wenshi are gritting their teeth to get by.

Chen Jue was also a victim of that epidemic, knowing that it was useless to rely on the old ways of talking about favors, so he simply used the cash from Chen Ji's recovery to buy materials, creating a reputation for himself in the industry as someone who operates with integrity.

… …

He arranged for Iron One and the others to load the scrap material onto trucks and transport it to the Minghua Shipyard.

The meaning of this back-and-forth tossing is also to create the appearance that the shipyard has officially resumed production.

And those 200 tons of scrap steel that arrived, along with 10 tons of washed anthracite coal specially used for steelmaking purchased from the market, were all packed into backpacks and transferred to the newly opened underground base of the shipyard.

Inside this base, rows of MC [Furnaces] synthesized from [Cobblestone] are emitting orange-red light, mass-producing [Iron Nuggets].

"We're still short of funds on the surface!" Chen Jue was taking notes and calculating.

Chen Ji's single store has an income of over 300,000 a day, and it's a bit tight to pay the final payment for the shipyard, let alone the subsequent large-scale infrastructure support for the shipyard.

So, after squatting down and calculating a few accounts, Chen Jue, who is somewhat impatient in the business world, called over the Doghead Military Advisor who was responsible for directing the Iron Golems to work.

"Where has the tunnel to Myanmar been dug to?" Chen Jue asked.

Chen Shang reported with green light in his eyes: "Reporting, Boss! According to the previous digging speed, the two Iron Dummies sent out have almost dug out of Jiang Zhe Province and reached the northern part of Xi Jiang Province."

Hearing this, Chen Jue took out the offline Gaode map on his phone and glanced at it, and his eyes lit up immediately, saying: "Xi Jiang Province? This is a good place with mines!"

You must know that out of the 164 kinds of minerals that have been proven in China, Xi Jiang Province accounts for 139 kinds, firmly ranking first in the country!

Copper, tungsten, uranium, tantalum, gold, silver, and rare earths are even known as the 'Seven Golden Flowers' of Xi Jiang Province.

Compared with the Wenshi area, which is poor in underground minerals, Xi Jiang Province is simply a metal paradise, and it is full of treasures for MC players.

While thinking about what resources to use to make a quick buck and accelerate the launch of the first famous battle of 'Block Technology', Chen Jue immediately ordered all the [Iron Nuggets] newly smelted from scrap steel to be synthesized into [Iron Ingots].

Then, use [Iron Ingots] to mass-produce [Rails], and let Iron Lao Liu, this sensible and clever dummy, ride a minecart to meet the two Iron Dummies at the forefront who are in an offline state.

See if they have discovered any precious metal minerals along the excavation route.

Unexpectedly, this operation really brought back good news from the forefront of the excavation!

Relying on the Iron Golem's brick-flying speed of pushing the minecart, Iron Lao Liu, who spent 4 hours returning from the front line, held up two mineral blocks and shouted as if asking for credit: "Boss! Loyalty!"

Because he had been waiting for too long, Chen Jue, who had returned to the underground base of Chen Village and was comfortably soaking in the pool.

At this time, when Chen Jue took the two mineral blocks sent by Lao Liu and looked at them, an unbelievable expression appeared on his face.

[Silver Ore: Ore rich in silver elements, with extremely high mining value, with a silver content of 47.2%.]

[Lithium Mica: A rare mineral, the main raw material for extracting the rare metal lithium. The specific products after refining have some of the conductive and energy storage characteristics of 'Redstone'.]

Today's update is here~