Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

After nearly ten hours of hard work, the molten steel finally flowed out.

Instantly, cheers erupted as they watched the molten steel flow into the ingot molds.

Ren Zhong was also very excited. This was steel!

According to the information he had found, in 1940, the national steel production was 1,500 tons!

1,500 tons, not even ten thousand! But in the main plane of 2023, the crude steel production was 1,019,081,000 tons!

The digits after the decimal point weren't even enough.

Any steel plant could exceed that with one more or less furnace.

And if his open-hearth furnace could continue production, it would produce about ten tons per furnace per day. Although the construction was rudimentary, the main refractory components would have to be replaced after about 100 furnaces. Over a year, he could refine at least 200 furnaces, which would exceed the current national steel production!

This is the fragility of the people after knowledge is blocked. They simply can't find a development path suitable for them.

If Ren Zhong's open-hearth steelmaking equipment were supplied as a finished product by foreigners, it would cost at least millions of silver dollars. During the previous dynasty, Li Weige went to Europe for inspection and introduced a 30-ton Martin furnace. A complete set of equipment cost 160,000 pounds, equivalent to 1.1 million taels of silver!

Such expensive equipment meant that we could not popularize the steel industry. The Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, designed to produce 50,000 tons of pig iron and over 10,000 tons of steel annually, cost a full 5.82 million taels of silver!

If Ren Zhong returned to the world of "Bright Sword" and built a native blast furnace with an annual output of over 3,000 tons of pig iron, the cost would only be the hard work of a few hundred try-hards working day and night for about 2 months!

Now that steel could also be produced, how could he not be excited?

Watching the slow flow of molten steel, Ren Zhong found a steel bar mold, used a long-handled crucible to scoop a spoonful, poured it into the mold, let it flow into the shape of a steel bar, and then poured water on it, causing layers of white mist to rise.

The fiery red molten steel quickly cooled down. Ren Zhong poured a few more ladles of cold water on it to let the steel bar cool completely. When it no longer emitted much heat, Ren Zhong picked up the steel bar and looked at it carefully. It had gray-black color with cold blue markings, looking like carbon steel after rapid annealing.

Ren Zhong gripped it with both hands, wanting to use force to bend the steel bar, but who knew that with a little force, the steel bar snapped with a "crack!"

This...

Ren Zhong was a little dumbfounded. He originally thought that those people in the videos who bent steel bars by hand were fake, but who knew that he could do it today!

This thing is too fake.

Ren Zhong felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over him, chilling him to the bone!

"Old Kong, the quality of this steel is not good. We need to stop and improve it before we can produce it again," Ren Zhong said to Kong Jie, holding the tofu-dreg-like steel bar.

"That's not right. It's too weak. Old Ren, we are all roughnecks and don't understand this. We'll have to rely on you to improve it," Kong Jie responded with a solemn expression. However, he was not too disappointed. It would be strange if the steel plant succeeded in production on the first try.

"Old Ren, you don't need to rush this matter. We can wait," Kong Jie continued to comfort him.

Ren Zhong was almost never idle in Yang Village. To be honest, Kong Jie could see that Ren Zhong was really building the Independent Regiment as his own home, and not for the sake of a businessman's profit.

Although the steel plant and other industries in Yang Village are now piloting a joint operation model between the Independent Regiment and Ren Zhong, with Ren Zhong providing technology and management, and the Independent Regiment mainly providing construction labor and a small amount of necessary outsourced components, Ren Zhong is currently paying for these.

From the current point of view, Kong Jie can't see what practical benefits Ren Zhong can get from this industrial model.

Not to mention that Ren Zhong has also provided the Independent Regiment with several tons of scarce raw materials such as copper.

This doesn't seem like something a purely business-minded person would do.

In this regard, Old Li saw it clearly and pulled Ren Zhong into the development and construction of the Independent Regiment early on. He didn't hide almost anything from Ren Zhong. Kong Jie found that Old Li's trick was really effective, allowing Ren Zhong to work hard and diligently in Yang Village to preside over the development of the entire industry, without ever mentioning a single silver dollar!

Of course, the Independent Regiment was also very poor. Apart from being able to guarantee the soldiers' food and drink, no one from Li Yunlong to the soldiers had any allowance!

Everyone ate the same food! Wore the same clothes!

Truly sharing weal and woe.

Ren Zhong was the same in Yang Village. Kong Jie was surprised that such an overseas young master should find it difficult to adapt to the simple food here, but Ren Zhong never said that the Eighth Route Army's food was not good, except for saying that Old Li's sweet potato liquor was more difficult to drink.

"Old Kong, I can handle this matter. Next, we will have the organization carry out some analysis work. I believe we will definitely be able to solve this problem," Ren Zhong said, not in a hurry now that the matter had arisen.

With his limited knowledge of steelmaking, he roughly knew that it should be due to the excessive residue of a certain component, which caused some of the chemical reactions in the entire process to be incomplete, and there was an abnormality in the composition of the steel.

Once he took the steel bar back for a composition test, there would soon be new conclusions.

However, the adjustment methods in the world of "Bright Sword" were limited. Ren Zhong was still a little worried that even if he figured out the compositional abnormality, it would be more difficult to improve, after all, there were too few places they could precisely control now.

The temperature could only be controlled roughly, and a rough adjustment was made by controlling the amount of gas sent in. There was no way to accurately quantify it.

Another place that could be adjusted was the proportion of the charge, but this could only be selected roughly. There was no very accurate measurement method to set the exact amount of raw materials such as iron ore, pig iron, and scrap steel to be input.

However, Ren Zhong knew his limitations. These problems were not something he could solve. When he returned, he would ask Associate Professor Hu Rentao and listen to his thoughts.

After returning to the main plane, Ren Zhong contacted Hu Rentao. The other party suggested sending the sample to him, and then reviewing the entire process after a round of analysis in the laboratory before analyzing the exact cause.

Hu Rentao originally strongly suggested that he go to the site to take a look, but Ren Zhong brushed it off, saying that it was opened abroad, so it was inconvenient to go to the site. Instead, Ren Zhong took the sample and flew directly to Hu Rentao's school!

This way, Ren Zhong could analyze the problem with Professor Hu as soon as possible.

Although Kong Jie said he wasn't in a hurry, Ren Zhong knew that the brigade commander and even the division commander were very anxious.

After all, this was an unexpected hope for them. If steelmaking could be successful, the production capacity of the Eighth Route Army in terms of guns and artillery would be even better in these few months, and they would stockpile more weapons to fight the Japanese!

Third update, brothers, give me some monthly tickets!