Chapter 804 - Ma'ao Industrial Zone

With the loading and unloading equipment in place, the remaining task was installing the ore-dressing plant. The Metallurgical Industry Department had a set of ore-dressing equipment brought from the old timeline installed at Lingao. To save shipping tonnage and gain experience in manufacturing metallurgical machinery, the decision was ultimately made to install a locally built ore-dressing system in Sanya.

The civil engineering for the ore-dressing plant had been completed before the New Year. The technology wasn't complicated. The General Machinery Plant had already accumulated some experience making ore-dressing equipment—they had previously built a coal-washing plant for the Jiazi Coal Mine.

An ore-dressing plant was more complex than a coal-washing plant, with higher technical requirements. Since the transmigration enterprise couldn't yet produce large electromagnets, magnetic ore separation was completely out of the question. The plant would have to rely on the simpler hydraulic jigging method, a technique with relatively low equipment demands.

To facilitate smelting, iron ore had to be screened before shipment to the steelworks. The purpose of screening was to improve smelting efficiency, increase iron yield, and optimize coal usage. Ore containing 65% iron or more could go directly into the open-hearth furnace for steelmaking; ore with 45% or more went to the blast furnace for iron production; ore below 45% had to be screened, crushed, and sintered to raise its iron content to at least 45% before it could be smelted. Ore below 25% was considered low-grade and typically discarded. One characteristic of Chinese iron ore was its abundance of low-grade deposits—which was why steel companies usually imported ore, typically refined concentrate powder that had already been processed at ore-dressing plants.

The ore from Tiandu and Shilu was high-grade, so improving iron content through screening was less critical. The dressing plant focused mainly on crushing and grading. Whether for the open-hearth or blast furnace, iron ore had to be reduced to a specific particle size for proper utilization. The finer and more uniform the particles, the higher the steel output.

The Sanya ore-dressing plant was located at Tiandu Town, headquarters of the Mining Bureau—convenient for using water from the Tiandu River reservoir. The jigging method required massive amounts of water: roughly three to four thousand liters per ton of ore processed, making it a major water consumer. Accordingly, the plant included a water recycling system: drainage channels, three-stage settling ponds, filtration pools, and pumping equipment. Ore dressing primarily exploited buoyancy, so water quality was not a concern—simply treated recycled wastewater would suffice.

After ore was delivered by railcar to the plant, it was first crushed. Crushing occurred in three stages: coarse, medium, and fine, ultimately reducing the ore to particles of five to ten millimeters. The ore was first fed into cylindrical crushers. The principle was simple: a large drum lined with cast-iron bars rotated at high speed, driven by a belt, pulverizing the ore inside. Different crusher rods could be swapped to adjust crushing size, but for continuous production, the plant used dedicated crushers for each stage, saving the time needed to change rods.

After each crushing stage, the ore was fed into vibrating screens. Vibration separated the crushed particles: those meeting the standard for the next stage went into the second crusher, while oversized pieces were returned to the coarse crusher.

After three crushing stages, the ore was fed into spiral separators. Spiral separators had high ore-processing efficiency, with metal recovery rates reaching 96%—and required minimal labor. The external appearance of a spiral separator resembled a playground spiral slide. The principle was straightforward: under the action of water, gravity caused the ore to flow downward along the spiral groove. Due to friction and centrifugal force, lighter waste particles hugged the outer edge of the groove while heavier ore particles migrated to the inner edge. At a certain point, the ore particles were discharged by collectors installed along the groove's inner edge.

What emerged from the spiral separator was middlings. After further processing through hydraulic screens and shaking tables, the final product was refined concentrate. Middlings could also be reprocessed through jigging.

The complete ore-dressing plant was equipped with jiggers, vibrating screens, spiral separators, crushers, hydraulic screens, and shaking tables. A twenty-cubic-meter ore sintering furnace was also planned for sintering ore fines. Testing showed the plant could process thirty tons of ore per hour. Given the relatively simple equipment, scaling up capacity was straightforward as long as water supply was sufficient.

Waves from the Ma'ao Peninsula's shores pounded the reefs. Several medium and small motorboats were moored in a coastal inlet, rising and falling with the swells. The land here was barren—nothing but wild grass and exposed red earth. A few scattered trees swayed in the sea breeze. Unlike the rice paddies common along both banks of the Wenlan River, Ma'ao Peninsula was mostly undeveloped wasteland with only scattered patches of dry fields.

In the old timeline, this had been the "Gold Brand Port Economic Development Zone," a Hainan provincial development zone. But despite its auspicious name, Gold Brand Development Zone had stumbled along, failing to attract major projects like the 1989 roll-on/roll-off terminal and the 1993 six-million-ton refinery. Even into the early 21st century, it remained little more than industrial land reserves.

In this timeline, the Planning Commission had designated it as Lingao's future heavy-industrial zone. Because the Gold Brand Development Zone had sputtered along so poorly in the old timeline, the Planning Commission ultimately named it the "Ma'ao Industrial Zone."

Originally, for security reasons, the transmigration enterprise's steel and heavy chemical operations were located in the Wenlan River estuary area and outside Bairren City. But available land was limited—most riverside areas were established paddy fields, wasting them on industrial use would hurt agriculture, and building on rice-paddy foundations was troublesome. Development potential was constrained. Moreover, water and air pollution were becoming increasingly severe. In its planning, the Commission had mapped out a gradual relocation of steel and chemical production bases to the Ma'ao Peninsula development zone.

After the Chengmai Campaign, the Council's power had extended across all of Hainan Island. The Ma'ao Peninsula, once near the front lines, had become part of Lingao's core territory. Ma'ao Commune was "battle-tested." Naval control of the Qiongzhou Strait was secure, and the Fubo Army's land base was stationed at Ma'ao Commune. The new steel and heavy chemical industrial zone would enjoy reliable security.

Ma'ao Peninsula was surrounded by the sea on three sides. To the east lay Red Brand Harbor; to the north, the Qiongzhou Strait. It was sixty-five kilometers from Haikou Wei and twelve kilometers from Lingao County town. The Construction General Company's development zone plan comprised two clusters, east and west, covering 20.5 square kilometers. The land was open and flat, mostly dry upland with only a small amount of paddy. Construction conditions were excellent. The local permanent population consisted of only about a thousand salt-field workers and their families from Ma'ao Commune, with no large residential settlements requiring relocation—ideal for large-scale integrated industrial development.

The development zone had Red Brand Harbor as a natural port, with about 16.5 kilometers of coastline and decent harbor-building conditions. The road construction plan for Lingao County—the "Small Cross" plan—had been completed. The emergency Bopu–Ma'ao highway, built in haste for war preparations, had been finished with the help of thousands of POW laborers working around the clock. The initial transportation issues for developing the industrial zone had been resolved.

According to plan, Phase 3 expansion of the steel industry should have started in April 1630, but the Chengmai Campaign had disrupted work, leaving the project in semi-suspension for a period. Once the war ended, construction resumed. Thanks to the war dividend—the massive influx of POW labor—the project barely kept to schedule. As Fubo Army forces occupied all of Hainan and extended the regime's authority, requisitions and logistics greatly accelerated, especially for the timber needed in construction.

Ji Wusheng stood in a dust-covered, grimy work uniform atop a small mound of excavated soil, surveying the entire site of the steel complex. The future Ma'ao Steel Combine would rise from this barren land. This was the temporary construction headquarters: converted shipping containers served as temporary housing on the leveled hilltop. The blades of a wind turbine and anemometer whirled rapidly in the sea breeze.

Below the hill were temporary worker barracks for the skilled technicians. A boiler's smokestack emitted steam, providing hot water and meals for the entire site. Drinking water was hauled by ox-drawn water wagons from the water treatment plant at Ma'ao Base several kilometers away. The Ma'ao River water was purified there, then boiled on-site for safe consumption.

The unskilled laborers came from POWs captured during the Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign, as well as "special laborers" rounded up during pacification operations in Danzhou, Chengmai, Wenchang, Qiongshan, and elsewhere. They were all housed in the POW camp at the Ma'ao Army Base and marched to the worksite each day in squad formations. Additional labor came from "work assignments" dispatched by various communes and from directly recruited workers—earning wages through short-term construction work had become an important income source for local farmers.

Construction materials from various factories were stacked high in the staging yard: bundles of rebar and bamboo rebar for concrete; shaped steel and wrought-iron sections; lumber and bamboo of every specification; stacks of red bricks and roofing tiles; countless sacks of cement under rain shelters; rows of two-wheeled dump carts; and refractory bricks from Ma'ao Salt Field's bittern factory...

Workers were building access roads and laying temporary freight rail—to move the tons of materials to every corner of the site. Five or six mobile locomobiles belched black smoke and white steam, powering cranes, pile drivers, mixers, and other locally produced construction equipment. The chuffing of pile drivers, the creaking of cranes, and the roar of mixers blended into a deafening chorus.

(End of Chapter)