Chapter 1316 - Step by Step
"I think we should hold off on this a bit?" Wu De said after reading his report.
"Why hold off?" Zhan Wuya said urgently. "This is a major breakthrough—"
Wu De shook his head repeatedly. "It's too early to call it a major breakthrough. You're from an industrial background yourself. Can materials produced by concentrating manpower—especially transmigrator technicians—regardless of cost, guarantee stable production with a certain rate of qualified products? And this permanent magnet manufacturing—though someone in the 19th century did make a practical generator using ferroferric oxide as permanent magnets, I'm afraid it won't be so optimistic when we try it. I won't even mention whether these things can be produced in high volumes. What if halfway through your Great Leap Forward project, generator and transformer manufacturing suddenly falls apart because of permanent magnet and silicon steel sheet problems? Won't your electrolytic copper workshop become useless?"
Based on Lingao's current generating capacity, if this electrolytic copper workshop were actually built, all of Lingao's power would have to be used just to maintain continuous production. Temporarily compressing county-wide electricity use could only work short-term; long-term operation would absolutely require additional power supply.
"Electrolytic copper, non-ferrous metals—all things we desperately need," Zhan Wuya said. "And the Finance sector wants coinage—coinage also requires electrolytic silver, and that gap is even bigger. There's no solution without going to electrolytic processes. And caustic soda..."
"My personal opinion is that we should definitely work on power. But to proceed step by step, starting from the simple. First do 19th-century stuff, then 20th-century. A Great Leap Forward might cause problems." Wu De frowned. "I recall that in the 19th century, low-carbon steel and iron cores were also used to manufacture generators of several hundred kilowatts. If we force ourselves to make equipment using stuff that doesn't even count as defective, I'm afraid we'll end up with frequent equipment explosions and sudden power outages."
"Then won't all our efforts have been wasted?"
"Nothing wasted. At minimum we've accumulated production experience and trained teams. And we've verified the feasibility of the production process. At least we can smelt qualified ferrosilicon, and at minimum produce not-quite-qualified silicon steel."
Wu De's words weren't just his own thinking but the result of input from multiple transmigrator technicians. Although they had done quite a lot of "improvised" indigenous industrial technology, this time's "indigenous" launch was too much of a leap, and quite a few people feared that taking too big a stride would pull something.
"Is this the Planning Commission's position?"
"Yes." Wu De said. "I'm not opposing your plan, but after comprehensive evaluation the Planning Commission believes it's too aggressive. I hope you can produce a more appropriate plan that can guarantee stable production—we can't afford to mess around."
"What about the electrolytic copper workshop?"
"As long as you can produce a more reliable power supply plan—one based on existing mature technology—we can discuss it further."
"Alright, I agree." Zhan Wuya shrugged helplessly. "I hope we can put the silicon steel sheets that have already been produced to use."
"No problem. They can be used experimentally. And I hope silicon steel sheet trial production work can continue until the industrial sector can stably produce qualified sheets. As for the electrolytic copper workshop, as long as the power issue can be solved, I'll approve it."
Over the next few days, the Manufacturing Director's Office convened another power work conference. After a day of closed-door consultations, they finally produced a new plan. In the new plan, the electrolytic copper workshop would proceed on schedule. Simultaneously, one independent off-grid power station would be constructed for each of the electrolytic copper workshop and the chemical electrolysis workshop. The power station plan was roughly based on the station built by the London Electric Supply Corporation at Deptford in 1887, designed and constructed by Ferranti.
The old-timeline Deptford power station was equipped with two Ferranti-type AC generators, operating voltage 5 kilovolts, driven by 1,250-horsepower steam engines. There were also four Ferranti-type AC generators, operating voltage 10 kilovolts, each driven by a 10,000-horsepower steam engine. This power station's output could meet the electricity needs of most of London at the time—though electricity demand then was mainly just for electric lighting.
This power station's generating capacity was small by modern standards—a classic example of clunky and crude. But its advantage lay in extremely low material cost requirements: nothing in the Ferranti power station had anything to do with power technology difficulties like silicon steel. Not only did the generators themselves not use silicon steel, neither did the transformers. Even the rotor windings weren't electrolytic copper. And its original design could even perform 10,000-volt high-voltage transmission. It was very suitable for Lingao's current industrial capabilities.
Lingao's industrial capabilities couldn't yet manufacture 10,000-horsepower steam engines, but 1,000-horsepower steam engines were no problem. Faraday and others decided to install four generators at each power station, with expansion room reserved for six. As for generator manufacturing, after discussions between the Power and Industrial sectors, they decided on half and half: two generators at each station would use low-carbon steel, and two would use the low-grade silicon steel tested for magnetic properties from this production. This way, if either approach developed problems, they wouldn't be completely wiped out.
All R&D and production projects for electric motor development were scrapped—currently electric motors weren't urgently needed; all resources would go to generator manufacturing first.
Permanent magnet material development would continue. Though permanent magnet generators weren't the trend, permanent magnets had broad applications, and even as a technology reserve it was worthwhile.
As for silicon steel production, this R&D project would be retained. Transmigrator engineers would conduct periodic trial production work—extensively consulting technical materials and process manuals, performing more production experiments to see if they could find a production process capable of maintaining higher finished-product rates and magnetic properties.
Another item was upgrading the rolling mill's equipment and accelerating worker training. Currently the rolling mill's equipment complement wasn't complete, and capable workers were too few. In the past this was limited by the small available population, making it difficult to allocate sufficient manpower. Now the industrial sector was preparing to recruit workers on a large scale to increase the rolling mill's operating rate and strive for full-capacity operation. First, this would meet the substantial shortfall in various low-level sections supply; second, production could also promote worker skill improvement.
"Here we go again, giving people and materials," Wu De thought as he looked at this plan. "They've even specified wanting several hundred young women as winding workers. Hmph, don't think I don't know what you're thinking." He thought that this would again increase the allocation to the industrial sector. And the rolling mill's supporting upgrades—that alone was another bottomless pit. The rolling mill's equipment, even for indigenous production support, not to mention technical difficulties, just the steel and cement consumption was a massive investment.
We're adding water when there's too much rice, adding rice when there's too much water, he sighed in thought. Heavy industry was truly a bottomless pit—nothing but inputs with almost no visible output—yet the industrial system simply couldn't function without it.
"Director Wang, Headmaster—these Australians' schools really do teach without discrimination. There's much we can learn from them—"
On this day, Huang Bingkun was again at Jasmine Pavilion, urging Liu Dalin and Wang Ci to negotiate with Hu Qingbai and other Australian education officials to let the county's gentry visit Fangcao Di School—"Stones from other mountains can polish jade, after all."
Huang Bingkun was so eager to have Liu Dalin and Wang Ci negotiate with the pirates not because he was "loyal to the Great Song," nor because—as some speculated—he was rushing to squeeze onto the Australians' ship. Under current circumstances, everyone knew Qiongzhou Prefecture was about to change hands. It wasn't impossible that in a few more years Chairman Wen might be calling himself "the Lonely One." Though the Australians never breathed a word of "he can be supplanted," quite a few people in Lingao's "old revolutionary base area" were holding back energy hoping to become ministers of a founding dynasty.
In the past, Huang Bingkun had been most afraid of being misunderstood as currying favor with the pirates. He often expressed—sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently—the spirit of "I am a scholar of the Great Ming and will never associate with overseas barbarians." But recently, he had stopped publicly proclaiming his political stance.
In the past, his "clear-cut" attitude had earned the overt or covert approval and agreement of many people. But as the situation changed, those who had praised him, agreed with him, and echoed him began to keep silent, even unwilling to be seen with him. Some even began to "advise" him with meaningful words to be careful what he said.
The reason for this change wasn't that the Australians were conducting literary inquisitions or suppressing public opinion. Rather, the Australians in Lingao were thriving more each day, with a flourishing prosperity like flowers in full bloom, oil cooking over a fierce fire. From the county's gentry and great households down to the common people, as long as one hadn't associated with bandits or pirates in the past and become a "target of dictatorship," everyone had more or less benefited from the thriving market and stable society. And the Australians' prospects seemed immeasurable.
By comparison, Huang Bingkun's kind of "integrity" had become an annoying "failure to recognize the times." That he was gradually being shunned was hardly surprising. By now, aside from a few friends at the county school plus Director Wang and Successful Candidate Liu, young Master Huang had almost no visitors. The Huang Family Stockade, once a "pillar" of the county, had become something that could be taken or left. Nowadays everyone acknowledged that Squire Liu of the Liu Family Stockade—who had been the first to intermarry with the Australians and join the Tiandihui—was Lingao's number-one gentleman.
Huang Bingkun's desire to visit Fangcao Di wasn't to curry favor with the pirates, nor was it simply to see how the Australians ran their school. He had another purpose: ever since the day he saw the mountains of armor and flags left behind by the defeated imperial soldiers, he had known the pirates couldn't possibly be driven away within several years. So he had conceived a plan to have Huang family children enter Fangcao Di to study.
In his view, what the Australians relied on was their "techniques"—he wouldn't acknowledge that the Australians had any "learning." The Australians' "sturdy ships and sharp cannons," their "clever tricks and ingenious devices," including all their measures for governing Lingao, were merely "techniques"—these people didn't understand the sages' learning. No matter how brilliant their techniques, they were no different from the ways of beasts and birds.
(End of Chapter)