Chapter Thirty-Four: Tapping the Iron

Foreman Li immediately led a few workers to carry up the prepared fireproof mud and quickly sealed the slag notch. Ji Wusheng gave a sharp blast on the steam whistle, reminding the workers around the blast furnace that something was about to be discharged from the furnace and to pay attention to safety and get out of the way.

Several workers, carrying iron pokers, began to stir the bottom of the furnace. As they stirred together, a shower of burning sparks shot out from the taphole, dancing in the air like fireworks. This was the wood ash from the bottom of the furnace being blown out.

Ji Wusheng directed the workers to keep stirring, allowing the furnace ash to be continuously discharged. Discharging the furnace ash was to prevent it from mixing with the slag and causing the furnace to sit on the bottom.

When no more furnace ash was blown out, he instructed the workers to close the taphole. Then he began to send in the full blast. The blower let out a whining roar, and the temperature in the workshop grew hotter and hotter. Ji Wusheng began to feel sweat constantly trickling down his forehead. The thick work clothes hindered the dissipation of heat, but he still stood motionless in front of the furnace, observing. From time to time, he would look at his watch, calculating the time.

“Alright!” Ji Wusheng thought the heat was about right and instructed Foreman Li, “From now on, you must always pay attention to the position of the furnace line. When the coke layer drops to the specified position, gradually add empty coke. Then add some more slag—I’ve taught you how much to add each time. If you forget, check the process manual!”

“I haven’t forgotten!” Foreman Li recited a string of data smoothly.

“Good. From now on, until the morning shift comes to take over tomorrow morning, don’t add any ore. Wait for me to come before you start adding. Keep adding coke! Maintain the furnace temperature!”

The second furnace drying would take about 24 hours. Only when the temperature of the entire blast furnace reached a sufficient level could they start adding small batches of iron ore. All this was to ensure the temperature of the furnace. In blast furnace smelting, maintaining the furnace temperature was an important issue. Insufficient furnace temperature would not only affect the iron output rate but also cause many blast furnace failures, eventually requiring the furnace to be shut down for a major overhaul.

Ji Wusheng went back to catch some sleep. He woke up just in time for the evening, when the mid-shift workers had already taken over. He checked the handover records of the two shifts and then used a steel poker to probe through the inspection hole to observe the burning condition of the coke and the temperature of the furnace wall.

“Continue to add small batches of coke and send in the blast,” Ji Wusheng felt that the heat was still a bit off and decided to start adding ore on the morning of the 7th.

On the noon of February 7th, with Ji Wusheng’s order, the first batch of iron ore concentrate and slagging material was finally fed into the blast furnace, and the formal smelting of pig iron began. Compared to the workers, Ji Wusheng was even more nervous. They had done everything by the book, according to the technical data and their own experience, but no one knew if this large-scale homegrown product, built from homegrown parts, could withstand the test and operate normally. Ji Wusheng knew that the success or failure of the blast furnace would determine how fast they could climb the technology tree.

On February 8th, the blast furnace finally tapped its first batch of molten iron. The main runner was built of sand and stone, with yellow sand as the filling. The pig bed was made of cast iron molds. After the first batch of pig iron ingots came out, Ji Wusheng instructed someone to take the iron bricks by car to the chemical laboratory in Bairen for composition analysis.

The analysis results were quickly fed back to the steel plant via wired telegraph. The quality of the pig iron was very good. The proportions of phosphorus and sulfur, which affect the quality of pig iron, were extremely low, far better than the various scrap iron and pig iron they had obtained from the mainland. The combination of high-quality iron ore and modern blast furnace smelting, two divine artifacts, had created such high-quality pig iron.

Ji Wusheng’s face shone with light. “Excellent! With high-quality pig iron, it will be easier to make good steel.”

After the molten iron was tapped, the first slag tapping began. The steel slag was discharged into a large pool filled with river water that had been simply settled and sent from the water supply plant. The cooled steel slag was a material for making cement. As for the cooling water heated by the steel slag, it was piped out to utilize the waste heat.

“From now on, tap the iron once every two hours! Tap the slag once every 15 minutes!” Ji Wusheng ordered. He collected a sample of the first cooled steel slag and gave it to a clerk to be quickly sent to the steel plant. The composition was roughly within Ji Wusheng’s predicted range—the formula and numbers of the charge were precisely calculated by him, a summary of more than a hundred years of experience in modern blast furnace ironmaking. Now, Ji Wusheng was confident that the blast furnace could produce iron stably for a long time. But he still did not dare to relax. He was in the workshop 24 hours a day, sleeping in the office when he was tired, and then getting up to check the furnace condition. He did not dare to relax with the naturalized citizen workers under him. After all, the longest any of these people had been a real industrial worker was only a year and a half. Bad habits and ways of thinking still dominated. There were especially many new workers among the blast furnace workers, and few old workers. If he didn’t keep a close eye on them, it would be easier for things to go wrong.

Under his round-the-clock supervision, the operation of the blast furnace was completely normal after 48 hours. Based on the amount of iron ore and coke put in, Ji Wusheng calculated that the blast furnace conversion rate was about 0.79. This was not a high level; modern blast furnaces could generally reach a level of 1. However, he was not worried. As long as he continued to improve the charging ratio and slagging process, he was confident that the conversion rate could reach about 0.90. Even at a level of 0.79, the daily output of pig iron was far more than 50 tons. The production capacity of the blast furnace was much higher than expected.

To celebrate the official commissioning of the No. 1 blast furnace, the Senate ordered an additional ration for the students of Fangcaodi, including the students’ favorite fruit candies. Many years later, the “Children of Fangcaodi,” who had grown into the backbone of the empire, would often recall the good old days of receiving “special rations” from time to time. Whenever the rations were increased, the students would stand up in their classrooms, dormitories, and on the playground and cheer “Long live!”—everyone knew that this was a new step forward for the empire under the correct, glorious, and great leadership of the Senate.

At the same time, on February 9th, a red-bannered headline news was published on both the internal and external editions of the “Lin’gao Times.” Needless to say, the naturalized citizens, and even the natives who had more contact with the Senators, knew that when a red headline appeared in the newspaper, it meant that something big had happened to the Senators—and it was mostly good news. The members of the County Consultative Bureau could not quite understand the articles full of “Newspeak” in the newspaper, but the County Consultative Bureau had a dedicated liaison, a “female short-hair,” who would mostly explain the content of the newspapers and documents during the bureau’s meetings. After hearing Tang Tang say that this was a large furnace that could produce more than ten thousand catties of iron, although they didn’t know the specific meaning, they understood from the solemnity of the Senators that this matter was of great significance. They immediately, and very tactfully, wrote a “congratulatory letter” in the name of the County Consultative Bureau on red paper and had it sent to the East Gate Market with a great deal of fanfare. Zhang Youfu also instructed his men to quickly buy firecrackers and set them off at the entrance of the County Consultative Bureau.

Wu De closed the window—the sound of firecrackers outside was particularly noisy and was disturbing the regular work meeting of the Executive Committee.

This regular work meeting was held at his request, and the topic was to solve the problem of power coal supply. Of course, the so-called power coal supply problem was actually the problem of Hong Gai.

“…Alright, the situation of the coal supply has been laid out,” Wu De said. “I’m sure everyone understands the current situation. The channels for coal have not increased, but the number of users has increased quite a bit. If we can’t solve the coal problem once and for all, I’m afraid it will be a problem to even maintain the operation of the industrial system.”

As if to verify his words, the warning whistle of a boiler releasing steam sounded outside—reminding the Senators present how many boilers in the entire Lin’gao were burning to push how many steam engines to tirelessly provide a continuous and powerful driving force for Lin’gao’s industrialization. And in Sanya, Hong Kong, and Leizhou, there were many more boilers waiting for high-quality coal to fill their huge appetites.

“It’s unrealistic to expect Guo Yi to immediately restore the coal transport channel for us—besides, the Pearl River Delta is not close to Lin’gao. At best, he can immediately solve the power coal problem in Hong Kong. The Zhanjiang coal transported from Leizhou is now our main source of power coal, which is currently the most stable supply of power coal.”

He did not include the Jiazi Coal Mine in Qiongshan and the Nanbao Coal Mine in Lin’gao in the statistics for power coal. The former was coking coal specially used by the Ministry of Chemical Industry and the Ministry of Metallurgy, and the latter’s calorific value was too low and could only be used as fertilizer.

“Is the coal mine in Danzhou worth developing? I remember there was an oil sand mine there?”

“Yes, there is the Changpo Coal Mine in Danzhou, which is one of the larger coal mines on Hainan Island,” said Bai Guoshi, who was representing the exploration department at the meeting. “But it is deeply buried and requires a large initial investment. The coal quality is also not ideal—Changpo is actually on the same coal belt as Nanbao.”

As for the Danzhou oil sand mine, it was buried very deep and was even more troublesome to mine. Furthermore, after mining, it would require supporting refining equipment. At present, the demand for fuel oil was not large, and the additional investment would not be worth it.

“Ade, we understand what you mean!” Ma Qianzhan said. “We should directly intervene in the development of Hong Gai, instead of relying on the Vietnam Trading Company for sporadic purchases as we are now.”

Wu De nodded. “Yes, that’s what I mean. It’s time to directly intervene in Hong Gai.”