readx;

Before returning to Chongming County, Li Weiguo took Chen Ziyan to the construction site, which is the cradle of China's industrial base called by Li Weiguo.

The reason why I dare to name the cradle of China's industrial base is mainly because China currently does not have any industry, at best, and it can be called a large workshop, but it obviously cannot be called an industry.

The first batch of mechanical equipment imported from Europe and the United States include an iron smelting plant, a steel smelting plant, a cement factory, a textile factory, a match factory, a printing factory, a paper factory, a fertilizer factory, a water plant, and a gas factory. These factories will become basic industrial facilities supporting Shanghai's development, have a huge consumer market, and can quickly make profits in a short period of time, so they are placed in the primary construction position by Li Weiguo.

Regarding the location selection of industrial bases, Li Weiguo originally planned to place the industrial base in Chuansha Hall, which is the Pudong New Area in later generations. Because the Pudong New Area in this era was a weed area with no population living there, the land price was almost the bargain price, which could greatly reduce the cost of factory construction.

However, after considering the two major elements of economy, people's livelihood and national defense and security, Li Weiguo found that Pudong was surrounded by water on all sides, with the Yangtze River on the north, the East China Sea on the east, the Hangzhou Bay on the south, and the Huangpu River on the west. The entire Pudong terrain was flat and there was no danger to defend. Once an enemy attacked from the water, he would be trapped in a dangerous siege.

Li Weiguo knew that Pudong New Area had never been developed by previous governments since ancient times and had been in a desolate state. Even later China did not develop Pudong New Area in the 1990s. The reason is that national defense security is the main constraint.

Li Weiguo therefore gave up building an industrial base in Pudong and instead searched for land on the south bank of the Huangpu River. Since most of the good land around the Shanghai county town was transferred to the concession for countries such as Britain, France and the United States, most of the remaining good land was occupied by powerful people. Considering economic and defense factors, Li Weiguo finally chose to go to Jiangwan area (now Wujiaochang), which is moderate from Baoshan Military Camp and Shanghai county town, which meets the requirements. However, most of the good land in Jiangwan area was also occupied by powerful people. Li Weiguo finally bought 5,000 acres of land by the Huangpu River to build factories, which temporarily met the construction needs of the first batch of factories.

As for how to buy good land from these powerful people at a low price in the future and expand the industrial zone, Li Weiguo already had an idea in his mind, but the time has not come and it is not convenient to implement it.

Standing on the riverside post, Li Weiguo looked at the entire industrial area through a telescope.

The locations of all factories are divided according to heavy industry, light industry, and pollution levels. For this reason, Li Weiguo specially studied the monsoon climate in Shanghai. In the future, workers' dormitories will be in the upper wind direction and away from high-pollution industrial areas.

The most important thing in heavy industry is the steel plant. This is a project that Li Weiguo focused on explaining. It requires priority construction and strives to be completed and put into production within the year.

The reason why it can be put into production and use within the year is thanks to the small scale of steel mills in this era. The blast furnaces for steelmaking are small in scale, small in output, and very simple in technical equipment. Combined with these factors, the largest steelmaking furnace in this era is only 3 tons, and the largest ironmaking furnace does not exceed 15 tons. Compared with the steelmaking blast furnace that often exceeds 10,000 tons in the 20th century, it is simply weak. Because of the simple construction technology, it can be completed within the year. The steel produced will be used to support subsequent military industries, mechanical processing industries, such as the manufacturing of guns, guns, and ships.

The steel mill includes 5 2-ton steelmaking furnaces, 3 3-ton steelmaking furnaces and 1 1-ton steelmaking furnace. After completion, it is expected that 19 tons of ordinary steel and 1 ton of high-fine steel can be produced every day. The steelmaking method of smelting in this era is a flat furnace, which is a steelmaking method that uses gas or heavy oil as fuel, and melts raw materials such as pig iron and scrap steel into liquid steel under the state of direct heating of the combustion flame.

To this end, Li Weiguo also added a gas factory to the first batch of procurement equipment list. In addition to steelmaking, it is also used for urban lighting. This is because there were no electric lights in this era, and gas lights were modern lighting systems.

In addition to the steel mill, there are 20 iron mills, all of which are 10-ton iron furnaces. After completion, they will produce 200 tons of pig iron per day.

Although the total output of the steel plant is only 220 tons, it will be enough for the steel demand of the entire Qing Dynasty in the next five to ten years. Li Weiguo is very clear that he is just starting now, and his steel base will exceed that of European and American countries in the future, and it is possible to produce tens of thousands of tons per day. All he needs to do is to proceed step by step.

In addition to steel plants in heavy industry, cement plants are the priority development of Li Weiguo.

You should know that the cement industry in the world has just started and was invented in 1824. It has not been widely popularized around the world. It is mainly because the cement cost is high and the civilian class cannot afford it. The power of firearms in this era does not allow all parties to spend a lot of effort to use cement to create fortifications (civil structures are sufficient), so although cement has appeared, it has not been taken seriously.

However, Li Weiguo valued cement the most. Because Li Weiguo regarded Shanghai as his old nest, and Shanghai was flat and the terrain was only about 90 meters high. Once a war broke out, it would be very disadvantageous if there was no solid fortification. So Li Weiguo thought of cement. The cement equipment he ordered could produce 200 tons per day. He would use cement and steel bars to reinforce the Shanghai county town. In the future, the buildings in the city will be built with steel cement. There is only one reason. If one day foreign enemies invade and Li Weiguo cannot defend the defense line around Shanghai, the Shanghai county town will become Stalingrad, which is also Li Weiguo's last line of defense.

Of course, Li Weiguo would not explain this kind of thing to anyone. He only said that the cement factory was to prevent the common people from worrying about being blown away by a typhoon like wooden houses, and the built dams were not worried about being washed away by floods.

The last project of the first batch of heavy industry was the fertilizer plant. On the surface, this project was a people-friendly project introduced by Li Weiguo to increase farmland output. In fact, only Li Weiguo knew that his ultimate goal of introducing fertilizer plants could never leave the military industry.

Li Weiguo knew that many by-products will be produced in the fertilizer production process, one of which can obtain ammonium nitrate. This is a high-performance explosives and will play a huge role in Li Weiguo's military industry.

Of course, this is also a choice that Li Weiguo had no choice. After all, the synthetic ammonia industry has not been invented yet. Although Li Weiguo knows the principle of synthetic ammonia and gives him enough time to deduce it, it takes time after all. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is imminent, so Li Weiguo can only use a fertilizer factory to respond to the emergency and wait until he has time to tinker with the synthetic ammonia industry.

There is also a match factory related to the military industry. Although matches are not gunpowder, they involve the processing and production of potassium chlorate and sulfur. They only need nitrification, and it is easy to obtain the raw materials and sulfur of gunpowder.

Of course, Li Weiguo formulated the plan to hide military industries in these civil industries a year ago. At that time, he was worried that the court would discover the direct introduction of military industries and cause trouble, so he carried out secretly. Now, with the court promulgating the regiment training decree, local officials can recruit troops by themselves, so it won’t take long for local officials to set up their own military factories and then the ban was lifted.

Therefore, at this moment, Li Weiguo no longer needs to transfer these civil industries to military purposes, so the match factory specializes in producing matches.

The first batch of equipment that arrived also included textile factories, printing factories, paper mills, tap water plants, etc. It is not difficult to see Li Weiguo's intention. Textile factories are easy to understand. Textile cloth wool mainly supplies various military supplies such as Li Jiajun's clothes, quilts, and pantyhose. If there is a surplus, it will be sold to the public.

Printing factories and paper mills are convenient services on the surface, but in fact they will become Li Weiguo's secret factory forgery-making. In the future, the banknotes forged by Li Weiguo from various countries will go from here to all parts of the world.

As for the tap water plant, Li Weiguo felt the helplessness and concern of the Chinese people to drink rivers and lakes directly. You should know that in this era of underdeveloped medical care, the disease comes from the mouth, and the parasites in the drinking water are the culprit. Think about it, the average life expectancy of Chinese people is less than 30 years old.

Therefore, Li Weiguo included the tap water project in the first batch of mechanical equipment procurement list, and it was also a priority for construction. He first asked Shanghai people to drink clean tap water. Then, as Li Weiguo's strength continues to grow, as his territory continues to expand, the whole Chinese people should drink clean tap water from Jiankang.

At this time, Shen Ziyan accidentally picked up the telescope and looked at the construction site in the distance like Li Weiguo. She actually saw the workers working sweating profusely, and she screamed in shock.

"Hey, I actually saw it!"

Li Weiguo's thoughts were interrupted by Shen Ziyan's throat. When he saw Shen Ziyan holding the telescope and excited, he immediately smiled and said, "Are you just myopia? This telescope is like a myopia mirror, and you can naturally see it with the help of it."

Shen Ziyan immediately said, "Then give me this telescope, so that if you do things in Chongming, I can see you in Jinling."

"Add..."

Li Weiguo rolled his eyes, but smiled and said, "This telescope is not enough. In the future, I will give you a big one so that you can see the scenery thousands of miles away."

Shen Ziyan tilted her head and looked at Li Weiguo Road: "I am not interested in seeing the scenery thousands of miles away, as long as I can see you every day."

Li Weiguo's heart moved for a moment, and was moved once, so he smiled and said, "I forgot if you don't say it. It's not convenient for you to do things with a high degree of myopia. I'll take you to wear a pair of myopia glasses."

Shen Ziyan shook her head and said, "I don't want it. It's so ugly. Didn't I see my accountant with those broken eyes? Wouldn't this lady be so ugly with that thing?"

Li Weiguo smiled bitterly and had to coax her and said, "Your accountant is wearing reading glasses. I want to give you myopia glasses. Don't worry, you will be more beautiful after putting on myopia glasses. I like the four-eyed girl."

"What is the four-eyed girl?"

“…”
Chapter completed!