Chapter 259： Cost issue

"Hahaha, messenger Mao, it is her blessing to ask me to say that Empress Xiaozhuangwen can marry our general. You don't know how many beautiful women in Jiangnan want to marry our general without a chance."

Liu Hansan smiled and jokingly said that Mao Wenci's face was flushed, and he was obviously already outraged. If this wasn't for the physique of both parties at the same level, maybe Mao Wenci would have to do it.

The civil servants among Wu Jun were rather restrained, and did not fall into the stone to taunt.

However, they no longer talk about peace talks, because Wu Changqing's attitude is already obvious, that is, no peace talks.

As long as there is a little willingness to negotiate, it is impossible to put forward such outrageous conditions.

Of course, this is what they think in their hearts, but some people don't think so.

Xue Guiren's mind at this time has reached the point of how to catch Empress Xiaozhuangwen alive. Perhaps others think Wu Changqing is deliberately making things difficult for Mao Wenci, but he doesn't think so.

In his opinion, if Wu Changqing didn't really like Empress Xiaozhuangwen, how could he have to make this request, directly asking for ten million taels of silver, or asking Dorgon to apologize for himself?

Since Wu Changqing made this request, at least it shows that in Wu Changqing's eyes, Empress Xiaozhuangwen is worth this price, and Wu Changqing can get it at the price of peace talks.

He thought he had understood Wu Changqing's thoughts and found a shortcut to promotion, which was to capture Empress Xiaozhuang Wen alive.

Of course, this difficulty is beyond the horizon, and he has no clue. The only thing that can be done is to find a way to be the vanguard when attacking Beijing in the future.

In the ridicule of everyone, Mao Wenci temporarily withdrew from the Governor's Mansion.

However, he did not leave Nanjing immediately, he still wanted to make one last effort.

For example, you can go to see Hong Chengchou, use Hong Chengchou's family in Beijing as a bargaining chip, let Hong Chengchou go to Wu Changqing to talk about peace.

Or go to Man Dahai and persuade him to do something for the Qing court. Or to find other powerful officials to send money to beautiful women...

In short, even if hope is slim, he has to give it a try.

In fact, none of this works. He has to stay in Nanjing for a few days, take a good stroll around Nanjing, and inquire about the most real information in Nanjing.

The next day, Mao Wenci began to act.

Unfortunately, he encountered setbacks in the first step, and Hong Chengchou did not meet him at all.

One is to avoid suspicion, and the other is that Hong Chengchou is really busy now, and there are many important things he needs to worry about.

For example, the problem of rising costs in steel plants.

Because of the expansion of the steel plant, the iron ore and coal that the surrounding area can provide can no longer meet the needs of the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant. After all, there are no large-scale minerals around Nanjing.

To meet production capacity, Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant must purchase iron ore and coal from other places, which will inevitably lead to increased costs.

Moreover, the increase is more than just a little bit. When purchasing iron ore and coal from other places, the manufacturing cost of its steel has increased by at least 50%.

The transportation conditions during this period were simple and the transportation cost was extremely high.

Fortunately, it is still possible to rely on relatively cheap water transportation next to the Yangtze River. If it is all land transportation, then the cost will have to be doubled.

One of the most important reasons why the Industrial Revolution took the lead in the UK is that the UK is rich in coal and iron ore. This allows them to use machines on a large scale. The cost of coal is relatively low, and the cost of steelmaking is also very low. The steel produced by them is competitive in the international market.

Cost is the biggest problem. The so-called industrial revolution is actually a revolution to reduce costs. The textile industry has existed as early as one or two thousand years ago, but it has not been able to develop because of the inability to reduce its costs.

Until the emergence of Jenny Textile Machine, the emergence of factories made it possible for mass production.

Today, Hong Chengchou has two plans. One is to lay the railway, and the other is to build a new factory in another place.

Ma'anshan, not far from Nanjing, is rich in iron ore. Setting up a steel branch in Ma'anshan at least saves the cost of transportation of iron ore.

As for coal, there is no good way. There is a shortage of coal in the entire south. China's coal mines are all in the north and northwest.

In the south, only Panzhihua and Pingxiang in Jiangxi have large coal mines. Unfortunately, they are too far away from Ma'anshan. It is better to use coal from the north.

The closest large coal-producing area to Ma'anshan is Huainan, Anhui, where there is a large amount of coal that can be transported to Ma'anshan through the Huai River, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the Yangtze River.

In short, the cost of setting up a new factory in Maanshan can be reduced by 20 to 30%. When the output becomes larger and the time accumulates, the cost of the two to thirty percent is also very considerable.

Another option is to lay the Maanshan-Nanjing section of the railway so that the iron ore from Maanshan can be transported to Nanjing very cheaply.

However, this scheme is very risky, because now no one knows when a practical locomotive will be invented.

Although the steam engine project team has been studying and improving day and night, the current progress does not seem to be particularly smooth.

Hong Chengchou couldn't understand the pressure problems of high-pressure boilers. He only knows that this project is relatively unspecified.

If it has not been researched, the steel plant can only use iron ore shipped at high freight.

Another point is that the initial investment in laying the railway is also very large. At present, there are a lot of places in Nanjing where money is needed, and there is no money to lay the railroad tracks.

After comprehensive consideration, Hong Chengchou wrote a zhezi and wrote his own analysis and opinions on the zhezi, hoping that all subsequent steel plants will be built in Ma'anshan.

Wu Changqing simply read the Zhezi and approved the proposal. After all, he vaguely remembered that there would be a very famous steel plant in Ma'anshan in later generations, which shows that it is a very correct choice to build a steel plant in Ma'anshan.

Because the iron ore reserves in Ma'anshan have reached 1.6 billion tons, and the mineable volume has reached one billion tons.

In this era, this number is very scary, almost supplying the world for decades.

Moreover, as Wu Changqing lived in Nanjing for a long time, he did not want those polluting factories to be built near Nanjing.

Now that it has just started, the workers here are rich in resources, and there is no other way but to allow those factories to be built here. When conditions become available in the future, these high-polluting factories have to be moved to other places.

The pollution problem caused by the first industrial revolution is also a very serious problem. Historically, London was called the city of fog. Because too much coal was used, the entire London atmosphere was polluted.

Later, after decades of governance, this environmental problem was solved.

For many long-term considerations, building a steel plant in Maanshan is the best option. The address of the latest chapter of the aircraft carrier I built in Daming: https://www.novelhall.com/book/149212.htmlI built the full text of the aircraft carrier in Daming to read the address: https://www.novelhall.com/read/149212/I built the aircraft carrier txt download address in Daming: https://www.novelhall.com/down/149212.htmlI read it on the mobile phone built by Daming: https://m.novelhall.com/read/149212/In order to facilitate the next reading, you can click \"Favorites\" below to record this reading (Chapter 259 Cost Issues) and open it next time You can see it on the bookshelf! If you like "I Build an Aircraft Carrier in Daming", please recommend this book to your friends (QQ, blog, WeChat, etc.) ,Thank you for your support! ! (www.novelhall.com)