Chapter 241: , Steel and economic warfare

Lucien's defense was understood and supported by Joseph to a certain extent, but he could not escape the punishment of Joseph and Napoleon. The reason is, of course, "there is no respect."
"Why don't you discuss such a big matter with us first? You said, are you bold and arrogant? Or are you too arrogant that you have lost your correct judgment? Well, you choose one of these two judgments... …"
"Joseph, I..." Lucien turned pale.
"Joseph, Mr. Lavoisier asked someone to bring something over." Fanny suddenly opened the door and walked in.
Joseph frowned, but first let go of Lucien's affairs. After all, Lavoisier suddenly sent something over, which must be very important. "Could it be..." Joseph's heart jumped.
"What is it?" Joseph asked.
"Right here, look for yourself." Fanny took out the hand behind her back, and a small shiny steel ingot appeared in front of Joseph.
Joseph took the small steel ingot, looked at it carefully, and took a paper knife from the table and scratched it. After confirming that it was indeed steel and not wrought iron, he became more excited.
"Fortunately for you today," Joseph turned his head and said to Lucien, "I have something to care about you bastard. You go find Napoleon."
In fact, since several brothers have acted on their own, Joseph has rarely really used "family law" to punish them.
After Lucien was blasted away, Joseph immediately arranged a carriage and hurried to Lorraine.
Three months ago, Lavoisier completed an experiment in which hot air was blown into the converter in a laboratory near Paris, and successfully trained a furnace of steel. Although the quality of the furnace steel is not particularly ideal, especially at low temperatures. But in any case, this thing is also steel, no matter what, it is much stronger than copper and iron.
Joseph knew that harmony was still a matter of the phosphorus and sulfur content in steel. The phosphorus content of the iron ore in Lorraine is still too high, even if the steelmaking furnace made of alkaline refractory bricks is used, the phosphorus cannot be removed. Of course, if you give more time, do more experiments, adjust the slagging raw materials and process flow, you can further improve the quality of steel, but...
"We can't wait any longer. We are consuming too much funds now. Now we urgently need products that can quickly recover funds. Moreover, as long as it is not used under extreme conditions, isn't the steel itself enough?" After receiving the news of the initial success of the experiment, he immediately terminated the subsequent experiment funding, but requested that the existing technology be commercialized immediately and a real, commercial steelmaking plant should be established immediately.
Lavoisier also agrees with this decision, because it means that the project has begun to make money, and he can get his own manor. Therefore, he is even more anxious than Joseph when it comes to the rapid industrialization of steelmaking technology.
So Lavoisier personally ran to Lorraine and oversaw the construction of the first modern steel plant there.
Obviously, the faster the steel plant is built and put into production, the greater the benefits for the military-industrial complex. So for the sake of speed, many things were difficult to take into account, and as a result, the steel plant was built just one month later. And this is still the reason why Joseph boasted to Napoleon that he could immediately produce a lot of steel and steel artillery.
But as the so-called haste is not enough, too anxious to catch up with the deadline, the result has caused a series of problems. A major accident occurred when the steelmaking furnace was operated for the first time. The operating steelmaking converter collapsed due to construction defects and caused a fire.
The military-industrial complex suffered considerable losses in this fire. In this fire, hundreds of workers and more than a dozen engineers died. If they didn't feel sick and went to the toilet, Lavoisier himself almost confessed in it. Of course, as long as there is nothing wrong with Lavoisier, some workers are dead, and some of Lavoisier's assistants and so on. It's not a big deal.
But in the fire, all facilities of the steel plant were basically burned down. This makes a month's time almost completely wasted. In the eyes of the big figures in the military-industrial complex, this is the real biggest loss.
Because the reconstruction took a lot of time, the factory did not start trial operation until recently. And Joseph especially imposed a ban on Lavoisier, prohibiting him from entering the factory during the trial operation. Of course, the accident that happened last time completely dispelled Joseph's idea of ​​personally presiding over the formal commissioning of the steel plant.
It is precisely because of these things that the steel mill has been delayed until not long ago before starting trial production. Prior to this, the iron-making blast furnaces established had been in operation for several months. Some supporting factories also stopped there waiting for steel. And every minute of waiting means a huge waste.
Joseph arrived in Lorraine four days later. Once in Lorraine, he immediately went to Lavoisier.
"How is the situation now, what is the daily output?"
"It's almost as expected." Lavoisier said, "If nothing happens, we can produce about 10 tons per day, which is 3,650 tons of steel a year. But you know this is impossible because of various settings It’s impossible to keep running for a year. It’s inevitable to stop work for maintenance, but even so, this factory can produce about 3,000 tons of steel a year."
"It's still not enough, not enough." Unlike Lavoisier, in Joseph's eyes, a steel plant with an annual output of only about 3,000 tons is still too small. You know that in his previous life... and now there are still too many places where steel is needed.
Joseph did not come here to see for himself how molten steel is poured out of the steelmaking furnace. After the fire, he didn't plan to go to the steel factory at all-even if the danger of fire is not mentioned, high temperature, noise and exhaust gas pollution will cause great harm to human health.
People in this age don't know the harm of these things, but Joseph does. But even if he knew, he didn't take many measures to prevent it. Some of these are technical problems, such as the treatment of waste gas and wastewater. In this era, there is indeed no such technology, and even the scientific theory foundation required to develop such a technology is not available.
Of course, fortunately, in this era, theories about all kinds of pollution harming human health have not yet appeared. Even the basis for the emergence of these theories, whether it is a sociological basis or a natural science basis, has not yet appeared. Therefore, Joseph can completely assume that he does not know, and is free to pollute when he wants to pollute.
Of course, there are some preventive measures that can be achieved even with the technology of this era. For example, masks that block dust, earplugs for hearing protection, etc. But doing so will increase the cost. If it is for some valuable skilled workers or something, if it is only for the general, you can hire a worker on the street at any time, and they are all ready to put on such a whole set of things. From an economic point of view, it is really unnecessary. Of course, there are masks and earplugs for sale near the factory.
There are also various safety trainings, which are indeed essential. If this is missing, the honey juice operation of some workers may damage precious machinery and equipment. However, too much training content will also increase costs. Therefore, only the more advanced workers who have the opportunity to break the machine and who are relatively stable in the factory can be trained. The main content of the safety training they receive is first of all how to protect the machine.
As for the general hard work such as dragging the trolley, although there are many risks in their work. But considering that they are completely free workers, they are in this factory today, and maybe they will go to that factory tomorrow, so even if they are given safety training, it will be a waste of cost. Therefore, these people do not need any safety training.
Joseph came here, first of all, to see that the factory can operate effectively and that the products can be produced with quality and quantity. Then according to his plan, it was used in urgently needed places.
The most urgent need for steel is all kinds of machinery. Nowadays, many moving parts of machinery are made of cast iron. For example, the crankshaft of the steam engine, as well as the transmission parts of the weaving machine and the water pump are all made of cast iron. The strength of cast iron is far lower than that of steel, so it is used to make moving parts under stress. If the parts are not thick enough, problems such as breakage will easily occur, and if they are thick enough, they will be too bulky. , And make the mechanical efficiency drop. If you change to something made of steel, there will be a huge increase in reliability and efficiency.
However, the output of steel is quite limited. Taking into account the speed of cost recovery, Joseph decided to use them first in steam engines and ore crushers. Then there are farm tools, and then all kinds of civilian things that can make money. As for the steel cannons and guns that Joseph promised to Napoleon, he made one or two seven or eight outlays, and then set up a military technology exposition to frighten foreign governments. By the way, foreign governments, of course, are mainly not causing direct damage to France. It is enough to get enough money from the threatening foreign government.
"The days when the British relied on steam engines and textiles to make big money easily in Europe will soon be over." After confirming that steelmaking has reached the point of mass production, he said to Napoleon, " It’s time for us to start preparing for an economic counterattack against Britain."
"Then how are you going to fight back against the British?" Napoleon said. "Once we get the upper hand in the steam engine and textiles, the British will immediately tear up the contract, and you guys refuse to immediately apply the latest technology to the army. . At that time, how do you fight back against the British?"
"You, Napoleon, financially, you still have a lot of lessons to make up." Joseph said disdainfully. "I ask you, in the previous period of time, the business was very good, so what kind of social situation will happen?"
"Don't think of me as a fool, I also read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"." Napoleon said, "If such a phenomenon occurs, it will naturally have more resources to invest in this industry, and then steam engine manufacturers , And there will be more and more textile factories, more and more people will participate in this industry, and more and more people will invest in this industry. Then the supply increases, the price will naturally fall, then the industry will not be so profitable, and then the capital Will gradually leave this industry..."
"What do you say so much for?" Joseph said, "I said so much, but didn't get to the point at all."
"Then you tell me." Napoleon said.
"We first give up steam engine manufacturing and textile industries," Joseph said. "Let these two industries become the most important source of income in the UK. Then we will gradually eliminate their other industries. This way we will account for other industries. Advantages, if they do not have a big deficit, they must increase their dependence on steam engine manufacturing and the textile industry.
Under such circumstances, the situation will gradually become that they can only rely on these two industries, and all their economies are pressured on these two industries. During this period, those of insight in Britain will surely discover the danger in this. They will definitely scream and try to prevent this situation from happening. These people will try to break the trade agreement with us, but what will those who are making money through steam engines and the textile industry do? "
Napoleon laughed: "Joseph ~EbookFREE.me~ This is really a shameless conspiracy full of your taste. How can those who can earn money tolerate their destruction of their own money? Machiavelli said However, a person can easily forget who killed his parents, but he will never forget who deprived him of his wealth. In your words, it is:'Block the way for others to get rich and bring Hate is better than killing their parents.'
And those who can make a fortune through these two things are definitely people with status and power. Where is their financial path so easy to block, they are about to block, without us, the British themselves will have problems first. But if you don't block it. Once theirs really depends on these two things. Then let's tear up the agreement again, and their economy will be over! "
"Napoleon, why are we tearing up the agreement? We only need to threaten to tear up the agreement from time to time." Joseph said, "Also, do you know why I leave textiles and steam engine manufacturing to them?"
Napoleon thought for a while and went back: "Textiles employ a large number of workers, and once something goes wrong, it will cause large-scale social unrest, and steam engines, as long as we protect the secrets of steelmaking, they must rely on the raw materials we provide. At that time, any turbulence in our relationship will be fatal to them."