Chapter 354 Luxembourg Steel Center (please vote at the end of the month)
The reason why Catherine II had such a strategic plan was by no means a whim.
The basis of everything is of course the ability that France has demonstrated in the past two years. Whether it is the royal family's control of power or the profound strategies displayed in North Africa and the Low Countries, she believes that this is the best partner for cooperation.
However, Russia's former ally Austria has fallen into the chaos caused by the reform, and its national strength has been deteriorating.
In particular, her failure to suppress the Brabant uprising and the bitter fighting in Silesia made her very disappointed with Austria.
Although Prussia, another German power, signed a secret treaty with Russia to carve up Poland, it was limited to dealing with Poland.
Prussia now wears the same pants as the British. On major issues involving the European order, they will definitely give priority to British opinions.
Moreover, Prussia's troops are currently stuck in Silesia, and who knows when they will be able to get out.
In addition, there was another important consideration when Catherine II planned to join forces with France.
Compared with Russia's goals-Sweden, Poland, and the Black Sea coast, the European powers paid more attention to France's goals-the Low Countries and the Rhine River Basin.
The lowlands were British territory, and the Rhine was Germany's traditional sphere of influence. If France really takes action in these two places, then the entire European attention will immediately fall on him.
Then Russia can take advantage of the opportunity to feast without worrying about the opinions of other powers.
Of course, if France can really take the Rhine against the pressure of the entire Europe, Catherine II will not mind cooperating in sending troops. Perhaps under their attack, even Austria can be swallowed up!
Early the next morning, diplomats placed the plan submitted by Count Stroganov on the further development of trade between Russia and France on Queen Mary's desk.
Queen Mary opened the document helplessly, and after reading a few pages, she began to frown - she was really not very good at this.
She was about to call Archbishop Brian, but suddenly she remembered that the Crown Prince seemed to be very good at this matter.
Didn't Joseph also open a trading company with the Russian Count Bobulinsky? It is said that the business is very good, and the trade volume between France and Russia has increased several times.
Thinking of this, she summoned her maid and ordered the latter to send the trade plan to the Crown Prince for processing.
…
Luxembourg.
On the open land not far from the giant open-pit iron mine "Iron Sea", several giant tower-like iron-making blast furnaces are under intense construction.
Viscount Olivier, the owner of Hilke Steel Company, stood on a hillside and watched his new ironworks taking shape in a comfortable mood.
He spent less than 40,000 livres to acquire a large-scale iron-making workshop in Luxembourg, with more than 700 skilled workers.
Then he started expansion and technological innovation.
Right next to the old iron-making blast furnace he acquired, craftsmen were using refractory bricks to build two square buildings the size of ordinary houses.
The two buildings are almost completely airtight, and are only connected by two thick pipes that are as high as an adult's abdomen, and the ends of the pipes are connected to the blast furnace.
Next to each square building is a high-pressure steam engine, which blows air into the pipes through a mechanical device.
This is the "hot blast ironmaking" technology that Joseph brought to French ironmaking plants.
In fact, the principle is very simple. Fuel combustion during ironmaking requires a large amount of oxygen. Traditional ironmaking blast furnaces obtain air directly from the outside world, and the temperature of this air is room temperature. After entering the blast furnace, which is thousands of degrees, the furnace temperature will inevitably decrease. The furnace temperature that the blast furnaces of this era could reach was just barely enough to melt the iron in the iron ore, but it was usually only able to burn it into viscous molten iron, which flowed out from the bottom of the blast furnace.
The quality of such molten iron will certainly not be too high. Because the melting is insufficient, impurities will be wrapped inside, and the slag-forming agent cannot be dissolved evenly.
The technology brought by Joseph is to use a "hot air chamber" to heat the air in advance, and then pressurize it and "blow" it into the blast furnace.
This prevents the cold air from lowering the furnace temperature, while the pressurized blast also increases the amount of oxygen for combustion.
This simple measure alone can increase the furnace temperature by nearly 200 degrees.
Coupled with the switch to coke with a higher calorific value, the blast furnaces of French ironworks have been able to completely melt the iron in the iron ore.
The completely fluid molten iron can fully contact with the air and oxidize a large number of harmful impurities such as silicon and sulfur contained in it. At the same time, the impurities are further precipitated by adding slagging agents.
The quality of the molten iron produced in this way can be close to that of crude steel. By adjusting the carbon content at the end of the blast furnace, the iron ingots coming out of the blast furnace hardly need to be put into the crucible for steelmaking, and can meet the requirements of most iron products.
After trial production in the Nancy Industrial Development Zone in France, the iron ingots produced by Vicomte Olivier's iron smelting plant sold for three-quarters of the price of refined steel, and the supply exceeded demand.
He had previously estimated that after the factory built in Luxembourg is fully put into production, the annual output can reach 20 million pounds.
This one factory alone is higher than the total steel output of France last year!
Coupled with the convenience brought by the Seine-Rhine Trade Agreement, his iron ingots and steel products can be smoothly entered into many countries in South Germany for sale. There are no checkpoints or tax officials along the way that were seen everywhere when selling goods to Germany.
This factory in Luxembourg will bring him at least 800,000 livres in revenue next year!
He will become the top rich man in France!
And it all started from the moment he decided to invest and build a factory in Nancy Industrial Development Zone.
He has always told people that it was the best decision he ever made in his life.
Not far away, his old rival Mr. Gregor came over and bowed to him.
"You said that the war will not spread here." Mr. Gregor stopped and looked at the ironworks he invested on the other side and said with some worry, "I invested most of my wealth in Luxembourg. "
Viscount Olivier smiled: "You should have heard that the government has started building a wooden track from Luxembourg to Verdun.
"The government will not make such a large investment if it is not certain."
"You're right. Oh, Mr. Gregor is here too." The general manager of the Wilhauri Steel Plant appeared out of nowhere, saluted the two of them, and continued, "And I heard that this The second thing to build is not wooden tracks, but iron tracks.”
"God, how much will that cost?!" Viscount Olivier was halfway through speaking when he suddenly paused. Yes, this is Luxembourg. There is nothing else, but there is as much iron as you need. The price won't be too expensive.
His eyes immediately lit up. If the government wanted to build iron tracks, it would definitely purchase large quantities of iron ingots from its own ironworks!
Or, you should mortgage your property in Nancy and take out loans to expand more iron-making blast furnaces in Luxembourg...
That's exactly what Joseph's plan was trying to accomplish.
Using Luxembourg's low-priced iron, we will launch a trial production of rails, train track-laying craftsmen, and at the same time significantly increase the sales of iron smelting plants, thereby further reducing their costs.
(End of chapter)