Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 71: Coal Yard Expansion, Talking about Honeycomb Coal [Seeking Follow-up Reading]

Chunhua Town belongs to Jiangning County, southeast of the capital.

Liu Kuan and his party walked out of the city for nearly twenty miles before reaching Qinglong Mountain.

In later generations, the Qinglongshan coal mine was fully mined and closed for more than half a century.

Today, there is only one government-run coal yard in Qinglong Mountain, and there are less than ten mines, both old and new, combined.

It is impossible to verify when small-scale mining of Qinglongshan Coal Mine began.

However, as far as Liu Kuan knows, the Chinese ancestors began using coal as early as three thousand years ago.

The use of coal to smelt iron was also practiced as early as the Western Han Dynasty.

However, natural coal has many disadvantages as a fuel compared to firewood, and even more disadvantages when used for iron smelting compared to charcoal.

Natural coal is not easy to burn completely and produces a lot of smoke, which is also "toxic". In addition, it contains elements such as sulfur, which makes the iron smelted from coal very brittle and of far inferior quality to iron smelted from charcoal.

Therefore, although the use of coal to smelt iron existed in the Western Han Dynasty, it was not mainstream.

And for a long time afterwards, the main raw material for smelting was charcoal.

By the Tang Dynasty, due to over-exploitation, large areas of forests in the Guanzhong region had disappeared. Not to mention charcoal for iron smelting, even the firewood needed for people's lives became difficult to find.

People then turned their attention to coal, trying to use it to replace firewood and charcoal.

By the Northern Song Dynasty, after generations of accumulated experience, people had figured out coal coking technology.

However, the development and spread of ancient technology were very slow. Even if a relatively mature coking technology was born, it was common for it to be lost in wars.

Therefore, after the Southern Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, by this time (early Ming Dynasty), although coal coking technology was known to people, it was still not popular.

In addition, coking technology is still under development, and the quality of iron produced by modern coking coal is still not comparable to that of iron produced by charcoal.

In the north, where there is a shortage of firewood and charcoal, people may choose to use coking coal to smelt iron, but in the south, charcoal is still mostly used to smelt iron.

The Ming Dynasty previously required that iron for its military needs be smelted with charcoal - this was the reason why the Liuhe Ironworks previously only used charcoal to smelt iron.

Historically, it was not until the middle and late Ming Dynasty that the coking technology in this land became truly mature and popular, and was recorded in many works such as "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature" and "A Brief Knowledge of Physics".

However, now that Liu Kuan has arrived, the history of coal use in this land will be rewritten and it will embark on another path...

Qinglongshan coal yard.

When Yu Xian, the person in charge, heard that Liu Kuan was coming to inspect, he led all the officials from the coal yard to greet him outside the yard.

Compared with Liuhe Iron Yard, there are far fewer officials in Qinglongshan Coal Yard.

Before Yu Xian arrived, there was not even a single official here, only one clerk and several miscellaneous clerks.

Then came dozens of craftsmen, hundreds of forced laborers, and a hundred garrison soldiers sent from a nearby garrison to guard the forced laborers.

"Vice-officer Liu, this is Hong Mingyi—before I came here, he was in charge of all matters at the Qinglong coal yard."

After the meeting, Yu Xian introduced the only clerk in the coal yard.

The man looked to be in his fifties. Perhaps because he had spent too long in the coal yard, his skin color was rather dark, and coupled with his short and thin build, he looked more like an old miner.

At this moment, he bowed to Liu Kuan with an apologetic smile and said, "I greet Vice-Minister Liu!"

Liu Kuan returned the greeting with a bow and said, "It's getting late, so I won't beat around the bush. I came here mainly to see how the Qinglongshan Coal Yard reform is progressing."

Yu Xian nodded, "I understand."

Then he didn't say anything more and led the way with Hong Mingyi, taking Liu Kuan and his group into the coal yard.

When Liu Kuan sent Yu Xian over, he handed him the process data he had copied from his computer about coal preparation, washing, drying, and storage. Although coal was roughly processed in the early Ming Dynasty, and the process was not much different from that of later times, its technology was far less mature than that of later times.

In fact, before Yu Xian arrived, the coal processing at Qinglongshan Coal Yard was still very rough. Both the coal yard and the coal mine almost all used manpower for production, and there were even two or three mines with serious safety hazards.

Yu Xian first eliminated the safety hazards in the mine according to Liu Kuan's requirements, and later improved the coal processing technology in the coal yard according to the information provided by Liu Kuan - mainly by introducing several types of hydraulic machinery and rearranging the work of relevant craftsmen and laborers.

Yu Xian was initially dissatisfied with being assigned to the coal yard to be in charge of the coal project team, and thought that Liu Kuan was deliberately suppressing him.

However, when he followed Liu Kuan's instructions and made various reforms to the Qinglongshan Coal Yard based on the information Liu Kuan provided, which greatly increased the coal production in the yard, he gained an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.

Therefore, when he led Liu Kuan to inspect the coal yard today, he appeared confident and enthusiastic.

"The Qinglongshan Coal Yard was originally built beside this small river, relying on the river to transport coal. This made it convenient for them to build the several types of hydraulic machinery mentioned in Fulang's materials."

"Coupled with improvements to several other processes, the coal yard's daily coal output is now ten times greater than before!"

"And the quality of the coal we're getting is significantly better than before—it's a shame this coal yard only supplies the palace and some government offices in the capital. If we could sell it to the public, we'd definitely make a lot of profit."

In the early Ming Dynasty, many government-run factories produced products exclusively for the palace, the army or other government offices - that is why they were called government-run rather than government-operated.

In Liu Kuan's opinion, this is very rigid.

One of the purposes of his visit to Qinglong Mountain this time was to prepare for the transformation of the coal yard from government-run to government-operated.

Although state-run enterprises have various shortcomings, they are always profitable and are definitely better than the government-run exclusive supply system.

Under Yu Xian's leadership, Liu Kuan spent more than an hour inspecting the Qinglongshan coal yard and its subordinate coal mines.

Seeing that the coal yard and coal mine were indeed doing quite well as Yu Xian had reported in the official document, Liu Kuan did not hesitate to offer his encouragement.

"Master Yu has worked incredibly hard over the past period of time. The Qinglongshan Coal Mine renovation has been quite successful. I'll commend Master Yu for this upon my return."

Yu Xian was delighted when he heard this, but he said modestly, "I was only following the Deputy Minister's orders and I dare not take any credit for it."

"Being able to do things according to instructions is a meritorious service." Liu Kuan affirmed, then changed the subject and said, "However, we still need to stay in Qinglong Mountain for a while to supervise the production of honeycomb coal and coal stoves."

"Honeycomb coal?" Yu Xian looked puzzled.

Liu Kuan said: "Honeycomb coal is a finished fuel made mainly of coal mud. It produces little or no smoke when burned. If used in a coal stove, it can burn for a long time and is enough to replace firewood."

Upon hearing this, Yu Xian's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly, "If this honeycomb coal really has the effect that Deputy Liu said, it will benefit thousands of households!"

People often say that among firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, firewood is ranked first because many things in life cannot be separated from fire, and to make fire, you need firewood.

However, when there are more people in a place, it becomes difficult to use firewood.

Although the capital was located in the south of the Yangtze River, when the population reached more than 700,000, it became difficult for the people in the city to get firewood.

In order to ensure that there was enough firewood for the palace, various government offices and the people of the capital, Zhu Yuanzhang even set up a special government office and a place to store firewood.

The coal produced in Qinglong Mountain before was mostly supplied to the palace and various government offices in the capital - because coal was not as good as firewood, the demand was not that great.

But if the honeycomb coal that Liu Kuan mentioned can really be produced, the demand for coal will inevitably increase greatly, and the status of the Qinglongshan Coal Yard will also rise sharply!

After calming down a bit, Yu Xian couldn't help but worry again and asked, "Liu Fulang, is this honeycomb coal difficult to make? What's the cost?"

　Sorry, the second update is late.

　　I didn't notice the cooler weather, and I caught a cold from using the air conditioner, and my head is feeling dizzy.

　　Everyone should take this as a warning, pay attention to weather changes, and don't catch a cold.

　　Good night~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)