Volume 2 Chapter 51 Steel is the foundation of industry
There were indeed many dwarves in the Falling Rain Valley.
After half a year of construction, the new dwarven tribe had taken shape.
Other than most of the dwarves from the Norma and Angola Tribes that moved over, there were many dwarven tribes that chief Siluka and chief Monto knew that had also moved in.
In this new tribe, there was actually a shocking over two thousand dwarves living here. They had almost filled up all the completed parts of the new tribe.
A month ago when chairman Cruise saw all these dwarves moving in, he was so shocked that he couldn’t close his mouth since he had never seen this many dwarves together in his life.
It had to be known that even if all the dwarves in the Lampuri Kingdom were gathered together, it would be less than fifty thousand dwarves. But now there were over two thousand dwarves gathered in a small place like this.
It was no wonder City Lord Sean had specially warned Xu Yi. He wanted him to watch over these dwarves, he couldn’t let anything happen because of them gathering together like this.
Xu Yi actually answered this very naturally. His method of dealing with this was very simple, he would just give all these dwarves some work.
For a frank and honest race like the dwarves, they were satisfied as long as they had food and wine. As long as they accepted the work Xu Yi gave them, not only could they eat their fill, they could also earn a wage which would let them buy good things that improved their quality of life.
Although because of work, Xu Yi had strictly restricted them to not drink, that was only during work times and it didn’t apply when they were off work.
Not to mention that once in a while, Xu Yi had people send over several carriages of wine from the Sachi Manor. They chose a night to hold a banquet and allowed everyone to drink their fill.
This kind of life, to these dwarves that had lived a life of hiding in the mountains, it was a perfect dream that they never dared think of!
Since it was like this, how could they have any thoughts of causing trouble.
On the contrary, they were grateful to Xu Yi who allowed them to have such a good life. Whether it was the Angola or Norma Tribe, or the dwarves that moved in afterwards, they did all they could to finish the work that Xu Yi gave them.
And it was like chairman Cruise’s appraisal. The dwarves were strong, fit, and had more flexible hands than normal people, so they were the perfect workers.
Under the hard work of these dwarves, the Falling Rain Valley quickly developed, almost changing every day.
Before the Falling Rain Road was finished, the dwarves had already flattened the ground of the Falling Rain Valley, preparing to build factories.
After the Falling Rain Road was finished, large amounts of goods were quickly brought in through the Falling Rain Road. The dwarves cooperated with the workers of the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, creating a large change in the Falling Rain Valley in a short period of time.
Compared to when Xu Yi came to the Falling Rain Valley the first time to inspect it, this place had already turned into a large work site.
Other than the remote living areas that the dwarves were still constructing, in a place a bit closer to the Falling Rain Road, there was a giant factory that was slowly rising.
According to Xu YI’s plan, the Falling Rain Valley would be the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s production base.
In the Falling Rain Valley, Xu Yi had arranged a special production workshop for each of the household magic machines.
And each of these workshops, they were all several times bigger than the household magic machine workshop at the Sandton Manor. It was big enough to easily fit several hundred workers at the same time.
When building these workshops, chairman Cruise had expressed his doubts to Xu Yi.
He felt that with the size of the factory the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had in the Sandton Manor, it was enough to produce the household magic machines demanded by Banta City and the surrounding cities. Why would he need to make this many large workshops in the Falling Rain Valley?
Xu Yi knocked down his questions with a single sentence.
“Could it be that our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s goal is just Banta City and the surrounding cities?”
But no matter how many or how big the new factories were, it naturally couldn’t fill up this ten square kilometer wide Falling Rain Valley.
Other than the living area and the light machine production base, in Xu Yi’s plans, what occupied most of the land in the Falling Rain Valley would be the heavy machine production base.
But whether it was for the Sines Continent or the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the so called heavy machines was just in its initial form.
Other than the magic machines made by the magic machine workshop, the only heavy machines under the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s name was in the steel factory at the Norma Tribe.
This steel mill’s current monthly output had just broken six thousand tons, it was far from being able to compare to the smallest steel mill on earth.
As for Xu Yi’s goal of making a steel mill that could supply the entire Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Lampuri Kingdom, it was still a long way off.
Currently the steel mill was mainly refining the Silver Leaf Alloy, which was enough to satisfy the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s need for the Automatic Magic Rice Cooker, the Magic Bread Maker, and the new generation of Magic Air Conditioners.
If they maintained the current output, there was no doubt they couldn’t reach Xu Yi’s goal, they gradually wouldn’t even be able to keep up with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s demand.
So after Xu Yi and chairman Cruise rode into the Falling Rain Valley in their horse carriage, the first thing they saw was a group of dwarves currently holding a large converter that was three meters tall and had a diameter of close to two meters. Then they put a high support onto the converter.
“This thing really is impressive.” It was chairman Cruise’s first time seeing this thing, so he couldn’t help praising it.
“This is still small, you’ll see something even more impressive in the future.” Xu Yi looked down at the inexperienced chairman Cruise in his heart.
Indeed, comparing the converters that weighed over a hundred tons in the large steel mills on earth, Xu Yi relied on his memories and worked with the dwarves to finish this refiner that could refine over ten tons of materials at once. Their capacity for making steel was completely different from before.
But this was the first real converter on the Sines Continent, it represented the steel mills moving away from relying purely one dwarven power to refine steel, so it would greatly increase their capacity for producing steel.
According to Xu Yi’s estimates, if this converter was coordinated with a series of steelmaking equipment, the productivity of this steel mill would increase several times. It was even likely that they could break the realm of producing twenty thousand tons of steel a month.
Moreover this was just the first set of test equipment. Once the equipment was tested and after some changes, the steel mill could invest in several sets of the same equipment and the output of the steel mill would explode.
Thinking of this steel mill sending out large amounts of steel in the future, Xu Yi couldn’t help feeling a bit excited.
The so called machines, no matter how high of a technological level it had, the main structure was still made of steel.
If they couldn’t guarantee a supply of steel, then this industrial system would be like a castle in the sky, it wouldn’t have a foundation at all.
Of the countries on earth, to evaluate their industrial power, the most important data was their steel production.
If a country’s steel production output was at a low level, there was no need to discuss any industrial power.
Thinking of this, Great Magician Camilla’s figure flashed in Xu Yi’s mind.
When researching the steelmaking equipment, Xu Yi and the dwarves encountered an important problem which was how to enhance the speed of refining the iron ores.
If they followed the old methods of the dwarves, using a vertical heating furnace to refine the iron, not mentioning how slow it was, it also took up a large amount of space which didn’t fit the plan for the steel mill.
So Xu Yi took this question to Great Magician Camilla out of habit, but Great Magician Camilla directly looked down on it.
To Great Magician Camilla, the dwarves’ use of coal to raise the temperature of their flames wasn’t good enough to begin with.
With Fire Magic, there were many high level magic spells that could create heat that far surpassed the temperature that burning coal could reach.
After discussing it with Xu Yi, in the end, Great Magician Camilla decided to use a Ninth Grade Magic Spell, the Exploding Flame Spell.
In the furnaces the steel mill used, Great Magic Camilla had personally drawn the Exploding Flame Magic Arrays.
Compared to using coal to stoke the fire, once the Exploding Flame Magic Array was activated, the temperature increased very quickly and the ore was quickly refined. So only a small furnace was needed to match the speed of the converter, greatly increasing the overall efficiency.
The more important thing was that it didn’t require coal to operate the furnace, it only required Magic Crystals.
Compared to coal, Magic Crystals not only had a much lower cost, there also wasn’t any pollution at all.
Thinking of how this was even more convenient than the electric powered furnaces on earth, Xu Yi couldn’t help giving an emotional sigh.
Even if the Sines Continent was lacking in terms of technology compared to earth, with a thing like magic, there were quite a few advantages it had over earth’s developed industrial system.
While Xu Yi was thinking about the significance of this steel mill, chairman Cruise noticed the small mountains of old Magic Fans, Magic Rice Cookers, and Magic Air Conditioners that were in an open space by the steel mill.
“Xu Yi, the reason why your Frestech Chamber of Commerce did that exchange even wasn’t just to take back these old Magic Fans and to resmelt them, right?” Chairman Cruise pointed at the small mountains as he asked this.
“Of course, otherwise why would we take them back?” Xu Yi asked.
Chairman Cruise shook his head, “This is too ineffective. According to your exchange event, just a single old Magic Fan could make up for fifty gold coins, but if you resmelt them, you can only get a few pounds of scrap iron, which isn’t even worth ten gold coins. If you do this, you might as well just buy iron from the Falcao Chamber of Commerce.”
“First, the price of iron ore has increased, so the scrap iron from a Magic Fan is valued at thirty gold coins, so we’re not losing that much.” Xu Yi said with a smile, “Secondly, last year our Frestech Chamber of Commerce used old technology to make these Magic Fans, Magic Air Conditioners, and Magic Rice Cookers, so they only use normal iron and the quality isn’t that good. Taking them back now and turning them into the new generation of Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s products, not only will it solve the problem of quality, it will also affect our Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s fame.”
“Fame?” Chairman Cruise looked at Xu Yi in surprise before saying with a sigh, “Although a fame of a company is important, it doesn’t mean that you have to take it to this step, right?”
“You might not understand if I say fame. Alright, let me tell you, do you understand what is called building a brand?”
“I’m even more confused.” Chairman Cruise immediately shook his head.
“Alright, to put it simply, if there were two Magic Fans in front of you, one is a Frestech Brand Magic Fan and the other is a Magic Fan from another brand. If these two Magic Fans had the same price, which one would you buy?” Xu Yi asked.
“Nonsens, of course I would buy your Frestech Brand Magic Fan. The Magic Fans of the other companies aren’t as good as the Frestech Brand.” Chairman Cruise replied without any hesitation.
“Then what if the other brand’s Magic Fan had a lower price? Which one would you choose?” Xu Yi kept asking.
“That depends on how much lower it is. If it’s lower by a bit, I will definitely choose the Frestech Brand. If it’s quite a bit lower…..” Chairman Cruise hesitated a bit before saying, “I’ll still choose the Frestech Brand. No matter what, I definitely hope that what I buy will be good, otherwise it’ll be a waste of my money.”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Do you understand the use of a brand now?”
Chairman Cruise was stunned as he suddenly understood.
When he looked at Xu Yi again, there was a look of admiration in his eyes.