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.
Chapter 52 Plan
This time Xu Yi and chairman Cruise came to the Falling Rain Valley together, naturally it was to see the current development here.
According to Xu Yi’s plan, the Falling Rain Valley was divided into an industrial area and a living area.
The first wave of construction in the industrial area was a total of thirteen factories. There were also a thousand buildings for the dwarves that had been finished in the living area, but now they were still going to build another three thousand residences.
Of course, these three thousand residences weren’t all for dwarves. They also included residences for the humans who were coming to the Falling Rain Valley for work.
Other than that, the living area couldn’t just be residences, a part of it had to be a business area that satisfied the daily needs of the workers.
To put it simply, this Falling Rain Valley, Xu Yi was planning to but it like a little city from earth.
In order to improve this plan, Xu Yi not only discussed this with chairman Cruise, he also asked Count Sean to find several architects from Anvilmar City to help with this plan.
But these architects were limited by the level of the Sines Continent, there were many aspects where there were conflicts with Xu Yi’s thoughts.
For example, in terms of a sewage system. The architects planned on following the system from the various cities of the Sines Continent, using a single open canal to collect waste which would finally be discharged into the river that ran through the Falling Rain Forest.
Xu Yi insisted on completing an underground sewage system like on earth, so one couldn’t see the sewage from the surface.
The architects truly couldn’t understand this.
First the cost would be too high and second, there really was no need for this.
But after Xu Yi had chairman Cruise explain how they used reinforced concrete to build embankments on the river, the architects understood that the cost wasn’t as high as they thought. Finally they begrudgingly agreed to Xu Yi’s idea.
So the plan for the Falling Rain Valley was decided, combining the specialities of cities from earth and the Sines Continent.
Even if it didn’t follow what Xu Yi wanted, they were limited by the technological level of the Sines Continent, so they could only do this.
This time chairman Cruise came with him mainly to arrange the project of building the roads inside of the Falling Rain Valley.
According to Xu Yi’s plan, all the roads inside Falling Rain Valley had to be at the same standard as the main road and it allowed access to every part of the Falling Rain Valley.
Chairman Cruise had already made a plan for this, but because Xu Yi and those architects had their discussion and made some changes, which also changed the roads, he had personally come with Xu Yi and planned to give some orders to manager Riley who was in charge of the Falling Rain Valley project.
After building the factory on the Stagg Family’s territory, manager Riley was now in charge of all projects between the Amrit Chamber of Commerce and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. Not only was he familiar with Xu Yi, he was now also very familiar with the dwarves of the Falling Rain Valley.
When chairman Cruise found him, he was currently chatting with some dwarves. It seemed like they had quite a good relationship.
After pulling him to the side and discussing their work, chairman Cruise lowered his voice and asked, “How is your relationship with the dwarves right now?”
As chairman Cruise’s trusted aide, naturally manager Riley immediately understood his meaning. After thinking about it, he slightly knit his brows, “Relationship…...It’s not bad. The dwarves aren’t as hard to get along with as the rumours say, but…..Chairman, I urge you to give up the idea of hiring them.”
“Why?” Chairman Cruise was surprised.
“This is because I’ve found that dwarves are very stubborn, they don’t know how to be flexible at all. Not mentioning the dwarves of the Norman and Angola Tribes, they only recognize Xu Yi alone. No matter what I talk to them about, it would always change to how they are grateful to Xu Yi for improving their lives.”
Chairman Cruise was silent for a bit before asking in an unwilling to give up voice, “Even if it’s not possible with the dwarves of the Norma and Angola Tribes, aren’t there still other dwarven tribes? Those dwarves aren’t the same as these two dwarven tribes, they haven’t been with Xu Yi for long. Could it be that they also only recognize Xu Yi?”
“They don’t only recognize Xu Yi, but they only believe their dwarven brothers, who are the dwarves of the Norma and Angola Tribes. This means that they only believe in Xu Yi.” Manager Riley helplessly said.
Chairman Cruise turned to look at the dwarves who seemed to never run out of energy busying themselves in the Falling Rain Valley before turning to look at the distant Xu Yi. After a while, he let out a long sigh.
“Ai, this is as Xu Yi said, you have to seize chances. Now that he has earned the trust of the dwarves ahead of time, I’m afraid it’ll be hard for people to be the same as him in the future, being able to create a good relationship with the dwarves.”
Manager Riley hesitated a bit before reminding him in a low voice, “Chairman, other than the dwarves, there is also the elves……”
Chairman Xu was stunned, but after a while, he suddenly spat out onto the ground.
“Pei! That damn Xu Yi!”
Xu Yi in the distance naturally never thought that chairman Cruise would actually be cursing him from behind. He was currently focused on the two balls of iron in his hands.
Using his hands to compare them, Xu Yi found that the dark red ball of iron in his left hand was heavier than normal iron and the black ball of iron was lighter than normal iron.
“These two are the alloys 29 and 37 you mentioned in your letter last time?” Xu Yi asked chief Siluka in front of him.
“Right, the red one is number 29 and the black one is number 37.” Chief Siluka nodded at the two balls of iron before saying, “Alloy number 29 has very good resistance. We’ve run over five hundred tests on it and there wasn’t a single mark on its surface at all. Alloy number 37 has a very high degree of hardness. I had the strongest brother of the tribe use a large hammer to smash it, but it didn’t leave a single mark.”
“Oh? Then these two are quite useful. Did you record the date related to them?” Xu Yi asked in an interested voice.
“All of it, I guarantee it can be refined at any time.” Chief Siluka said with a nod.
“Then that’s good.” Xu Yi patted chief Siluka’s shoulder with a smile and said, “You can’t stop the research on the steel alloys at all, you have to test every condition. But after the steel mill is complete, the capacity must be adjusted and you can’t just produce the Silver Leaf Alloys. Rather you need to start producing the number 17 alloy that you mentioned last time. Other than that, you need to make some of this number 37 alloy. I think…...a set of armour takes around fifteen kilogram, so for fifty thousand sets…...it would be around seven hundred and fifty tons. Alright, just to be safe, produce a thousand tons in two months.”
“A thousand tons isn’t much, but chairman Xu, to suddenly produce all this armour, did something happen to the Lampuri Kingdom?” Chief Siluka asked in a confused voice.
“Don’t ask me, I don’t know.” Xu Yi shook his head, “But the royal army gave us this order last time, so I can only complete it and can’t reject it.”
“The royal army?” Chief Siluka was even more confused. After looking over Xu Yi, he didn’t ask anything else and just nodded.
When discussing the army, the topic would become very serious. Xu Yi thought about it and changed the topic with a smile, as he began asking chief Siluka about the dwarves living in the new tribe.
Chief Siluka replied with a smile, “This environment is much better than before, the brothers are very happy living here. After the brothers of the other tribes came here, they saw that they weren’t willing to leave and they all wanted to live the rest of their lives here.”
“It’s good that everyone is satisfied. Are there any other requests you have? Just tell me all of them, I will definitely help you do it if I can.” Xu Yi said.
“No need for the trouble.” Chief Siluka shook his head, “We dwarves just want to live peaceful lives. Being able to eat our fill and drink some wine occasionally, we are already very happy, we don’t need anything else. Now that chairman Xu has already given us such a good environment, most of our brothers are very satisfied.”
“Most?” Xu Yi asked in a surprised voice, “Then that means there are some dwarves who aren’t satisfied?”
“This……” Chief Siluka said with an awkward smile, “There are some brothers who aren’t used to trusting humans. They feel that since chairman Xu is being this nice to us dwarves, you must have some plot.”
Xu Yi couldn’t help smiling, “Plot? What benefit is here in plotting against you all? Chief Siluka, help me tell those dwarven brothers that I can see the hidden value in your dwarves, so being nice to you all is to have you all work to death for me. As for other things…..they are just overthinking it.”
Chief Siluka scratched his head and awkwardly said, “Actually I’ve known chairman Xu for a long time and I already know what kind of human you are. But there are some new brothers who just don’t know. It’s nothing, after a while, they will naturally come to believe in you.”
“Alright, I don’t care if you believe in me or not, it’s all good as long as they worked properly.” Xu Yi looked around and noticed chairman Cruise talking to manager Riley in a low voice about something. He lowered his voice and said to chief Siluka with a serious face, “Recently the demand for cement has increased, so I hope that you can talk to chief Monto about building another cement factory to increase the output. Als I need to remind you to keep this secret and you mustn’t let anyone steal the recipe for cement.”
Chief Siluke was a bit confused. Although Xu Yi had warned him about keeping the matter of the cement a secret, why was he so careful about it?
This time it was Xu Yi’s turn to reveal an awkward smile.
“This…..There’s no other way, it’s because I…...don’t have any money.”