On March 8, a merchant ship from Denmark landed, the second ship to the port since the end of the war.

In addition to hundreds of tons of various materials in the cabin of this Galen ship, there are 179 immigrants from Holstein and Norway. The captain chose to buy 20 sets of three-year-old full-body armor and 100 sabers that were famous in the Baltic region. Therefore, the travelers only need to pay an additional 4,700 yuan.

This batch of immigrants will be placed in the 3rd and 4th production teams that are being newly built in Dingyuanbao Reclamation Area.

And it's just the beginning.

On March 25, another old friend of the travelers, Captain Svensen from Gothenburg, was moored in the harbor with two large ships. This time he brought a total of 484 immigrants from Finland, Bohemia and Livornia; more than 100 tons of copper, lead and pig iron; graphite, mercury, gunpowder, fuse, gun; more than 100 (heads) of cubs of various types of livestock, seeds, fruit saplings and some daily necessities.

Captain Svensen has made a fortune recently, so he chose to barter. However, the three-year-old full-body armor he likes is limited to production. Currently, there are only 100 sets in stock. Captain Svensen, who refuses to go for a short trip, has set his mind to the three-year-old command knife and steel cannon. These things are all in short supply in Europe today.

Not to mention the distant neighbor of Sweden, the rude and rude Russians. The Russians have been working hard to promote their military modernization in recent years, not only forming several new infantry and cavalry corps that imitate Western European institutions, but also hiring a large number of foreign officers with war experience to train and command the Russian army.

When introducing advanced military talents and military systems, the introduction of advanced military weapons is of course indispensable. However, due to the difficulties of Russia's own backward military manufacturing industry and the lack of high-quality iron ore, Russia began to purchase a large number of weapons from foreign countries. Just last year, Russia purchased 19,000 muskets and sabers with a number of up to 5,000 sabers from Western European countries.

Moreover, the ambitious Tsar Mikhail Fedorovic has always been obsessed with the recovery of Smolensk, occupied by the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth. For this reason, Russia has become another large gold mine for weapons exports besides the belligerent countries of the 30-year war. The Swedish merchants close to Russia naturally got the first to get the moon.

Of course, as a qualified businessman, Captain Svensen felt a little guilty and owed to sell advanced weapons and equipment to Sweden's traditional archenemy Russia, and all he cared about was profit.

Russia has always had a great desire for high-quality sabers. Whether it is infantry or cavalry, the total gap of sabers is estimated to be more than 15,000 at this stage. The 32-year command knife is 102 cm long and is forged by hydraulic machinery using high-quality steel. The straight blade body is slightly curved, sharp and tough, and has both practicality and artistic appreciation value. Compared with the sabers made by Western European countries, it is completely different from the same level. The sales guide price of 32-year command knife set by the arsenal is 2.5 yuan per piece. Captain Svensen ordered 800 at once, almost sweeping away the inventory of the time travelers.

In addition, because the steel cannons of the Crossing Clan adopt high-quality steel casting and unique self-tightening technology, the cannon can withstand high chamber pressure. Therefore, the arsenal casting workshop has a larger diameter when casting. The effect is that the cannon range is longer, more powerful, and has a much longer life than ordinary cannons, generally more than 5,000 rounds. In addition, the total cannon weighs only half of the cast iron cannon of the same caliber, which is much lighter than the copper cannon. In addition, the heat dissipation is not as fast as the copper cannon, it is simply a perfect epoch-making cannon.

The Executive Committee of the Executive Committee still has doubts about whether to sell large-caliber artillery, but there is no problem with army light guns under 12 pounds. Currently, the arsenal casting gun workshop has 22 4-pound guns, 10 6-pound guns, and 18 8-pound guns, which can be sold directly to the Swedes. The sales guide price of 4-pound guns is 10 yuan per piece, 6-pound guns is 18 yuan per piece, and 8-pound guns is 35 yuan per piece.

Captain Svensen did not bargain, and all took advantage of the order. 100 sets of full-body armor, 800 sabers, and 50 light artillery of various types were sold for 9,030 yuan. After deducting the payment, the Crossing Club paid an additional RMB 5,850 to Captain Svensen.

As of the end of March, the Travelers had completed three arms business, and sold a total of 220 sets of three-year full-body armors, 1,150 three-year command knives and 50 large and small artillery pieces, with a total sales of up to 17,105 yuan, and more than 60% of them were profits.

The arms business is indeed a huge profit! After realizing this, the Executive Committee knew how to do it no matter how stupid it was.

The Thirty Years' War is in full swing, Russia sharpens its sword against the Poland-Lithuanian Federation, and the Netherlands and Portugal fight to the death on the Amazon River...

In the eyes of the Executive Committee, these wars are treasures. With the high-quality weapons at the Executive Committee, even if they cannot monopolize the market, they can still get a big share. This is of little significance to the time traveler base where all the waste is prosperous.

Although the Executive Committee still has nearly 180,000 yuan in cash on hand, it is not easy to be the boss, and the executive committee’s expenses are not small. Let’s talk about the Army. Now the size of 236 people is more than 300 yuan per month.

This is not just about training, and the training costs are even more amazing. Based on three times a week, each five live ammunition training, a soldier will consume about 500 grams of gunpowder, 160 grams of fuse and 40 kilograms of lead bullets in a week. Calculated by the import metered price, these materials are worth about 2 to 3 cents, and 236 people will consume about 60 yuan. This is still a peaceful period. If it is a war period, it will consume a huge amount. This is not counting as the naval coastal artillery, and the 32 cannons are even a gold-eating beast, and the weekly training costs more than 100 yuan.

After this calculation, plus some miscellaneous expenses, the monthly maintenance fee for the navy and the army during peacetime is 1,250 yuan to 1,300 yuan, which is shocking. In addition, taking into account the wages and subsidies paid to some free people, the Executive Committee conservatively estimates that fiscal expenditure exceeds 1,600 yuan per month. Given the Executive Committee's desire for various production and living materials, as well as the frequency of increasingly frequent transactions and immigration, this fund cannot be over for too long. Although there are more than 600 sets of porcelain in the warehouse, which is of great value, these are all brought from the old time and space and are non-renewable resources. By selling porcelain for a living, it is no different from sitting and consuming.

Therefore, it is conceivable how anxious the Executive Committee is to open up new sources of wealth. The arms business is a long-term way. With the steel smelting technology that has been mastered by travelers that has been ahead of this era, and advanced artillery barrel manufacturing technology, it can rely on resources in this time and space for production and obtain high profits.

It must be expanded! This is the opinion reached by the Executive Committee.

Therefore, the Executive Committee organized personnel to start in-depth research on several workshops in the arsenal.

First of all, the casting gun workshop. Now, after several replenishment of personnel, the casting gun workshop has more than 30 craftsmen at all levels, more than 40 skilled apprentices, and more than 60 new apprentices. Due to the invention of the water cooling method to cast gun barrels, the speed and yield of the casting guns have been greatly improved. In fact, it can be said that the production capacity of the casting gun workshop has not been released at all, and the only bottleneck restricting their production capacity is the supply of molten steel.

The situation in the protective gear and cold weapon manufacturing workshop (formerly weapons workshop) is similar. Due to the large number of hydraulic machinery and hydraulic forging hammers, the production efficiency has been greatly improved. Nowadays, it is also due to insufficient steel supply, and the production capacity has not been effectively released.

After investigation, the finger was pointed at the steel mill.

In response to this, Ma Vest, the head of the steel plant and the industrial committee member, was helpless. Ma Vest said that at present, the steel plant uses graphite crucibles to make steel. Even if it uses a large crucible, it can only make more than 1 ton of molten steel at a time, and these poor outputs are only enough to cast a 24-pound naval gun at one time.

"If you want to increase the output, okay! Either build more smelting furnaces and more crucibles for me; or you can renovate the existing smelting furnaces and put them on a flat furnace project to make steel!" Ma Vest urged: "This project is technically feasible, and I know the technical details. I have already thought about it. How about it? Everyone should consider my suggestion?"

However, the Executive Committee is still quite concerned about the open furnace project, and the biggest obstacle is the lack of coal.

At this stage, all the raw materials used for crossing the steelmaking industry are brought from the old time and space during the traveling journey, that is, more than 1,000 tons of scrap steel and 5,000 tons of electric coal. At this stage, crucible steelmaking has nothing to do with small fuss. Although ton of steel coal consumption is amazingly high, the scale is also small. In general, the coal consumed by steelmaking will definitely not exceed 200 tons. However, if the open furnace steelmaking project is launched, the scale will increase. Crossing the coal at hand will not last long.

Moreover, there are many places to use coal now, such as wheel kilns, cement kilns, lime kilns, wood drying kilns, wood distillation kilns, etc., all coal users. Especially now, the immigration is accelerating, and various building supplies are in short supply. The Executive Committee is planning to build two new wheel kilns and one cement kiln to alleviate the tightness of building supplies, which will require new coal consumption.

Nearly 1,000 tons of coal have been consumed in one and a half years since the journey, and the consumption rate will definitely be faster in the future. It is really hard to say how long it will last for the remaining 4,000 tons of coal.

After discussion, a compromise proposal was finally reached, that is, to continue to build a new smelting furnace that can place 20 crucibles to expand steelmaking production, and the open furnace steelmaking project was temporarily shelved. At the same time, the coal issue was also taken seriously by the Executive Committee and raised to a strategic height.
Chapter completed!