Now that the number of clones has further increased and the industrial base has further strengthened, Li Qingsong's steel production has reached about 5,000 tons per year through those primitive, small-scale steelmaking equipment. Over the past two years, Li Qingsong has tried to save as much steel as possible and has now stockpiled enough steel to equal one year's current output. At this moment, Li Qingsong took out all the steel that he had saved with great difficulty without any regret. More than a dozen metal processing machines began to work busily, and through various processes, the saved steel was processed into steel pipes, long steel bars, connectors, bearings, fastening screws, nuts, etc. About one kilometer away from the main base, Li Qingsong had already selected the address of the first large-scale formal steel plant in the history of the base he had built. The uneven ground here has been completely leveled by Li Qingsong, and reinforced with special cement suitable for the environment of Luoshen Star. However, although it is called special cement, it is actually just the waste slag from steelmaking, as well as the impurities in tolin and oxygen ore from the generator set, which are ground into powder and mixed with a little adhesive with a certain viscosity. This thing has limited strength and bearing capacity. If you use it to build a building on Earth, it will probably collapse before the third floor. But it can be used here on Luoshen, at least it can meet the current needs. On this leveled ground, various parts were transported here, and the clones were busy assembling, tightening and welding them, so that the first fully enclosed factory building appeared on Luoshen. It is ten meters high and covers an area of about 1,000 square meters.
In the future, all work in this steel plant that requires an atmospheric environment will be completed in this factory building. It is also equipped with slings, electric cranes and other machinery to facilitate the storage and movement of raw materials. At this stage, it is not difficult for Li Qingsong to manufacture slings, cranes and other equipment. Because the core equipment of these things is nothing more than an electric motor, and if you can make a generator, making an electric motor is not a problem. The problem is that the performance is not high and it is easy to break. But at this stage, it is OK to use it. Li Qingsong does not expect them to work at full capacity for several years in a harsh environment like on Earth without any problems. While the factory building was being constructed, the rest of the workshops in a regular steel plant were also being built simultaneously. Among the 1,100 clones, as many as 350 were involved in the construction of this steel plant. In order to facilitate construction, Li Qingsong even built a temporary kitchen directly at the construction site. Every day, food from various planting, livestock and aquaculture bases is transported here by tractors and cooked right on the spot. The clones don't need to go back to the main base to have a full meal here. At the same time, a day and night shift system is adopted here. The clones work in two shifts. When one group goes to rest, another group comes to work. No matter what time, the construction will never stop. Every time when it was time for a shift change, more than a hundred clones would come together, trotting over from the dormitories of the main base in space suits, and after eating, they would begin to prepare for work. After completing the shift change, the clones who have been busy all day will withdraw, eat first, then put on their space suits and trot back to the dormitory of the main base, take a quick sleep, and then trot back the next day. People periodically came and went in this canyon on Luoshen Star. For a time, even the hard water ice and rocks on the surface showed signs of wear and tear. Under such circumstances, a total of seven special workshops were built in succession for the steel plant, including the ore processing workshop, blast furnace workshop, molten iron pretreatment workshop, refining workshop, casting workshop, rolling workshop, and post-processing workshop. This has never happened in a steel mill before. In the past, steel mills did not have so many processes. Iron ore was delivered and thrown directly into the blast furnace, and then the molten iron was poured into the mold to form it. This is also the problem with previous blast furnaces, which had low output, low efficiency and poor product quality. The more detailed and process-oriented the process is, the higher the output and efficiency can be, and the more stable the product quality can be. Not only that, between different workshops, Li Qingsong also unprecedentedly used automated equipment as much as possible. For example, various crawler tracks, conveyor belts, automatic feeding and the like, as long as they are preliminary automation equipment that does not require chips but only requires mechanical structure to be realized, Li Qingsong will use them whenever possible to save manpower and improve efficiency.
Hundreds of clones were busy like this for more than a year. In the end, not only were the 5,000 tons of steel saved in the early stage used up, but even the 5,000 tons or so of new steel produced in the past year or so were all used up, leaving nothing behind. During this period of time, Li Qingsong did not work on any other projects except this steel plant. It’s not that he doesn’t want to do it, but even if he wants to, there is no steel available. But it's all worth it. At this moment, this steel plant with a total area of more than 10,000 square meters, each process as perfect as possible and the process as automated as possible has finally been built. It is specially used to produce low-temperature steel, which is used in the largest amount on Rosene and can be regarded as a basic construction material. Looking at the steel plant in front of him filled with numerous tall machines, each connected by various pipes, conveyor belts and cables, Li Qingsong felt very gratified. It can produce 270 tons a day, which is 100,000 tons of steel a year. He seemed to see steel flowing out of the steel plant continuously, and after subsequent casting and processing, it became parts and components, becoming the nutrients for his entire base, allowing his Luoshen Star base to thrive rapidly. With this steel plant, we can start building dedicated chemical plants, planting bases, metal processing plants, space suit factories, clothing factories, and clone breeding centers... However, at this stage, although this steel plant has been built, it cannot be put into production at full capacity for the time being. It can only operate at low power and temporarily take over the production capacity of the previous simple steel plants. It also needs some supporting facilities to truly unleash its power. Under Li Qingsong's organization, including the more than 400 clones newly cultivated in the past year, a total of 800 clones formed a huge team. They drove various machines, held various tools, and left the main base in a high-spirited manner. Now, Li Qingsong wants to build a railway connecting the No. 1 iron mine and the No. 1 steel plant!