The clock finally crossed over the New Year's Day of 1913, and the Republic entered its second year. The wheel of history continued to move stubbornly along its predetermined track.

  Song Jiaoren began his plan for a cabinet elected by the people, first establishing the Kuomintang with Sun Yat-sen as its nominal leader and himself as acting leader. He then embarked on a nationwide campaign to win support. Many prominent social figures and local politicians joined the KMT under Song's persuasion, giving it 45% of the seats in parliament and making it the largest party in the legislature.

  However, the first party may not necessarily form a cabinet, because Beijing's Yuan Shikai is not a political fool. Although Old Yuan came from the Qing dynasty government, it does not mean that he did not understand foreign affairs. In fact, among the Manchu nobles and high-ranking officials, those who understood foreign affairs were Li Hongzhang and then Yuan Shikai. As China's last governor-general of Korea, the founder of the New Army, and a high-ranking official in the Beiyang government, how could Yuan Shikai not understand foreign affairs?

  It's just that the winner is king and the loser is a bandit, and later generations, based on political needs, forcibly portrayed Yuan Shikai as a Henan country bumpkin plus a big rogue.

  Yuan Shikai soon secretly supported the organization of the Progressive Party by Huang Xing and Liang Qichao, and then bought out other parties, thus basically ensuring that although the Nationalist Party was the largest party, it would be unable to form a cabinet.

  The situation in Beijing is confusing and obscure, but here in Anjiang it's a rare peace.

  The first news, also very important news, more than ten days ago, Wang Zhenyu's wife Ye Ziyun was pregnant. Although Wang Zhenyu himself admitted that he didn't work hard enough, but still managed to bear fruit.

  When his mother told him the news, Wang Zhenyu had all sorts of feelings in his heart. In his past life, he couldn't even find a girlfriend, let alone get married and have children. He never thought that in this life, getting married and having children would be so smooth and effortless. Life is indeed unpredictable.

  Ye Zhiwen has given birth to a baby, and her status in the Wang family immediately skyrocketed. Her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and a large group of servants almost surround her every day. This makes He Shi, the elder sister-in-law, feel somewhat jealous, and she quietly complains to her husband, Wang Zhenkun: "When I was pregnant with Jing'an, I didn't see Mom and Dad being so attentive..."

  Wang Zhenkun hastily covered his wife's mouth: "I think you're confused, now our Wang family's future wealth and nobility are in San Di Mei's belly. If you really want to be good for Jing An, just shut up and don't spout nonsense. If you really stir up trouble, don't blame me for divorcing you."

  He's family heard that he wanted to divorce his wife, and immediately got angry and scolded Wang Zhenkun several times: "You've only worn this dog skin for a few days, and you're already thinking of changing wives? You're really something! If you dare to divorce me, I'll dare to die in front of you!"

  Wang Zhenkun was indeed somewhat henpecked, and it took a lot of coaxing and deception to placate his wife. Lately, however, things have been going smoothly for him. After the establishment of the military supplies department, Wang Zhenkun went from being an assistant under his cousin Ma Xicheng to becoming the director of the statistics room, specifically in charge of inventory management and accounting for military supplies. Recently, he was even promoted to deputy director with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was assigned to work together with Ye Guoxuan, the eldest son of the Ye family, on a batch of industrial equipment arriving from Shanghai. This equipment was crucial for the military supplies department's plan to establish an ordnance factory, so Wang Zhenkun naturally put in extra effort to get the job done.

  Actually, Ye Zhiwen didn't like being surrounded by a large crowd of people asking about her well-being either. At first, the feeling was indeed happy, but after a few days, she got annoyed to death. Wang Zhenyu naturally knew his wife's thoughts and hastily asked for her opinion.

  Ye Zhiwen thought for half a day and felt that she should invite Ye Xiaoyue and her own mother to come and live with her, as for Wang Zhenyu, he was dispensable. The extremely depressed Wang Zhenyu had to carefully put on a smiling face, and when he went out, he instructed Zhu Cihang to take his token and personally make a trip to the Jingzhou Fengshan base to invite Song Commander's wife, of course, also following his own wife's request, he issued an order to Song Haomin, requiring him not to flirt with flowers or eat snacks during Ye Xiaoyue's absence.

  Wang Zhenyu felt like he had already cried himself to tears when he handed the order to Zhu Cixuan. What a mess! He was, after all, a majestic Major General and Garrison Commander, yet he still had to issue such an order. No way, he called Zhu Cixuan back and added a sentence to the order: "Destroy after reading."

  Song Haomin's deputy also recorded a strange scene in his diary: On a certain year, month and day, the usually serious Commander Song Haomin received an order from Deputy General Zhu Zihuan, then suddenly widened his eyes, looking as if he was crying and laughing at the same time, with an inexplicable expression; even stranger, he burned the order right in front of Deputy General Zhu.

  The fight that broke out in the new barracks of Jingzhou actually reached Wang Zhenyu through other channels, but he was unwilling to intervene. He also believed that Song Haomin could handle it well.

  The Xiangxi Group has now taken shape and is no longer the original battalion. Some things that should or shouldn't be will naturally surface according to social norms, there's no need to be too particular about it, as long as it's within a controllable range, just turn a blind eye to it.

  Anjiang's career has also been relatively smooth, thanks to the help of Belgian people, Jingzhou Cement Plant was completed ahead of schedule, and the Luoyang Cement Plant project was launched. After the completion of these two projects, Wang Zhenyu's annual cement production capacity will reach 2 million tons.

  The construction of the railway is proceeding smoothly, but one of the tunnels collapsed during construction, and five workers died. Wang Zhenyu from a later generation ordered heavy consolation, while the children of the deceased were allowed to enter school for free, and after graduation, they were arranged to join the army; at the same time, all relevant personnel in charge were given disciplinary actions, letting them summarize their experiences and lessons themselves. Of course, if another accident occurs, he would not hesitate to order someone's execution, and it's up to them to weigh the severity of the punishment.

  Various industrial projects are also making rapid progress, especially soap and match production. Liu Guojun's abilities are indeed worthy of praise...

  The equipment of the electricity company also arrived in Anjiang through the operation of the military equipment department. This power generation is necessary because Paul Wurth and Arcelor companies from Luxembourg have agreed to accept the steel plant project. They provided data on steel:

  Here is the translation:

  1 blast furnace, 1 ton of pig iron, requires consumption of: 1 ton of coal, 1.5-2 tons of iron ore (with an iron content of not less than 50%)

  Alternatively, to smelt 1 ton of iron, the following are consumed:

  Ore sand 1550kg, flux 220kg, refractory materials 10kg, coal 400kg, injection coal 150kg, pulverized coal 52kg, electricity 158kWh, water 1.24m3, steam 10kg, nitrogen 30m3, compressed air 13m3, oxygen 35m3.

  This is the total energy consumption for iron production in an ironworks (including blast furnace and sintering).

  Two steel furnaces, one ton of steel material requires 500 kilograms of coke (the highest temperature of coal combustion is 800 degrees, while coke can reach 1700 degrees), one ton of water, one ton of pig iron, and other metals (such as molybdenum). The second method, for every production of one ton of steel material, the input and output materials, products, and slag are five tons, with an average consumption of 20 tons of water, 400 degrees of electricity, while one ton of coal can generate approximately 2777 degrees of electricity, so producing one ton of steel material requires about 0.144 tons of coal.

  Pig iron --- an iron-carbon alloy with a carbon content of 2% to 4.3%!

  Steel --- an iron alloy with a carbon content of 0.03% to 2%!

  In fact, Wang Zhenyu didn't quite understand the above three points, but there was one thing he did know: whether it was railways or steelmaking, and even textiles and residential life, all required electricity.

  And Anjiang, this model city needs not only beautiful houses, wide roads, good medical and educational facilities and transportation tools, good drainage channels; but also electricity, which is a must for a modern city.

  This requires a generator, and Hans from Lihong Company, facing the Anjiang River, has already abandoned his initial idea of selling some old equipment here. He recommended to Wang Zhenyu a 6400 kW steam turbine generator produced by Siemens in Germany, priced at 500,000 yuan per set, including three boilers.

  Hans also helped Wang Zhenyu calculate that refining 1 million tons of steel requires the use of 4 billion degrees of electricity and 150,000 tons of coal, which is a staggering number. Wang Zhenyu needs to pay 40 million yuan for the power generation equipment (eight sets of steam turbine generators) and 300 million yuan for coal, but the returns are also very generous. For example, if coal is used, 500,000 tons of coke will be needed, which would cost as much as 100 million yuan. In fact, the entire Pingxiang Coal Mine produces only 800,000 tons of coal per year, and only 100,000 tons of coke. No wonder the steel output of Hanyang Steel Plant is so low, steel production indeed requires supporting industries.

  At current prices, the profit from steel production is not high. One ton of steel sells for only 60 taels on the international market, while the production cost has reached 45 taels. No wonder after the Republic of China was established, the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant stopped producing steel and instead sold pig iron. It's really true that the more you produce, the more you lose. For this reason, the German Hans sincerely suggested to our General Wang Zhenyu that it would be better to spend money to buy finished products rather than producing them himself. After deducting transportation costs, there is not much difference, and it also saves trouble, effort and cost.

  Wang Zhenyu is now sitting in the chair on the viewing platform of the study, basking in the sun and looking at the small door, with many thoughts in his mind.

  Actually, the problem is not as terrible as what this German said. There is actually a time difference here. According to Ding Wenjiang's data and combined with his own later memories, the Liuzhou area has enough coal and iron, and Guizhou even has a Liuquan water coal mine area. So this issue should be viewed in this way:

  The first equipment for steelmaking and ironmaking was in place, workers were trained, and formal steel production began at least by the end of 1914 or early 1915. To know that now Anjiang Steel Plant's 240 acres of land was just leveled, nothing else was done.

  Currently, it seems that steelmaking is indeed less profitable than selling pig iron, and it's a complete loss-making business. No wonder during this period, private capital was involved in all sorts of industries, but no one touched steelmaking. This thing only started to make sense when Zhengfu came along and lost money on it. However, there's also a relative concept - once World War I breaks out, the price of steel will skyrocket tenfold. Is that still considered losing money? History textbooks often describe this war as a blessing for national industry and commerce. The steel industry might not just be a blessing, but a golden opportunity...

  There's no room for hesitation. If you want to contend for the world, you have to take a gamble. If you don't take this chance, at most you'll just be a small local warlord, and that's it.

  Just as Wang Zhenyu understood the situation, he saw a cute little head poking out from the small door on the balcony, secretly looking at him.