Chapter Seventeen: Nourishment

With the increasing number of clones and the further strengthening of the industrial foundation, Li Qingsong’s steel production had already reached about 5,000 tons per year using those original, small-scale steelmaking devices.

Over more than two years, Li Qingsong had scrupulously conserved steel usage, and now had stocked up an amount equivalent to the current annual production.

At this moment, without hesitation, Li Qingsong took out all the steel he had painstakingly accumulated.

More than a dozen metal processing machines sprang to life, transforming the reserved steel into steel pipes, long steel bars, connectors, bearings, fastening screws, nuts, and so forth through various manufacturing processes.

About a kilometer away from the main base, Li Qingsong had already preselected the location for the first large-scale, formal steel mill in the history of his self-built base.

The uneven ground there had been thoroughly leveled and reinforced with a special type of cement suited to the Roshen Star environment.

Though called special cement, it was essentially made by grinding steelmaking slag and impurities from the generator’s thorium and oxygen ores, mixed with a certain adhesive with some viscosity.

This material had limited strength and load-bearing capacity; using it to build houses on Earth would likely cause them to collapse before three stories. However, on Roshen Star, it was just adequate to meet current demands.

On this leveled ground, various parts were transported and the clones busily assembled, fastened, and welded them, resulting in the appearance of the first fully enclosed factory building on Roshen Star.

It stood ten meters tall, covering roughly 1,000 square meters.

In the future, all atmospheric-dependent operations of the steel mill would be conducted inside this building.

It was also equipped with hoists, electric cranes, and other machinery to conveniently store and move raw materials.

At this stage, manufacturing hoists and cranes posed no difficulty for Li Qingsong, since their core component was merely an electric motor—and with the ability to produce generators, building electric motors was no problem.

The main issue was their modest performance and susceptibility to breakdowns, but for now, makeshift use was acceptable. Li Qingsong did not expect them to work at full capacity for years under harsh conditions as on Earth.

While constructing the factory building, the other workshops of the formal steel mill were simultaneously underway.

Among the 1,100 clones, as many as 350 were devoted to building this steel mill.

To facilitate construction, Li Qingsong even set up a temporary kitchen on-site.

Every day, ingredients from various planting, animal husbandry, and aquaculture bases were delivered by tractor with a rumbling noise, prepared on the spot, allowing the clones to eat heartily without returning to the main base.

Moreover, a day-and-night shift system was adopted here. The clones worked in two shifts: one group rested while the other worked, ensuring that construction never ceased.

At shift change, over a hundred clones would don spacesuits and jog from the main base dormitories to the site, eat, and begin preparations for work.

After the handover, the busy clones would withdraw, eat, then don their spacesuits again, jog back to the dormitories for a quick rest before returning the next day.

This cycle of people moving back and forth periodically appeared in the canyon on Roshen Star, gradually wearing down even the hard surface of ice and rock.

Under these conditions, seven specialized workshops—ore processing, blast furnace, molten iron pretreatment, refining, casting, rolling, and post-processing—were successively completed.

Such division of processes had never existed in previous steel mills.

Earlier steel mills did not separate so many stages. Iron ore was simply dumped into a blast furnace, and molten iron was poured directly into molds for shaping.

This was precisely why earlier blast furnaces had low output, poor efficiency, and rough product quality.

The more refined and procedural the workflow, the higher the output and efficiency, and the more stable the product quality.

Furthermore, Li Qingsong unprecedentedly employed automation equipment as much as possible between different workshops.

For example, various crawlers, conveyor belts, and automatic feeders—any basic automation achievable through mechanical structures without chips—were installed whenever feasible to save manpower and improve efficiency.

Hundreds of clones labored in this way for over a year.

In the end, not only was the initial 5,000 tons of reserved steel fully used, but the new production of roughly 5,000 tons over the year was also entirely consumed, leaving none unused.

During this period, apart from this steel mill, Li Qingsong did not undertake any other projects.

It was not for lack of desire, but simply because there was no available steel.

Yet all this effort was worthwhile.

Now, this steel mill, occupying over ten thousand square meters, with as complete a workflow as possible and as much automation as achievable, was finally completed.

It was dedicated to producing low-temperature steel, the most widely used and fundamental construction material on Roshen Star.

Seeing the steel mill filled with towering machinery, interconnected by myriad pipes, conveyor belts, and cables, Li Qingsong was filled with satisfaction.

It could produce 270 tons per day, totaling 100,000 tons annually.

He seemed to envision steel continuously flowing from this factory, after subsequent casting and processing, becoming numerous components that nourished the entire base, allowing the Roshen Star base to flourish rapidly.

With this steel mill, subsequent specialized chemical factories, planting bases, metal processing plants, spacesuit factories, clothing factories, and even clone breeding centers could all be launched...

However, at present, although the steel mill was completed, it could not yet operate at full capacity, only running at low power to absorb the output of the earlier crude steel mills.

It still required supporting facilities to truly unleash its power.

Under Li Qingsong’s organization, including more than 400 newly cultivated clones over the past year, a total of 800 clones formed a vast workforce, driving various machinery and wielding various tools, proudly and resolutely departing from the main base.

Now, Li Qingsong was set to build a railway connecting the Number One Iron Mine and the Number One Steel Mill!