Make France Great Again-Chapter 882 - 873: New Technology and Manganese Ore
"Your Excellency, Secretary-General, have I passed?"
The candidate was a young priest in a white robe, eagerly looking at Rastigne, who was seated as the chief examiner.
Rastigne smiled faintly without answering the young priest’s query, then ambiguously responded, "Respected Father, I think you should devote all your energy to serving the Lord, rather than asking about whether you’ve passed or not here."
The white-robed priest smiled bitterly at Rastigne, expressing that he was actually exiled here by the Church under the pretense of training, and was now tired of the priesthood, yet without a suitable opportunity, he had not taken off his robe.
Just as the Governor’s Mansion was recruiting in Libreville, and he himself had some knowledge of various minerals, he wanted to take this opportunity to work under the Governor’s Mansion.
Meanwhile, the white-robed priest hinted to Rastigne that as long as he could enter the Governor’s Mansion, he would definitely follow Rastigne’s lead.
Faced with the white-robed priest’s laziness, Rastigne smiled slightly; he had long heard such hints many times, and in previous interviews, some people even blatantly told him that if Rastigne could let them in, they would give him a large sum of money as a token of respect.
However, Rastigne ignored both explicit and implicit hints like these. In his view, people willing to sell themselves for such minor interests would likely betray him quickly for greater interests in the future, keeping such people around was akin to a ticking time bomb.
Furthermore, Rastigne’s goal was not just to be a Secretary-General at the Governor’s Mansion; this position was merely a stepping stone, only Paris was his broad horizon.
If he wanted to return to Paris, he must assist Governor Jerome Patterson in managing Gabon well.
Otherwise, Rastigne could only stay here for the rest of his life.
Therefore, in choosing the Governor’s Mansion bureaucrats, Rastigne held a determination to recruit with rigorous standards.
"Father, you just need to return and wait for notification!" Rastigne responded blandly, while the white-robed priest was already entirely out of consideration in his heart.
Hearing Rastigne’s reply, the white-robed priest’s face showed a trace of unwillingness. However, blatantly causing a disturbance here was unseemly, so he managed a smile and said to Rastigne, "Alright then! Please notify me as soon as possible! I’ll make sure to come over right away!"
After the white-robed priest left, Rastigne continued to interview, keeping his head down.
After interviewing several more people in succession, Rastigne remained unsatisfied with them.
So, Rastigne halted the interview and muttered to himself, "Is it that my requirements are too high?"
After a while, Rastigne shook his head again and said to himself, "No! If they can’t even pass my assessment, how can I expect them to explore minerals?"
Then, Rastigne continued to interview.
The interview continued until 5 PM when it ceased. An exhausted Rastigne gathered all the materials and went to the Governor’s office.
"How did it go today?" Jerome Patterson, hearing footsteps, lifted his head and asked Rastigne.
Rastigne shook his head at Jerome Patterson, responding, "No good!"
"None of them? Not even one that’s passable?" Jerome Patterson asked once more.
"So far, everyone is a no-go!" Rastigne emphasized.
"Well..." Jerome Patterson put down the pen in his hand and showed a thoughtful expression. After a while, he responded to Rastigne, "Then we might have to seek help from Paris?"
"I’ll keep interviewing for a while! Maybe I’ll find someone suitable!" Despite having no hope for Libreville in his heart, Rastigne responded to Jerome Patterson.
"Alright then!" Jerome Patterson nodded in agreement with Rastigne’s request; he himself was also reluctant to trouble Paris with everything.
In the following two days, Rastigne continued to interview tirelessly, seeing dozens more.
However, none of them passed Rastigne’s interview, and Rastigne had to return to the Governor’s office to inform Governor Jerome Patterson of this.
"Okay!" Jerome Patterson shrugged and responded to Rastigne, "Now, we can only look to Paris for help!"
Immediately after, Jerome Patterson called for a messenger from the Governor’s Mansion, and under Rastigne’s surprised gaze, took a letter out of the drawer and handed it to the messenger, instructing him, "You must immediately set sail for Marseille and send this letter to Paris in the form of a telegram!"
"Yes, Your Excellency, Governor!" The messenger received the letter and saluted Jerome Patterson.
"Go!" Jerome Patterson signaled the messenger.
After the messenger left, Jerome Patterson apologized to Rastigne, saying the letter was merely a precaution for not finding a suitable candidate, an early preparation.
"Your Excellency, Governor, you did the right thing!" Rastigne replied straightforwardly to Jerome Patterson, "For anything, it’s best to have two plans!"
...
Leaving the Governor’s Mansion, the messenger embarked on a cargo ship bound for France that very evening.
After about a week’s voyage, the cargo ship arrived at the head of Marseille Port.
The messenger disembarking from the cargo ship ran all the way to the telegraph office in Marseille.
"Where should it be sent? To whom?" The telegraph operator asked the messenger as he ripped open the envelope.
"Sir, to the Tuileries Palace! To His Majesty Emperor Jerome Bonaparte!" The messenger said without hesitation to the telegraph operator. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
The telegraph operator’s hand immediately stopped, his eyes widened in astonishment, and he asked, "I didn’t hear clearly, can you say that again!"
"Sir, please send the contents of the letter to His Majesty Emperor Jerome Bonaparte at the Tuileries Palace!" The messenger responded word for word to the telegraph operator.
"God!" The telegraph operator couldn’t help but moan, he returned the letter to the messenger, telling him it would be better for City Hall to convey it instead.
The messenger understood the telegraph operator’s concerns, he hurried to assure the telegraph operator: "Don’t worry! The contents of the envelope are not anything disgraceful, you can send it with full confidence!"
"Really?" The telegraph operator asked the messenger anxiously.
"Of course it’s true!" The messenger replied to the telegraph operator with a confident tone: "How could I deceive you!"
"Alright then!" The telegraph operator nodded, then opened the envelope, unfolded the folded letter paper, carefully read it once, and proceeded to send it.
Meanwhile, far away at the Tuileries Palace, a hundred kilometers away.
Jerome Bonaparte was looking worriedly at the document jointly submitted by Eugène Schneider and William Siemens.
It turned out that a while ago, William Siemens heard a rumor from somewhere that adding spiegel iron (manganese iron) to steel could effectively remove sulfur.
Thus, with the help of Eugène Schneider, William Siemens began conducting experiments.
After numerous attempts and comparison experiments, William Siemens surprisingly succeeded in using manganese iron to control the phosphorus and sulfur content in steel.
William Siemens hurriedly applied for the patent in France, then jointly submitted the document to Jerome Bonaparte with Eugène Schneider.
[PS: This discovery should originally have been made by William Siemens in 1866.]
Looking at the plan before him, Jerome Bonaparte felt both joy and worry.
The joy was that the steel utilization rate in France would greatly increase, and some high-phosphorus iron ore in the Lorraine Region could also be effectively utilized.
While the worry was that the manganese mines in France were truly too few.
In this era, and not just in France, the entire Europe had few manganese mines.
[During this period, Ukraine and Hungary were not yet developed, and like France, England had scarce manganese mines.]
Refining steel precisely requires manganese ore, which means that France would have to use a large amount of foreign exchange to import manganese ore, thus the original steel cost reduced by William Siemens would hardly decrease much.
This technology was virtually a chicken rib for France unless France could find a cheap manganese ore supply.
"Manganese mines... manganese mines... let me think where there are manganese mines!" Jerome Bonaparte closed his eyes, silently chanting.
After a while, a knock on the door was heard, Jerome Bonaparte opened his eyes and asked, "Who?"
Basilio’s voice came from outside the room, "Your Majesty, it’s Basilio!"
"Please come in!" Jerome Bonaparte said indifferently.
Basilio pushed the door open and entered, Jerome Bonaparte asked again: "What’s going on?"
"Your Majesty, there’s a telegram for you!" Basilio said to Jerome Bonaparte.
"A telegram for me?" Jerome Bonaparte reached out to Basilio, "Hand it over!"
"Yes!" Basilio handed the telegram to Jerome Bonaparte.
Jerome Bonaparte glanced at the contents of the telegram, a faint smile appeared on his face, "What could it be! Turns out they want me to send them geologists!"
Suddenly, Jerome Bonaparte seemed to realize something, he turned to Basilio and asked, "Basilio! If I’m not mistaken, Jerome Patterson is serving as governor in Gabon, right?"
Basilio was momentarily flustered by Jerome Bonaparte’s sudden query. After a moment of contemplation, he decisively responded to Jerome Bonaparte, "Your Majesty, Jerome Patterson has indeed been dispatched by you to Libreville as governor of the Gabon Region!"
"Such a coincidence! It’s such a coincidence!" Jerome Bonaparte got up and paced back and forth twice, then raised his head again and handed the telegram to Basilio: "You should take a look!"
