To heat the front end part of a rough bar after rough rolling while minimizing a decrease in conveyance efficiency as the whole.

In hot rolling equipment, a roughing mill 101, an induction heating device 103, a shear 104 for shearing a crop of a steel material (a rough bar) 100, and a finishing mill 105 are arranged in this order. A conveyance control device 200 conducts control so that the front end of the rough bar 100 at the time of completion of deceleration is positioned in the inlet side or the upper stream side of the induction heating device 103 when decelerating the conveyance speed of the rough bar 100 to pass it through the shear 104. At that time, the conveyance control device 200 calculates the start position of deceleration from a present conveyance velocity V1, a previously set shearing velocity V2, and a predetermined acceleration/deceleration ratio so that the front end of the rough bar 100 at the time of completion of deceleration is positioned at a deceleration completion position previously determined.