Today, Guo Song's convening of the crowd is not so much a discussion as a general mobilization, which is a kind of ideological shift, from the drudgery of resettlement of refugees to how to make use of so many abundant human resources.

In fact, before that, recruiting new soldiers, regimental training and scholars began to use this kind of resources, but after all, it was only a part, and there were still a large number of people who had nothing to do at home, and making full use of them could solve the problem of insufficient manpower in many undertakings in Hexi.

What Guo Song wanted to do most was mining, and the imperial court mine supervisor discovered iron ore in Zhangye as early as twenty years ago, and it was relatively easy to mine, but it was shelved because of lack of manpower.

Without enough pig iron resources, recovering the Western Regions is an empty word, and now the imperial court can no longer count on it, and Guo Song can only find ways to solve many strategic resources by himself, the most important of which is pig iron.

At the end of the discussion, it was still early, and all the officials went back to the official office to gather their subordinates to discuss the next arrangement, and Guo Song asked all the officials to hand over the plan within three days, and they had to find their own direction.

Guo Song and Cangcao participated in the military Zhang Chen came to the armory, and all the warehouses in Zhangye were located in the north of the city, including gold, silver and copper money warehouses, armor warehouses, and other material warehouses, such as pig iron warehouses, saltpeter warehouses, and so on.

In fact, Guo Song had decided to build a warehouse city close to the north of the city, and the vacant land in Zhangye City was gone, and he still had a large amount of materials that had not been delivered, such as the largest grain warehouse, which could only be placed in Liangzhou, and the meat ice warehouse in Jiedan County.

The armory is composed of ten warehouses, which are divided into categories to store all kinds of weapons, armor, bows and crossbows, shields, fire oil, military flags and war drums, etc., today Guo Song wants to see the waste armory, which is composed of two warehouses and stacks hundreds of thousands of weapons.

Several barns squeaked open the large wooden door, only it was full of all kinds of weapons, swords, spears, swords, halberds, no wooden poles, all iron parts, and there was another large pile next to it, but all kinds of scrapped pig iron farm tools and cooking utensils.

Then there were dozens of large wooden boxes as tall as a man, filled with iron arrowheads.

There are as many as 200,000 or 300,000 weapons alone, and they are piled up like a hill.

Guo Song picked up a spearhead casually, the spearhead was rusty, it seemed to have been dug out of the soil, and it had been buried for I don't know how many years.

Zhang Chen next to him said with a smile: "Turning in this spearhead can reward ten cents, some time ago when harvesting wheat, many people dug weapons on the old battlefield nearby, an arrow for a penny, a sword spearhead for ten cents, a family handed over more than 300 old war knives, the government rewarded him with a one-time reward of ten taels of silver, and many people sent all kinds of old weapons piled up on the roof, and also received a two-hundred-pound big iron rod, and also rewarded the other party with five taels of silver. ”

'Two hundred pounds of iron rods? Guo Song suddenly became interested, and asked with a smile: "Where is the iron rod, show me?" ”

Several soldiers brought a large black iron rod from the corner of the wall, about eight feet long, the thickness of the bowl mouth, the appearance looked like an ordinary iron rod, but it was extremely heavy when lifted, Guo Song could immediately judge that this was not iron, its density was higher than iron.

Guo Song pulled out the sharp dagger and cut off a layer slightly on the surface, revealing a silvery-white color.

"It's silver!" The soldiers exclaimed.

Guo Song shook his head, "It's not silver, it's white copper." ”

Cupronickel is the metal nickel, which is abundant in Longyou, and its density is much greater than that of pig iron.

"You don't need to make a weapon, but you can use it to mint money."

Speaking of minting money, Guo Song asked again: "How much copper is in the treasury?" ”

Zhang Zhen hurriedly said: "There are still millions of pounds of blister copper in the warehouse, and there is also a batch of bronze utensils, which were also seized from Shanzhou City, and it is estimated that there are more than 100,000 catties, but the use is a bit controversial. ”

"What do you mean by that?"

"The Ordnance Department wanted to use it to cast copper shields, but Tocao Si disagreed, they thought that this batch of copper should be used to cast money, and they argued endlessly, and it was very difficult for them to humble themselves."

Guo Song nodded, "Of course, it is used to mint money, it is too wasteful to cast copper shields, I have already told Pan Changshi, our gold and silver are more precious, try not to use them, it is more suitable to cast copper coins, and when mining starts after the beginning of spring, copper ingots may also be produced, so that the raw materials for coinage will also be available." ”

"I understand the lowly position, use it to mint money!"

Guo Song inspected a few more warehouses, and then went up to the city wall, the grassland outside the north city wall was covered with thick snow, there were traces of a city foundation, the circumference was about fifteen miles, here is the warehouse city to be built, initially decided to build a new county town, but soon found that Hexi was more in urgent need of a cang city, so the plan to build a new county town was postponed, and concentrated on building the cang city, but just after the foundation was built, the blizzard came.

Guo Song's gaze looked into the distance, he had now been appointed by the imperial court as the protector of Anxi, and after the beginning of spring, his army was about to march west.

Just then, there was a distant sound of 'Bang! There was a muffled sound, like a thunderclap on the ground.

Zhang Zhen looked dazed, with blue sky and white clouds above his head, the weather was so fine, how could there be thunder?

Guo Song laughed, these guys are really hardworking!

..........

Yesterday's sound outside the north city was naturally a gunpowder test, and the gunpowder test site was not in Zhangye City, but fifteen miles southwest of Zhangye, there was a military city built only the year before last, called Heigang Guard, located on a hill, in fact, it was the north warning tower of Zhangye City.

The military city is not large, covering an area of only 50 acres, and 50 soldiers are stationed, but since last month, this military city is not only an early warning tower, but also a firearms bureau under the Ordnance Administration.

As soon as the morning dawned, the north gate opened, and a camel team went out of the city, heading to Heigang City, fifteen miles away, the snow was too deep for the war horses to walk, but the camels could walk on the snow.

The camel caravan consisted of more than 300 camels, and in addition to the camels that transported supplies and gunpowder raw materials, there were also more than 50 camels carrying Guo Song and his entourage.

After more than half an hour, the camel team came to the foot of the black hill, the camels could not go up the mountain, and they had to use manpower to carry the materials up the mountain, but fortunately, the hill was not high, otherwise it would be too difficult.

At this time, a group of soldiers were already waiting at the foot of the mountain, and Yang Jun suddenly saw Guo Song, he was startled, and hurriedly came forward to salute.

Guo Song smiled slightly: "When I heard the explosion yesterday, I wanted to come and take a look." ”

Yang Jun was ashamed: "Yesterday's explosion was actually the result of a failure. ”

"What do you mean by that?"

Yang Jun sighed, "You'll know when you go up the mountain and see it." ”

Guo Song carried a bag of 100 catties of flour and went up the mountain with everyone.

The mountain is surrounded by big trees, the scenery is good, the north of the military city is very open, and below is an endless grassland, just covered by snow, it is completely a crystal clear white world.

The military city was divided into four parts, one part was the test site, about twenty acres of land, then the gunpowder distribution site, then the warehouse, and the last part was the living quarters. The four areas are separated by a large blue brick wall, and the living area is a single door in and out, completely separated from the other three areas, and there is no door to communicate with each other, which is mainly the living area can be heated by a fire and cook by fire, but the other three areas are not allowed to have fire except for the test site.

Walking into the test site, Yang Jun took an iron can from a table and handed it to Guo Song, the iron can was like a flat pumpkin, and it was quite heavy to start, at least seven or eight catties.

"You want to be an iron-clad fire thunderbolt?" Guo Song suddenly understood what he meant.

Yang Jun nodded, "The envoy said that the iron shell fire thunder is the highest level of fire thunder, and our porcelain bottle fire thunder has been completely successful, so I want to try the iron shell challenge." ”

"The result?" Guo Song asked with a smile.

Yang Jun was very frustrated, and said with a wry smile: "Yesterday, the ignition failed to explode three times, and then we wondered if there was a problem with the gunpowder, so we poured out the gunpowder and put it in a porcelain bottle, and it exploded at one point. ”

Guo Song looked at the iron shell in his hand, it was fused together with two halves of the iron shell, the thickness was moderate, and then it was thin and iron, the small mouth cover, there was a gap on the side, and when the lid was put in and twisted, it could not be opened, it must be opened along the gap, the sealing was very good, it should be said that this is the most suitable iron shell, why can't it be exploded, there is only one reason, the intensity of black powder is still a little bit worse.

Guo Song thought for a while and said to Yang Jun: "Try again, improve the formula, increase the amount of fire and sulfur slightly, and reduce the amount of sulfur, and the other way is to make it bigger, make it into a big iron tank of thirty or forty catties, and fill it with enough gunpowder, I think the explosion power will be much greater......

Yang Jun slapped his forehead suddenly, "Why didn't we expect that no matter how big or small the iron shell is, the explosive force it can withstand is the same, but the more medicine it contains, the more the explosive power will increase by more than ten times." ”

This is the principle of artillery battles, and the power of large artillery battles is much greater than that of small firecrackers, because the amount of gunpowder is large, but the paper wrapped is about the same.

It's very simple to say, but it's very difficult to do, and Guo Song didn't think about developing it in a few years, and Guo Song didn't pour cold water, but encouraged them to experiment.

In fact, Guo Song also hopes that they will succeed as soon as possible, and the powerful iron-shelled mines can not only be used in the military, but also in mining.