After Xiang Guoyuan and Chen Shi fully understood the enemy's situation and formulated a preliminary plan for the southern expedition, Li Su, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei entered the rhythm of separate preparations.

Zhang Fei took 5,000 barbarian soldiers and Qingqiang soldiers to continue to stay in Yandao for training, while Guan Yu and Li Su continued to go to Jiangyang to train troops and rectify Jingyan to prepare for the subsequent war pretext.

The candidates for the adjutant generals who accompanied the army were also adjusted and decided after the preliminary battle plan was decided. Because Liu Beijun's generals have different endowments, they need to choose the right people according to the tactical arrangement.

The candidates for deputy generals of Guan Yu's faction are Gan Ning, Zhou Tai, and Xu Huang all the year round, but because Guan Yu played the role of luring the enemy by land this time, the generals of the navy should be assigned to Zhang Fei, and Xu Huang was in the Han Dynasty.

Thinking about it, Guan Yu felt that it was enough to have Gao Shun who was trapped in the camp, no need to find a deputy general, it was better to bring a civilian to join the army, anyway, there were not too many brave people to fight Nanzhong, it was better to be stable. In the end, he asked Liu Bei to choose a local who understood the situation from among the generals under Liu Yan, and it was best to know a little about the army, and Liu Bei of course agreed, and sent him Huang Quan as a land army in July.

Huang Quan was the best performer among Liu Yan's previous civilian supervision armies, and he had undergone some tests in the Battle of Yizhou. The rest of Qin Mi, Zheng Du and others were all defeated and lost by Zhao Yun at the beginning, and only Huang Quan was able to restrain his subordinates to preserve their strength and did not suffer much loss from Zhao Yun. Relying on this peer foil, I finally got an opportunity to make meritorious contributions.

Before Liu Bei sent him, Haosheng exhorted him, telling Huang Quan that as long as he followed Guan Yu to make meritorious contributions, he could first seal the county order of a big county when he came back, and give him a chance to treat everyone equally, and he would not be discriminated against by the faction because he followed Liu Yan to the end.

Guan Yu joined the army as a civilian official, and Gan Ning and Zhou Tai were all sent to Zhang Fei to ensure the safety of the waterway army. Liu Bei also promised Gan Ning and Zhou Tai that as long as they performed well in the process of pacifying Nanzhong, they would at least be promoted to lieutenants after they returned, and they would be able to become Taishou, lieutenants, and miscellaneous generals in the next few years...... The flatbread is drawn quite seductively.

After all, these people have been stuck in the positions of Yamen Governor and Sima of other departments for a year or two. Zhao Yun is now only the captain and Taishou of Changshui, and Liu Bei is still very cautious about awarding high-level military positions.

It's a pity that I don't know if it's fate, Zhou Tai and Gan Ning rushed to help the army, but Gan Ning just tried the waterway route from Yandao to Zhuti a few times, and wanted to familiarize himself with the situation? Then he and dozens of sailors fell ill with a severe tropical illness and vomited.

Zhang Fei's military doctor didn't have a good way to deal with tropical diseases at the beginning? Is it just that according to the epidemic prevention experience summed up from the battle of Dianjiang-Diaoyu City, all patients are isolated and lived in isolation, sanitary conditions are ensured, everything is cooked and boiled in drinking water, and all garbage is burned and buried deeply, and it is not allowed to pollute water sources indiscriminately? Fortunately, the fever did not spread.

Gan Ning pulled for five or six days? Lost twenty or thirty pounds, or because the news that he could no longer go on the expedition reached Jiangyang? Li Su heard about it by Li Su, who was rectifying the salt problem in the well, and Li Su casually mentioned that he should drink boiled light salt water (imitating normal saline) to replenish salt to prevent dehydration of the body, and add some kaolinite powder ground to a very fine level.

Is kaolinite montmorillonite? In later generations, the common diarrhea medicine "Smecta" at home is "montmorillonite powder"? But Li Su only knew the name of the medicine, and couldn't remember the other ingredients in montmorillonite powder, so he could only casually say one or two main ingredients.

After the messenger went back, he tried Li Su, a dirt cube who was rotten in the later generations, and Gan Ning finally carried the intestinal inflammation a little bit away? But if you don't recuperate for half a year, you can't restore the original force value? I had to miss the opportunity to make meritorious contributions to the winter offensive and continue to serve as a Sima of other departments for a few years.

In this way, Zhang Fei only has the deputy general Zhou Tai in charge of the water battle, and the deputy general Wang Ping is in charge of the land battle, and these three people must be expected to lead the troops to take the Kunming Basin.

……

"Alas, is this guy Gan Ning destined to fight with the barbarians? When he met Shamoko, he was also weak and weak, and was shot in the head with an arrow. Now you want to fight Jing Yi and Meng Wei? Sure enough, it's a fever again, and it seems that you can't force what you shouldn't have. ”

Li Su read Zhang Fei's reply? Thanks to his earthwork for helping Gan Ning to slow down, and praised Li Suzhen in the letter for knowing a little bit about everything? Even the fever and diarrhea that the military doctor could not grasp can be alleviated.

After reading it? Li Su's heart is so emotional.

But? He quickly tossed the letter aside, thinking it wasn't a big deal and not to worry. Even if there is one less Gan Ning, it is enough for the remaining three people to lead troops to crush Jing Yi.

Li Su himself, what he needs to focus on recently, is how to increase the output of well salt in Jiangyang County, so as to provide a material basis for the subsequent trade war to win over Nanban.

Before coming, Li Su also roughly knew that later in history, during Zhuge Liang's reign in Shu, the output of well salt also increased a lot, even if the production was not doubled, it was estimated that it was seven or eight. But Zhuge Liang may not personally know the technology of improving well salt mining, in the final analysis, it is necessary to use people appropriately.

Therefore, Li has always been able to treat salt in two steps: on the one hand, he has so much more knowledge of physics and chemistry than the people of the Han Dynasty, and on the other hand, he also has to "let professional people do professional things", so he chose to recruit talents, and Zhang Bang rewarded professionals who knew how to salt technology, and awarded official positions exceptionally.

In this way, he can save himself trouble, as long as he dials a little, the details can be handled by themselves, and at most a deputy financial official can be sent to supervise the audit.

Some people may wonder, how can Li Su know a little about well salt mining? Isn't he a liberal arts student?

This involves the character of his previous life, who made him a middle-class elite white-collar worker who is easy to be sold anxiety, and in the 2010s of the later generation, this kind of person is the easiest to involuntarily "lifelong learning" to relieve anxiety.

On the way to and from work, whether you drive by yourself or take the subway, you have to open some apps such as "Himalaya" to listen to talk shows such as "Xiaoshuo" and "Short and Tight Pointing North". Or be trafficked to the more serious anxiety on the download "get" to listen to the e-book every day to interpret.

In his last life, he once drove to work on the way, and listened to an e-book called "Zigong Merchant" in "Get", which talked about the development of well salt, focusing on the expansion of Sichuan salt production capacity in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and finally realized "Sichuan Salt Jichu". At the beginning, Li Su listened to it as a historical story, but he didn't expect that some rough ideas in it could be directly used now.

He knows that the increase in salt production in wells is nothing more than two directions: the first is to select a better well, and to dig deeper, the deeper the digging, the more water production, and the darker the brine, the higher the salt content.

In the two technical routes of "choosing the best location to dig deeply" and "choosing a location that is almost improvised, digging a bunch of wells", it is definitely the former that is more profitable.

In addition to digging wells and brine, the second link to increase production is to boil salt. Sichuan is humid, it is impossible to dry salt, it can only be boiled, and the best way to boil salt to continue production and expand production capacity is to use the natural gas drilled out of the salt well directly as fuel - this seems to be something that some people will do in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but I don't know why it is not popular, which requires Li Su's field investigation.

Moreover, there are wells associated with natural gas, and other soluble mineral salts are also abundant in the surrounding area, and the brine can also be black with a higher salt content, which can be said to be the best of both worlds.

As long as the general direction is good, you can take your time in the follow-up.

……

Unfortunately, on the fifth day after arriving in Jiangyang, Li Su inspected the existing salt wells in the vicinity of Jiangyang County and found that he had not found a high-quality well for associated natural gas.

At the same time, the brine of these wells is also relatively clear, and the poor ones are almost transparent, and the better ones are only a little white and turbid, and there is no good brine that is so thick that it is blackened.

Li Su also knew that the most famous city of Jingyan in later generations was Zigong - after all, the title of the e-book he heard in his previous life was called "Zigong Merchant", and the book also said that the birth of the place name Zigong was because there were two of the most productive and famous salt wells called Ziliujing and Gongjing respectively, and the initials of these two wells were called "cities".

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was no Zigong County, and the artesian well should have been discovered in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the history of Gongjing was earlier, but it is estimated that even if there is excavation now, it has not yet been named "Gongjing". The place of Zigong is now supposed to be a small riverside village and town between Jiangyang County and Han'an County, along the Luoshui.

After all, the artesian well is a place, and the name should be at the low of the hard bed by the river, because the geological pressure will spray water by itself, so if you want to find it, you should still follow the water and find a hard and low place with mountain rocks, and the chance is relatively large (the self-blowing well exploited by the oilfield is also based on this principle, that is, the nearby geology is very hard, but in fact, the liquid level of the aquifer layer is very low, and the underground liquid level next to it is higher than here, and once the stone is pierced through the oil, it will be sprayed out).

After thinking about this, Li Su said that he would go to the countryside and let Qianwei Taishou Chen Shi prepare it himself.

Chen Shi did not dare to disobey in front of Li Su, and immediately prepared a lot of dry food from people, craftsmen, guides, and boats, and said in a sycophant: "The governor really worked tirelessly, and actually went to the countryside to inspect the salt affairs and visit the survey, which is really a model for my generation." The general of Zhengxi is assisted by the governor, so why worry about the failure of the great cause. ”

Li Su was not polite to him, and with craftsmen and guides, he drove the boat up the river and slowly searched along the water. The first is to ask the locals if they have ever dug a well with gas that can be burned, and the second is to find out if there is a place with particularly hard geology and low terrain.

After spending four or five days, visiting and researching dozens of miles of surrounding villages and towns every day, walking more than 100 miles in a straight line along Jiangyang County, and at least 150 miles of winding waterways, Li Su finally asked the locals if they had found a well with "fire and gas".

"Let's go, go to the well with the fire gas at once." Li Su was overjoyed, and secretly wondered if this was the "Gongjing" in the embryonic stage?