Li Longji opened his mouth to bring up the matter of rubber trees, which was completely expected by Li An, he knew that the emperor was looking for him at this time, and he must have asked about rubber trees, after all, the huge role of rubber trees has caused a shock in the government and the opposition, and everyone realized the importance of rubber trees to the Tang Empire, and Li Longji naturally paid more attention to rubber trees. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

For the lack of rubber tree resources, since the emperor Li Longji, all the ministers are worried, feeling that the lack of this resource has seriously restricted the development of the Tang Empire, and is a bottleneck restricting the development of the Tang Empire, and this bottleneck must be solved.

After some careful consideration, Li Longji had already made a decision to establish a rubber workshop in the distant Americas to provide a steady stream of urgently needed resources for the developing Tang Empire, but Li Longji was not clear about the feasibility of establishing a workshop in the Americas and the difficulties that might be encountered, so he had to seek Ang Lee's opinion.

"Yes, Your Majesty, rubber trees must grow for at least five or six years before they can produce rubber, otherwise, it will seriously affect the amount of rubber, and it is very undesirable to fish for all their time."

Ang Lee opened his mouth to explain.

Regarding the exploitation of rubber tree resources, Ang Lee still knows a lot, who made him a learned person in his previous life? Of course, it's sad to be a learned poor man, a learned dick.

Li Longji sighed slightly, and said: "Li Shilang's wheels made of rubber are very good, when I sit in the carriage, I can hardly feel the bumps, and the bicycle is also very good, I personally rode it, it is really light, if it can be popularized in the future, it will be much more convenient for the people to travel." ”

"Your Majesty also rides a bicycle? This is too dangerous, Your Majesty should not ride it in the future, the bicycle is easy to lose balance. ”

Li An didn't expect Li Longji to be able to ride a bicycle at such an age, but thinking that the old men of later generations could ride a bicycle, he was quickly relieved.

"I can ride a tall horse, why can't I ride a bicycle, riding a bicycle is very simple, I can still ride a bicycle and take the concubine around the back garden?"

Li Longji seemed to be much younger, with a confident expression on his face.

"By the way, Li Shilang, the rain boots and rubber cloth shoes you made are also very good, the ministers have said that they are good, and whether it is the tires of the vehicle or the shoes, they need a lot of rubber juice, with the current supply of 100 catties a day, it is too little, this problem, Li Shilang should be very clear, so I thought, can I send a team of people to the Americas, directly collect rubber resources locally, and transport them back to Datang by steam ships, in this way, the lack of rubber, isn't it solved?"

Li Longji opened his mouth to put forward his hypothesis and asked Ang Lee's opinion.

"Does Your Majesty really intend to establish a rubber workshop in the Americas?"

Ang Lee felt that Li Longji was too concerned about the rubber matter.

"I and the ministers are thinking about this problem day and night, the rubber is really too good, the more the better, but at the moment it is too troublesome to transport rubber trees from the Americas, besides, too large rubber trees are not easy to transplant, I heard Li Langzhong, who has been to the Americas, said that the big rubber trees in the Americas are very tall, and they are not at all carried by manpower, I think that such a tall rubber tree will definitely produce more rubber juice, and if you can collect rubber trees in the Americas, you will definitely be able to get much more rubber resources than Datang, and, Sending more people to the Americas can better develop the Americas, so that they will kill two birds with one stone. ”

Li Longji said seriously.

"So, Your Majesty has made up your mind?"

Li An said lightly.

"I have thought it through, but the situation in the Americas, as well as the situation of rubber trees, is only known to Li Shilang, so I want to hear Li Shilang's opinion."

Li Longji said.

Li An thought for a moment and said: "Your Majesty's idea is completely feasible, as long as you invest enough manpower and financial resources, you can establish a rubber workshop in the Americas, and transport the preliminarily processed rubber products back to Datang, so as to meet the needs of Datang, however, you can only establish the most basic processing workshop in the Americas, and you must not establish an overly advanced technology processing workshop. ”

"Why can't we set up a better processing workshop in the Americas, is Li Shilang worried about something?"

Li Longji asked curiously.

"Your Majesty, after all, the Americas are isolated overseas, in case they master advanced processing and production technology, they will have independent capital, so it is easy to break away from Datang, so in order for Datang to better control the Americas, the most advanced technology must not be brought into the Americas, let alone establish advanced processing workshops in the Americas, and can only retain the most basic processing workshops."

Ang Lee opened his mouth to explain.

The experience of later generations has proved that as long as the colonial population of the Americas has mastered a certain amount of material and technology, they will launch a war of independence, and the most powerful country in later generations is the country that is independent in the Americas, which must be vigilant.

Li Longji deeply believed that he was the emperor and had the best knowledge of controlling the country, so he could naturally think of various possibilities for the independence of the Americas.

"With Datang's current demand for rubber, Li Shilang thinks it is more appropriate to send how many people to the Americas to establish a rubber workshop?"

When Li Longji heard that a rubber workshop could be established, he asked how many people to send were suitable.

Li An thought for a while, and then opened his mouth to suggest: "Your Majesty, there are natives in the Americas, and there are still a lot of people, since they have now surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, this kind of thing should be handed over to them to do, we only need to provide rubber tapping technology, and then let them work, the Native Americans don't know how useful the sap of rubber trees is, so they only need to be paid a small amount, and the rubber workshop for primary processing, thousands of people should be enough." ”

"Well, what Li Shilang said is basically the same as what I thought, I also plan to let the natives of the Americas be responsible for rubber tapping and harvesting, but I still have to send more people from the Tang Dynasty to the past, only the number of people in the Tang Dynasty is enough, in order to better control the Americas, and to better expand the production of rubber, I plan to send another 20,000 horses to South America, enrich the population of South America, and let most of them engage in rubber production."

Li Longji finally made a decision to send 20,000 horses to fill the base in South America, and let them mainly be responsible for the production of rubber raw materials.

Of course Ang Lee would not object, this was the emperor's decision, how dare he oppose it? And immediately expressed his full support, and he had long thought about establishing a rubber collection workshop in the Americas, but he was worried that the Americas would develop too quickly in the future and move towards independence step by step, so he did not put forward this idea.

Sending 20,000 horses to South America, mainly responsible for the production of rubber resources, this is a big event, it must be carefully prepared, and Li Ang knows the rubber situation best, so the officials in charge of the organization, before making any decisions, will come to ask Li An's opinion, and then finally make up his mind.

The busy days are fulfilling, but at the same time they are also very tired, and the officials in charge of the development of the American rubber industry in the Americas come to annoy Li Ang all day long, so that Li Ang has a headache when he sees them, but no matter how much the headache is, he has to endure it, who makes him know the most about the Americas and rubber? Even if it is a trivial matter, the relevant officials of the imperial court do not dare to make decisions casually, they have to ask Li An for instructions, and Li An who is annoying does not want it.

After nearly a month of comprehensive preparations, the relevant materials and personnel were all prepared, although this time there were only 20,000 people who went to South America, but the imperial court allocated 5,000 soldiers and horses to better control the land of South America and prevent the occurrence of incidents that endangered the people of the Tang Dynasty. Let them not dare to make trouble, so as to avoid a crisis.

Of course, in addition to ordinary people, the relevant officials, as well as the skilled craftsmen who had been trained by Ang Lee himself, were definitely going to the Americas, and the mining and rough processing of rubber products must be guided by them, otherwise, everything could not be carried out in an orderly manner.

At this time, after many rounds of technical improvements, the tonnage and speed of large steam ships have been greatly improved, and it takes more than a month to go to the Americas, which is very convenient.

Before the invention of the train, many local officials in the Tang Dynasty needed to walk for several months to reach the capital Chang'an, but now the Americas only need one or two months to arrive, which is actually not far away.

As an important material, natural rubber, under normal circumstances, can be kept for at least three months without deterioration, and if it is treated, it can be stored for more than half a year, so as long as the processed rubber raw materials are transported back to Datang in time, it will not deteriorate, and it can also provide Datang with a steady stream of reliable rubber resources.

Because the imperial court attached great importance to the rubber industry, the first batch of rubber raw materials was transported back in just three months after this group of people went to South America.

Of these 30 large sea vessels, 10 of them all contain rubber raw materials, each ship is loaded with 1,000 tons of raw materials, and the 10 ships are loaded with a total of 10,000 tons of rubber raw materials, which is even heavier when it is counted as the weight of the containers.

When arriving at Laizhou seaport, the local imperial court temporarily recruited a large number of laborers from the vicinity to load and unload these rubber materials, and all of them were transported to the Laizhou railway station and loaded and transported to the capital Chang'an.

According to the train loading plan, a carriage can only load ten tons, and a freight train can only hold 500 tons when fully loaded, and at least 20 freight trains are needed to transport all this batch of rubber raw materials back to the capital.

Because it takes a certain amount of time to load these goods, the trains are going to the capital one by one, with intervals of more than three or five hours, and it took seven or eight days for twenty freight trains to finish all of them.

When the first freight train consigned rubber raw materials arrived at Chang'an City Railway Station, the relevant officials of the imperial court, who had received the news one step earlier, immediately led a large number of laborers to start unloading, and used various vehicles to transport these important rubber raw materials into the R&D center and handed them over to Li An.

With such a large amount of rubber raw materials all of a sudden, Li An was very excited, these are all strategic resources, all of which are urgently needed raw materials for Datang, and the arrival of these raw materials can allow Li An to carefully prepare the production line for several months to officially start.

After all, in the past few months, in addition to using a small amount of rubber raw materials for scientific research, Li An has also manufactured a large number of related equipment according to his own scientific research results, as long as the rubber raw materials arrive in the capital, they can be immediately produced on a large scale.

The core technical craftsmen, Ang Lee has personally trained, they are fully qualified for this job, and the newly recruited craftsmen can also be handed over to these core craftsmen for training, in short, large-scale production can be launched soon.

In addition to daily necessities such as rain boots and rubber sneakers, industrial products such as tires and mechanical conveyor belts, and many other products have been produced.

Of course, industrial products are in the highest priority, after all, Datang has too many vehicles, and these vehicles all need to be installed with tires, some can not be installed, but also to produce the corresponding wheels, thus promoting the development of an industry.

In terms of daily necessities, it mainly produces the most practical products, such as rain boots and rubber soles, which can protect people from mud, and rubber soles that make people more comfortable, lighter, and more durable.

In addition, there are some other equipment that also need to use rubber materials, such as sofa cushions made of foamed natural rubber, which are very soft and comfortable to sit on, much softer than sitting on a quilt.

There are also foamed natural rubber pillows, which are not only soft and comfortable under the head, but also have health care effects, which are great for people's bodies.

When Ang Lee used foamed rubber technology to create a soft cushion, everyone was amazed, and the soft feeling was really unusual.

Of course, this is not the end, Ang Lee still has more powerful skills that he has not come up with?

"Li Shilang, what is this square guy you made of springs for, it feels so strange!"

A craftsman asked, standing up, wiping his sweat.

They are all very familiar with Ang Lee, so they naturally say whatever they want, and they never feel restrained.

"Don't worry, you'll know what it is soon."

Li Ang smiled lightly and let the craftsman continue to work.

When the springs were ready, Ang Lee immediately had the foaming technology used to bring the soft cushion and ask the workers to wrap the soft cushion around the square spring block, thus forming a Simmons that was very common in later generations.