Yang Yexing was about to get bored in the courtyard of Lou Fu, and after staying for ten years, he was finally able to get out of the yard.

Like many scholars who were under house arrest around, Yang Yexing's first thought when he walked out of the courtyard was to run, run quickly.

But it's not easy to get in and out of this place.

Fortunately, Yang Yexing did not forget that he was here to do business, and Luo Wen was waiting outside the courtyard early.

As soon as he came out, Rowan stepped forward to apologize, and then led him in the direction of the Black Mountain mine.

Along the way, Yang Yexing's eyes were straight, firstly because he had never seen the outside scene for ten years, and secondly because Lou Fu was a magical place.

There were almost no idlers in this place, and the common people were either cultivating farmland or building water conservancy, and after walking only a few miles, he saw three reservoirs being dug and built.

He even saw a lot of people planting something on the mountain, one group of people walking two steps with a hoe in front of them, and another group following behind, scattering seeds and pulling dirt with their feet.

The more Yang Yexing looked, the more curious he became, and he couldn't help asking, "Young Master Luo, what are they planting?" ”

Rowan glanced at the mountain and said with a smile: "I'm planting grass." ”

"Planting grass?" Yang Yexing's eyes are big.

"Well, planting grass."

"This ...... There is grass all over the mountains, so why plant grass? ”

"My adults want to herd sheep."

Hearing this, Yang Yexing almost fell off his horse.

Rowan smiled again: "At first, I was full of doubts like Mr. Yang, obviously there is grass on the mountain, why do I have to spend manpower and material resources to plant grass, but my family, the sheep will always gnaw the mountains bald, and when it rains, these mountains will not be able to hide the water, the mountain springs and wells will have to dry up, the sediment on the mountains will also be washed away, and it is easy to flood when it rains." ”

"If you plant grass on the slopes of Luliang Mountain, you can not only raise a large group of sheep, but also hide some water in this place, which is called a hundred years...... What's going on? That's right, a 100-year plan. ”

Yang Yexing has traveled north and south for decades and has seen many strange things, but he is still stunned when he hears it.

It was the first time he had heard of such a thing as planting grass and herding sheep, and it was also the first time he had heard of such a thing as planting grass and hiding water.

But will it work? How much water can be stored in an acre of land? How many sheep can you raise? Is the manpower and material resources spent too much?

Luo Wen seemed to see his doubts, and said with a smile: "My family grows some specially selected pastures, which can be used within ten or eight years of planting, and when the entire mountains of Jingle and Lan County are planted with green pastures, they can raise hundreds of thousands of livestock." ”

Yang Yexing smacked his tongue: "How many years will it take to plant all the mountains in this land?" ”

"I don't know, it could be ten years, eight years, or decades."

"Ten years and eight years, the officials have changed two or three times."

Yang Yexing shook his head in amazement, and couldn't help asking, "What kind of person is your family?" ”

Rowan smiled mysteriously and said, "Unfathomable." ”

Yang Yexing opened his mouth, but in the end he didn't ask, just watched around while following Luo Wenze

After a large amount of lime was produced by the temporary assault, Qin Chuan recruited 2,000 new hungry people to work in the lime factory, and then asked the miners to return to the iron and coal yards to continue to open the furnace to make iron.

Qin Chuan was in the mine, and when Brother Yang Ye arrived, he led the red-clothed attendant to stand at the gate of the mine and wait.

Seeing the fiery army, Yang Yexing was a little nervous, but he couldn't help but look at Qin Chuan from a distance.

"Mr. Yang, welcome, welcome."

Seeing them approaching, Qin Chuan greeted them with a smile.

Yang Yexing hurriedly dismounted, bowed his hand, and said respectfully: "Yang Yexing, a grass citizen, has seen Lord Qin." ”

"Hahahaha, Mr. Yang, you are here to discuss business, not to see officials, please be polite."

"Thank you, Lord Qin."

"Mr. Yang, please."

"Your Excellency, please."

Yang Yexing bent down slightly, followed Qin Chuan into the mine slowly, and kept looking around.

When he walked inside and saw two smoking Dajian furnaces from a distance, Yang Yexing's eyes couldn't help but widen.

These two blast furnaces are not the same as the Dajian furnace he has seen, mainly because there are two more furnaces next to the blast furnace, one furnace has almost a sealed roof, and the other is boxy, like a big bellows, and the bricks are connected to the Dajian furnace, and I don't know what it is for.

He vaguely felt that the reason why Lou Fu was able to refine such a good iron material was because of those two furnaces.

After Qin Chuan saw his expression, he didn't say anything, and only led him to the warehouse where the iron was stored.

The refining furnace and the hot blast furnace were not secrets, and anyone who had worked in the mines had seen them, even on the hills surrounding the mines.

But the only people who knew the structure inside were the dozens of craftsmen and furnace players who participated in the construction, the people who knew the ironmaking process, only a dozen furnace players who were responsible for the operation, and only a few people including him and Yan Sanqi knew the principle.

The trick of Lou Fu Iron is to calcinate the molten iron at high temperatures, then blow air into the crucible to stir it, and add limestone and other things to remove impurities, a method that cannot be learned by just looking at a refining furnace.

Moreover, Qin Chuan's control over the furnace was very strict, and they were not allowed to leave Montenegro at will with their families, and they had to accompany the relevant imperial army when they had important things to leave.

Yang Yexing's eyes kept staring at the two strange stoves until Qin Chuan brought him into the warehouse.

The purpose of his visit to Lou Fu was to make sure that there was a large amount of iron and to check whether it was in good condition.

After entering the wide warehouse and seeing the mountains of iron, and with Qin Chuan's consent, Yang Yexing took a diorama and led a dozen followers to take samples in the pile of iron to interrupt and inspect them carefully.

Qin Chuan was not in a hurry, and after he had enough samples, he led him out and went to an exposed iron yard to continue checking.

There are not many warehouses in the iron yard, so most of the iron materials are stacked in the open, and the air in the Luliang Mountains is dry, and there is not much rust.

After the mountains of iron materials were turned around, Yang Yexing couldn't hold back his excitement and ran to Qin Chuan's side, and said politely: "My lord, according to the price agreed with Luo Gongzi before, your iron Yang family firm will all want, and the contemptible people will send people back to Texas, so that the business can ship grain and silver, and the first batch of 200,000 catties of pig iron and 200,000 catties of wrought iron will be transported first, and then it will be transported again every month." ”

Qin Chuan smiled: "Okay, good." ”

"My lord, let's make a contract."

"Okay, okay."

Qin Chuan smiled and led him to the official room of the iron field, took the pen, ink, paper and inkstone, and made a contract on the spot.

200,000 catties of pig iron is 3,000 taels of silver, 200,000 taels of wrought iron 6,000 taels, a total of 9,000 taels.

Of these, 4,500 taels were delivered in cash, and the rest was deducted with grain.

Luo Wenhe negotiated with Yang Yexing on the price of grain, and the bulk price of grain in the southern and southern Zhili areas was only about 123 yuan, while the bulk price in Texas was about 127 yuan, and the bulk price was 1 to 2 yuan lower.

Qin Chuan gave Yang Yexing three yuan per stone for freight, which was set at one or two eight yuan, and four thousand five hundred taels of silver was discounted into two thousand five hundred stone of grain.

After the contract was set, Qin Chuan said a few more polite words to Yang Xingye, and then asked Luo Wen to send him back to Lou Fu.

Although Yang Yexing wanted to know the mystery of the two stoves, he didn't dare to ask, let alone ask to see the stoves, so he obediently replied to Lou Fu, and then asked people to hurry back to Texas and inform the people over there to ship silver taels and grain.

Qin Chuan is considering expanding production capacity in the iron yard.

Only one Yang Yexing can swallow hundreds of thousands of catties of goods in a month, and if the trade routes of Yarkand in the west and the Mongol tribes in the north that have not surrendered to the Jin Dynasty can be sold for more than 100,000 catties a month.

It seems that we have to explore converter steelmaking as soon as possible, and the steel that can be smelted by that method will be significantly improved in quality and output.

In addition, semi-mechanized casting must be carried out as soon as possible.

Qin Chuan wanted to use the method of cold rolling to make a better pot than a wide pot.

When the time comes, he will not only do Yarkand and Mongolian business, but also do European business, and imprint Chinese manufacturing in the pot.

But these are all later words, because his and Yan Sanqi's energy is limited, and they can't do so much in a short period of time.

Now, he had to put the rails on the rails in the iron and coal yards to improve efficiency.

During the epidemic prevention period, Yan Sanqi and Chen Zhan had already used the iron mold casting method to build more than 100 zhang long railroad tracks and 20 iron wheels.

The newly cut wood was still drying in the shade, and dozens of carpenters had dug out a large number of sleepers from the original wood collected from everywhere.

Qin Chuan planned to lay out the railroad tracks between the crushing yard and the fine material dumping yard, as well as between the coal yard and the Dajian furnace.

These stockpiles are not far from each other, and one hundred and twenty feet of rails is enough.