Yang Yexing was nervous and went back with a team of mules and horses, carrying iron materials and iron pots.

Along the way, he was thinking about Qin Chuan's words almost all the time.

Qin Chuan told him that this world is very big.

There are many, many countries in the world, and there is a great and legendary shipping route, and there are countless treasures at the end of the route.

The reason why the Francophiles have so many large ships and artillery is because they robbed all over the sea, robbed countless gold and silver treasures, used them to build fast and stable ships, and cast countless cannons.

Qin Chuan also said that there is a rich continent in the far east, where the land is vast and sparsely populated, with only a small number of indigenous people and red hairs.

There is also a continent to the south, which is not as fertile as the one to the east, but it is more sparsely populated, and a few cannons can be used to become kings.

In the end, Qin Chuan spread out the words: he wanted a fleet.

A fleet that can confront Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xianglao, and even beat the Franco-man.

Of course, he's not going to do it now.

He can pay the money and let Yang Yexing and the old friend who went to sea help him build a big ship, recruit boatmen, train sailors, and it doesn't matter if it takes five or seven years.

During this period, Yang Yexing and his old friends could use these big ships to go to sea, and with a large number of big ships, he and that old friend could make the trade bigger and wider.

Qin Chuan also said that Qin Chuan would have as much brass as he could, and he would increase the output of Lou Fu iron pot to satisfy the appetite for overseas trade.

Yang Yexing was moved.

The temptation was too great for him.

You don't need your own money to build a ship, you can still use these ships, and the trade can also be bigger and wider, in a few years, there are really dozens of big ships, and if there are hundreds of small boats, you can go to grab Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xianglao their territory.

In fact, it was not that he didn't think about building a fleet to go to the sea to make money, but it was too expensive to build a boat, a 400-gauge Guangzhou ship would cost thousands of taels, an 800-odd ship would cost several times, and a dozen or so ships would cost tens of thousands of taels, not including the money for raising sailors.

And now the sea is not very peaceful, the sea is rampant, the red hair is even more rampant, the fleet of more than a dozen ships goes to sea, once it is targeted by those sea people, it is basically over.

A dozen or so ships can't beat anyone at all.

And a fleet of hundreds of ships can't be managed without hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

Now, what Qin Chuan asked him to do is a fleet of hundreds of ships, which can compete with Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xianglao, and can beat the red hair to the point of urinating and walking sideways on the sea.

Yang Yexing made a rough calculation, such a fleet would never be able to be built without spending millions of taels of silver and ten or eight years.

Yang Yexing was moved.

With such a fleet in hand, he can walk sideways at sea and do whatever he wants.

You can also go to the Far Eastern Continent that Qin Chuan said to be the emperor of the soil, open up so 108,000 acres of fertile land, and recruit tens of thousands of tenants to send them over to farm.

Find a few more mines, recruit a large group of hungry people, and send them over to mine and make iron......

It's exciting to think about.

But Yang Yexing didn't dare to agree to Qin Chuan easily.

He had to go back and talk to his old friend.

Compared with the Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Nanyang Dami, the maritime power in Shandong is very small.

In the past, when Mao Wenlong was in Phi Dao, it was fine, and the maritime merchants who traveled between Dengzhou, Phi Dao, and Japan were quite prosperous, but Mao Wenlong completely declined as soon as he died.

With the Dengzhou Sailor and Sun Yuanhua in charge, no one dares to make too much noise.

His old friend has only three ships that can go to sea, and he has to pay money to the government and the chief of the sea in Denglai every year to buy peace, but he is still attacked by a small group of sea chiefs from time to time, and he has long wanted to buy a few more boats, but he is afraid of being detained by the imperial court sailors, and he is also afraid of attracting the attention of Zheng Yiguan, so he will be picked up to kill chickens and monkeys.

As early as a few months ago, during Kong Youde's rebellion, the ship of the Dengzhou Navy Division was sunk and sunk, and the rest was taken by Kong Youde to join Jiannu.

Coupled with the appearance of Lou Fu's iron pot, his old friend's mind became active again, wanting to buy a few more boats and make the business bigger.

Now, Qin Chuan suddenly wants to partner with them and pay for them to build a ship, and I don't know if his old friend will agree.

It's better to buy a boat directly, it's easy to do.

But Qin Chuan wants them to recruit shipwrights, Nanjing Longjiang Bao Shipyard, Guangdong Xinhui Dongguan Shipyard, Fujian Fuzhou Wuhumen Shipyard and other shipyards have to recruit some shipwrights, as well as Franco, Hongfan people, especially the old shipwrights of Longjiang Bao Shipyard, and the East India Company shipwrights, can spend a lot of money to dig them back, how much money can be discussed.

Yang Yexing didn't understand, the ship can be bought, and the big ship with 400 or even 800 materials can be bought in Fujian and Guangdong, so why bother to build it himself?

You know, the cost of opening a shipyard is a small amount of money.

But Qin Chuan said that he wanted to build a big war ship as big as the treasure ship, faster than the Guang ship, and more artillery than the red boat.

Yang Yexing was dumbfounded when he heard this, and he didn't dare to ask any more.

He had to go back and ask his old friend's opinion, and if he was interested, he would take his old friend to Lou Fu to meet Qin Chuan.

……

Not long after Yang Yexing left, Luo Daniu returned.

He brought back more than 7,000 stones of grain and dozens of truckloads of stinking locusts.

He said that the locusts that crossed through the area of Wubao and Liulin covered the sky and the sun and were extremely terrifying, but after he scattered the people and said that they could be exchanged for food, the locusts were caught by the hungry people.

However, many hungry people who had eaten locusts were dying, and many died within a few days.

When these locusts came back, dozens of handlebars and lifu were smoked and vomited, and many mules and horses were sick.

After listening to Luo Daniu's words, Qin Chuan remembered that locusts were poisonous.

If it is a scattered locust, you can eat it casually, it is not poisonous.

But once a swarm of locusts is formed, it will release a toxic volatile compound, and when you smell the gas, you will be dizzy, and you will be even more diluted when you eat it, and even die directly.

Fortunately, after Luo Daniu found out that there were hungry people poisoned, he strictly forbade Emperor Guan's army to eat that thing.

The dozens of coachmen and laborers were fine, but a few of the mules died, and a dozen of them were sick and wilted, and they had to be raised for a while.

Wang Jizong had already asked people to dig hundreds of big pits in Lou Fu and Jingyou, and as soon as these locusts arrived, they poured them into the hundreds of big pits, added human and animal manure, bellflower, and a small amount of arsenic and sulfur, and then added some water, and then covered with wooden boards, and then filled in the soil and buried them.

By the beginning of spring next year, a large amount of fertilizer can be obtained, which can be used for spring sowing.

……

On the first day of November, the weather was extremely cold.

Qin Chuan still got up early, and after breakfast, he wore his mink coat and walked out of the inner courtyard rubbing his somewhat sore old waist.

Today is the day when the southern wall of Fort Montenegro is dismantled.

Due to the sudden cold weather a week ago, the speed of cement strength rise has slowed down, and the demoulding date has been postponed for seven days.

Early in the morning, Luo Daniu, Li Dingliang, Liu Youzhu, Wang Jizong, Wen Cheng, Chen Zhan, Li Xuejing, Yan Sanqi and others were waiting outside the southern city wall, and there were many Guan Emperor soldiers who had no training tasks, and the people who had no work to do, etc., also gathered outside, looking at this majestic city wall.

After Qin Chuan arrived outside the city, he waved his hand: "Dismantle the mold." ”

Thousands of workers climbed the tripods or stepped on a dozen cement-poured stairs to the second and third floors to begin dismantling the formwork.

There are many people and great strength, and they can do any work quickly, and it only took an hour, and all the templates were dismantled.

Workers hoisted the formwork and top timber down and moved them to several newly built warehouses nearby for storage, before cleaning the house.

The people outside let out bursts of admiration.

Including the female wall at the top, this wall is ten feet high and two feet high, with a gray appearance, and the wall is vertical and flat.

There were fifty rooms on each floor, each with one and four holes, and after two days they were fitted with thick windows that could be opened in time of war for soldiers to shoot from within.

The city wall is also equipped with an enemy platform every forty paces, protruding one zhang outward, a total of eight, and there is a cannon hole and two gun holes on three sides of the enemy platform.

All the cannon holes add up, a total of one hundred and seventy-four, and the gun holes are six hundred and forty-eight, which can form a three-dimensional crossfire network, even if the gods come, they don't want to break through this city wall.

The gate in the middle of the city wall is one foot three feet wide and six feet high, and the craftsmen have already built the gate, which is made of hardwood, eight inches thick, and the outside must be wrapped with two points of thick iron sheet, which cannot be cut by a knife or burned by fire.

After all the formwork and top wood were hoisted down, Qin Chuan lowered a sledgehammer to Luo Da Niu and motioned for him to smash it a few times.

Luo Da Niu walked over with a sledgehammer, and the people behind him also followed, curiously surrounding him.

With a loud "bang", Luo Da Niu's sledgehammer flashed out a few sparks, and the city wall that was hit by the sledgehammer only dropped a little ash.

"This two-foot-thick reinforced concrete wall cannons cannons can't be defeated." Qin Chuan smiled a little smugly.

The people around him let out another burst of admiration.

Liu Wenxiu and Ai Nengqi, who were watching from the side, widened their eyes and looked incredulous.

Li Dingguo, who was on the side, swallowed his dry throat and said in a low voice: "With this reinforced concrete casting method, in just one month, an indestructible military fort can be built on the grassland. ”

Hearing this, Liu Wenxiu and Ainengqi's faces changed.

Although they were still young, they all knew what it meant to build a military fort in such a short period of time.