Everyone was smiling, but Min Yuanqi was alone in the cabin looking at wrought iron and Su Gang in a daze.

At this time, Min Yuanqi knew that the iron-making industry of the Ming Dynasty was not useless, and after the failure of the government, the iron mining and iron-making industry were liberalized, and the output of pig iron and wrought iron in the Ming Dynasty was rising, and now the output has far exceeded that of the former Song Dynasty. The minting industry is quite a failure, one is that there is no large-scale copper mining in Yunnan, the copper reserves in Daming are insufficient, and it is not easy to mine, most of the copper is purchased from Myanmar, and the scale of domestic production has been insufficient. Although the imperial court controls the production of bronze ware, it is not allowed to steal the casting of private individuals, but this wind is repeatedly prohibited, to the end of the Ming Dynasty Xuande large-scale casting of the Xuande furnace value has been expensive, one is the exquisite casting, is the Burmese tribute copper casting, copper material is rare, the craftsman is very attentive, the Xuande furnace is exquisite. Another reason is that the Ming Dynasty has a long-term shortage of copper, even if it is not an antique bronze, it is worth a lot.

Another reason is that at the beginning of the country, treasure money and physical objects were used as monetary functions, and after the middle and late periods, a large amount of silver poured in, and there was no need to mint a large number of coins into the market circulation.

However, the control of the Ming court is too weak, just like the large-scale mining of the Qin, Han, Tang and Song dynasties, and the Qing Dynasty is not good......

The wrought iron in front of you is Min iron, the price is slightly more expensive than the local wrought iron, if the pig iron is only a few cents of silver a catty, quite cheap.

There are more than 240 large-scale iron ores and countless small iron mines in the Ming Dynasty. It is several times that of the Tang and Song dynasties, even if it is the Qing Chengming system, due to the strict control of the Qing Dynasty, the iron ore that has been explored by the Ming Dynasty is less than half, and the iron output does not increase but declines.

This time I bought more than 3,000 catties of iron, in fact, there are not too many weapons that can be made, according to the records of the Ming Dynasty, the record of a town in the nine sides of the Hongzhi period is 210,000 catties of wrought iron a year, all of which are made into armor weapons.

Of course, there are more than 100,000 soldiers in a town on the nine sides, and there are 50,000 or 60,000 at the least, this number is not out of line, Min Yuanqi is now only full of 100 households, and in a month it will be full of 300 households, reaching the specifications of more than 400 Zhejiang soldiers and one division, wrought iron is definitely not enough, and it has to be purchased on a large scale.

Sugang is made of small blast furnace smelting many times, which is the top scientific and technological achievement in this era, but it is nothing in the world.

Even so, this thing is quite rare, according to the records of the people, pig iron is made of three refining, wrought iron is refined five or six, and Sugang is made of nine refining, in fact, this is a literati record, and the number of refining depends on the situation.

The blast furnace of steelmaking is more than four meters high, the technology of return air heating is very mature, the steel filling method is used, in the world, this technology is also quite excellent, the key is to open up a science and technology tree, in the Ming Dynasty literati rule the country, the tradition of emphasizing academic light technology, the use of various science and technology in the late Ming Dynasty is also quite good, the key is that although the scholar is not ignorant of the craftsman's skills, he maintains the doctrine and open mind, which is a crucial point.

These sugang is wrought iron after many times of frying, with a lot of iron, time-consuming, labor-intensive and charcoal, how many catties of wrought iron to get a pound of qualified sugang, a pound of wrought iron is only a penny and two cents of silver, and a pound of qualified sugang is a few taels of silver, quite expensive and rare.

The output of Sugang is at most tens of thousands of catties a year, more than half of which is still used for civilian use, and there are also military, but at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the financial bankruptcy, the imperial court is short of money, it is unlikely to purchase expensive steel for the army, and the generals only weigh a small number of families, and it is impossible to buy a large number of Sugang with silver.

Min Yuan used extremely cherished eyes to caress the cold steel products in front of him, hard, cold, and full of industrial beauty. Even if this era has not yet opened the industrial revolution, in fact, all kinds of reserves have reached a critical point, the development of iron-making and steel-making, the inheritance and utilization of various technologies, and the production and sales of products after the opening of the Age of Discovery, the production and sales of products are not limited to a country or several neighboring countries, the opening of maritime trade routes is the decisive cause of the industrial revolution, by this time, several large companies of the British have paid astronomical taxes every year using overseas trade, Even a company's tax payment has exceeded or approached the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty for the whole year......

It is precisely because of the emergence of transnational trade and large companies, the ultra-high profits of the wool mill weaving industry, so that the Jenny machine hydraulic loom has appeared one after another, even this can not meet the product demand, the road to the invention of the steam engine can be described as one after another, because people know that only human animal power or water power can not meet the needs of large-scale trade, the steam engine is the accumulation of technology and theory, and the second is the need for trade development. Under the premise that there is no demand, no one can invent, and the invention will not be valued and utilized.

Although the Ming side has fallen behind in all directions, fortunately it has not been pulled too far, at least in terms of military technology now, and it is catching up.

The current Suzhou steel is quite expensive and rare, this time the demand of Huai'an Mansion City for a year has been bought, even if there is silver, the output of Suzhou steel is quite limited, the next step Min Yuanqi plans to have silver in his hand and quickly send people to the state capitals to buy, first buy most of the output and then say.

In addition to these sugang steels used to sharpen weapons, Min Yuanqi also planned to start his own trial production of firearms. The original rule of the Ming Dynasty was that the military town was not allowed to make itself, but now don't talk about the military town, there are a lot of private firearms, this thing hunting is much easier than bows and arrows, the main thing is that good archers have to be polished and accumulated over many months of adulthood, and this thing can become a good hunter in a few months. Even the Qing Dynasty, which had extremely strict control over the Han people, could not ban firearms, and later could only impose management, and there were not many firearms owned by the people, and the quality was much better than that in the hands of the Green Battalion soldiers.

Ji Xiao's new book has a complete method of making bird guns, from materials to production and use, including how to make granular gunpowder and how to set it, it is simply the most detailed encyclopedia.

Min Yuanqi often patted the book when reading the book and sighed, this book is not a banned book, but from the selection of troops to recruitment, training, and battle, including weapon building, weapon battle formation training, and the golden drum camp, everything is explained in detail very clearly, as long as those who are generals and even civilian officials study carefully, they can finally create a qualified strong army.

Qi Shuai started with small-scale battles in the south, and from the success of military training, tens of thousands of people were trapped in the terrain of the war, and the blood of the Japanese invaders killed by the Mandarin Duck Formation and the large and small three-material formations flowed like a river, and the enemy suffered thousands of casualties, and only a dozen people were lost on his own side.

Then to the nine-sided training, the sparse Jizhen defense built impregnable, repair the hollow enemy platform, do things meticulously and seriously, with the vehicle array, firearms, infantry, cavalry, multi-in-one, constitute a complete and tight defense line, Jizhen in Qi Shuai during the period of the Mongols did not dare to commit the border, the so-called soldiers without a fight and surrender is nothing more than that.

At that time, the nine sides were not peaceful, Gansu, Yulin, Datong, these northwest towns were often invaded, Liaozhen was even more in flames, the Mongols just put a Ji town and did not move, some people said that Qi Shuai only fought a small-scale anti-Japanese war, in fact, he also had a unique talent in the battle of the large corps, and was really the first general of the Ming Dynasty in the past three hundred years, even if it was Xu Da at the time of the founding of the country, Chang Yuchun, Feng Sheng, Lan Yu and others, some people may surpass Qi Jiguang, but in terms of meticulous and comprehensive handsomeness, Qi Jiguang is the first person in the Ming Dynasty.

In Min Yuanqi's view, he felt that as long as he carefully studied the art of war left by Qi Jiguang, from making weapons to forming an army, he would not be small in the future, and at least he would be able to keep the situation in front of him.

It's just that when he was stroking those cold steels, Min Yuanqi also had some thoughts in his heart, his experience and technology in the later generations had brought him rich returns, when building the army, could he take some detours and put some successful experiences in the later generations in the construction of the army?

He didn't think about this question thoroughly, this field is still quite unfamiliar to him, and now Min Yuanqi's military experience still comes from Min Yuanqi, who was originally in the Ming Dynasty, as well as those military books that are read hard every day in the house, Min Yuanqi needs more experience to enrich the details, and then he can start to jump out of the experience and add something unique to his army.

For Min Yuanqi, the army is very important, and when it comes to the reform of the army, Min Yuanqi undoubtedly must be cautious and not negligent in the slightest.

……

"A lot of pigs and sheep, and chickens?"

Shen Li's charm in his early thirties still exists, a son and a daughter wearing newly made muslin clothes, led by Shen Yong and Shen Li respectively, standing near the dock to greet the boat returning from Huai'an Fucheng.

All the flag troops were dispatched, and the docks were full of laughter.

Wearing tattered battle jackets of the flag army and Yu Ding rushed up, from the dock to the treasury near the official hall is purely carried by manpower, there are still only a few mules and donkeys in the hundred households, when there is no use, there is no big cart, a small number of wheelbarrows are not very useful, everyone simply carries a bag or two bags of grain on their shoulders and leaves, fortunately, the distance is not far, these men are used to doing work, carrying two stones of grain can also walk and laugh.

The entire hundred villages have come to life, the flag army that is training, those who are working in shifts in the salt pond, the foreign flag army and the salt soldiers have rushed over, and hundreds of people have carried two thousand stones of grain for only a few trips, and everyone does not feel tired.

In this era, food is the greatest justice, and other things are empty when they say too much, and people who carry heavy food bags will only feel joy and peace of mind, and this kind of feeling is something that people in later generations cannot understand.

The willow trees on both sides of the road to the village have become green, the grass has grown on the side of the road, some apricot and mulberry trees have already borne fruit, and the wild vegetables in the field are half the size, and they can be cut after a while.

The large fields on the roadside are planted with wheat and sorghum, there are also millet, and there are a lot of bean fields, and the land along both sides of the Huai River has a lot of salt, the land has a high salt content, and the weather is dry, and the land yield is really not high, which also makes people pay more attention to the grain they get now.

In fact, as far as Min Yuanqi knows, four liters of grain a day is very little, but many families have to hide at least one liter more than more, only to ensure that the men and boys in charge of the family are fed, and it is good for the elderly, women and girls to be half full.

This standard will definitely be sprayed into a dog by women's rights in later generations, women in later generations hope that men can make money from the door, and can also do housework and take care of children, to raise girls to be rich and raise little princesses, in fact, women and children are also the largest consumer groups, men's status is actually not as good as pets, but in this era is just the opposite, men can do coolies need to maintain physical fitness, once tired across the whole family may starve to death, boys are the future of labor, but also continue the clan, so the status is only under the head of the middle-aged men.

Women, the elderly, and girls are of inferior status, and they can do it without starvation, and at the same time, there is not a lot of work for women, and in the harsh background of the times, everyone is living very hard, and both men and women are trying to survive under the wheel of the times.

Shen Li and Shen Yong are one of them, the couple and brother Shen Liang miraculously escaped their lives in the Dengzhou Change, after fleeing all the way south, only a few of them died in their family members, and they also lived quite hard after arriving in the city of Qianhu, but fortunately, the treatment changed after reaching the three hundredth households, and now Shen Yong, a craftsman, can also receive four liters of grain a day, which is of course far worse than the craftsmen of the private households, but Shen Yong knows that Min Yuanqi called them these military craftsmen to come over to save money, he can eat enough now anyway, of course, there will be no complaints.

Recently, there are many used tools for the wooden shovel used in the salt pond, which are carefully built by craftsmen such as Chen De and Shen Yong, who made tools to cope with the situation when they were in the city, and they could use it for a period of time without being bad.

Many craftsmen are full of food in the 300th household, and they can also do some private work in their spare time, as long as the craftsmen boil it down by themselves, Min Yuanqi does not care much, and in the past month, Shen Yong's family can not only eat enough, but also store an extra stone of grain, all of which are earned by Shen Yong's private work, they are full of gratitude to Min Yuanqi, and they can't wait to stay in the 300th household forever.