Not to mention Qian Biao, even Ding Jian has been greatly impacted.

The use of water power has been used on a large scale since a long time ago. For example, water-powered mills, water-powered rollovers, etc., but those are all within their understanding. Even the hydraulic hammers they had just seen were acceptable.

But the thing in front of them was far beyond their imagination.

The rectangular iron is fastened to the shelf, and in the middle of its front end, an oval drill is placed close to it. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, a master craftsman gave an order, and the oval drill bit began to spin, and the speed became faster and faster. Green smoke gradually rose, and the sharp eyes could even see the place where the oval drill bit was in contact with the fine iron, which had begun to turn slightly red.

It was at this time that on one side of the drill bit, a nozzle sprayed a column of water, which was poured right on top of the section of the fine iron. As a result, a large amount of green smoke rose up with a sizzling sound and began to fill the factory.

Under everyone's gaze, iron filings flew, and a shallow pit appeared under the high-speed rotation of the drill bit.

"This hydraulic drilling machine, the most valuable, is this drill bit." Tu Hu explained to everyone: "This drill bit is worth tens of thousands of silver dollars. This is the result of several years of hard work by dozens of top craftsmen who specialize in steel smelting and iron smelting, and the gentlemen of the Martial Arts Research Institute. ”

"This is the real sharpening of iron like clay!" Ding Jian exclaimed. "What is this drill made of?"

Tu Hu smiled: "This kind of drill has added a lot of other ingredients in the process of smelting, but everyone, I'm sorry, what is added to it is one of the top secrets of Datang, please forgive me for not being able to say it explicitly." ”

"Understood, understood!" Everyone nodded.

"How long does it take to make a good barrel?" Ding Jian asked.

"Twelve hours without rest, ten days to drill out a barrel." Tu Hu said: "However, not every barrel drilled out meets the requirements. There will be a special master craftsman to carry out a detailed inspection of the barrel, and the slightest flaw will be destroyed and returned to the furnace for refinery. The artillery is too powerful, and if it blows up, it will cost us a lot. ”

"Haven't you tried casting with a mold?" Qian Biao said.

"Tried!" Tu Hu shook his head and said: "The cannon barrel made in this way is simply unusable, there are too many impurities, trachoma, any of them, can cause serious consequences." ”

"It looks like it was made of copper at first, right?" Ding Jian remembered some of the past.

"Copper can solve these problems, but the cost of copper is too high for us to afford. Second, it's too heavy to apply. When a cannon weighs four or five thousand catties, the range of its use has been greatly limited, and now we are making it with fine iron, the weight has dropped by half, and the heaviest heavy cannon is only a little more than three thousand catties, and the range is shorter, which has been reduced to about two thousand catties. At present, the Martial Arts Research Institute is still working on smaller small cannons suitable for the army, but it is not known when it will be successful. Tu Hu explained.

Both Ding Jian and Qian Biao knew that the artillery was now only equipped with naval divisions, and the reason was that it was too heavy and inconvenient for the army to carry, especially in the future war against the south, which would be more affected by the terrain conditions. Traffic, terrain can make it impossible to carry artillery.

"Guys, let's go see the finished product!" Tu Hu led everyone into another gate, stepping into the gate, everyone's eyes were bright, in the spacious workshop, there were more than a dozen swarthy cannons, and several people dressed as master craftsmen were squatting where to carefully inspect these cannons one by one.

"What are they doing here?" Qian Biao pointed to a master craftsman, who was using a strange utensil, a hose with a round shiny metal object attached to the front end, and the other hose split in two, but the end was stuffed in his ear. The man held the strange instrument in his left hand and a small hammer in his right hand, tapping the barrel lightly.

"This is to check whether there are any defects such as trachoma in the barrel, which is a very critical part, and only the most experienced master craftsmen can do it." Tuhu Road. "Only after they pass this level, a cannon can be truly manufactured and can be shipped from the factory."

"A cannon is expensive, isn't it?" A delegate asked curiously.

Tu Hu smiled and nodded: "An artillery, with a base number of shells, our factory price is five thousand silver dollars." ”

Everyone gasped.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is really not making money, just barely keeping the capital." Tu Hu spread his hands.

Ding Jian's eyes widened and said: "The Fuyuan is equipped with twenty-four cannons like this, which is 120,000 silver dollars, this, this is a moving silver mountain." ”

"And that's not even counting the ammunition!" Tu Hu said: "Solid bullets are very cheap, only a few silver dollars, but a flowering bullet costs dozens of silver dollars." ”

Speaking of this, Tu Hu sighed: "At the beginning, Li Xiang told me that fighting a war is money, he wants to make a lot of money, and then use money to smash the enemy to death, I now really understand why Li Xiang said this, the iron hook is in Guangzhou, and hundreds of flowering bullets have been hit, isn't it just smashing people with silver?" ”

The representatives of the two provinces present were silent.

No wonder Li Xiang is known as a money string, the method of making money is strange, the court makes money in an endless way, but the court is still very poor, not to mention the money invested in the people's livelihood projects, just the shelling of Guangzhou Port, it cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, and spent so much money, it was just a demonstration, not an inch of land, not the slightest loot captured, it was completely pure expenditure, such a war, can it not be poor?

"If you can use money to kill your opponent, you will never exchange the lives of our Tang Dynasty heroes!" Tu Hu said: "So it's worth spending this money, because as long as people are still there, they can earn more money for us." Human life cannot be measured by money, this is Li Xiang's original words. ”

"If you lose your land, you will lose both your land and your land, and if you lose your land, you will lose your land." Ding Jian said in a low voice: "The truth is the same. ”

"Brother Ding said it thoroughly!" Tu Hu nodded again and again: "We only manufacture artillery here, and the shells are produced in another place, and the place is very dangerous, so we won't take you to that dangerous place, and then we arranged for everyone to visit some other factories, all of which are in the process of building and producing." ”

After a whole day of visiting, until Ding Jian and Qian Biao were invited into the Prime Minister's Mansion to see Li Ze, Qian Biao's head was still buzzing.

In a large textile mill that uses water power, there are not many workers in the whole factory, only countless textile machines are running under the drive of water power.

In the steaming iron smelting plant, pieces of coarse iron billets are transported in, and when they come out, they become pieces of refined iron with several steps of hardness and toughness.

These factories are still under construction, and they are just one of the production lines. Seeing this, Qian Biao suddenly became a little frightened about the scale of those workshops in Texas.

What kind of scale should that be?

The weapons of hundreds of thousands of troops in the Tang Dynasty were originally manufactured in such factories. He suddenly recalled that when his eldest brother Qian Feng was still in charge of Eyue, the weapons were hammered out by a large number of blacksmiths with iron hammers. That kind of input and output, and all this in front of you, is completely one heaven and one underground.

It's no wonder that the world's festival envoys were swept away by Li Xiang one after another.

"Two, how do you feel about the day?" Li Ze smiled and looked at the two feudal officials in front of him, these two, one had left the Northland for several years, and the other had never been to the Northland. Although he had never seen Qian Biao before, the painters of the internal guard had already presented this person's appearance vividly in front of him, so when Qian Biao stood in front of him, Li Ze was not at all unfamiliar.

This is a smart person, a pragmatic person, and of course, a capable person.

Ding Jian only gave up his hand slightly, but Qian Biao paid a big salute.

"No need to be polite!" Li Ze helped Qian Biao up and said.

"This gift is Qian Biao's thanks to Li Xiang for avenging my Qian family." Qian Biao stood with his hands crossed, and said: "The Qian family is in trouble, if the bandit Li Xiang, the Qian family is only afraid that the whole door will be destroyed." ”

Li Ze smiled and invited the two to sit down, looked at Qian Biao, and said, "You don't need to thank you for this matter, in the final analysis, this is just a decision of the Central Imperial Court, as for what you said about avenging your Qian family, it is just a matter of incident." In the face of national affairs, family feuds can only be accessories. ”

Although he was a little stunned, Qian Biao was more relieved.

Li Ze spoke thoroughly, and he could understand it. What was slightly surprising was that Li Zesihao did not feel that this matter was above his Qian family's favor, but frankly said that it was just the interests of the country, and he did not mean to use this to invite merit and sell it well, which was completely different from Qian Biao's idea.

"I heard that you still have some thoughts about Tian Guofeng, but you have to be generous in this matter." Li Ze looked at the other party and said.

Qian Biao lowered his head, and said after a while: "Li Xiang, if you say that there is no mustard in your heart, what are you lying to you, I can only say that the matter between me and Tian Guofeng is just a private matter between us and him, and it will never affect the slightest official business because of this." ”

"That's enough!" Li Zedao: "Everyone is in a different position, will have a different way of acting, even if the ultimate goal is for the country, even if it is the same goal, in this process, it is not uncommon for individuals to have different interests and emotions from each other. As long as we put the interests of the state and the interests of the individual in the last place in advance of any incident, and do not abandon the public affairs for personal reasons, it is enough. ”

"Thank you Li Xiang for your understanding." Qian Biao arched his hand and said gratefully.