"Take a trip to your sister's Zhuangzi." Shang Cheng said.

Chen Pu asked in surprise, "Are you looking for my sister?" She stared at Shang Cheng with a look of doubt and inquiry. Why didn't she know, how could he be so good with her sister Nanyang? He has been in Beijing for less than half a year, and he only moved to the bank of the district family in mid-February, and he was grounded for half of the two months, and he couldn't even leave his house......

"yes." Shang Cheng said. He didn't notice that Chen Pu's eyes were very strange, and he felt his hand in his sleeve in his arms for a while, and finally took off a gold medal tied to the horsewhip and gave it to the little princess as a gift. He said to Chen Pu, "Didn't I get punished a few days ago? As he spoke, he put on a look of embarrassment and melancholy, raised his face to look at the blue sky and the leisurely clouds, sighed and said, "In the past twenty days, I have been accustomed to seeing the cold and warm of human feelings. I guess everyone thinks that I am unlucky to get home this time, and there will be no time to turn over in the future, so no one wants to see me. For twenty days, no one came to care about me. Except for your sister...... No, yesterday's punishment expired, so I hurried over today to thank her. ”

The strategy of the Eastern Japanese Dynasty is very important, and it is still in the category of high secrecy, and ordinary officials and ordinary people have heard of it at most. But Chen Pu is not an ordinary person, she is both a clan and a military position, and she also holds the position of a squire in the military department, although the details of the strategy are not very clear, but the general situation is still known. She was also relatively clear about the process before and after Shang Cheng was punished, and she repeatedly figured out the reasons for punishing him in private. Shang Cheng roared on the Hanyuan Hall and lost his honor in front of the Holy Monarch, so he was fined and grounded; It makes sense. But she always felt that things shouldn't be so simple. As for the strangeness, she couldn't figure it out. At the moment, he was a little complained that he didn't care about what Shang Cheng meant, so he quickly explained: "I was in the Gyeonggi camp at the time......

"Didn't you go back to Beijing later?" Shang Cheng immediately asked.

"Nope. How can I go back to Beijing......" Chen Pu said hesitantly.

"When the Marquis of Poyang and the old county king of Qinghe gave the first three of them a loan, you didn't get together?" Shang Cheng asked with a strange expression.

“…… I didn't ...... what," Chen Pu said vaguely. Not long after the Hanyuan Hall meeting, she did return to the capital from the Gyeonggi camp, and the clan pooled money to borrow money from the first three people, and she also participated in the idea of her father. But when she was in Beijing, Shang Cheng was being grounded, a guy who couldn't even get out of the door, it was impossible to know if he had returned to Beijing to make up money, right? So she tried to get the hang of it, saying, "...... Some time ago, the Ministry of War instructed the Liyuan battalion to compile a new horse drill code, and I have been helping over there, where can I have time to go back to Beijing? ”

"Oh." Shang Cheng nodded. It seems that he accepted Chen Pu's explanation.

Chen Pu breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, and was about to change the topic, when he heard Shang Cheng say coldly: "You and your sister have made up 33,000 yuan together, right?" ”

"Huh?!" Chen Pu opened his mouth and couldn't speak. She patronized the denial and actually forgot a big thing. She and her sister are not good at management, and the money and food distributed by the clan every year are only enough to support themselves, where can they have spare money to lend to others? Among the 33,000 taels, 1,000 taels were quietly given to them by her father and the emperor behind the back of other brothers and sisters, 600 taels were given by her mother, and a little more than 1,000 taels were made up by their two sisters, and the remaining 30,000 taels were all borrowed by someone to borrow them. Originally, according to her meaning, she didn't want to borrow money from Shang Cheng. However, the total amount of money to be borrowed by the first three monks was too large, not only did they dig out the treasury of each clan, but also forced people to sell land and land to raise money, and finally everyone paid the money, and there were only a few emergency living money left in their hands. In such a situation, which relatives can the two of them borrow money from? In the end, Chen Pu had no choice but to follow her sister Nanyang's idea and go to Shang Dacaidong. However, although she was reluctant to come forward, she still "warned" her sister and asked Nanyang not to go directly to Shang Cheng, who was "not good at talking", and to find the female children in charge of the business. She didn't need to remind her of that. Nanyang has always respected Shang Cheng and regarded him as an elegant and chic hermit master, how could he possibly have anything in front of him? She found a few girls from the merchant and told her about it, and Yue'er asked her how much she wanted to borrow: Is 100,000 yuan enough? Not enough yet! Nanyang was afraid that he would borrow too much and not be able to repay it in the future, so he gritted his teeth and only dared to borrow 30,000. I think it was because of this borrowing that Shang Cheng knew that she was in Beijing at the time......

When the two of them spoke, Tian Xiu remained silent. At this time, she interjected next to her and said, "Uncle Ying, I originally planned to go over to look for you after I met Princess Nanyang." That's it, the coke you mentioned last time, after several trial productions, it was finally fired. You see, is this coal and stone the coke you are talking about? As he spoke, he took out a few gray slap things from the jacket on the side of the saddle and handed them to Shang Cheng.

Coke is something that Shang Cheng is used to, he took it in his hand and weighed it, looked at the cracks and pores on the coke, nodded and said affirmatively: "That's it!" Then he asked Tian Xiu, "Have you tested it, and is the temperature of burning higher than the usual coal?" ”

Tian Xiu still doesn't know how to calculate the so-called temperature, but this does not prevent her from being optimistic about coke. Coke's gaze, though weird and weird, is definitely a real good! The Ministry of Industry also has an ironware workshop in Xiaoluoyi, which not only makes ironware but also smelts pig iron, and on the day the coke is burned, it is immediately used in this workshop. Using coke to make a fire, the time for pig iron to burn red and soft is at least 30% faster than in the past; But that's not all. The key point is that when people used coke to make iron, the material of pig iron was significantly improved, not only less ore was wasted, but the smelted pig iron was no longer as hard and brittle as in the past. Some experienced old craftsmen also said that with such pig iron and coke, it must be much easier to forge 100 steels than in the past!

The benefits of coke don't stop there, but there is also progress in the long-lost glass. Tian Xiu took out another purse and poured a few round and colorful glass beads into the palm of his hand: "This is the glass that was burned yesterday." We compared it with the glass in the market, ours is stronger! She touched each other with a bead in one hand, and there was a "snap" sound, and one of the beads broke into a small piece very uncontrollably. Tian Xiu was embarrassed.

Shang Cheng smiled and took a few glass beads, compared them, took them and shone the sunshine, and gave them to the little princess next to him who was staring at the glass balls intently and swallowing her saliva. He said: "It's still that the stone mile of the glass-burning is mixed with impurities, otherwise it can't be this messy color." What's next? ”

"That's the problem." Tian Xiu nodded and said, "I talked to Lord Yang Heng, and I think this should be because of the river sand in the Xiaoluo River. To tell the truth, glass is something that has never been seen before, and no one wants to believe it; Even in the yamen of our Ministry of Industry, there are many people who are not optimistic about glass. However, now it is different, with these glass beads as a foreshadowing, our confidence is also enough! ”

Shang Cheng gave her an idea and said, "Otherwise, you let Chang Wenshi get more money and hire more laborers to pick those quartz sand from the river sand." In addition, it is necessary to cast out manpower, just like looking for iron ore, to find quartz ore in various places. Another one, the Xiaoluo River is a river flowing on the plain, and the water is not so clear, so it can be seen that there is more mud and less sand under the water, and you can go to the upper reaches of the river to get sand. The clearer the river, the easier it is to find quartz sand. ”

"Master Chang rushed to Xiaoluoyi yesterday." Tian Xiu said. Thinking of the scene when Chang Xiu rushed to the workshop in a hurry yesterday evening, she couldn't help but smile a little on her face. "When I go back tomorrow, I will talk to Master Chang about prospecting for ore and extracting sand from upstream." She paused for a moment, and then said, "Actually, I came to you today because I was entrusted by Master Chang to discuss another matter with you......