By mid-December, the production work of Iron Dragon City was finally on the right track. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The weather was extremely cold, the lead clouds were hanging low, and the cold wind was howling like a knife, but the entire Iron Dragon City was a thriving scene.

The blazing blast furnace, the beeping of molten iron and the iron-frying furnace, the clanging of the hammering smelter, the ammunition factory where granules of gunpowder are carefully dispensed, and the porters who carry iron ore, iron ingots, coking coal, and finished products like ants form the noisy and busy operation scene of Iron Dragon City.

Li Xiao, who was standing in the middle of the main street, looked at the busy scene in front of him, with a faint smile on his face, but in his heart, he was quickly calculating a detailed account.

In the case that there is only this blast furnace now, according to the production probability during this time, Li Xiao can estimate that in a month's time, 80 tons of molten iron can be born, and about 70 tons of mature iron and steel can be smelted, of which more than 2 tons of high-grade high-carbon steel, 10 tons of medium-carbon steel, 20 tons of medium-to-upper quality wrought iron, and nearly 38 tons of middle-grade and lower-grade wrought iron.

These high-grade high-carbon steel, all used to build the current expansion of the military 4-meter long gun steel head and gun tail tail dropper, according to each three-edged steel head and gun tail tail drop total consumption of more than 2 pounds of stainless steel, can cause more than 2,000 sets. Now Chifeng has added 20 new teams of spearmen, and it is just time to be replenished.

Medium carbon steel is used to make shield shields, according to the calculation of 20 catties of medium carbon steel for each large shield, 1000 pieces can be played, and Chifeng has added 10 new teams of shield soldiers, which are all replenished.

Medium and upper quality wrought iron, used to make armor, if made of fine iron armor, each pair of iron armor will consume 40 pounds of iron, can create 1000 pairs, if made of cotton armor, then each piece only needs to consume 15 pounds of iron, but, because the defense of cotton armor is poor, and Li Xiaojun lacks cotton, so Li Xiao intends to make these medium and upper quality wrought iron, all of them into fine iron armor, according to the priority of generals to soldiers.

Do it well, don't come back to eat later, this is Li Xiao's principle of doing things. Even if the number of fine iron armor is insufficient for a while, it doesn't matter, after all, this armor can be produced continuously, and if it is not equipped this month, it can be continued to be made next month.

It's just that the manufacture of fine iron armor is cumbersome, and it is necessary to first varnish the wrought iron sheet to prevent rust, and after it is dried, then use the cowhide rope to string up the wrought iron sheet one by one, which is time-consuming and laborious, so the output of a month is limited, so Li Xiao decided that all the old and weak who have no work and rest at home will go to the armor factory to string iron pieces and pay them by piece, so as to speed up the production progress.

The rest of the wrought iron is all made into household utensils such as iron needles, shovels, shovels, iron pots, iron spoons, kitchen knives, hoes, wine jugs, basins, axes, fire chopsticks, tongs, iron stoves, nails, etc.

Li Xiao was too lazy to arrange the specific output and production distribution of these household utensils, and the statisticians of the Department of Industry would supervise the classification of craftsmen and follow up the progress.

These iron living utensils are the most important source of funds in Li Xiao's Iron Dragon City.

According to the records of the Matsue Prefecture, if an iron needle is exported to Japan, it can be sold for two cents of silver in Japan! It's an unbelievably high price.

You must know that the best Fujian iron in the Ming Dynasty is only one pound of silver and five pounds, and how many iron needles can be made from one pound of Fujian iron?

Even if you include the processing costs and labor wages, the profit of this iron needle is really amazing, and this is still the wholesale price of trade, it is estimated that when those short Japanese people buy it, the price may more than double, and I don't know how they live on weekdays.

In his previous life, Li Xiao read "Edo Teachings", in which the ancient Japanese merchants clearly stipulated to their families and associates that even a piece of waste paper used for accounting should not be discarded at will, otherwise they would be punished by starvation. The correct way is to use the back to make a draft first, and then cut it into small sheets to go to the toilet when there is no space to use it, and stipulate that only one small sheet can be used at a time, and only two small sheets can be used in the case of diarrhea.

Li Xiao was thinking that from ancient times to the present, the reason why the Japanese are so stingy and poor should have a lot to do with the fact that this island country is heavily dependent on imports. After all, the goods transported across the ocean are sold at such a high price, and ordinary Japanese people can only save money to make a basic living.

Exporting to Japan is still a long-term prospect, and now Li Xiao mainly intends to trade these items with Mongolia.

Now that the Ming Dynasty had suspended the mutual trade with Mongolia, the smuggling of Mongolia had become a huge profiteering industry, and merchants such as the Eight Great Families of Shanxi had made a fortune in the trade between the smuggling of Mongolia and the Jurchens, and eventually became the imperial merchants of the Manchu Dynasty.

Rather than letting these bastard smugglers make this money, it is better to take advantage of this source of money yourself. After all, merchants only make money to accumulate wealth for themselves and future generations, and their ultimate goal is to use this money to build and maintain a strong army that can save this perilous era.

In the Mongolian steppe, items such as iron pots, scissors, iron nails, iron needles, shovels, iron basins, horseshoes and other items are all in demand. Due to the short supply of ironware, some black-hearted merchants simply made objects out of pig iron and sold them to the Mongols, who were in dire need of iron.

Although he is now using low-grade wrought iron to make living devices, Li Xiao has seen his finished products, which are still much better than the ironware bought in the appliance store on the market. After all, Li Xiao has established a set of supervision, management, reward and punishment mechanisms, and craftsmen are more attentive to work and use enough materials, which ensures the high quality of their products.

In this way, in order to distinguish it from other ironware on the market, basically every large piece of ironware is marked with a round Lishu Li character.

Li Xiao was thinking, perhaps, in the near future, such Tielongcheng ironware marked with the mark of the Li character will become a unique mark of stable and reliable ironware.

Li Xiao planned to use those four-wheeled carriages to pull them to Jintang City to sell when the spring season began, and he believed that this large number of high-quality and well-made ironware would bring huge profits to Li Xiaojun.

.。。。。。。

At the beginning of late December, Li Xiao, who was supervising the production in the Iron Dragon City, suddenly received an invitation letter from the Lu Palace.

In the letter, Zhu Shouhong, the king of Lu, invited Li Xiao to go to the palace of the king of Lu in Yanzhou in a rather polite tone.

At this time, Chen Zilong had already gone south to go home for the New Year, and was ready to bring his family after the New Year. Therefore, after Li Xiao read the letter, he hurriedly found Wu Liang, the head of Iron Dragon City, to discuss the matter.

"Mr. Wu, but I don't know why King Lu invited me?"

"My lord, I think that King Lu's invitation this time must be thinking of getting closer to your lord." Wu Liang blinked, with an inexplicable smile on his face: "Last time, when our army came to the aid of Xuanfu and passed through Yanzhou, didn't King Lu send his son Zhu Yipai to meet the army?" Now King Lu sent a letter to invite him again, and his intention became clearer. ”

"Then in your opinion, the official should visit?"

"That's natural, King Lu wants to befriend us. For us, it is also a good thing, after all, we can get in touch with these prominent Ming Dynasty clans, we are in Shandong, but it is much more convenient to act, and those Shandong officials who do not deal with us will be more and more afraid of us. Therefore, the students thought that this time King Lu was invited, but the adults needed good students to make friends with him. Wu Liang's face gradually became solemn.

"Okay, then the official will go to King Lu's mansion in person."

The next day, Li Xiao asked more than a dozen flying harriers to be guarded, brought gifts, and followed the two servants who delivered the letter to the palace of King Lu in Yanzhou.

The group rode at a gallop, but in just one day, they arrived at the city of Yanzhou.

In the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385), Ming Taizu named his tenth son Zhu Tan as the king of Lu, the domain of Yanzhou, and promoted Yanzhou to the government, which was subordinate to the political envoy of Shandong Chengxuan, and relocated Rongyang County as the seat of Yanzhou government, and governed 23 counties of Jining, Dongping, Cao and Yi four prefectures.

The current King Lu family is all descendants of Zhu Tan.

Yanzhou in the Ming Dynasty was rebuilt from Rongyang County. The city is located at the bend of the Si River, built on the remnants of the northern Fangshan River, and the clear Surabaya River flows from the south of the city to the east. The whole Yanzhou City, in the form of long east and west and short north and south, after years of expansion and restructuring, the city wall of the whole Yanzhou City is as long as 16 miles and 200 steps, becoming one of the largest cities in Shandong.

The most commendable thing is that the city wall of Yanzhou City is ten meters high, all covered with thick blue bricks, and the width of the city wall is nearly seven meters, which can be walked by five horses. The female wall, the battlement, the arrow tower and other defensive equipment are readily available. The city opened three gates in the east, west and south, and each gate built an urn city, which greatly strengthened the defense of the city.

Li Xiao saw from a distance that Zhu Yipai, the prince of the world, was already smiling and leading a group of servants to greet him outside the south gate.

Li Xiao jumped off the horse, greeted Zhu Yipai with a smile, and after a few words of greeting, he gave Zhu Yipai a slender and delicate red-tasseled sword.

Li Xiao came to Yanzhou this time and brought several swords, all of which were made of 50 refined swords made of high-grade steel by the most experienced craftsmen in Iron Dragon City, which were extremely well-made and could be called priceless swords in the market, and now they have become Li Xiao's gifts.

Sure enough, when Zhu Yipai accepted the sword, drew the blade, and saw the sword body shining like frost and snow in the winter sun, his smile was extremely bright.

"Commander Li, such a heavy salute, Xiao Wang was terrified, and asked Li Zhijun to go to King Lu's mansion with Xiao Wang to rest." Zhu Yipai accepted the sword and respectfully made a welcoming gesture to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao and others entered the city, looked all the way, and found that on the surface of Yanzhou City, which is a key place for transportation, the streets and alleys are wide, and the houses, temples, shops, parties, restaurants and other buildings on both sides are lined up one after another, which is a good prosperous place.

On the whole street, although there are quite a lot of displaced people from all over the world, but it does not affect the cityscape and the flow of people, the small traders who come and go and sell and the pedestrians rub shoulders shoulder to shoulder, in this cold winter, bring a lot of vitality to the street, and form a picture of the market with the life of the Ming Dynasty.

After a while, everyone came to the outside of King Lu's mansion.

Li Xiao was deeply shocked by the magnificent Lu Wangfu in front of him.

The palace of King Lu is in the central area of the north of Yanzhou City, which is the palace built by Zhu Yuanzhang on the order of his tenth son Zhu Tan, that is, the first King of Lu.

In order to ensure the safety of the royal family, and also to reflect the mystery and uniqueness of the royal family, the people were not allowed to enter the position about two streets apart. Therefore, when Li Xiao and the others walked here, there were few pedestrians on the street.

Li Xiao first noticed that this Lu Wangfu is a bit imitating the construction mode of the city, and there are tall city walls everywhere, which can be regarded as the inner city of Yanzhou.

According to the records of the Ming Dynasty, the city wall of the Lu Wangfu is two zhang and nine feet high, about 700 meters long from east to west, and about 600 meters wide from north to south, covering an extremely wide area. And it is also the same as the city, there are four city gates, four city gates in the south are called Duanli, north is called Guangzhi, east is called Tiren, and west is called Zunyi.

Li Xiao and the others came to the South Gate Duanli Gate.

Li Xiao stared at the huge main gate of King Lu's Mansion, which was painted with bright red paint, and the vermilion copper riveted doors on both sides were very thick and dignified, symbolizing the noble power of the Prince of Daming.

This gate left a deep impression on Li Xiao, and he even thought to himself that maybe the gate of the Forbidden City, which he had never seen before, was similar to this gate.

Subsequently, Li Xiao was attracted by the two rows of gilded characters on the huge and thick stone pillars on both sides of the gate, and he read softly from left to right: "Feather Wing Daming Auxiliary Guobang" and "Shizhen Lunan Ze Wannian".

Li Xiao was very emotional, this Lu Wangfu is full of heavenly style and thousands of weather, and the stone lions carved vividly on both sides of the gate are more than twice as big as the state government has ever seen. It is said that the tall seven-fold Dan Majesty of the Lu Wangfu is only two times shorter than the Forbidden City of Jingshi, and is only one rank after the Great Tomorrow.

When Li Xiao carefully watched the outside of King Lu's mansion, there were already many servants, coming out of the small door next to the gate, holding long whips, horse stools, and sprinkler cleaning utensils standing at the door.

When the servants came out and immediately cleaned the courtyard, in the small door, many military attachés of the Honor and Guard Division poured out, wearing armor, holding swords and guns, and holding bright swords, and quickly stood in two rows along the gate.

As if the time had been pinched, when the servants quickly finished cleaning the courtyard, the two thick vermilion lacquer gates, with a creaking sound of door hinges, slowly opened.

After the gate was opened, I saw a bunch of generals and soldiers of the Honor Guard Division with more vivid and gorgeous armor, each carrying swords, guns, swords, halberds and rushing out.

Wearing a double-horned dragon pattern black yarn folded scarf, dressed in five chapters of green clothes, two shoulders tattooed gold dragon, tied with a large belt in the plain Zhuli, hanging a gold-patterned jade dragon-shaped Pei, under the red socks Zhu Yihong, the king of Lu, slowly came out of the middle of the gate with the support of two guards.

Li Xiao noticed that Zhu Yihong was about forty-seven or eighteen years old, his sideburns were gray, there were many traces of excessive wine on his face, and his slightly puffy round face was unhealthy pale.

Li Xiao felt that this King Lu, who had a kind smile on his face, although he was wearing the brand-new and expensive clothes of Prince Daming, always gave people a feeling of exhaustion and malaise.

And behind Zhu Shouhong, the king of Lu, followed by a middle-aged man in his early forties, on a well-maintained white face, three locks of clear hair were extremely well trimmed, reflecting an elegant and graceful bearing.

Li Xiao secretly thought that this person should be Zhu Shouhong's younger brother, the biological father of the county king Zhu Yipai, and Zhu Shouyong, the king of Taixing.

"Chi Fengwei commanded Li Xiao to meet His Royal Highness King Lu." Li Xiao knelt on the ground, led a group of entourage, and saluted respectfully.

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