When the veteran An Jinquan met Li Qi, the prince was inspecting the reservoir built by the Huangzhuang in Lutai Mountain.

In fact, he couldn't do much other than occasionally give the craftsmen some ideas.

In terms of dam repair and embankment, the officials and craftsmen of the Metropolitan Water Supervision Department are much more experienced than him, and the specific tasks must of course be carried out by professional personnel.

Lutai Mountain is a royal hunting ground, and after inspecting the construction site every day, Li Qi takes more than a dozen guards to hunt in the mountains and go down to the river to fish. Due to the movement of the construction site, the big beasts are far away from this river valley, and the prey in the mountains and forests is only small animals such as hares and pheasants, and occasionally a yellow sheep or roe deer will be hit, which is a great harvest.

In the past, Li Qi didn't like to eat carp.

The carp raised in the fish farm have a strong earthy smell that is difficult to get rid of.

After eating wild river carp, Li Qi understood why the Chinese people have always called the Yellow River carp a delicacy in the world.

The fresh wild carp caught from the river, after slaughtering, add some green onions, ginger and garlic, put it directly into the pot and steam it, and then pour some sauce mixed with vinegar sauce and soy sauce after it comes out of the pot, which makes people salivate when they look at it.

Li Qi, the crown prince, disregards his identity, and especially likes to drill into the room, watching the chef of the palace pointing fingers at the side when he is cooking.

When the "flower chicken" was almost done, he just came out of the room and saw the veteran An Jinquan.

Since the last time he was invited to have a meal at Tang Ming Manor in Yangqu County, the old guy especially likes to come to him to discuss things with a meal.

"The crown prince wants the lord of the land, isn't he ready to welcome back the coffin of the first emperor?"

An Jinquan unceremoniously followed Li Qi into the main hall of the main courtyard, and after sitting down, he couldn't wait to ask.

Li Qi looked at An Jinquan and tapped his finger twice on the desk: "This is not to send Lu Huan to Luoyang to negotiate with Li Siyuan and those guys in the court, Li Siyuan does not return the coffin of the first emperor, and I have no choice." He paused, shook his head slightly, and said, "We are weak now, so we can only keep our heads in the dark." In the future, I plan to bury my head in farming and ignore the affairs of the court for the time being. ”

An Jinquan seemed to expect Li Qi to say this, and then said with a smile: "The prince can really tolerate it, but he is also a concession." It's just that you get all the recruited soldiers to build a dam in the river and don't train, what's the matter? ”

Li Qi said: "How can you train with peace of mind if you have no money and no food?" It's better to save enough money and food first, this rafter rots first, and if I jump out now, maybe someone will join forces and kill them. How many military towns in this world are obedient? To build a high wall and accumulate grain, it is better to strengthen the strength first. ”

"It's just that the prince is forbearing, which will inevitably disappoint some people."

"This is determined to be unshaken, and those who are unreliable, if they don't have the strength, will break their promises sooner or later. I thought carefully about what I had done for more than two months, and the result was that I was frightened and scared out of a cold sweat, and if I was unlucky, I am afraid that I would have been buried in the soil long ago. Born in a heavenly family, I am trembling every day, and I have to be more careful, if I don't do it, it will be the end of the whole door that has not been destroyed. Li Qi said: "Empress Wu, a lot of people have died. Now I just want to live in peace and live as long as I can. ”

An Jinquan frowned and said: "Sometimes the opportunity cannot be missed, you only own half of Hedong now, if Li Siyuan slowly controls all the places, the pressure you face will be great, and you should take the initiative to win over some military towns." ”

Li Qi shook his head: "Few of those people are useful, I still believe in my own ability." Give me a few years, I will turn northern Jin into a rich land, and when the time comes, the soldiers will be strong and strong, and it will be the day to use force. ”

After lunch, Li Qi and An Jinquan returned to Jinyang together.

Now that the situation has stabilized a bit, he doesn't want to take the initiative to stir up trouble.

Early the next morning, he called Bo Caoxin, the lord of Taiyuan Mansion, to go to Jiaocheng Datong Iron Smelting Supervisor for inspection.

In this year, the price of iron was high, and this iron smelting supervisor was one of the main sources of income for the Jin army.

Due to the wars after the end of the Tang Dynasty, the iron-smelting process in various places is very backward, and many good technologies have been lost. In this era, the best craftsmen were recruited by the government and became craftsmen for generations, with extremely low social status. Since the Han Dynasty implemented the monopoly system of supervising iron, mining and iron smelting were officially run, and the metallurgical level in China began to stagnate, and even regressed somewhat. The level of steel smelting in the Tang Dynasty did not develop much compared with that of the Qin Dynasty.

It's just that Li Qi didn't expect that the Jiaocheng Railway Supervision Commission was so simple.

"The mountains of Jiaocheng come to Jiaocheng's water, and if you don't pour that Jiaocheng, it pours Wenshui.

There is no good tea and rice in the mountains of Jiaocheng, only noodles and roasted cheese and yam eggs.

The gray donkey and the donkey go up the mountain and the gray donkey and the donkey go down, and they have never sat in that good carriage or horse in their lives......"

Along the way, Li Qi hummed a song in his mouth to entertain himself, but after seeing the iron smelting prison located in the north mountain of Jiaocheng, he suddenly lost the mood to sing.

Along the slopes of the hill there were rows of adobe houses, on which were built five blast furnaces for smelting iron, and in a few huts made of wooden frames, in which the blacksmiths worked bare-chested.

The largest smelting furnace is nearly two zhang high, the bottom diameter is about one zhang, and the outside is made of lapis lazuli. There is a feeding port above the blast furnace, but the chimney is low, far from the tall red brick chimney that Li Qi imagined, which is dozens of meters tall. There are three blast furnace chimneys smoking, iron is being smelted, and the other two blast furnaces are slagging.

Li Qi glanced at the coal block on the side of the blast furnace and looked at Cao Xin with a suspicious face: "You just use coal to make iron?" ”

Cao Xin nodded: "There is a lack of wood in Jindi, and there is not much charcoal. There is a lot of charcoal in this area, which is used to smelt iron, which is much more cost-effective than charcoal. ”

"Coke should be used in ironmaking and steelmaking, and it should not be fed directly into the furnace, which will damage the quality of the steel." Li Qi said. The ancient Chinese iron smelting industry has long been plagued by high phosphorus and sulfur content, one of which is that the ore itself contains many impurities, and the other is affected by the use of coal to make iron. Harmful impurities such as sulfur and phosphorus contained in soot can penetrate into the ironware.

"What is coke?" Cao Xin asked.

Li Qi explained to him that it was the same as burning charcoal, putting coal into a charcoal kiln for calcination.

Cao Xin couldn't understand the method Li Qi said, and it seemed that it was redundant to use charcoal to burn charcoal.

"This would increase costs and require the construction of a dedicated charcoal kiln." Cao Xin said.

"The fact that the kiln is built near the coal mine does not increase the cost, and the soot contains a lot of harmful substances that can damage the properties of steel. You do what I said, try it specifically, and you will know after the comparison. Li Qi said, "In addition, this iron smelting supervisor will be relocated to the bank of the river." When you go back, you will draw up a charter, and the construction of this barrage dam should start as soon as possible. Li Qi pointed to the Ciyao River at the foot of the mountain and said.

In later generations, due to serious soil and water damage, the Jiaocheng Ciyao River was almost dry, and in this era, it seems that the amount of water in the river is quite abundant......