The semi-mechanized industrial workshops have increased the production efficiency of the workshops in several royal estates by dozens of times, especially in spinning and weaving, which is produced by a textile workshop of only more than 500 people, which is equivalent to one-fifth of the cloth production in Jindi. Li Jiqi did not plan to sell a large amount of woolen cloth produced in his textile workshop to Jinyang or Hedong. Many poor families rely on the hard work of women to earn some meager subsistence money.

The dumping of industrial goods would soon deprive these impoverished women of their livelihood.

The rich will never have mercy on the poor, and if there is widespread hunger, it could trigger a series of social upheavals. Sometimes, production efficiency is low, and it is also a way to maintain that everyone has something to eat.

Therefore, Li Qi plans to sell most of the woolen cloth produced in his workshop to the grassland.

The transportation efficiency of the camel team is too low, each camel can only carry about 600 catties of goods for long distances, although it is convenient, but the cost is too high, and now it mainly relies on mule and horse convoys to transport.

When it comes to horse-drawn carriages, two-wheeled carriages are only one-third as efficient as four-wheeled carriages.

The four-wheeled carriage was actually invented in the pre-Qin period. This kind of first two front wheels are mounted on one frame, and the rear two wheels are mounted on another frame, and the rear frame bracket is mounted on the front frame, and both are connected by two turntables and a vertical shaft. This way of solving the steering problem of the four-wheeled carriage is not difficult to understand, and the production method of the four-wheeled carriage is found in the "Hundred Crafts Book" handed down during the Warring States period.

The problem is that the front frame steering wheel and steering axle of the four-wheeled carriage need to have high strength because they have to bear a lot of weight, while the wooden split rotating frame can hardly withstand the bumps of this strength, and the steering mechanism is often damaged on the road, making the vehicle stranded in the middle of the road. In the Qin Dynasty, some people actually began to use iron frames to replace wooden frames, making it possible to popularize the use of four-wheeled carriages.

However, in the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, with the promulgation of the "Salt and Iron Order" and the iron organ camp, the privately operated mines and iron-smelting industry were completely eliminated. Due to the strict restrictions on the use of iron tools by the people, craftsmen have become accustomed to making objects without using iron tools as much as possible in ordinary times. Due to the lack of sufficient iron raw materials for experimentation, the metal processing technology in China has since stopped, and the four-wheeled carriage that had appeared in the original has disappeared into the long river of history and gradually forgotten......

In fact, many of the simplest mechanical technologies in later generations were known to Westerners, such as screws, bolts, nuts, gears, racks, springs, bearings, water pumps, etc., which seem to be insignificant things, but they play an important role in the entire industrial manufacturing field......

The biggest reason for this is that the government strictly restricts the use of iron tools for the people, and the official salt and iron camp has also caused the price of iron to remain high for generations. In the West, the popularity of iron and steel machinery is also because with the development of metallurgical technology, the price of steel is lower than that of wood, and it began to be used in ordinary life and production on a large scale.

Prior to this, Westerners also mainly used steel to make weapons and armor, as well as the necessary tools for production......

The popularization and application of steel in life is the main factor for the rapid development of metal processing technology.

The production of the four-wheeled carriage is not difficult, the difficulty is that Li Qi requires the use of all-steel frames and steel wheels cast with steel, and even including cast steel axles, shock-absorbing spring steel plates, such a set of all-steel carriage chassis production, the net weight is 1,420 catties, not counting labor, the consumption of steel alone exceeds 200 yuan......

Just thinking about it hurts the flesh.

Fortunately, the steel and iron materials used to make the carriage came from their own Gujiao Iron Workshop.

The wheels, axles, steering mechanisms and connecting parts of the four-wheeled carriage with an all-steel chassis have all been made of steel or cast iron parts, and even three layers of spring steel plates for shock absorption are installed between the axle and the frame, which greatly reduces the damage of the vibration to the car body and prolongs the service life of the vehicle to a large extent.

In addition, the outer side of the steel wheel hub is tightly wrapped into a cylindrical shape with raw cowhide and animal glue, which greatly reduces the rolling friction coefficient between the wheel and the ground and increases the load capacity of the animal-powered vehicle.

The cost of such a carriage is no less than 500 yuan, and it is even more expensive than the Tianzi chariot that Li Qi is using now, but Li Qi is ready to use it to transport goods to and from Yunzhou.

Zhang Shu, the internal supervisor, and Zheng Jin, the steward of the Jin Palace, told Li Qi very clearly that if this kind of carriage went to the grassland, it would be difficult not to arouse the covetousness of the grassland people. On the grassland, a pound of iron can be sold for 100 Wen, if it is steel, it can be sold for at least 260 Wen a catty, such a steel carriage, in the eyes of the vast majority of grassland people, is simply a movable cash box.

The horse-drawn carriage, in this era, was the equivalent of the automobile of later generations......

The so-called upward and downward effect, after taking the emperor's six-wheeled "imperial chariot", the veteran An Jinquan, Kong Qing and the "Li Mansion" left by Li Sizhao became the first batch of people in Jinyang City to have this kind of "luxury RV". The only thing that makes Li Qi feel a little lacking is that because there is no glass, this kind of "RV" can only be hung with cotton curtains on the windows, and the car is still full of ventilation......

So Li Qi focused his main energy on the Kiln Bureau, developing this very magical "glass".

In the Han Dynasty, China used crystal glazed products, in fact, porcelain is much more difficult to fire than glass, but why has China not been able to produce glass on a large scale in history? In fact, the problem is very simple, that is, these glaze production areas lack carbonate, that is, soda ash. Chinese mainland has always lacked alkali minerals, and even people have to use oxalyze, a compound formed by grass ash and carbon dioxide in the air, when steaming cakes (steamed buns), the main ingredient of which is potassium carbonate.

However, soda ash is a major raw material in smelting and making glass.

Quartz and quicklime are common in the raw materials needed to fire glass, and only natural soda ash is only produced in the arid area of the grassland.

This kind of thing is separated by a layer of window paper, and it can be seen through at one point.

Li Qi actually didn't know the recipe of the various raw materials of this glass, but told the craftsmen to add soda ash to it, and as for the specific proportion, then burn it and try it. So the glazed kiln of Jinyang Jian has a bunch of white, green, brown and light red glass products of different colors, the only defect of these things is that they are not very transparent, but the overall quality is much better than those porcelain kilns and glazed kilns in China.

Li Qi originally didn't plan to take out these things in exchange for money, but he was really tight on money recently.

The cost of building dams and embankments, coupled with the cost of mining and starting workshops, is too huge, and the sale of Li Qi's house and land, as well as the more than 200,000 yuan of silver provided by Wang De and Ren Yuan, have almost been consumed, and he has also felt a little unbearable recently.

Therefore, Li Qi kept the glass manufacturing process secret for the time being and did not spread it. So the whole firing process is divided into several steps, and none of them are together. The main step of mixing soda ash with mixing has always been operated by Zheng Tong, the nephew of the loyal and reliable old housekeeper.

The glass is burned, and as for what to do in the future, it can only be handed over to the craftsmen.

Let's just mess around, the raw materials of that thing aren't very valuable anyway.