The red lady was so angry that she had the urge to beat him again, and said angrily: "It's that there are rich children like you who don't know the suffering of the poor, and they are hard-hearted. Can the poor still live? ”

"The reason why the poor can't survive is because of the climate, which is the main reason, and it's just getting started, and the weather will get colder and colder in the next 25 years, and the drought north of the Yangtze River will continue. Gradually, the situation deteriorated, and eventually production will be extinct. I ask you, if there is no grain in the field, can you rebel and produce grain? Grain is grown, not snatched from the landlord's house"

"At least I know that your Li family has a lot of grain, and yesterday I saw with my own eyes that your shopkeeper Lao Chen transported 100,000 quintals of rice to Jinling by sea ship, which was unloaded at Xiaguan Wharf and went directly into Wumart's warehouse. 100,000 quintals of grain can feed at least 50,000 people for a year. If it is in the two months of green and yellow, it can save 300,000 lives, which is 300,000 lives. ”

Li Jing was speechless, he couldn't communicate with her, what was this. Originally, he had some thoughts about her, but now, just like he sang, it turned into a river of turbidity. If this little senior sister is just big-chested and brainless, Li Jing can endure it. But if you can't see that someone is brainwashing her behind her now, Li Jing is a fool. Li Jing decided not to discuss the problem with her, if people are paranoid, it is useless for you to say anything.

"Senior sister, I'm not your father-in-law, I can't control you, what do you like, I won't give you a single hair of the weapon you want, I won't cause trouble for the Li family. Thank you for your understanding. However, for the sake of your first request for my errand, I will give my uncle a face, and I can sell you 100,000 catties of steel ingots. You carry it away yourself, I don't want to know what you like to do."

"How much is it, how to pay the bills"

"A pound of Suzhou steel costs three dollars of silver, and my medium carbon steel costs at least five dollars of silver, and I will give you a discount, four dollars and five cents of silver for a pound, and a benefit of 45,000 taels, which can not be less. Don't even think about it. I'm not a benevolent church."

"Senior brother, we don't have so much money" The red lady looked pitiful in her clothes, and looked at Li Jing with watery eyes in her big eyes. Li Jing turned his head away from her.

"If you don't come, it's useless to pretend to be pitiful, I'm willing to take the risk and sell it to you. If you scrape together enough money, I will sell you as much as you want, up to a maximum of 100,000 catties. ”

The meal was unpleasantly parted, and both of them were very unhappy, so they went back to sleep without mentioning it.

At noon the next day, the boat arrived in Keelung, the simple trestle bridge had been repaired on the beach, the Black Pearl was moored, someone had already reported to the fourth uncle, and when he got off the boat, the fourth uncle was already waiting for him. After greeting with the fourth uncle, go directly to see the castle, there are more than 500 people on the fourth uncle's side, and 200 people are using gunpowder to blow up stones, and the rest are all repairing the castle except for the guards, and the castle is currently built in the location of the old railway station in Keelung, at the end of the inner harbor.

The entrance to the inner harbor is only a 400-meter-wide channel, and according to Li Jing's design, a fort was built here to blockade the port, and then several large forts were built on Heping Island in the outer harbor to completely protect the port.

The castle is a small fortress designed by Li Jing, built of stone and Porot cement fired from Ma'anshan in Jinling. Keelung is a mountain basin that can be developed for rice, and when this piece is fully developed, it will be developed in the direction of Taipei, and on the map of Li Jing's home, a large plain on the northwest side of Keelung is named Taipei. There are currently a handful of local tribes here, as well as headhunters.

Under the leadership of the fourth uncle, the construction site of the castle was visited, and after completion, the castle was in the shape of a five-pointed star, the main building was six stories high, and the five-corner tower was eight stories high. There is a casemate. The outside is all firing ports, and the inside is a window and a balcony. The lower two floors are not windowed on the outside and are mainly used for warehouses.

The fortress is located at the end of Keelung's narrow inner harbor, which is about 400 meters wide, the main harbor is two kilometers long, and there is an oblique side harbor in the middle that is 500 meters long, with an average water depth of 11.5 meters, which is a very good deep-water harbor.

In order to protect the port, Li Jing's design plans include a ten-meter-high stone wall on both sides of the inner harbor, and a watchtower every 100 meters. Prevent native attacks. The stone wall is a mile to the port, and it will be used to build port facilities, warehouses, shops, etc., and there is no energy to repair the stone wall now. We can only talk about it after the fortress is repaired.

Li Jing's invention of the movable pulley set crane played a great role, greatly speeding up the construction of the fortress, workers used the crane to lift irregular stones, and then used cement mortar to build up. The outer walls of the bastion are up to two meters thick and very sturdy.

The fourth uncle complained to Li Jing that within a few days of coming, he was patronized by the headhunters a few times, and these people were elusive, taking advantage of people's unpreparedness, cutting off their heads and running away. It's hard to prevent.

"It's okay, this is easy to do, Wang Laosan is trying to make a brown spei flint pistol, and it is about to bear fruit, so I will give priority to equipping you with the fourth uncle." In addition, let Wang Laosan and his team send a batch of barbed wire, dig a trench outside the camp, arrange barbed wire, hang bells, guard posts at night, set up light and dark sentry posts, burn the trees and weeds outside the camp, set up watchtowers on all sides, and light fires outside the barbed wire fence at night. When you see a wild man in action, shoot them with a crossbow. ”

The fourth uncle said with emotion: "But this is really a good place, the land is fertile, it is undeveloped, as long as the wasteland is burned and the canal is dug, it is a good paddy field." It's okay to plant two crops a year, but you can plant five crops in two years. It's just that there are too few people, and many of the rich laborers in the Meixi Valley have been put into the textile workshop by our family, and according to the mineral map you gave, the old lady has bought a lot of land, all of which are in the location of the pit mouth and the land where the water transport dock can be repaired. In the future, it is estimated that if the whole development is completed, there will be enough idlers in the entire Hanjiang River Basin. It's just that there are too many savages, and they are fierce, this Dayuan Island is so big, there are no hundreds of thousands of people to develop it. ”

Li Jingxin said that after Taichung, it is three crops of rice a year.

"This Dayuan Island, my Li family must be completely in my hands, and my grandfather has already made a Penghu general for the second uncle. In the future, the general government of Fujian and Guangdong will also have to find a way to move to Penghu. There is a second uncle who uses the government to manage the officials, and it is easy to manage the immigrants. Fourth uncle, you don't have to worry about manpower, the imperial court transferred me to Yingkou to participate in the war this time, I will get all the refugees from Liaodong over, and then more than 100,000 people will pour in at once, you have a headache, don't look at the lack of people now, I will get you tens of thousands of people from Sichuan in the second half of the year, enough for you. ”

"Zhengyi, the cement you got in Jinling is really good, but the transportation is too troublesome, can you set up a workshop in Keelung, local production, there is no shortage of charcoal here, saltpeter is also according to the method you gave to plant nitrate fields to obtain, the sulfur on the Ryukyu side is the best color, how much to have, if gunpowder can also be produced here, hundreds of small villages and towns can be built within a few years. I'm not afraid of the harassment of savages at all. ”

"I'll discuss this problem with my grandfather when I go back, fourth uncle, you know, grandpa is more cautious and afraid of leaking secrets. But you have to speed up, the Dutch have been fighting the idea of Dayuan Island recently, I will get you people, and as soon as the war in Liaodong is over, I will transfer troops to come over, first clean up the mountain people in the north of Dayuan Island, and distribute the land to those who are willing to go down the mountain, and rush to the central mountains if they do not cooperate. We gradually built villages and towns along the plains on the mainland side of Dayuan Island. Ma'anshan has begun to study the casting of artillery, and the artillery is also given priority to equip Dayuan Island. In addition, I will also send people to the town to recruit troops, and in the future, there will be a regular army battalion of 8,500 people stationed on Dayuan Island all year round. Fourth uncle, don't worry. ”

"Zhengyi, this Dayuandao Strait is a good fishing ground, rich in aquatic products, I think if we can get some Tan people to come over, fishing for aquatic products, can supplement the problem of lack of meat, at present we don't have too many people to hunt wild deer, and we don't dare to go too far into the island."

"This is easy to do, Fourth Uncle, you collect information and see where the Tan family gathers. I took the sailor directly to raid their nest and arrested them all. Arrange for their families to be sent to Nan'ao Island, and we will develop trawlers and arrange for their families to work in aquatic product processing factories, and all men will go out to sea to fish. Their lives are too hard, and as soon as they come to our side, they will be removed from their untouchable status and registered with them. ”

After eating at noon, Li Jing took Bai Yu and other guards and the fourth uncle and others to inspect the Keelung Basin on horseback, and it was not difficult to develop 100,000 acres of paddy fields from this land. Li Jing and others have been patrolling along the valley passage to the Taoyuan area before returning, and found a lot of camphor forests and wild deer along the way. Li Jing planned to use the Taoyuan area to garrison the New Army of the Second Town.

Li Jing didn't let the red lady get off the boat at all, as soon as the red lady stepped off the gangplank, a group of fierce Li family sailors on the dock pointed at all kinds of fire guns, and the red lady scolded angrily and turned her head back. This Li family is clearly a bully and a bad gentleman, if you look at who his subordinates are, they are outlaws at first glance.

Li Jing returned to the ship and continued to set sail to Nanao Island.