Zhang Mingming stared at the blast furnaces in front of him.

Thousands of miners and their families gathered around, and the mountains in the distance were not high, and weeds that grew half a man's waist deep were everywhere, and the surrounding burned several times until they reached the edge of the sparse woodland.

Behind them was a large area of simple wooden houses, wooden trestles and docks, and several small boats of about 100 tons were docked on the shore, transporting all kinds of supplies down.

The road to the central part of the country was opened up by the army and the people, and the road to the central part of the army was carved out of thorns and shrubs and dense forests, and only one or two people could walk before, and there were fist-sized mosquitoes and poisonous snakes, which made people frightened.

After a while, the road is still the same road, but here in the middle of the country has changed dramatically.

In the central part of the country, there are small plains and large hilly landforms, with few dense forests and gentle mountains, and further north there are high mountains, but there are also harbors and plains.

The plains of the entire Eastern Domain Island are roughly more than half in the south, 30% in the central and northern parts combined, and only 10% on the east side of the island.

In the central part of the country, development went quite smoothly, with solid foundations, wooden living quarters, a small number of bricks built into the mining area and blast furnaces.

In addition, a large amount of manpower and a small amount of animal power were used to build roads connecting two iron ore mines and a coal mining area.

For the time being, the Eastern Domain has no plans to excavate mines, and is basically mining iron ore in shallow ore veins, which is why it is necessary to connect two iron ore veins.

There may not be much iron ore reserves in the shallow layer, and the two mines will be insured, and there is no need to worry too much about the reserves of iron ore for at least ten years.

In addition, there is a road connecting the coal mine, and the three roads add up to more than 50 miles, mobilizing more than 10,000 people...... The main reason is that there is not enough animal power and equipment here, and time does not allow for slow operation, and large-scale transportation of personnel is the most labor-saving. At that time, even the port was not repaired, and more than 4,000 soldiers and garrisons mobilized more than 4,000 people to come directly in the form of training, and there were thousands of people who went directly to the sea by boat.

Now that there is a wharf, although it is simple, it is much more convenient to transport personnel and materials, including cattle and horses, and the next step is to build large-scale buildings if financial resources allow.

In front of Zhang Mingliang and everyone, in addition to the blast furnace area near the coal mine, there are still undulating hills in the distance, which is different from the north, there are several large communities in the plain area in the north, and some land has been reclaimed, and the planting methods and reclamation methods are quite primitive, but for the natives, as long as the harvest exceeds the seed grain, they will make a steady profit, after all, even if they do not open the land, they can only hunt and fish and pick wild fruits, wild vegetables to satisfy their stomachs, and have some grain income, which is better than nothing.

There are no large shrines with more than 10,000 people in the central part of the country, and those small indigenous tribes are not able to open up the land, so the large hilly areas are overgrown with wild grass, and if you look at it from a distance, people and carriages are like small boats floating in the sea, sometimes high and sometimes low, sometimes people and carriages are covered by wild grass, as if a small boat on the sea is blocked by the waves, or simply capsizes.

The grass near the mines and on both sides of the road has been cleared or burned to keep mosquitoes out and to prevent the plague.

Including the water source, the flow into the camp's living area is the re-excavation and dredging of the channel, which is also for epidemic prevention and disease prevention.

It took about three months to do these things, and it was already going on before the Luzon thieves came, and now it is almost October, and the first blast furnace is finally about to produce molten iron.

Three hundred steps away on Zhang Mingming's left-hand side is a towering iron furnace.

The blast furnace that is more than two zhang high that is, eight meters is second to none in Jianzhou, the furnace body has been seen to be a wine bottle shape, more than half of the furnace body is underground, the furnace body is like a bottle, its mouth is wide and Xu, the bottom thickness is three zhang and five feet, because it is convenient to feed, most of the furnace body is in the pit, the bottom of the pit is made of bricks, the upper part is refractory mud, you can see that the furnace body is also coated with refractory mud from the top of the furnace, these muds are prepared with salt, can withstand high temperatures.

Zhang Mingliang was also watching when they built the furnace, he only knew the general situation of many things, and he really felt admiration when he saw these people doing it, no wonder he still had to find an insider to do it after all, take this furnace as an example, even if Zhang Mingliang has seen the graphics and knows every construction point and detail, I am afraid that it is also blind to do it, but many craftsmen who do not know a big word are very familiar with these tasks, and there is almost no difficulty in building the main body of the furnace.

Different from the ordinary blast furnace, it is to dig a pit at the top of the blast furnace, build a small brick house, the main structure is a honeycomb-shaped refractory brick structure, and then dig out a channel, the air outlet of the channel furnace is also built with bricks, and then there is a brick on the brick house to form a channel, close to the top of the furnace, the middle of the channel is built up a chimney, a convex pipe structure is set up, and then the fan is installed behind the chimney, and it is shaken by manpower, so that the heavy smoke and dust can go out from the chimney, and the light hot air can be fanned back to the regenerator, In this way, the temperature in the furnace is sufficient, the heat of ironmaking is greatly increased, and the iron-tapping speed is 30% faster.

The top of the furnace has also been renovated to strengthen the heat storage, from all kinds of details, the blast furnace designed by Fu Qian has high energy storage, fast iron production, and also saves a lot of charcoal fire costs, in general, the profit of this iron field is at least fifty percent more than that of ordinary blast furnaces.

"It's going to be molten iron."

"It's coming, it's coming."

Yang Shizhi stood beside Zhang Mingliang, his face was pale at this time, and he also said: "Brother Mingming, is it about to produce molten iron?" ”

Everyone felt that the boundless heat seemed to envelop everyone, after the chaos in Jianzhou, Nan'an was evacuated, Yang Shizhi went to Qizhou Port first, and there was nothing to do for the time being, and he knew that the Eastern Fan Iron Yard was about to produce iron on a large scale, so he first followed the Fu boat to Nan'an Port, and then took a small boat to the central port, which happened to catch up with the scene in front of him.

The Zhang family is a big iron family in Tingzhou, and the Yang family is a big family that runs the iron industry, and at this moment, they can't help but become extremely excited.

Today is expected to open the furnace day, from the morning, the whole iron yard is very busy, many people who have no work at hand are also gathered around the furnace, waiting for the mud to be plugged out of the molten iron, the blast furnace and the ear chamber are surrounded by fire and smoke, the people of the fan furnace are the busiest at this time, Zhang Mingliang and some experienced old miners are supervising on the side to prevent accidents.

When I got close to the blast furnace, I felt the heat wave steaming, and when I got closer, I saw that the mud plug in the middle of the furnace had been opened, and the molten iron was boiling water from the furnace and gushing out along the pre-set track.

The people present were all veterans of the iron mine, and the molten iron flowed for about two quarters of an hour, and when it was almost gone, Yang Shiyi said excitedly: "Brother Mingming, this furnace is probably not only four thousand catties, but I am afraid that there are nearly five thousand catties." ”

Yang Shizhi continued: "This furnace of iron is very good, I don't think there are many impurities in the molten iron, and I am afraid that forging fine iron will save a lot of things." ”

Yang Shizhi has been operating the iron industry for at least 30 years, and from his point of view, although it is only molten iron, it may be because of the high temperature of the furnace, the molten iron that comes out is red and translucent, and there are indeed fewer impurities.

Zhang Mingliang smiled and pointed to the regenerator next to the blast furnace, and said with a smile: "This furnace does have high thermal energy, and it uses coke, so it is inevitable that there are fewer impurities." ”

The molten iron comes out, and after it is formed, the iron will be taken to the charcoal fire to be heated, and then forged, and after removing the impurities, it is from pig iron to refined iron, there is no heating and forging this procedure, there are too many impurities in the pig iron, and there is no way to sell such iron to make money.

There are not many impurities in the molten iron, so the cost of charcoal fire and labor required for forging will naturally be greatly reduced, and the reduction is of course profit, which is a very clear thing.

The quantity and quality of the iron are large, Fu Qian is just a newcomer, and he is much stronger than a thirty-year veteran.

Zhang Mingliang can be regarded as a blessing in disguise, taking refuge and running to the Eastern Domain, but he was trusted by the King of Zhongshan, presiding over the overall mining situation here, under the direct leadership of Fu Qian, Fu Qian is a very powerful one in the group of officials of the Zhongshan Palace, and Zhang Mingliang's status is also unknown.

Coupled with the smooth operation of the iron yard here, Zhang Mingming's status is only afraid that it will be higher.

Even the son of a wanted merchant family may become an official in the future.

Yang Shizhi looked at Zhang Mingliang and said in a deep voice: "Coke is very expensive, one load is worth three loads of coal, right?" ”

"Indeed." Zhang Mingliang nodded, invited everyone to the bottom of the furnace, just standing on the stove, the whole furnace is quite high with the terrain, from the side around, you can see that the molten iron is still emitting red light and heat, the regenerator on the other side is one-third of the height of the blast furnace, a group of miners are pushing away the charcoal fire on the side of the regenerator, the people who originally burned the fire and fan the wind have also dispersed, Zhang Mingliang pointed to the coke that was not burned, and said with a smile: "This is the remaining coke, I have calculated, after heat storage, each furnace can save about thirty percent of coke, If the cost is calculated in this way, it is not much different from before, and the purity of the molten iron is high, and the iron production rate is also much higher, so it is still a big profit. ”

The regenerator and coke ironmaking in front of me are new things, and they are innovations that have never been heard of before.

With this regenerator, the temperature of the furnace becomes very high, even the temperature of the outer wall with the regenerator is also extremely high, Fu Qian has already calculated, ironmaking to about 1,200 degrees of high temperature, steel to make molten steel will be 1,600 degrees, at present is the refractory bricks and structure is not qualified, but you can slowly explore and try, in the future can continue to make steel, steel price ten times the price of iron, as long as a steady stream of production, a furnace of steel is half a furnace of copper money, the profit is much greater.

"There is also a coking method for coke." Zhang Mingliang said with a smile: "It is to put the coal into the kiln with an open hole, ignite it with the open fire hole on the side wall, the coal burns, the coal seam is heated and burned layer by layer, and the hot gas continues to burn through the fuse channel, but it does not burn completely. I'm not afraid of Brother He's jokes, the last time we sent troops, we took the opportunity to get a few articles, and my brother took the opportunity to take two concubines, if you don't have that money, it's wishful thinking to take a concubine. Those little ladies, don't have the money to talk to us? ”

He Deqing understood what Liu Jie meant, of course, it was what he wanted to say, he laughed at the moment, and said: "This time, His Highness allocated 100,000 yuan of money, 30,000 stone grains, and more than 10,000 stone miscellaneous grains, we don't have many mules and horses, and the army is more than 30,000 people, is this money and food enough?" ”

"Above the command, how many points each person scores." Liu Jie said: "In the end, what fell into our hands was only 10,000 yuan, sending troops to release horses, worrying about being afraid, carrying their heads to work hard, only to hold on to such a little money, is it too much?" Those civil officials, usually in front of the lord and majestic, shrank back in the war, and after the war, they had to reimburse a large amount of money and food to appease the place, bullshit appeased, find a few big families to set up a few porridge sheds to appease, and most of the money and food fell into their hands afterwards. ”

Liu Jie was resentful when he said it, and his eyes were full of resentment.

The generals of the Xiang army belong to the locality, and the same as the soldiers of the Xiang army, the treatment is poor, and the general of the Xiang capital is far worse than the command of the forbidden army, and most of the various rewards of the imperial court are given to the forbidden army, and rarely benefit the Xiang army.

Only when the troops are sent to fight, some money and food will be allocated, and the forbidden army will also take the lion's share, and the box army will only get a small part.

Even so, if the money and grain allocated by King Zhao several times are distributed to the bottom, it will also boost the morale of the Xiang army.

It's just Liu Jie, He Deqing and others, how can they allocate all the money and food?

"We'll divide the money." He Deqing said: "The grain takes thousands of stones out, most of us take it to the grain merchants to sell for money, now the refined grain has run through one stone, Jiangnan, Shandong, Jingshi around the refined grain is more expensive, many Fujian Road, Liangzhejiang Road and Jingbei big grain merchants are the refined grain to the north to trade, earn more, let's give the refined grain to the grain merchants, in exchange for some brown rice, beans, Xiangjun can eat his belly is good, no matter his fine or coarse. ”

"That makes sense." Liu Jie agreed, but he was still a little hesitant, he said: "There have been people in the camp who have been making trouble......

"Do you dare to do the opposite?" He Deqing said: "Now that the army is gathering to recruit thieves, it is necessary to be cautious at this time, someone really dares to make trouble, hang on the military law, and behead the public!" ”

This guy is not only greedy, but also black-hearted, but Liu Jie is not disgusted, but feels that He Deqing's words are quite right, and he can't help but bow and say with a smile: "Everything is up to Brother He." ”

He Deqing also bowed: "You and I are not separated from each other, and we are in the same boat." ”

Liu Jie looked in the direction of Qizhou again, gritted his teeth and said: "It is said that the king of Zhongshan is powerful, and the Liukou came together and abandoned the Nan'an Courtyard in a panic, damn it, when Lao Tzu passed by Nan'an, he had to burn the town with a fire." ”

He Deqing has nothing to do with this, and he just smiles at the moment.